A Resurgence of Fiction

Likely of extremely parochial interest, but here's my breakdown of fiction to non-fiction reads by year:

1995: 24%
1996: 31%
1997: 11%
1998: 33%
1999: 23%
2000: 23%
2001: 21%
2002: 27%
2003: 41%
2004: 12%
2005: 29%
2006: 27%
2007: 20%
2008: 20%
2009: 9%
2010: 8%
2011: 33%
2012: 57%

Found on Other Blogs

via National Geographic

Msgr. on Sloth:

Sloth tends to dismiss the power of grace since it focuses on the “trouble” or effort attached to walking in the Christian way, rather than to understand it as a work of God...

On account of sloth, the idea of right living, and the gift of a transformed humanity inspires, not joy, but aversion or even disgust, because it is seen as laborious, or as involving the setting aside currently enjoyed or sinful pleasures.

In effect we are hyper-stimulated in the modern world. Our frantic pace, endless interruptions, and the rich abundance of entertainment, fast-paced movies, video games, all are a feast for the eyes but they hyper-stimulate...The “still, small voice of God,” the quiet of prayer, the simple reading of Scripture and pondering its message, the unfolding of spiritual meaning through reflection, the slower joys of normal human conversation in communal prayer and fellowship…none of this appeals to many who are hyper-stimulated, and used to a breakneck pace.

Kindness v. Love:

Many false expectations are centered in the exaltation of kindness over love. Generally this is manifest in the fact that suffering of any kind is seen as obnoxious, and even the cause for legal action. It has also led to our demands for comfort to become immoderate...A final and very terrible effect often flows from mistaking mere kindness for love is that it disposes many towards atheism. Here I simply want to quote Peter Kreeft because he says it so well:

It is painfully obvious that God is not mere kindness, for He does not remove all suffering, though He has the power to do so. Indeed, this very fact — that the God who is omnipotent and can, at any instant, miraculously erase all suffering from the world, deliberately chooses not to do so — is the commonest argument that unbelievers use against him. The number one argument for atheism stems from the confusion between love and kindness. [Peter Kreeft, Envoy Magazine, Vol 9.3, p. 20]

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Poem found on Heather King's blog:

THE GUEST HOUSE

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-RUMI

Seven Quick Takes Shaken, Not Stirred

I'm really liking this author alerts website that sends you an email/RSS when a favorite author publishes something.

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Of the new Mass translation the only line I trip over is the one that ends in "holy Church" instead of just Church. I always miss that, lulled into the familiar by the opening sentences being the same.



Excerpt from a Mark Doty poem:

Do we love more
what we can’t say?

As if what we wanted
were to be brought
that much closer

to words’ failure,
where desire begins?

2.
What I love about language
is what I love about fog:
what comes between us and things
grants them their shine. Take,

for instance, this estuary,
raised to a higher power
by airy sun-struck voile:
gunmetal cove and glittered bar

hung on the rim of the sky
like palaces in Tibet—
white buildings unreachable,
dreamed and held

at just that perfect distance:
the world’s lustered by the veil.

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Slightly disappointed in myself for getting semi-educated on the Trayvon Martin case. Would prefer invincible ignorance (which, by the way, is the state of most media types). The proper response to over-hype is to ignore it, I think. Rather than to get all angry about the racial double-standards, media malpractice, Zimmerman, the Black Panthers, or whatnot, it would be more conducive to calm and peacefulness to engage in Heather King-ish detachment and not follow these "stories" (where "story" is defined remarkably free of details - there is nothing the media likes better than a story free of details because then they can speculate and rush to judgment more quickly, since facts tend to impede analysis.) I assiduously avoided the Duke lacrosse case, which redounded to my benefit. It's as easy as using the fast-forward button on the television remote or skipping the Drudge links.

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Good Scott Hahn talk the other morning on suffering on Catholic radio. He says he thinks the one thing, the only thing, that all modern people can agree on as evil is suffering. This dovetails nicely with a chapter on suffering in "Consoling the Heart of Jesus" book. The Lord doesn't seem nearly as hypoallergenic to suffering as we are, given that he allowed his Son to die on a cross and his mother to witness it. Our suffering must be somehow be united to Christ's suffering in order for it to be redemptive and used by Him. I know it's Christianity 101 but still it seems something of a mystery.

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Haven't read it yet but when I saw a National Geographic cover story on the Apostles, I thought it looks interesting. And, of course, with some good pics.

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Woke up pleasingly early this morning, early enough to imbibe a little more of Charles Murray's "Coming Apart". One can see how and why the rich are getting richer, the poor poorer, and how we're becoming two separate cultures. College seems to be the big actor here; elite colleges much more elite now than in 1960, and intelligence was more dispersed not just across different colleges but also across different jobs/careers. Smart people marrying smart people much more frequently now and living in the same zipcodes. It has a feel of inevitability about it, this bifurcation, but it doesn't feel compatible with Christianity. Perhaps it's one of the unfortunate if inevitable results of capitalism.

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Was drinking some Brian Boru beer the other day. I still feel a wistful nostalgia at how during the mid-1990s I read about the Boru in preparation for a trip to Ireland. Ach but was I not thorough in my trip preparations, reading Irish myth in case I might come upon Brian Boru in the flesh? I did half-think I'd meet some sort of supernatural phenomenon in the olde land of Eire during that trip, such as a leprechaun or two.

For Your Amusement...Found on Another Blog

For the Love of Diversity!

Oh yeah - we are all gung-ho on diversity until it hits us in the wallet. Received this note:

Hi! In the last two days straight I have received a Rupee in the snack shop containers. Though they are very pretty, they are only worth a little less than two cents. Minus the fee to exchange them I would owe the bank about five dollars. Please do not use Rupees and if you are the one who has done so, please drop fifty cents in the snack shop containers. You can get the Rupee's back at my desk :-)

7.5 Medium Length Takes

Well I feel inspired to post again after reading Betty Duffy's latest*. Nothing is more charismatic than another's discouragment, solidarity being what it is. And yet she ends on a hopeful note, as well she might given the Christian message. Big butt'd (figuratively speaking) folks need not despair.

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On the walk into work listened to blogger Msgr. Pope being interviewed by another blogger. Pope said that he is amazed at how many Catholics expect more from a Tylenol tablet than they do the Eucharist. He says his parish is convinced, at every Mass, that the Holy Spirit is going to do something that day. Nice corrective lens.

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I was reading some ancient Irish poetry recently and came across a few lines that reminded me of the Mick, particularly the picture that graced the 1961 Mickey Mantle Topps card gifted to us by my best friend's uncle:

No wonder though their strength be great: 
Sons of queens and kings are one and all; 
On their heads are 
Beautiful golden-yellow manes.
With smooth comely bodies, 
With bright blue-starred eyes, 
With pure crystal teeth, 
With thin red lips. 
Good they are at man-slaying, 
Melodious in the ale-house, 
Masterly at making songs, 
Skilled at playing fidchell.   

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Le' sun has re-arrived and bright buoys my hopes with each refreshing draught from the lake of beer, even while time tick-tocks with a stubborn, if admirable, steadfastness. I dream of those days at Hilton Head, biking in the Hildegarden sun, baking in the heedless sun, rushing to the onrushes of those ocean surges.  Freedom breathes so lithely in those climes, the sun proof against all enemies foreign and domestic.  And yet even Hawaiians are not free from reality, as stated baldly in the latest George Clooney movie. 

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I tend to be disdainful of New Year's resolutions for the fact that they are so often so quickly flouted.  People work outt in January and early February, making the gym too crowded, and then quit by March. But self-improvement is not to be mocked, nor are the Lenten projects that many bloggers engage in. Whatever the lack of longterm effects, it seems like a good thing that so many give up something or do something extra. It seems like no prayer or good work or fast (the latter two being prayer in a different guise) are wasted. 

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Morning at the zoo. Not bad at all. The weather held out; no real rain until after we got home around 4, and I enjoyed the "artworks of God", from the 15,000 lb elephant "Hank the Tank" to the sleeping lions to the pacing tigers. Saw a python, astonishingly large, and a small colony of the world's largest bats. They were mesmerizing, hanging there sometimes with just one claw, some with their gigantic, veined wings extended, others creating their own micro-environment by closing their wings around themselves. Self-shelter. A baby elephant humorously hosed himself off via spouting water from his trunk, and later made a trumpet call when comically going after the Canadian geese who took residence in the elephant domain. The bears always startle simply for their size. (A Grizzly slept on a log, which didn't seem too comfortable but then I'm no Grizzly.) The ever active wolverine was entertaining, and I could've watched the otter swim for quite some time. The Mexican wolf and Timber wolf also made an impression. I think grandson Sam, 2 years old, had a good time - he seemed to know where we were going before we got there. He rode in the wagon for a short while before he walked to walk freely, and walk freely he did, constantly on the verge of walking off.

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Reading from Wisdom chapter 2 today seems Christ writ large. Even the New American Bible notes - written by near-heathens apparently deathly afraid of being seen as "homers" - say it was "seen as prophetic of Christ". (Of course they're not willing to confess to seeing it as such.) Regardless, I feel sad for my Protestant brothers and sisters not to believe such Scripture as Wisdom is inspired, since they've lost one of my favorite books of the Old Testament. Speaking of Old Testament books, Scott Hahn has a new one out about First and Second Chronicles. Now there's a brave author and publisher!

_____

* - or it could be the beer.

Compassion and Courage

Interesting post about zeal by Edward Oakes:

I recently read a review of a book about Margaret Thatcher which argued that: “Thatcher. . . . wanted to restore the balance of virtues in Britain away from current sentimentalities such as compassion and toward the ‘vigorous virtues’ of courage and enterprise.” What struck me about the remark is that virtues can become their own enemies unless they are counterbalanced with other virtues. Thus if a society fosters only compassion at the expense of courage and enterprise, it risks becoming decadent and incapable of defending itself because it no longer fosters the virtue of courage.

The Portable Prize

A McSweeney write-up:

I know what you’re thinking, so don’t even say it. Buying that thing won’t make you happy, is what you’re thinking. Buying things never makes you happy, so why would you buy this thing? It won’t make you happy.

But you haven’t seen this thing.

It’s really cool. They just started making it and not many people have one yet. It does all sorts of stuff and can fit in my pocket, but it can also get bigger than that if I want it to.

It comes in both black and white, but I can also buy an affordable cover for it in a different color if I want. For example, if I buy it in black but decide I want it to be red today, I just buy the red cover and slide it on. Now it’s red—until I want it to be black again, that is. (I can do that for any other color too, not just red.)

...

Another way this thing will make me happy is that it comes with a durable carrying case.

This & That Thursday

Got my own "Florida room" today and tomorrow only, at least until June. Yes it's pert near 70 degrees and sunny and I'm out on the back patio with the whisperin' breeze. I just can't even believe I didn't plan ahead and ask off for a day this week, which could've been a mini-Florida, sans beach but cum beer. Two scheduled meetings would appear to thwart any ideas of playing hooky -- which really isn't playing hooky nowadays given that all our vacation and sick days are lump together like a tasty stew. I feel no guilt over calling in sick when I'm not really sick seeing how the company's not losing anything by it. Providing I don't have meetings.

And oh yes did I run like a zephyr down High, and it does feel like forever since my last vacation, that lil' 4-day'r back in January. I ran in shorts and a t-shirt as if I were in Florida again. Decidedly un-Lenten weather is a bad influence on me. Hard to be a saint in the sun, with the beers & laziness calling.

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Am "lit-hungry" even though I read a goodly amount of "Slumberland" while sitting out on the patio. It's now dealing with the Berlin Wall falling and I've suddenly became ravenously hungry for web articles about how German reunification really went. Not so great, it would seem - something like 50% of Eastern Germans don't feel a part of Germany, referring to reunification as an "Anschluss", an annexation by West Germany -- despite the fact that West Germans have paid and continue to pay tons of deutsche marks towards the East German pensions/retirements/welfare safety nets. Money can't buy you love. One East German politician suggested that West Germany was not careful about giving East Germany a few symbolic gestures at the time of reunification, not enough respect. I wonder sometimes if symbolic gestures and respect are a bottomless pit, but perhaps not.

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Also been reading "Coming Apart" by Charles Murray, who forecasts a coming class-based, rich-poor society in the U.S.. Interestingly, he doesn't predict American decline, militarily or economically, but a loss of what makes America America, the sense of togetherness in the nation.

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My tendency is to write off all spiritual malaise, including my own, as caused by insufficient discipline. (Although certainly not true of the dark nighter's like Mother Teresa.) Certainly a great modern problem is the seeing of discipline as a negative thing, not as evidence of God loving us. But if it all comes down to discipline then it all comes down to us, which can't be given that we can make progress only through grace. (Though if grace is abundant, then the only thing stopping it is us, but then I'm touching on mysteries beyond me.) This view of things isn't too far afield from the conservative mindset on matters financial - I see a lot of financial angst and malaise most of it is simply failure to live within a budget, or actually a deliberate flouting thereof and fiscal insanity (like buying a $1,000 couch while on the verge of bankruptcy, as was recently witnessed by yours truly). We are our own worst enemies, no doubt, as Whitney Houston intuited.

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Momentarily flux'd by having the garage door come down on my not-fully-in-the-garage car, taking a jot of paint off the back end. Rather surprised since I thought the garage door wouldn't come down if any part of the car was blocking its path. Apparently I found that sweet spot where it's not sticking out enough to trip the sensor but far enough out to physically stop the garage door from coming down. Ah well it's got 40K miles on it and I'm not in the "must keep it pristine" mode anymore. It's funny how if this happened in week two of my ownership I'd be wringing my hands and moaning a river. The things we find important are so unimportant!

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The second reading at Mass the other day was about how Paul said that Jews want signs and Gentiles want wisdom and that Christ thwarted both. In the next sentence or two St. Paul mentions the Jews wanting to see power, and so I take it that a lust for signs is a lust for God's power. Certainly that's what many Jews wanted - a God who would whip ass and take Roman names. And the Gentiles seemed interested in the pursuit of wisdom for wisdom's sake. And Christ crucified, as Paul says, is neither strength nor wisdom of a human kind.

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A friend laments his lost love. Perhaps it may be of some relief to recall that someday all that which thwarts us, all that prevents us from unions with others, will be thwarted itself, i.e. that in Heaven we'll not only see our dogs, but will be with (though not carnally, of course, but in a way seven times more powerfully) all those who eluded our grasp*, so to speak, on earth. To borrow from the Irish band Barleyjuice:

My love's been drinkin'
She does not know me
We courted years ago
She bore my child
Tonight she's telling me
I'm not the man she cares for
My love's been drinkin'
She's in denial

But we'll all lay together
Beneath the bloomin' heather
For worse or for better, friend or foe,
So then while the sun's still shinin'
Let's raise a cup o' kindness
And sing our songs for sinners here below

* - "grasp" is perhaps the wrong word, suggestive as it is of eros rather than agape. To quote Fr. Charles, "God wants to give us every good thing. Not for the grasping of sin, but so that we might share his joy in giving away."

Another Link...

How India became America.

From Ross Douthat....

Given their options, Republican voters have acquitted themselves about as sensibly, responsibly and even patriotically as anyone could reasonably expect.

Twitter & the Ear Worm

Twitter: What is it good for? Good points all. I initially thought Twitter the harbinger of the Apocalypse but now I know better.

'Cept I can't get that song War out of my head: "War, what is it good for?"

From an old National Review

Mother Teresa at Harvard.

Various & Sundry

Collected a couple of ever-familiar yet ever-new corporatisms yesterday: "task" used as a verb, as in "She tasked me with...". This gets away from the more harsh, "She made me do," the too soft, "she asked me to...." the too banal, "she had me do...". Task is one of those crisp and authoritative English words that people like to say; they like the way it trips off the tongue.

The other instance was the odd use of "space", as in "I was in the brokerage space last year..". In other words, you don't say, "I worked in Brokerage," for that would broker your future away. No, you say that you worked in some space, because it adds an extra syllable and extra syllables are always helpful when giving talks.

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What's fascinating to me about some of the anti-Romney attitude is what one expects of a president. Franklin Roosevelt was so beloved, according to John Updike, because people thought he cared. Many economists say FDR made the depression worse and longer, but people loved him because they related to him (despite his wealth!). Updike basically said people would prefer a leader from whom they feel compassion rather than one who can make things actually on-the-ground better.

I tend to figure what does it benefit me if someone in D.C. feels my pain since the president can't get me a job? I guess, for good or ill, I tend to look less at the person than his policies. Should we expect love from our leader? “Love to be true has to hurt," said Mother Teresa. And, in the liturgy of the hours, we hear from the Leader of leaders: "Christ the Lord was tempted and suffered for us."

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Yesterday was a dray, a gray mare of a day, a windblown tide of steady rain with a zinc-like dusk that comes early in these parts, as early as two, three in the afternoon. It seems a fitting postscript to Wednesday's irrational sun-zuberance, telling the tale that everything that goes up must come down.

The concrete face of a nearby building is half taupe, half white, with a jagged stock-market line showing where the rain soaked in. A pink banner urges, "PARK, PARK, PARK" and seems forlorn on the gloom-struck day, like a dandelion in December. Parking garages like these seem to make no attempt at beauty or elegance, they are pure functionaries, the architects having drawn them up early and played golf in the afternoon. Ugliness in search of function is no virtue.

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I find it oddly entertaining to watch the policeman out in the street directing traffic. Basically all he does is force people to make a right when coming out of the parking garage. Facing the cars, his left arm will go up, perfectly parallel to the ground. Sometimes he'll wave drives to hurry a bit, by waving his right hand. Some very few drivers will wave and he'll wave back.

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One of the things I like about evangelical Christianity is their love of the Bible, often shown by copious margin notes. There are "moleskin" bibles with especially generous margins that encourage this sort of extensive note-taking/defacing. I've never been much of a note-taker, in the Bible or in any other books. I once started to take notes in an NRSV I had but I switch Bibles too frequently which defeats the purpose since you want all your notes in one place. I'm at a loss as to how to write anything meaningful in the typically tiny spaces most bibles allow for note-taking. It seems you can hardly jot down more than a phrase. I'd like to see what people are writing and whether they can read it later.

Many folks praise Logos, but I like using the OliveTree Bible Reader software on my iPad. It has the NRSV, Douay and NABre available, though not the New Jerusalem. And one of its supposedly neat features is this ability to type notes. And sure enough, it helpfully adds a little note icon to the verse which when later touched will bring up said note. My first note was on today's reading of Jeremiah and all I could write was basically a rephrase of the Scripture. Which is what some bible commentaries do - they just tell you the obvious, like, "Jesus here is demonstrating how we are to behave as Christians." Duh. But now that I'm a note-writer too, I see it's not so easy.

Not Even Token?

I found this an interesting take:

In my second post above I ventured with trepidation to lament that the Latin Church’s current discipline on fasting and abstinence seems mere token ascesis. I was gratified by the confirming comment of canon law professor Ed Peters, who opined that the current law of fast “does not even get to the level of token: it is purely legalistic. And I think THAT breeds contempt for law.”