The Joys and Disputable Amounts of Fun of Parenthood

Hyp-mo-tized by this passage in Heather King's Stripped, where King profiles a lady who is really into self-mortification.  It sort of suggests that "God loves suffering!" masochisitic meme that Catholics are accused of but there is the half-ring of truth in here:

She wore vaguely bohemian clothes: berets, embroidered peasant blouses, and her smile was so brilliant that I hardly noticed the one tooth missing in her left lower jaw, the line of brown that ran along the tops of the rest. ..I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised when Barbara also expressed less than unalloyed regard for modern medicine. "Every time you have a little pain, take an aspirin, they tell you! But you never grow that way, you never learn anything! That's why I don't trust doctors. Their only goal is to avoid pain! Their biggest fear is death!"

Barbara, it turned out, had a very highly-developed notion of suffering. She believed that the suffering of animals somehow relieved ours. She believed we could and should take the burden upon ourselves to suffer for others. "You know that passage in the Gospel where the woman who's been hemorrhaging for twelve years touches the hem of Christ's garment and is healed?" she asked [Luke 8:40-56].  "Have you ever noticed which story immediately follows? It's the story of the little girl who dies and is brought back to life by Christ. And how old is the child? Twelve! Do you see? It's almost as if the woman had been keeping the child alive with her suffering...

I re-read that gospel passage a few times and lo and behold that is a remarkable thing, the 12 years hemmoraging and 12 years old. Surely not coicindental.  As familiar as I think I am of the gospels, here's another reason to keep reading them.

St. Ambrose wrote with regard to this passage, seeing in it the old coveant and new:

Why is it that the twelve-year-old daughter of the ruler was dying and the woman with a flow of blood was afflicted for twelve years, except that it is understood that as long as the synagogue flourished, the church suffered? The  weakness of the one is the virtue of the other, because by their offense salvation has come to the Gentiles. The consummation of the one is the beginning of the other, the beginning not of nature but of salvation. Exposition of the Gospel of Luke 6.56–57.10

Another gospel, from last week, was about the Kingdom of God being a mustard seed and how it starts as the smallest but becomes the largest, where the birds of the air can make their nests in its shade.  I've always thought of this as meaning I need to be that mustard seed and I need to grow large in good works to provide shade as it were.  But it occurred to me that the mustard seed is Christ!  He is the one who came so small in the world, a tiny infant of a poor and obscure mother.  And He is the one who has grown to be the largest of trees.

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Also came across the New Jerusalem Bible editors, Henry Wansbrough's, new book "Introduction to the New Testament".  He's treads where some fear:

"Did God dictate the words? Is inspiration merely a negative protection from error? .... Cardinal Newman was worried by the fact that Nebuchadnezzar is described in Judith 1:1 as King of Assyria, when in fact he was King of Babylon."

Of course I hoped that this scruple of Newman's led him also to a too scrupulous view of chances of salvation for us non-saintly schlubs.

Wansbrough sees inspiration as an enhancement of the author's faculties, a prophet being "not so much one who foretells as one who sees as God sees."  He says inspiration is not confined to the final author of a text but is operative in the whole "process of formation and preservation of the text, observation, oral transmission (perhaps discussion), editing and final verbal expression."

He concisely describes the difficulty: "How is it possible to reconcile the inspiration of the authors with their human free will?" I like the way he put this:

"There is the curiously circular situation that the sacred writings provide the norm of the Church, but the Church decides which writings constitute the norm: the Church both forms and is formed by the Canon of Scripture. The Bible is the book of the Church: in reciprocal ways the Church interprets the Scriptures and is judged by the Scriptures." 

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Ok, it's admittedly disturbing that I do most of my reading about asceticism while drinking beer.

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Learned about “flow” in All Joy, No Fun, a book about child-rearing (a title applicable to our saint-making process, cross-carrying as well).   Flow is basically the idea that we are happiest when engaged in a single-minded non-passive activity we enjoy. Getting into "the zone" as it were, in an activity we can focus on and “lose ourselves” in. The book shows that parenting is the opposite of this because it's all start and stop, kids being constant distraction machines since they are wired, at that age, to be that way. Wired for discovery, for sweeping in stimuli:

    After finishing the book Flow, the reader comes away with the unmistakable impression that most adults find themselves in flow when they're alone. Csikszentmihalyi talks about fishing, cycling, and rock climbing: about solving equations, playing music, and writing poems. As a rule, the experiences he describes do not involve much social interaction, least of all with children.

It's another situation where our natural inclinations aren't always aligned with life-giving, i.e. another case of death-to-self being the secret to greater joy and life.

The book also touched on frustration:  "One study showed that 'the more willpower people expended, the more likely they became to yield to the next temptation.'"

And that temptation was usually to yell at their kids and then feel bad about it afterward.

Not a good message going into Lent!  But willpower can be strengthened, surely.  The study suggested self-control is not a bottomless resource, although of course it's not written from a spiritual perspective.

The book talked about the loss of sleep many parents experience:

“The population seems to divide in thirds when it comes to prolonged sleep loss: those who handle it fairly well, those who sort of fall apart, and those who respond catastrophically.”

It mentions studies that show parents are no happier, and often unhappier than non-parents, but it also says that the highs are higher and the lows lower with parents as opposed to married without children. It gives more meaning and reward to life.   Childcare is ranked even lower than housework on a ranked list of activities on the parental list!  A social scientist, says it's a "high-cost/high-reward activity."

The author makes the case that the parenthood today is very different from what it once was.  In some ways it's the same - such as sleep deprivation with an infant - but in other ways it differs:

1.  Choice.  Parents used to not really be able to control how large their families were or when kids arrived. "Nor did they regard their children with the same reverence modern parents do.  Rather, they had children because it was customary, or because it was economically necessary, or because it was a moral obligation to family and community (often for all three reasons). Today, however adults often view children as one of life's crowning achievements...Because so many of us now are avid volunteers for a project which we were all once dutiful conscripts, we have heightened expectations of what children will do for us, regarding them as sources of existential fulfillment rather than as ordinary parts of our lives." 

2. Work experience - two income families. With fathers much more active. "It's no accident that today's heirs to Erma Bombeck, the wicked satirist of domestic life who reigned in my mother's generation, are just as likely to be men as women. It was a man who wrote 'Go to F**k to Sleep'.  It was a male comic, Lousi C.K., who developed a grateful cult following of moms and dads." 

3. Childhood completely redefined. Children used to work and not be shielded from life's hardships.  Now they are protected. "Children stopped working, and parents worked twice as hard. Children went from being our employees to our bosses." 

Super Bowl Recap

Well, now, that was some superb entertainment. Especially when, like me, you watch the game about an hour behind via DVR and fast-forward through the huddles so that the game action is down to a manageable thity-five minutes. I am glad I didn't post my almost-tweet "Cheaters never prosper!" given New England's comeback. That goal-line pass had the whiff of useless tragedy about it, didn't it? I had no positive feelings for either team and intended to watch only the commercials (towards the goal of understanding where our culture is going¹).

The festivities began with a lacklustre yet overwrought national anthem, followed by a remarkably named college as said on international television by a Seattle player: "The University of Vagina". As is my wont, I immediately went to Twitter only to be semi-disappointed to learn that he'd said "The University of Regina". Oh...Oh well. These are the times that titilate a man's soul. The prank that wasn't.

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The commercials were similarly a mixed bag. Nationwide Insurance wanted to start a national conversation about child safety but instead started a national conversation on the advisability of killing the collective buzzes of millions of people. It's the old story of "just because you can do something, even if for good intentions, doesn't mean you should."

It also was offensive to me because there was a sort of huge missing the forest for the trees aspect as illustrated by this:

I was intent on having My Voice Heard, by voting on the USA Today admeter, an exercise in silliness if there ever was one. I'm was taken aback by the amount of privacy these sites want to invade. Sex, age, income. For income I said " under 25,000" as my way of saying, "none o' your business."

¹ - I give and I give. 

Turn Your Tweets to "Poetry"

....Via the magic of http://poetweet.com.br/?lang=en:

Understands 5%
by TS O'Rama

Due to its religious content.
Should be split into 3 countries.
"Homesick for the Present"
Been hacked by intolerant lefties.
Thanks to '51 iconic recording.
Aires | Catholic World Report
No matter the song she's singing.
More than a week."-Guy Davenport
Funny line from Henry Dieterich
Even better in the original German.
Too soon, making her lazy if rich
True causes of Irish famine:
Effective (in some quarters).
The Sistine stays in the Sistine.

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Work overtime
by TS O'Rama

Or Jeb Bush. I like Rand Paul.
Away from my months-old open one.
And is playing for the long haul.
It's what's supposed to be done!

Praised in Wall Street Journal.
Hasn't studied crime demographics.
It's that Vietnamese cardinal?
National Characteristics

The perception that he is humble.
The reference is too obscure.
The higher education scam/bubble:

Aires - Catholic World Report
Effective (in some quarters).
More than a week, Guy Davenport

Friday Seven

Tired, he wrote. Yesterday's pure prairie league of fatigue led to a sort of mini-euphoria due to and accentuation of my beer-quaffing.

Fell into a new novel, just $1.99 (a Kindle daily deal) and it was all reverie. Wilderness it's called, by Lance Weller. Marvelous collection of words that massaged the brainstem.

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Grow close to the brine
Suckle at her salty tit.

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I read somewhere recently something commonsensical: that if one is not ambitious and thus choose not to make much money then there must be self-discipline to not to consume much; i.e you can't spend what you don't earn. And I think there's a corollary as far as having sex and having kids. If you choose not to have kids then you are in effect choosing to have self-control in the area of sex. Sex and kids are joined, or should be, as firmly as spending and earning.

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Read article via Drudge that boys who have been circumcised more likely to become autistic. Owie - don't cut our pickles!  No causation proven, just correlation but whether true or not there could be a correlation between stress levels felt in adults and whether there was a traumatic experience in early youth.  From a scholarly article titled “Psychosocial implications of pediatric surgical hospitalization”:

The prevalence of childhood surgical illness and injury requiring hospitalization suggests the need for implementation of an applied intervention to decrease levels of anxiety in these patients. When psychological concerns are not addressed in the present moment, potential for long-term negative psychological effects occur. To respond to the psychosocial needs of pediatric surgical patients it is important to understand foundational stages of development. Age is not always directly correlated with developmental stage and attunement to this subtle differentiation is essential. 

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I'm not sure if it's theologically accurate, but I always imagine that when Jesus came to earth he had a choice that was not immediately clear. One that He would have to discern over time. And that is whether to judge the world or to save it. In the OT, there were certainly prophecies of the ghastly day of Judgement, when God would avenge his enemies. (Of course that will still happen, with the Second Coming.)

One Bible commentary opines that John the Baptist was shocked and surprised that Jesus was as mild and merciful as he was. I think John expected the OT prophecy coming true at that particular time.

Jesus certainly had many harsh words for the people of his age. He called them weak of faith, hypocrites, fools, and even wicked. So the time was ripe for judgment, certainly and Jesus would've been well within his rights, as God, to have chosen to destroy rather than rebuild. To not, in other words, die on the Cross. But over time I think He discerned the Father's will for him as coming to save, to redeem, via his own sacrificial death. He saw that Isaiah 53 (“the suffering servant”) applied to him more than the prophecies of Malachi at that time.

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Took puppy Maris on a inaugural walk and she slipped the leash and I had to make a citizen-stop on a car coming and then attempt to wrangle Maris back under leash. Scary because she is only about twenty times faster than me and doesn't respond to voice commands. A bad combo.

Disturbing to read article the other day about the introduction of furry, cuddly robots to seniors for companionship. On the one one hand, I think of how young girls played with dolls and senescence of age suggests a second childhood. On the other hand, doesn't human interaction provide something intangibly greater, much as the bread of Eucharist conveys far more than mere bread? At the very least companionship in the form of living animals seems preferable, let alone humans.

The secular author sounds like recent popes:  “We seem determined to give human qualities to objects and content to treat others as things....Artificial pets don't require cleanup, are lovable and responsive, and never die..Technology is seductive when what it offers meets our human vulnerabilities."

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What if the mother's love, sometimes discredited for its bias, was God's too?

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Here are things that people do that make me feel served, that make me feel like I should be working harder to make others' lives better:

    Symphony musicians
    Lyrical writers
    Massage therapists

They say the mark of artistic excellence is that it looks easy even though it's hard, i.e. Joe DiMaggio instead of Pete Rose. But that doesn't inspire me the way it does when I see someone working hard and doing something well, like a violin virtuoso with electrically-charged moves and head bobs, or a writer who jams novels with evocative scene-settings (spare me a spare Hemingway), and massage therapists who knead and tenderize muscles with verve.

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Found on the web:

One of the things that is lost when there is too much wealth or when values are misunderstood or we have become accustomed to injustice, to this culture of waste, is the capacity to cry. This is a grace we must ask for. -Pope Francis

And…

    We students read his The Crisis of Our Age (1941) in which he developed his then famous theory of cultural cycles. He argued that cultures move from ideational forms in which transcendent truth claims and moral norms are the organizing principles of social life, to idealistic cultures, which blend ideational and “sensate” aims, to sensate cultures, which focus exclusively on sensory perceptions and experiences. This latter stage rejects transcendent values and slides into decadence and chaos, out of which is born a new ideational culture. The transitions between cycles are characterized by violent upheavals. Sorokin thought the period of World War II was such an upheaval, one which marked the end of a sensate cycle and presaged the dawning of a new ideational phase.

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Too too funny, from Jonah Goldberg:

My buddy James Lileks writes about how left-wing students at Berkeley (sort of redundant, I know) are starting to turn on Marx, not because of his potted theories of the dialectic, his crude reductionism of man to homo economicus, or even the fact that he set the foundation for turning the 20th century into an abattoir. No, Marx is bad because he’s just another dead white guy. The students write in the school paper:

We are calling for an occupation of syllabi in the social sciences and humanities. This call to action was instigated by our experience last semester as students in an upper-division course on classical social theory. Grades were based primarily on multiple-choice quizzes on assigned readings. The course syllabus employed a standardized canon of theory that began with Plato and Aristotle, then jumped to modern philosophers: Hobbes, Locke, Hegel, Marx, Weber and Foucault, all of whom are white men. The syllabus did not include a single woman or person of color.

The Black Community

It's sort of fascinating to me how communal the African-American community is. I mean but wow, just the voting record alone (i.e. 90-95% for Democrats) puts Catholics to shame given that we can't even agree to refrain from voting for a pro-abort politician.  

What's the secret? Black community seems to thrive in part due to shaming ("Uncle Tom" and "Aunt Jemina" for those accused of going outside the fold), skin color over materialism, efficiency or safety, and a shared history of persecution (and a lively sense of current persecution).  There's even a substitute national anthem! Sometimes you have to wonder at how much our melting pot has melted, and whether e pluribus unum is a convenient fiction.

Some selections from the book  Devil's Night: And Other True Tales of Detroit: 

Most black Detroiters do not measure their lives, or their city, by the yardsticks of the American middle class. [Mayor] Young may not have provided them with the safest streets or most efficient services; nor has he been able to raise their standard of living. But he has given his constituents something even more valuable: a feeling of empowerment and personal worth. Detroit is one of the few places in the country where blacks can live in a sympathetic, black-oriented milieu.

Kim Weston sang black America’s national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” This, too, is standard Detroit practice. On occasions when the presence of white dignitaries makes “The Star-Spangled Banner” necessary, the master of ceremonies invariably follows it by saying, “Now we will sing our anthem,” and “Lift Every Voice” is performed.

Unfortunately for [candidate] Barrow, these same qualities were interpreted by blacks as a lack of ethnic authenticity. In a city where blackness is equated with street-smart militance, he didn’t seem like the real thing...Unexpectedly, he veered off into a defense of his own racial authenticity. He mentioned the fact that he had been born in Black Bottom and raised on the east side, in a black neighborhood, and he recalled boyhood trips to the segregated South. “I remember having to drink out of the colored water fountain,” he said, his flat Michigan inflection taking on a southern tone.

This was Detroit, not America, and in the black polis, all politics are ultimately about race. The mayor did not object to competence (a good case could be made that he is a far better manager than Barrow), but it was beside the point. To him, the issue was, as always, protecting Detroit’s black integrity and independence from the suburbs.

A television reporter picked up a red-and-gray booklet from a coffee table and began to thumb through it. Entitled Hit the Road, in honor of Young’s famous challenge to the city’s hoodlums, it was written by someone called “King George” Cunningham, Jr., and published in 1974. Several of the journalists gathered around and guffawed at Cunningham’s overblown prose. “Look at this,” one said, turning to page 19, and read aloud: “Thank you, Jesus. We’ve got a new god, Coleman.”

Reviewer Nails It

Yes! Somebody else sees the naked emperor that is "Forrest Gump". From Rolling Stone:

"This is the same Hollywood culture that turned the horror and divisiveness of the Vietnam War era into a movie about a platitude-spewing doofus with leg braces who in the face of terrible moral choices eats chocolates and plays Ping-Pong. The message of Forrest Gump was that if you think about the hard stuff too much, you'll either get AIDS or lose your legs. Meanwhile, the hero is the idiot who just shrugs and says 'Whatever!'whenever his country asks him to do something crazy.

Forrest Gump pulled in over half a billion and won Best Picture. So what exactly should we have expected from American Sniper?"

Finds Found on the Web and Elsewhere

From Catholic Mutt

Here's the thing about biomechanics. Everything is interrelated. How we move at the ankle affects the knee and the hip, then the pelvis and the spine. How we sit affects the pelvis, then the spine above and our legs below. How well our spine moves affects how well our arms move. Beginning to correct things in this chain brings about changes you would not expect. One of the books that I've been reading is Move Your DNA. I absolutely love the point that it makes that what we perceive as normal (because everyone around us moves the same way) is not actually optimal. It's not how we were made to move, and it's not the best we can do. We can do better....I don't know if I can fully explain this on a biomechanical level, but it is a cascade of effects. 

Fully understanding the dignity of the human person is not easy, but it is so important. I can't help but think that some of this horrible violence is because people do not understand their own dignity and worth, much less someone else's. Certainly, there is a chaos that is happening with regard to what we consider "okay" in terms of relationships and having children. We are not even certain what all effects these are having on people in day to day life. 

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Fascinating thoughts from art historian Kenneth Clark on the history of the female nude:

Since the earliest times the obsessive, unreasonable nature of physical desire has sought relief in images, and to give these images a form by which Venus may cease to be vulgar and become celestial has been one of the recurring aims of European art….

Following Plato's example, we might call them the Vegetable and the Crystalline Aphrodite. These two basic conceptions never quite disappear, but since art involves the application of laws, the distinction between the two Aphrodites grows very slight; and even when most unlike one another they partake of each other's characters. Botticelli's Venus 'born of the crystalline sea of thought and its eternity' has a piercing strain of sensuality; Ruben's Venus, a cornucopia of vegetable abundance, still aspires to the ideal. 

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Who's up for an international conversation about Islam?  Because, you know, if we just had a national conversation on race it would clear everything up.

Bill O'Reilly made a trenchant point the other day:

Mr. Abdul-Jabbar [writes]:

“Knowing that these terrorist attacks are not about religion, we have to reach a point where we stop bringing Islam into these discussions. I know we aren't there yet because much of the Western population doesn't understand the Islamic religion.”

That's true. But here's what Mr. Abdul-Jabbar is missing: Much of the Muslim world does not understand the Islamic religion. Take Pakistan, for example. It allows the Taliban – major human rights violaters – sanctuary. Is that permissible under Islam? Apparently, the government of Pakistan believes it is. How about Turkey? It will not assist the West in fighting the ISIS killers on its border. Does Islam condone the beheading of innocent people? Doesn't the Koran state that a good Muslim protects the innocent and fights against injustice? Apparently the Turkish government does not understand the Islamic religion either. I could give you dozens of other examples from wealthy Islamists funding al Qaeda and ISIS to Sharia law being used to abuse women on a massive scale.

Too Funny

From Jonah Goldberg:

It’s true that the Obama administration has had remarkable success playing word games. They “created or saved” millions of jobs — as if that was a real economic metric. (For what it’s worth, I do or save 500 pushups every morning).

Short Takes Friday (as begun by Jennifer Fulweiler)

Interesting comments from ebook reader subscription firms:

Zacharius of Kensington: Data we receive from subscription services is very interesting. Some people take 6 months to read a book.

Scribd:  Lots of people get two thirds through a book and don’t finish. Surprising.

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Sighted on Zippy Catholic:

"This is to show the world that I can paint like Titian. Only technical details are missing." – Wolfgang Pauli, caption for a blank page

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Am impressed by the regnant glow of John the Baptist's humility. Just before his rightly famous “I must decrease, he must increase,” there were other piquant quotes. I'm moved by the fact St. John was moved by being merely the “best man” at a wedding. He'd effectively played matchmaker, asking his countrymen (the bride) to give up their sins before the coming wedding banquet, and then introduced them to the man next to whom he was not worthy: “The very reason why I have come, with my baptism of water, is to make him known to Israel.” When John's disciples seemed disgruntled at the attention Jesus was getting, John told them:

“A man must be content to receive the gift which is given him from heaven, and nothing more.” (Knox)

Alternative rendering:

“A man can only have what God gives him…He who comes from above is above all others.” (NEB)

I love the matter-of-fact humility where John sort of shrugs and says, “I only have what I've been given. I'm not God.” Nor can we, though we enjoy playing god in our daily life.

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Interesting article in the newspaper discusses Generation X   We are said to have demanded and got a better work-life balance than generations previous in part due to one song: Harry Chapin's Cat's in the Cradle.  I think to deny the power of popular culture is a mistake and that haunting three-minute song seemed to sear its way into our collective consciousness.

The article says those born in the mid-1960s watched the "fires of social upheaval" and "chaotic convulsions....The 1970s oil crisis, for one, had knocked the wind out of the global economy and helped trigger a stock-market crash, soaring inflation and high unemployment...The younger baby boomers and Gen Xers share a sense that it’s a cruel world out there, that the economy is not unlimited,” said Paul Taylor, a senior fellow with the Pew Research Center.

You'd think that those who realized the economy is not unlimited and that things are precarious would save more money, just as folks raised during the Depression would later do, but I'm not sure the savings rate of GenX'rs is anything to write home about.

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I see our state governor's daughters, depicted with him at his swearing in, in the Columbus Dispatch.  One is wearing a dress short as the late Little Jimmy Dickens. It's the style these days I suppose. I check Twitter to see if anyone has commented inappropriately (because that's what Twitter's for) and one ne'er-do-well says the gov's daughters are "boots".

I have no idea what that means, of course, but via the miracle of the internet can instantly decode slang.  Hipsters beware, we can read your thoughts.

I'm old enough to remember a baseball player called Boots:  Boots Day. Played for the Expositionals (Expos).

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Killed some time the other day watching Joe Biden administer the oath of office and pose for pictures with the new Republican senators. It was oddly compelling if only for watching a political master glad-hander in his glory, his face Botox'd and plastic surgically enhanced. He's a throwback to the old Irish pols of yore. He greeted the children and family members as if they were God's gift to the world, and so they are.

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I read a Christianity Today article that said most sin is simple excess. The sin of anger is when it gets carried too far, into bitterness or rage or unforgiveness. The sin of sadness or despair is when it becomes excessive. The sin of lust is sexual desire excessive and contrary to reason.

In fact “contrary to reason” seems the key. To be reasonable is practical and thus kind of boring but surely quite religious and moral. Virtue is often the “middle way” between extremes.

I read yesterday of the almost superhuman chastity of Joseph, son of Jacob, in Egypt. How the Pharaoh's wife begged him to have sex with her. And he loved his wayward brothers without bitterness. Joseph really seems like THE saint of the OT. You can have your Elijah and Jeremiah and maybe even Job. Joseph seems otherworldly in terms of forgiveness, maturity and love. He seems like a New Testament figure.

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Embarrassing that MLK's children are constantly suing each other. The latest is that the two brothers are suing the sister in order to sell MLK's personal Bible and Nobel Peace Prize.

It's interesting that it's come to this - the selling of the most personal objects left. All his personal papers have already been sold for tens of millions of dollars. Hard to underestimate the need for greed.

If the brothers have their way, which they likely will, what will the sons and daughters of Martin Luther King have to pass on to their children of a sentimental value? It's ironic the great preacher of peace and harmony couldn't pass that down.

MLK used the court system to try to effect justice on behalf of his people, and his children appear to use the court system to fight among themselves for their own benefit. You can see the devolution of society right there. Jesus wanted to make things right for us, with no benefit to himself. MLK wanted to make things right for African-Americans. MLK's children want to make things right for themselves. A metaphor for our age.

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Heard priest homily the other day - he said what he finds most moving/inspiring about the priesthood.  It's that grown men cry in front of him when they realize the love God has for them.  That makes it for him.   He asked when was the last time we cried over the same realization.

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Suggested to Steph another potential name for our new puppy: “Maris”, short for “Stella Maris”, a title of Mary's and the name of a dog we met in Hilton Head. Surprising to me, she loved it and moved it near the front of the list, right up there with “Faith”.

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Blogs mean never having to say you're sorry for asterisked segues.

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Hope via St. Basil:

If we devote ourselves to imitating the saints, then no matter which virtue we feel ourselves lacking, we can fine in Scripture, as if in a medical clinic, the proper medicine for our particular ailment. Whoever is focused on chastity, for example, can reflect on the history of Joseph in the Old Testament. We learn from him chaste actions. We find him well disciplined - firm in self-control with regard to pleasure - and we see him making virtue a habit.

Pope Francis & Mullarkey

I used to find First Things blogger Maureen Mullarkey worth reading, but lately she's been shrill, seeming to have a sort of Catholic Hierarchy Derangement Syndrome -- particularly with respect to Pope Francis and Cardinal Dolan.

She writes of Francis: "Megalomania sends him galloping into geopolitical thickets, sacralizing politics and bending theology to premature, intemperate policy endorsements."

And the same day I saw that, I read the thought of the day from Pope Francis as if in response:

Christians should be the first (and often we are not!) in rejecting the hasty identification of maturity with adaptation. Jesus, no less, was considered by many people of his time the paradigm of the maladjusted and, therefore, the immature.

By the way, R. Reno has responds to criticisms of Mullarkey here.

Of Dogdom & Bams

So went to a local restaurant overlooking the city and river. The river was shockingly low as a result of dams being removed. "It's a much healthier river," said the waitress, but not quite as scenic I thought.  A spiritual metaphor, perhaps.

Afterward we headed to theatre for Unbroken, the big bestseller about a guy surviving WWII.  The movie nearly broke me vicariously. 

I had low expectations, figuring it would be depressing, and it's always a plus to have low expectations going in. First, though, there were gobs of advertisements for coming attractions with Mom humorously panning each one loudly.

The movie was sort of like The Passion of the Christ meets Chariots of Fire. There were long - torturously long - scenes of torture. Forty-eight days lost at sea. Japanese prison camp. Solitary confinement. Working to exhaustion hauling coal. Mentally abused by sadistic guard with hinted-at homosexual tendencies.  (SPOILER alert full steam ahead!)

The beginning was like a different movie altogether - boy delinquent finds running as an outlet and ends up as high school runner in 1936 Olympic Games, finishing first.

Later his "toughest battle" was severe PTSD; he tried booze and psychiatrists to get over his thirst for revenge but eventually, via Billy Graham, found Christ and ended up going back to Japan and forgiving his captors. (The sadistic guard would not meet with him.)

From Cincy Enquirer Paul Daugherty's blog:

"We saw Unbroken. It was slightly better than OK. No match for the book, which was meticulous, compelling and fabulous. Not sure how I could watch this tale of abject heroism and not feel especially moved. But that's what happened."

Oh the perils of reading the book before seeing the movie. No such issue for me.

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Christmas always seems very shortlived despite the billing of twelve days, or even more given the liturgical season. To me it feels like even the Church has seemingly moved on what with the Sts Stephen and John days and Holy Family feast. Of course you can't just have the Christmas reading every day.

*

Feels magical to have this transportive Kindle, a screen that takes me to places I want to go - like the life of Heather King, the deck of the Pequad, the novel All the Light We Cannot See, Scott Hahn's new book on the birth of Christ.

I also relished the mood-altering drug of the OSU victory against Alabama. And nice to have the national championship game to look forward to, although this game felt like a national championship given who we beat (number 1 team). Even the name - “Bama” - feels powerful and forbidding, the first syllable being the aggressive “bam”. Their program has the scent of college football divinity about it.

Their crowds occasionally look a bit dorky. Kind of white and bourgeois; the guys sometimes dressed in blazers -- they look like they all belong to an old school '50s-era fraternity. I think how fascinating it would've been to have gone to a truly Southern college, like Ole Miss or Alabama. Whatever regional differences remain would likely linger there. Perhaps poverty is the only guarantor of difference, because the newly wealthy south attracts so many outsiders, diluters if you will. Pockets of real regional difference probably center in Appalachia and the Indian reservations of the West, at least the ones without casinos.

*

Death, taxes and Sunday babysitting. The three things beside the theological virtues that endure. Vegas won't even take odds on them because everybody dies, pays taxes, and we, at least, babysit on Sundays.

But it's a-okay because it's nothing God and beer won't bring me thru. At least I have the right order there.

Steph took one boy to the animal shelter for potential dog adoptions. She said that he was a good test case, to see if the dog would get along with him (and thus kids) and I couldn't disagree. So I held down the fort with a Will-a-thon, listening to Five Little Monkeys endlessly. Second circle of Hell they play that song repeatedly by the way.  Later I peeled off for a well-earned 30 minute run. Running never tasted so good.

One thing is self-evident: Steph without a dog is like Columbus without the Buckeyes, New York without the swagger, Texas sans pride, policemen without Dunkin' Donuts, me without vacations. It simply does not compute.

The first option Steph presented me with was two 12-week pups, a brother and a sister located about an hour away. Both golden retrievers, so that was right, but both way too young and one too many. This was the very definition of a non-starter, and I dismissed it immediately. Words cannot express my distaste at the thought of having not one but two puppies, and thus facing a two-year slog of double-trouble in the form of chewed artifacts and semi-destroyed furniture. A worse idea can scarcely exist.

Wasted a couple hours watching the ever dubious Bengals drop yet another playoff game. “One and done” should replace the “Who dey” motto. “Who dey” being whomever they play in the playoffs.

*

Read more about that perennially interesting foreign country: Detroit, Michigan from the book Devil's Night: And Other True Tales of Detroit. This chapter on churches leaves you just gaping in astonishment that such color can exist in these semi-homogenized United States. Honestly it reads like fiction. A Sunday night service the author attended had no less than four collections, one unabashedly announced as going towards a Mercedes Benz for the pastor. You simply can't make that up. At one point, the pastor cuts his white robe into squares and sells them for $5 a piece. Again, that seems fictional. An excerpt:

Boyd’s church is more elaborate than most, but it is still a modest edifice for a man who claims to be in direct, personal touch with God: blond wood pews, a small altar and walls decorated with neon signs—DIVINE GOD and 7 (God’s perfect number)—that look like beer advertisements. Adjacent to it is the House of Holiness, a combination sacristy, meditation facility and boutique where Boyd meets with congregants. When I went to see him on a Saturday afternoon, there was a long line of people ahead of me. As I waited I browsed through the merchandise in his store, which runs to the exotic. Holy hyssop bath oil ($5.00), hyssop floor wash, Voodoo dolls ($3.25), Jinx Remover, Triple Strength Cast-Off Evil Incense, Holy Vision Bath Oil ($5.25), High John the Conquerer Soap (“It conquers all evil forces”), and cards inscribed with the Reverend Boyd’s revelations (sample: “I am, I am in perfect harmony with the law of prosperity”) for $2.50.

Now tell me that doesn't make for riveting reading. Boyd also sells winning lottery numbers, or at least predicted winning lottery numbers. Your mileage may vary.

*

So the search continues. Two strikeouts on the golden retriever rescues we wanted. Impatience isn't conducive to acquiring the crown prince of dogdom. There's a reason they call them “golden”.

I left messages at both shelters (one near Cleveland, the other here) and was collins'd (i.e. from Phil Collins, as in the song "no reply at all"). I called both back around 3 and lo and behold both dogs were on hold already. One golden retriever rescue service requires a "home visit", a blood-signed vetting from your veterianian and an oath to become vegan. You really can't make it up. The continuing humanization of canines continues apace.

Love v. Life

Recent highlight was surely the gestation of some superabundant Love, specifically the eye-opener in the Lit of the Hours we say on feast days, and how it applies not just to our attitude towards God, but God's attitude towards us, as contained in this line:

“For your love is better than life.”

Didn't Jesus in fact trade his life for our love? For the Father's, surely, but also for ours? I've said that prayer so many times and today it hit me for the first time in that reciprocal way and not seeing it merely as an instruction from God that we see His love as worth more than our life but that He did so first.

It's ridiculous, but I always seem to be surprised when I (re-)learn that God loved us first and that He really lives up to what He preaches in the Bible and Church. There's no "do as I say, not as I do" with God.

From the Spencer monks:

It’s a wonderful insight to grasp the core of Jesus’ message by realizing the magnitude, the depth, the comprehensiveness of the divine embrace, of Jesus’ ardor for you – you as beloved of God. It can be spiritually inebriating if you let it touch you as deeply as Jesus intends to touch you. But there is more! The more here is simply the realization moment by moment that each of us is always and everywhere the beloved of God, someone with whom God is madly in love.

Un-imprimatur'd Thoughts

William Howells wrote in one of his books about the early peoples of Ohio, "Our Ice Folk must have dressed like their fur-descended children, the Eskimos, in furs and skins."

And I thought about how even back then, millennia ago, there was use by humans of primitive technology to protect against the elements.  Nature made man nude and without fur (except Italians, perhaps) and yet we artificially constructed for ourselves a second skin or fur.  In this way we seem "naturally unnatural" as a species, always changing what nature will or won't do to us, always shielding ourselves from "true" nature.  I can't really think of any animal species that covers itself in something foreign to itself in order to stay warm; only via evolution do animals acquire protections and shields.

To wonder how people survive in seemingly untenable natural environments is to think in an individualistic manner since until recent times we survived them only with the help of others, including the historical oral knowledge of centuries.  Knowledge of how to perform sexual intercourse is passed down, surely unfailingly, across all cultures and all centuries.  No matter that instruction may be limited to simply, "place this genital in that genital", that knowledge had to be transmitted in order for the continuance of human life.  That knowledge is passed down; how much more important a knowledge of Christ be passed down.

*

The gospel from Matthew has Christ's genealogy through Joseph. And of course everyone assumes Jesus is not biologically related to Joseph. But why does this have to be? Jesus had to have DNA from a male and a female and so the Holy Spirit had to create ex niliho genetic material - why not from St. Joseph's line? Wouldn't it be funny if the foster father was also the biological father?

*

Kind of interesting to read this about the Amazon Kindle given that with books, especially Bibles, we do exactly the opposite - we gild them and decorate them as a symbol that what's inside is hugely important and valuable:

From the start, Amazon has defined its hardware mission narrowly: to build devices that disappear in the hand, with uniquely useful features, for a low price. "We would never make a gold thing, because that’s too distracting," Green says. "There are many companies that create pieces of jewelry. We’re not going to do that, because that's an added cost that takes away from the actual content."

Quotables

From the novel Let Me Be Frank by Richard Ford:

Normally I counsel patience in most things. Patience, though, is a pre-lapsarian concept in a post-lapsarian world

*

Copland’s soaring as I make it out onto the bridge. Barnegat Bay, this morning, is a sea of sequins the wind plays over, with the long island and Seaside Heights out ahead, appearing, in a moment of spearing sunlight, to be unchanged. Gulls are towering.

*

a parking lot behind the Pathway paves over the sacred midden of the lost Lenape

*

the sight line stretches all the way up to Ortley Beach and beyond, to where the old roller-coaster bones sit marooned in seawater.

*

He reminded his rich customers of the get-your-hands-dirty (and smelly) New England work ethic that made this republic great, powerful, and indomitable and always would, and that they’d gone to Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth to make sure they never got any closer to than the length of Arnie’s sweaty arm.

*

And because of something Sally said, I feel a need to more consciously pick my feet up when I walk—“the gramps shuffle” being the unmaskable, final-journey approach signal. It’ll also keep me from falling down and busting my ass. What is it about falling? “He died of a fall.” “The poor thing never recovered after his fall.” “He broke his hip in a fall and was never the same.” “Death came relatively quickly after a fall in the back yard.” How fucking far do these people fall? Off of buildings? Over spuming cataracts? Down manholes? Is it farther to the ground than it used to be? In years gone by I’d fall on the ice, hop back up, and never think a thought. Now it’s a death sentence.

*

I don’t look in mirrors anymore. It’s cheaper than surgery.

*

Arnie may simply want me to take the trouble to be there—to be his witness. It’s what the Christers all long for, dawn to dusk. It’s why there are such things as “best men,” “pallbearers,” “godfathers,” “invitees to an execution.” Everything’s more real if two can see it.

*

In later years, these tidy frame homes have been re-colonized by Nicaraguans and Hondurans who do the gardening, roof repair, and much of the breaking-and-entering chores out in Haddam Township,

*

A few vestigial Negroes have managed to hold on—by their teeth. Since my wife, Sally, and I moved back to Haddam from The Shore, eight years ago, and into the amply treed President streets—“white housing,” roughly the same vintage and stock as the formerly all-black heritage quarter—we’ve ended up on “lists” identifying us as soft touches for Tanzanian Mission Outreach, or some such worthwhile endeavor. We’re likewise the kind of desirable white people who don’t show up grinning at their church on Sunday, pretending “we belong, since we’re all really the same under the skin.” Probably we’re not.

*

WHEN THE RED-COATED BLACK WOMAN AT MY FRONT door realized no one was answering, and that a car had crunched into the snowy driveway, she turned and issued a big welcoming smile down to whoever was arriving, and a demure wave to assure me all was well here—no one hiding in the bushes with burglar tools, about to put a padded brick through my back window. Black people bear a heavy burden trying to be normal. It’s no wonder they hate us.

I got out of my car, advertising my own welcoming “I know you’re probably not robbing me” smile.

*

At least four prior owner/occupants have come to visit houses I’ve lived in over these years. I’ve always thrown the doors open, once it was clear they weren’t selling me burial insurance and I’d gotten my wallet off the hall table. I’ve just stood by like a docent and let them wander the rooms, grunting at this or that update,

Usually it takes no longer than ten minutes—standard elapsed time for re-certifying sixty years of breathing existence. Generally it’s the over-fifties who show up. If you’re much younger, you’ve got it all recorded on your smartphone. And it’s little enough to do for other humans—help them get their narrative straight. It’s what we all long for, unless I’m mistaken.

*

I experienced a sudden, ghostly whoosh of vertigo—something I’ve been being treated for, either along with or because of C-3 neck woes. The world’s azimuth just suddenly goes catty-wampus—and I could end up on my back. Though it can also, if I’m sitting down, be half agreeable—like a happy, late-summer, Saturday-evening zizz, when you’ve had a tumbler of cold Stoli and the Yanks are on TV.

*

Ms. Pines looked at me uncertainly, possibly stifling the urge to ask, “Are you okay?” (No more grievous words can be spoken in the modern world.)

*

Statistics show that great cravings of almost any nature, including a wish to assassinate, can be overcome just by brief interludes of postponement—the very thing no one ever believes will work, but does. That IS news.

The Douay Mistress

Interesting assertion made in NY Times about kids today and reading:

Children today are also more literal minded, she said. Her most popular book, “The Giver,” which this year became a movie starring Meryl Streep, is often assigned in schools, and Ms. Lowry receives 50 to 60 letters a day from students. “Kids today don’t like the ambiguity of the ending,” she said. “They would like things clearly spelled out. That saddens me because I think it implies a failure of the imagination.

I guess it makes sense from the point of view that increasingly people in general want to view the Bible through a newspaper lens. Hence the increase of fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist atheists.  We're definitely more allergic to mystery and a lack of a clear endings.

*

Last night watched a bit of Anchorman 2. I had low expectations given the reviews but it was "free" on Netflix and there were moments of comedy gold. I watch so little comedy these days that I feel like a damn German. Funniest bit might've been the Steve Carrel character coming out of an accident/hospital visit with one of those “cones of shame” they make doggies wear to keep from scratching their face.

*

I find it rather touching that the Baseball Hall of Fame honors even players from the distant past whom almost no one has ever heard of let alone seen play. Sort of St. Therese "Little Way"ish in their invisibility. In 1963, John Clarkson was inducted, a pitcher from the late 1880s.

Clarkson seems to show that Scripture must include, in order to be applicable to all people, plenty of criticism as well as encouragement, for Cap Anson said Clarkson suffered from a lack of confidence and needed plenty of encouragement.

“'Scold him, find fault with him and he could not pitch at all,' Anson said. 'Praise him and he was unbeatable.'”

*

Mailed, with the proverbial mixed emotions, my short-lived Douay pocket-sized. It went to a fellow in Colorado. I'm sure he was pleased to get that “Shipped!” email, that being something we all like to see shortly after we buy something online. I could easily put myself in his place given I was waiting for the same email for the same item just a few days ago.

It's a small jewel of a book, the sort you wouldn't be adverse to having around as a collectible. I like that it includes not one but three papal encyclicals on the subject of Scripture beginning with Pope Leo XIII's.

It was a shooting star that landed on my front porch, a bright black leather object with gold-edged pages and that time-leaping, old-fashioned print that Baronius Press excels in. You could feel yourself traveling back to 1924 just by opening it.

So I had a mere half-day with my Douay mistress. Too short, too short. But I don't think my eyes are going to be getting any better over time and small print is a barrier to entry I don't need. The language itself, formal and sometimes unfamiliar, is barrier enough. Doesn't help that the OT books have opaque names.

It's tragic that Catholicism's finest Bible maker makes only Douays [Update: I forgot about the Knox!]. The worst translations have all that passionate intensity while the best, the Jerusalem, lack fine bookmaking conviction. (“Other than the translation and the print-size, how was the book Mrs. Lincoln?”)

I felt about the Douay perhaps the way J.P. Morgan felt about his illustrated medieval manuscripts: they were there to look at, fondle, admire, but not to read.

*

Oh yes when the student is ready the teacher appears: I normally (shamefully) delete without reading the St Vincent de Paul emails that come in the daily drench of spam. But something, or Someone, bid me read this one and I was riveted by it not being simply a solicitation request but recommended books to read on poverty. So this email came at a receptive time and I immediately borrowed from the library one of the recommended books: When Helping Hurts. I read about half in one sitting and I think it hits certain assumptions on my part that reveal a sort of fundamental misunderstanding of work and its purpose. I think it colors a lot of my attitudes. I'm in a sort of untenable position: if I don't value work, which I tend to too oft think of as the “curse of the drinking class”, then it follows I can't really hold others to the “work is good” paradigm and thus I should be giving lots of my money away blindly, because why should I worry about enabling dependency if I don't see self-sufficiency and work as valuable in itself?

I also read with great interest in the book's take on microfinace, and my beloved Kiva.org: 1) there's no gospel message attached 2) it mainly only helps the vulnerable middle class since loans too small aren't made and 3) it does not encourage savings or wealth building.

So true. And lo and behold I see that Catholic Relief Services is way ahead of me and has a program to incentivize savings.

*

Finally got around to checking on the CMAs via my DVR. (Enough acronymns?) Interesting to see the generational variety. Young kids barely out of their teens, the big dawgs in their late 20s/early 30s, and the stars on the declension, like George Strait and Vince Gill.

Gill was interesting, saying how he envied how well the younger generation got along, loving each other, high-fiving, implicitly implying his generation was cutthroat. Cynically, I thought it's just more veiled with this generation but there's no way for me to keno given how unfamiliar I am worn the GenX/GenY crowd. And many times people rebel, in a good way, against the sins of their fathers, witness the younger generation being more pro-life than the boomers.

*
I sometimes wonder how introversion can be integrated into a heavenly vision.  The Trinity, after all, is the ultimate symbol of continuous community.  And so...my parody in the style of "The Onion"  (at the risk of irreverency):

Father in Heaven Needs Some Solitude

Heaven--  God the Father told the Son and the Holy Spirit today that he was going to be by himself in his Godcave for a little while where he could read and recollect himself.

“You know I'm the Introvert in the bunch, and we introverts appreciate our alone time."

The Son and Holy Spirit were not available for comment at press time. 

*

Edward Dyer poem:

The lowest trees have tops, the ant her gall,
The fly her spleen, the little spark his heat;
The slender hairs cast shadows, though but small,
And bees have stings, although they be not great;
     Seas have their source, and so have shallow springs;
    And love is love, in beggars and in kings.

Where waters smoothest run, there deepest are the fords:
The dial stirs, yet none perceives it move;
The firmest faith is found in fewest words,
The turtles do not sing, and yet they love;
    True hearts have ears, and eyes, no tongues to speak:
    They hear, and see, and sign, and then they break.