And Now For Something Completely Different...

Excerpt of poems found here:

Excerpt from The Four Loves

He listens to the voices in the mist,
he heeds the blue fire fairies that
light his way. His heart is easy,
his clothing light,
his path made simple
by the delight of small things--
roses, lights, the noises of a new-born child,
the sound of waves, the shift of shadow,
the barely seen form
of a long-loved friend,
the familiar curve of yielding,
hoping flesh, all small beacons,
that remind him—beyond this fog
a beacon, a light,
a sun so bright it isn't a sun

Paddling Out

Paddling out shows you that you have
placed yourself in the hand of God.
Mountains shift around you, moving past
as you cut through the aquamarine frame.
Did you know that this blueness, this clarity
this water as sharp as glass means no life
flourishes here? And yet you set yourself,
a fleshly jewel amid the adamantine, sapphire rolls,
and your entire world ascends until the slope
you ride embraces the cloud weary sky,
and descends to where the kraken's eyes
are the sole source of light.
And they stare through you.

Fiction for a Friday

The dusty streets had a fin de seicle look about them or at least appeared so to Jim O'Toole, who preferred to live in the old West through the pages of dime novels than the garish present. He looked up wonderingly at the sky, clouds like soft down pillows, a comforting sort of overcast. It seemed hard evidence that no one was having more fun than him. His daughter Jen was down from 'Frisco and they'd secured peach juice from the tree out back along with rum from the back of the pantry.

"So I'm taking Latin at school. I've taken on the poet Ovid as my principle course of study," she said while shaking the tumbler of ice and peachy rum. "Publius Ovidius Naso. My defacto boyfriend."

Her father looked at her and smiled.

"You're sure a chip off the old block. I live with the James brothers and you the Roman poets. I won't ask you what you're going to do with your degree."

"In a past life I cared about money. I find it degree-gious that people look at college as a preparation for life instead of life as a preparation for college."

"You always were the romantic sort."

Quotable from Jonah Goldberg:

One time when my wife, a.k.a. the Fair Jessica, and I were visiting my parents, we tried to convince my Dad to try some expensive single-malt scotch that we'd discovered. My Dad commenced to explain that he thought all of that sort of thing was overrated and wildly overpriced. He liked his store-brand blended scotch just fine. We went around the horn on this for a while, and then I tasted his scotch and told him it tasted horrible. He immediately responded drily: "Well, then I'm the luckiest man in the world, because I can't tell."

Jonah's father's take reminds me of when I wrote a college paper expressing the joys of a McDonald's Quarter-Pounder, comparing it favorably with filet mignon. My professor, a foodie, was underwhelmed and gave me a C. I got an A on the next paper, and he commented on the surprising change in my writing.

Girl Can Write

Am reading Dawn Eden's master's thesis, a corrective of Christopher West's view of Theology of the Body. Longtime follower's of Dawn's blog and book will recall that she, like many of us, suffers from IHA (intense heterosexual attraction), so this topic seems right in her wheelhouse.

It's a riveting read, crack cocaine to those of a certain bent - like all reads are that involve our sworn enemy concupiscence. (Pointless aside... To tune of Donna Fargo's "Funny Face":)

Concupiscence, I loathe thee!
Concupiscence, I hate thee!
You ain't the sweetest word I ever heard...

West has a very bold philosophy in which he says we ought not shrink from opportunities to practice chastity. He says there's a huge difference between continence and chastity, the difference between being under the law and practicing a virtue. Not a proponent of keeping custody of the eyes or avoiding the occasion of sin, he calls them precisely the moments of freedom when we trust Jesus and "walk on the water" instead of hiding on the boat.

It was especially fascinating to see her quote a guy who challenged West's assumption that Jesus can free us from the effects of concupiscence which went along the lines of, "we can be freed of concupiscence to the extent we can be freed from experiencing death." In other words, the lingering effect of Adam's sin exhibits itself not only in our physical deaths but in the objective presence of concupiscence.

But it's a great debate!

Nice AP Photo of Pope Benedict on Vacation...

Art, Links, & Thoughts

From Inside Catholic, when and if ancient Rome knew it would fall...

...Dawn Eden has a master's thesis on Theology of the Body contra-Christopher West...

...and from First Things a look at fertility and suicide rates as a guide to the happiest countries. Israel was off-the-charts, and my brother-in-law says that's due to the strong religious following of most Israelis, but I tend to wonder if it isn't just due to the fact that they're fighting for their existence, ala America during the WWII-era, and that is somehow energizing/enlivening. Their fertility rate may be part of that war. (Or as one commenter put it, "perhaps one reason Israelis don’t want to kill themselves is because there are so many national neighbors willing to do that for them.")

* * * It seems extraordinary that Louisianans sleep an average of 8 hours and 44 minutes per day. Wow.

* * *
It seems as though Faith is like a brick building that is dependent upon each and every brick such that if you pull one out - say, the belief that something went wrong with mankind in the earliest time - then the building becomes a much more wobbly edifice. Had a faith discussion with someone recently who shrugs off original sin as a myth, but then it seems you run into the unsolvable problem of God being responsible for human suffering. There's also a world of difference between God becoming man and Jesus being simply a man with God-like powers. It's much different to say that someone has powers, rather than someone IS power.

God died for us to prove he loved us, and yet we can look at that turn it around and say, "God loves suffering." No wonder Jesus said "We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge and you did not mourn." "I died for you and you did not mourn, I performed miracles for you and you did not dance."

* * *
....and finally, the dogs of war. Literally!

Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts

Let your thoughts be with the Most High and direct your prayers continually to Christ. If you do not know how to contemplate the glory of heaven, take comfort in the passion of Christ, and dwell willingly in his sacred wounds. Endure with Christ, suffer for him, if you wish to reign with him. - Imitation of Christ

Faith is the basis of life, and charity is its crown; but hope is its greatest need. Most of the difficulties of life come because man is so prone to lose heart. His distractions in prayer suggest to him that he was not meant for such high acts. His weekly tale of sins at confession seems to imply by its almost identical repetition that it is useless for him to continue his efforts at “a firm purpose of amendment.” ...Failure counts for nothing; defeat, disappointment — these matter nothing at all, so long as only hope sits patiently, stirring the embers, watching and tending the fire, coaxing the flame, never despairing and never leaving the wind to work its will. That the clouds should come up over the sky, or that darkness should encircle the earth, brings no real terrors, for we are sure that the dawn will come out again and that the sun will break through with its golden glory. - Bede Jarrett, OP from Dylan's "Reluctant Draggard"

I agree that [Ms. Sherrod] has great cause to be spiteful...But real transcendence stories are inspiring because it is so hard to overcome hatred when one is justified in hating. From what I can see, she hasn't transcended the hatred. She has redirected it at a different, narrower target. - Andy McCarthy on "The Corner"

Please forgive my misspellings. I am drunk.
- commenter on "What's Wrong With the World" found on Bill Luse's blog under the title "Favorite Comment of the Week"

Baseball. No other name for a sport can inspire so much emotion and memories as the great game of baseball. Football is named after the grossest body part. Basketball is named after something you put fruit in. Hockey is named after bored Irish shepherds who'd hit around a ball with their staves while watching their sheep. Soccer sounds like domestic abuse, and golf sounds like an environmental disaster. But baseball invokes feelings of safety and security, the foundation of nostalgia. - Cathie Glover

Just like parents who "equally" love all their children, as a traveler I don't like to admit that I have a favorite, but I do. Out of the eight countries visited in the Asia series, Cambodia was my favorite. I knew from the beginning that this was a different place. Landing anywhere in Asia makes a recess of an elementary school look like naptime. It's just that chaotic...But as we left the airport terminal in Cambodia in Phnom Penh the glass door slid apart to reveal a scene of utter calm -- just as many people who are always congregated outside an airport but they all stood there with soft eyes and slight smiles. That's when I knew I was going to love it here. I had some advice to brace myself for Cambodia, a country just coming out a vicious and cruel civil war still showed a lot of scars physically and mentally...I thought I was walking into a country depressed and floundering and that the only reason to go would be to see the great city of Angkor with its now famous temple Angkor Wat. I was wrong..There's no reason to pity Cambodia, the people have an amazing sense of themselves and that they are finally going places. I found the Cambodians to be the easiest people to talk to. I call them the Irish of Southeast Asia. On the whole they speak a lot of English, which I wasn't expecting and an overwhelming curiosity about Westerners since it's only been recently that we've been allowed to come. - Samantha Brown blog

Homophobia is real. Let me explain. Fear is not, in itself, irrational. It may be a-rational, but it isn't irrational. Fear is a natural, human, emotional response to a threat; and the world is filled with threats...A phobia is a radically disproportionate, overwhelming fear of something...I have no doubt that somewhere in the world there is a homophobe: a person who sees homosexual acts as a unique transcendent threat to such an extent that it causes an emotional reaction leading to psychological debilitation. I don't know any such person, but I am sure he exists. I expect that should we encounter such a person, we ought to be able to agree that he suffers from homophobia; that he has... issues. The reason leftist/libertine polemicists use the term homophobia is, of course, to paint adherents to traditional sexual morality as, not merely wrong, but as having... issues. Often as not this seems to be, shall we say, a projection on the part of folks who themselves seem to have... issues. - Zippy of Zippy Catholic

Maureen of "Aliens in this World" Lightning Round:

Apparently I used a man’s last name too many times in a single blog post, because apparently my obscure little true crime post on my obscure little blog got found by one or more fairly upset people. I have corrected this, because it’s a bit stupid to have random punditry get a high search
engine rating.

Jane. Austen’s. Fight Club.

Greene County, 1803-1908 says that there were Owenites in Yellow Springs. Owenism was a utopian movement founded by Robert Owen. These particular Owenites were religious, however. I am starting to wonder what there hasn’t been, in Yellow Springs.

I’ve been looking all around at the standard online lists of known Gothic names, particularly of females. Do they include the euphonious and mysterious woman’s name “Sabigotho”? They do not. Theudigotho shows up, though.

Obviously, it’s not right to treat Christianity as if it were some kind of business school, as the prosperity gospel and other sorts of business Christianity groups sometimes do. But among the standard kinds of imagery used by Jesus, business and trade imagery is very very common. (Which isn’t surprising — He worked for a living before He went out preaching!) And since the same is true of big chunks of the Bible, both OT and NT, it’s silly to treat the Bible as if it were completely free of any good word for filthy filthy lucre. But… there’s a pretty big business metaphor at the very heart of Catholicism, and I didn’t know it...Let’s cut to Luke 5:7...Both “metousia” and “koinonia” mean partnership, communion, sharing. Koinonia, however, had a very well-known business sense. A koinonia was a partnership like a law firm, or a fellowship like a group of merchant adventurers. Simon was running a fishing company, and his buddies were all shareholders, joint owners, and partners in it. They had a specific legal relationship to each other and to the company... Everyone who is in communion with the Church is a koinonos, a shareholder, partner, and employee of Jesus’ fishing company, with certain obligations and responsibilities. On the bright side, this means no Catholic is ever totally unemployed. This doesn’t mean that the other connotations of fellowship and community aren’t there, of course. In the ancient world, most people didn’t really believe in “strictly business”. Your business partners were your neighbors, your friends, your relatives, your in-laws — and if they weren’t, they soon would become those things.

Over-Spending Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

Huge cost-overrun on a local bridge, and the Columbus mayor Michael Coleman smiles and taunts: "Nobody will remember how much the Main Street bridge cost in a generation or two."

Nobody may remember, but somebody will likely still be paying for it.

This seems the new liberal conceit - just spend like crazy, create monuments to your spending and your legacy will be secure. And taxes never come with an itemized receipt for what you purchased, be it a bridge that the architect compares to the Partheon or, far more grievously, a Hippocratic-oath denying abortion.

Coleman's comment sounds faintly reminiscent of the Democrats who, after passing the "health" care bill,  reasoned that in a few years nobody will care how much their bill costs, despite the fact those "costs" represent the ebb of freedom.

Thanks go out to the American readers of this blog for helping buy the bridge, since it was partially nationally funded.
 
Credit goes to the Dispatch for the story.

Detail from work by Botticelli...

Quotable

Found on Catholic Answers, reminds me of requests for modern scientific proof of the Eucharist:

Q: Why should we believe in God if we can't observe him?

A: Your question reminds me of a question posed to Pope Benedict XVI by a child in regards to the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist:

Andrea: In preparing me for my First Communion day, my catechist told me that Jesus is present in the Eucharist. But how? I can't see him!

Benedict XVI: No, we cannot see him, but there are many things that we do not see but they exist and are essential. For example: we do not see our reason, yet we have reason. We do not see our intelligence and we have it. In a word: we do not see our soul and yet it exists and we see its effects, because we can speak, think and make decisions, etc. Nor do we see an electric current, for example, yet we see that it exists; we see this microphone, that it is working, and we see lights. Therefore, we do not see the very deepest things, those that really sustain life and the world, but we can see and feel their effects. This is also true for electricity; we do not see the electric current but we see the light.

So it is with the Risen Lord: We do not see him with our eyes but we see that wherever Jesus is, people change, they improve. A greater capacity for peace, for reconciliation, etc., is created. Therefore, we do not see the Lord himself but we see the effects of the Lord: So we can understand that Jesus is present. And as I said, it is precisely the invisible things that are the most profound, the most important. So let us go to meet this invisible but powerful Lord who helps us to live well (source).
Just because we cannot see God through either a telescope or a microscope is no reason to assume that he does not exist.

Hold Off the Canonization...

...says the Corner concerning Shirley Sherrod. She's gone from sinner to saint to sinner so quick it makes my head spin.* I know the media takes its job of building up so it can tear down seriously, but still... Bill O'Reilly, not known for nuance, was the most nuanced in his analysis yesterday by apologizing for the rush to judgment but at the same time not painting her as a saint given that she was throwing around the phrase 'his own kind' and 'one of his own,' as if skin color creates a different genus or species.

* - It's a fun parlor game to write/think something about some issue and then see who uses the same or similar words to describe it. The head spin also occurred to Andy McCarthy, who used a pendulum analogy. Yesterday I was reading some newspaper article that mentioned "The Decision" involving LeBron James as an hour-long infomercial. Check!

Notes on a Day Off

Cellphone pictures from a trip to Schiller Park and St. Mary's Church:

Read leisurely of a novel on the back patio. 73% done now; electronic books are so anal. They don't give page numbers but percent done. The author has some really piquant lines, enough to keep me reading which is a feat in this day of short attention span theater. He also says things that intrigue, things you knew but didn't know you knew.

Later rode the bike around the mean and not so mean streets of German Village. Saw a few big 19th century schools, abandoned either due to summer vacation or declining populations. I thought of how, for all my appreciation for Victorian architecture, there is something cold about some of the schools and orphanages of that time. Austere.

Rode down Front Street and then east to Parsons. Rode by the famous Beck Tavern, made famous by a friend nicknamed Hank. Rode by Beck's School, Barrett School and St. Mary School. Dropped by the famous German Village bookstore and its 32 rooms of book (visited only three; looked for John Kasich's latest but instead found a book of pictures taken by a NYC cabbie of his customers. Lots of pictures of people, from fedora-hatted men to bashful teens.

Later, listened to an Albanian radio station because I can. Thanks to the power of the 'net you can surf to stations from just about any country, like a free ham radio. Supposedly even Afghanistan. This Albanian station is playing a dance song inflected with a Middle Eastern sound despite Albania's southern Europe geographic location. Actually not too bad, especially after surfing to Ireland (rap with a brogue, giving credence they are America 20 years ago), Cambodia (non-musical program in Cantonese), Belarus (I can't remember), Germany & Austria (forgettable US soft rock), Brazil more high-tempo than I was in the mood for. One Cuban radio station played elevator music the other Billy Joel. End up with a Haitian station playing "tropicale". Very island-y and perfect for the vacation mood. Appropriately, somehow, given we're dealing with Haiti, the record begins skipping ahead wildly until someone apparently intervened and put on a different song. Soon there appears what sounds like a drunken woman constantly breaking in and out of the record. Must be the local custom.

____
At a beautiful St. Mary's in German Village pondered a statue (pictured above) of the Pieta. Among the most wrenching of scenes in Christendom is the Mother of Jesus holding her dead Son. It seemed to reminded me of the Office of Readings that morning quoting The Imitation of Christ: "Let your thoughts be with the Most High and direct your prayers continually to Christ. If you do not know how to contemplate the glory of heaven, take comfort in the passion of Christ, and dwell willingly in his sacred wounds. Endure with Christ, suffer for him, if you wish to reign with him."

Think of Heaven or the Hell of His Wounds, but think of Him. The Blessed Mother, whose ability to love and thus to hurt is infinitely more than the typical human, is a fabulous example of how God cures mental pain too. A great fear of humans is that we'll experience a mental pain too great, but if we'll be 30 years old in our resurrected bodies, as is sometimes guessed, we'll be made similarly whole in our minds and hearts.

Finally I was struck dumb when I looked up far above me, in those heavenly arches above the altar, and saw in gothic script: "Ave Maria ... Gratia Plena." I was moved by the grandeur of it, how elevated Mary really is. (Above the angels! (But below God, for any Protestant readers how there. She's God's masterpiece, not her own.)) And second I was struck by the "Gratia Plena", plena in wholeness, in completeness, plena as in plenary indulgence, plena as in all things good. And I was consoled that I have such a mother, pray it be so, on my side.

Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant of Variety of Posts

An open scent bottle soon loses its scent. An open mind is often a vacant mind. There is something to be said for corks. - Arnold Lunn

Have been enjoying the most delectable babymoon, which has left me with less than no desire to sit at the computer and compose. The immediate reality of baby's presence transcends the secondary reality of writing about it. I want to be with her, not analyze and analogize (I say it's a word, so there). As we all know, comparisons are odious...But rest assured (and I'm doing just that this week) that I shall write you up a full account of baby's birth soon enough. The only problem is that no one will believe me… - Mrs Darwin of "Darwin Catholic"

St. Thomas says that, in order for us to take pity on someone, we must make their defect, their cause of misery, our own; and, further, that we have only two reasons for doing this:

Due to union of the affections: We are so united through love with the person that we necessarily regard their defects as our own.

Due to real union: We are aware of the possibility that we too might suffer in the same way.

The latter reason, he says, is common among both "the old and the wise" -- who know better than to pretend they're beyond the reach of evils that befall others -- and among "feeble and timorous persons," whose find it easy to imagine themselves suffering. Whichever reason (or combination of both) we have for being merciful, it involves a defect, a cause of misery, within ourselves. It's a conclusion that has some significant implications -- and they aren't merely of academic interest, at least not for people who want to follow both commands of Jesus quoted above. - Tom of Disputations

Self-pity is I think the least Christian emotion in the history of ever..in general, if you have to entertain negative emotions toward the Church.. I highly recommend bitchy and bitter over self-pitying comfort. That's my considered aesthetic judgment and I'll stick to it until you pry my rosary out of my cold, dead hands. - Eve Tushnet

We finally get to find out what Christoher Hitchens loves after a career of sharing what he loathes: His friendships with Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie and James Fenton; scotch, fighting opressors and the corrupt, the English language and the opportunities from his new homeland. Barely any words on his brother, two wives and three children but the most affecting words are dedicated to his mother and her suicide when he was in his early 20s. The chapters where he loses faith in his Left ideology when confronted with the hard realities of the world and the brutal dictators who leave bodies in the wake of their madness should be required reading for anyone whose instant reaction is that everything is America’s fault. Hitchens learned this by keeping his eyes open and we are the richer for it. - Phil Albinus of "A Musing"

Belief you can change in - title of Terrence Berrence post regarding malware known as Obamacare

“A moderate ascetic? That’s a little extreme, isn’t it?” asked John. “If you’re into denying yourself things and then you deny yourself even the pleasure of denying yourself things, that’s got to hurt.” - Arthur Philips "Prague"

I do hope that Mr. Stupak is at least finding it difficult not to intone the words of Lando Calrissian at his disatisfaction over Imperial treatment, "This deal is getting worse all the time." - blogger at Korrektiv

The Catholic Church speaks a lot of languages. I have a really hard time with natural-law talk, for example, and also with Carmelite spirituality, even though both of those are really different! Whereas I respond really strongly to "theology of the body" and, to a certain extent, Christian neo-Platonism. But the great thing about the Church is that you do not have to buy in to any one particular vocabulary. - Eve Tushnet

Beer Consumption by State/Country

Ohio averages 31-35 gallons a year which is significantly over the U.S. average of 22, (according to a different source).  Of all countries Ireland drinks the most, at 41 gallons a year per capita, while Germany is second at 32. 

Score one...

...for my brother-in-law on easy money being the cause of the financial crisis. Capitalism always produces asset booms & busts, but what was different this time was that money market funds, of all things, nearly crashed and burned. That was something new and was related ultimately to the securitization of debt, debt that somehow wangled a primo rating from the ratings agencies. (Rating agencies like Moody's are to companies what stock analysts are to stocks - lagging indicator. They tell you a company is in trouble or doing well after the fact.)

There's a rough justice, by the way, that Dems are not getting credit for what didn't happen - a depression - when Repubs never got credit for what didn't happen during the Bush administration.

Meanwhile Larry Kudlow on CSPAN this morning said he now questions his support for TARP.