the glory of everything

Knock the little bastards' brains out.

2012-02-27T03:27:00.003-05:00

I stumbled onto this quote by C.S. Lewis in his Reflections on the Psalms concerning the cursing psalms in the Scriptures:

I know things in the inner world which are like babies; the infantile beginnings of small indulgences, small resentments, which may one day become dipsomania or settled hatred, but which woo us and wheedle us with special pleadings and seem so tiny, so helpless that in resisting them we feel we are being cruel to animals. They begin whispering to us, "I don't ask much, but", or "I had at least hoped", or "you owe yourself some consideration". Against all such pretty infants (the dears have such winning ways) the advice of the Psalm is the best: knock the little bastards' brains out. And "blessed" he who can, for it's easier said than done.

The same interpretation is given in the early Fathers of the Church as can be seen here in St John Cassian's Institutes: "It behooves us as well to destroy the sinners in our bed - namely, our fleshly feelings - on the morning of their birth, as they emerge, and, while they are still young, to dash the children of Babylon against the rock. Unless they are killed at a very tender age they will, with our acquiescence, rise up to our harm as stronger adults, and they will certainly not be overcome without great pain and effort" (6.13.2).

six months later

2012-02-23T07:05:00.000-05:00

I tend to neglect this little blog. I always intend not to. And then I check it and half a year has passed without my writing here. It's been a busy half year.

I started eating vegan in September 2011, for health reasons. And while I may be the fattest vegan in the world, I feel so much healthier. Unfortunately, this February, I've been more vegetarian than vegan and occasionally just a plain old meat eater (once or twice). I'm gearing up for vegan again though since it seems to be the diet that makes me feel best - far fewer headaches, and only very rare migraines. Generally more energy. And I need to begin walking again, though I am entirely too lazy.

Lent has begun again and the seven kids and I went to Noon Mass to receive our Lord and our ashes. I love Lent. Above is a picture of the kids.

Finally, as I have mentioned on Facebook, though not here, we are expecting our eighth child sometime around the summer solstice. It's a boy! Four girls, four boys. Lord 'a' mercy.

(The kids from Left to Right: Sophie [holding Noey], Anna, Avery, and Will. And on the short row are Jack and Cate. They are standing in front of the B.A.V. - our big white van.)

ordinary

2011-08-22T07:57:00.000-04:00

I am tired of hearing this false gospel that is currently being propagated, that to be a real Christian I must do some extraordinary thing for Christ. That real Christianity cannot be realized on a rural farm is rubbish. If it cannot be lived there, it cannot be lived anywhere. We take up the Great Commission because of our insecurity, guilt, and discontentment. But Christianity is not a call to be extraordinary, but to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. So that water is no longer just water. Bread no longer just bread. Christianity is not a call to be somebody, but to be nobody. It is in being ordinary, becoming nobody, that we become real Christians. That we become like God. We love the people in our lives. Everything else, everything, is vainglory. Now it is extraordinary to love and pray for our enemies - but it is done in quietness. There is no stirring of any public pool here. No hubbub. No hurrahs. What is extraordinary in Christianity is that closets achieve more than councils, and that a cup of cold water is a conversion. We achieve more letting go of greatness than grasping at it.

Assurance and Stuff

2011-08-18T08:07:00.001-04:00

Forgive the sloppiness of yesterday's post - blog posts are often written hurriedly or in the heat of the moment, which is not so much an excuse as a sad statement of fact. I realize the disagreement between Protestants and Catholics that I touched on concerning justification is a complicated one. But it saddens me how many intelligent, thoughtful, and good people are simply unaware of Catholic teaching - or only have a cursory understanding of it.

So I was telling my wife about the Sproul lecture I had listened to and she interrupted me, with just the proper bit of chide in her voice, saying, "Why are you listening to him?" Which is actually a question I've been pondering for some time on the heels of the controversy this year in Protestantism over hell that was precipitated by Rob Bell. Frankly, Protestant controversy is Protestant controversy and I have no business sticking in my nose. Often I do, reasoning that I have friends and family who are Protestant, and I'd like to be able to engage them if it ever comes up in conversation. But I'm Catholic, and it's really no business of mine. The Catholic Church has her own issues and problems and I would better spend my time praying about difficulties that I am dealing with in my own family, parish, and community. There is a hell in my heart that St Paul calls the love of controversy.

Now what drew me to listening to him yesterday, which I haven't done in years, is that I saw an intriguing tweet, which I can't seem to find now, that said something about how Assurance of Salvation Leads to Sanctification. Intriguing because I have recently been talking to some friends about assurance (Catholics don't believe in assurance of salvation). And intriguing because I wondered how something I no longer believe in could lead me or others to holiness. Sproul pushed against Catholic teaching quite a bit in his bit, and I just grabbed a moment of it and reacted. (Reaction, by the way, is never a great starting point for great thought. Note to self.) I didn't find anything instructive in his belief about holiness and assurance, and was disappointed by how convoluted and silly the argument was. But I live in an alternate universe and I imagine people are just as perplexed when I open my mouth.

Whether my salvation is secure, in my thinking, is entirely the wrong focus (and it needs to be gotten out of the way - this is actually Sproul's contention as well). I'm in the Church. I receive the sacraments. I belong to the Body of Christ. God loves me and shows mercy to me - every day. What do I need a contract for? He's my Father. (I don't need to be constantly checking my birth certificate to confirm that my dad is my dad.) And though I daily stray from him, he is still my Father and it is only in his house that I ever truly feel peace and rest. Now certainly we may have doubts about things - sometimes we may even wonder whether we're saved (one of the elect). Some of these fears are natural to us. Some of them are the work of the Holy Spirit to draw us back to God, to renew our baptismal vows*, to drive us to his grace and mercy in Confession/Reconciliation. But the fear is from the pit. And if you struggle with always thinking that God is dangling you over said pit, or you fear that you think you are saved but may be one of those with a false sense of assurance to whom God says, "Depart from me, I never knew you," then your answer is not found in some fanciful promise. Your answer is Christ, and in the forgiveness and mercy that he continually extends to us. We love him imperfectly and so we fear. Trust him. He is good. He is the Lover of Mankind. Trust him.

*Our baptismal vows are mostly an affirmation of the Apostles' Creed. We renew them, re-affirm them, remind ourselves of them within our Liturgy, but also even as we enter our parish and cross ourselves with holy water - a sign/symbol that it is through our baptism that we enter the church:

V. Do you reject Satan?
R. I do.
V. And all his works?
R. I do.
V. And all his empty promises?
R. I do.
V. Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth?
R. I do.
V. Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary was crucified, died, and was buried, rose from the dead, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father?
R. I do.
V. Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting?
R. I do.
V. God, the all-powerful Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has given us a new birth by water and the Holy Spirit, and forgiven all our sins. May he also keep us faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ for ever and ever.
R. Amen.

"I surrender myself to thee, O Christ, to be ruled by thy precepts."

Hmm.

2011-08-17T09:40:00.004-04:00

R.C. Sproul: Works do not justify. Faith alone justifies. But faith that does not work does not justify.

It is fascinating to me that R.C. thinks (1) this is faith alone and (2) that this differs from Catholic thought.

Catholics do not believe that we must do anything in order to be part of the Body of Christ - God's mercy is so gratuitous that we may baptize our infants, who can do nothing. Pope Benedict XVI, saying nothing different or new, said that Catholic thought is compatible with "faith alone" as long as faith does not abandon love. (Gal 5, faith working through love.)

One must understand what one truly believes as well as what the other truly believes in order to have real disagreement.

The Dormition of the Theotokos (Feast of the Assumption)

2011-08-13T20:02:00.001-04:00

Fr Stephen Freeman has an excellent post on the Feast of the Dormition, Marian theology, and communion with Christ/salvation in general. I would encourage you to read it in order to edify your faith or to better explain why Mary figures prominently within the Church (or ought to).

Here in America, the Catholic Church has abrogated our holy obligation since the feast (Aug 15) falls on Monday.

Holy Wit

2011-08-10T10:54:00.002-04:00

It is the feast day of St. Lawrence, a third century martyr. Here's a legend about him via American Catholic:

As deacon in Rome, Lawrence was charged with the responsibility for the material goods of the Church, and the distribution of alms to the poor. When Lawrence knew he would be arrested like the pope, he sought out the poor, widows and orphans of Rome and gave them all the money he had on hand, selling even the sacred vessels to increase the sum. When the prefect of Rome heard of this, he imagined that the Christians must have considerable treasure. He sent for Lawrence and said, "You Christians say we are cruel to you, but that is not what I have in mind. I am told that your priests offer in gold, that the sacred blood is received in silver cups, that you have golden candlesticks at your evening services. Now, your doctrine says you must render to Caesar what is his. Bring these treasures - the emperor needs them to maintain his forces. God does not cause money to be counted: He brought none of it into the world with him - only words. Give me the money, therefore, and be rich in words."
Lawrence replied that the Church was indeed rich. "I will show you a valuable part. But give me time to set everything in order and make an inventory." After three days he gathered a great number of blind, lame, maimed, leprous, orphaned and widowed persons and put them in rows. When the prefect arrived, Lawrence simply said, "These are the treasure of the Church."
The prefect was so angry he told Lawrence that he would indeed have his wish to die - but it would be by inches. He had a great gridiron prepared, with coals beneath it, and had Lawrence's body placed on it. After the martyr had suffered the pain for a long time, the legend concludes, he made his famous cheerful remark, "It is well done. Turn me over!"

Children

2011-08-10T10:25:00.000-04:00

It is unconscionable that people, children, are dying for lack of food or water. It is unnecessary. Even in drought or famine, such as in Somalia, the deaths that are happening are tragically unnecessary. They could be prevented but for tyranny. And tyranny takes many forms.

Children

2011-08-10T08:28:00.000-04:00

Don't be like me. Don't be like me. Be like your mother. Don't be like me.

Revise Us Again, by Frank Viola

2011-06-17T02:57:00.000-04:00

Revise Us Again, by Frank Viola, is a patchwork quilt of sorts, at times poorly sewn. This is an editorial and organizational criticism more than a criticism of the content of Viola's thoughts. The theme of revision, though used throughout in chapter subtitles, seems to be imposed on the book, as if it were applied as an afterthought and whose idea was better than its execution. So for me the writing never gains the necessary momentum to carry me along. The intended thesis is never fully realized and ends up feeling like a compilation of musings about what's bent or broken in Evangelicalism without a clear enough focus or a proper framing. The idea seemed forced to me - or reached for and missed.

I do, however, appreciate several themes that Viola does present in Revise Us Again. First, my Christian life requires as honest an examination as I can give it. I don't think this theme consistently reaches the level intended, that of revision, though perhaps it could have had it been worked at a bit longer. Second, I am happy that Viola gets at the idea of community as an expression of charity. This idea is so terribly important and so awfully missed in so many of our church communities. And third, Viola seems downright charitable in this book - this is not to say that he normally isn't, Revise Us Again is my first encounter with Viola's work, but I appreciate his generosity toward others. He doesn't condemn in this book, he doesn't berate - he points and suggests, nudges the reader as if to ask, "What do you think about ... ?" The book scored highly for me in this respect - Viola desires that his book draw the Body of Christ together rather than divide it. This is a noble goal and one not easily attained when writing about what we do poorly or get wrong as Christians.

Now I did take issue with Viola in Chapter 9, "Stripping Down to Christ Alone: Revising the Holy Spirit's Ministry." I read this chapter wrongly every time, and I believe it's because I don't share Viola's history - I'm not "post-Charismatic" as he labels himself. Perhaps if I had a similar background to Viola's, this chapter would make a great deal of sense to me, or even seem necessary. But as it is it seems, at best, off. So when he includes the following sentence in the chapter, "To my mind, the Holy Spirit has but one job: to reveal, to make known, to magnify, to glorify, and to make central and supreme the Lord Jesus Christ," I cringe. (And what bothers me about the sentence is the phrase, "has but one job.") Most likely, I am quibbling. But it doesn't seem an apt description of "the Lord, the Giver of Life," or comprehend the Orthodox prayer "O Heavenly King ..." If we must talk about the Holy Spirit having "but one job," it is important to understand that this one job is the same one job the Father and the Son are busy about - the restoration of all things, reconciliation, redemption. Of course, speaking about the Most Holy Trinity makes me nervous to begin with because I fear we often err by saying more than we ought to, that we speak of things too great and marvelous for us.

Don't misunderstand, every time someone writes about more than one person of the Most Holy Trinity, I do not expect an orthodox treatise on the proper relationship between the three persons of the Godhead. But Viola sets it up in such a way that it needs to be discussed or qualified in some way because he juxtaposes Son and Spirit, and in such an arrangement there seems to this non-post-Charismatic that the push back Viola gives pushes back too hard and too far. Now his audience may need the heavy push, the shaking that says, "It's Christ." So I must assume the best and pray that it helps many others as they wrestle with their own histories. Nonetheless, the chapter deserves some clarification and needs a positive assertion about the unity of the Divine Persons rather than to do what it does - push off from one in favor of another (this is not Viola's intention, but it is my impression).

All in all, I liked Revise Us Again. I have my differences and my opinions, but the re-evaluation of "What is it we are about?" is relevant when there seems as much upheaval as stability within Evangelicalism. And it is always timely in my own life in respect to the Church, the community, within which I live and worship. There are weaknesses within the work and the project seems, in places, to reach beyond what it attains. But the thinking within the book is sound and the spirit of it leans toward restoration.

last day

2011-06-10T09:54:00.002-04:00

The last day of school, a little milestone, a moving forward - change. I'm not good at it. Time is a stream that carries all things with it. I am a soddened stick near the bottom, bumping slowly along in my unwillingness to move forward. I am not the leaf, newly fallen, that dances with current and ripple.

It is the milestone that slaps me across the face. That shakes me and yells at me to wake up. I am weighed down by anxiety and fear - it is so frightening to be present. I run from Today - backward or forward. Anywhere, really. I have difficulty moving forward because I have not lived today. And I missed yesterday. I have missed it. And fear will make me miss all of it.

last days + scoffers = not what you think

2011-05-20T14:29:00.001-04:00

Sometimes we must dress devils red, with pitchforks and barbed tails. I think the teaching about the Rapture, specifically Harold Camping's Rapture, is such a devil.

Camping's prediction is one of those that leave you alternately laughing and crying. His exegesis is inane - shoddy work at best. It is a morning's mist. And the morning of May 22nd will show it to be so - though Sunday morning will not be enough to convince the people who follow Camping. (Traditionally, Sunday mornings convince few.) If I were his neighbor, I'd meet him at his door in the morning, with doughnuts and a paper, and kindly invite him to Mass. Mr. Camping needs our prayers and perhaps our pity, but his belief, the idea itself, calls for a reasonable amount of scoffing. Camping is neither the first nor the last of these terribly specific wearers of menacing sandwich boards.

The teaching about the Rapture in general, and the way some teach it, is fraught with problems - devils even. My wife, for instance, has very real fears associated with the teaching about the Rapture. The teaching is laced with fear. It was and is used "evangelistically," which is a Christian way of saying it is used to scare the hell out of people. And when we scare the hell out of people, the only thing we accomplish is putting a bit of hell in their hearts. Fear is a part of hell. And hell worms its way out.

The teaching of the Rapture derives from and buttresses an us-them theology, it is uncharitable and fosters arrogance. And it is escapist. (The rescue aspect of the teaching is what endeared it to me for so many years). I used to believe in the Rapture (pre-tribber), but no more. The Rapture is Darby's invention, a man who was a contemporary of Darwin and Lincoln. It is not the teaching of the Christian faith - believed by all, at all times, and everywhere (as St Vincent of Lerins says).

I do believe, however, as the Creed says, that "[Christ] will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end." I do believe that we will be caught up in the air, but only to descend again with the coming King (no going off to heaven for some specified or unspecified amount of time). This is how peoples in the Middle East greeted kings and conquerors. They rode out of the city walls to greet and escort him back into the city. For us it is like meeting family or friends at their car or on the porch when they visit - we go out to embrace them and kiss them, and then we lead them inside.

Christ might come tomorrow or 3,000 years from now.

Here is a quote from Pope Benedict's most recent book:

A further key element of Jesus' eschatological discourse is the warning against false Messiahs and apocalyptic enthusiasm. Linked with this is the instruction to practice sobriety and vigilance, which Jesus developed further in a series of parables, especially in the story of the wise and foolish virgins (Mt 25.1-13) and in his sayings about the watchful doorkeeper (Mk 13.33-36). In this last passage we see clearly what is meant by "vigilance": not neglecting the present, speculating on the future, or forgetting the task in hand, but quite the reverse - it means doing what is right here and now, as is incumbent upon us in the sight of God
.....
Jesus' apocalyptic words have nothing to do with clairvoyance. Indeed, they are intended to deter us from mere superficial curiosity about observable phenomena (cf. Lk 17.20) and to lead us toward the essential: toward life built upon the word of God that Jesus gives us; toward an encounter with him, the living Word; toward responsibility before the Judge of the living and the dead (Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazereth: Holy Week, end of Chapter 2).

This is what eschatology is about. Unfortunately, we have spun it onto its head. It is not about our rescue. Not about the destruction of evil men (i.e., those who didn't say the Sinner's Prayer or those who believed differently than I believed). Not even about my reunion with Jesus. It is about the consummation of the reconciliation of all things that began with Mary's fiat. It is the Kingdom of Heaven come. It is me loving my neighbor and helping the poor. It is the redemption of the cosmos. And so we say Maranatha! but we mean it differently. We mean it credally - "The Lord has come!" and we mean it longingly, "O Lord, come!" But even as we long for his coming we do not mean simply that time when he returns. We mean it in the context of the Lord's Prayer - of getting heaven into this world and getting heaven into my own heart. The Lord is near.

So I scoff because we are not called to some kind of spiritual meteorology. "Why are you looking at the sky?" said the angels at the Ascension. And then they offer an eschatological statement for the purpose of its robust and joyous implication: "Get to work!"

In this sense, the urgency of evangelization in the apostolic era was predicated not so much on the necessity for each individual to acquire knowledge of the Gospel in order to attain salvation, but rather on this grand conception of history: if the world was to arrive at its destiny, the Gospel had to be brought to all nations (Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazereth: Holy Week, Chap 2).

God loves Harold Camping and those who follow him. He loves us. And he says to us: Go and love others as I love you. Working is how we wait.

perspective

2011-05-19T10:53:00.003-04:00

It was the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Fort Wayne, Indiana. My wife and I, though Evangelicals, walked into the church twenty years ago to observe a daily Mass. Holy men, wooden statues, greeted us within the narthex, nearly showing us cowards. Further in, we found only a few people in a building that swallowed them. It was quiet, somber, and dark. Lifeless.

What does it mean to be follower of Christ? What does it look like? Does the countenance of a woman matter in worship? Do we know what lies in a man's heart?

We make so many judgments.

Every morning we see ourselves from a place of mercy. The challenge for us, our mandate, is to show the same mercy, even more, toward our brothers and sisters and toward all people. To see them, as St Paul says, as better than ourselves. To see ourselves as sinners so that we might cry out for Christ's presence every moment of our lives.

I used to look at the Catholic Church (not a particular church, but the entire structure) from without it and, at my best, be saddened by all they thought they had to do to please God - what salvation meant to them. There was baptism and all the other sacraments, Mass and so many other things that, left undone, they thought would incur God's wrath. Perspective is so important. We are constantly in danger of misreading the other. It's all too natural. Now as a Catholic I sometimes wince even still, five years later, at the obligations laid upon me. And when I do so it is because I have lost perspective and forgotten that the Church is my Mother. Her goal is to nurture and nourish our sanctity, to draw us to Christ and drag us when necessary. She says that this or that obligation or precept is important for us if we want to pursue holiness, if we want to become like God, if we want to be clean. Here, she says, are graces - food that costs no money, wine that is free - come and be satisfied. Open wide your mouth, she says, and I will place God in it.

Nowadays I look back at Evangelicalism, and I see there the other I once saw in the face of Catholicism. I see the morality, the obligations, that each little community imposes on itself, the unwritten but real codes: Be like this. Listen to this music. Eat this. Don't drink that. Fellowship here. KJV only. Anything but KJV. Read your Bibles. Do not do all these terrible things. Pretend as if you do not want to do all these terrible things. Smile. Clap your hands. Believe this and that. Here is the list of what it means to be Christian - to be part of this community. And I remember that they too need mercy and grace, that they are supplicants before God's throne just as I am. They are my brothers and sisters. It is true that they are sinners, every one of them. But they are better than me.

I, well, I am broken. I court death. I am in need of constant care, placed in the inn by my Brother - that one good, true Neighbor - to be cared for by the innkeepers, to be healed by the sweet oil and wine that is kept there. This is why I am Catholic.

chariots of fire

2011-05-16T10:48:00.000-04:00

I watched Chariots of Fire over the weekend for the umpteenth time. Though I disagree with him, Liddell's resolve to honor God is admirable. It fascinates me how God responds to Liddell's, "I won't run on the Sabbath." Liddell is very strict in setting apart the "Sabbath" as holy. And while I believe the Lord's Day ought to be set aside for liturgy, rest, and family, I don't think one has to be as absolute about one's inactivity (i.e., one's participation in sports or work) as Liddell was. So it is my opinion that God's and Liddell's view of the Lord's Day are not entirely the same. Assume with me for a minute that I am correct. Even so, God honors Liddell. And this is how God is, isn't it? He honors what we have to give - whether it is a small thing, seemingly insignificant, misguided, or even wrong. We can only give what we are able to give.

And he is goodness and mercy to us.

My Grandmother, On Her 90th Birthday

2011-05-06T17:46:00.002-04:00

Red Eggs and Resurrection

2011-04-25T10:21:00.000-04:00

The sacred story varies, but I have grown to love it and so I share it with you:

It is said that some years after the Resurrection, Mary Magdalene was carrying a basketful of eggs into Jerusalem. She met up with Governor Tiberius, who followed Pontius Pilate. She proclaimed the good news of Christ's resurrection to Tiberius, who rejected it saying, "Christ has no more risen than those eggs are red." Immediately the eggs turned red. "Christ is risen (Christos Anesti)," she said, holding out a red egg. Tiberius said, "Truly he is risen (Alithos Anesti)."

And such is the greeting of the Eastern Church throughout the 40 days of Easter: Christos Anesti!

Make some red eggs today and remember.

Holy Triduum

2011-04-21T08:52:00.001-04:00

Holy week is upon us. It's the rush of life. It is holy activity. Tonight begins Holy Triduum - Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday. I am reading the OT reading tonight (Ex 12.1-8, 11-14), Sophie is having her feet washed (token feet), and Avery is participating in the offertory procession. Tomorrow at 3:00 is the Good Friday liturgy - where we venerate the Cross (for Evangelicals, think Chris Tomlin's "Mighty Is the Power of the Cross"). Then Saturday night is Easter vigil, which begins at dusk. And, of course, Sunday is Easter - the Eighth Day of Creation, New Creation, Resurrection. (Here's a good article describing the Three Days (triduum) if you need a primer or refresher.) We may not all make it to Holy Saturday's Easter Vigil Mass, but I would like to get there if possible. It's a standing-room-only kind of Mass and can take two or three hours. Powerful hard with babies.

And while every Sunday is a little Easter where we celebrate the Paschal Mystery, this is a sanctified time where we are re-presented the joy and love and hope and life given us - shown again what is always ours. Night has passed, behold the dawn! Blessed be God forever!

Life. Today.

2011-03-24T09:17:00.016-04:00

It is a season of penance, when dead things are called to life and redbuds drape themselves in purple. Jack and Cate play outside, running back and forth across our dirt driveway. Their laughter trips over red lava stones, heralding life.

Life does not arrive when the kids are grown and I have time to do as I please - writing, working, concerned with adult matters instead of dirty pants and hungry tummies - life is now. Today. Life is not postponed because of my kids, not interrupted. It is propagated through them. Propagated in me. Propagated in the world they touch. They are joyfully, wildly alive. And while their life, untamed and freckled, often requires all of mine, I would not wish for any other. And they run and play and fight and whine, catching me up. And I, though often tired and discontent, bud.

Take Up Your Cross. No, Mine.

2011-02-11T09:22:00.006-05:00

Too often, we elevate the importance of the work God has called us to. So we are called to do this or that work and we believe it the apex of Christian life, of incarnational or iconic living. Our apostolate always seems greater than another's, our spiritual emphases and works of mercy a clearer path to God. This, of course, is untrue generally, though it may be true specifically. That you are called to have a dozen children may be necessary for your salvation. Or that you become a monk. Or that you work as a missionary or a priest or a homemaker. Now all these are good, and we may, to a greater or lesser extent, be expected to be involved in a variety of these callings - though in different functions. But my service is different than your service. It ought to be. If I push hard enough, my calling becomes bent from its original shape and no longer remains in service to Christ and his Church. To borrow St Paul's metaphor, the Body becomes grossly disfigured as the hand becomes everything. And then my life leans fully into egoism and autonomy, and, sometimes, potentially, heresy. Of course, this does not mean we cease to take up our cross, but rather that we do not demand our neighbor take it up as well - or think that if he doesn't, he does not serve God as he ought or as well as we do. Do not judge him, he has his own cross to bear.

Before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was asked in an interview, "How many paths are there to God?" And Cardinal Ratzinger answered, "As many as there are people."

(Image taken from sacredartpilgrim.com)

Are We Poor?

2011-02-10T08:17:00.005-05:00

"Are we poor?" says my son, says my daughter, says my heart.

And I think of the man on the street and the ladies who live across from us in the duplexes. I think of so many whose first chore of the day is to walk to a well or a river for water. And for water that isn't even clean. I think of them after taking a hot shower in the middle of winter. I think of them while sipping at my coffee. "No," I say. "We are not poor." And the car breaks again and the floor rots under us. The bath tub is useless and our water pipes hold together only stubbornly. This house is at odds with itself.

"Are we poor?" they say.

I say, "It depends what you mean by 'poor.' " It seems obvious to them what they mean: They cannot have the new pair of shoes they want, or that video game, or clothes that they do not have to share. It seems obvious when they go to bed, stacked like cordwood. Or when the weather constrains them to indoors, and their parents grow impatient at their play (it is so loud). It seems obvious. But still they ask.

"Look around you," I say. "You have a big family that loves you, that is and always will be together. Who, when I take just half of you out to the store, people ask whether you are all mine. You are rich where richness counts."

"Are we poor?" they say. And I think of my anger and my covetousness. I think of my despondency and impatience. I think of how I hoard what I do have, failing to give to those who do not. And I say, "I am poor."

Outside, overnight, it has snowed. It is a Carolina snow. And the ground, pizzelle-like, reminds me of holidays and weddings. We are not poor, children. We are not.

Baptism / Epiphany

2011-01-20T17:55:00.002-05:00

"A Russian Orthodox Christian crosses himself in 9-degree weather as he emerges from a cross-shaped ice hole in a traditional Epiphany celebration in Moscow."

Beautiful.

Pic from www.seattlepi.com

The Sun Does Not Hide Itself

2011-01-17T12:13:00.004-05:00

"God is good, without passions and unchangeable. One who understands that it is sound and true to affirm that God does not change might very well ask: 'how, then, is it possible to speak of God as rejoicing over those who are good, becoming merciful to those who know Him and, on the other hand, shunning the wicked and being angry with sinners.' We must reply to this, that God neither rejoices nor grows angry, because to rejoice and to be angered are passions. Nor is God won over by gifts from those who know Him, for that would mean that He is moved by pleasure. It is not possible for the Godhead to have the sensation of pleasure or displeasure from the condition of humans, God is good, and He bestows only blessings, and never causes harm, but remains always the same. If we humans, however, remain good by means of resembling Him, we are united to Him, but if we become evil by losing our resemblance to God, we are separated from Him. By living in a holy manner, we unite ourselves to God; by becoming evil, however, we become at enmity with Him. It is not that He arbitrarily becomes angry with us, but that our sins prevent God from shining within us, and expose us to the demons who make us suffer. If through prayer and acts of compassionate love, we gain freedom from our sins, this does not mean that we have won God over and made Him change, but rather that by means of our actions and turning to God, we have been healed of our wickedness, and returned to the enjoyment of God's goodness. To say that God turns away from the sinful is like saying that the sun hides itself from the blind" (St Anthony the Great, Cap. 150).

Cap'n's Log

2011-01-15T13:58:00.002-05:00

I'm currently reading two books. The first is Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man, by Henri de Lubac, and the second is Why Evolution Is True, by Jerry A. Coyne. Both books are quite good. I can't read but a few pages at a time of Lebac, who constantly knocks me on my metaphorical butt with his thoughts on the Church and unity. Unity is what brought me into the Church, but it has been a while since I've actually thought much about it as it relates to life in the Church, unfortunately, and it's been a wonderful reminder. (Thank you, Fred, for the suggestion.)

The second book is about evolution, which you may have deduced from its title. It's actually quite good, if you like learning about evolution, but the author does make the mistake (in my opinion) of sometimes pushing his science into his metaphysics. But maybe he backs off later in the book. We'll see.

We had the entire week off, due to the snow and ice. Monday is MLK Jr. Day which gives us a grand total of 10 days. A little ice age, or at least a secondary Christmas break. Which means, likely, that we will get very little of our spring break. C'est la vie. That's what happens, and how it happens, in the South.

Anna turns 10 on Monday. What a beautiful girl. Looking forward to having the day off with the family. Because, you know, we haven't had much time together lately.

Snow Days

2011-01-11T15:38:00.003-05:00

This is our second day off school here in North Carolina. We had freezing rain last night, though fortunately with no power outage or broken limbs through the roof of the house. The kids will be off Wednesday as well, and, at best, we'll have a two-hour delay on Thursday. Though with the temperatures they're forecasting, my guess is that it will be Friday before any of them see the inside of their school again. Laura has been off too, of course, though with her teaching in a different county what is called off and what is not usually is somewhat of a nail-biter. When she has to be at school and the kids are off, well, that's just not even funny. I get enough of that every summer.

I need to write here more often, but have gotten away from it and have spent more time with small posts via Facebook. But FB doesn't allow one to really write - and no one there really wants to read anything, so I'd like to breathe some life back into this little blog. Though it is hard to get the time to write. After two months, my upstairs computer has come back to life - for some odd reason. Raised from the ashes. I don't know how long she'll last, but I hope it's a long while. I love this old Mac.

Advent's Quiet

2010-12-13T08:40:00.004-05:00

Faith Formation (CCD) was quite nice yesterday. We were decorating Christmas boxes (filled with notes of what we were and would be giving to Christ this season) for an Advent presentation next weekend. And while we decorated, we talked about whatever came up. We talked about God and science, about what it meant to be Catholic and Christian and how to handle others not believing we believe. The subject matter went wherever the kids took it, and it was a beautiful little conversation. Some expressed how they wished our parish had a youth program and that some were involved in Protestant youth groups because of our lack. It was a good class.

Youth need times like these to try to find answers to questions they have or about which they are curious. Something less formal. I try to incorporate some of this in every class, but other lessons must be gotten through as well.

How do we properly catechize our youth when our catechetical programs end just as our children are getting to be of the age to fall in love with their God? Some of the push back I've received is that some suppose none would show up when they didn't have something like Confirmation to "hold over" them (which is another problem in and of itself). But while we would love 100% attendance, it would be meaningful for those who need to be there to be there. And other church groups have more than proven the possibilities and merits of such programs. Catechesis - learning - doesn't end when we're 14, but some of our 14-year-olds don't know that because our very program seems to suggest otherwise. You don't graduate from walking with the Spirit and growing in grace. And sometimes you just need to know that others are present when you need them.

Go to Mass or Go to Hell

2010-12-10T09:00:00.004-05:00

This week we had a holy day of obligation in the Catholic Church: the feast of the Immaculate Conception. A holy day requires those of us who are Catholic to attend Mass/Liturgy if possible. The penalty for not attending is, well, hell.

Sort of. I mean we are given the sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession to prevent such an undesirable arrangement, but missing for no good reason is considered a grave/mortal sin. I'm not a big fan of grave sin, or at least not the definition of it. It makes our spirituality too much an exercise in accounting. Now I understand and appreciate its intention. I understand how the Church tries to instruct and nurture us as she is, our mother. I understand that the Church is pointing to the Liturgy as an encounter with Christ - the encounter with Christ. I understand that the Church is saying that it is a great good, and that your missing (for no good reason) reveals some disorder in your heart. And I agree. But most Catholics come away from the doctrine with the idea - feel this way even if they don't intellectually view it as such - that if you commit a grave sin, and then get hit by a train, you go to hell.

This is shocking, for some. Legalistic for others. For myself, I'd rather be treated as an adult than a child. Obligating my presence on pains of hell helps no one. Labeling something such as this as grave sin (with eternal consequences) obliterates our ability to understand the Fatherhood of God. It strips away faithfulness and friendship and abiding in Christ, and he in us, and exchanges it for a legal system, juridical. Sometimes it is better to understand sin as a bent rather than an individual act. It can be better seen, often, as a revelation of the heart or a way of being, and not simply a slip or fall. When I sin gravely, and I do, it is a sign of my weakness and of my need. I have never not desired reconciliation with God (thanks be to God!) - and this is his grace working in me. But he is faithful even when we are faithless, because, as the Scriptures say, he cannot deny himself.

I'm not saying that one should get a pass on murder if it's a one-time kind of thing. But skipping one Mass is not an objective evil (other than, possibly, because of one's disobedience to the Church). How could it be since Mass was not always required? It is, however, an intrinsic good and we should be exhorted to make ourselves present to God, to receive him in Word and in Mystery/Sacrament. Missing Mass regularly is your exclusion of yourself from God. (Of course, I'm speaking to Catholics here.) This is death, or mortal/grave sin.

We need to better understand our sin and how it affects us. I don't think defining missing Mass as a grave sin, as the Church does - with its consequences - to be particularly helpful. Stripping away the "on pains of hell" can be helpful, as it helps me better understand sin in the midst of our disordered culture. The instruction is important; the call to conversion is important.

God is love. Does his being love strip away from me the need for the sacrament of Reconciliation? Hardly. God is life. I can and do separate myself from him, but the fact that I present myself before him for Reconciliation shows his grace working in me. His presence is constant, immediate - there is never a time that I need to get his attention. He calls and we must answer, because there is no where else to go. No better place. God is not angry with us. But sometimes we become angry with him. Sometimes we are faithless. This does not change God, but it does change us. And this is why Reconciliation/Confession is so important. Because it heals our infirmities.

Push back if you would. I understand my disagreement is problematic, but I think the Church can do better. What do you think? What am I misunderstanding?

Gulo Gulo

2010-11-15T09:05:00.013-05:00

I watched PBS's Nature last night. The program was "Wolverine: Chasing the Phantom." And among the many amazing things they said concerning this marvelous creature was its Latin name: Gulo gulo. The name means "glutton glutton." And I've been thinking about gluttony since and it seems to me right that the Desert Fathers thought of it as the heart of our sin - the first sin is a sin of gluttony and all sin flows forth from it. (Pride, C.S. Lewis - I hear you.) This is why fasting is of such paramount importance to the Fathers and the Orthodox even still. Fasting undoes the first sin. Now, I am not real big on fasting. (Whereas feasting is spirituality I can dig in to.)I wrestle with my gluttony, my avarice toward all things - consumption, gluttony, seems to be the prize of American culture and any limit imposed on it is flatly rejected (though more precisely any limit imposed from without rather than freely taken on by oneself). There is no true freedom in accumulation - more for the sake of more. (See Jonathan Franzen's Freedom.) My dog is a picture of my heart. She is a voracious, out-of-control scavenger. At times, ratlike. My cats are also this way. Especially the semi-feral cat. You have to pull Francis out of his food just to finish pouring it. There is no contentment, no rest. So it is with our hearts. This is why it is so important to share, to give alms. To say No to self in order to say Yes to my neighbor. To suppress the gulo gulo in each of us.

This is also part of the beauty and hardship of living generously in a large family, I might add. Twelve Popsicles mean two apiece. Maybe. Probably not, though, because Daddy might give some out to the little ones at home while the bigger ones are learning about landforms. And then there aren't enough Popsicles for everyone. And if there aren't enough for everyone, then nobody gets one. It's hard. But it is also blessing. It helps us form godliness and love within us. And it's hard.

It is like this in our world. We are a large family, and we must share. Because so many are without clean water and food. So many are dying while we become Mayors of our favorite restaurants. While we become fat. While we hoard and fill our barns. And build bigger barns. May God have mercy on us; that we might draw near to him, who pours himself out freely and unreservedly to all.

Oh, Crappiness!

2010-11-09T23:48:00.004-05:00

I was awakened by a migraine this morning. It is a hard way to greet a new day. I took my meds, went back to bed for a few minutes rather than walking, and woke later with the same heaviness. Exhausting me. It fluctuated throughout the day, climaxing around 6:30-8:00 p.m. So I buried myself in my dark bedroom, heel pressed to my temple (or temple pressed into my folded pillow), and rocked back and forth praying variations of the Jesus Prayer over and over. Eventually I fell asleep and woke again around 11:15 to take some ibuprofen and try to do some needed paperwork. It's only a quiet ache at the moment, for which I'm grateful. My headaches are debilitating. I really hate them. And while I try to "offer up the pain," the offering of them never lessens the pain - and you'd think it ought to. The pain reveals me as I am, which is quite ugly if I do say so myself. No gentle saint hidden beneath my well-composed mask. Just an angry, selfish man.

My dryer broke the day before yesterday. I called the repairman, but it might be a day or two before it's fixed (or replaced) and the laundry factory begins again its sluggish business. In my estimation, a rather bad time for it to blow. Already financially tight and unable to visit my family over the holidays, this situation doesn't help that one.

I'm waiting for other shoes to drop to concretize my helplessness, my neediness, my desperation. To buckle me onto my knees, felling me. Because in the midst of all the crap in the fan, the truth and goodness of God stands. I may not be standing in that truth right now; I may be staring at it from across the road. But it's right there. Like the nose on my face. Like the pain in my cranium. Like the constancy of need, of demand, in a house full of children. I close myself to it because the "I" makes it all so unbearable. If I could lose It, the in-rush of joy would be refreshing sweet. I am full too much of me.

Oh, Happiness!

2010-10-21T12:20:00.001-04:00

One of my first-favorite passages of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov comes at the end of Part 1. I love the joy and peace of it:

"... he laughed again ... softly and happily. He slowly put the note into the little envelope, crossed himself, and lay down. The confusion in his soul suddenly passed. 'Lord, have mercy on them all today, unhappy and stormy as they are, preserve and guide them. All ways are yours: save them according to your ways. You are love, you will send joy to all!' Alyosha murmured, crossing himself and falling into a serene sleep."

I was reminded of this passage as I listened to David Crowder* Band's "Oh, Happiness!" - a similar strain of meaning echoes in the lyrics, "Oh, happiness! There's grace enough for us and the whole human race."

Yesterday was one of those rare days where I spent the good part of it in joy. Peace and joy. Diapers, dishes, sweeping, feeding the baby - it was all joy, because God is. And he is love. I was perfectly at peace yesterday morning - I knew myself to be the worst of sinners and yet would have been happy in hell if I could retain one thing, simply knowing that God, who is love, was and is and will be forever. Nothing was needed beyond that knowing. I could rest there.

I am not a good man. But Glory to Jesus Christ! for God is good, and the lover of mankind.

Today is another day. Pray for me.

With a Wrathful Soul

2010-10-09T08:37:00.005-04:00

There is only love, and when love fails, life fails.

O my Jesus, forgive us our sins. Save us from the fires of hell [that rage in our hearts, that in our weakness we feed]. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy.

I want to repost a quote from Dostoevsky simply because I need to be reminded of it this morning and every morning:

"See, here you have passed by a small child, passed by in anger, with a foul word, with a wrathful soul; you perhaps did not notice the child, but he saw you, and your unsightly and impious image has remained in his defenseless heart. You did not know it, but you may thereby have planted a bad seed in him, and it may grow, and all because you did not restrain yourself before the child, because you did not nurture in yourself a heedful, active love. Brothers, love is a teacher, but one must know how to acquire it, for it is difficult to acquire, it is dearly bought, by long work over a long time, for one ought to love not for a chance moment but for all time. Anyone, even a wicked man, can love by chance."
(Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002. 319.)

Pray for Us, Padre Pio

2010-09-23T09:58:00.003-04:00

Today is the feast day of St Pio of Pietrelcina. Padre Pio is significant to me mostly because of our 6-month-old son, Noah. During his birth my wife's hands had been pierced multiple times as different nurses unsuccessfully tried to draw blood. When the room was empty, she lifted her bandaged hands and said she felt like Padre Pio, who bore the stigmata of our Lord. I left that night from the hospital and stopped for a cheese steak. I sat down and waited for my late supper and looked up at the wall to my right and was somewhat surprised to see a picture of Padre Pio, the only religious picture on the wall. So I began calling Baby Noah "Pio" on occasion, as I felt that Padre Pio was near us that night, praying for us.

Today is the first full day of Autumn. It is the feast day of St Pio of Pietrelcina. Coincidentally, Noah was born on the first day of Spring, six months ago on March 20. Noah's half birthday is Sept 20, which is the day Padre Pio received permanently the marks of Christ upon his body.

What does it all mean? To some, talk of saints is silliness and superstition. "Those who are dead," they might say, "are dead; they know nothing of us or our lives." Or they believe that prayers to the saints are undeserved, unnecessary and take away from Christ - like clouds before the sun. And I understand that. But for others of us, the saints are very real and present in our lives - indeed, part of what the "I believe ... in the communion of saints" means. They pray for us, and we ask for their prayers - not in opposition to Christ, not robbing anything from Christ, but because of Christ (who, as St Athanasius says, became man that we might, by God's grace, become God [in his energies, not his nature]). God does not dwell alone. God is not selfish. He does not hoard himself. He gives himself. He does not demand our worship. But he draws us into communion with him, into his very life. Pours himself out for us. And when we are drawn into him, reconciled to him - who is love - we adore him because there is nothing else to do. And when we adore him, we worship him with a great company. The glory of the saints is Christ, and their glory magnifies the glory of Christ - it shows forth God's glory.

We have communion with Padre Pio - a connection, to put it in more sterile terms. He and Noah are brothers. But not simply because of the correspondences of certain milestones in their lives, but because they are in Christ. Padre Pio is our brother. And he loves my son and points him to Christ. He walks before and beside him - always and only gesturing to Christ.

My words are insufficient and poor. So I will simply ask today for the prayers of Padre Pio, remembering his holiness, his compassion, his love and his life. Happy feast day!

Crazy Love and a Quiet Life

2010-09-09T01:21:00.004-04:00

I recently read Francis Chan's Crazy Love. I'm not a big fan of the book, if you care. Sometimes we get caught up in wanting to live an extraordinary life for Christ - to do something extraordinary for God - but at the heart of it, it is little more than vainglory. Or, sometimes our desire to "do something great for God" is little more than our desire to be someone great.

St John the Forerunner says, "He must increase and I must decrease."

Jesus says, "Love your neighbor as yourself," "love as I have loved you," and "love your enemies."

St Paul says, "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands."

Mother Teresa says something like, "We can not do great things. We can only do little things with great love."

Maybe God is calling you to Africa or India - so go already. But it's more likely he isn't. Strive to be less, to be no one. Love your wife. Be gentle with your children. Go to Liturgy. Pray always. Judge no one.

When we love our enemy, love the crazy fool of a pastor who wants to burn Qur'ans, love the one who wishes us harm - then we have begun to be in communion with Christ. For it is Christ who loves these.

If Wishes Were Horses

2010-09-09T01:03:00.004-04:00

My seven-year-old, Avery, said, "I wish I could bite my butt like dogs do."

.....

"I wish I was a girl but I had a boy's bottom," said Avery.

"Why?" I said, suddenly interested.

"Because," she said, "Then I wouldn't have to have a period."

Computer Woes

2010-08-24T13:28:00.001-04:00

My computer won't turn on - probably the power supply as it's been a recurring problem on this machine. The difference is that this time it's not under any warranty. I'm wondering if I should fix it for several hundred dollars or replace it. It's 5 1/2 years old. I do need a machine for freelance work. Any thoughts?

Hey, Hey, Hey

2010-08-11T13:31:00.005-04:00

I am in Week 4 of Weight Watchers. Actually, I'm not a paying customer; I'm just along for the ride with Laura (though she hardly needs it, and I desperately do). Last week wasn't a good week - Noah's godparents sent home pasta twice (pasta with spaghetti sauce - she puts Italian sausages in her spaghetti sauce, mind you - and another night shrimp fettuccine Alfredo). But in spite of it, I've still lost 13 pounds in the first three weeks. I hope to do better this week, but I find I'm running headlong into my appetite.

Appetite is a bad thought. I don't have to eat as I do because I'm hungry. The reasons I eat as I do have nothing to do with my physical need or even the comfort of a spoiled stomach. Gluttony is a spiritual problem: It's finding solace in a means for communion with God, rather than in communion with God. And even the skinnies among us share in it. You don't have to look like me to struggle with gluttony. Saint John Climacus says,

"In our self-criticism we must refer particularly to the stomach, and indeed I wonder if anyone breaks free of this mistress before he dies.
Gluttony is hypocrisy of the stomach. Filled, it moans about scarcity; stuffed, and crammed, it wails about its hunger. ... Gluttony has a deceptive appearance: it eats moderately but wants to gobble everything at the same time. A stuffed belly produces fornication, while a mortified stomach leads to purity. The man who pets a lion may tame it, but the man who coddles the body makes it ravenous.
- The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 14, On Gluttony (my emphases)

And Saint Isaac of Syria says, "It is just as shameful for lovers of the flesh and the belly to search out spiritual things as it is for a harlot to discourse on chastity." This is what I love about the Church Fathers. When you need a good punch in the gut, they're happy to oblige. And most of us need the breath knocked out of us, every now and then, for our salvation. The added blessing of the Church Fathers is that it feels less personal when the guy's been dead for a thousand years. But back to the quote. Here I am, I write on spiritual disciplines, on ascesis, and I am a catechist at my parish and then Saint Isaac of Syria comes along and says that I'm no better than a harlot giving discourses on chastity. So where does that leave me? It makes me feel like saying, I can't do this - I'm a hypocrite. But that's not the answer - I don't think. The better answer, perhaps, is to recognize my hypocrisy, the reality of my situation - I am unqualified, but in my weakness, perhaps the Holy Spirit can reach someone.

Meanwhile I'm going forward with this business of taming my stomach and trying to squeeze more life out of my lifetime. I want to be an old man, surrounded by my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I don't want to swing to the other extreme, into a cult of the body, but I do want to take my appetite by the horns and find peace through the struggle.

Pray for me.

(The photo is from Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives.)

Quiet and Humble

2010-08-06T14:05:00.006-04:00

If you haven't heard, Anne Rice has left Christianity ... but not Christ, she says. I'm a little upset about her announcement. Not so much because of her decision, but because of the reasons she gives for her decision. She has been wounded by us. (Lord, have mercy.) But I am rooting for her, and for others like her. I am rooting for people like Christopher Hitchens who is suffering with esophageal cancer. I feel kinship with them; I have an affection for them. I see Christ in them.

Anne Rice's story is important not because she's a bestselling novelist. Her story is important because it's been told before, and it's been told by Christ. But we clap our hands over our ears and heap our disregard onto a wounded sister's shoulders. Anne Rice left the Church because you and I fail to love our neighbor. It's that simple. You and I make the faith about issues and politics and a world of things other than Christ. She left because you and I fail to be quiet and humble. When someone doesn't share our views - whether it's about sexuality, abortion, politics, or liturgy - we bristle and spit, "You aren't Catholic if you ..." or "You cannot follow Christ and ..." This is not love, but judgment. There is a place for those who are spiritual to come along and exhort, encourage, and correct. But it is not my place. It is not yours.

Nothing animates the pious like issues: not God, not Church, not loving the poor and marginalized - nothing. A fight invigorates us. But all our "righteousness" will never change the desires of someone who is homosexual. We cannot raise one hand to protect the unborn and choke our brown neighbor with the other. We will never convince anyone of the love of Christ with our anger and judgment. We are called to be martyrs for Christ. To die. And by our love to be the sacrament of God to our world.

If anyone will kill the Church, the pious will.

God is love. He is full of mercy. We must love others because God loves them. (If we are in communion with God, then we will love whom he loves.) We must be quiet and, like a child, humble. We must pray always. As for Anne Rice, let me close with a quote I recently read: "We believe ... that Christ is present in any seeker after truth. Simone Weil has said that though a person may run as fast as he can away from Christ, if it is toward what he considers true, he runs in fact straight into the arms of Christ" (from For the Life of the World, by Alexander Schmemann).

Life Is Heaven

2010-08-05T23:48:00.001-04:00

I cried suddenly, speaking straight from my heart, "look around you at the gifts of God, the clear sky, the pure air, the tender grass, the birds; nature is beautiful and sinless, and we, only we, are sinful and foolish, and we don’t understand that life is heaven, for we have only to understand that and it will at once be fulfilled in all its beauty, we shall embrace each other and weep."

- Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

iPhones Make Hypocrisy Fun

2010-07-28T17:21:00.003-04:00

I write articles about spiritual disciplines. And you really can't do so without looking at the lives of the early fathers and mothers in the Church, whose lives help explain Christ's example of what living a disciplined life looks like. So in some ways I'm like a sports writer who wants to be like the athletes he so admires. Sometimes armchair ascesis is all I can muster. I'll be honest with you, it's difficult with little kids to have a daily rule of prayer. For instance. But ultimately the interruptions of kids are only another excuse.

That's a long lead in, with plenty of built-in excuses for my own weaknesses. Here's the story: I have written recently about Poverty and how there are some things I cannot justify having in my life that others have every right to own. The one thing I chose as an example of this was the iPhone. (O, sweet iPhone. How I've longed to hold thee in my chubby palms.) This is a device for whose expense I can find no justification (Ugh!) when there are people in need around me. Some people are helped mightily by these super smart phones, but my life is lived out in a different, slower part of life's stream. And then this summer, after I'd written this article using the iPhone as an example of living our lives in voluntary poverty for the good of others, my wife starts talking about a new phone. Hers is old. Spotty at best. Funky. And she is considering an iPhone. Ugh. Ugh. Now I don't mind her having one. It's a little expensive, but this summer we had the money and she, as I said, needed a phone. But I had to deal with my technolust for all things Apple, all things Jobian. I'd already been drooling over iPads, out of which I felt I could squeeze quite a bit of productivity, but had reconciled myself to not having one. I don't need one. And while visiting my family in Michigan, my brother tells me his school gave him one for free because he "volunteered" for something during a teacher meeting. Free.

iCovet.

Later my wife decides she's getting the iPhone. I say, "Don't get me one. I don't need it. I don't want it." But you know what she does? She forgoes the new iPhone 4G and, for the same price, gets two iPhone 3GS. -es. Now a better man, would have resisted and said No - or sent it back - but I am not a better man. So now I am the conflicted owner of an iPhone. I'm actually feeling my hypocrisy, the same hypocrisy that I regularly hide from myself fairly decently. I could have told my wife No, but I didn't. She said it wouldn't be any fun having one if I didn't have one too. And I have never been good at resisting her feminine wiles.

So it's her fault, dammit. The woman You gave me, she gave me the Apple.

iBite.

C'est la vie. It's a sweet little device, regardless. You can't fault the woman for that.

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga (1568-1591)

2010-06-21T06:42:00.001-04:00

I am a crooked piece of iron, and am come into religion to be made straight by the hammer of mortification and penance.

Anne Rice, Called Out of Darkness

2010-06-20T18:01:00.003-04:00

I just finished Anne Rice's Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession. Let me tell you, I liked it. Of course, I like Anne Rice's writing. It's not all perfect, but some of it is brilliant. This is a good book. She was raised uber-Catholic (daily Mass, Tuesday night novenas, etc.) and yet left the Catholic Church and Christ to become an atheist for nearly forty years. And then she was gently called home by Christ. It's a great little autobiography.

She says some interesting things at the conclusion of her book. One of the things she brings up is the idea of gender and sexuality in the Catholic Church. She is at odds with the teaching of the Church here, and yet she's very quiet about it and, it seems to me, very humble about it. She doesn't demand the Church change anything, but suggests that perhaps our view of gender and sexuality needs to be informed by science much like our views of evolution or heliocentrism have been. Now to understand Anne, gender plays a huge role in who she is as a person and how she sees herself throughout the book (throughout her life). For years she never thought of herself as a girl, but simply as a person. Anne also has a son who is gay. So these ideas of gender and sexuality are important to her personally. But she's honest with it and she sincerely communicates, in spite of where she wishes the Church would change, her love for both Christ and Church. It's an altogether interesting little mix.

(On a related note, Avery was talking to me yesterday and said she was going to be a priest when she grew up. I explained to her that it wasn't possible, and her eyes fell and she told me it wasn't fair.)

This view of Anne's might be something offensive for some of you, but I don't think it ought to be. There are issues I have with Church teachings: I think after a half dozen children or so an occasional *ahem* condom shouldn't be considered grave sin in a financially challenged home. Yet I still do my best to be obedient and submit myself to the teaching of the Church. I may never completely understand why the Church teaches some things. My view of hell leans toward Orthodoxy, but I don't make an issue of it. And I like my Nicene Creed without the filioque, but I still happily pray the Creed with it when I worship with my brothers and sisters. These are areas of tension for me with our Church. But she is the Church. And I love her. And I want nothing but her. This is the same feeling I get from Anne Rice in her book with her "objections." It's worth the read.

.....

And Happy Father's Day to you dads out there. To my dad especially (I love you so much). And to all our priests. And, of course, to our Father, God.

The Weekly News, v. ?

2010-06-16T17:05:00.000-04:00

Avery has tubes in her ears. I can't see the little blighters, but my eyes aren't what they used to be and I haven't really bothered looking. The surgery went smoothly and so far all seems well. She's complaining of all the loud noises. That seems to me good news. It does get terribly noisy with seven children in a small house now and again. Especially when it's too hot to play outside. Summers, sometimes, here are like a month of rainy days without rain slickers. Stuck inside the house, like firecrackers in clenched fists.

About one week left now until Everyday Is Saturday begins. I'm stoked. If teachers got paid well, teaching would totally rock. Or at least summers would. This summer I'm going to try to re-establish a couple of good disciplines I've gotten away from: daily writing, daily walking. I also want to finally teach Will how to ride a bike (if it's not too hot, otherwise he's on his own). And tie his shoes. And get Jack Henry potty trained. And read a few dozen books. I would like to get up to Michigan to see my family. It's been a while. I have two children now that half of my family has never even met. It would be nice to remedy the situation.

Colbert, On Religions

2010-06-16T13:05:00.001-04:00

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

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Freedom and Discipline

2010-06-11T12:01:00.000-04:00

In rejoinder to my depressing post on being tired and fat, here's a clip from Tom Howard's excellent book On Being Catholic:

It is the paradox in which obedience to rules, renunciation of various pleasures, and discipline turn out to be the very tactics by which freedom is gained. And further, it is the paradox in which this hard-won freedom turns out to be synonymous with joy and magnificence and perfection and beauty.
We may see these paradoxes at work at a thousand points. The ballet, for example: How has that ballerina achieved this supple and glorious mastery? Oh, would that my body looked like that and that I had the freedom to execute those breathtaking movements. How do they do it?
By obedience and renunciation and discipline. There is no other way. Thousands of hours, year after year, giving up this pleasure and that food, exercising in utter obscurity, placing oneself wholly under the rigorous direction of the master.
And the fruit of all that? Mastery. Control. Beauty. Perfection. And not only for the dancers themselves. The rest of us are the beneficiaries. Their prowess brings us joy. It hails us with truth in one of its modes, namely, the truth that attaches to man as body. In some sense, the form exhibited by Adam, new-made from clay, is a true form. We feel that the bodies of dancers are reminiscent of that form. The rest of us, full of potato chips and sour cream dips and nachos grande, must make shift to hobble about, wheezing and grunting, hauling our tremulous torsos and abdomens in and out of cars and up and down the stairs. Ah, would that I could move like that dancer, we mourn.
...
The paradox, of course, could be chased all through the fabric of human life. The freedom to do something is not easily won. The greater the perfection sought, the greater must be the remorselessness of our own self-abandon to the discipline that constitutes the steps up to the summit where freedom reigns in great bliss.
... Concupiscence has undone us.

Now Howard is moving into asceticism and love in this chapter titled, "Catholics and Freedom" - being schooled in Charity and the work involved, but his analogy is precise and apt for me today, especially in light of my recent foray into self-pity.

Since I am speaking of the book, I would highly recommend it. It is perhaps the best modern book written by a convert that I have so far read ("modern" so as not to compare it to such great works as St. Augustine's Confessions, or even to Chesterton's Orthodoxy) about what it means to be Catholic. There are issues that I have with parts of it, but overall it is well-written and beautiful and non-confrontational and certainly worth your time.

Tired

2010-06-04T13:19:00.004-04:00

I am tired. I have been tired for some time. In the past two weeks, Catie, whose nighttime awakenings are strictly under my governorship, has slept through the night exactly twice. Which is terrific progress. Coincidentally, I awoke each of those perfect nights with a migraine around 3:00 a.m. and was unable to go back to sleep. (Blessings from the Lord.) Last night was the second of the two nights. And I laid in bed and sat on the couch with my hand pressed against my left temple numbly muttering, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." Unfortunately, no hammer appeared mystically with which I could club myself into sweet slumber. I still have the headache and I am itching to wade out into the waist-high grass of my yard and yell, "Tired!" to my neighborhood and the universe. But it seems like such an enormous waste of energy.

.....

Today is my son Will's sixth birthday. He has one week left of Kindergarten. I love him to death.

Tonight is Avery's final practice for her first Communion and tomorrow morning she'll be dressed in white. Her bejeweled shoes arrived in the mail today.

.....

Let's be frank, I'm a fat man. And worse, somewhat hopelessly so. I wear my sin on my sleeve (and around my waist, chest, neck, buttocks and thighs). I've considered hibernating like a bear for the next three months, but then I get depressed thinking it would only be a good start. (And what if I woke up with nursing cubs?) To boot, I just saw Avatar for the first time this week and thought how wonderful it would be to be able to be that active (not to mention tall, blue and phosphorescent with a braided USB port growing out of my head). When you're fat you can't fly dragon-like creatures, you can't ride hummingbird horses, you can't walk around without a shirt, and getting the mail leaves you sweaty and breathless. Though I'm pretty good at hissing at people. I'm tired of being fat.

The World According to Jack

2010-05-31T07:51:00.006-04:00

My three-year-old, Jack, was watching me shave yesterday morning before leaving for church. Small rivulets wended their way from razor to hand to the lowest place possible, my elbow, and dripped. "What's dat?" he asked.

"That's water dripping from my elbow," I said, trying not to cut off my ear.

"No," he said. "It's milk coming from your boobies. Dat one," indicating my right nipple, "has chocolate milk and dat one has juice."

Knowledge and Communion

2010-05-29T09:10:00.005-04:00

I'm busy this weekend, finishing up some articles and trying to spend some time with family on a holiday (national) weekend. And I have to mow. And in the midst of it, busily looking forward to next week, which is one of the crazier weeks of our year. Here's the rundown: Monday is Memorial Day (of course). Sophie is turning 11 on Tuesday. Will is turning 6 on Friday. And on Saturday Avery will receive her first Holy Communion. Her final two practices for receiving the Blessed Sacrament are, drumroll please, on Sophie and Will's birthdays. So it's going to be crazy. But crazy good. I don't know yet if we'll postpone birthday celebrations and take care of it all on Saturday or shift the birthday celebrations to different dates, but it will work out. The kids enjoy having their birthdays spread out over several days anyway.

.....

There's an article/post that has been rattling around in my brain for over a week now. I'm not going to link to it here because it would be offensive to many, as it was - to some degree - to me. It's rather harsh concerning the Evangelical idea of one's necessity to having a "personal relationship with Jesus." But partly because of it I've been re-evaluating my previous notions on cultural Catholicism, religion per se and the like - on knowledge and the Faith. I'm not so sure ignorance is always such a bad thing. What does it really matter whether my children can recite the books of the Bible? On the other hand, I know that knowledge is often not a good thing. I was raised in an environment where Scriptural knowledge is power - and there's something terribly perverse and manipulative about that. There is a knowing that's good, of course, as we come to know God and be known by him, but that knowing can happen perhaps more in our homes and everyday life and even in a cultural Catholicism or in "religion" than in our ability (as we think of it) to properly exegete the Scriptures, to know the Scriptures by chapter and verse, or to even know a particular teaching is found in the Scriptures. Does it matter more that I know the arguments surrounding justification and where my church community stands on such arguments or that I am justified? Does it make a difference whether I read that I must love my enemies or that my Church teaches me to love my enemies? I'm not saying that the Scriptures have no place. Certainly not! But I am saying that we often imagine that every Christian must have a grasp of them that is unnecessary for a pipe-fitter or stay-at-home dad or mathematician, or that it is somehow not enough for a Christian to simply hear God's Word in Liturgy - even though hearing is how the early Church, which many of us so desire to emulate, received the Scriptures; hearing is how most Christians throughout history received the Scriptures. There is nothing wrong with simply hearing the Scriptures.

That being said, is it good to be able to have the Scriptures in my home, important for me to read them? I think so. But only for the purpose of seeing Christ. The Scriptures are iconic. They are not for the purpose of lording something (an idea, a doctrine, a view of science) over another believer. They are not ever for the purpose of discovering who is Christian and who is not. They can never show us something contrary to what has been faithfully passed down to us by the Church. They proclaim Christ, who shows us the Father. And the Spirit reveals it to us - not as something new or different or never-before-thought-of, which is nearly always of the devil, but as freshening as and in the humility of a summer rain. The Scriptures should never be, as they often have been to me, an ammunition depot. The Scriptures should never be a place where I am elevated above my brother or my sister. The Scriptures should never teach me anything other than to love my enemy and my neighbor. If I learn something else from them, I have mis-learned or mis-read them. The Scriptures will never teach me anything contrary to "God is love." If I have learned something other from them, I have mis-learned or mis-read them.

It is enough to find Christ in Liturgy, to participate in his life there. We hope and pray that many are given special vocations to go and do and be something extraordinary for God. To truly become saints in their vocations. But sainthood can be found in being ordinary too, thanks be to God. In quiet and simplicity. In giving alms and in praying. In fasting. In attending Liturgy. In raising children. We too must become saints, ordinary saints living in ordinary time. Sainthood is found in my vocation and not in another's. It is found in becoming nothing rather than in the desire to do something. Becoming a saint is communion with God - indeed that is salvation. It is not necessary for a saint to have memorized the Psalter or the Gospels or to be able to defend the faith. It is enough to know Christ. To know him in field and flower. To know him in Liturgy. To know him in obedience and love. To know him in the dishes that need washing and the floors that need sweeping. It is enough to know Christ.

I heard a story once, and my memory of it has faded - so forgive the errors of my recounting - of a monk who while reading the Scriptures, stopped abruptly, and closed them. He had read that he must love his enemies and refused to open the Scriptures again. When he was asked why he would not read more of the Scriptures, his response was that until he had learned to obey the Scripture he had read, it was unnecessary (and perhaps foolhardy) for him to read any more. There is something illustrative in this story for us, something that we have lost in our elevation of the importance of knowing the Scriptures.

It was St. Jerome who said, "Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ." But I do not think he meant what we think he meant, framing it as we do. Knowledge is a tool. It is not knowledge that we seek, it is communion. Knowledge serves communion. When it ceases to serve communion and life, then it becomes a wicked tool bent on wicked purposes.

On Why My Razor Will Get Me to Heaven Faster than Yours, and Other Thoughts

2010-05-27T15:33:00.004-04:00

Perhaps, economically, your girly little disposable razors come near the affordability of a Parker, but my Blessed Parker treats hair - and, consequently, my face at times - as of no consequence. It cuts through whatever you will. Heavy beard - bring it. Not a problem for my Parker. It doesn't pull my beard out or snag in it. It's as sharp as a razor, girls. And if you grow a beard as fast as a 12 year old, like me - then it might just have to pwn your face too. No extra charge. But that's just part of the package. How else are you going to learn to shave properly if there ain't nothing at stake? And my Parker, thank you very much, is completely environmentally friendly. No Deepwater-type disasters from this baby. Now might someone dig up one of my rusty razors and slice into his fingers or palm resulting in a disabled hand or, at the very least, tetanus? Absolutely, but some kids have to learn the hard way. Stop digging near my children's swingset. All I'm saying is you won't find it in a pelican's gizzard 10,000 years down the road.

.....

Avery has her first first Communion rehearsal tonight. I suppose I should shower sometime before then. And maybe shave. Avery, by the way, will be having tubes put in her ears next month. So please remember her in your prayers (if you disposable razor types even pray). She's quite unnerved by it all. She also is having problems with her throat - the pediatrician doesn't know what's wrong - says it can't be strep since she's been through two doses of amoxicillin recently (one for strep, one for scarlet fever). She's had a hard time. One tonsil has been swollen out to her uvula for at least a month. Pray to St. Blaise for her.

Speaking of Sacraments, Noah will be baptized at the end of June. Noah will be saved through water (and the Spirit) as Noah was.

39 Going On Thrifty

2010-05-25T14:32:00.002-04:00

I was at The Store That Shall Not Be Named a few weeks ago shopping for razor blade cartridges. Now since I began shaving, I have used some kind of Gillette razor, and was shopping for some cartridges for my Fusion razor. I pushed my cart and children to the proper aisle, and though I have bought razor blade cartridges before, I was shocked: Four blade cartridges in one package cost $15. And the freaky little things are locked away as if they are pot or something. So, like, I have to ask for help? That's $3.75 per cartridge! I was speechless. Why stunned this late in the game, you wonder, after spending years and countless dollars to purchase these little cartridges? I have no idea. Though I have been reading the early Fathers on voluntary Poverty. I can't picture St. John Chrysostom shelling out enough money to feed a third-world child for a month so that he could be clean-shaven. It's no wonder all the early Fathers were bearded. Buying these cartridges is almost un-Christian, I thought. Why not buy condoms while I was at it?! And then, as I was standing in the same aisle with two of my little ones piled into a cart like so much merchandise, I saw the double-edged razor blades my dad uses: Ten blades for $1.67. Of course The Store That Shall Not Be Named doesn't sell the razors, just the blades. So I found something completely frivolous to spend my $15 on and then went home and ordered a nice razor, a Parker 91R, for a little less than $30 - with 20 razor blades included. 20 cartridges for my old razor would have cost nearly $75, if I've done my math correctly.

When my Parker 91R arrived in that little Amazon box that I so love, I tossed my Gillettes. I've only used the Parker three times so far (I don't shave often as a stay-at-home Dad - it's one of the perks). I do, however, need to shave at least once a week, for the Lord's sake. While shaving today (I have to take a child to the pediatrician), in some bit of a hurry, I beat myself up good. After shaving, it looked as if a light bulb had blown up in my face. And after applying little pieces of toilet paper to my face so that I wouldn't bleed out in the sink, my face looked like that little bear's ass on those Charmin commercials. (Yes, right now my face looks like the butt of a bear who wipes with cheap toilet paper.)

Yet while I nearly took off my nose today, all I could think about was the money I was saving. How sweet is that? And wouldn't God be pleased? It shouldn't take more than a couple of years to get used to this, well, weapon. And around that same time I might even be ready to open the second package of blades that came with the razor. Man, I am such a good Christian.

Pointing

2010-05-19T12:21:00.003-04:00

I didn't want you to miss a post by Fr. Stephen Freeman that I'm sharing in my sidebar. It's titled, "The Struggle for True Communion." Some of my family and friends have in the past expressed to me their frustration concerning why they can't or shouldn't receive Holy Communion when visiting a Catholic or Orthodox Church. I understand their frustration, especially given the openness of Communion in many Protestant church communities today. It is not because they have no communion with Christ. It is not because we are better Christians than they, or holier. I regret that I cannot share in Holy Communion with Fr. Stephen, who is Orthodox, or with my family, who remain Protestant. But his post, in my estimation, says well why we are sometimes told "No."

Another Rundown

2010-05-13T13:22:00.002-04:00

Life with a new baby can take some time getting used to. This week has been one of those transitions in our family as my wife headed back to work and I was home with three little ones. All of whom are in diapers. Now the diaper changing isn't so bad. Honestly. Well, some diapers are. Some I dream of mounting on my office wall, shellacked, to show off to visitors:"Now let me tell you the story about this one over here - flailing heels, the baby screaming ... crap everywhere." But for the most part the diaper changing is the least of a lonely stay-at-home parent's worries. It's everything else. It's being consumed by the needs of others. And while this is a good - being saved/deified through childbirth - it is, by definition, very difficult.

With Noah's entrance into our daily life, something strange happened in my brain. For weeks, every time I looked at him, I thought "Robert" instead of "Noah." Now we have never had any intention of naming a boy Robert - it was pure brain flatulence. But it was the strangest thing and took me nearly a month to get over. I also constantly referred to him as a her, which can probably be understood as we also just had a girl last January. He is sweet, however, even though he cries much of the time. Long story short, I'm getting older. It's really quite a miracle that I can still make babies. By the time Noah is my age, I will probably be dead. But I hope not.

By the way, we have officially become a large family. So our new 12-passenger van silently proclaims us. Yes, we are weird. Yes, we are different. People wonder at the size of our family when just half of us go somewhere. Our carbon footprint is bigger than yours. Officially, the oil SNAFU in the Gulf is our fault, our responsibility, and BP, Transocean and Halliburton might as well get their stories straight and start blaming us. (To be frank, you're responsible for that mess as well.)

.....

We had friends surprise visit us on Saturday. These are people who speak peace into your soul, like an afternoon in the shade on a breezy pre-summer day. We are sad they couldn't stay longer. We are sad that they no longer live near us.

.....

I want to be Catholic. Simply Catholic. I don't want to be an American Catholic. I don't want to be a traditionalist or a progressive. I don't want to be a neo-Cath or an Evangelical Catholic. I just want to be Catholic - part of Christ's Body, a lover of God and my neighbor. Not defined by my politics or my past, but liberated by Christ to be Catholic. Sacramental. Orthodox. Quiet. Who can show me the way? What does being Catholic mean? What does it look like?

Tragedy and Perspective

2010-05-12T13:49:00.003-04:00

Today I was listening to a fundamentalist Christian radio station that I used to listen to quite religiously. The president of the radio station spoke briefly today about the flooding in Nashville and that a radio tower of theirs had been ruined in the flood. He addressed why bad things sometimes happen to good people with, I imagine, a shrug of his shoulders and the statement, "God sends rain on the just and the unjust alike." And he spoke about how the Enemy is always trying to undermine the work of God.

But who are the just and who are the unjust? And why use this verse to say that sometimes bad things happen to good people when Christ is speaking of our need to be impartial and prodigal in our love toward others since God is impartial and prodigal in his love toward us? How can this be both the impartiality of God and the work of the Enemy? Are they the same? I also marveled at one's confidence in proclaiming one's own work as God's work. But putting all that aside, much of what he said could be spot on. Then I realized why his statements seemed so odd to me - in tragedies by which we Christians are unaffected we don't often say, "Shit happens." (My paraphrase of the misinterpreted verse.) Though it would be an appropriate conjecture, and the more appropriate time to use it. Sometimes, tragically, we are too quick to count the tragedy that affects others as the judgment of God rather than as happenstance or as God's impartiality or even as the work of the Enemy. Perhaps we would be better served to reverse our perspectives: When tragedy strikes me, I should wonder at the judgment of God and humbly acknowledge that his judgments are just (have mercy on me, a sinner). And when tragedy strikes my neighbor, I should understand that sometimes bad things happen to good people, pray, and find a way to help.

Michael Spencer

2010-04-06T08:02:00.001-04:00

May his memory be eternal.

Colbert On Beck and Social Justice

2010-03-26T13:12:00.000-04:00

The Colbert Report

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Glenn Beck Attacks Social Justice - James Martin

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Slideshow in Sidebar

2010-03-25T17:25:00.002-04:00

I updated the slideshow in the sidebar with pics of brother Noah.

The First Day of Spring

2010-03-22T20:14:00.002-04:00

Noah Christopher: 6:45 p.m. 20.5 inches. 7 pounds, 11 ounces. Photos to follow.

Mama and baby doing fine.

Mad as a Hatter

2010-03-05T12:40:00.009-05:00

I've had very little sleep this week. I'm just warning you is all. The following may not be entirely coherent.

The baby is going to be here very soon. Last night was a contender for the birth date, but Laura feels better today. We'll see how she feels tonight. According to the doctor the due date is the 22nd, though the Ides of March was the original due date. It got shoved back. I am partial to the 15th simply for its Shakespearean value, but that may have little bearing on the date of the actual birth. Either way, the baby is full term and we've had other babies weeks early before. I suppose we'll wait to see.

We are expecting a boy, as that is what the ultrasound technician told us, and we have a name chosen, though it is not written in stone - it seems to change every couple of weeks. (To think that the name you so identify with, which is so much part of who you think you are, came down to the will of two very tired people who forget things constantly and dress rather badly can numb one's mind.) We think his name will be Samuel David, though it very well might not be.

Seven children. Who'd have ever thunk it? Lord, have mercy.

Speaking of Lent, it has become one of my favorite seasons in the Church Calendar - this call to come home is a precious, needful thing, and I am so very thankful for it. The call is year-round, of course, a silent presence behind the noise of our lives. It says, "I am here. I will wait for you." Patient Lover, who can resist your graces?

I've been writing some articles on poverty over at Tyndale's NLT site, and the early Church Fathers have been speaking quite loudly to me (they always seem to when you give them their say), Saint John Chrysostom in particular. I give too little thought about so much of what I do, about so much of how I live. My life, after all, is not lived terribly different than most Americans' lives. And yet so much of what I do is avaricious. Like having a full pantry and fuller closets. Like being isolated from the needs of my neighbors. I could go on. I probably should. Read Chrysostom's Homily 6 on Titus sometime to get a feel for what I'm thinking about these days. At one point in his homily, he talks about the impediment that riches are and the liberty that poverty brings - as illustration he talks about a nekkid man and a fully clothed man (think flowing garments and robes). Who is easier to catch, he asks? Homecoming and greased pigs is all I could think of, but it's pertinent, isn't it? I also thought of Mark, running off nekkid from the soldiers. Perhaps such is what Chrysostom had in mind. "Almsgiving," he says, "is the mother of love." And I'll stop with the following quote from another saint:

"The Lord's mercies are innumerable. Look at all the earth supplies in summer and in autumn! Every Christian ... ought to imitate God's bountifulness. Let your table be open to everybody, like the table of the Lord. The avaricious is God's enemy" (St. John of Kronstadt, from My Life in Christ, Pt. 1).

Live Jesus. Practice Poverty. Give alms.

Hans Urs von Balthasar's Threefold Garland

2010-02-26T12:54:00.003-05:00

If you have not read this little book, let me highly recommend it. I am slowly reading and re-reading the chapters covering the sorrowful mysteries during Lent and am amazed at the depth of Balthasar's thought. The book considers the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary - meditations on Christ's birth, death, and resurrection; and meditations on the Mother of God - and, while approachable, is theological meat from beginning to end. (Licit even on a Friday in Lent.) More later, I hope.

I Am More Guilty Than These

2010-02-19T12:54:00.004-05:00

The latest news of pedophilia in the Catholic Church in Ireland has left me broken. I make the kids' lunch, sweep my floor, and listen to the interviews on the radio; and in my mind I play out that on-going argument with Protestant family and friends on how this terrible sin could occur within a "holy" Church and why sin by members of the Church, even heinous sin, does not rob her of her holiness. And after I have done with my mental arguments, I sweep them into the trash. What argument is there to make? Who am I to be concerned with arguments at moments such as these?

Remember, O man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.

The sin of pedophilia committed by these men and the sin of hiding their sins and passing the men on to other parishes by other men, these are my sins. And I am more guilty yet.

" 'And I shall also tell you, dear mother, that each of us is guilty in everything before everyone, and I most of all.' At that mother even smiled, she wept and smiled: 'How can it be,' she said, 'that you are the most guilty before everyone? There are murderers and robbers, and how have you managed to sin so that you should accuse yourself most of all?' 'Dear mother, heart of my heart,' he said (he had then begun saying such unexpected, endearing words), 'heart of my heart, my joyful one, you must know that verily each of us us guilty before everyone, for everyone and everything. I do not know how to explain it to you, but I feel it so strongly that it pains me. And how could we have lived before, getting angry, and not knowing anything?' Thus he awoke every day with more and more tenderness, rejoicing and all atremble with love."
- "From the Life of the Elder Zosima," The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky

A Post-Valentine Post That Has Nothing to Do With Valentine's Day

2010-02-15T13:06:00.004-05:00

So my pictures are old. My blog is somewhat in disrepair, to be sure, ungroomed by its master, unfed. Kicked around some. But that's just where I am. Why should I post my thoughts online when I can do the job with pen and paper, just as well? The answer, I suppose, is family and friends more than anything - those who bother, those who are interested in the latest details of my quiet, quiet life (other than the screaming children, of course). But I stand guilty of negligence - I don't deny it is true. The slideshow, by the way, is entirely outdated. My daughter Cate, the baby in the slides, is now taking steps and exploring her world. So I need an update. But before I get to it, which may take a while, let me get to updating all y'all.

This weekend started with two inches of snow. I had to drive twenty minutes up the road to the nearest toy dispensary (the evil Wal-mart) to buy toys for Jack Henry, who turned three years old on Saturday. The highway was a sheet of ice and 4WD is not much help in such scenarios. But I persisted and made it safely, with very little drifting across lanes, and acquired the toys. I had Anna, Avery and Will with me and we ate breakfast at the in-store eatery (the evil McDonald's). By the time we came home, the ice was completely gone, leaving only some spotty slush along turn lanes.

Yesterday, in case you missed it, was Valentine's Day. I went to early Mass, taught Faith Formation, and then attended a catechist meeting. My family stayed home because my wife was not about to troll around Lexington for three hours with a truck full of loud children and a belly full of a 9-month-large boy. (Our seventh child is ominously due around the Ides of March.) I got home and we had a new cat. The same cat/kitten that has been driving me nutso for over a week with his crying outside my doors, begging to be fed and let in. The crying arose after my wife fed him and because my children, when home, are outside loving on him. My wife even said a prayer to St. Francis of Assisi about the cat - and she is not in the habit of praying to saints - so while I was gone, my newly-three-year-old boy, let the cat in. And in he stayed. I named him Francis because I figured the good saint deserved it. I honestly don't know if the cat will make it, as all he does is sleep. Laura will have to take him out to the vet one of these days. (We only have one functional vehicle at the moment, if you haven't yet caught up.) But Francis is quiet and seemingly content. And he seems entirely unphased by all the hissing and spitting from our 7-year-old cat, Talullah. He just stares at her, like he would a log. So he has some chutzpah, which is laudable, I suppose. Though he could be too sick to care if an older cat rips him apart. However, he will need "tutoring" if he remains, in the Larsonian sense of the word, if you know what I mean.

Lastly, I am currently struggling through a particular teaching of the Church. Pray for me, if you will. I feel as if the Church demands something of me and is unwilling to help with the burden she lays on my shoulders. Of course, I also understand that the Church expects things of me for my salvation. But I am confused at the moment. And there are also times I feel as if God has kicked me to the curb over this one, since the issue is far thornier due to the abnormal arrangement of my life. I am weak and often find it difficult to trust. So this is a matter I am taking to prayer over Lent, which begins Wednesday. The Orthodox seem more reasonable on this issue, more in line with the spirit of the law in question, than does my own Church. Alas, I am not Orthodox. Which may be a good thing as I would not be eating any meat or dairy for the next few weeks if I were.

Perhaps in the days to come, it will be something I feel I can more freely divulge here, but I'd rather talk to flesh-and-blood people about it first. Including God. Lord, have mercy. Right now it's not a conversation so much as it is a personal struggle.

Accidie: The Bad Thought

2010-01-08T13:41:00.003-05:00

I don't know how many of you are prone to accidie, or acedia. I am. It is the bad thought of the monastic life, and other than leaving my family and becoming a monk, there is no place more monastic than being a stay-at-home parent (especially those of us who are relatively homebound). Accidie is not quite apathy. It is not quite sloth, though the two are related. Accidie, how I experience it, is a kind of weariness. It's something other than depression that is caused by real, physical changes within our bodies and the chemistry of our brains, but the two are interrelated. I have been sick for over a month now - nothing serious, just a persistent cough that often leaves me with a headache. It's physically wearisome and spiritually as well. After an extended illness (last year it was headaches that ate up at least one half of January), I begin pondering death - not suicide, but death. I wonder whether "This is the big one!" (a la Fred Sanford) and I listen to stories of this one or that one who died around my age. I feel hopeless and purposeless and weary. It is the edge of despair; it is the erosion of trust.

And then I buy a book on the sayings of the Desert Fathers and as I am browsing through the index, the word accidie jumps out at me. I'm familiar with it. I've written about it. I know that it is a bad thought that I am prone to and I realize that I have succumbed once again to this demon of weariness. Let me share a story told by Amma Theodora about accidie, or acedia:

"It is good to live in peace, for the wise man practices perpetual prayer. It is truly a great thing for a virgin or a monk to live in peace, especially for the younger ones. However, you should realize that as soon as you intend to live in peace, at once evil comes and weighs down your soul through accidie, faintheartedness, and evil thoughts. It also attacks your body through sickness, debility, weakening of the knees, and all the members. It dissipates the strength of soul and body, so that one believes one is ill and no longer able to pray.
But if we are vigilant, all these temptations fall away. There was, in fact a monk who was seized by cold and fever every time he began to pray, and he suffered from headaches, too. In this condition, he said to himself, 'I am ill, and near to death; so now I will get up before I die and pray.' By reasoning in this way, he did violence to himself and prayed, When he had finished, the fever abated also. So, by reasoning in this way, the brother resisted, and prayed and was able to conquer his thoughts."

It sounds so morbid, but it resonated so clearly within me: Well, if I'm about to die, I had better start praying. And then one does violence to him or herself in prayer and, through the suffering, resists the bad thought of accidie.

Pray always. And sometimes, pray for me.

No Need of That Hypothesis

2009-11-08T13:23:00.005-05:00

I was smitten with the flu on Wednesday and am currently at the tail end of it (Lord willing). I don't know if it is/was porcine or not, but then I don't care much about the variety for my own sake. The good that came out of it was that my entire family was able to find and receive swine flu vaccinations this week (not fully immunized for two weeks, but it's done). The school kids have all gotten the seasonal flu vaccinations at school, so they're as ready as possible for the rest of the season. We hope. I would still like Laura (who is expecting our seventh baby, if you don't already know - a boy, mid-March), Jack and Cate to get immunized against the seasonal flu, but maybe we can work something out this week. Though fever free all day yesterday, a low-grade fever popped up again last night, so I hope I'll be fever free all day today. I'm still tired and weak, but doing fine. The irony of it all is that of the entire family, I get out the least - I'm around the fewest people. On the other hand, my family is around hundreds of others every day and so I was easy pickings.

My parents rent the house across the street from us, though they are not there all the time - maybe one week per month. And so I quarantined myself over there. It was boring and miserable and I missed my family terribly, even though we were only apart for three days and only across the street and still got to talk to each other through storm doors. I had some books that I had requested from the library come in and so I spent most of my time reading - something I rarely get the chance to do. So on Friday I read - and you'll like this - God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens and on Saturday I read, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I had been wanting to read the two books eventually for a character in my book, though a sympathetic protagonist, lest you get the wrong idea. The books, if you haven't read them, are, well, interesting. Hitchens' book seems more hostile than Dawkins' book, but both are, as you can gather from the titles, not friendly to religion. Hitchens casts his net out broadly and blames all religions with fairly equal robust, while Dawkins turns more toward Christianity, as it is that with which he is most familiar. Both would be gladly rid of any kind of religion, but neither would fight, other than with words, for them to be expunged from the earth. Both seem like fairly friendly gentlemen, as a matter of fact, they just think the majority of evil in our world originates out of our religious impulse. They both often receive charitable Christian mail from charitable Christians who would like nothing better than to see them burn in hell - so perhaps you can understand some of their push back. Ah, the charity of Christians - it does the heart good, does it not?

I am not, after reading both books, an atheist. But I do think they each make excellent cases for atheism and point, in some places, painfully clearly at our sins as Christians. (Here we can only say, as we always say, "Lord, have mercy.") They each have a bevy of narratives that inform their views, just as you and me - though ours are often opposing stories. Both of them seem, at times, arrogant - though I suppose critics often do. I thought it a flaw in their books. Both of them seem, to me, to have missed the point of evil in it all: We are sinners, all of us, of which I am the chief, the first, the foremost, the greatest - the worst. And that it is not the problem of religion, but the problem of evil itself within the heart of all people. And because of religion's ubiquity in our world, and its power, religion is often the greater vehicle. And because of its teachings, its hypocrisy is certainly highlighted. So I think they need to go deeper for their problem - to see that heaven and hell are in every human heart. But overall, and other than their hostility, they seem like decent, well-meaning chaps, and I wouldn't mind sitting down and discussing with them further why they see no possible synthesis between science and faith.

Nevertheless, I had my moments of disagreements with both men. They both seem to - excuse my French - wear shit-colored glasses when it comes to Christianity - and fail to see the wheat for the tares. They pick and choose among denominations and faiths as it suits them - and invariably someone of some faith is erring somewhere in some manner. So while it sounds as if religion does indeed poison everything, they ignore that there are other people of faith (sometimes the same faith) working to stop the same evil. (Dawkins, who tends to be fairer, does point out several minor examples of this.) One of their shared "concerns" about religion was the possibility of faith education as abuse of children - not in a pedophiliac sense, though there is that - but in simply raising children as Christian or Muslim or Hindu or what-you-will. They both thought parents - being parents - rearing their children in their own faith egregious. That children are children and are not Catholic children or Muslim children, but children of parents of those faiths. Now there is something to what they say and it is not simply as crackpot as it sounds. For instance, who would disagree that it is abuse to raise your child to hate a group of people so much that you strap fake bombs to him, making him out to be a suicide bomber, and parade him around? Who would disagree that it is abuse to dress your little ones in white sheets and take them out to a gathering and burn a cross or two? And there are other examples - unfortunately, many other examples, some of which fall in our own laps. And yet, even when I hear, and know of, some of these crazy examples of environments in which children are being raised, I have to stop and wonder about it. No parent is perfect. Many times parents are not even good. Yet the people I know who are people of faith, do a fair job - their best - at raising their children - even while they teach them doctrines that I disagree with, or inadvertently teach them to be racist or elitist or scientifically ignorant. But none of us are perfectly functional; we all fail our children. I imagine that even Mr. Dawkins has failed his children. (Though I also imagine he would be the first to admit it.) I do not think, from the examples he gives in his book, he would have much to say about how I, or many like me, raise my children, if he really knew how we do so - nothing with which he could point a disapproving finger at faith, other than that they are being raised with faith. But it was an interesting charge to read about; a charge I've heard before from other Christians when converting to Catholicism as a matter of fact. But here are my children, even now, out my window, running and playing among golden leaves. Just children. Red-nosed. Laughing. Imagining. Enjoying one another. They do not cower behind closed bedroom doors when I am around. They write notes to me, when I am sick and absent, of how they cannot live without me. They bring me flowers. They share their stories. They love other people. They seem, for the most part, reasonably well children. They do all right. And when they are older, they will choose for themselves whether they will assent to share the faith of our Church, and I will give them the freedom to do so. Of course I hope they choose to share our faith, but even if they choose to become atheists - oh, how I will love them still. Can I do any less?

A Month Later

2009-10-29T12:44:00.003-04:00

Cars is still watched daily in my house. A month ago I was ready to blow my brains out, but I've gotten past it. I've gotten past putting hits out on Steve Jobs (God forbid!) and the entire Pixar staff. I've come to some uncertain peace with it - it is just part of the background for me and Jack - who, while he insists that it sometimes be on, no longer sits to watch it much anymore. He plays with his own cars while it plays behind him.

The pecan tree is golden. I have to mow the lawn this weekend, but then that obligation can be set aside for three months.

I am just beginning to read Gogol's Dead Souls and Cardinal Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua.

I am still writing, but it appears I only managed an average of two pages per day, five days a week, this past month. Strange how quickly it moves at some points and how it trudges at others. Regardless I'm halfway done with my first draft, if the story cooperates. This morning during my walk I was able to get through some obstacles in the plot and am excited to get that down on paper. Before, the story seemed to be converging on some premature closure, since I didn't see the next move, and now it has opened up before me again. Sigh. The most important thing as a writer, I have discovered, is simply to write. It is in being faithful. How's that for an elementary truth that has taken me entirely too long to learn? Apparently my slowness in learning (and, even still, knowing) is due to my abhorrence of having to wait (as a story slowly develops on the best of days), and my distaste for discipline. As well as my neurotic fear of failure. Other than that, I'm golden.

Stuff

2009-09-29T08:46:00.002-04:00

I am sorry that I have not kept up with my blog, but it has been busy and pushing my blog aside has been one of the better things I have done with my time. Since I have been gone, my oldest son started Kindergarten. He cried the entire first day of school. It was a rough couple of weeks. He is doing well now, seems to be enjoying school, but it still makes him a little nervous. Since I have been gone, I also began (with great trepidation) as a catechist for eighth graders at my parish. I teach Church history and mostly blather on and on - it is sort of like beating them with a stick until they're senseless. But if by the time the year is finished they know nothing but God is love, I will be happy. If I know it by the time the year is finished, I will be ecstatic.

Jack, that great lover of the automobile - specifically the truck - discovered the Disney-Pixar film Cars and I am ready to blow my brains out - it is on all the time.

Speaking of the boy, Jack used to answer "No" for every question asked of him - regardless of whether me meant yes or no - I am proud to report that he has finally begun saying, "Yes," which for him comes out quite handsomely as "Yessir." Very respectful and very southern, and it makes me chuckle every time he says it to my wife - everyone gets "yessir," irrespective of sex or age. We also recently discovered that he likes country music. I am considering changing his name to Hank.

Cate is growing too quickly; she has four teeth now. She enjoys time rooting around on the floor - and there are always great treasures to be found on our floors. Our family is in love again.

I have begun the discipline of writing; I sit down at my old green Hermes 3000 and type every morning. Not as much as I would like on most days, since I have other responsibilities. But I have about 100 pages now and am moving forward quite nicely. It is very rewarding seeing and feeling the pile of typed pages grow. It's a nice stack now and is roughly a third of the way into my first draft (my excremental draft, as Anne Lamott would say). If I do die before I finish, please burn it without reading it. "The earth was formless and void" - all that.

I hope all of you are well and I am looking forward to the time when we can simply sit down together for a while. Virtual is fine in the absence of actual, but it sure falls short.

Resignation to the Will of God

2009-08-13T07:42:00.003-04:00

Flannery O'Connor, writing to a friend ("A") about recent criticism the friend had received concerning a book she had written, and the subsequent depression she had fallen into:

No matter how just the criticism, any criticism at all which depresses you to the extent that you feel you cannot ever write anything worth anything is from the Devil and to subject yourself to it is for you an occasion of sin. In you, the talent is there and you are expected to use it. Whether the work itself is completely successful, or whether you ever get any worldly success out of it, is a matter of no concern to you. It is like the Japanese swordsmen who are indifferent to getting slain in the duel. ... The human comes before art. You do not write the best you can for the sake of art but for the sake of returning your talent increased to the invisible God to use or not use as he sees fit. Resignation to the will of God does not mean that you stop resisting evil or obstacles, it means that you leave the outcome out of your personal considerations. It is the most concern coupled with the least concern.
(Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor, 25 November 1960.)

And elsewhere, a favorite:

Sit at yr machine.
(Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor, to Cecil Dawkins, 11 July 1960.)

Miss O'Connor and the Idiot

2009-07-30T07:12:00.005-04:00

I've been catching up on some Flannery O'Connor short stories that I haven't read for years. Terrific stuff. A reminder: she died of lupus at 39. Significant, powerful writer. I've also been reading The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor, which, if you have not read and you are any kind of fan, you must read. The letters get a slow start, mostly I imagine because of your shifting into an epistolary gear. That being said, you feel as if you get to know this woman, who is hilarious and wise and brilliant and herself. Letter writing ought to be a bigger part of my life, I'm convinced. There's something beautiful there.

I am still reading Dostoevsky's The Idiot, which is excellent. But then it's Dostoevsky. One way in which I prefer Dostoevsky over Tolstoy is that he's an easier Russian writer to follow. I often get mired in all the names (and variety of names) of all the characters in the Russian novel. Tolstoy makes it even more difficult by jumping from one narrative to the next, each with different characters (and all, for an American, with oddly similar names). Dostoevsky is more willing to stick with a single narrative. If you haven't read Dostoevsky, please do so. He's an investment well worth your time.

And, of course, if you haven't read Flannery O'Connor in a while, or if you don't read her because you imagine her stories are too strange or grotesque, give her another try. And read her with the understanding that realism is not her goal as a writer so much as distortion, and distortion that's purposeful. There's something wildly prophetic about her. And something terribly funny. She sticks to the ribs.

Funny Movies

2009-07-16T18:34:00.008-04:00

My wife has been picking up movies at the library, on top of our Netflix picks. She recently brought home Young Frankenstein and after watching it again, I've decided it has to be one of the funnier movies I've ever seen. So I'm looking at trying to compile a list of funny movies and to watch them, mostly again. Here are some of my favorite comedies, as they say, in no particular order:

Young Frankenstein
Napoleon Dynamite
What's Up, Doc?
The Jerk
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Blazing Saddles
Meet the Parents
The Pink Panther movies (Peter Sellers)

It's your turn. I want help. Cough 'em up.

Reading

2009-07-12T10:30:00.009-04:00

Last night I finished reading Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter. It's a fine novel. (I stopped reading Brighton Rock because it didn't hook me.) Greene's novels are fascinatingly Catholic - and I enjoy them immensely. But I also wonder how others approach them and how the Catholicity of the novels affects their readings. The novels are not about Catholicism, but rather about shattered humanity - people who happen to be Catholic. The Heart of the Matter's Henry Scobie, a policeman, wrestles with relationship and sin and peace in the context of brokenness.

At the same time, I am reading Harold Bloom's How to Read and Why. Bloom avers that stories ought to be stripped of ideology and simply be stories. His greatest respect (generally, but specifically here as well) is given to Shakespeare, with whom no personal ideology can be discovered from the stories he tells - he writes about humanity, seemingly without favoritism (though how richly he paints his characters is often telling). Bloom says that we must not pay attention to the one telling the story, but to the story itself. These are good lessons - for readers and writers. Yet Graham Greene's ideology, his Catholicism, at least by the end of his stories, is prominent (always portraying the struggle of one's faith, however, rather than any certainty of faith - always showing us ourselves as fallen men and women). I would like to read Bloom's take on Greene, who does not make Bloom's book - though this list of Bloom's is hardly an effort at exhaustiveness. Bloom covers Graham Greene elsewhere, from my understanding, (I would like to read his opinion) and also believes that Greene has established his place in the "Western Canon."

Greene is a new favorite of mine, because of his Catholicity and regardless of his Catholicity. He writes well. And he is one of the better Christian writers that I've come across in my lifetime. But it is time for a break from Greene, Dostoevsky's The Idiot is lying on my table. And after that I'm going to take a stab at the apocalyptic Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy.

Just Checking In

2009-07-11T08:32:00.004-04:00

I haven't been at the computer much in the past week. Since last week I have had a wonderful visit with my parents and grandmother and celebrated my 17th anniversary with my wife. I had an encouraging meeting at the school my children attend about my oldest daughter. I have enjoyed having my wife and children home for the summer. I celebrated the independence of our country (which is also my anniversary) and I read through the Pope's newest encyclical, a social encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate," or "Love in Truth." (And grew tired of the conservative spin even before I was finished hearing of it.) I watched and heard snippets of President Obama's meeting with the Holy Father - and appreciated that the First Lady and other women on staff were veiled (Which I've completely missed - off my radar - from previous administrations). My yellow-haired child has swimmer's ear and enflamed tonsils (and/or strep?) and vomited twice early yesterday making it impossible to see my brother and his family as they passed through the area on their way to the beach. I feel terribly for her as she's not been herself and cried when she heard that she couldn't swim for an entire week.

It's been busy and good and emotional and difficult and, well, just life. Peace and good to all of you.

Lenny Kravitz, Chastity and Underwear

2009-07-03T12:05:00.004-04:00

Here's a nice interview on how God works in the lives of people and continues to do so: Lenny Kravitz Interview.

HT: Conversion Diary

The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia

2009-07-02T20:23:00.001-04:00

A great video promoting vocations for the religious life.

HT: The Deacon's Bench

Michael Jackson - Billie Jean / Motown 25 ( Moonwalk )

2009-07-01T08:39:00.001-04:00

Rest in peace, Michael.

Are You Saved?

2009-06-25T13:27:00.001-04:00

This is an interesting response, from an Orthodox perspective, on how one approaches the Evangelical question, "Are you saved?" or "Have you been saved?" I found it fascinating. I'd love to hear your thoughts or push back.

HT: Fr. Stephen Freeman

more about "Are You Saved?", posted with vodpod

The Bizarre Bazaar

2009-06-24T08:08:00.005-04:00

I was smoking on my porch the other night. A spider had spun her web over the steps of the porch and a firefly was bound in the center. Wrapped up, intoxicated, it continued to blink for more than 30 minutes in an ever-weakening pattern, or so it seemed to me: Blink. Blink. Blink. Pause. Blink. (Roughly including four or five seconds at each period.) It was the first time I'd ever seen a firefly in a spider's web, and the spider never left it. I've seen spiders wrap up their prey before and simply leave it hanging for a bit. But for whatever reason, this spider stayed on top of the firefly the entire time, stayed with it. Perhaps the starts of bioluminescence surprised the spider as well, making the spider doubt the efficacy of her drug.

Saturday night, I watched Peter Jennings host a special on UFOs, an older special, and they began speaking about abductions. Some scientists said, as a counterpoint to the personal testimonies to abductees, that these experiences could be attributed to a sleep disorder called Sleep Paralysis (SP). As they described Sleep Paralysis, I was shocked to hear them describe a personal experience from when I was a teenager. They described it nearly perfectly, with the same words that I have used to describe it - it was uncanny and enlightening. This was my experience: I woke in the middle of the night terrified. I heard footsteps coming down the stairs toward my bedroom. I knew someone or something was coming for me, meant me terrible harm. I couldn't move. Then a presence was in my room. It rose up next to my bed - I couldn't see it, but only feel it. The silence of the room roared at me. A knife was raised, so I felt, and I prayed, "Lord, receive my spirit." And it was gone. It was terrifying, and terrifyingly real.

I've always thought of the experience as something demonic. That is my worldview and how I would naturally explain the inexplicable. Apparently, others don't see demons, but aliens. That's the scientific consensus, at least. In the past such night visits were thought to be demons, old hags, succubi/incubi, or even vampires.

I did some reading on SP and learned that some people also experienced the feelings of floating through the air (being taken up into an alien spacecraft, being swept away on a witch's broom, etc.) and realized I could count another case of SP when I was much younger: I thought I was fully awake, but was floating near the ceiling of my bedroom. I explored my entire house that way. And that's it.

Anyway, I am intrigued by stories of cryptozoology and UFOlogy, though a skeptic. But I was thankful for that particular program, which seemed to explain two moments in my life that I had been unable to understand. Those are the only two times I am aware of experiencing SP. Some few people experience it often, some even weekly. Honestly, if I were in their bunny slippers, I'd be scared shitless to go to bed - especially if I thought aliens were abducting me or some strange demon was straddling my chest and choking me. Absolutely bizarre.

Jon & Kate Plus 8

2009-06-23T08:29:00.000-04:00

Laura and I have six kids. It is not eight, and it is not multiples, but it is a bunch. So we have watched Jon & Kate since its inception. We don't watch it religiously, but fairly often - we enjoy seeing the Gosselins facing their ups and downs. They are a refreshing family to watch, in many ways, unplagued with the disease of so many believers thinking they must appear to be what they are not. Of course, they have their own problems. We love seeing them take their family places and into situations where we fear to tread with our own. And, frankly, it is fun watching someone else dealing with a truckload of kids. It has helped me remember that I am not alone. It is cathartic, and it has become a cautionary tale.

This is reality television. It is the good and the ugly together. It is finding inspiration and it is making a spectacle of dissolution. It is making a family part of your family without any of the "messy" obligations and responsibilities that friendship brings: prayer, support, loyalty. (It's a lot like Facebook.) It depersonalizes persons. And yet it has gotten me to think quite a bit about personhood.

I am sad for the Gosselins. I pray for them and hurt with them. I wish they understood that their marriage is their vocation. I wish they understood that they are being deceived, fed platitudes that enable divorce and empower self. I wish they wouldn't have bitten. I wish, even though they have filed for divorce, that they understood that it is not too late. That they realized the best thing for their children is not the "peace" that comes from no longer being with the other person, but for them to humbly bear up under this part of their journey - together, no matter how separate they feel. To be humble and obedient - this is often the task set before a marriage when feelings and people change, when time passes. But don't quit. Learn to love in the suffering, through the suffering. Pour out yourself for the other person. Autonomy is still the forbidden fruit.

Marriage is hard. It is not made easier by having a television crew follow you around, I imagine. So pray for Jon and Kate and their children.

Whore of Babylon Puts Out

2009-06-19T08:20:00.005-04:00

I saw this headline in one of my feeds yesterday: "Benedict calls for new world economic order." It made me chuckle. This is the kind of headline that, not so long ago, would have screamed to me, "End of the world nigh - Pope is Antichrist." Take it with a grain of salt, everything used to be such a sign.

Pope Benedict XVI has called for a new world economic order that promotes human dignity and solidarity.
Addressing the financial crisis that has swept the world this year, Pope Benedict said that "economic and financial paradigms that have been dominant in recent years must be re-thought".
A new model of development should take its place that is "more attentive to the demands of solidarity and more respectful of human dignity", he told members of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation, an organisation which promotes Catholic social teaching."

Read the whole article here. It's really a tease for Benedict's third encyclical, this one on Catholic social teaching, titled "Caritas in Vertate" (Love in Truth), that is due to be released at the end of the month.

Simon Bears the Cross with Jesus

2009-06-17T13:58:00.004-04:00

As I pray the Rosary, I add certain relative clauses in order to help me meditate on the particular mystery of the decade I am reciting. So an Ave would run as follows for the fourth sorrowful mystery: "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, who bore the heavy cross for us. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen." (The words in italic, of course, being the added relative clause.)

Adding these clauses aren't my idea or invention, but have been around for centuries. (Read von Balthasar's Threefold Garland for more - it's a phenomenal little book.) I have been thinking about this particular clause, "Who bore the heavy cross for us," as I meditate on the sorrowful mysteries of the most holy Rosary. Whenever I say it, or hear or read the story of Jesus' bearing the cross, I am always, and always have been, struck immediately with a qualification - something ridiculous along the lines of "with Simon of Cyrene." But this involuntary (literalist crazy) qualification strikes me as constitutive to our Christian life. Simon bears the cross with Jesus for a purpose. Ultimately God goes before us, bears us, encircles us with his grace so that it is He who acts. But I also act.

"Good works" is not a dirty word, not heresy unless I believe that it is my good works - outside and apart from Christ's work - that reconcile me to God. (There are variations of the heresy.) I cannot act righteously without God's grace. But God's grace is always present for good works. Always. Sometimes I don't allow it to work in me. (The permission itself is an act of grace. All is grace.) But God has given us human persons the dignity of freedom to respond in step with the Spirit or to quench the Spirit.

God invites us to work with him, by his grace, that we might, working with him, redeem all of creation. That we might, by his grace, do greater things than he himself did. (I don't understand this word of Christ, but believe that each of us - and not simply the Church entire - is called to these "greater works" since the Greek uses the singular "you" rather than the plural. Though it is still only by his grace.) This is not because Christ doesn't cut it or that the Father needs help, but because we are invited to participate in his Divine Life. This is conversion. This is salvation. We become - we must become - by grace, all that Christ is by nature.

Glory to God for all things.

If You Sent Me on a Cruise

2009-06-10T12:08:00.006-04:00

Such busy weeks, the past one and the one before. Last Week: Two birthdays prepared for and celebrated, two first Communion practices, one First Communion, and one big celebration of all of those things on Saturday. That was all piled onto the normal busyness. It was Anna's first Communion - and it was beautiful (pictures and more, later). It was Will's fifth birthday and Sophie's tenth. (I also had two articles due, which were turned in late. My bad.) The Week Prior: My mother had a stroke. Thanks be to God only a minor stroke, but my week was tumbled by it and I was drained emotionally waiting and praying and being more anxious than I'm supposed to be. My mom seems to be back to normal and the kids and I are looking forward to another visit from Grandma and Papa later this month.

All I feel like doing is sleeping, and that's precisely all that I would do if someone sent me on a cruise this week. Unfortunately, no one has. But I suppose that's OK, since I would sleep through it anyway.

Schaeffer on Tiller - What Do You Think?

2009-06-02T23:51:00.002-04:00

6:00 a.m.

2009-05-22T13:41:00.007-04:00

As I arrived home from my morning walk, the tree-removal-service trucks I'd passed at the Village Restaurant pulled into the neighbor's driveway. Well, one did. The others staked themselves out in the street itself. I told my wife that they were going to be chopping trees in a few minutes and we swannied for a bit about babies and loud noises and unnecessarily killing trees. When I took out the trash, I walked across the street and asked the man with the I ♥ Jesus license plate on his big ol' Chevy truck if there was any way they could begin the job later, since I had babies asleep. He said No. And I said OK. And he thought Whatever. And I was like Whatever. At 6:05 they fired up the chain-saws. No children woke up. And if Jack Henry had, he probably would have been spellbound by the big trucks - his favorite thing in the world - outside his bedroom window. All in all, it was a non-issue, like so many issues that we concern ourselves with.

And they haven't cut down the persimmon tree. Yet.

Mi Casa

2009-05-21T09:19:00.005-04:00

Two loads of laundry a day seems to keep up with the flood of clothes in my house. That's not too bad for eight people. And while the loads may increase as the clothes and kids get bigger, I figure it will amount to the same amount of folding, so I'm OK with it. The only real problem I'm left with is where to put all the clean clothes. There's simply never enough room. I need two more systems: (1) finding additional storage for clothes (so we're not overrun), as in old milk crates, and (2) creating a routine of giving clothes away and a place to do so (I'd rather not give to an organization that's going to re-sell the clothes). People have been good to us, always. So much so that we rarely need to pick up clothes for the kids, or that we spend much less money on clothes than you'd expect.

Two loads of dishes each day is too much, however. A load and a half of dishes keeps pace with our family nicely. But we seem to go heavy on silverware - washing dishes is necessary each day simply to make sure there are enough spoons.

Most days I am simply like the Carolina wren that nests nearby, darting about to find food for hungry mouths, who rests now and again outside the window of a rather odd-looking man, to sing for him.

Acedia & Me

2009-05-15T07:46:00.006-04:00

I'm currently reading an excellent book by Kathleen Norris titled, Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life. It's, at times, like looking into a mirror. And while I've always thought I'm susceptible to depression - a classic melancholy - I think acedia is the demon that I struggle with in my life: a spiritual deadness or sloth or uncaring rather than a physical malady. (Not that it's necessarily either-or.) A blogger friend, Penni, turned me on to Norris by sending me a little book of hers called The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and "Women's Work," which I highly recommend. It deals at some length with the idea of acedia as well and has been a tremendous help as I daily struggle with my own "women's work." She infuses day-to-day work - laundry, dishes, cleaning, and diapers - with her Benedictine sensibility and discovers the sacred rhythm, the liturgy, of such work.

Something I've discovered, and seems confirmed by Norris, is that discipline is discipline, regardless if it's spiritual or physical or mental. In many disciplines, you begin in a garden, but eventually all find you in the desert. And that is the "noonday demon" of acedia. Perhaps the prayers you say seem less meaningful or the exercise you're doing is showing fewer results, acedia wishes to kill the peace and good in your life and to strip away this discipline that is so necessary for you. You begin to wonder whether it's really worth it or if you're simply wasting your time, or a fool. What was as sweet as honey has become a mouthful of sand. This is the time when it is needful to continue. Salvation lies forward, on the other side, not backward. This is the time to pray and sing through the aridity, even when each word seems empty and every note sounds flat. This is the time for waiting; eventually the desert will bloom.

(My one minor criticism of Acedia & Me is that Norris sometimes indulges in her love of etymology. Of course, I'm a sucker for words and their uses and origins as well, but I wonder if some of these purposeful divergences into the meanings of words and the application thereof could have been done in a manner that is less interruptive.)

Grr. Dog.

2009-05-13T07:58:00.004-04:00

Getting a dog several months back was one of the ~~worst~~ stupidest decisions of my life. I say that with only part of my tongue in my cheek. He's too much for me at this point in my life. He's like a toddler with sharp teeth and claws and who doesn't understand a word a say. And who doesn't take regular naps during the day. And who pees and poops and vomits wherever he pleases. This dog is going to be a good dog someday, I just don't know if I'm going to survive seeing him get there. That's how I feel this morning. Don't I have enough going on without a dog to worry about?

Sometimes I want to strangle him, or secretly hope that he strangles himself on the tie out. And I'm only half kidding. I feel so much anger and stress when he's around or I'm around him and I wonder whether he's been able to dig deeper into my heart than even where my kids go because I've learned to manage my life with children. But then you throw in a dog and the whole machinery comes grinding to a halt (hmm, that's a good idea too) and I'm forced to stare down into the hell of my heart again.

Help. O God, come to my aid.

The Love Shack

2009-05-05T22:24:00.003-04:00

This review is not a happy review. The novel gets a big thumbs down from me. So if you love this book, you're not going to want to read this post. Keep in mind, it's just my opinion. And I'm sure we've disagreed before.

Many people have been moved by this story. And so was I to some degree. While some would say it walks along the cliff's edge of sentimentality, others would say it took a flying leap off that same cliff - akin to listening to Tim McGraw sing "Don't Take the Girl." You're sobbing as you scream, "You bastard!" because of the obvious emotional manipulation. But there's also something very real here, and I don't mean to underplay it: Young, the author, needs a tragedy in order to spin his yarn. Maybe his wife dying (rather than his little girl) could have helped him better avoid his sentimentality. I don't know. He made his choice and stuck with it. That's his prerogative as the author.

The core of The Shack is fairly simple. It runs along these lines: God is especially fond of you. And s/he does not dig forms.

The Shack is at its best when its simply a story that happens to real people in real places every year - even when it skirts sentimentality. When the fantastic is introduced, the curtain is pulled back and Oz is revealed - and it just plays cheesy, as too much Christian fiction does. And The Shack is entirely about the fantastic - a man, Mack, spends a weekend with the Trinity (Della Reese plays Papa - The Almighty, the Tetragrammaton, He Who Is, etc. - a John Eldredge-y kind of dude wearing a tool belt and leather gloves plays Jesus, and Lucy Liu knocks the Holy Spirit out of the park). And here's where it gets wormy for me, if you noticed. The Shack becomes a kind of love shack - a place for Jesus et al. to be Mack's girlfriend. You can yell at God and be pissed off and, sheesh, if only God would explain himself. Jobian? Maybe, except in Job, if we remember, God doesn't explain himself. He just is and Job gets it - or is satisfied with not getting it. In the book of Proverbs we are told, "Where words are many, sin is not wanting; but he who restrains his lips does well" (Pr 10.19). This is ordinarily true. But when you write a work where half of your novel is about the actions and words of the Blessed Trinity, this becomes extraordinarily true. It's like giving a five year old an Uzi. It's an author using the Blessed Trinity as his mouthpiece, making a god that fits.

Pope Leo XIII wrote, "The Mystery of the Blessed Trinity is called by the doctors of the Church 'the substance of the New Testament,' that is to say, the greatest of all mysteries, since it is the fountain and origin of them all. In order to know and contemplate this mystery, the angels were created in heaven and men upon earth. In order to teach more fully this mystery, which was but foreshadowed in the Old Testament, God Himself came down from the angels unto men ..." This is no mean doctrine. This is the doctrine. And yet Young gets it wrong. Then he builds his theological shack from there, board by rickety board. All authority and religion and institutions and hierarchy are man-made and are sneered at by God in this book. I understand the milieu this kind of thinking rises up out of, but it is sadly mistaken. Apparently Christ did not appoint some as apostles. Apparently all that bit in the New Testament about the episcopacy is just man's garbage/baggage - or perhaps due to the hardness of man's heart. Apparently sheep do not need a shepherd, leastwise none but God.

Wisdom is personified in the novel and is far more awe-inspiring then the Godhead. But then that isn't hard here, because God is not awe-inspiring in The Shack. Lewis's genius in writing about God - Aslan as a type of Christ - is that Aslan is always other and rarely around. His words are few and far between. He growls sometimes. He is wholly wild and wholly good. Reverence. Young's God is rather teddy bearish. Barney-as-God, if you will, singing his theology.

And the book goes on to offend any faith tradition remotely liturgical by rejecting all ritual and hierarchy and ecclesiology. "Nothing is ritual," Papa (bear) repeats. But as I finished reading the book before Mass and walked into my parish and dipped my fingers in holy water and crossed myself, I thought, "No, everything is ritual." (Damn near everything.) Unfortunately some have made ritual to be a godless thing, definitionally - without God, without merit, without hope. Yet ritual is how we as humans live - from how we rise and go to bed to how we celebrate, from how we eat our food to how we make love (or, better, that we make love). It is birthdays and weddings - I Love You's and kisses. Baptisms and bedtime prayers. Ritual can become empty and lifeless. But the answer to that problem is not to toss the ritual, but to renew the heart.

For me, Young reaches his theological low point on the Sunday of Mack's tryst with God. Mack and the three persons of the Godhead sit down together and celebrate Communion: "Without any ritual, without ceremony, they savored the warm bread and shared the wine and laughed about the stranger moments of the weekend." That's what makes it for me, along with the inane chumminess, a bitter read.

Much more could be said, but I've already said too much. There are good things that I haven't talked about. But the longer I think about the book, the less I like it. I did not like it, Sam I am.

P.S.: My wife doesn't much care for The Shack either, finding the depictions of the Godhead ridiculous, interruptive and distracting. She wanted me to tell you.

Shack Attack

2009-05-04T10:59:00.002-04:00

I read Wm. Paul Young's The Shack Saturday night and Sunday morning (while waiting for the girls in Faith Formation) and would like to post something about my thoughts on this book. But I'll have to do it later because the kids are needing me now.

To Jesus, Through Mary?

2009-04-30T08:02:00.007-04:00

I could honestly use some help with my Marian devotion. Simple explanations? I've read a book of articles written by Balthasar and Ratzinger about Mary as the Source of the Church and I just received some books on the Rosary (Balthasar's Threefold Garland and St. Louis de Montfort's The Secret of the Rosary) as well as a book by St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary. But I just don't understand the "to Jesus, through Mary" thing. And St. Louis de Montfort's language sometimes pulls amens from me and at other times his language about Mary makes me squirm. I'm still only beginning Montfort's True Devotion to Mary so perhaps I simply need to give him the time to better explain. But I feel dense here. Like he keeps talking and his words are just bouncing off of stone walls (i.e. my head).

The thing is, I love the Rosary and I love the place that Mary has in our Church - I suppose my trouble is with St. Louis's understanding of Mary's place in our Church and lives. I'm not saying he's wrong or even that he has a different understanding than the the teaching of the Church. I just don't comprehend it yet - I don't get it. So pray for me. I think I'll be discussing the matter with my priest as well, but any suggestions or explanations you could provide, I'd appreciate. Perhaps I've been too general here to garner any specific response.

Maybe I could put it this way best: I understand the hows and whys of Marian doctrine, but cannot wrap my head/heart around Marian devotion. Maybe that seems schizophrenic, maybe it is. Maybe it's simply hardness of heart. Maybe it's some vestigial Evangelical theology in my brain. I don't know. But that's kind of where I am right now. Any help?

Update: My terminology is most likely skunked on this issue, but I'm just trying to figure out what's going on in my head and heart and Church. I understand Marian devotion - as much as that I pray the Rosary and other Marian prayers and continue to grow in love of our holy Mother. What I struggle with is the idea of, as St. Louis de Montfort, that seems to make Mary a necessary mediator to Jesus. I can understand a love for Mary and a desire to be close with her, but I don't understand the seeming stern necessity that Montfort makes of devotion to Mary.

And either I don't understand Montfort or I don't understand the Church, but Montfort seems to reinforce the typical misunderstandings of Protestants concerning Marian devotion - not to the extent of worship - but a Marian devotion, fervor, that seems absent to me in the writings and concerns of the early Fathers.

Totus Tuus makes some sense to me, but Montfort does not. Does that make any sense to anyone familiar with these things? Can anyone help me with sorting this out?

Update on the Update: I think I'm beginning to see the light on some of this, thanks to the introduction to and writing of Balthasar in The Threefold Garland. I can understand it more easily through the lens of an icon like the "Panagia" (icon shown) and how the Orthodox and Eastern Catholics speak of the Theotokos. I'm not sure I still understand the expression of "to Jesus, through Mary," but I might be beginning to grasp the mind and heart behind it. The Rosary itself is a kind of "panagia" in words, in prayer.

Come Home

2009-04-27T09:46:00.002-04:00

HT: Internet Monk

On Suffering

2009-04-27T07:50:00.006-04:00

In the last years of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's life, arthritis crippled his hands, making it extremely painful to hold a paintbrush, let alone create something beautiful with it. He continued to paint, however, by strapping a brush to his hand. When asked why he submitted his body to such suffering and frustration, he said, "The pain passes, but the beauty remains."

Books

2009-04-24T13:03:00.005-04:00

I just finished Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory. Tremendous book. I don't know what to say beyond that, however. This is one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, even though the Modern Library doesn't list it as such. That's OK, of course, "Opinions are like assholes: everyone has one" (so says my dad).

Currently I'm reading Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light. This book has to be a slow read for me, because of its intensity and subject matter. It makes me stand back and question how much I really love God. And wonder at how much I love myself. It also makes me chuckle at the controversy I heard concerning the book and this great woman. So let me just say it now: If Blessed Mother Teresa tweren't a Christian, then you and I got no hope. Fortunately for you and I, we got hope. And our hope is in the great mercy of God that is poured out on us, even in the darkest holes of India. As Fr. Cantalamessa recently said of St. Francis, I would also say of Blessed Mother Teresa (paraphrased): We do not cultivate St. Francis's or Blessed Mother Teresa's charism by looking at them, but by looking at Christ through their eyes. Who did he see when he looked upon our Lord? Who did she see? What would happen to our world if we began to see Jesus in the same way?

Maybe more on these books later.

Nothing Gold Can Stay: A Catalog

2009-04-21T13:15:00.005-04:00

We've seen crocuses and narcissus come and go here in North Carolina. The hyacinth and tulips too. The yellow forsythia have gone for now and the bradford pears have greened. The apple blossoms, sadly, are gone. The dogwood and redbud - those champions of spring - are fading into anonymity on the side of the road and the edges of our lawns. Still now we can point and recognize and say - that's a dogwood, there's a redbud. But soon my sons and daughters will finger the leaves and trace tortured bark and ask what these trees are, and I will scratch my head and shrug. Summer's amnesia. My memory is floral.

My azaleas, bigger than Toyotas, are teaching me this year, this moment, what an azalea was meant to be. They are dressed in vestments of joy and I must cross myself whenever I pass by them - heavy pink blooms with barely a hint of the green rhododendron leaves beneath.

The crepe myrtles are budding tiny red leaves, tuning up for their mid- to late-summer symphony. The Nikko Blue has two great babies waiting for replanting, leaves are green and fresh and she whispers patience and hope.

I've planted another rosebush and pruned the old one down. Ripped up weeds and pruned and pruned. But there are still weeds in need of pulling, and bushes and trees in need of pruning.

Gerbera line the front steps and balloons of fuschia are brilliantly popping into purple blooms over the porch.

But then, "Leaf subsides to leaf." They all dim and die. That's part of their lesson. The gospel is there, too, and they live it annually, perennially. Resurrection, they sing. They trumpet it. And as they preach, I am changed; and though they die, I am changed. They convert me. In another millennium or two, I shall be a saint.

That Yellow-Haired Child

2009-04-01T08:50:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, shopping in Wal-Mart, the yellow-haired child pointed at a bag of pads (yes, those kind of pads) and started singing, "One little, two little, three little bottom straps, four little, five little, six little bottom straps. ..."

Rosaries

2009-03-27T13:58:00.005-04:00

I have an old Rosary that used to belong to my dad. It breaks a lot. I love praying with it, but even last night as I took it to bed, somehow one of the hoops pulled free and I had to set it aside until the morning when I could get out my needle-nose pliers to fix it.

I also have an Orthodox prayer rope that, as I requested it to be made, has beads between every ten knots - a 50-knot prayer rope that also serves nicely as a Rosary (without the introductory beads). I use it to pray the Rosary or the Jesus Prayer or any prayer, such as lectio, where I repeat the prayer. I hesitate to say "count" because it's not counting so much as tracking where I am, especially with a devotion such as the Rosary.

Anyway, all that information to say that I use the prayer rope most of the time - it's what it is with me now, and since it's knotted wool, it's sturdy as I'd like. My question is, do they make Rosaries that are of sterner stuff? I'm looking for something I can carry about with me 24/7, but has more the feel of a Rosary. Quite honestly, I'm perfectly content with my Orthodox prayer rope, retrofitted for my Marian devotion. But I do like the way the Rosary hangs upon my fingers. Sometimes I simply prefer the heft of it. Any suggestions?

Churchy Stuff

2009-03-27T06:49:00.003-04:00

Life is full. I miss blogging, but I often feel as if I don't have the time unless I steal it from another place. I feel as if I'm taking something from my family when I walk up the stairs to my little half-storey office and sit down at the computer. At least when I watch TV, I watch it with others - perhaps we're only a group of isolated people in front of the TV, but it still feels more communal to me than the computer. Presence is important. Being present is not everything, but it is something more than absence.

That being said, I woke early this morning and would like to share a few items.

Cate was baptized, in a somewhat private affair, on February 28. The other children were baptized quite publicly, during Sunday Mass, but this was a quiet affair on a Saturday morning. It was lovely, as are all baptisms. And tears, though not shed, were heavy in my eyes. As I get older, I get weepier - rather, I am more easily brought to tears. All the same, sacraments and tears seem ready companions, for how can one be brought into the presence of such grace, the presence of God, without tears? It is at such times that joy or sorrow or repentance or comfort or peace swells into salty sacramentals. Glory to Jesus Christ!

Anna will be receiving the sacrament of Reconciliation (Conversion, Confession, Forgiveness, Penance) tomorrow morning. The children will be singing two songs and doing some readings and meditations before going before Christ to receive peace and pardon. It is a wonderful introduction to their life in Christ, and a sacrament that needs a better exemplar in their father. I hope to make Penance a more regularly sought grace in my own life. This sacrament is too often misunderstood by me, too often pushed away. I imagine because I need it so desperately.

We went to a St. Patrick's Day feast at our parish last weekend (Guinness stew - yum!) and simply had a ball. The kids did some Irish dancing, and I can't remember the last time all of us had so much fun. I was flushed with joy, drunk. During one of their dances, Fr. Al got up and was swinging from partner to partner by his elbow and when he got to Will, the raccoon couldn't do it - the thought of dancing with Father sent him into hysterics. What joy! What fun! It's good being Catholic. It reminded me of the Simpsons clip, if I can be so irreverent, of Homer and Bart's conversion to Catholicism and Marge's vision of heaven - of what Catholic heaven is like. What a great memory (the dinner); what wonderful fellowship.

Bono 's NAACP Speech

2009-03-25T08:04:00.001-04:00

Brideshead, Revisited

2009-03-22T19:15:00.004-04:00

This week I finished the BBC miniseries (1981?) Brideshead Revisited and was thankful for the recommendations to watch it. It's amazingly faithful to the novel and brought home the genius of Waugh again to me. And it made me further think about the differences between Waugh and Hollywood's Brideshead. The difference, it seems to me, is one that orbits about the idea of romance. You see, Brideshead Revisited is a romance, but of an entirely undecipherable kind to Hollywood - it is a love story in which Julia chooses God over Charles. It is a love story that rightly portrays God as one who refuses to lose Julia or Sebastian and Lord Marchmain, or even dear Charles Ryder. And, pitiably, all Hollywood can achieve is to try to portray a cold religion that interrupts and ruins and makes miserable the love between Julia and Charles. But Waugh's love story is vertical. (And it oddly reminds me of the ending of C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces.) It is the burning flame near the tabernacle within the chapel at Brideshead that consumes the vanity of Hollywood's version, that burns quiet and faithful until all our vanities are consumed - until we burn as it burns.

Graham Greene

2009-02-19T11:39:00.008-05:00

I finished The End of the Affair and find it terribly fascinating in a variety of ways, not the least of which is the wild freedom that Graham Greene, who was Catholic, enjoys. There is sex here. Adultery. Hate. Prostitution. (Woo-hoo?) It's the stuff of life that has always seemed too hush-hush, and yet Greene, out of such despair and joy and love and lust and spent humanity creates something beautiful that is difficult to describe other than with the book itself. This book is a triumph of God's mercy - a very un-Victorian look at the Victorian Thompson's "The Hound of Heaven." Of the Catholic authors I've read, this book is perhaps the most evangelical, if I can use the word, the most stripped-down, bared-bones call to God and Catholicism without completely crossing the line into a novelized tract (as some miserable Christian fictions cannot seem to rise above, who perhaps lack the freedom to rise above) - and while the narrator resists God's call entirely, you sense that even he knows that he is resisting Something rather than nothing. It's terribly, terribly fascinating to me.

This novel is my first introduction to Graham Greene and he's now on my list of authors with whom I must better familiarize myself with - and the thought of the Waughs and Greenes out there, undiscovered and unread, excite me. When I was younger, I remember hearing of Greene's being a Christian and then hearing that his novels weren't very Christian at all, and so, in my shining purity, I never neared one of his books - what a shame. Although, to be entirely frank, at the time I surely would not have been ready for such a story as this.

What is exciting for me, as well, I suppose, as a man who wants at some point in his life to write a novel, who contemplates such a feat more than works toward it, is the beauty that Waugh and Greene find in life, and the mercy imbedded within it. And how God redeems, woos us, is faithful - best of lovers.

Btw, the novel also corresponded in some odd ways to this past Monday's episode of House, which I'd recommend heartily. "So very many coincidences," indeed.

Brideshead

2009-02-16T13:45:00.003-05:00

I watched Brideshead Revisited last weekend and then checked out the book from the library. I rarely do this - watch the movie first, read the novel second. Laura had seen the previews, however, and was interested, so I put it in our Netflix queue. I had heard vague charges of anti-Catholicism about the movie, but knew little of Waugh and less of his faith. I knew the book was supposed to have been borne out of his Catholicism, his being a convert, and after watching the movie, I knew that the film could not be a fair representation of his book. The movie is quite anti-Catholic, which is fine, if you don't mind the story saying the opposite thing the author meant for the story. One thing is sure, the book is profoundly Catholic, with an agnostic narrator, without feeling at all pushy or tract-like. It simply is the story of a family. It's not a story about being Catholic so much as it is a story of grace (which for some of us are the same thing). The movie, just as the book, is gorgeous, and received four stars from me for its luxuriousness. And what the movie could not do, and what a movie cannot do unless written to do so, is strip the mercy and grace intrinsic within characters simply because they are played by actors, by persons. There is sympathy or compassion there yet - an angel stirring the waters even though the angel was not welcome.

The novel is more glorious than the movie. I still found the film quite moving, however, though in a tragic sense rather than in the hope and grace that is impressed upon one while reading the novel. I would love to hear from those of you who have both read the book and seen the movie. What are your impressions? If you're not Catholic, what are your impressions of the novel? If you're unsympathetic to Catholicism, the movie will undoubtedly confirm your worser suspicions of our faith, as there are plenty of cliched Catholics present. Similar characters are also present in the book, but the difference in the book is that the book also has the real thing, and not just the cliche. But I need to re-read it to draw any better conclusions.

I also picked up The End of the Affair by Graham Greene from the library and am enjoying it now. I may say a word or two about it when I finish.

Mistress

2009-02-16T11:40:00.002-05:00

I'm having some difficulty writing lately, which is disconcerting. I want to say things and then find it better they remain unsaid, not because they are unkind or controversial, but because they are just words: cold thoughts, too sterile for paper. Just words. Text. The metaphor of language where silence serves better. There is nothing for me to say straight. Writing must be all slant. I cannot describe a flower as a naturalist, only as a painter - even if I must paint in water colors.

I wonder whether my muse is bemused by my pauses, my faltering. So here I am again, caressing, speaking tenderly to her; I miss her. Gentle mistress, quiet, who demands that I be me - perhaps no more than a novice, but certainly no less. Who is patient with my anger and ranting and silliness. Patient with my airs. Who waits. Who simply wants to calm a shaking hand. Who remains silent when I elbow her aside and push my own words forward. For when she speaks, she speaks beauty. Her words tumble down like soft black curls on alabaster cheeks. She is patient, saintly toward her awkward, shy lover.

She deserves better than me, but will not hear of it. It is the only time she is insulted by me, when I tell her so.

On Headaches

2009-02-02T18:41:00.003-05:00

I am not a great sufferer, by any means. For me the greatest physical suffering is the migraine. In comparison to what many people suffer, that is, perhaps, something at which one might chuckle. Yet most of the pain I experience, a fractured foot, a bad laceration, or a hurt back can be set aside while I read a book or pray or write. But a terrible headache obscures all of that, it cuts me off from how I naturally function. It torments me because no matter what I desire to do, the pressure is too great to focus, to be faithful. I can't think. I don't know how to find peace there. In the greatest of such pain, I would be a haggler, willing to give most anything for relief. I recall a fever of 105°, while alone in my house - it might compare in its totality of bodily misery. Though in a fever I can find respite in sleep. Often, a headache isn't so gracious.

I wonder at times if the Good Lord sent me headaches for this reason: Too thorny for me to untangle, for me to ignore. Absolutely interruptive.

I don't know what it is to suffer great physical pain, such as that which accompanies serious diseases and the treatments of such. Honestly, I don't want to. But for me, now, anything is better than a headache. Break my arm, bust my nose, kick me in the shin - just don't send a low pressure front my way.

Long Time Coming

2009-02-01T03:38:00.005-05:00

What a busy month it has been. Of course, our sixth child, this side of paradise, was born on January 1. You can see pictures in the sidebar. Her name is Catherine Claire and she's a beautiful addition to our family. She's very precious, though I think she would like me better if I had mammaries. She's a month old today. And I need to begin writing again.

We're shooting for a Valentine's Day baptism, but I'll keep you posted.

We also, rather impulsively and foolishly, have added a dog to our family. Clearly our lives needed more activity in them. The puppy is a husky mix named Charlie. He's quite calm and sociable, while remaining all puppy. We're busy house training and he's busy convincing us that things are better not left on the floor. "There will be consequences," he says, one eye ice blue, the other brown. Our cat hasn't a good thing to say about him yet, though he ignores her. I'm hoping she will one day come downstairs again. Sorry, Tula.

Physically it has been a terrible month for me: Ear problems. Constant headaches. I need to begin exercising again and do a better job eating better foods. I'm writing in the wee hours because my ear hurts too badly to sleep. But I've been able to catch up on my fellow writers and update my own blog - so, there at least, it's a good.

Couple of movies I've enjoyed this month: (1) Kung Fu Panda - my kids wouldn't let me send this movie back for 2 1/2 weeks and we laughed all the way through it even on the twentieth viewing. I suppose we'll need to buy it someday when the price comes down. (2) Henry Poole Is Here - a quiet, but good movie for a man (me) who needs to be occasionally reminded of life's hope.

I've actually finished a couple of books this past month as well. The first, Finding Darwin's God by Ken Miller, is an interesting book on evolution and faith and the celebration of freedom. I really am at a loss for words on this one, though I recommend it highly. Some people will be greatly offended by it, due to Dr. Miller's unapologetic belief in evolution. I found it instructive and inspiring. The second book I finished was The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, which I've been reading for a year now. What a terrific novel! I can't say enough about this book. This is one I will re-read again and again. It is not only a fascinating story but is also a beautiful picture of our life in Christ. It isn't didactic, by any means, buy simply springs up out of its nineteenth-century Russian milieu and the beauty of Russian Orthodoxy.

Anyway, just a few items to get me re-accustomed to the water. Thank you for your prayers concerning the new baby and her mother. We ask that you continue praying for and with us.

New Year's Day and Happy Birthday

2009-01-01T20:09:00.004-05:00

More to come later, but for now watch this video from our local news station and you can see my wife and new daughter, Catherine Lyons. She just happened to be the first baby born in High Point, North Carolina in 2009.

Glory to God for all things!