Charlotte Simmons

Ham o' Bone posts far too infrequently. His passionate review of Tom Wolfe's "I am Charlotte Simmons" is here. Some background info (if he doesn't mind?): Ham grew up in an extremely rural area of North Carolina and raised in a strict semi-fundamentalist Christian home, so there must be especial resonance for him in Charlotte's story:

Wolfe does a realistic job portraying the immaturity of coddled youth as they are released into an environment where there is ample tinder for whatever fire of passion they want to start. Whether it be activism, alcoholism, sexual antics, or even saying the F-word as often as one likes, the university setting is an ideal one for them. Is it any wonder that conservative Christian universities are seeing widespread growth in enrollments?...Instead of encouraging sublimation of primal desires as a cornerstone of society, boomers have passed on to their children the notion that giving full expression to one's desires is the highest plane of fulfillment. Incredibly, Wolfe recognizes this as can be deduced from the excerpt that follows:

"The man sitting across from him, the butterball grotesquely squeezed into a dark gray sweater, was of another sort entirely, despite the fact that they were both Jewish and agreed on practically every public issue of the day. Both believed passionately in protecting minorities, particularly African Americans, as well as Jews. Both regarded Israel as the most important nation on earth, although neither was tempted to live there. Both instinctively sided with the underdog; police violence really got them steamed. Both were firm believers in diversity and multiculturalism in colleges. Both believed in abortion, not so much because they thought anyone they knew might want an abortion as because legalizing it helped put an exhausted and dysfunctional Christendom and its weird, hidebound religious restraints in their place. For the same reason, both believed in gay rights, women's rights, transgender rights, fox, bear, wolf, swordfish, halibut, ozone, wetland, and hardwood rights, gun control, contemporary art, and the Democratic Party. Both were against hunting and, for that matter, woods, fields, mountain trails, rock climbing, sailing, fishing, and the outdoors in general, except for golf courses and the beach."

Paisley's Not Just a Tie Pattern

Well I'm rooting for ol' Brad Paisley, not for success in awards or music but in his personal and spiritual life. He's Mr. Stealth Evangelizer; his songs are suffused with a Christian sensibility though shy of the point at which you turn people off. Sort of miraculous if'n you ask me.

So natch I've been hoping he continues on the Christian path despite women throwing themselves at his feet, literally, and success throwing buckets of money at him, figuratively. He hasn't been married long and his wife, sitting next to him at the CMA award ceremonies, is pretty and you could see her nipples. That can't be a good sign can it? I'm just sayin'. (I can't believe I just said "I'm just sayin'").

I was glad to see "Whisperin'" Bill Anderson win an award. He's apparently a buddy of Brad's, as shown by their hugging and by the fact that Anderson's on some of Paisley's CDs in an ongoing spaghetti western with Dolly Parton that, natch, includes a lot of double entendres of the predictable sort. I like Paisley's loyalty to the "old guard" like Bill Anderson & Little Jimmy Dickens. If money and women and fame are like a tsunami to the Faith, I remind myself that with God all things are possible.

Funny...

...cartoon here.

Silliness

There's a statue of St. Patrick in St. Patrick's that looks as though the saint is holding the St. Joseph edition of the New American Bible. The page edges have that same pink/pale red color. Which reminded me of how Pope Benedict is holding one of my books on the cover of another of my books.

So I thought how cool would it be to see figures of the past holding some of my favorite books of the present? After all, we're all in communion and connected!


Lincoln displays his personal copy of "A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture"



      
St. Thérèse reads my blog!               St. Francis shows off the good book.



          
A national treasure reads a national treasure and Mother T likes Lickona

May they forgive me :-)

(By the way, found a sample of Mother Teresa's handwriting here.)

The reason that I get up daily to read the Bible at 4 AM is that both world and self seem less relevant, and are less insistent on my attention, at that hour. The words of scripture then speak to that part of me that is able to resonate sympathetically, through less static, with more clarity. Hopefully, every day, a tiny bit, through God's grace, I am changed.

- commenter Rob on Disputations

The sexual abuse issue is a whole other matter, but with regards to the abusive treatment of orphans, unwed mothers, and the native people, I think this was influenced by the eugenics movement. It was common for people in the early/mid 20th century to attribute what they saw as social and moral weakness to genetics. Many of these religious had themselves overcome poor backgrounds, and believed that mortifications were necessary to develop sufficiently spiritually to overcome one's biological destiny. Now, we all know that some of them got a little too into it, but I do believe that their motives were good, just flawed. It's not fair to attack or punish them for being simple people of their times. Many a belt and a paddle was used in families of that era, as well. It's just the way things were. They would "beat the devil outta ya!" We, too, are products of our own era. Just look around. The results are not impressive. If we ever get around to following what Vatican II recommended, we might then be able to blame the Council for our woes. Until then, it's about planks in our eyes vs. splinters in theirs.

- Regina f. on Amy's blog, with regard to past abuses and why the "good old days" often weren't

You can neither know what chastity is nor observe chastity unless you first know poverty and have observed poverty. And you can neither know what is obedience and practice obedience unless you know and have practiced chastity. Now, do you see why the biggest problem of the Church today is lack of Chastity and lack of obedience? Because there is no spirit of Poverty.

- blogger at "gloria olivae"

As I continued to take the little pill daily for another three years, it became harder and harder to swallow. I grew uneasy with the minuscule chance—be it one in a million of millions—that my womb might turn away a cluster of 128 or 256 cells knitted together in the image of God. This sense of discomfort never evolved into an absolute dogma: I still wouldn't say that taking contraceptives is a sin. But I questioned the assumptions I found underneath my pill popping. What did my daily habit say about my faith in the One who reduced himself first to a cell, then two, then 128, then 256 and more, then to a defenseless baby—and whose door is always open for helpless intruders like me? Could the little pill have stood for more than just a chance to get a fiscally responsible life before opening it up to stinky diapers? Could Mircette have changed not just the hormonal makeup of my cells, but also what cannot be seen under a microscope? Could it have served as one more safety lock on the door not just to my womb, but also to my figure, my marriage, my home, my career, my gym routine? God is in these details.

- Agnieszka Tennant via Amy's blog

Someone has said of [the poet Ted] Hughes: "I just find him a bit . . . ach, it's difficult to quantify but the best word I can think of is 'macho.'" Hughes was macho. And he felt at home in Spain. How very, very interesting... Of Coolidge and Alcott, however, we can repeat what Hughes observed of Plath: "[Their] schooling had somehow neglected Spain," and if they had seen it at all, they probably would have "Clutched back towards college America" in panic, too. Women writers vastly prefer France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and even Italy. Yet literary men seem to love Spain. Ted Hughes says he felt at home there. Colm Toibin spent Holy Week in Seville and then took part in the walking pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Ernest Hemmingway tried to learn the art of bullfighting. George Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War and Grahame Greene, who covered it for an English newspaper, later wrote an English novel about it. What is the deal?

- Sancta Sanctis (forgive me, but I'm tired of trying to spell Enbrethilell, Christina!)

It is cheeky, dare we say edgy, but friends...that is Roman Catholicism. This is a faith in which spiritual practices include, not just cool, relaxed silent prayer sitting on you floor cushion with your lovely garden in view and your herbal tea brewing, but also the extremes: jamming crowns of thorns on your head, physically consuming relics, putting the head of a holy woman on display, and levitating. We define edgy. We live right on the thin edge of good taste. The Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living expresses that holistic and mostly healthy Catholicity, where, as the authors say, the worst things in life are recycled and turned into the best. It's heartfelt, satirical, and, we can't neglect to say, accurate in its presentation of the faith. It's part of this body of Catholic literature that's growing, I'm happy to say, which books like Lickona's Swimming with Scapulars, Judge's God and Man at Georgetown Prep, Scott's Catholic Passion also represent: books that get this one important thing about Catholicism: It's all about connections. It's all about looking at God's earth and the creatures he's made, and the stuff he's inspired those creatures to make, and seeing the possibility and promise of God at work in all of it. No divisions, no dualism, just a faith that's holistic, joyous but honest and bracing in the face of suffering.

- Amy Welborn, on the book "The Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living", which, among other things, suggests celebrating Reformation Sunday by selling indulgences and (via Curt Jester) 'if Jesus was Jewish, why does he have a Puerto Rican name?'. (Ed. note: no payments changed hands for this plug.)

I’ve been reading Luke Timothy Johnson’s commentary on Romans and he argues that for Paul sin is not necesarily about being a “bad person,” but is about our fundamental attitude toward God. In other words, the opposite of sin isn’t virtue but faith - i.e. trusting in God, recognizing our dependence on God, accepting our lives as a gift, etc. Not trusting in God leads to trying to secure our own existence and worth ourselves, which leads to all kinds of vices (”sins” plural - cf. Romans 1).

- commenter on Camassia's blog

[insert clever description here]

- Robert of HokiePundit, allowing the reader to mentally complete his blog template

It ain't that, Jeff. It's age...You can try the Holy Father's cure, but, if that doesn't work, try mine: drink lots of German beer, British ale, and the occasional Guiness. They help me forget that I have a bad memory.

- Bill Luse, on Jeff Culbreath's concern that electronic communcations are hurting his memory

The phrase “all of us are fundamentally good”, like “children are born innocent”, is one of those lines whose Christian validity depends on how far you take it. To the extent that everyone is a child of God, it’s true. But what to make of those “aberrant” bad people? Where does their evil come from? To what extent do “good” people share a responsibility for it?...It seems to me that one reason this subject is so difficult is that it involves a rather delicate balancing act. On the one hand, overemphasizing the goodness of people can fail to deal effectively with their badness. On the other hand, overemphasizing people’s depravity can make loving your neighbor nearly impossible. Justification by faith alone can turn salvation into an arbitrary business, detached from moral behavior; justification by works alone sets people with the unbearable task of saving themselves. I think that the “good, but fallen” definition of humanity is an attempt to carve out the middle space.

- Camassia

Fulton Sheen & Our Lady of Guadalupe

The one great consistency in approved Marian apparations is that appearances are scrupulously given to children or the poor and innocent. There's quite a message in that. In the earthly realm, America has far more power and wealth compared to Mexico. But in the spiritual realm, Mexicans are rightly proud of their patroness and ours by adoption.

I was thinking about this in conjunction with the memorial of Fulton J. Sheen's death next month. He made a simple but fervent request of God: that he die on a Marian feast day. And that his prayer didn't seem to be answered always bothered me, surely disproportionately. One could take it as a sign of the holiness of God - a positive thing, a way to say that we can always get closer to God and that perhaps Fulton Sheen's time of purgation was lessened by his experience of being on his deathbed and seeing the great Marian day of December 8th pass by.

But one could also take it that the Church made up where Fulton Sheen lacked. December 9th, the day after Mary's great feast and the date of the bishop's death, is the feast now of Juan Diego, the humble Mexican peasant who received the Marian vision. Perhaps the powerful American prelate's prayer was answered posthumously.

One of the interesting things about the image of Our Lady of Gualalupe is its teaching potential. Though she looks glorified, with stars and rays of sun coming from her as was predicted in Rev. 12, she is no goddess. Her hands are folded in supplication, her posture indicating that she is interceding for us at the throne of the God.

Award Shows, Politics and Cleavage

Well I hear tonight is the CMA (Country Music Association) Award show. My forecast: well-coiffed hair, low cut dresses and rock music. I nostalgically recall a time when the men wore hats and the women covered their bosoms. But the surprising thing is not that I can recall such a time but that it was so recent. We're talking the early '90s.

Garth Brooks ruined country music because he brought two things it couldn't afford - money and pop music. Money and popularity corrupt, which is why I blame the disaster that is the Ohio Republican party on the Democrats. If the Dems didn't suck utterly, we wouldn't have had one party rule for the past fifteen years and one-party rule leads to corruption as surely as bubble-wrap leads to popping sounds. Same with the national party come to think of it. In a two-party landscape, a party can suck, but we can't afford for it to suck for a prolonged period of time. (That's not to excuse the Republicans, it's just that one-party rule is like watching someone walk a tightrope - you're not surprised by an accident.)

But back to country music. It was the early 90s and the most lascivious CMA performance was Patty Loveless's "That Kind of Girl", which, I don't have to tell you, would be considered tame now. The irony is that the music was traditional* and promised stability. Randy Travis sang of "forever" and you couldn't help thinking the genre would stay so, at least long enough to outlive my goldfish. History should've told me otherwise. I didn't start listening until around 1990, but I've since heard that the '80s were glitzy - think "Rhinestone Cowboy" - so it's always been a moving target. I just didn't think it moved so fast.

George Strait is an interesting case. He always moves with the times while keeping his stuff about 1/3rd more traditional by volume. He seems to keep this quasi-religious balance between pleasing himself and pleasing the audience, though some of his audience (read: me) would be pleased if he pleased himself. Was it video or professionalism that killed the radio star?

* - i.e. heavy on fiddle, steel guitar, light on the drums, pro-family & pro-God, etc..

Weekend Anecdote

I'm a bit chagrined that I completely missed the comedy potential inherent in Jeff Culbreath's hiatus notice. It seemed completely unfunny to me, mostly because Jeff is one of my favorites. He's worried about his memory but I worry he's forgetting us. (rimshot.) But Bill Luse vented and humorously so. I'm surprised he got that much material out of that.

I mentioned to him (Bill) about an anecdote that happened over the weekend. He'd said he'd sure be a bloggin' that and now I'm thinking he'd do a better job of it but here goes:

I was out jogging in a local park, near the end of my run when up ahead I see two people who, having heard my 200+ lbs rumbling like a runaway freight train, frantically start pulling up their pants.

My first thought was that it was probably two guys because I'd read about Columbus parks being used as trysts for gays. I slowed to a walk to give them time, but as I got closer I saw that it was a guy and a girl and they couldn't have been more than 17 or 18, though I'm getting less reliable on ages as I age. Of course my next thought had to be fought off vigorously - i.e. that I shouldn't have quit runnin'. That ol' bugbear concupisence is nothing if not reliable. The second thought was imagining that maybe I'd caused coitus interuptus and prevented the tragedy of an abortion. But then I considered that they might've had the kid and I prevented a life. Or, far more likely, neither. But the world is indeed pregnant with possibilities...it felt like a scene from Capra's movie.

Was that from The Onion?

Mr. Curley of Bethune Catholic reports that in order to qualify for jury duty, he is required to answer some 45+ questions including:

17. What are your hobbies, special interests, recreational pastimes and other spare-time activities, including sports?
18. What magazines and newspapers do you regularly read?
20. What social, political, civic, religious, and other organizations do you belong to or are you assoicated with?
22. Have you displayed any bumper stickers on you automobile in the last twelve months? If yes, please list each bumper sticker.

Now that's parody. When they say "jury of your peers", they really mean it. Right down to the bumper sticker you sport, the brand of coffee you drink and whether you like fly-fishing too. After all, a robbery suspect has a right to tried by a fellow Field & Stream reader. Worse, this is South Carolina, for heaven's sake. I didn't think nonsense was fashionable there yet. Here are a few more questions future surveys will surely include (rimshot*!):

1) Boxers or briefs?
2) Blondes or brunettes?
3) If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be and why?
4) Do you squeeze the last bit out of your toothpaste tube?
5) Let's just say, hypothetically, there's this Hispanic male, 28 years old, wears a beret of some sort, who was accused of holding up a liquor store. Do you feel favorable towards him? Why or why not? Let's say there's damning surveilance tape from the liquor store. Would you be inclined to convict him?

Who's on trial? It appears that Mr. Curley is guilty until proven innocent. The ability to reason is apparently less important than the ability to vote the way a prosecutor or defense attorney wants you to._________________________________________

"Of the professions it may be said that the soldiers are becoming too popular, parsons too lazy, physicians too mercenary, and lawyers too powerful."

So said Charles Colton(1780-1832), which was said long before today's more powerful courts. Back then,

...the Supreme Court was just learning how to exercise its great power under Marberry v. Madison. In this 1803 decision the Court gave itself the right to determine if a law was Constitutional (or Unconstitutional). Later in 1954 the Supreme Court in Cooper v. Aaron simply stated that the "Constitution says what we say it says". Recently the Supreme Court in Missouri v. Jenkins allowed a local Federal judge to not only take over the Kansas City school system but also to double local property taxes against the expressed will of the taxpayers who had voted against this tax increase, a vote which was required by Missouri Law. Taxation without representation had thus returned to America. - (from Legal Ethics and Reform website)

* -ht:TB

More from Scott McDermott's "Charles Carroll of Carrollton":

According to the Saxon myth, the English constitution was born among the Gothic tribes described by Tacitus. There Germanic tribesmen had supposedly elected their kings, as well as a witenagemot, or parliament...Modern historians portray Saxon society as a primitive feudalism, not a nascent republic. In fact, warrior chieftains lived off the labor of peasants. Constitutional government originated in Christendom, not among the pre-Christian goths.

The most influential exponent of the Saxon myth in America was Thomas Jefferson, who called Tacitus "the first writer in the world." Jefferson always preferred Rapin's [pro Saxon myth] history to Hume's.

John Adams, on the other hand, had no time for Saxon reveries. It is true that he could never bring himself to accept dogmatic Christianity. "An incarnate God!!!" he once exclaimed. "An eternal, self-existent, omnipotent, omniscient, author of this stupendous universe, suffering on a cross!!! My soul starts with horror at this idea, and it has stupefied the Christian world." But Adams saw clearly that the basis of politics had to be the natural law. English liberties were nothing other than these "rights of nature" which were "antecedent to all earthly government."

...Essentially, the revolutionaries were rediscovering the Catholic political tradition, based in natural law, with its emphasis on the common good, corporatism, hierarchy, subsidiarity, and popular sovereignty. Because most of the founding fathers came from unorthodox religious backgrounds, they distorted the concept of natural law, generally in the direction of individualism. Americans still live with the consequences of these distortions. Nevertheless, the American reinvention of Catholic political thought - for such it was - is a great achievement. The United States created the first government in history of the world that is explicitly based in natural law.

Juxtaposing Two Recent Reads

From Charles Carroll, Catholic signer of Declaration of Independence:

"A man of common sense...is well convinced, or ought to be, of the emptiness of that passion (which exists nowhere but in romance). If he marries, he will marry from affection, from esteem, and from a sense of merit in his wife."

From WNBA player Sheryl Swoopes (via Hokie Pundit):

"I'm a firm believer that when you fall in love with somebody, you can't control that."

Parallel Universes

From here, via Ham o' Bone:

I responded with sheer incredulity. "How can you think such a thing! Homosexuals have more rights in this country than ever. And I don't know a single Christian who wants to have you exterminated."...I went away from that discussion with my head spinning, just as sometimes happens at the university reading group. How can people who inhabit the same society have such different perceptions? More ominously, what have we evangelicals done to make Good News—the very meaning of the word evangelical—sound like such a threat?
__

Reflecting on our conversation, I remembered a remark by [C.S.] Lewis, who drew a distinction between communicating with a society that hears the gospel for the first time and one that has embraced and then largely rejected it. A person must court a virgin differently than a divorcée, said Lewis. One welcomes the charming words; the other needs a demonstration of love to overcome inbuilt skepticism.

I thought, too, how tempting it can be—and how distracting from our primary mission—to devote so many efforts to rehabilitating society at large, especially when these efforts demonize the opposition. (After all, neither Jesus nor Paul showed much concern about cleaning up the degenerate Roman Empire.) As history has proven, especially in times when church and state closely mingle, it is possible for the church to gain a nation and in the process lose the kingdom.

St. Jerome on Today's Gospel

Regarding the parable of the five talents...

Calling together the Apostles, He gave them the Gospel doctrine, to one more, to another less, not as of His own bounty or scanting, but as meeting the capacity of the receivers, as the Apostle says [marg. note 1 Cor 3:2], that he fed with milk those that were unable to take solid food. In the five, two, and one talent, we recognise the diversity of gifts wherewith we have been entrusted.

Also, by this which this servant dared to say, “Thou reapest where thou sowedst not,” we understand that the Lord accepts the good life of the Gentiles and of the Philosophers.

To him who has faith, and a right will in the Lord, even if he come in aught short in deed as being man, shall be given by the merciful Judge; but he who has not faith, shall lose even the other virtues which he seems to have naturally. And He says carefully, “From him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have,” for whatsoever is without faith in Christ ought not to be imputed to him who uses it amiss, but to Him who gives the goods of nature even to a wicked servant.

UPDATE: Another meditation from Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.

The More Things Change...

Written over two thousand years ago but fresh as today's headlines:

If, charmed by their beauty, they have taken things for gods,
let them know how much the Lord of these excels them,
since the very Author of beauty has created them.
And if they have been impressed by their power and energy,
let them deduce from these how much mightier is he that has formed them,
since through the grandeur and beauty of the creatures
we may, by analogy, contemplate their Author.

- Wisdom 13:1-9

HT: Elena & Wisdom 13:1-9.

(FYI: This is obviously not a real photo, but do see Einstein's curiosity about the Eucharist.)