Flannery O'Connor Quotes


On the title of her book "The Violent Bear It Away":
"One thing I observe about the title is that the general reaction is to think that it has an Old Testament flavor. Even when they read the quotation, the fact that these are Christ's words makes no great impression. That this is the violence of love, of giving more than the law demands, of an asceticism like John the Baptist's, but in the face of which even John is less than the least in the kingdom - all this is overlooked. I am speaking of the verse apart from my book; in the book I fail to make the title's significance clear, but the title is the best thing about the book. I had never paid much attention to that verse either until I read that it was one of the Eastern fathers' favorite passages - St. Basil, I think. Those desert fathers interest me very much." 

On grace and nature:
"I have a much less romantic view of how the Holy Spirit operates than you. The sins of pride and selfishness and reluctance to wrestle with the Spirit are certainly mine but I have been working at them a long time and will be still doing it when I am on my deathbed. I believe that God's love for us is so great that He does not wait until we are purified to such a great extent before He allows us to receive Him. 

Grace, to the Catholic way of thinking, can and does use as its medium the imperfect, purely human, and even hypocritical. Cutting yourself off from Grace is a very decided matter, requiring a real choice, act of will, and affecting the very ground of the soul...In the Protestant view, I think Grace and nature don't have much to do with each other. The old lady [the one who would've been a good woman if she'd been shot every moment of her life], because of her hypocrisy and humanness and banality couldn't be a medium for Grace. In the sense I see things the other way, I'm a Catholic writer." 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:52
 
November 19, 2003   


 
It's come to this...

The priests of our parish were recently required to atttend a training session entitled "Protecting God's Children", aimed, of course at stemming the Situation. Over the past two years, all the priests in our diocese have now been fingerprinted and undergone background checks. 

I understand that decades of ignoring clergy abuse have come to roost, but this seems sad. What I don't understand is why the clergy are different from, say, school teachers or breadmakers or shop keepers or politicians. Are they REALLY more likely to abuse? Why can't police do their job and clergy do theirs? Police ought to arrest, try and convict guilty priests just as you would arrest, try and convict school teachers guilty of gross crimes. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:04
 
 


 
God Bless Brian Lamb!

There's something refreshingly anachronistic about him. Uber-liberal Michael Moore was on Booknotes Sunday wearing a Boston Red Sox cap. Lamb asked, with a straight face, what the "B" stood for. 

Lamb fascinates because his life is a mystery; he's a blank slate in a world where everyone's a pundit (one wag said that America is becoming dumber, but more opinionated - not true of Brian Lamb). 

Even though he's a mystery, you can pick up clues. He appears to be interested in and have a respect for religion, but when he peppered Jeffrey Hart with questions as to why the Catholic Church wouldn't allow women priests, I surmised he isn't a Catholic. He asked Michael Moore for his take on religion, though he never offers his own. 

Single, never married, Lamb appears to have a great love for history and for details some might think minutiae. He seems to have a mild obession with De Tocqueville and obscure Presidents from the 19th century (sounds like a "Jeopardy" category - "obscure presidents from the 19th Century, Alex!"). 

I'm curious about his spiritual journey. My sense is that anyone who is interested in politics for a long time eventually becomes interested in religion (often rejecting it outright, but at least they think about it) because politics is the poor man's religion, a way to effect change on the temporal plane only. Religion, or lack thereof, is often the "first principle" upon which one's politics (e.g. view of social issues like abortion) is based, rather than the other way around. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:17
 
November 18, 2003   


 


via Alicia. Sign acquired here

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:08
 
 


 
Avoid the Stacks. That Way Madness Lies! Bwahahhahha...

Local writer Bill Eichenberger interviews Library of Congress chief James Hadley Billington (now doesn't that sound like the name of someone who's the head of the LOC?):

A passage in the novel Of Time and the River by Thomas Wolfe resonates with Billington: 

The protagonist, Eugene Gant, reads books "insanely, by the hundreds, the thousands, the ten thousands. . . . The thought that other books were waiting for him tore at his heart forever. He pictured himself as tearing the entrails from a book as from a fowl.'' 

"Well,'' Billington said, "when you are presiding over a library with more than 126 million items in it, you don't even have the illusion of covering even a small section of it. 

"I did get a note of congratulations from a distinguished scholar when I got this job (in 1987), and he wrote: 'Avoid the stacks. That way madness lies.' '' 

Billington hasn't entered the stacks in 10 years, because the library closed them to browsing. He denied the rumor that mad scholars have been roaming the library's 530 miles of shelves for a decade living off bookworms and condensation on the pipes. 

Before Rome burned, Seneca, counselor to Nero, wrote, "It does not matter how many books you have, but how good they are.'' 

"Very true . . . up to a point,'' Billington said, "although, with a collection like ours, you don't want to apply too rigorous a standard to what's a good book and what isn't.''


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:33
 
 


 
Belloc to Chesterton to Lewis ...(or Tinkers to Evers to Chance)

Tom of Disputations has an interesting post discussing to what degree sharp sarcastic humor is acceptable for the Christian. 

Three famous apologists defended the faith with varying degrees of "sharpness": Hilaire Belloc was bellicose enough to make an enemy of atheist H.G. Wells; Chesterton warm enough to count Wells a good friend. In Joseph Pearce's biography of Belloc, Pearce makes a compelling case that Chesterton's conversion was brought about in part by Belloc. And C.S. Lewis has said that Chesterton's "Everlasting Man" was instrumental in his conversion. 

So we have Belloc - to - Chesterton -to- Lewis. Kinder and gentler was each succeeding one, to the point where Lewis, in an effort not to offend, suggested only mere Christianity was needed, while he himself believed in the Real Presence of the Eucharist and the doctrine of Purgatory (even though the latter was explicitly ruled out by his Anglican Church). 

The kindler/gentler trend is not limited to apologists. From Trent to Vatican II, the swing has been towards the pastoral and away from the sectarian. Is this bad? I think not. But one could say: the state of Christianity got worse during that period of time - how effective could the "kindler/gentler" approach be? But what we do not know is how badly things could be. Imagine a world without C.S. Lewis and we imagine how much worse things would be. But Lewis did depend on Chesterton and Chesterton on Belloc. So Belloc deserves respect. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 18:27
 
November 17, 2003   


 
Tracy Bird and Fr. Mastroeni's Moral Theology class 

I study popular culture, often while sipping one of the national products of Ireland. 

During a recent study period, I heard country singer Tracy Bird's latest, which suggests a linkage and repeating cycle between thought, word and action in a colorful way: 


The drinkin' bone is connected to the party bone
The party bone's connected to the stayin' out all night long
And she won't think it's funny
And I'll wind up all alone
And the lonely bone's connected to the drinkin' bone
Vaguely reminds me of Theresa's moral theo professor, as quoted here:
Sow a desire, reap a thought,
sow a thought, reap an action,
sow an action, reap a habit,
sow a habit, reap a character,
sow a character, reap a destiny.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:21
 
 


 
Next Sat: Ohio State vs Michigan

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:06
 
 


 
What would a "liberal" Pope look like? 

The hopes and dreams of the Garry Wills crowd is that the next pope will be liberal. But isn't a "liberal pope" an oxymoron? A pope's very job is to conserve - to conserve the deposit of faith. The development of doctrine comes about as a defense mechanism against heresies. Heresies tend to drive development; the pope doesn't go out freelancing. 

Obviously church disciplines can be tightened or loosened, and that might be what some mean by a 'liberal' pope. But acceptance of homosexuality as not sinful, for example, will never happen because then the Church would no longer be conserving the deposit of faith.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:26
 
 


 
Coming Home Network Comes to Columbus

Had the opportunity to listen to a talk by Fr. McCloskey, someone who's long fascinated me (although not enough to join Opus Dei). The substance of the talk was not meaty (his discussion of the dead faith of Europe and the rise of faith in Africa and Asia I've heard many times before), but the sugary anecdotes were tasty. There is a kind of hope when the rich and powerful - like recent convert Robert Bork - bow their heads in humility and accept the waters of baptism. 

Fr. McCloskey had just gotten the opportunity to go into the Oval Office and meet the President and First Lady and said that what doesn't come through the television is the sheer physical vitality of this man, surely one of the most fit 55-yr old officeholders in the country - with the possible exception of the new governor of California. He told GWB that he and his Catholic Information Center pray for him every day (walks by the White House every day and says the Memorare) to which Pres. Bush replied, "that's how I can be comfortable in this job". 

I also got to see Joseph Pearce, although I didn't speak to him. I have all his books already so I didn't buy anything for him to sign. Reminds me of when I was young and met Hall of Famer Joe Morgan. I thought authors just signed their names, so when I got to the front of the line and he asked me how he should preface it I said "To Tom". Lame, lame lame. Now I think of lines like, "to a fine ballplayer". :)

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:11
 
 


 
Strange Bedfellows

Even some secularists are down on pornography:


“Things are always a little tense and uncomfortable when you just start seeing someone,” he said. “I prefer to have sex right away just to get it over with. You know it’s going to happen anyway, and it gets rid of the tension.”

“Isn’t the tension kind of fun?” I asked. “Doesn’t that also get rid of the mystery?”

“Mystery?” He looked at me blankly. And then, without hesitating, he replied: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sex has no mystery.”


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:03
 
 


 
One of the most irritating things is to hear a secularist tell me to leave my religion outside the public square. A former OSU professor does this this, saying that basing laws on religious doctrine are "anti-democratic". First, we aren't a pure democracy (we've got courts to insure that) and second I don't see anything MORE democratic than voting based on your religious principles (or lack thereof). If Christianity in America becomes watered down to the point where gay marriage is acceptable, then it will happen. If not, then secularists should quit complaining and prostelyze their atheism rather than trying to silence theists in the public square. 

He writes that laws made for religious reasons aren't democratic because some folks are "out of the loop". Newsflash - there are many people of faith who are "out of the loop" when it comes to the revelation that religious convictions shouldn't influence law-making. I also appreciated the irony in his speaking for God in saying that He isn't allowed to have preferences. I guess I’m out of the loop on that one.

Oldenquist also claims that religion should be kept out of politics because there are intelligent people of every faith, or no faith at all, which is true but beside the point. To attempt to ban religious arguments from the public square is like trying to separate eggs from batter. Philosopher E.A. Burtt said that the only way to avoid metaphysics is to say nothing, because thought and language are metaphysical. This is even truer of law-making and voting. Don't let secularists silence you.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 20:06
 
November 15, 2003   


 
Rally Time



Well it’s time to buck up. Garrison Keillor famously says he loves Minnesotan winters because “it keeps out the riff-raff”. That Nov. 3rd, 77-degree day at the lake looms large now, carrying as it does the weight of the coming four months. Facing a Jansenist winter, its grim embrace momentarily escaped, makes that day the sweeter.

The well-timed vacation day is a thing of beauty – part art, part science and subject to the elements like an old shed. This year, the weekend after the draconian knife slips – the end of daylight savings time – I gave myself a little momentum goin’ in. That day the grass waved green as Irish Republican flags. The sun percolated in an empty sky. Paul Theroux wrote of disreputable goings-ons in Hawaii and I cleansed the palate with a little Flannery O’Connor, the closest thing to a writer-saint as was ever invented. The radio played all the right songs, geese droppings were dodged, and the rhythmic lake ripples went on and on, even when you looked away. Like love. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 23:40
 
November 14, 2003   


 
Pieper's Book

We have a lot of November birthdays in our family, and between that and Christmas I tend to purchase a lot of books for people. This tends to bust my own book budget, because it becomes a "2 for you, 1 for me...3 for you, 1 for me" type of deal. "STET, Damnit!: The Misanthrope’s Corner, 1991 to 2002" by Florence King, "Amata Means Beloved" by Mary Catharine Perry are hovering as possible buys. Another is Joseph Pieper's Faith, Hope and Love. From an amazon.com reviewer:

This book really cannot be praised too highly. Pieper's discussion is more deep and insightful than any psychology text I've seen, and he's not even trying to do psychology.

He uses traditional and technical words (like "sloth"), but this is necessary to distinguish shades of moods, emotions, and actions. I used to think of "slothful" as synonymous with "laziness" -- but this book made me realize what a huge difference there was. You could work hard every day, but if deep inside you know you could do great things, and you simply don't bother to do them, then you are guilty of sloth. Many Christians (and non-Christians) that I know, including myself, will recognize this as a part of their lives.
On the virtue of hope: a past Dominican friar used to emphasize the importance of realizing Jesus was fully human - in soul and body - because otherwise he ceases to be a model for us. If he is some sort of amalgaman of divine and human, some kind of 'superman' then it is hopeless to attempt to be like him. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:24
 
 


 
No Mr. Smiths

I'd carefully taped a couple of random half-hour segments from the 30-hour U.S. Senate debate that went on all night Wednesday and into Thursday. I picked the 3:00-3:30 and 5:00-5:30am slots. 

Now, as good a cause as it is on the merits (i.e. a desire by Republicans to get some of their judicial nominees filled), I must confess that my primary motivation was to see the senators looking like Mr. Smith in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. I was looking for dissheveled clothing, wild hair, unfeigned passion and unguarded remarks. I'd settle for a pained look caused by a full bladder. Many of the same reasons we watch the Jerry Lewis Telethon, or Dan Rather for that matter. 

But noooo....the entertainment value was nill. They looked blow-dried and professional as always. I didn't expect Orin Hatch to look like Otis Campbell on the Andy Griffith Show, but couldn't somebody look like they just got out of bed? 

It sounds as though I'm trivializing it. Perhaps. I do believe it's worth fighting for. But I suspected this event a publicity stunt. And publicity stunts need publicity, which this event didn't gin up. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 07:30
 
 


 
Reporting Live from Campus Crusade for Christ

We took our seats in the last row, the elderly folks amid the protean youth, a foretaste of what is to come. The girls looked prettier than in my college days, back when I had a gimlet eye, and they answered their cell phones with impressive alacrity. The boys had lubed their hair to form stray stalactites, something I'd have tamped down as an altar boy before Mass. 

A band played praise and worship music, the lyrics posted on a huge screen above them, obviating the need to thumb through a hymnal or squint since the words were big enough even for the near-sighted. 

Production values were keen; a short film advertised a men’s conference to be held next week by showing the word “PARTIES” against a black background followed by shots of empty beer cans, spent cigarettes, woozy characters of questionable sobriety. This was, I took it, the equivalent of showing prison bars and chain gangs to would-be criminals, a sort of “Scared Straight” for the fundy set. It didn’t exactly have that effect on me, at least until it showed a guy hugging the porcelain god (i.e. retching in the toilet). After the film a young man ascended the stage and said that the men’s conference would have none of what you just saw. 

Next, our reason for being there stepped on the stage. Our presumed future daughter-in-law was going to give a talk, which was enough to drag us from the comfort of our digesting meal. She described her circumstances growing up in a Christian home, and explained movingly how being away from home for the first time was the acid test for her devotion to Christ – would she choose the way of men or of God? 

We bolted after her talk, but on the way home there was a certain gnashing of teeth over her list of the support she’s received: Campus Crusade for Christ, close friends, etc.. – no mention of her boyfriend.

“It was probably a simple oversight,” my charitable wife said.

“Yes, besides, if I were a single male in that audience would I want to hear a girl mentioning her boyfriend? No way. She had to target her audience.”

“Yes it was for God and not for Matt.”

It sounded hollow even as we were saying it. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 07:26
 
 


 
Meta-Metablogging



Mom saw my blog!

Oy Vey
Before you think our friend is too sentimental, he adds that he wouldn't compare the erasure of a blog with "the burning of a 15th century Gutenberg Bible. But I believe that in the future, maybe even the most trivial of today's sites can be of interest to people." 

Varieties of Blog

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:39
 
November 13, 2003   


 
Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts


I've perceived a subtle difference between the way the left usually talks about power, and the way Christianity (in my view) talks about it. The message men -- especially straight, white, able-bodied men -- usually get from the left about power is that they have too much of it and others have to little, so they should share. The Christian message, on the other hand, is that you may think you have power, but that power is nothing compared to God. As far as God is concerned, the "privileged and dominant" are his children like everybody else. That's why they should see the beggars in the street as their brothers -- or as Jesus...That's why I said in the last post that a little more emphasis on God's power could be helpful in communicating with that group. If you only talk about how much power they have and how awful that is, you're actually building them up in a way. - Camassia

To say that The Da Vinci Code has taught one about Christianity is as absurd as saying Stephen King’s The Shining is the key to understanding the hospitality industry. --Ellyn of Oblique House

Those who don't want to be a burden on other people when sick or old are usually healthy people who have the ability to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, so to speak. So being a "burden" on someone is resolved only when you become a 'burden' on someone and then realize your dignity is in who you are not in what you do. --reader Jeannie Schmelzer, helping me get over my allergens to burdenhood

People who live close to uncultivated nature don't know how lucky they are. Being so close to creation, which God saw and said was good (Genesis 1:31), makes one much more open to whatever else God gives us for our good. - Enbrethiliel of Sancta Sanctis

I’m not one to sit in front of the mirror to primp. However, I do take a few seconds to “look at myself”, because I believe that our eyes are the windows to our souls. I often do this immediately after reception of holy communion or confession. When I get into my car, I pull down the rear view mirror and take a look into my eyes…and I look, if you will, to SEE JESUS. It is something I started doing after my confirmation. It is the eyes that are the windows to our souls. A heart filled with love, filled with the Holy Spirit, has tender eyes. Looking into someone's eyes is one way I can touch their soul. If you don’t already, look into your brother's eyes and pray when you do. -Nicole of 'Notes to Myself'


I feel the same edginess when I am selfish with my time and hoard it, as when I give too much without stopping for renewal -- aka "me time." I have the same yucky heaviness of self and I lose my peace and sense of freedom - Kirsten of Summa Mommas

Equip yourself for the Christian life with these new Bible Belts™ for every person and occasion so that that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. A just man's pants fall seven times a day so keep that from happening with these great Bible Belts™. --Jeff Miller of Curt Jester, proffering a new marketing tool.

Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago, said this in a speech last month: "André Malraux once asked a priest to name the single biggest lesson he had learned from hearing confessions. Without skipping a heartbeat the priest said, 'There are no grown-up people.'" A too-glib way of putting it is that men need to love something other than themselves to grow up, while women need to stop loving everything equally. --commenter on Camassia's blog

It's a bit thick to appeal to Sts. Augustine and Thomas over the recent popes, since both saints would have deferred to a pope in an instant. -Tom of Disputations

I've oft wondered whether or not my life is supposed to be an example to other. Of course, it's one big sign to others that reads: DO NOT LIVE LIKE THIS! -- smockmomma commenting on Davey's Mommy, being overly modest

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:47
 
 


 
Books vs Film

NY Times link:

[N]ext year should see the appearance of another Roth movie, "American Pastoral." Whatever the outcome, it's unlikely that this book will fall victim to that other hazard of adaptation: being all but rubbed out by the brilliant film version. Why? Because "American Pastoral" is probably too good a novel — in the way that Charles Dickens's "Great Expectations" is too good to be erased by David Lean's classic film of same, and in the way, conversely, that Mario Puzo's "Godfather" is too bad a novel to avoid being trampled to death by Francis Ford Coppola's "Godfather."

The greater the novel, the more it is apt to embody the special, nonreplicable properties of the written medium; the more likely it is, to adapt Dylan Thomas, to move from language rather than toward language. Similarly, the finer the movie, the greater its tendency to emerge from visual images rather than flow in the direction of visual images. 

It's this dual fidelity — to one's medium and to one's profoundest imaginative urges — that, at the highest level, gives a work of art its mysterious soul. If one thing emerges from the scant filmography of Saul Bellow and Philip Roth and John Updike, it's that no cinematic adaptation could help itself to their best work's moving spirit, and no self-respecting movie would ever try to. --Joseph O'Neill


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:46
 
 


 
Pity the Bishops

St. Martin de Tours was chosen bishop in an unorthodox way. So great was his reluctance that he was kidnapped and consecrated at gunpoint. (Just kidding about the gun.) 

But the first reading from yesterday's liturgy certainly gives one pause and explains the reluctance (Wisdom 6:1-11):

Hearken, you who are in power over the multitude and lord it over throngs of peoples! Because authority was given you by the LORD and sovereignty by the Most High, who shall probe your works and scrutinize your counsels! Because, though you were ministers of his kingdom, you judged not rightly, and did not keep the law, nor walk according to the will of God, 
Terribly and swiftly shall he come against you, because judgment is stern for the exalted- 
For the lowly may be pardoned out of mercy but the mighty shall be mightily put to the test. 
For the Lord of all shows no partiality, nor does he fear greatness, Because he himself made the great as well as the small, and he provides for all alike; 
but for those in power a rigorous scrutiny impends. 
To you, therefore, O princes, are my words addressed that you may learn wisdom and that you may not sin. 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:38
 
 


 
New Religious Order Forming in Central Ohio

Children of Mary

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:30
 
 


 
Corrections & Retractions II

This could be a daily column. I should have a disclaimer on the blog, "thoughts I write do not necessarily reflect my thinking - see here for a more accurate rendering."

In this post, I might've implied an equality between abortion and the death penalty. I utterly reject and bristle at that notion and always have. There is no mercy and no justice in an abortion, while there is justice in the death penalty. 

When I said "equally persuasive", it was more a measure of who is doing the saying (the Pope), rather the argument. Our Pope speaks with heavy amount of persausion even when I don't understand it, which is why the Gulf and Iraq wars were/are so problematic for me. 

Also Fr. Damien is Blessed Damien now...he was beatified in 1995, which was over a hundred years after his death. Slow by recent saint-making standards. Thanks John!

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:22
 
 


 
Not that Margaret?

My 8-yr old niece recently had to write something about a saint. She picked St. Margaret because that is her great-grandmother's name. But her grandmother, in the course of research, found that St. Margaret of Cortona was a prostitute before her conversion. 

"How about St. Margaret of Scotland, sweetie?"

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:32
 
November 12, 2003   


 
Dark Beer Here! ...study finds dark beer is good for you


Story here.

Guinness proved to be about twice as effective at preventing the blood platelets from clumping and forming the kind of clot that can cause a heart attack.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:37
 
 


 
Eastern Orthodox Struggle with the War

...widespread Orthodox opposition to the Iraqi war, particularly by the bishops, was a source of discouragement, even dilemma, for some Orthodox Christians, especially when that opposition was accompanied, as it frequently was, by the comment that “the Orthodox Church does not accept or espouse a just-war theory; all wars are evil, and participation in them is necessarily and intrinsically evil.” This judgment, voiced by some of the names most respected in Orthodox moral theology, was a cause of bewilderment because, if true, it appeared to guarantee that the Orthodox Church, committed to an ethics of pacifism, would remain forever on the fringes of American life, along with other pacifist groups, like the Amish.

This was not a danger to which the Roman Catholic Church, with its robust and traditional theory of just war, was subject. The American bishops of that church could denounce the Iraqi war with complete safety on the point, because everyone knew that Roman Catholicism was not committed to a philosophy of pacifism. (One recalls that old-style Catholic pacifists, like Thomas Merton, were forever lamenting this fact.) Official Roman Catholic criticism of the Iraqi war, consequently, was consistently based on the argument that that projected war did not measure up to the traditional criteria for determining a “just war.” --Patrick Henry Reardon 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:32
 
 


 
Why Not? 

In one of his books, Kinky Friedman expresses displeasure that the Catholic Church has not canonized Fr. Damien of Molokai. (Fr. Damien heroically served a leper colony and eventually died of leprosy.) From what I know about the good Father, it does seem like he should be on the fast track to sainthood. Does anyone know why it appears that our Pope, who has made so many, has not made him? I realize, of course, that God makes saints and that miracles are required, but it seems as though enthusiasm for his cause is a bit sluggish and I do wonder why. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:23
 
 


 
Flannery O'Connor Quotes


Flannery as a child

I have got to the point now where I keep thinking more and more about the presentation of love and charity, or better call it grace as love suggests tenderness, whereas grace can be violent or would have to be to compete with the kind of evil I can make concrete. At the same time, I keep seeing Elias in that cave, waiting to hear the voice of the Lord in the thunder and lightning and wind, and only hearing it finally in the gentle breeze, and I feel I'll have to be able to do that sooner or later, or anyway keep trying.

*

After the interview with the Time [magazine] man I am very much aware of how hard you have to try to escape labels. He wanted me to characterize myself so he would have something to write down. Are you a Southern writer? What kind of Catholic are you? etc. I asked him what kind of Catholics there were. Liberal or conservative says he. All did for an hour was stammer and stutter and all night I as awake answering his questions with the necessary qualifications and reservations. 



 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:57
 
 


 
Friends in High Places

TLS of Summa Mommas has excellent crew members.

The Blessed Mother is numero uno and in a special category much as my own mom is compared to my friends: 

- Blessed Margaret of Costello - bereft of the senses of sight and hearing, but full in soul.
- St. Pio - saint of the confessional, he had a great bullsh*t detector, which is something all the Irish need. 
- St. Thomas Aquinas - not for his work, but for his sanguinity at being called "The Dumb Ox"
- St. Therese of Liseux. 'If you are willing to bear serenely the trial of being displeasing to yourself, you will be to Jesus a pleasant place of shelter,' she wrote.
- St. Thomas More - because I was born on his feast day and my given name is the same as his. 
- St. Patrick - freer of Ireland from paganism
- St. Anthony, boyhood pal 
Claiming them is easy; just hope they claim me. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:19
 
 


 
Life Issues

This post is probably all wet, since I'm weighing in beyond my competence, but what interests me in some of the pro-war/anti-war talk is how a respect for life can seemingly be displayed in two opposite ways, almost as respect for religious truth can be displayed either by suppressing untruths (remember 'errors have no rights'?) or by promulgating truths. I recall presidential hopeful ('hopeful' might be a stretch) Alan Keyes defending the death penalty by saying that he respected life so much that those convicted of murder will lose their life. In other words, we'll send a message of how precious life is by denying it to the perpetrator. And Keyes was persuasive.

But of course the other side says, equally persuasively, that life is precious and that extends to the perpetrator of murder, for life that is not respected on the margins (i.e. infants, the severely handicapped, criminals) is not really respect for life at all.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:19
 
 


 
Corrections and Retractions

Prompted by a reader's email, I apologize for referring to my wife's church as "cult-like", which is a gross distortion. The fault surely lies with me. To an introvert, a harmless sales convention can seem 'cult-like'. 

Her church wants to avoid, understandably, stagnation, so there's a constant effort to keep things "pure" by accountability and by bringing in new people. Some thrive, though my mother-in-law appears burned out. She used to go to bible studies, small groups, Alpha groups - and now never goes to Sunday services. Perhaps she felt that it was an all or none situation. 

But my wife seems perfectly content to miss small group activities (she's studying for her MBA and has no time), so mea culpa. And how can I complain about a church who helped convert my stepson from agnosticism to Christianity?

Chris of Maine Catholic also points out, correctly I think, that just about every teen tests limits and flirts with danger. Fortunately, most of the time they get away with it. So it's not an issue of overconfidence in God as it is typical teenage behavior. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:09
 
 


 
Anathema vs Pastoral

I've always been interested in line-drawing (perhaps due to a lack of virtue) and of late I wonder how the Christian should debate. 

For instance, in the latest Crisis, Ralph McInerny responded to a criticism by saying words to the effect "I appreciate your teaching me Aquinas", which, in light of his books about Aquinas can only be seen as sarcastic. A minor off-key note, since it contributed nothing to the debate. Would JPII write it? No. Would Cardinal Newman? Probably.

That is mild of course. A famous Catholic blogger recently wrote that Andrew Sullivan thinks of the world only in terms of his "little Willie", which, as any guy can attest, is cruel only in its use of the diminutive. 

Perhaps no one can skewer like Fr. George Rutler, a priest in Manhattan whose rejoinders read like poetry. The passage below, about the Kennedys, is mild compared to his normal balpeen hammer blows:

In Boston, the Kennedys and the clergy made unlovely music playing each other like pianos. Current distress in that archdiocese may be traced in part to defective spiritual chromosomes in Joe Kennedy and Cardinal O’Connell. A generation later, an obsequious Cardinal Cushing greased the slide from the solid piety of the work-worn 19th-century Patrick Kennedy to a latter-day “I never worked a (!!**!#!) day in my life” Patrick Kennedy accusing the pope of bigotry. 

The decay of the Kennedy dynasty now is marked not so much by the hypocrisy of more colorful earlier generations, whose vice paid tribute to virtue, as by a dull humbug whose virtue pays tribute to vice. P. J. Kennedy dancing on tables and Honey Fitz singing “Sweet Adeline” are more splendid figures in their corruption than Kathleen Kennedy Townsend delivering confused animadversions on Galileo.
If this be vice, it pays a certain virtue to vice. 

Some negate, some affirm. Some stamp out heresy, others promulgate truth. Some fight wars, some are pacifists. I guess there is room for both in the universal church. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:28
 
November 11, 2003   


 
But What Would We Have to Talk About?

Amy's tired of treating symptoms; she tells it like it is:


The crisis is not met by issuing statements about those second-tier issues [pro-abort politicians, the fondness of Catholics for the Left Behind books and The Da Vinci Code....]. The crisis is met head on by admitting that in the past forty years, Catholics have lost sight of Christ, that you can sit in a Catholic Mass and not have any strong sense, week after week, that this about the passionate love that Christ has for you and calls you to embrace and share and live. That's the crisis. Catholicism, in its American manifestation, is hardly about Christ. It's mostly about insititutional concerns: membership, money, leadership and public perception. And contrary to current wisdom, none of those things happen to be God.
True. The fact that there are American Catholic pro-choice politicians, for example, says nothing about abortion and everything about the state of American Catholicism. My idea of fighting current ills has moved from donating to the "National Right to Life" PAC to giving away copies of Scott Hahn's "Rome Sweet Home" - because the source of the problem has less to do with politics than with love - as exemplified by Hahn's commentary on John 6. 

And last Sunday our priest said that we need to read the Gospels more often, explaining that otherwise "how will you get to know Christ?". How indeed. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:55
 
 


 
A Modest Proposal


Proposed new high school. Cost = $10,411

Recently our school district asked us to approve a new $60 million (say like Mike Myers in Austin Powers) high school. 

I'm sort of curious why it costs $60 million to build a high school, which is over half what it cost to build a state-of-the-art professional sports arena. (Which, when publically financed, are boondoggles, but that's another story.)

Why is it that kids got better educations fifty years ago with less technology and infrastructure? How is that children learned to read in one-room classrooms when the McGuffey Reader was de rigeur? 

Why not pay teachers $200K a year and have them teach in heated tents? I bet the education would be better because it's teachers who teach, not buildings. 


Proposed annual salary for this man: $201,200

Disclaimer: I am not a teacher and thus have no inherent conflict of interest. No school buildings were harmed in the making of this post. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:41
 
 


 
A tragedy for the local community recently occurred with the death of a 16-yr old student who was active at my wife's church. 

Outgoing and devout, he did missionary work in other countries as well as among his high school classmates. My wife knew him and his youth minister father and it saddened her to tears. 

Shortly after noon church service, without a drop of alcohol to "explain it", he drove over 100mph because he wanted to see if he could get the car airborne. He lost control, went into a ditch, flipped the car and hit a tree. The two passengers received only minor injuries.

I didn’t know him, but it irritated me that he could be so reckless. Does confidence in God overflow into areas of life it shouldn't? Popular and genuine among his peers (a combination in high school as rare as hothouse flowers above the Arctic Circle), he was much more courageous than me - and I'm not talking about driving habits - but perhaps, at age 16, you don't get courage without foolhardiness. 

I can’t help but think it God-appointed that neither of the kids he was with were seriously hurt. His parents, bearing the nearly unbearable burden, at least don’t have to have the additional weight of their child being responsible for another parent's nightmare. 

His memorial service was happy and enthusiastic, not sad. Which I didn't know what to make of. Given eternal life, a death is not the loss that it is to an unbeliever. But given the cult-like, 'put on a happy face at all times' aspect of this non-denominational church I had the proverbial 'mixed emotions'. 

But perhaps that is prejuidice. Our previous Dominican friar, half-Irish and half-Italian, said that funerals that involved both sides were always strained because the Irish half were joyful and the Italian side grim. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:36
 
 


 
On the other hand...

Sportswriter Mike Lupica, on Tim Russert's show, lamented the fact that you can't get to know ballplayers anymore. They're too afraid of being misquoted or thought ill of in an age of political correctness and gotcha journalism. Russert agreed, saying that it used to be you'd have a few drinks with a politician and they'd say "this is off the record" and you could get a sense of how they really felt about things. 

I think this feeds the popularity of blogs, this fresh outlet for saying things that are offensive to some (such as religious truth claims). And size matters. Our large Columbus Dispatch doesn't want to offend, while the free upstart (called "The Other Paper") gives you a fresh honesty, or, more likely, an unvarnished opinion. The person most honest is the one writing in his journal for an audience of one, and/or (hopefully) when talking to God. Blogs are a step from that but fresher than newsprint. Akim, a recent arrival to blogdom, has interesting things to say:

Blogs are terrific in the way they allow a peek into the inner workings of people. Not a very deep one perhaps but better than none at all. Bloggers write half for themselves, half for others. So the propaganda-factor is watered down and double-edged. I know I bullshit a lot here, but less than I would bullshit if I had to write an article instead of a journal entry. Therefore, concerning the above, I found myself spying on religious blogs - perhaps I'll finally find some clues there, to the illusive and the unspoken...

Also, I'm getting this odd feeling that some blogs start out original in the best personal sense of the word and then get screwed up by the popularity itch - turning politico or educational to feed the swelling crowd. So the best way to spot out peculiar stuff is still the random poke - fishing out the odd fish. I wonder if I'll find other ways eventually.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:31
 
November 10, 2003   


 
Interesting Quote

"Princes, great ladies, dancers, I explained to him, love a sad tale, so do the beggars by the city walls. But I mean to be a story-teller to the whole world, and the men of business and their wives will demand a tale that ends well." - from an Isak Dineson short story

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:25
 
November 9, 2003   


 
Politics and Religion

Conversations at family gatherings have that familiar dynamic - that which divides can seem more interesting than what unites. In other words, instead of talking about the weather or the OSU Buckeyes, we're drawn, like the sailors of Lorelei, towards debate that sometimes turns rancorous.

Ham of Bone has it bad; he tells stories of arguments with his inlaws that begin with "Bush is an idiot!", a mantra that his mother-in-law answers to every point he makes. She comes infinitely close to saying that Bone is an idiot (trying to say it as politiely as possible of course). He doesn't bring up politics and attempts valiantly to avoid ad hominens but they know he is conservative and it seems to be an invisible thorn rankling them. 

But, as Fulton Sheen says, win an argument, lose a soul. And as tasty as debate is at the family gatherings, his saying puts things in perspective since not everyone at the gatherings is Christian. 

Debate for the Christian in this scenerio seems a fool's game. Why take a chance of pissing someone off and endanger the possibility of being an instrument for God? For example, in a recent debate on the "gay days" at Disney World I said, "at least we can agree that Disney should give a heads-up on gay day so that parents who don't want their children exposed to that can elect not to go", to which came the reply that heterosexuals should give gays a heads-up when they come to the park. 

But in the end who cares about Gay Day at Disney compared to the souls of family members? If they consider me an idiot on matters political, they probably will on things spiritual. How about those Buckeyes! 

I know that gay days are different from tax policies, but I think we need more Dorothy Days in the world. I think they could speak the language of my in-laws. Part of what made Dorothy Day so special was that she was a political liberal but not a religious liberal. She didn't carry her liberalism into the church and instead was orthodox and loyal to the Magisterium. (Of course, I shouldn't carry my conservatism into church either. Conservatism in its pristine form is the absence of ideology so it should be easier.) 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:25
 
 


 
ex libris

The next generation of the 'books about books' genre will probably be 'books about books about books', in order to determine which of these type of books about books one should buy. 

Maybe one could ask St. Catherine of Alexandria, patron saint of librarians. (How's that for a segue?) She lived during the 4th century and November 25th is her feast day: 

From all accounts she was well educated and very articulate. When she was 18, she converted to Christianity.

Her baptism made her aware of every Christian’s duty to proclaim Christ to others and she did so. She publically condemned the persecution of Christians by Emperor Maximinus and he had her imprisoned for it. In prison she converted many to the faith by her example and eloquence. 

Remember that Joan of Arc ‘heard voices’? Well, St. Catherine of Alexandria was one of the Saints who spoke to her.
–Sister Juliana D’Amato, O.P.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 20:39
 
November 8, 2003   


 
On Demonic Activity

I'm aware, somewhat subliminally, of the great spiritual warfare going on. But after reading Tom Hoopes' depressing article on the demonic in the latest Crisis, I think I prefer it remain subliminal. Reading it reminded me of how fragile we are, which is not a bad thing because we see our neediness, but after reading that article physical fragility seems as nothing compared to the mental and spiritual fragilities, of mental illness and the power of the demonic. God never gives us more than we can handle, but I was reassured by Godincidentally picking up a book I hadn't in years, the Letters of John Henry Newman, and flipping to this, which consoles in its familiar if unsatisfying recognition:

The most prominent difficult in Theism is the existence of evil: I can’t overcome it; I am obliged to leave it alone, with the confession that it is too much for me, and with an appeal to the argumentum ab ignorantia, or in other words, with the evasion or excuse, not very satisfactory...When I came to Christianity, I find this grand difficulty untouched; yet fully recognized. This coincidence is to me an argument in favor of Christianity, if Theism be true, as falling under the argument from analogy…Our Lord’s death to destroy evil is as tremendous and appalling a confession of the existence and of its power, as can be conceived. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 20:10
 
 


 
Bad News Blues No Mo'

I think I've been inoculated to the bad news blues, at least on the Church front. The priestly scandals, the liturgical abuses, the Da Vinci Code....water off a duck's back. Perhaps it's fatalism but I prefer to think of it, optimistically, in terms of the old Italian saying: "the situation is hopeless, but not serious". The Lord will find a way. Or as St. Ignatius' said: discouragement is not from God. 

So now the latest news from Tim Drake (link from Disputations) - about the mandatum coverup - neither surprises nor upsets. As Chesterton said: "I am very glad that our fashionable fiction seems to be full of a return to paganism, for it may possibly be the first step of a return to Christianity." 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:24
 
November 7, 2003   


 
Hokie Pundit is Steamed

Robert Bauer, understandably, doesn't like the talk about invalid Anglican orders. He suggests that Catholics aren't doing themselves any favors by alienating their closest theological relatives.* 

Implicit is the idea that some Anglicans can be courted into the Church, woo'd in by not mentioning theological differences. But something stinketh in such an arranged, loveless marriage. Instead of arriving in the Church with the Holy Spirit blowing them in, they arrive like forlorn castaways reluctantly accepting second best because of the election of a heretical bishop. Is that really best for them? Is a reluctant connection with the Church better than none? I know Catholics who don't accept much of Church teaching and I'm torn by conflicting emotions: one is the desire they leave the Church and grow and possibly find themselves back in it as 'completed evangelicals' as Mark Shea calls himself, or that they stay in hopes that the connection, however tenuous, will bear fruit. (Of course they may have related hopes for spiritual growth in me.)

I'm also not sure how humility comes into play. Whoever thinks Anglican orders are invalid is just following what the Church teaches. I don't see how he or any Catholic has a choice in the matter since we believe we are bound by papal authority. It's like chastizing an Amishman for not using electric appliances - it's not that he's arrogant in not using electric appliances, it's just part of what makes him Amish. 

* - a sharp reader points out that the Orthodox are our closest theological relatives and their orders are recognized.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:36
 
 


 
Many good things on Fr. Jim's blog including 

this:


Reading Luther or Kierkegaard (who are the Protestant thinkers I'm most familiar with), I'm impressed by the intense personal faith of the individual who stands naked before God and calls out for salvation. I'm impressed by the great personal responsibility that the classical Protestant takes upon himself as he picks up the Bible and, relying on his own mind and the Holy Ghost, attempts to figure out what God means to communicate to man and then bets his soul upon it. To me (and, I think, to most Catholics) this fearsome responsibility has something very distant and cold about it. It is awe-inspiring, but it also seems very, very lonely. 

In my faith, I don't think I've ever felt alone. The community of faith has always surrounded me -- physically, emotionally, intellectually. When I think of "faith," I think of something that has been passed along to me from the hands of another. I think of a brightly-painted chapel, with saints upon the wall who have believed the same things I believe; with giggling, gilded putti who find the world amusing; with the bones enshrined of martyrs, who gave the ultimate sacrifice for the things I read in the catechism. 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:02
 
 


 
Kat ain't got her tongue

Lively writer lives up to her name.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 19:17
 
November 6, 2003   


 
From the Small World Dep't

The quote that follows is from Mrs. Culbreath, wife of El Camino's Jeff Culbreath. I think my wife could've written it almost word-for-word except she'd be less sanguine about sharing me with the fine ladies:

Mr. Culbreath loves the attention you ladies give him too much to disappear...You should know by now that he is a compulsive writer. He can't make a living writing so he needs an outlet. I'm too busy to admire his writing so I'm glad you fine ladies do it for me. I don't mind sharing him at all.
Reminds me of how surprising it was - though it probably shouldn't have been - to hear that another blogger's full re-conversion to the Catholic faith (not Jeff Culbreath, but someone else) was stoked by means similar to my own - by the reading of Scott Hahn's "Rome Sweet Home" and Karl Keating's "Catholicism and Fundamentalism". Just goes to show that we're all the same though we're all different. Now that's profound. Worth every bit you paid for it.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:15
 
 


 
Beating a dead (war) horse

I'm as sick to death as anybody of the argument "aren't we better off without Saddam?" as if that should drive the moral calculation as to whether the war was just. 

I'm also squeamish about the idea of pre-emption as a reason for going to war, although if I were in charge I'd read a lot of George Weigel and Michael Novak and see if I could squash my squeamishness. 

But what I honestly don't get - and I must be way off base because I hear nobody talk about this - is the larger picture. We tend to look at the 2003 U.S. invasion discretely, as a stand-alone event. 

But how is this invasion not a continuation of the first Gulf War when Saddam did not comply with the agreement made at the end of that war? 

Do we realize how brutal the economic sanctions were, how many thousands of innocent Iraqi children died? The U.S. was, rightly or wrongly, by far the main force behind the sanctions. I wonder if George Bush didn't think a shooting war almost preferable to the cruelity of sanctions that affected Saddam not one iota, his people greatly. 

I am interested in whether the initial Gulf War was a just war, and if the twelve years of sanctions were just, because if they were then I have difficulty in seeing how this one wasn't. Regardless, the decision to force Iraq out of Kuwait seems questionable in hindsight - it enraged a previously "sleeping hornet", Osama bin Laden. He dates his hatred of the U.S. to the day our troops landed on the 'holy ground' of Saudi Arabia. And once the hornet's nest is disturbed, you're dealing with it forever. But the alternative, to have done nothing, meant Saddam would probably take Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as was his goal (journalist Mark Bowden wrote a long article for The Atlantic that describes his schemes of Mideast domination). That would lead, I expect, to far more problems than the price of oil going up. Then the U.S. not getting involved would also look questionable in hindsight. 

Maybe what I'm missing is that the moral barometer is something that changes minute-by-minute depending on circumstances. So the first Gulf War might be just, but not the sanctions. Or the sanctions were just for the first two years, until they were seen as failures at which point they should've been dropped. Or...?

The obligatory disclaimer applies - what do I know? I assume that if my big picture argument (i.e. that the U.S. has tried to systematically deal with Saddam through three administrations) had much validity I would've heard it from my betters. I'm just glad I don't have to make those decisions.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:51
 
 


 
Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts


Dan Brown's book has made people who were turned off by Christianity and Catholicism see Jesus in a new light--not as the Son of God, but as someone real and worthy of being followed. -excerpt from a nonsensical letter written to Amy Welborn

The [writer of the quote above] is not exactly a linear thinker, so exposing logical fallacies or shortcomings ultimately get nowhere. These kinds of folks are intuitive feelers rather than rational thinkers. Both can lead one to God, but both are uncertain paths as well. The special temptation of the rational thinker is arrogance; the special temptation of the intuitive feeler is narcissism. Self-awareness and humility are the antidotes to both. --Mike Petrik commenting on the letter posted on Amy's blog

Prayer ought to be short and pure, unless it be prolonged by the inspiration if Divine grace. - from the Rule of St. Benedict, via a quizilla quiz titled "What Saint are you?", though I wonder at the Benedictine definition of 'short'.

Anyone who has taken a walk through a 15th century art exhibit knows that painters of that period always portrayed young men as angelic, typically with a flair for a feminine facial structure...The full painting shows Jesus and 12 other "persons." The Twelve. Not the Eleven-and-Mary-Magdalene; The Twelve. - the Mighty Barrister

When a man's spirits are high, he is pleased with everything; and with himself especially. He can act with vigor and promptness, and he mistakes this mere constitutional energy for strength of faith. He is cheerful and contented; and he mistakes this for Christian peace. And, if happy in his family, he mistakes mere natural affection for Christian benevolence, and the confirmed temper of Christian love. In short, he is in a dream, from which nothing could have saved him except deep humility, and nothing will ordinarily rescue him except sharp affliction. --John Henry Newman, via William Luse of Apologia

The Ninth Simple Rule for Dating My Teenage Daughter, should I ever have one: take her to one of these [Girls Gone Wild] contests, and I will have your testicles in a Ball jar, atop my television. - Kat of Lively Writer

I think George MacDonald is near the mark in his saying about parables: "They reveal to the live conscience, otherwise not to the keenest intellect." The point is that parables are not principally discursive instruction about such-and-such, but a call to conversion of heart. Once the penitent sinner responds to the appeal, and thereby becomes a disciple -- literally, a "learner" -- then he can be taught the truths of the kingdom en clair. But to teach the propositions first would be to gratify curiosity rather than to announce the kingdom. -commenter P. Mankowski on Disputation's blog

Although I am not a Poor Clare nun, I do have a vocation--that of wife and mother. And it is filled with unending repetition of mundane tasks...The days I am unsatisfied are the days I have looked on my tasks as mere 'work.' I don't want to live in the 'job domain.' -TLS of Summa Mommas 

The moral rectitude of the subject of ordination does not interfere with the conferral of the Sacrament of Orders. If proper matter and form are observed, an intention to do as the Church does is present, a valid consecrator is the minister, and a valid subject is the recipient, a man is raised to Holy Orders even if he is living in open concubinage with three different people. The second point is that, in the eyes of the Roman Church, the whole question is moot, because Anglican Orders are invalid to begin with. Arguing over whether Robinson's situation invalidates his consecration is kind of like arguing over the circulatory system of unicorns....I do think it's a bad thing to have departed from traditional Christian orthodoxy in the matter of same-sex relations. But the Anglican Communion has departed from traditional Christian orthodoxy in far more serious ways on numerous occasions since Henry decided to rid himself of Catherine. When a church has been without a valid Eucharist for five centuries, it's hard to get worked up about the fact that they now have an openly gay bishop. - Fr. Jim of Dappled Things

She said that even though I am clearly as set in my ways as any of them are, I am not pigheaded at all. What a nice compliment! In return, I should probably say something like, "Of all the bra-burning, Germaine Greer-reading, Pope-hating feminists in the world, you are my favorite! -Enbrethiliel of Sancta Sanctis

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:17
 
 


 
The End of Irish Catholicism?

Interesting review of Twomey's The End of Irish Catholicism?:

Twomey notes the absence of any genuine theological tradition in Ireland, even among the clergy. He contrasts the Irish situation with that which prevails in France (a country with a strong tradition of secularism and anti-clericalism) where the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Lustiger, can tackle in an erudite and convincing manner the major questions afflicting society and debate them in public. As Twomey observes: “When he (Lustiger) enters the fray of public debate, he does so from an unapologetically theological perspective, and yet without any trace of dogmatism.” He goes on to say that no matter how difficult the situation was in France, the church there continued to think, and think theologically. 

This has not been the case in Ireland.... The Irish Catholic has developed under the stewardship of David Quinn (another feisty and accomplished lay defender of the Catholic Church), but it is nowhere near possessing the intellectual and cultural finesse of its foreign equivalents. Twomey makes the following point in relation to why we have fallen on such fallow times in terms of intellectual debate on this island: 
“The real materialism of the Church in Ireland is not manifest in the excesses of the nouveaux riches, but in her serious disinterest in serious thought of any metaphysical or theological nature.” 

France, a country I know quite well, is a place where the value of the intellectual argument takes precedence over the person who presents it. You are not automatically labelled a fundamentalist if you express interest in the Catholic novelist, Georges Bernanos, for example. 

Is France a role model for the faith? I must be missing something. I'm tempted to think that thinking is overrated if secular France is the result. (Although it is true they have no priestly scandal business there.) Here is a provocative quote from Twomey, found in the first chapter here:

...one may well ask: how Catholic was ‘traditional Irish Catholicism’? ...Traditional Irish Catholic culture, I will argue, carried within it the seeds of its own decay despite its apparent power and splendour in days of yore. Those seeds were primarily of an intellectual, more specifically, of a theological nature, and their fruit is what amounts to a crisis of faith today.

The Church on earth is by its very nature a Church lurching from one crisis to another: it is after all, in more traditional parlance, the ‘Church militant’, the mystical Body at war with the evil within and without the Christian community. Christians are always a threatened species, and the Church is in every era confronted by what seem to be insurmountable difficulties. But it has always emerged renewed by the struggle. Today’s crisis, I am convinced, will in time yield a new flowering of Church life in a new environment, that of modern Ireland, though not without considerable effort and, even more, help from above. That help is assured. Less assured is our indispensable contribution. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:32
 
 


 
Educashion

Amy shares a frightening letter...

We know that challenges to the faith are myriad. The breakdown of the family is one - it is much more difficult for someone to trust in a benevolent Father if their own father went AWOL. But what of education? 

Reading about the success of the Da Vinci Code, and its acceptance in some quarters as fact, leaves me wondering what part the failure of education plays in undermining faith. A certain amount of learning might have an inoculation effect on heresy. Too much leaves you more suspectible, since pride enters.

I've heard that the average high school graduate in 1940 received the equivalent education to the college graduate today, to the extent one can measure. A few generations ago you had to learn Greek and Latin and read the classics in the original. Now you don't have to read the classics at all. Catechesis and theological knowledge have surely paralleled this decline. 

What's different about today is that it's not so much there are atheists and agnostics, it's that there are atheists and agnostics who have no respect for faith. And I think that's partially a result of a lack of education. The Pope wrote Fides et Ratio in part to defend reason, understanding its relation to faith. Camille Paglia, an agnostic who respects faith, wrote about the demise of education in Slate and Bryan Cones responded tellingly:

I long for the education my older professors got (the old priests, that is) -- a good liberal arts seminary education, an incredibly broad graduate education in language, history, philosophy and theology. Unfortunately, I don't think it exists anymore -- creating an updated version would be a worthwhile challenge -- and I sure as hell don't want a doctorate in the "latest thing," which will surely be worthless in a year. One can only take so much play with language -- cleverness can really only go so far. Truly accurate analysis requires piles of knowledge, and most of what I've read is a lot of nothing."
I wonder if even the heresies are getting watered down as a result. From the Filioque dispute in the 11th century to sola scriptura and sacramental disputes in the 16th to "did Jesus have sex?" today. Oy vey. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:02
 
November 5, 2003   


 
sex, truths and Avis rental

A blogger I read describes herself as "barely Catholic" and says she remains tenuously connected because "our guys try harder", meaning our priests. They leave some skin on the table (pardon the pun) by virtue of their celibacy while Protestant ministers draw a pass. 

This "Avis attitude" is one I understand.

When I was a teenager I remember being underwhelmed by the presence of married deacons at the altar. What charlatans! They are "playing priest", dressing in robes without paying their theological and disciplinary dues. I considered priests the real McCoy mostly because of the celibacy requirement. For a boy with raging hormones that was nothing short of heroic. (Come to think of it, it still is, although I have much more respect for the difficulties of married folks now that I am one. As a teen with a sex-centric view of life, I thought anyone getting "regular sex" should shut up and never complain about anything.... Hambone and I now scratch our heads in disbelief at men in their 60's buying Viagra since we're rather looking forward to an age when the libidinous burden weighs lighter.)

But I've since come to imperfectly understand that God calls us to different tasks that all call for humility and all of which are potentially heroic. I was reminded of that in this Disputational post concerning St. Martin de Porres: 

"It was only out of obedience to a direct order from the prior of the Dominican house where St. Martin served as gatekeeper and doctor that he agreed to become a friar. Out of humility, he would have preferred to remain an unvowed associate."
Wow. How about that? And if I were around back then I suspect I would've missed the unvowed associate for the other friars (at least until the miracles came). I might've thought him the medieval equivalent of a married deacon. But sometimes the one trying the hardest isn't wearing an Avis uniform - or any uniform. It only matters what God sees. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 18:22
 
November 4, 2003   


 
Isn't Anyone Trying to Find You?

I see this song, popular with young people, as a concealed longing for God and a sign of how rich the harvest is. May the Harvestmaster sends workers. 

To answer the heading: God is.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 18:21
 
 


 
The Stamp Connection ...a parody?

MADISON, WI (AP) -- Dan Green, longtime philatelist and author of the book How Stamps Saved My Life, has written a new book entitled His Secret Hobby, a book that suggests Jesus was a clandestine collector of Roman and Greek postage stamps. 

"I've written it in part to banish unhealthy attitudes many in this country have towards philately, the accusations of nerdishness and the like. Healthy, well-adjusted people engage in philately all the time and my point in writing this book is to suggest that Jesus was no different," he said in an interview last month.

Green is accused by anti-stamp conservatives as seeing Christ through the lens of personal bias. They point out that extant texts do not appear to back his assertions. 

"That's all hooey," Green replies to critics. "The absence of proof only proves the truth and effectiveness of a conspiracy. And there are some indications. For example, in Botticelli's masterpiece The Presentation there's a man in the temple background - just to the left of Joseph - examining what appears to be a stamp."

Rev. McBrien, our go-to-guy for all things Catholic, said that it is likely Jesus collected stamps if it'll lead to woman and married priests. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:52
 
 


 
Excerpts from Flannery O'Connor's Letters

I think that what you want is not a Church that can be 'liberalized' but one that can be 'naturalized.' If there were a scientific explanation or even suggestion for these supernatural doctrines, you could accept them. If you could fit them into what man can know by his own resources, you could accept them; if this were not religion but knowledge, or even hypothesis, you could accept it. All around you today you will find people accepting 'religion' that has been rid of its religious elements.

We are all bound by the Friday abstinence. This does not mean that the sin is in eating meat but that the sin is in refusing the penance; the sin is in disobedience to Christ who speaks to us through the Church; the same with missing Mass on Sunday. Catholicism is full of such inconveniences and you will not accept these until you have that larger imaginative view of what the Church is, or until you are more alive to spiritual reality and how it affects us in the flesh.

The Church has always been mindful of the relation between spirit and flesh; this has shown up in her definitions of the double nature of Christ, as well as in her care for what may seem to us to have nothing to do with religion - such as contraception. The Church is all of a piece. Her prohibition against the frustration of the marriage act has its true center perhaps in the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. This again is a spiritual doctrine, and beyond our comprehension.

*
The dissecting language [of the Karl Adam book] repels me too; this is what is known as The Pious Style. I will send you something without the Pious Style [although] the only places you can really avoid it are in the liturgy and in the Bible; and these are the places where the Church herself speaks...


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 07:00
 
 


 
The Dog who Chased Turkey and Deer Thinking Them Ducks and Dogs

Flush
O righteous dog
those heretical turkeys
and bounding killdeers 
who tramp the mission path!

Flush, Obi
those winged Thanksgiving meals
and antlered Hopalong Cassidys
who thrush the brush
of our wooded retreat.

Flush, my boy
the strangers in the 'hood
the dogs in seersucker suits,
the ducks with jangly necks.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 06:59
 
 


 


Pondering GWTN

It seemed a rite of passage. My mother’s impatient desire that her kids see Gone With the Wind was tempered only by our youth. I was just seven years old when I was traumatized (I forgave her last year) by the stark horror of Mr. O'Hara's madness. The sight of his wife's shrine at Tara could not have been more gothic if the body itself were there. 

Actually I wasn't seven. I think I was sixteen. (The age of first viewing shrinks with each telling.) But what makes this movie so iconic? How does it drive to the nerve of the human condition? 

I wonder, half-seriously, if you can measure your spiritual condition by how you view Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler versus the long-suffering Melanie and Ashley Wilkes. For the phenomerone-driven teenager, it’s all Scarlett and Rhett. The more discerning, or spiritually advanced, appreciate Melanie and Ashley. 

The casting was knowing: the pretty Scarlett and handsome Rhett juxtaposed by the interiorly-prettier Melanie and more honorable Ashley. Are Scarlett & Rhett deemed more ‘interesting’ by viewers and if so, why? Are their inner demons more interesting than those who are unfailingly charitable? 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:48
 
November 3, 2003   


 
Leisured Means to a End  ...or tales lazy men tell

Please pardon the obscenity implicit in blogging about leisure when most of the developing world has very little of it and the following will seem, and is, self-indulgent at best. My only defense is that the average hunter-gatherer worked 15 hours a week, albeit without cable or internet access. (Disclaimer: I don't know how social scientists figured out that the average hunter-gatherer worked fifteen hours a week when there were no social scientists among the hunter-gatherers.)




Unmerited Grace
November.
Central Ohio.
Seventy-seven Degrees.

*
Time stretches inexorably from Ivory Tower time, that time of collegiate ease that somehow combined two antipodal things: a sense of importance with a sense of leisure. I've noticed that it's getting harder to ‘trick’ myself into relaxing, into believing that I can be absorbed for a purpose other than regeneration and renewal.* Leisure becomes a means to an end, something it resists fiercely. When leisure becomes utilitarian then leisure seems to know and ceases to become that means. For she by her very nature loathes utilitarianism and can smell it out. The result is that it takes longer to fool the lyptomatomus (a made up region of the brain that recognizes when you are attempting to make leisure a means to an end). 

For some, it is only by day four of a week long vacation that they even realize they're on vacation - i.e. that they are sufficiently relaxed to relax. This “point at which you relax” often moves steadily westward (i.e. takes longer) as your body and mind become harder to fool. Your mind logically thinks: why should I fully relax and let down my carefully constructed work-ethic (weak as it is) only to have to erect it again on Monday? Would it not be best I simply don’t relax to avoid a jarring re-entry?

* - prayer can take on this quality, a sort of a "Lord, get me the graces to get thru this day" instead of "what can I learn from you this day?". A defensive posture instead of an offensive one, if you will. An attitude that seeks not to learn about or from Him but to get something from Him. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:24
 
 


 
The Great Ism of Our Time: Individualism

Camassia has an interesting post about individualism in spirituality. I've often wondered if the problem many moderns have with original sin is a result of having a too individualistic notion of things, a mindset brought about by our current alienation. Many think it unfair that we should suffer for the sin of Adam (who we don't know from Adam), but I wonder if the Israelites or pre-Renaissance Christians thought it so problematical given that they were quite used to thinking of themselves as members of clans who would rise or fall together. They were accustomed to thinking of themselves in one "ark". 

The bible is replete with examples where the individual seems fortunate mostly by virtue of the community he is living in. The tribe of Israel served as the OT version of the 'scandal of particularity'; they were the Chosen People and in the Passover event they were saved via blood on the lintel, something made possible by familial connection. 

In the NT Jesus referred to us as his sheep which recognizes our communal situation and our need to be led. A small irony is that today even those who call themselves individualists and resist authoritarian influences end up dressing and thinking alike.

One morbid way of thinking of ourselves collectively is to consider that everything is recycled. Everything. The Hebrew word for "Adam" means 'dust' or 'clay' and as he was, so are we, even in the material content of our very cells. We can think of our bodies as the ancient doors in Psalm 24...our ancient physicality drawn from the physical substances that preceeded us: 

Lift up your heads, O you gates; 
lift them up, you ancient doors, 
that the King of glory may come in. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 22:29
 
November 2, 2003   


 
the power of blogging

As much as I try to keep up with all things book, I would know nothing about the Da Vinci Code but for Amy Welborn. (I never look at the fiction best-seller lists due to picky taste in fiction.)

But my aunt just read Brown's book and is worried, thinking it possibly truthful, and asked my father to ask me to refute it if I could. I knew just where to go. Couple quick hits and I'm here. 

I sent along the Sandra Miesel link and Envoy link. Heresies flourish via the modern media - especially the web - but possibly so do their antidotes.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 20:43
 
 


 
Interesting article on secular and sacred uses of horror, via Summa Mommas. 

I wonder what E. Michael Jones would say?

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:00
 
 


 
Holy, holy, holy, All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Who was, and is, and evermore shall be.

- from hymn "Holy, Holy, Holy"

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:58
 
 


 
Da Vinci Code

Amy describes the growing popularity of the Da Vinci Code and I think she's on to something:


My fundamental distress with this whole matter is what has happened, when you get down to it, is how this whole phenomenon works to distract the world from the truth of Jesus. Be interested in Jesus as a figure in esoteric hypothesizing. Let yourself be fascinated by conspiracy theories and be taken in by flawed logic and historical fantasizing.
I know young people who are fascinated by the Gospel of Thomas but have never read or shown interest in the canonical gospels. I think we can all fall prey, of course, to what is beguiling rather than what is real. As another blogger put it so eloquently: "Most people would not even cross the street to witness an unobtrusive act of patience being put into practice, but they will cross an ocean to visit the locale of an alleged apparition." That's not to suggestion the apparition isn't real, but it is beguiling and can distract if not put in a larger context. 

Some Christians-by-birth look to Buddhism or Zen or eastern religions in part because the faith they grew up with is not 'exotic' enough. I fall prey similarly by missing God right in front of me all the time. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:02
 
October 31, 2003   


 
Kaus on Blogging

He makes the case for it here via Touchstone.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:45
 
 


 
Paglia Post

The Camille Paglia post suprised some, which surprised me. I thought much of what she said was self-evident (if you're sufficiently masochistic, read the random stream of "most recently updated" links on blogger.com). She is admittedly brilliant and interesting. But only relatively; i.e. not compared to God. It seems some gratitude might be in order by our providing contrast! :)

What bothers me is her disparagement of words, but Paglia is coming at it from her worship of all things Italian. (How else to explain her Madonna fetish?) Italians love spectacle - opera, fashion and the visual. Images strip-mine the imagination - if the movie was better than the book then the book wasn't that good. 

But then I'm of Irish extract. And the Irish aren't know for art or spectacle right?

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:30
 
October 30, 2003   


 
A Rough Algorithm...why internecine rivalries are always the worse



Level of my annoyance at being disagreed with =

((importance of the issue) + (view of how simple the issue is to grasp)) X (degree to which interlocutor 'should know better')
It may seem as though how simple something is to grasp and the degree to which your interlocutor should know better are the same, but many issues are complex only to someone who doesn't share your assumptions and or education.

Example 1: The Catholic who is "pro-choice" (i.e. pro-choice after pregnancy):
a) Importance of the issue: 1.3 million babies a year = 10 (on 1 to 10 scale)
b) View of Simplicity: a separate DNA exists within a mother's womb = 8? (10 for partial-birth abortion anyway) 
c) Degree to which your opponent should know better: For a Catholic = 10

So for me the pro-abort Catholic = 180 on scale of 0-200.

Example 2:
Level of annoyance at a liberal Democrat disagreeing with me on tax policy:
a) Importance of the issue = 3 (taxes in a split Congress will not radically change either up or down)
b) View of Simplicity of the Issue = 5
c) Degree to which my opponent should know better = 1* 

Hence, a mere 8. 

The formula implies an 'annoyance parity' between importance of the issue and how simple it is to discern; this is a recognition of human nature as it exists rather than logical assertion. Even minor things tear at communities - seemingly minor things from an outsider's perspective. But what they miss is a) they are not minor to the community involved and that b)'they should know better' is off the charts within a community given common assumptions and level of education.

I've noticed that I am susceptible to the views of those I respect. For example, I may change my diagnosis of a sickness if a doctor tells me my view is false. Similarly, if someone shares my assumptions and faith but has a much firmer grasp of church teaching in a certain area, I'm liable to moderate my opinion. My view of the simplicity of the Terri case, for example, went from a "10" to a "5" after reading commentary by those who have studied the issue. 

* -- Reasonable people can disagree at what point punitive tax levels inhibit production, for example, and to what degree lowered production levels might serve a greater good. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:47
 
 


 
Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts



'Since the first Pope we have not Petered out.'......'You got Tradition in my Scripture. You got Scripture in my Tradition. Two great tastes together at last.' --Jeff Miller of Curt Jester, offering possible Catholic Church mottos after hearing of the Episcopal Church's 'We're here for you'. 

What I want is a living will that says, "Please don't kill me, even if saving my life entails getting someone get off his lazy ass to put a feeding tube in my stomach." I suppose doctors used to assume that patients wanted to live, but after seeing the Terry Schiavo fiasco I think a legally-binding document saying "Please don't kill me" might come in handy. --Bill of Summa Minutiae

The Russell Kirk story was the inspiration behind our getting rid of broadcast television nine years ago. The point is that you can't be a real conservative without a healthy aversion to television and the "virtual reality" industry. Does this include the internet and St. Blog's parish? Yes, I believe it does. - Jeff Culbreath of Elcamino Real

The first couple years after initiation, I didn't feel the burden of carrying the Cross as much as I do now, but then, my love for Christ was not as strong then either, it was more a feeling of gratitude. - commenter Ben on Swimming the Tiber

Just as the illiterate cannot read books like those who are literate, neither can those who have refused to go through the commandments of Christ by practicing them be granted the revelation of the Holy Spirit like those who have brooded over them and fulfilled them and shed their blood for them. --St. Symeon, The Discourses, Discourse 24

I've told my wife that I have no objections at all to being a burden on her or on anyone else, but I may be in the minority on this. Almost everyone I've heard express an opinion has, in essence, recoiled in horror at the thought of being physically helpless. Very often, they say they would hate to lose their dignity by needing others to feed and bathe them....But here's the thing: The dignity you can lose isn't much worth holding onto. True human dignity is part and parcel of true human nature. That cannot be lost; it can only be failed to be recognized. --Tom of Disputations

I started thinking of despair, and of Denethor, because I was reading the new issue of Crisis. Now I like Crisis, but if I read too much at once, it begins to speak to my lack of hope by revealing the many weaknesses in the Church and the strengths of her enemies. I am tempted, like Denethor, to exclaim “Against the power that has arisen there can be no victory!” As the Psalmist says, “If I had said ‘I will speak thus,’ I would have been untrue to the generation of thy children” (Ps 73:15). It’s hard, but every now and then I get a glimpse of what is unseen.... If I could maintain that vision, I should be, I think, psychologically incapable of despair or any other sin. - Henry of Plumbline in the Wind 

Florence King has remarked that she is ultimately less suited to writing fiction than to writing non-fiction, because she cares more about what people think than about what they do. -- Eve Tushnet's friend 'The Rat'

God wants that my soul is saved...I must obedience to God. These are the two certainties....
1. Since God wants my salvation, I must obey it (to obey it to save my soul).
Or:
2.Since I must fulfill its will, then, I must try my salvation (to save my soul to obey it). 
Second she is purer ... (Simone Weil says).
Naturally, this is closely together of its other annotation "If my eternal salvation were on this table as if outside an object, and did not have more to extend the hand to take it... I I would not make it without have received the order"... and that it is as well a species of answer - unexpected to the last paragraph of the ethics of Spinoza. - Hernan of Fotos

For one who is virtuous, who has a well-formed conscience and is able to act with prudence in difficult moral situations, it is indeed possible to act swiftly and without delay or ponderous consideration of what moral precepts are involved and at stake. I certainly don't dispute this nor do I doubt that many truly virtuous folks have responded appropriately in some of the current cases in the news...But, frankly, there has been a kind of lurching about. Folks from all sides are getting white-hot about events in the media that most have no personal knowledge of. --Mark of Minute Particulars

When I went back to Portland earlier this year I would say that it is even more permeated with new age religions then it was before. The majority of signs and bumper stickers reflected a spirituality based around nature worship. I felt totally out of place and like a intruder there. Spiritually and politically the place was like antimatter to me and I felt like at any moment while walking down the street that people would point at me and scream like the aliens did in the movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." - Jeff Miller of Curt Jester

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:13
 
 


 
Interview with a Ghost

Is anyone else bored with ghost stories on the radio? All I hear are call-in shows with people telling of haunted houses. I think this must be to relieve the talk show host of having real live content by letting listeners do the work. And/or people must really eat it up. 

Personally, I'm looking for ghost stories with a little more substance, a little more flesh if you will. The ol' rattling of the dishes schtick is getting old. How about an interview with a ghost? 

Terrri Gross: Welcome to NPR. Hopefully you'll feel right at home since we invoke the ghosts of liberalism daily.

Ghost: Yes I know. We get NPR here in Purgatory, can't get FoxNews though. Thank you for having me.

Terri Gross: When did you begin to haunt and why did you feel it necessary?

Ghost: I was young and I needed the money. Rimshot! Seriously, it's just somethin' to do. When I was alive I used to put a lot of time into home improvements and I bonded with my house, I guess a little too much. So when I see folks messing around with it - what's up with the velvet Elvis crap! - I tried to discourage their handiwork.

Terri Gross: Did it work?

Ghost: Not as well as I would've liked.

Terri Gross: You died in 1758. What is it about we moderns that most bothers you?

Ghost: You feed your kids Fruity Pebbles. All that suh-gar! Oy vey.

Terri Gross: [chuckles] Are you, er... were you, Jewish?

Ghost: No, I just play one this time of year.

Terri Gross: If we might get serious for a minute, what exactly is a ghost? You mention Purgatory, but are you real or a figment of our imagination? Are you a demonic manifestation? A disembodied spirit?

...And that's where we lost transmission. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:04
 
 


 
Camille Paglia Blogs About Blogs

"The blog form is, in my view, the decadence of the Web. I don't see blogs as a new frontier but as a falling backwards into word-centric print journalism -- words, words, words! 

Blog reading for me is like going down to the cellar amid shelves and shelves of musty books that you're condemned to turn the pages of. Bad prose, endless reams of bad prose! There's a lack of discipline, a feeling that anything that crosses one's mind is important or interesting to others. People say that the best part about writing a blog is that there's no editing -- it's free speech without institutional control. Well, sure, but writing isn't masturbation -- you've got to self-edit. 

Now and then one sees the claim that Kausfiles was the first blog. I beg to differ: I happen to feel that my Salon column was the first true blog. My columns had punch and on-rushing velocity. They weren't this dreary meta-commentary, where there's a blizzard of fussy, detached sections nattering on obscurely about other bloggers or media moguls and Washington bureaucrats. I took hits at media excesses, but I directly commented on major issues and personalities in politics and pop culture. 

If bloggers want to break out of their ghetto, they've got to acquire a sense of drama and theater as well as a flair for language. Why else should anyone read them? And the Web in my view is a visual medium -- I don't log on to be trapped on a muddy page crammed with indigestible prose.

Every writer must work on his or her prose to find a voice. No major figure has emerged yet from the blogs -- Andrew Sullivan was already an established writer before he started his. A blog should sound conversational and be an antidote to the inept writing in most of today's glossy magazines. 

As a writer, I'm inspired not just by other writing but by music and art and lines from movies. I think that's what's missing from a lot of blogs. Most bloggers aren't culture critics but political or media junkies preoccupied with pedestrian minutiae and a sophomoric "gotcha" mentality. I find it depressing and claustrophobic. The Web is a wide open space -- voices on it should have energy and vision." --Camilie Paglia


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:49
 
October 29, 2003   


 
Another Times link on Murray's new book:

Why, he wondered, when he factored in population growth, did the achievement rate in Europe appear to plummet beginning in the mid-19th century, a period when peace, prosperity, cities and political freedom were steadily increasing? In the sciences, he decided, the decline was largely benign, reflecting the fact that in many fields the most important breakthroughs have already been made. But for the arts his diagnosis was grim: a collapse of social values and the advent of nihilism. 

In a word, what modern Europe lost was Christianity. While other major religions, like Buddhism and Daoism preached humility, acceptance and passivity, Mr. Murray writes, Christianity fostered intellectual independence and drive. In his account it was Thomas Aquinas who "grafted a humanistic strain onto Christianity," by arguing that "human intelligence is a gift from God, and that to apply human intelligence to understanding the world is not an affront to God but is pleasing to him." And where post-Aquinas Christianity thrived — in Europe between 1400 and the Enlightenment — so, too, according to Mr. Murray, did human excellence. 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:55
 
 


 
Never looked at it that way...

Celibacy in the Latin Church serves as a constant reminder of the other-worldly, eschatological nature of the church. It serves the same function in the life of the church as the liturgy in the other Catholic Churches. The liturgy in the West has for over a millennium been minimalist and has become increasingly banal and this-worldly. A married clergy in the Latin Church would accelerate the secularization of the church, and probably not increase the availability of priests. --Leon Podles

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:52
 
 


 
Quote from Evelyn Waugh Novel... from Weigel's excellent review:

Guy's prayers were directed to, rather than for, his father [at the latter's funeral Mass]. For many years now the direction in the Garden of the Soul, "Put yourself in the presence of God," had for Guy come to mean a mere act of respect, like the signing of the Visitors' Book at an Embassy or Government House. He reported for duty, saying to God, "I don't ask anything from you. I am here if you want me. I don't suppose I can be of any use, but if there is anything I can do, let me know," and left it at that.

"I don't ask anything from you": that was the deadly core of his apathy, his father had tried to tell him, was now telling him. . . . Enthusiasm and activity were not enough. God required more than that. He had commanded all men to ask.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:51
 
 


 
A Scatological Masterpiece

Fine post about what crap it is to imagine our personal dignity is tied to controlling our bowel movements. 

I do admit to be worried about that syndrome where you lose verbal impulse control and start randomly spewing obscene words... (Given that I used "crap", "scatological" and "bowel" in the previous paragraph perhaps I have reason to worry.) Would hate for the epitaph to read, "showed remarkable creativity in stringing epithets". Yet we are all kings by virtue of being human as Tom disputes. 

For the King of the Universe to be mocked with a crown of thorns says everything I need to know about how important we are in the Lord's eyes and how utterly small our embarrassments are by comparison. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 20:43
 
October 28, 2003   


 
Catholic Chic & Waugh-Waughing the Flak Catchers

Amy has the definitive list celebrating Evelyn Waugh, including this gem.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:39
 
 


 
The Usenet-ing of the Literary World?

NY Times reviews a reviewer - Dale Peck, literary critic with a scorched earth attitude:


The question arises: Why should we care what Dale Peck thinks? The short answer is, He's interesting..... Writing in The Believer, a hip, new literary journal she founded with Vendela Vida and Ed Park, Julavits produced a pleading essay, ''The Snarky, Dumbed-Down World of Book Reviewing,'' that was essentially a critique of Peck's approach....Julavits's perhaps self-interested manifesto on behalf of kinder, gentler reviews (she was about to publish a novel of her own) contains the valuable insight that hostile reviews represent ''a critical attempt to compete, on an entertainment level.'' In other words, critics like Peck can be more fun to read than the books they review. Opprobrium resonates in a way that praise seldom does. 

Witness the recent storm over Martin Amis's new novel, ''Yellow Dog,'' ....Fischer suggested that reading the book was like discovering ''your favorite uncle being caught in a school playground, masturbating.'' The press was ecstatic to have a new controversy. John Sutherland, the London-based critic, acknowledged that Fischer's review was ''a diatribe that most of us can now recite by heart.'' 
The fact is, negative reviews do stay in the mind longer than raves.
That negative reviews should be more memorable than the prose itself reminds me of what Lance Morrow, author of "Evil: An Investigation", said this weekend on one of the TV chat shows - that evil is more interesting to humans than good. A result of original sin? It is far easier to tear down than build up, which is why I'm pessimistic on Iraq. (Just to bring as many topics together under one post as I can.)

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:24
 
 


 
Philip Trower Excerpt --from "Turmoil and Truth"

In relation to the world, the Church or Christian people fulfils somewhat the same role as the tribe of Levi did for the other eleven tribes in Old Testament times, while the relationship of the clergy to laity within the Church is not unlike that within the tribe of Levi between the priests proper who alone could offer the temple sacrifices and the rest of the tribe dedicated to lesser forms of temple service...

Were it possible for a pagan ruler to understand these truths without himself becoming a Christian - that is recognize that the fidelity or infidelity of his Christian subjects could affect the well-being of his country as a whole - one could imagine him forcing Christians to live up to their own vocation under pain of death. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:42
 
 


 


The British Library Reading Room

Under the hive-like dome the stooping haunted readers
Go up and down the alleys, tap the cells of knowledge --
   Honey and wax, the accumulation of years--

Some on commission, some for the love of learning,
Some because they have nothing better to do
Or because they hope these walls of books will deaden
    The drumming of the demon in their ears.

Cranks, hacks, poverty-stricken scholars,
In prince-nez, period hats or romantic beards
   And cherishing their hobby or their doom
Some are too much alive and some are asleep
Hanging like bats in a world of inverted values,
Folded up in themselves in a world which is safe and silent:
   This is the British Museum Reading Room.

Out on the steps in the sun the pigeons are courting;
Puffing their ruffs and sweeping their tails or taking
   A sun-bath at their ease
And under the totem poles - the ancient terror -
Between the enormous fluted Ionic columns
There seeps from heavily jowled or hawk-like foreign faces
   The guttural sorrow of the refugees.   --Louis MacNeice


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:42
 
 


 
Hardest Working Folks in Blogdom?

A few weeks ago George Will discussed gay marriage with a liberal pundit. Will asked what principle would allow gay marriage and not bigamy. The liberal commentator just shrugged and said we draw lines all the time, what's one more? 

Those who believe in a Creator attribute to him consistency in moral judgments and it remains for us to discover those judgments (where there is doubt) rather than to just despair of finding them. There are underlying principles. 

I believe, for example, that the RCC is the most consistent on issues of sexual morality than any group excepting those who believe in no morality. Is the view perfectly clear? No, but the clearest among the alternatives. 

All of this is prelude to giving kudos to Tom of Disputations and his merry band of commenters who are doing some really heavy lifting at St. Blog's in attempting to discern the moral framework behind the Terri Schiavo case, and for that they should be commended. 

My pastor once said that "if you understand the principles, you can do a lot less reading", which is to say that if we can figure out the principles concerning end of life issues we won't have to study so much. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:04
 
October 27, 2003   


 
Rendering of Scuplture Purchased by an Art Illiterate

Like Zeus he sits
    a horned devil
purchased off some piazza in Rome
holding some atavistic charm.

'Throw that away!' 
she said, when I got back
'what pagan thing is that?
I’ll not have it in our home.'

It found a closet
my little Roman miscue
until one day I learned 
that Michelangelo had sculpted Moses.

Now he hangs redemptively
on the bookroom wall
rescued from the closet's noisy indencies
looking mildly pissed off. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:49
 
 


 
Henry Canby - the ol' lech

I bought an antique book, more or less at random, at a Tampa bookshop this summer because I was on vacation which meant it was not just my right but obligation to buy something. It was by Henry Seidel Canby, authored in the 1930s about life in the 1890s, in which he waxes nostalgic about what he called the "age of confidence". The passage below has enough of a ring of truth to be interesting though I don't quite know what to make of it. To set it up, he says the '90s were a time in which at social gatherings the sexes would intermingle for a bit before dinner but afterwards, to the great relief of both the men and the women - they would divide by sex and go into different rooms: 

For these men and women (good friends all) had tacitly agreed to look upon each other as sexless, and that was becoming fatal to their companionship. By convention as strong as faith, they left out of their relationship precisely that which might have made it as stimulating as a meeting between a congenial man or woman and sympathetic woman. Hence my father and the wife of his oldest friend, stranded in a corner, relapsed into silences... Hence every man was all man in his club or business or at the saloon bar, but less than man in the company of any respectable woman but his mother or his wife. And every married woman was less than woman in mixed soceity because her sex was dormant, canalized, inhibited...It is enough that the most settled should know that their nature is still tender, and inflammable by nature if not by will. We, in our early middle age, talked to middle-aged women as if they were cinders - agreeable, yes, admirable often, interesting often, yet cinders, good for home walks and garden beds, but long emptied of fire - and like cinders they responded. --Henry Canby
My mother-in-law says that one of the things she likes about her non-denom church is that she feels "safe" because no one looks at her in that way, which is certainly understandable. For others, perhaps, there is a bit of disappointment if no one recognizes that their "nature is still tender, inflammable by nature". 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:46
 
 


 
How Was Church?

My wife and wife's family are evangelical Christians who have a habit of asking a question that was never asked in my parental household after Mass: "how was church?" 

It was never asked growing up in my Catholic home presumably because the Mass is much more unvarying than Protestant services. Unvaryingly good and unvaryingly bad. 

Unvaryingly good because in receiving the Body of Christ there is no such thing as an "unsuccessful Mass". The Book of Revelation's revelation that Mass is heaven on earth means that "how was church?" is like asking "how was heaven?" 

But unvaryingly bad given the liturgical sufferings, stylistically, we endure with the Novus Ordo. 

But the question could mean "how attentive and prayerful were you in church?". Now that varies. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:01
 
October 26, 2003   


 
Writing the Great American Blog

Funniest unintentional line I've heard in awhile was from my friend Bone. I'd asked why he didn't start a blog and he said, "I only write for money", which is ironic because he's never been paid. But he has one complete and pristine screenplay which he says he can show his kids and someday grandchildren and for which he is justly proud. 

I jokingly told him I have a finished book too - I could vanity-press my blog tomorrow and presto, instant book. A book without plot, rhyme, reason or genre but two hard covers with pages in between. Charles Murray, quoted in a post below, thinks nothing published in the last fifty years will last anyway so how much different are blogs? (Not that I'm defending mediocrity. I'm just saying that most books and blogs are sisters in their ephemerality.) 

Anyway I know I would love to read a blog or journal of my favorite aunt, who died in 1973. Or of my great-grandfather James. And not only because I'm related to them but also because it is interesting reading about average Joes and Janes grappling with the problems and moral dilemmas of their time, especially given the hindsight that history provides. 

The writer Anne Lamott was on CSPAN's BookTV Saturday and said "even if you only write your stories so that one day your children would know what life was like when you were a child - still to have written your version is the most honorable thing to have done. Against all odds you have put it on paper so that it will last."

Two hundred years from now if people read blog posts about partial birth abortion or about Terri's case they may either think "how barbaric those people were! They were like ancient Rome." Or "what antiquated scruples those people had!". I hope for the former but fear the latter. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:38
 
October 25, 2003   


 
ex opere operato

Interesting link on sacramental efficacy.

Update: A related post by Fr. Jim via Sancta Sanctis

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 01:19
 
 


 
Survey Says..?

One thing few bloggers discuss is how their blog is received by their families. I wish Chris of Maine Catholic would survey that with his question o' the week, but perhaps I'm the only one who's curious. 

I know Oblique House has a strong familial presence but I don't know about elsewhere. 

My question: do your spouse/kids/parents/friends know about your blog and if so do they regularly read your blog or are you a prophet without honor in your own country? Email or press the comment button for best results. 

Personally, I haven't given this URL to my wife and stepson because they are evangelicals and I don't want to have to constantly tamp down my Triumphalist tendencies. (Doubt they'd read it much anyhow.) 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 00:28
 
 


 
Be Not Afraid

Mark of Minute Particulars offers his typically fresh perspective in this post. Regardless of the merits of his argument*, I found it vaguely inspiring that anyone would even make such a point in era when marriage as "the two become one flesh" has become so devauled. So I'm reading his post more broadly and not contra-Terri, but pro-marriage: 

If we enter a marriage freely and appropriately (at least in the context of the Sacrament of Marriage), then prenuptial agreements or any kind of arrangement that anticipates malice from a spouse would be abhorrent to the giving of oneself completely to another. When you get married, you ought to, as the cliché goes, "work without a net.".... If we are too quick to lump the actions between husband and wife in among actions between friends, acquaintances, and strangers, we might indeed save more lives. But I wonder if our ability to see the depths and magnificence of our dignity as human beings would be diminished or even obscured by this? 
I'm interested in this notion of safety nets. In the political sphere, welfare is 'safety net' writ large. It is (or was) often not so much a safety net but a safety harness, locking families into generational dependence. What is it about safety that is so damaging to the human soul that multiple generations would suck at its ennervating teat? 

I'm not suggesting that there shouldn't be gov't safety nets nor that folks on welfare have it easy. And I'm guilty of sucking at ennervating safety teats. Folks in corporations, for example, often trade safety for the adventure of sole proprietorships. (Of course, it's easy for me to say that - I sense this is one of those situations where both sides look longingly at their neighbor's grass.) 

Safety Second?
Can this be applied to the spiritual sphere? Were the Pharisee's corrupted by the "safety net" of the Law, which gave them a seeming risk-free existence salvation-wise? Did it make them risk-adverse in accepting a different-than-expected Messiah? Did they "ghetto-ize" themselves too much in a desire to avoid sin but fail to love? 

A conservative temperament like mine tends toward risk-aversion. But it seems as though tolerance for risk ought to be higher for the Christian, higher because of trust in God and higher because love covers a multitude of sins.

* -- Personally I'm a complete "Vatican toady" on the issue. I don't want to live one minute longer than my Papa bishop says I have to, nor one minute shorter. I've not blogged about Terri because everyone else is doing it so well and - it's a cliche but true - I have nothing to add. My reaction to what almost happened to Terri was horror but I'm neither a medical professional like Peony nor a theologian like Tom of Disputations which inclines me to simply 'let others marshall arguments, evidence and hash and re-hash it and then I'll come in at the end and read the results. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:38
 
October 24, 2003   


 
Interview

Steve Sailer interviews Charles Murray, author of "Human Accomplishment : The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950":


Q. Who was the most accomplished person who ever lived? 

A. Now we're talking personal opinion, because the methods I used don't work across domains, but I have an emphatic opinion. 

Aristotle. 

He more or less invented logic, which was of pivotal importance in human history (and no other civilization ever came up with it independently). He wrote the essay on ethics ("Nicomachean Ethics") that to my mind contains the bedrock truths about the nature of living a satisfying human life. He made huge contributions to aesthetics, political theory, methods of classification and scientific observation. 

Q. You argue that one big reason that most of humanity's highest achievers came from what used to be called Christendom was ... Christianity. Did you expect to reach that conclusion? 

A. Michael Novak foretold I would come to that conclusion, but I didn't agree at the time. I didn't think you needed anything except the Greek heritage and some secular social and economic trends to explain the Renaissance. 

Q. You found that per capita levels of accomplishment tended to decline from 1850 to 1950. Would you care to speculate on post-1950 trends? 

A. I think that the number of novels, songs, and paintings done since 1950 that anyone will still care about 200 years from now is somewhere in the vicinity of zero. Not exactly zero, but close. I find a good way to make this point is to ask anyone who disagrees with me to name a work that will survive -- and then ask, "Seriously?" Very few works indeed can defend themselves against the "Seriously?" question. 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:35
 
 


 
More Jack

This is turning into the Jack McKeon blog isn't it? Anyway, I came across this from the LA Times via John at the Inn at the End of the World:


Finally, for the Marlins to win this championship, somebody also has to get McKeon to the church on time. He is one of the few people in sports who claims to attend daily Mass, and actually does.

On his office wall is a picture of St. Theresa of Lisieux. He prays in the car, prays in the dugout, praying for hits and runs and lost souls.

As a baseball writer covering McKeon's wild San Diego Padres two decades ago, I remember strolling into the team hotel around dawn, just as McKeon was leaving for morning Mass.

"You really do go to church every day," I said.

"Somebody's got to pray for you guys," he said.

When we later engaged in a theological discussion based on my discovery of his devotion, he said he felt there was only one true religious mystery.

"I've been reading all these letters from Paul to the Corinthians," he said. "Don't the Corinthians ever write back?"


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:27
 
 


 
Consolation for Red Sox Fans?

I'm guessing not....from Cap'l Gang:


MARGARET CARLSON: I don't think you have to make it a -- there's a no curse. To make it interesting, I mean, it's very interesting. Mickey Calsiu (ph), who writes for "Slate" magazine says that, you know, if the Sox and the Cubs were to win like any other team, oh, they'd have a party, you know, their salaries might go up a little bit, but then they'd be just like anybody else, and now they're the two most famous teams in the world.

NOVAK: That's really incredible stupid. I'm sorry.

CARLSON: Bob, I'm going to put a curse on you if you don't stop.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:17
 
 


 
Clear as Mud?

I'd been tempted to consider reluctance by bishops to provide clear moral guidance concerning end of life medical decisions to be a function of wanting to avoid controversy. 

After all, Pope Paul VI gave us Humane Vitae (a heroic act for a man who was, by nature, not confrontational), and there is the opinion that he never wrote another encyclical because of the reaction to HV. 

But after reading Tom's post, I guess it must be a prudential matter... although I'm leery of comparing burdens and benefits given that "burden" is such a highly subjective term. Reminds me of the "health of the mother" clause that pro-aborts hide behind; if the mother has a headache that's reason to end a pregnancy. 

Even for those with the best of intentions weighing how burdensome something really is can be difficult. And for scrupulous souls it must be especially trying. 

Update: To clarify my confusion: the burden of the caregiver is irrelevant, it is the wish of the patient, to the extent that can be discerned. And if it can't be then it's a simple matter of "erroring" on the side of life. 

Zippy's comment on Disputations says: "Being a charity case is one of the most difficult vocations out there, but it is also one of the most spiritually rewarding to all involved."

Henri J. M. Nouwen gave up his writing and thinking career and for the last five years of his life severely disabled patients. When asked why he gave up so much he said "because they give me so much". 

So, in 'opposite world' (as my wife refers to the world view of Christianity), the notion of 'burden' is problematic. If you are the patient you could look at the burden on your caregivers as a gift. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:26
 
October 23, 2003   


 
Security Blanket

Some are born evil, some achieve evil, and some have evil thrust upon them - and there is nothing more evil than what was just thrust upon me: an electronic book reader, aka a PDA. 

E-books strip reading of the sense-pleasures, of broad white margins, scented pages and architectural flourish. Real books are Eastern liturgies, e-books the low Mass. 

And yet when my wife offered me her old Palm pilot, what couldst I do? Her company told her it was obsolete, apparently because it was not "in color". 

For a tenth of a second I was conflicted between two great biases: "if it's free, it's for me" and "real readers read real books". 

The first won out and I am no longer conflicted. I carry the PDA as an amulet against boredom, secure in the knowledge that any long queue can be eased by what is contained therein. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:26
 
 


 
Like Children Playing

My uncle Mark is an environmentalist of first order. His ardor for things natural has been intense for over forty years, ever since his first issue of National Wildlife magazine arrived (pornography for nature lovers). 

We were discussing the possibility of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska and he said "it doesn't matter if no one is there or even ever goes there - knowing that an utterly unspoiled place exists gives me joy." 

I thought of his words while reading Hernan Gonzalez's post, which was inspired by this picture:



(Orginally in Spanish; translated here roughly via Babelfish:)


"For me it is a joy and a consolation; like that one feels like when seeing children playing, but more stop and better; or, to put an example in the other end: like the one to have a feeling the happiness of God distantly, and to be glad of that.

And when they leave the objetores to object that "I against the nuns do not have anything; but that works, that helps the patients, that they do something; nuns who only say... why serve " ... they give desire to answer - badly-that to only see them, only knowledge that they are, she cheers to us and she gives forces us; although only outside for that - but she is not for that -, even measured in terminos that inmanentes, already they would be more useful than anyone of these objetores, in general so activists in the ideas as sterile in works." --HJG


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:29
 
 


 
Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts


I know why the caged whale sings --title of a Kairos guy post

How long do you suppose it would be between the time an authoritative "Declaration on the Use of Feeding Tubes" was issued, which provided precise and unambiguous guidelines for all cases, and the first time the statement, "The bishops are exceeding their spiritual authority by meddling in medical matters," was made? --Tom of Disputations

My post on Saturday was partly inspired by my own frustration with the individualist attitude toward religion, which ultimately comes from my frustration with the modern individualist attitude towards everything. I am certainly glad for the freedom that I have in this society compared to others I could be in, especially as a woman. But the dark side of basing society on elective groups is that a lot of people...never really find them. -Camassia, who recently elected to join a Lutheran church. 

Openness to the Other requires specificity, not vagueness; attention, not conformity; humility, not pride.... Artists are almost never aesthetic relativists. That's because they know they aren't good enough, and they know they need to improve, and they want to know how! --Eve Tushnet

Te acompaño en el sentimiento --Hernan Gonzalez, offering words of healing as I approach my little Gethsemane.

Go Warn the Children of God of the Terrible Speed of Mercy --line from Flannery O'Connor's "The Violent Bear It Away"

'Stop the Bus, Stop the Bus!' Fearing the worst, he did so, and from the back three [inner city] kids pile out of the bus. My friend got out with the other counselor to break up whatever is going on and they see the three kids with cameras taking pictures of one of those vast fields between Columbus and Dayton. One of the kids says, 'What's that?" pointing to the crop growing at the side of the road, and my friend answers 'Corn.'--Steven Riddle

[Oscar Wilde] wrote in De Profundis...that the evil of sin is not in what one does, but in what one becomes. The Gnostics were wrong: the sexual sins touch the soul as well as the body, and they can change the soul for the worse. Dietrich Von Hildebrand explained, "Every manifestation of sex produces an effect which transcends the physical sphere and, in a fashion quite unlike the other bodily desires, involves the soul deeply in its passion," and "The unique profundity of sex in the physical sphere is sufficiently shown by the simple fact that a man?s attitude towards it is of incomparably greater moral significance than his attitude towards other bodily appetites. Surrender to sexual desire for its own sake defiles a man in a way that gluttony, for example, can never do. It wounds him to the core of his being, and he becomes in an absolutely different and novel fashion guilty of sin."

"Whoever denigrates marriage also diminishes the glory of virginity," said St. John Chrysostom, one of the most kick-butt Saints of all time. "Whoever praises it makes virginity more admirable and resplendent. What appears good only in comparison with evil would not be truly good. The most excellent good is something even better than what is admitted to be good." --Enbrethiliel of Sancta Sanctis

Only Anglicanism could produce C.S. Lewis. Only Anglicanism gone bad could give us John Shelby Spong. Orthodoxy can give us Dostoyevsky when it's good and Rasputin when it goes bad. No other tradition could. And Catholicism can produce both John Paul and, when it goes sour, Antichrists like Hitler. Same with American Protestantism: at it's best you get saints like Billy Graham or Jim Eliot. At its worst, Brother Bubba's Informercial Gospel Hour.--Mark Shea

'Well, I guess you could call him a vegetable. I called him Oliver, my brother. You would have liked him.' --Christopher de Vinck writing of Oliver, his brother who was severely disabled from birth, unable to communicate and barely move --via Amy Welborn

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:56
 
 


 
Cap'n Jack

Article on Jack McKeon's Catholicism written back when he managed my sainted Cincinnati Reds. I'd wager that ol' Jack is wiser than many modern theologians because he understands that it's all about prayer. Broadcaster Thom Brennaman, engaging in the hyperbole so necessary for announcers and bloggers, called Jack "the most likeable man ever to put on a uniform". 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 18:05
 
October 22, 2003   


 
What's the best, most accessible book on Christianity you have ever read?

Interesting survey.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 18:05
 
 


 
Blogger Meets Blogger...film at eleven

Reports of Columbus, Ohio's backwardness must be greatly exaggerated. How else to explain the presence of one Mighty Barrister in our fair city? (Business reasons.) The Barrister and I had a Guinness at O'Shaugnessey's Pub (okay he had a Guinness, I was on lunch hour and so was reduced to a Sierra Mist).

Twas very nice to discuss various & sundry things with someone so totally in sync church and faith wise, something rare in my circles. Not just a Catholic but a 'conservative' one (I know, people hate labels...how about one who knows what the word 'Magisterium' means?).

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 18:04
 
 


 
Hilaire Belloc and Islam.

Psalms for every need (link via Disputations).

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 19:56
 
October 21, 2003   


 
For Best Results, Keep Moving

I happened to be downtown Sunday and ended up watching the finish of the Columbus Marathon. Having never run a race longer than 9.3 miles (it seemed like only 193 miles), I stood gap-jawed as wave after wave after wave of runners finished twenty-six miles. It seemed as though these folks were filling some sort of primeval need; you can't run a marathon without a life-changing training schedule. 

During the Middle Ages, melancholy was most often attributed to scholars, the erudite equivalent of the 20th century office worker. A 17th century axiom went something like, "Oh how much misery is escaped and frustration averted by frequent and violent agitation of the body!"; i.e. exercise lessens depression.

In "The Joy of Running", Dr. Thaddeus Kostrubala says that humans, after many millennia of activity as hunter/gatherers, paid a huge price mentally in becoming mostly sedentary. 

There are surely spiritual causes too. Walker Percy wrote that in an unnatural culture, it is not normal to be normal. When depression is the major illness in a society, as it is generally recognized to be in ours, then you begin to suspect something is amiss. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:36
 
 


 
Feasting on Books

Went to the library Sunday and picked up Isak Dinesen's Babette's Feast. Borrowing a book inhibits procrastination; I read it immediately and enjoyed it. My new rule of thumb concerning books should be: buy only books I don't want to read, borrow books I really want to read. (I knew I should've borrowed the Summa.)

Some excerpts from "Babette's Feast":


Young [Loewenhielm] till now had not been aware of any particular spiritual gift in his own nature. But at this one moment there rose before his eyes a sudden, mighty vision of a higher and purer life, with no creditors, dunning letters or parental lectures, with no secret, unpleasant pangs of conscience and with a gentle, golden-haired angel to guide and reward him.

*

Nay, but an absurd thing had lately been happening to General Loewenhielm: he would find himself worrying about his immortal soul. Did he have any reason for doing so? He was a moral person, loyal to his king, his wife and his friends, an example to everybody. But there were moments when it seemed to him that the world was not a moral, but a mystic, concern...He found himself longing for the faculty of a second sight, as a blind man will long for the normal faculty of vision.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:48
 
 


 
Racing to Compromise

Country artist Patty Loveless recorded a song entitled You Can Feel Bad if it Makes You Feel Better and musing on that last post I think there's something to that. I feel better, aided by some consolatory emails. Is it oxymoronic to praise God for the ability to whine? 

Popular country music is for me what democracy was to Churchill - excreable but for the alternatives. Being relentlessly middlebrow means classical music is beyond my reach; rap and rock and pop repel. So I'm left with country.

Fortunately, one of the two country music stations in town decided to boldly play "old" country - George Jones, Willie & Waylon. But the station didn't want only "old" listeners (nevermind that Johnny Cash had a big 20-something following) so after a giddy week or two they began spiking their playlist with 90s pop country songs, songs already played one bazillion times just a few years ago. 

The other radio station in town, in a reactionary move (not wanting to be known as never playing classic country) began playing 90s pop country songs and labeling them "classic country".

So we're left with two stations playing mostly 90s pop country songs and NO one is happy, not the ones who like old country nor the ones liking new country. 

This can happen with political parties to - the rush for the middle becomes so intense that the left and the right are left for dead. 

And it can happen to Christians, when we seek to compromise our way to lukewarmness - pleasing neither ourselves or God. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:46
 
 


 
Visiting Dante's 9th Circle...so you won't have to

I've been on one cruise in my life. My wife has never been on a cruise. So in an act of spectacular husbandly devotion I said 'yes' when she asked with all her heart to go on one with two couples I don't know (one works with her and the other knows the one that works with her). I know enough about the male half of the duo who works with her to be concerned. Concerns grew a bit when I learned I have to buy a purple shirt for some photo opportunity at the formal dinners. My guess is that someone thought it would be funny if all the guys were dressed in suits & purple shirts. Pretty funny 'eh? 

Since I am a curmudgeon by nature, deliriously happy reading anything by Joseph Pearce, the idea of the enforced sociability of a nightly 3-hour dinner with strangers has me writing this, pre-agonista, for therapeutic purposes. 

I don't expect a pity party. Lord knows a cruise by any other name is heaven. But the awful secret about cruises is they make money on alcohol and they lose money if people ask for seconds on steak. The answer to this is simple: sit the people down at tables of eight or more strangers. (Hence, alcohol.) Give them lots of little "pre-game" snacks like salads, fruit-like concoctions, and bread. Bring on the main entree - i.e. da' meat - only after two hours and four glasses of wine have elapsed. Voila! They won't ask for seconds and the bar bill will be high. 

Call me a cynic and call me late for dinner.

Of course, ideally I would look upon this as a chance to meet new people, bond, and get into those religious discussions Olde Oligarch is famous for. Ideally. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:06
 
October 20, 2003   


 
Interesting Dispatch review on book above:


Not long from now, according to essayist Gabriel Zaid, more people will be writing books than will be reading them. 

This phenomenon is probably already true with poetry. 

'If not a single book were published from this moment on, it would still take us 250,000 years to acquaint ourselves with those books already written.'

But Zaid is not an elitist. And he's certainly not arguing for the avant-garde, which stakes its life on being 'other'. While 'uniformity is boring and numbing,' nevertheless, 'absolute differentiation isolates us.' 

In other words, 'What is desirable is not that all books should have millions of readers, but that they should attain their natural readership.' --Bill Eichenberger


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:35
 
October 19, 2003   


 
Context

Oh profligate dandelions
who summer in Hilliard, Oh
grow I wistful at your stubborn roots:
I’d dance an Irish jig
to see you again mid-December.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:28
 
 


 
Grounded

I love the root crops,
the carrot who hides her grace
beneath a crust of soil
a goodness unknown 
until harvest. 



Pray

Cast your worries, cast your fears 
Cast them into the sea-blown ocean 
Roll them into an Omnibus bill
and send it to the Governor.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:27
 
 


 
Alexis De Tocqueville in Democracy in America


Equality makes men want to form their own opinions; but, on the other hand, it imbues them with the taste and the idea of unity, simplicity, and impartiality in the power that governs society.

The men of our days are naturally little disposed to believe; but as soon as they have any religion, they immediately find in themselves a latent instinct that urges them unconsciously towards Catholicism....One of the most ordinary weaknesses of the human intellect is to seek to reconcile contrary principles and to purchase peace at the expense of logic. Thus there have ever been and will ever be men who, after having submitted some portion of their religious belief to the principle of authority, will seek to exempt several other parts of their faith from it and to keep their minds floating at random between liberty and obedience. But I am inclined to believe that the number of these thinkers will be less in democratic than in other ages, and that our posterity will tend more and more to a division into only two parts, some relinquishing Christianity entirely and others returning to the Church of Rome. 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 23:39
 
October 18, 2003   


 
Waugh and Robertson

Interesting link on Evelyn Waugh via Amy.

I was fascinated by the Ker's asserting Waugh loved "cut and dried theology, ex opere operato sacramentalism", the kind that Flannery O'Connor was so horrified by. 

That type of mentality also reminds me of evangelical Pat Robertson's "The Secret Kingdom" where he compares faith in a similar manner. Robertson explains there are spiritual laws and if you do a - b - c you will be the recipient of this, that and the other. It made God sound much like a power company - impersonalized and bureaucratic but without the inefficiencies. 

It smacked of the "God as a mechanical lever" approach - a sort of attitude that leaves God with no choice. On the other hand, since God loves us and wants us to save us more than we do ourselves, we can rely on him more fully than we can on any one or thing given that he not only possesses that "automatic reflex to love" but is Love itself. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:51
 
October 17, 2003   


 
Vote Early & Often

Interesting poll from Maine Catholic:

Sheen was easily my first choice but for second I was torn between Pope John XXIII and the children of Fatima.


If you could spend an afternoon alone in conversation with one of the following prominent Catholics of the 20th Century who have since passed away, who would it be? 

Archbishop Fulton Sheen (47.6%) 
Mother Teresa of Calcutta (0.0%) 
Blessed Pope John XXIII (19.0%) 
St. Edith Stein (4.8%) 
Pope Pius XII (14.3%) 
St. Maximilian Kolbe (9.5%) 
The Children of Fatima (4.8%) 
Other (0.0%)


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:21
 
 


 
Honoring Pope John Paul II



"Love inspires the culture of life, while selfishness inspires the culture of death." -- Pope JP II
(Drawing by da Vinci.)

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:42
 
 


 
Some Day I'll Sleep Again

My condolences to the Red Sox fans and to anyone in the Eastern Standard Time zone foolish enough to stay up all night to watch a game that had "Red Sox Tragedy Redux" written all over it from the get-go. Did we learn nothing from the Cubs? Was the outcome ever really in doubt? 

I'm not a Sox fan but I play one when they play the Yankees since the Yanks buy pennants like some people buy scarves. But this is the Red Sox way - never lose in 4 when you can lose in extras in 7 games. Hie thee here for bereavement purposes (Bone, that means you - you might want to join that Sox message board).

O Boone, thou hast cleft my heart in twain. - Shakespeare's Queen Gertrude speaking for Sox fans (with a one word substitution.)

Update: Received this email from Sox fan Bone:
Knowing as I did beforehand the final outcome, I boycotted Game 7 and watched two movies instead....At one point, my curiosity got the better of me and I switched over to Fox to see how the game was going. The score was 5-2 in favor of the Sox going into the bottom of the eighth. Elated, I switched back to the movie and, doing Beantown calculus in my head, figured we had increased our chances of winning from 0 to 10 percent....

Update 2: You must read Tom of Disputations on baseball religiousity.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 01:21
 
 


 
My Heroes Have Always Been Marians

Reading the lives of saints as well as studying the thought of Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, I am struck by the consistency of a devotion to Mary among spiritually healthy Catholic souls. 

Our current Pope is famous for his devotion to Mary, right down to his motto. Archbishop Sheen is similarly famous. 

I used to think that we should de-emphasize Mary for ecumenical reasons. I thought that Mary would want it this way (presumptuous as that was), that she wouldn't mind being hidden if it would further the cause of bringing Christian unity. Of course, wanting to hide your Mother in the backroom when company comes is the sign of someone who doesn't love his Mother very much. But I was glad to read that I wasn't the only one thinking about de-emphasizing Mary, if more mildly: 

From Crossing the Threshold of Hope:


"Totus Tuus. This phrase is not only an expression of piety, or simply an expression of devotion. It is more. During the Second World War, while I was employed as a factory worker, I came to be attracted to Marian devotion. At first, it seemed to me that I should distance myself a bit from the Marian devotion of my childhood, in order to focus more on Christ. Thanks to St. Louis of Montfort, I came to understand that true devotion to the Mother of God is actually Christocentric, indeed, it is very profoundly rooted in the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity, and the mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption. (John Paul II in Crossing the Threshold of Hope, pp. 212-3)


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:33
 
October 16, 2003   


 
Close Encounters of the Papal Kind

Amy is reflecting on Pope John Paul II's papacy (who isn't?) and I thought I'd give a personal testimony, for what it's worth, of an early 'encounter' with this Pope. I remember reading Crossing the Threshold of Hope and being wow'd. I thought: he isn't like other popes, answering questions from the common man like this. 

I'd not been exposed to apologetics, and it was not in my experience for anyone, let alone a Pope, to tackle questions like, "why do they call priests 'father' when the Lord said 'Let no one call you father'", as well as the more serious questions such as ecumenicism and how Christianity compares to other world religions.

Reading that book helped open my mind towards the Church and begin to trust what she said was true. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:06
 
 


 
Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts


Please pray for us. This is perhaps the biggest leap of blind faith I've ever taken in my life, but we both really want to make a REAL marriage this time. --Kathy the Carmelite 

Our natural condition is sundered at death, and we can no longer make choices, no longer use our intellects in the manner we'd grown accustomed to. This is why there is an urgency to our fundamental choices while we are alive, for after death we are no longer able to make such choices. This cleaving of our natural way of being is why death, anyone's death, is tragic. And this is why our resurrection will be bodily, for it will free us from the unnatural condition of the separated soul and make us whole again, albeit in a manner that we can't fully grasp this side of Heaven. 
--Mark of Minute Particulars 

I love that 'patron saint of miracles.' You can imagine St. Alexius, patron saint of belt makers, slapping his forehead and saying, "Why did I have to specialize?" 
--Tom of Disputations, after hearing manager Jack McKeon refer to St. Therese as the patron saint of miracles

'I can't believe how vulgar and backwards you are. If your wife is not appalled to be married to you, she should be.' Well, she may be, ma'am, but not for the reason you think. She has never begrudged me my fascination with her breasts." --William Luse responding to a commenter

And the [Church of Christ] preacher admitted, in fact, that the Restoration leaders were rather naive about human rationality; they figured if everyone got together and talked things out in good faith, they would at least roughly agree on interpretations of Scripture. But, as he succinctly put it: 'The Bible is hard.' --Camassia

When asked, "What is it that you desire of God's Church for your child?" the present ritual has the parents answering, "Baptism" rather than the older form, "Faith." In my mind, the emphasis upon the communal nature of faith added by baptizing during the Mass is reduced by the aforementioned revision. (Here again, the motivation seems to be in line with the modernist mindset which insists that faith is an entirely notional decision of the atomistic individual -- the same view of faith that leads them to encourage, contrary to canon law, the practice of postponing baptism until the child is "older" and "can make up his own mind.") --Old Oligarch

It is true that storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it, that it brings about consent and reconciliation with things as they really are, and that we may even trust it to contain eventually by implication that last word which we expect from the ‘day of judgment’. --Hannah Arendt 

Here's what saddens me the most with [Andrew] Sullivan and others...where's Jesus? I'm not saying that if you focus on Christ, you'll automatically and every time wind up okay with Rome - we all have free will and different experiences and viewpoints that make that unlikely, to say the least. But when we struggle with faith - the Christian faith - I think the only sensible thing is to go back to the Gospels and to prayer and the re-connect with Christ. A faith that is based on the efficacy of leaders is not faith, I'm sorry to say. Certainly, our relationship with Jesus is mediated a thousand different ways from Sunday, but still, what I don't see here and in so many other discussions is the question of faith in Jesus - and where that takes us? --Amy Welborn

Modern culture places a greater premium on expression than study, which is why so many modern thinkers seem to be so astonishingly unaware of the thinkers before them. The modern impulse is to write, not read, so it really shouldn't be surprising to see so much warmed over sophistry, hedonism and biological materialism expressed by pretty smart folks who have obviously never read the Greek sophists, epicurians, or materialists, let alone their even more notable rebuttals. --Mike Petrik on Amy's Blog

Never, ever underestimate the combination of guilt plus moral dissociation. Remember how tripped out you were when I told you about the women at the pregnancy center who think "Abortion is wrong, but..."? Or, "I'm a Christian, but I'm sleeping with my boyfriend"? People don't think of moral imperatives as in fact *imperative*. --Eve Tushnet on Old Oligarch

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:54
 
 


 
Soft on Sentiment

Hambone (nicknamed via the -ham suffix in his surname) and I often rail against the easy targets: NPR, the Oprahization of society, the preference of emotion over logic. 

The eschewing of the sentimental in religion is something he is especially ardent about (I get a pass; the Irish are congenitally sentimental - I kid). He's an evangelical who doesn't like the manipulation of the emotions and the highly-charged Christian entertainment that uses as an index for your goodness how emotional you become during services.

So I was surprised when Bone showed a chink in his Spock-like armor and gifted me with a Christian music CD that included a song that really moved him (and me), lyrics below. 

But Neil Dhingra on Flos Carmeli writes "....[Rowan] Williams sees the "eroticism" of some sorts of medieval and Tridentine spirituality towards the passion reappearing in current "praise and worship" music. "Jesus as object of loving devotion can slip into Jesus as fantasy partner in a dream of emotional fulfilment." This slippage can occur rather easily because eroticism is addictive. As Augustine says, "My love was returned and finally shackled me in the bonds of its consummation." Such can happen even in our devotional lives, under the guise of piety."

Interesting.


Hungry (Falling On My Knees)
by Kara

hungry I come to You
for I know You satisfy
I am empty
but I know Your love does not run dry
and I wait
and I wait
so I wait for You
so I wait for You

chorus
I'm falling on my knees
offering all of me
Jesus, You're all this heart is living for

broken I run to You
for Your arms are open wide
I am weary but I know Your touch restores my life
so I'll wait for You
so I'll wait for You

Chorus

and I wait for you
and I wait for you
and I wait for you
and I wait

I'm falling on my knees
offering all of me
Jesus, You're all this heart is living for
Oh, I'm falling on my knees
offering all of me
Jesus, You're all this heart is living for


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:47
 
 


 
Marlins win in dramatic fashion. Never bet against St. Therese.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 23:36
 
October 15, 2003   


 
Pray for Kathy and her husband Chris

Just received this email from Kathy of Gospel Minefield. What a good soul - she is truly inspirational. It's easy to pray for people like this isn't it? "Let God be true and every man a liar." 



Guess what? I'm offline now, officially. Gospel M*I*N*E*F*I*E*L*D is no more. Chris wants me off the Internet. He wants to build a real relationship with me, and for that I need to (perhaps temporarily, perhaps permanently) put aside other relationships that fill my niches.

Chris is having me resign my teaching positions as a CCD and Carmelite teacher. He's talking to Fr. Guest today.

Yes, I'm worried about the efficacy and wisdom of all this; however, just as Therese trusted God to lead her through her Mother Superior (right or wrong) in Ch. 10 of "Story of a Soul", so I'm willing to trust Chris to lead me. This time he's really sincere about LOVING me (like Christ), not just CONTROLLING me (like, say, Herod).

Please pray for us. This is perhaps the biggest leap of blind faith I've ever taken in my life, but we both really want to make a REAL marriage this time.

Pray especially for this: "let God be true and every man a liar." As an adjunct to all this, I will be attending Chris's church much more, and clinging to the Catholic Church much less (at least outwardly). I will always be Catholic. Please pray for me.

Please post this on Video Mel--e-mail it to whomever you think would want to see it. I'd rather not post it at GM myself because Chris might misunderstand my motives. I just want to say a proper thanks and goodbye. (AND GET PRAYERS).

Update: Chris says a hiatus from the Internet (including e-mails) of 6 months so that he and I can build a loving relationship of real knowledge, understanding and mutual respect. He's really trying. He doesn't want to stifle me -- he wants me to stop running away from him so that he can get to know me, too. He never used to want to bother, but now he honestly does.

In 6 months I'll be back with e-mail (and perhaps in comments boxes).


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:47
 
 


 
Exposing the Crack Epidemic

Our priest gave a sermon in which he described much of fashion as simply the desire to be loved. When we see teenagers with their navels pierced, their tongues forked, wearing black shirts and shorts 3 sizes too big, it's a desire to be loved written in big block letters. As is the butt crack epidemic (link via Camassia). 

My wife's family is large (in numbers) and so we go to about twenty birthday parties a year. (My 'freshman ten' after marriage was due to cake and ice cream.) My wife's nieces, two of whom are aged 15 & 17, hug everyone when they leave. The huggees, weighed down by cake and ice cream, do not rise from their chairs. This means the nieces have to bend over in order to give the hug. In order not to expose themselves (at least more than what already is), they look like participants in the '70s game Twister. Very awkward, but I suppose it increases flexibility. 

I'm not criticizing. We all want to be liked and will go to some pains to secure being liked. Hannah Arendt made the very true statement that the desire for human praise is not the worst of sins, but it does make us look foolish, which I know from personal experience. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:48
 
 


 
Received a forwarded email from my dad with the following attached:

A review by Keith A Fournier of The Passion: 

I really did not know what to expect. I was thrilled to have been invited to a private viewing of Mel Gibson's film "The Passion," but, I had also read all the cautious articles and spin. I grew up in a Jewish town and owe much of my own faith journey to the influence. I have a life long, deeply held aversion to anything that might even indirectly encourage any form of anti-Semitic thought, language or actions. 

I arrived at the private viewing for "The Passion", held in Washington D.C., and greeted some familiar faces. The environment was typically Washingtonian, with people greeting you with a smile but seeming to look beyond you, having an agenda beyond the words. 

The film was very briefly introduced, without fanfare, and then the room darkened. From the gripping opening scene in the Garden of Gethsemane, to the very human and tender portrayal of the earthly ministry of Jesus, through the betrayal, the arrest, the scourging, the way of the cross, the encounter with the thieves, the surrender on the Cross, until the final scene in the empty tomb, this was not simply a movie; it was an encounter, unlike anything I have ever experienced. In addition to being a masterpiece of film-making and an artistic triumph, "The Passion" evoked more deep reflection, sorrow and emotional reaction within me than anything since my wedding, my ordination or the birth of my children. Frankly, I will never be the same. 

When the film concluded, this"invitation only" gathering of "movers and shakers" in Washington, D.C. were shaking indeed, but this time from sobbing. I am not sure there was a dry eye in the place. The crowd that had been glad-handing before the film was now eerily silent. No one could speak, because words were woefully inadequate. We had just experienced a kind of art that is a rarity in life, the kind that makes heaven touch earth. 

One scene in the film has now been forever etched in my mind. A brutalized wounded Jesus was soon to fall again, under the weight of the cross. His mother had made her way along the Via Dolorosa. As she ran to him, she flashed back to a memory of Jesus as a child, falling in the dirt road outside of their home. Just as she reached, to protect him from the fall, she was now reaching to touch his wounded adult face. Jesus looked at her with intensely probing and passionately loving eyes (and at all of us through the screen) and said, "Behold, I make all things new." 

These are words taken from the last book of the New Testament, the Book of Revelation. Suddenly, the purpose of the pain was so clear and the wounds, that earlier in the film had been so difficult to see in His face, His back, indeed all over His body, became intensely beautiful. They had been borne, voluntarily, for love. 

At the end of the film, after we had all had a chance to recover, a question and answer period ensued. The unanimous praise for the film, from a rather diverse crowd, was as astounding as the compliments were effusive. The questions included the one question that seems to follow this film, even though it has not yet even been released: 

"Why is this film considered by some to be "anti-Semitic?" Frankly, having now experienced (you do not "view" this film) "The Passion," it is a question that is impossible to answer. A law professor whom I admire sat in front of me. He raised his hand and responded, "After watching this film, I do not understand how anyone can insinuate that it even remotely presents that the Jews killed Jesus. It doesn't." He continued, "It made me realize that my sins killed Jesus." I agree. There is not a scintilla of anti-Semitism to be found anywhere in this powerful film. If there were, I would be among the first to decry it. It faithfully tells the Gospel story in a dramatically beautiful, sensitive and profoundly engaging way. Those who are alleging otherwise have either not seen the film or have another agenda behind their protestations. 

This is not a "Christian" film, in the sense that it will appeal only to those who identify themselves as followers of Jesus Christ. It is a deeply human, beautiful story that will deeply touch all men and women. It is a profound work of art...It should be seen by as many people as possible. I intend to do everything I can, to make sure that is the case. I am passionate about "the Passion." You will be, as well. Don't miss it! 

--Keith A Fournier is a constitutional lawyer

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 20:51
 
October 14, 2003   


 
More on the Assumption

Darn. I'd been satisfied with the argument that a lack of physical corruption was the way to see Mary's sinlessness in lieu of the "sin = death" equation. But after reading Mark's powerful post it seems less satisfactory. That which makes us humans is our combination of body AND soul. It does seem that the cleaving of the two is a violent act that is "unnatural by nature" for humans. It seems to me not much ameliorated by the preservation of a corpse. (I'd always imagined that the stories of incorrupt bodies of saints was God's way of hinting that sin causes physical death.) Tom of Disputations responds to Mark. 

Here are some excerpts from EWTN's forum concerning the differing views of the East and West on Original Sin:


The Orthodox understanding of original sin, which equates it first and foremost with mortality, is based largely on how several key Eastern Fathers read the scriptures. St. Maximos the Confessor, for instance, is very clear on this point. He believes that Adam's fall initiated a process of disintegration and death, in which all of creation is spiralling away from God. Christ's death and resurrection reversed this process. Likewise, Maximos doesn't believe that physical death is an entirely bad thing. By causing us to die physically, God placed a limit on our sinfulness so our evil wouldn't be immortal. You may want to read the article on this subject which I wrote for Eastern Churches Journal: "Byzantine Perspective on The Fall," in Vol. 8 No. 3. --Anthony Dragani

More here also by Anthony Dragani:
I have heard that the Greek biblical texts of Rom. 5:12 do not contain the phrase "in whom all have sinned" relating to Adam's sin. Consequently, I gather that the Eastern churches' doctrine of original sin developed differently than that of the Western churches. Is this correct? 

The Greek biblical text of Romans 5:12 contain(s) the phrase "eph'ho pantes hemarton." The Western Church has traditionally translated this as "in whom all have sinned." 

In contrast, the Eastern Fathers understood the word "eph'ho" to modify the preceeding word "thanatos," which means "death." Therefore the Eastern Church translates the phrase in question as "because of which (death) all have sinned." Both are legitimate translations of the text. However, this difference in translation changes the meaning of the entire verse. 

Thus, the Western Church has traditionally translated the entirety of Romans 5:12 as such: 
"Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world and by sin death: and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned," (Douay-Rheims Version). The Eastern Fathers translated the second part of Romans 5:12 as follows: "...and so death passed upon all men, because of which all have sinned." 

In part because of this difference the Eastern Christian teaching on original sin developed differently. In our [Byzantine] tradition, the primary effect of original sin is not a "stain," passed on from generation to generation. Rather, it is death. Because "death passed upon all men," all of us now sin. It is death itself that causes us to sin. 

Can you explain the difference in the way the East views Original Sin? 
I'll try to briefly summarize the issue, but I can't do it justice in so little space. 

In the East: The primary consequence of Original Sin is death. The reality of death causes people to desire that which can distract them from the realitiy of their impending death. Hence, people turn to sex, money, and power as a way to forget about death. In this way, death leads to sin. 

In the West: The primary consequence of Original Sin is a "stain" of guilt. People are born with a guilt that needs to be washed away as soon as possible. 

Both the East and the West agree that original sin causes an ABSENCE of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Through baptism, the Holy Spirit can again dwell within man. 

It should be noted that the Catholic Church has adopted a much more Eastern understanding in recent years. In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is very Eastern in its approach to original sin. 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:14
 
 


 
Serendipitous or Godincidence?

A fellow blogger of high repute recently commented that he writes and reads few poems these days and thus is surviving rather than living. I tried to console with the message that it is when we are just surviving that we are most living because Christ is nearest to us in our poverty. But do I really believe that? Is this a case where the physician should heal himself? 

Do some, for whatever reason, have a higher “minimum daily requirement” of art? Of plays, music, books, theatre, film, paintings, architecture, poems?

I think of the Little Way of St. Therese and wonder: If we could see life as it truly is, as spiritual warfare in which our most insignificant actions have rippling effects -then would not our lives be infused with meaning and art be, extraneous? What need has the soldier on the field of battle for novels when his own life is the stuff of legend? 

But do not our dreams at night point to the need to make up stories? To add meaning to our existence? To re-shape the randomness of our day to a coherent incoherent storyline? 

One of the delights of trading away an early retirement for a large home library is the possibility of surprise. So, last night while involved in the sisyphean task of placing books in their proper home (only to be removed tomorrow), I came across Hannah Arendt's Men in Dark Times, a profile of various personages of the 20th century. It's one of many books I not only haven't read but had only the vaguest suspicion that I owned. I must've picked it up at one of the OSU booksales, where you get a bag of books for $1 or $5, depending on how panicked they are in wanting to move books.

A brief glance at the back cover caught my eye – “Isak Dinesen”. This called for an immediate read. It was a rich vein that echoed the blogger's sentiments:

"Without repeating life in imagination you can never be fully alive, ‘lack of imagination’ prevents people from ‘existing.’..'All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them’ she said.

She goes on to discuss this tension between living for art and letting art come from our living. This has a reasonance for me in not wanting to "get ahead of God" (laughable as that oxymoron is), which is a way of saying letting God lead. In her youth Dinesen made the mistake of wanting to create herself, ex nihilo: 


...She did write some tales about what must have been for her the obvious lesson of her youthful follies, namely, about the ‘sin’ of making a story come true, of interfering with life according to a preconceived pattern, instead of waiting patiently for the story to emerge, of repeating in imagination as distinguished from creating a fiction and then trying to live up to it…Thus, the earlier part of her life had taught her that, while you can tell stories or write poems about life, you cannot make life poetic, live it as though it were a work of art (as Goethe had done) or use it for the realization of an ‘idea’. Life may contain the ‘essence’ (what else could?); recollection, the repetititon in imagination, may decipher the essence and deliver to you the ‘elixir’; and eventually you may even be privileged to ‘make’ something out of it, ‘to compound the story’. But life itself is neither essence nor elixir, and if you treat it as such it will only play its tricks on you…Wisdom is a virtue of old age, and it seems to come only to those who, when young, were neither wise nor prudent. 

Update:I hope I didn't imply a favorable view of a minimalist or Puritan or anti-art philosophy in that post. Not in the least. I guess my issue is how to live on a Wednesday afternoon - as Walker Percy put it so beautifully. Living in Central Ohio - mecca of civilization that it is - tends to make life seem a bit on the dry side a lot. I know you won't believe it, but it's not exactly Florence, Italy. There's a part of me that believes/wants to believe that life can be gloriously interesting in Central Ohio if I'd only see the spiritual war more clearly. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:57
 
 


 
Feast fest

Saw an excellent film over the weekend as recommended by Kathy the Carmelite: Babette's Feast. The haunt of wasted talent, of questionable choices, the General's speech about mercy being infinite - twas all moving. The stranger welcomed in who gave everything, providing a feast fit for a wedding...sound familiar? And oh how I enjoyed the General's first sip of wine! World-weariness replaced with wonder. 

It was based on the story by Isak Dinesen and my respect for her grows. In an feat of impressive book-lust discipline, I did not buy Dinesen's "Babette's Feast" but will go to the library to rent it. Out of Africa is full of lyrical prose and interesting anecdotes. Here is an example of each (the second excerpt concerns a Muslim girl):


Small, very slight, red-haired, with narrow hands and feet, Berkeley carried himself extremely erect, with a little d'Artagnanesque turn of the head to right and left, the gentle motion of the unbeaten duellist.



She was of a theological turn of mind, and we had many religious discussions...She would admit Jesus Christ to have been born of a virgin, but not as the son of God, for God could have no sons in the flesh. ...In the course of our debates I one day showed her a picture postcard of Thorvaldsen's statue of Christ, in the Cathedral of Copenhagen. Upon that she fell in love, in a gentle and ecstatic way, with the Saviour. She could never hear enough about him, she sighed and changed colour as I narrated. About Judas she was much concerned, - what sort of man was he, how could there be people like that? - she herself would be only too happy to scratch out his eyes.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:47
 
October 13, 2003   


 
Low Country

A stiff sand-breeze grazes
his bearded face;
Strong toddies and stiff upper lips
Taste of ocean
Of dark sky sugared of stars
with a jellyfish twist.

Low-cropped mansions
hug the grub-line;
owners walk black dogs
near a slate sea
while fishers cast nets
starboard side.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:06
 
 


 
Rushashana 

I see there is much joy in Mudville, for the mighty Rush has struck out. Paralleled only by the glee with which Bill Bennett's fall was received, liberals and elitists are pilin' on. 

Newsweek's Evan Thomas begins his article with "Rush Limbaugh has always had far more followers than friends...". Nancy Nall attacks Gary Bauer for attempting to defend Rush. Bauer made the reasonable claim that someone who goes out seeking a high is morally worse off than one who becomes addicted compared to someone who became inadvertently addicted through legal use. "The new loyalist line was only a matter of time coming," Nancy says. 

I was tempted to write, "yeah, loyalty, what a rotten thing". But how does the cycle get broken? Not by snide remarks like that but perhaps by silence. Not by defending Rush, which convinces no one and merely enrages the liberal millions who want their schadenfreude undiluted, but by allowing him to accept responsibility and his fans accepting his responsibility. 

Now I don't listen to Rush, I never bought any of his books, don't particularly like his style although I do share his politics. Many claim tit for tat - conservatives celebrated Clinton's moral failings so we're returning the favor. But is this a cause for trumpets to be sounding? 


Go ahead and hate your neighbor, go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of heaven, justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowin' come the judgment day
on the bloody morning after one tin soldier rides away.

--ONE TIN SOLDIER, words and music by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:51
 
 


 
Faith as Gift from Newman Quote

I had this conversation recently concerning the Church:
-
    "I hope the next Pope isn't so conservative and will allow priests to marry and women to become priests. If another conservative Pope is elected the Church will split and I will go with the liberal side," she said.

    "The Church has already split. Many times."

    "But I'll still be Catholic." 
-
(sigh)
Cardinal Newman, in this quote via Donna Marie Lewis, helps me take a more sanguine view towards her situation.

Why? Because she has not been given the gift of seeing the Church in supernatural terms. She does not see the Church has having had authority granted to her by Christ. Without that conviction then the tenuous hold the Church has on her will remain (understandably) tenuous. 

She begins with what she knows is authentic: the appearances of the Virgin at Medjugorje. She's read every book on them and is convinced they are of God. The bible, in her hierarchy, is less divine/credible/supernatural than Medjugorje because the infancy narratives and much of the Gospel of St. John were "made up by later Christians". The present-day Church looks the LEAST supernatural of all given the nightmare of bishops shuffling around pedophile priests. Plus the host still looks like bread after the Consecration and she says Catholics aren't any holier than other Christians. 

What does all this say? Simply that faith is a gift. If you must see to believe, then Medjugorje is the most visible and most "easy" to believe in one sense. That all of the Scriptures are inspired of God is more difficult. That a fallible human being (the Pope) is protected from preaching heresy or apostasy is most difficult. And a gift. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:04
 
 


 
All we are saying....is give Zim a break

I don't know which was worse - watching 72-year old Don Zimmer charge Pedro Martinez and being thrown to the ground, or watching his abject apology for charging the mound and being thrown to the ground. I hope the apology was his idea. If not, ease up on the Zim! Let he who has never charged a mound cast the first baseball. Surely landing on his head is punishment enough. (He was also fined $5,000.) Pedro rightly received a much more punishing punishment - $50,000 - while proffering no abject apology.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 07:31
 
 


 
St. Thomas Aquinas on How to Study



Because you have asked me, my brother John, most dear to me in Christ, how to set about acquiring the treasure of knowledge, this is the advice I pass on to you: that you should choose to enter by the small rivers, and not go right away into the sea, because you should move from easy things to difficult things....

Embrace purity of conscience; do not stop making time for prayer. 

Love to be in your room frequently, if you wish to be lead to the wine celler.

More here.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 19:28
 
October 12, 2003   


 
Not sure how many of you saw ABC's This Week today, but the segment on JPII was moving beyond ken. From former Soviet leader Gorbachev's tribute to the anonymous tearful young woman who kissed the Pope's ring (he responded by cradling her forehead), it was just plain emotionally charged. Next Monday & Tuesday Good Morning America is broadcasting live from Vatican City.

Also, the NY Times today has a David Brooks piece on the Pope that Amy has linked. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:00
 
 


 
Seminarian Article

The Dispatch today had some interesting comments from seminarians who come from the world o'er:


Some are surprised that so many Americans go to church on Sunday. For most, getting used to the U.S. style of the English language takes some time. Above all, there is something about the food. ‘‘It’s not bad. It’s just different, so I can’t eat everything," said Maris Rasa, a Latvian seminarian at the Pontifical College Josephinum who finds hamburgers particularly hard to swallow.

**
Kalamuzi, 26, said he had a hard time getting used to the time change, humid summers and cold winters. 

‘‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this weather," he said. 

Kalamuzi said that before coming to the Josephinum, he had the image of the United States as a ‘‘pagan country." That notion has been dispelled, he said. ‘‘I have been overwhelmed by the number of people I see going to church here," he said. 

Just making it to the Josephinum was a major achievement for two seminarians from Myanmar, a southeast Asian nation formerly known as Burma. It has been embroiled in political unrest since the military seized power in 1988. One of the men, who is 30 and in his third year at the Josephinum, said he was struck by the freedom in the United States. 

‘‘When I came here, I could go wherever I wanted," he said. 

The second seminarian is 25 and in his second year at the Josephinum. He said Americans seem ‘‘very pious" and are not obsessed with work and money, as he had been told. Only 3 percent of the Myanmar population is Catholic, they said, and there are few priests. People rely on priests not only for spiritual guidance but also for advice on other issues, such as politics, they said. Both intend to return to Myanmar when their studies are finished at the Josephinum. It is likely they will be asked to teach in the seminary there, they said. 

*
In true central-Ohio fashion, Kalamuzi has become a rabid football fan, epecially of Ohio State. 

‘‘After the national championship game this past January, we had several phone calls. But the first phone call was from Ivan. He was so excited," Mr. Metzger said. --Dennis M . Mahoney 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:22
 
October 10, 2003   


 
Random Unimprimatur'd Thoughts

There's a lovely prayer I've recently discovered that ends with this:

O God, 
as once the good angels 
humbled themselves to adore You appearing before them as a man,
may man humbly adore You appearing before us as bread. 

It begins:
Father, look not upon our sins but see instead the Spotless Virgin Mary's Heart and the Heart of Your Eucharistic Son...

Now I actually find it very comforting to know that God is not seeing my sins but instead sees the hearts of Mary and Jesus. But then is He really seeing me? 

There are some strains of Protestantism that say justification involves God not cleaning out the inside but merely putting a white sheet over us, as if that fools Him into thinking we're clean. It's attractive, because it leads to an attitude of humility, but is God really loving us - or us dressed in a Halloween costume? That's why I think Purgatory is such a necessary doctrine; the cleaning that makes us viewable by God. 

*
The sense of our own helplessness is a gift. To attempt to "learn helplessness" on our own, in order that we might avoid the (presumably more painful) future lesson is a manifestation of a longing for control. Wanting to learn helplessness on my terms seems oxymoronic. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:32
 
 


 
Kirk Center

I'd like to subscribe to University Bookman but there's only so much time and money. But at least I can check out these online reviews. (Although I wish the H.W. Crocker III review was online.)

There's an interesting NRO article on the film Luther here.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:53
 
 


 
Hurry Up and Slow Down

My wife and I have been discussing and recussing whether to switch from a septic system (also referred to as the 'skeptic system' because we're skeptical how much longer it will last) to city sewer. 

And I've had the pleasure of being "in talks" with a certain salt-of-the-earth excavator named Forrest who runs through life at 33 1/3rd. (I imagine that analogy will be lost on those raised on CDs.) 

An older gentleman with a full beard and quiet manner, he makes me feel like a city slicker even though I thought "latte" was some odd variant plural for "lotto" until a couple years ago. His slow southern drawl makes our phone conversations especially interesting. When I get done talking it takes him so long to respond that I figure I didn't make myself clear - so then we begin talking at the same time with me clarifying and him responding - to which I then go quiet and he goes quiet and we're in the same boat for another three seconds or so, at which point we again both start talking. 

Eventually I learned for this to work I would have to s-l-o-w down. I would have to pretend I was on the set of the Andy Griffith Show. And I have to tell you that it was enjoyable. I could muse and grope for words knowing that I was not only being forgiven for being so sluggish but actually being rewarded, since we were now in sync. The lesson? See here

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:47
 
 


 
Nancy Nall provided an amusing link of fiction called Alcohoroscopes. Mine sez: Cancer is a comfort drinker -- and an extra wine with dinner or an after-work beer or six can be extra comforting, can't it, Cancer darling? Like fellow water signs Scorpio and Pisces, Crabs must guard against lushery. Cancers are brilliant at ferreting out secret parties and insinuating themselves on VIP lists -- and, in true Hollywood style, Cancers are never really drunk; instead, they get "tired and emotional" (read: weepy when lubricated)." 

I don't know. I'm always tired and emotional; drinking makes me livened and logical.

I looked up KTC's since I just know she won't mind! "In vino veritas -- and, for Sagittarius, in booze blurtiness: When buttered, they'll spill all your secrets and many of their own. Tactlessness aside, Sagittarius is just plain fun to drink with. This is a sign of serious partying (what else would you expect from the sign of Sinatra, Keith Richards, the Bush twins and Anna Nicole Smith?). They're the people who chat up everyone in the room, then persuade the entire crowd to travel somewhere else -- like a nightclub, or a playground, or Cancun." KTC doesn't need the booze!

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:43
 
 


 
How to Hoodwink Voters....Legally

The eternal tango between representatives and the voters is this: Voters want stuff without paying for it and representatives want to give stuff without charging. 

This delicate dance was abruptly ended by the voters of California because Gray Davis was rhythmically-challenged, tone deaf and crassly stepping on his partner's toes. Because everyone knows that voters, like frogs who die happily in a slowly increasingly-heated pot of water, will accept tax increases that are subtle and gentle. 

But the car tax that kicked in was anything but subtle and gentle. George Will writes: "A Washington-based Democrat, who was making Election-Eve get-out the-vote calls to black households in south Los Angeles, knew Gray Davis would be recalled when voter after voter told her, emphatically and specifically, the precise dollar amount that the tax increase was costing him or her."

Major faux paus. Clumsy, clumsy. No, you do it the Ohio way. Our Gov, Bob "Fred Astaire" Taft, simply jacked the sales tax one percent. No one complains they have to pay an extra 50 cents on a $50 purchase. No crying taxpayers. Happy taxpayers. The water hot yet? 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:39
 
October 9, 2003   


 
Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts


A friend of ours is fond of saying: The "Golden Age" of the Church lasted about twenty minutes on Pentecost. Those pesky Ephesians, tsk, tsk. -- smockmomma comments on Bill of Summa Minutiae's blog.

Pope John Paul II must be the Freddy Krueger for liberals. Just when they think he is on the outs and they are loading their stories with frail, ailing, sickly, and near death; the Pope still goes on. --Jeff Miller

My fertility is not a disease to be cured. Physician, thou best be wearing a steel jockstrap. --Lee Ann Morawski

I miss the steady stream of goodness at Kathy the Carmelite's blog, but it's nice to know wherever she is she must be doing God's work. Kind of how you might feel about a good priest being transferred, or a saintly person dying. 
-- Davey's Mommy 

Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom....They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it's money they have and peace they lack. 
--from film "Field of Dreams" via John of the Inn at the End of the World.

You can be nostalgic for places you've never been. -- from film Queen Christina

Praying the Rosary, then, is not fundamentally an act of Marian piety, but of evangelizing yourself. -Tom of Disputations

By dint of railing at idiots, one runs the risk of becoming idiotic one’s self." --Gustave Flaubert, quoted in Irving Babbitt, Rousseau and Romanticism on Terry Teachout's blog

Would be nice if the designers of the Web site of the Vatican would be aggiornaran just a little bit. Already several years ago all we learned to hate deeply those textures of bottom in the pages with text....(Above it is done with the Frontpage ! What horns make the guardian of ortodoxia that lets pass this heresy) -- Hernan Gonzalez

I get so tired of this "Catholic guilt" wheeze. If you've left the Church and you don't think you've done anything wrong, what are you feeling guilty about? --Peony of Two Sleepy Mommies

Studies show that over 50% of high school students think Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife. --local Christian radio talk show host

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:50
 
 


 
Weighted Bats



Amy Welborn has often asked this interesting question: Why, if the American Church was so healthy prior to Vatican II, did it succumb so easily to the zeitgeist of the 60s and 70s? 

The conventional wisdom is that the members of the Church after Vatican II became less faithful after Vatican II. Perhaps, but consider the "weighted bat" syndrome. Let me 'splain.

Before I got married, I felt like a holy person. The combination of having few responsibilities and picking and choosing which Church teachings were credible made me feel very close to Christ. After our marriage, which included a stepson, I found (self-)reports of my goodness to be greatly exaggerated. To use a baseball analogy, it was like I was now stepping to the plate with a bat weighted with the donuts hitters use in the on-deck circle. And the bat was no longer corked by my blindness to the authority of the Church. 

Similarly, I like to think that the Church post-Vatican II is neither as bad as advertised nor the Church prior to Vatican II as good. The Church before the 1960s was swinging a bat that had no donuts! Most of the elites in academia still respected Christianity, television and movies were mostly untainted and biblical criticism not mainstream. The combination of the intellectual elites apostasy, the pill and the beginnings of the Jesus Seminar mindset were great donuts on the post-Vatican II church. The 50s and 60s become unequal playing fields, so comparisons between eras cannot accurately be made. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:13
 
 


 
'Baptizing' Feminism

The Church often attempts to 'baptize' or Christianize pagan practices and philosophy. Dec 24 was once said to be a pagan holiday; Aquinas re-presented Aristotle with a Christian understanding. 

But even without overt Christianizing, feminism can be thought of logically in terms of what it purports to be: pro-female. For what is more pro-female than being pro-life since half of all children aborted are baby girls? And what is more pro-female than being against contraceptives which typically harm the female body? And what is more pro-female that proclaiming the fact that the stay-at-home mom has a more important job in raising a soul than a female CEO has in raising profit?

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:57
 
October 8, 2003   


 
The Last Possible Warm Day....

I celebrated Central Ohio's "Last Day To Go Shirtless" by, of course, going shirtless, the last vestige of male privilege. Lest women readers think they are missing out, the thrill of a shirtless bike ride is nothing to write home about (only to blog about - 'blog' coming from the Old English blag meaning 'to think aloud; often pointlessly').

But pointlessness is not always so bad and neither is a bit of dreaming. Love can seem impractical. Over the weekend I was listening to Walter Isaacson talk about his new biography of Benjamin Franklin and he opined that what made America great is the blending of rational, uber-pragmatic men like Benjamin Franklin with the other-worldliness of a Cotton Mather. Perhaps. But I recently read a review of a book that asked why America "succeeded" while Latin America "did not". I question the premise. The definition of suceeding appears to be strictly in monetary terms. The review points out the stereotype of the romantic Latins with their love of Cervantes compared with the ultra-pragmatic, work-ethic'd North Americans. (I always wondered if it was partially a weather-related phenomenon. The Prussians were much more rigid and pragmatic than the Sicilians - and who can blame the latter? Where it's usually warm and sunny siestas make sense. In the Greta Garbo film Queen Christina the male lead makes a similar point.)

My point? I'm not sure I have one other than to say that I'm in favor of siestas, extended families and cultures where dreaminess is not a vice. I recall the surprise of being criticized by a fifth-grade nun: 'you are such a dreamer'. I never knew I was; maybe if I were at a little school in Mexico I might not have been considered such. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:52
 
 


 
Marlins Skipper Cap'n Jack Says BEFORE last night's win...


"I ain't worried about destiny or anything," McKeon said. "I go to church every morning, talk to St. Therese, tell her she's the patron saint of miracles and ask for one more." 
--Jack McKeon

Sweet. The thought that might occur - "don't bother her with trifles like sports" - flies in the face of her being the saint of the little way. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:09
 
 


 
The Pinnacle of His Pontificate

Sometimes I catch myself thinking about our great Pope in terms of wanting to "remember him when": remember him when he was young and articulate and slaying the dragons on worldly terms. 

But the comeuppance to such thoughts, I think, was marvelously encapsulated on a recent Capital Gang episode by CNN Vatican analyst Delia Gallagher:


NOVAK: If people tell me that the pope has spent a great deal of time, more than usual, talking, appearing, if that is true, what do you think he's trying to do in these -- in this final period of his life?

Delia Gallagher: Well, that is true, Bob. He keeps up a very public schedule. And I think he does it on purpose. I think what we are seeing now is almost the pinnacle of this pontificate, if you will. It's the suffering pope.

And this is something that the pope is very aware of. He has become the symbol, at the same time, of a sort of suffering Jesus. And -- which is sort of elevates him to this mythological status. And at the same time, is able to suffer with the common man, identify himself with the common man. And so, I think that he realizes that there is great power in this. It's almost a poetic summation of his whole pontificate that he is able to symbolize and personify this suffering. And I think that that is the main reason why he continues to make these public appearances, and continues to risk humiliation. People talking about his drooling, and so on in front of the world... 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:34
 
 


 
A Protestant Ave Maria

Praise from an unlikely source - S.M. Hutchens, self-described Protestant - for Ave Maria U:



Of course, the Catholics aren’t the only ones who have the problem of secularization of their schools. Almost all the older American colleges and universities were founded by orthodox Protestants, gradually crept out from under their founders’ religion, and are now wholly secular. The phenomenon is so widespread and regular that one wonders whether it is an inevitability, whether Christian schools of any confession are doomed to apostatize as the sparks fly upward, that they, like the rest of us, are to expect death and corruption as the inevitable end of their lives.

As a matter of rule, I think so, but as a matter of principle, I think not... 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:30
 
October 7, 2003   


 
In Praise of Anxiety?

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus often says interesting things, including this revealing tidbit:


The [Surgeon General's] report defines disorders as "alterations in thinking, mood, or behavior that cause distress or impair a person’s ability to function." They include "depression, attention–deficit or hyperactivity disorder, and phobias." Surely most people experience something along those lines at least once a year. I know that I do. There are days when I am so depressed and out of sorts with the world that I can’t get a thing done; there are other days when I suffer from the delusion that I’ve more or less figured out the mystery of life and can’t wait to proclaim my discovery from the housetops. I don’t know which is the greater disorder.

The Surgeon General’s report takes Philip Rieff’s argument about "the therapeutic society" to the point of absurdity, it being assumed that "health" is an unremitting sense of well–being and optimal functioning. Those issuing the report do not seem to catch the irony that its purpose is to induce a sense of distress and anxiety about both the mental health of the American people and the state of health care. And, of course, religion is, at least by implication, indicted by the report since a message such as "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!" is certainly aimed at inducing acute anxiety about one’s way of life and even, pushing the acute to the ultimate, one’s eternal salvation. In the biblical scheme of things, we live in a world radically disordered by sin. Deep anxiety about this unhappy state of affairs is the mark of a person on the way to spiritual and mental health.

UPDATE: A reader suggested that not all depressions are created equal.... I did, of course, blog Fr. Neuhaus out of context - the context was a Surgeon General report that appeared to equate all depressions:

Excerpt:
The Surgeon General’s report on mental illness has been the object of so much criticism and even derision that perhaps we should just let it die a merciful death. But it seems to me there are at least a couple of aspects that have not received the attention they deserve. The gist of the report, you may remember, is that "one in every five Americans experiences a mental disorder in any given year, and half of all Americans have such disorders at some time in their lives." The purpose of the report, enthusiastically backed by the mental health industry, is that, through insurance and other means, billions of additional dollars should be spent on therapy.

As anyone knows who has had to cope with it in families and friends, mental disorder can be a dreadfully serious business. When mental disorder is handled as it is by this report, however, the subject is trivialized and politicized in a way that invites dismissiveness.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:17
 
 


 
The Red Sox Win the Pennant! The Red Sox Win the Pennant!



Not really, just a chance to play the Yankees for the pennant. But there's something different about them this year, and not just the fact that they won. Loading the bases with one out in the bottom of the ninth was pure BoSox - the morbid courting of imminent collapse, the baseball version of the Titanic. And the baseball gods teased the longest-suffering fans with a dribbler down the first base line, a clear reference to Billy Buckner's famous flub. But the ball was handled and the ship managed to get to port. As an outsider with no skin in this fight it was still baseball at its most entertaining. 

I liked the shots of the crowd at Jillians in Boston. The weight of their father's sin - the sale of the Babe - seemed palpable as they drink like fish with every errant Williamson pitch. A young lady mouths "You suck! You suck!" at the glass teat; her parents must be proud. The Sox pull the infield in with an out and the bases loaded. Any lame ground ball will score both tying and winning run.

But that script would've been too easy... 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 06:19
 
 


 
Imagery

In his book "The New Brain" neurologist Dr. Restak explains why images exert so much power over our brain.

"..images - unlike writing or speaking - are immediate and require no thought or analysis, they have overtaken words as the principle means by which knowledge gets communicated."

He goes on to say that violent or distressing images have a seismic influence. "When the image is one of horror, carnage, suffering, injury, or death, the balance of activity shifts toward the right hemisphere and the brain is in danger of becoming overwhelmed and dysfunctional." 

So the pro-life group showing pictures of aborted babies are more effective than if they show pictures of healthy babies in the womb, but at the cost of having a deleterious effect on sensitive brains. Looks like 'first do no harm' applies here. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:35
 
October 6, 2003   


 
Kathy of Gospel Minefield has a nice post concerning the occasionally tricky matter of what to blog and what to keep private. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 21:58
 
October 5, 2003   


 
More Flannery O'Connor


I am one of the laymen who resist the congregation yapping out the Mass in English & my reason besides neurotic fear of change, anxiety, and laziness is that I do not like the raw sound of the human voice in unison unless it is under the discipline of music...
*
...You are probably right about the dialogue Mass but I still think either chanting it or singing it would add the discipline necessary to make it endurable. There are always at least one or two loud voices, that make their business with the Lord loudly intimate, beseeching, aggressive, that destroy the feeling of the whole. This would be impossible if it were sung or chanted. 
*
I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened. A faith that just accepts is a child's faith and all right for children, but eventually you have to grow religiously as every other way, though some never do....It is much harder to believe than not to believe. If you feel you can't believe, you must at least do this: keep an open mind. Keep it open toward faith, keep wanting it, keep asking for it, and leave the rest to God.
*
God made us to love him. It takes two to love. It takes liberty. It takes the right to reject. If there were no hell, we would be like animals. No hell, no dignity. 
*
I believe there are as many types of saints as there are souls to be saved. I am quite interested in saving my soul but I see this as a long developmental evolutionary process, extending into Purgatory, and the only moment of it that concerns me in the least is the instant I am living in.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 21:42
 
 


 
Reporting Live from Columbus Oktoberfest



Munich's Oktoberfest began some two-hundred years ago; it was originally the marriage feast of Princess Therese and Prince Ludwig. The revelers had so much fun they had it the following year. And the next.

But I didn't go to honor King Ludwig but to listen to the fine German music and sip a Warsteiner Dunkel. And this is the last drinking musical festival until St. Patrick's Day, which lent a sadness somewhat ameliorated by a tireless sun. 

The "import band" this year was a group of some forty elderly gents from Dresden, Germany. They sang a capella, and each of the first five songs sounded exactly the same. The most profound thought I could muster was that one guy sure looked a lot like Cardinal Ratzinger. I eventually bolted due to a full bladder and short attention span but came back at the finish to catch them singing "My Darling Clementine", which confirmed my suspicion that people can only take so much German a capella music. 

The woman who introduced each song spoke in fetching broken English. I took consolation that God looks similarly upon us when we speak our “broken Christian”. It is the effort that pleaseth. Since each song was auf Deutsch, she explained what it was about - invariably promoting peace. After awhile I got the feeling they were here as missionaries to stop us from voting for Bush.

All of the men wore a wristwatch on their left hand - a German without a timepiece is like an Irishman without a pint. It was wonderful to see how uninhibited they were; some would suddenly and apropos of nothing gesticulate and smile wildly to the gent next to them. 

The crowd was full of bonhomie and good cheer also, which suggested, on the surface at least, a parallel to Flannery O'Connor's "she could've been good if someone was always shooting her": "she coulda been good if she always had a few beers in her". 

One guy walked by with a sweatshirt that read “Genuine Antique Lutheran….been there, done that, still prayin’” which seemed a bit out of place until - duh! - Luther was a German. A sleeping baby of Asian descent looked beautiful as art – long-lined eyes, razor-straight. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:30
 
 


 
Jesus Remembered Me 
--By Hank Williams, Sr.

I was all alone and drifting on a lonely sea of sin
Nothing but darkness, no sunshine within
I lifted my eyes, to the Lord in the sky
And Jesus remembered me.

Chorus
Jesus remembered me
And so he set me free
once I was blinded, but now I can see
Glory to God, he remembered me.

Now the sun is shining, I’m happy and free
No more sorrow, no troubles to see
I’m going home to glory, my saviour to see
Glory to God, he rememberd me.

Chorus

When he talked to his disciples at the Sea of Galilee
He said he’d remember a mortal like me
I asked for his blessing down on my knees
And glory to God, he remembered me.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:25
 
October 4, 2003   


 
Please Please Me

I rarely go to the Amazon.com home page. I have their search page bookmarked and reguarly visit that but today had occasion to go to the home page and I had to laugh at how assiduously their computers have collected information and tailored their page to me. For right there, big as life, (and rather distracting) was this:

Where We Got the Bible... Our Debt to the Catholic Church 

Traces the origin and preservation of sacred Scripture. This book includes the conversion story of the author, who converted from Calvinist ministry...

Amazon.com - they are such kiss asses! 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 00:38
 
 


 
Eusebius Excerpt


'Are you a Christian?' In the clearest possible tones Vettius replied: 'I am.' And he, too, was admitted to the ranks of martyrs. He was called the Christians' advocate, but he had in himself the Advocate, the Spirit that filled Zacharias, as he showed by the fullness of his love when he gladly laid down his own life in defence of his brother Christians.

When we were all afraid, and [Blandina] was in agony lest she should be unable even to make a bold confession of Christ because of bodily weakness, she was filled with such power that those who took it in turns to subject her to every kind of torture from morning to night were exhausted by their efforts and confessed themselves beaten - they could think of nothing else to do to her. They were amazed she was still breathing, for her whole body was mangled and her wounds gaped... --Eusebius, The History of the Church


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 23:10
 
October 3, 2003   


 
You Are What You Read

Amy discusses the amazon purchase numbers and how certain cities seem to live up to their stereotypes.

One time I did some research to come up with "most intelligent" and "holiest" countries based on their book purchases. I wish I'd kept the research, unscientific as it was (could be a lot of ex-pats mucking up the lists). I thought Portugal might've been the holiest given their post-Fatima reputation but their list just seems damn smart. 

I noticed that Notre Dame has a photo-journalism book of young women called "Girl Culture" at number 2 and the Catechism at number 3. 

ND Likes...   
     

My initial cynical reaction was to suppose that the Catechism is a required purchase for all Freshman and that "Girl Culture" is popular among the male undergraduates. But it's probably the opposite - a revival of Catholicism on campus and many young women buying a book about, well young women. Certainly the pink title in "Girl Culture" is a dead giveaway. You can tell who it's marketed to. 

Update: I read more about "Girl Culture" and it appears to be a frank portrayal and discussion of feminine body image, which is understandably a hot topic these days. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:18
 
 


 
Another St. Therese link
..is here



I've had Buddhist friends with no background in Christianity ask for Christian spiritual classics, but none of them have asked for Thérèse. Her words are drenched with Christian meaning. The Gospel accounts provide many of her metaphors. She moves instinctively to details of the Passion. If we were to try to cut away the Christ elements in Thérèse's message, we wouldn't have even a skeleton left. The very bones of her doctrine would be cast off. Nothing would remain. This is not true of some other great Christian classics.

Nietzsche, who lived at the same time as Thérèse though he was born much earlier, is an apostle of power just as Thérèse is an apostle of powerlessness. Nietzsche said, "Where I found the living, there I found the will to power." Thérèse declared, "I have my weaknesses also, but I rejoice in them...It's so good to feel that one is weak and little."

Nietzsche said, "It is for others that I wait...for those who are higher, stronger, more triumphant, and more cheerful, such as are built perpendicular in body and soul: laughing lions must come."

Thérèse cries out, "O Jesus!...I feel that if You found a soul weaker and littler than mine, which is impossible, You would be pleased to grant it still greater favors...I beg You to cast Your Divine Glance upon a great number of little souls. I beg You to choose a legion of little Victims worthy of Your LOVE!"

When we acknowledge our weakness, no longer demanding the right to be in control of our lives, divine power becomes infinitely available to us. --Margaret Dorgan


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:50
 
 


 
Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts


I was scanning the religion shelves of the public library one day and came upon the title Ecstatic Confessions, ed. by Martin Buber. Being nosy, I checked it out! To that point, I'd always associated "mysticism" with new age types or the guru in Nepal--I didn't have any idea that it was RELEVANT to any Christian's actual prayer life. Mysticism, as it turned out, was simply love talk between God and His people: between the Lover and His beloved! In 1991 I told Him I wanted to have that kind of love relationship with Him. --Kathy the Carmelite
---
I think that the artificiality and polarization of our present political culture makes it difficult to see what a public person "holds from God, i.e. in respect of nature and grace."... How can we see the "nature and grace" in someone with whom we disagree?...[Labels], you see, do not have souls, but we can hold out hope for living, complicated realities." -Neil Dhingra on eschewing labels (on Disputations) 
---
The world - the misfortune it always pushes to doubt the universe, and to believe in one. That is: cosmic skepticism and personal affirmation." - Hernan Gonzalez
---
Was [St.] Thérèse a hypocrite because she smiled when she didn't feel like it? Were these small sacrifices a sign of an interior haughtiness and hypocrisy--a servile and sniveling way to curry God's favor? Rather, I think that the exterior actions and the will to them, gave rise to a heart of love. Yes, she did view them as sacrifices, they were small labors, but labors willingly undertaken because they gave Love a home. The actions were not hypocrisy, but humility. It was not hypocritical for Thérèse to note that there was a sister among them at whom no one would smile willingly and that she undertook to do so. Had she done so in order to win the Sister to herself, that might at least be labeled flattery. But Thérèse did so because that is what love demanded. - Steven Riddle
---
Mark of Minute Particulars on Mt 16:17:
"I suppose we could imagine that Peter has received some kind of clean, bright divine illumination, some crisp, crackling epiphany which makes all things clear to him. But I tend to imagine a grittier, dingier kind of illumination that is ensconced in human relationship. What is revealed to Peter is simply something like this: This man Jesus is speaking the truth...the notion that faith is a gift does not so much suggest that some are offered this gift and some are not, but that faith requires our trust of another person in a manner that can only originate from that other person."
---
That eternal balance between asking for some actual sense of His dynamic presence and knowing that that's not the goal of your prayer. 

Show me a sign, but let me act on faith alone!" 

-Therese Z. comments on Sean's blog (pray for his discernment w/r/t a possible vocation). 
---
There is no evidence that the profanation and the heart attack were in any way connected. But the superstitious among us might want to choose their place of rendezvous carefully."
-William Luse, on the sudden death of the man who had sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral. 
---
If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing.
The point is, though, that a "hypocrite" is one who pretends to have a virtue he doesn't have. The correct term for a person who demands other people exercise a virtue he doesn't have is a "nuisance."" - Tom of Disputations 
---
Cling to Christ so tightly such that if he sent you to hell he would have to go with you" -our pastor quoting St. Claude while prefacing the quote with the obligatory disclaimer not to take it as a theological truth.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:39
 
October 2, 2003   


 
From Philip Trower's "Turmoil and Truth":


The two views of the way God reveals himself are often described, and contrasted, as the "deductive" and "inductive" approaches. 

Deduction is the mental process by which we move from established facts or knowledge to their implications...

Since Christianity gets the greater part of what it knows directly from God, they are thinking deductively...

We think inductively when, starting from what we can touch and see (sense experience), we climb to a knowledge of the causes, laws and first principles underlying them. Natural religions, like Confucianism and Buddhism are based on inductive thinking...

In giving primacy to the 'inductive' approach modernism is pushing Christianity back to the status of a natural religion.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:53
 
October 1, 2003   


 
The Ham of Bone Saga

My friend Ham has now been out of work since May 30th. A very competent hard worker, he possessed the fatal flaw of many a competent hard worker: pride, manifested in an inability to get along with his boss. When the downsizing bell tolled, it tolled for him.

But death brings life and Bone has thrived in his new position as unpublished screenwriter and frugal savant. In fact, frugal doesn't begin to cut it. I apologize in advance to mention this, but he's a "one-square" TP man. 

Via smoke and mirrors and unemployment compensation (and a low toilet paper budget), his family of six have scarcely touched the 12-weeks worth of severance money. It appears he'll stay solvent and not need a job through next year. 

Part of his low cost of living is that mortgage (mortgage literally means 'death note') was paid off a couple years ago at the tender age of 37. Amazing.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:37
 
 


 
     Mercy - merci!



Happy St. Therese Day! Arguably the greatest saint of modern times. 

St. Thérèse, priez pour nous.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:52
 
 


 
The Interview

Thanks go out to ih8w8n for interviewing me!

Tell us a little about your background. A sense of place is vital to understanding who a person is.

I was born a poor white child in rural West Virginia; in lieu of sugar we sprinkled coal dust on our Cheerios. We didn't know we were poor, we thought everyone had blackened Cheerios for breakfast. I was born height-disadvantaged - just 21 inches while my parents and the doctors and nurses all stood over 60 inches tall. Fortunately I've since grown. 

How did you get into Irish music?

I developed an affinity for it as a backup dancer on the American tour of Lord of the Dance. I was let go due to a charge of "inappropriate touching". It was actually Michael Flatley who pinched Deirdre's fanny but like, do you really think they'd fire him? 

Why do you blog?

Another excellent question! You'd think I was making them up myself. It's a wonderful creative outlet and my long-suffering wife needs a rest. I've known her for ten years now and her diminution of interest has been fascinating. While dating, she saved every writing and treated each with encyclicalic reverence. She soon had files overflowing with printed missives. Shortly after marriage, she stopped saving them (she never said, but I figured this was due to large amounts of paper being a fire risk). For the first year or two of our marriage she asked that I read to her before bed. Eventually this was stopped due to unexplained fatigue and headaches. So blogging comes very natural to me.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 07:56
 
 


 
I'm impressed by how gamely Nancy Nall carries on with her NN.C site. Despite how busy she must be she won't forget the little people, no, not even now that she hobnobs with the glams in Michigan (is that an oxymoron?). 

Obviously she has a wider audience than most bloggers, and that is viagra to the motivation, but I'm frankly surprised by the lengths to which she is going (albeit she is switching to a blog). 

I have to think that at some point her right to have ample family, study and hobnob time supercedes our right to be entertained. Theoretically at least. 

Any time you get a professional performance for free, you feel a certain appreciation. Now sure, she's getting something out of it in terms of maintaining connections and business contacts, but even so she gets paid to write and is good at it so reading her blog for free has a bargain feel to it. But there are some at St. Blog's (and you know who you are) who, although not professionals, are so good at what they do that there is a similar appreciation. 

Reminds me of the Holiday Strings concert our company provides. Eight or ten members of the Columbus Orchestra come and play the most marvelous music to a "crowd" of maybe ten. It has an aspect of embarrassing gratuitousness about it - like the idea of Christ dying for us alone. Mother Teresa once wrote, 'Look at the cross and you will know what one soul means to Jesus'.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:52
 
September 30, 2003   


 
Buoys, Borders and Lines of Demarcation

Disputations discusses faith as gift. I'm always interested in where the human ends and the divine begins, where human effort faileth and divine intervention beginneth. (That fascination is also part of the reason I like maps, state lines and swimming beyond lake buoys.) 

But perhaps I should develop an affinity for shallower waters.

The mystery of grace and free will and predestination only make my head hurt. Jesus seemed tough on those with weak faith, "Oh ye of little faith!" and didn't work miracles where there was little faith. On the other hand, faith is miraculous, supernatural, as when Peter knew Jesus to be the Christ and Jesus said that no flesh had told him that but the Spirit of God. 

Knotty spiritual problems produce two equal and opposite reactions in me: they entice, because they're fascinating (how an auto transmission works is finite, and therefore less interesting), but they repel because they are without answer in this life. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:26
 
 


 
St. Jerome's Feast  excerpts from his letters


...Charity overcomes all things, and my regard for you defeats my determination. I am, indeed, less careful to retaliate upon my assailants than to comply with your request. For among Christians, as one has said, not he who endures an outrage is unhappy, but he who commits it. 
*
I know that as you read these words you will knit your brows, and fear that my freedom of speech is sowing the seeds of fresh quarrels; and that, if you could, you would gladly put your finger on my mouth to prevent me from even speaking of things which others do not blush to do. But, I ask you, wherein have I used too great license? Have I ever embellished my dinner plates with engravings of idols? Have I ever, at a Christian banquet, set before the eyes of virgins the polluting spectacle of Satyrs embracing bacchanals? 
*
...Let us reflect on the words of the sapiential psalm: "Righteous art thou, O Lord, and upright are thy judgments." Only he can speak thus who in all his troubles magnifies the Lord, and, putting down his sufferings to his sins, thanks God for his clemency. 
*
Pope Damasus, 384, addresses five questions to Jerome with a request for information concerning them [including]:Why was Isaac, a righteous man and dear God, allowed by God to become the dupe of Jacob? (Gen. 27) 

In reply to the question Jerome says: "No man save Him who for our salvation has deigned to put on flesh has full knowledge and a complete grasp of the truth. Paul, Samuel, David, Elisha, all make mistakes, and holy men only know what God reveals to them." He then goes on to give a mystical interpretation of the passage suggested by the martyr Hippolytus. 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:49
 
 


 
Pray

I see that Gregg the Obscure has gone to Confession. Good move, for surely the Apocalypse is nigh --- the Bengals won yesterday. Scary times indeed. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:02
 
September 29, 2003   


 
Favorite Childhood Books

HMS is listing favorite children books. Here are some off the top of my head:

- A Child's Book of Poems - Gyo Fujikawa 
- Lad: A Dog - Albert Payson Terhune
- A Light in the Forest - Conrad Richter
- Island of the Blue Dolphin - Scott O'Dell
- Encyclopedia Brown - Donald J. Soboll
- When the Grass Was Real - Donald Honig 
- Horton Hears a Who - Dr. Suess

A couple years ago we had the opportunity to donate children's books to an inner city public school library. I donated "A Light in the Forest". And although I don't think there was anything wrong with my donation, that program didn't last long which you could've seen coming up Fifth Avenue. Too many "politically incorrect" books, i.e. books with a moral (teaching virtues is surely now suspect), or, alternatively, books "too white". The following year they provided a list of books they would accept. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 22:36
 
September 28, 2003   


 
Am reading Elliot Paul's The Last Time I Saw Paris, written shortly after Paris fell to the Nazi's. In it he reminisces about the City of Lights of the '20s. Inspired by his poetic descriptions (he begins by describing the sun rising over Notre Dame) I thought briefly about writing about my hometown, "The Last Time I Saw Hamilton!" but although it wouldn't be a parody, I'm not sure the reader would know that and that is always worrisome. By the way, the exclamation point was not extraneous; Hamilton, Ohio changed its name to Hamilton!, Ohio in a bid to increase tourism. Seriously. 

Dawn broke over East Main; in the shadow of the Billy Yank monument we devoured bacon and eggs...

Paul's keen eye for the ladies combined with a cavalier attitude towards the French brothel led me to suspect he was no saint (takes a sinner to know one); I checked an online biography and found he died shortly after divorce number five. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 18:30
 
 


 
Bill Cork on 'Luther'

Former Lutheran minister makes interesting comments on the film Luther. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:36
 
 


 
Speyr Quote


All man was required to do was simply to accept God's judgment of the goodness of creation in an act of obedience that would not have cost him any self-conquest, because God stood in full clarity above him and God's pure judgment was perfectly valid for him. But when he found himself alienated from God through sin, he had to begin defining God. That is, in everything he undertook, good as well as evil, he had to try to recapture God's judgment, envision God's actions on the basis of his own, decide whether God's attitude was approval or rejection, permission or prohibtion. Through sin man shifted not only himself but all creation from the right relationship with God. A sign of the disturbed order was that God no longer spoke to man directly, but henceforth through mediators appointed to the task. In this state of alienation in which man found himself, he was better able to understand these voices... From now one angels are sent on missions to mankind. Angels stand directly before God in eternity. They convey what they receive of his eternal wisdom, which to them in heaven is self-evident, and they must make it palatable to man on earth... 
--Adrienne von Speyr, + 1967, Swiss medical doctor, mystical writer, and stigmatic. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:19
 
 


 
Written Upon Hearing the Song 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald'

A terrible irony:
he touched taut skin
strong muscles
all running to ruin;
breathed with clear lungs 
moved with healthy heart...
--just geographically-sick 
but what kind of sick is that? 
Sick as mid-Superior
in a gale come early,
a lifetime of prayer
held in the tightening noose. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:09
 
September 27, 2003   


 
Un-Impramatur'd Thoughts

There can be no peace without courage. Look at St. Therese of Lisieux: a twenty-something profile in courage. 

To be brave is this: to appropriate God’s promises prematurely. To believe in heaven, our personal salvation, in the possibility of our perfectibility without any visible proof. To thank and praise God proactively instead of retroactively is to trust, which is a way of being brave. 

In the Psalms David says, '‘thank the lord for all he has done for you’. But how much more thankful should I be than David since that was before the Cross, the saving Ark?

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:07
 
 


 
The Hate Debate

Tom of Disputations cranks out another provocative and interesting post, this time about hatred of George Bush. I have co-workers who are militantly anti-Bush and somewhat less militantly anti-Christian. I wonder if the two aren't becoming connected in their minds and the former inflaming the latter, given the President's very public Christianity. (After all, Cardinal Newman wrote that "Men go by their sympathies, not by argument...") If every time I think of the word "blue" I got hit below the belt, eventually I'm going to not like the idea of "blue" so much. 

Somewhat analogous might be Hernan Gonzalez's situation. His Argentine readers are no doubt more anti-American and less Christian than him. Since it's infinitely more important they become more Christians instead of less anti-American, it makes utter sense for Hernan to use the word yankee, with its slightly derogatory connotation, lest he become an obstacle to his friend's conversions.

But with the Bush haters it's somewhat of a chicken or the egg argument - do they hate Bush because they smell religion? Or are they turned off by Christianity because they feel it is being malpracticed by someone as visibly devout as Bush? 

If hatred of Bush and his conservatism bleeds over into hatred of religion then that's all the more reason for Christians to scrupulously divide politics from religion, by remembering that Christianity favors no political parties, just issues (e.g. pro-life). 

The problem is that it gets more difficult to separate a party's issues from the party itself (the 'sinner' from the sin?). The secularization of the Democratic party over the past three decades has made religion more identifiable with a particular political party than is healthy.

As Ye Olde Oligarch once wrote:
Since Eisenhower added 'under God' to the pledge (perhaps itself a buttressing of the eroding foundations of social order? It was the 1950s after all...), we've seen the legalization of birth control, abortion, and pornography; the radical secularization of the instruments of public education, a stripping of public spaces of all forms of religious expression (unless you are deemed a protected minority, like Judaism, which gets away with Menorahs on city greens from time to time), a sequence of direct attacks on the institutions of marriage and the family -- all basically the flight of alienated, anti-religious consciousness away from the tattered remnants of Western Christianity towards a collective society wherein the will-to-libido can express itself untrammelled by regulations of the public sector.

Not to say those changes are all due to liberal Democratic judges and office holders, but...a NY Times story concluded a story about George Bush with the line, "The interesting story, then, is not that Mr. Bush is a captive of the religious right, but that his people are striving to make the religious right a captive of the Republican Party." 

The easy retort is that the Democratic Party is also striving to make the religious right captive of the Republican Party!

But don't take my word for it - as uber-liberal James Carville himself admitted, "the Democratic party could be a lot friendlier to religion". Amen. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:13
 
September 26, 2003   


 
Interesting Quote


Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder. --St. Thomas Aquinas


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:27
 
 


 
Blog Comedy

St. Blog's has been particularly fecund these days in developing new forms of blogger comedy. Here is my offering, inspired by this funny post from Two Sleepy Mommies:

Search engine searches:

Philosophical quotes about breast milk  (uh...hmm....how about "breast milk, it does a baby good?")

ectasy of st. teresa (from a military domain - army) (Great minds misspell alike)

Mel Gibon's Passion (oh happy fault! That a typo could lead you here!)

Could i get notes to the song Naggin to play on my TUBA (Sorry)

sexual (Could you be more specific?)

dust in the wind kansas what it means symbolic meaning (See readings from Ash Wednesday)

CHRISTIAN BOOKSHOPS IN LAGOS (Not sure...but I know a couple scammers from there)

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:24
 
 


 
Defining "Commitment" Down

Ham of Bone must like to produce blood pressure variations within himself. To produce a high BP, he simply listens to NPR. But this time, instead of the usual liberal slant, he heard this from Dr. Drew Pensky: 


Terri Gross' sit-in interviewer asked: "Do you think kids today need more sex education?"

And here's where we entered the twilight zone. (If you didn't know better, you'd think that Dr. Dobson was answering instead.)

(My paraphrase)
Dr. Drew: "No way! Kids today know too much! The problem today is that there is no courtship ritual; kids meet, then hook up. There is no emotional depth to the connection."

Interviewer: "Hook up. That's a recent term among kids. What does it mean?"

Dr. Drew: "It's an alarming trend whereby guys and girls hanging out together with a group pair off for quick physical contact (kissing, petting, and oral sex and intercourse) with no acknowledged connection as a couple. In the past, this kind of activity usually occurred among a pair of kids who identified themselves as "going out" or "dating".

I've held seminars and focus groups with thousands of high school and college kids and 100 percent, 100 percent!, of women that I talk to HATE the new pseudo-dating rituals. Boys get loaded before an encounter because it helps them to perform and girls get loaded because it helps them to tolerate a hook up encounter.

In every assembly, when I ask what a girl would like to happen, inevitably a girl in the room says, 'I wish he would just sit down and talk to me.' Kids need to be taught the human element of relationships. They need courting rituals that accent the human quality of a person. Kids today are so stunted socially..."

What amazes me most about this is how the "price" or "cost" of sex was traditionally commitment in the form of marriage. Then it became acceptable in any committed relationship. Now it seems that even a public acknowledgement of a connection between two is somehow embarrassing. Sad situation. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:18
 
 


 
All Star Lineup - Plan Accordingly

Great week upcoming for saint feast days, so phone the kids, wake the neighbors. St. Jerome on Tuesday, St. Therese of Lisieux (yea!!) on Wednesday and St. Francis on Saturday. It's always refreshing to celebrate the lives of those who got it right, at least more often than most, sort of like watching a Ted Williams or a Johnny Bench. 

*

Lord, scrape the barnacles of unreality off me
make me the cheerful in the face of Fallenness.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:50
 
 


 
Good Friday People vs Easter People

Fascinating post from Frederica Mathewes-Green (via this Mark Shea post) that goes over some of the ground discussed at Disputations a few weeks ago (obviously Mathewes-Green is behind the times :). I think of the Resurrection as demonstrative of God's power and the Crucifixion of his love. They are inseparable because it's the combination of power and love that is the heart of what makes God so amazing and worthy of worship, but there are times one or the other of the attributes may speak to us more directly. 

If we think of that love as beauty and the power of the Resurrection as truth:
...beauty without truth is false, and that which is false and beautiful does not remain beautiful for very long. If the faith is no more than a pretty face, then the aesthetes are also atheists. Since miracles are an error in taste, it is far more subversive and therefore far more Christian to accept the miracles. It's also much more fun--rather like wearing a hideous hat on purpose. --Dwight Longenecker via Flos Carmeli

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:27
 
September 25, 2003   


 
Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts

Starr is confident that California will one day return to her Catholic roots. 'The blood of the martyrs in California, in the Spanish colonies in Florida, in the French missions in Canada, and the thousands of priests in remote frontier communities herald our spiritual destiny.'" - via El Camino Real
*
God is not my father in particular, or any man's father (horrible presumption and madness!); no, He is only father in the sense of father of all, and consequently only my father in so far as He is the father of all. When I hate someone or deny God is his father, it is not he who loses, but I: for then I have no father. -Søren Kierkegaard via Steven Riddle
*
African Americans have liberal political beliefs but many adhere to a conservative interpretation of the Bible. Perhaps that's one reason why Dean rallies are whiter than the Stockholm chapter of the Barry Manilow Fan Club. -John Pitney via NRO
*
Even if you ditch the gender stereotypes, the stratification goes on, just reformulated...It doesn't matter what the ideal is; an ideal forms, and some people live up to it better than others. - Camassia
*
If a man tries to be humble, won't he be proud of his effort, and therefore not humble at all? --commenter Rob on Disputations
*
Now, whoever believes, assents to someone's words; so that, in every form of belief, the person to whose words assent is given seems to hold the chief place and to be the end as it were; while the things by holding which one assents to that person hold a secondary place. - Aquinas excerpt from this analogy from Minute Particulars
*
And, while I’m extremely grateful for the gift of Purgatory, I’m anxious to get those friends, relatives, and loved ones out of there as soon as possible. For their own sakes, of course. But — let’s face it — once they’re out of Purgatory and in Heaven, they can pray for me! 
“As usual, it’s all about you, isn’t it Kelly?” -the wonderful Pew Lady

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:15
 
 


 
Too Much Time on my Hands (sing like Styx)

Proof positive was enduring the California debate last night, which, like a train wreck, was hard to ignore. I could've been reading Wallace's "Infinite Jest" or Paul Theroux or "The Spiritual Exercises of John Paul II". Instead I fell asleep to the jarring sounds of insults and bromides. 

I watched "only" the first hour, but Huffington, my gosh, what can you say? Isabel had less hot air. If you hadn't heard the question you wouldn't know it from her answer; it appeared to be a forum to bash Arnold and Bush and Davis and she wasn't going to let the question get in the way of the answer.

There is something "pretty" about consistency. Thus McClintock's calm, reasoned conservatism was attractive. You know what he stands for. Saul Bellow called the ordered thoughts of Alan Bloom charismatic, small 'c', given his coherent world view. Aquinas could be viewed similarly. 

I think the reason William F. Buckley had such deep friendships with liberals like George McGovern and Arthur Schlesinger are:

1) Intellectual honesty, which implies some sort of consistent world view
and
2) Perhaps Schlesinger, McGovern and Buckley are, plain and simply, good people.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:36
 
 


 
Pastoral Comments IV


Twice the gospels mention that Jesus wept. Once was the death of his friend, Lazarus, about which he could do something, i.e. raise him from the dead. The other time he couldn't, which was to convince his own people to follow Him:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 19:47
 
September 24, 2003   


 
The New Brain

I recently found myself in the ludicrous position of reading a book about the horrors of multi-tasking, while, of course, multi-tasking. I was in the gym on the stairmaster, reading Dr. Restak's The New Brain with the television ten feet in front of me occasionally stealing my attention (along with that annoying crawl that IMO should be reserved for catastrophes only.) 

Dr. Restrak is a neuroscientist who warns that we are abusing our brains with technology, most especially television of course. The symptoms are a sort of adult attention deficit disorder, which is becoming so common that some experts are arguing that it should no longer be seen as a disorder. Apparently a neuroscientist's way of defining deviancy down. 

Restrak quotes Jacques Barzun: "The machine makes us its captive servants-by its rhythm, by its convenience, by the cost of stopping it or the drawbacks of not using it. As captives we come to resemble it in its pace, rigidity, and uniform expectations."  

The symptoms of adult ADD include: a frequent search for high stimulation, intolerance of boredom, a sense of underachievement, of not meeting one's goals, difficulty getting organized, impatience, a sense of insecurity and a tendency to say whatever comes to mind. 

Restrak also quotes Blaise Pascal who said, "Most of the evils in life arise from a man's being unable to sit still in a room."

I'd go on with this post, but I'm afraid I'd lose your attention! (or mine!) 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:39
 
 


 
Another good site

Via Amy, haven't read this yet, but a must-read article on Shakespeare and the mystery of things:

Shakespeare, as an artist and poet, was called to be contemplative of this world. Was he gazing at things as if he were God's spy?

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:38
 
 


 
Fictional Wednesday

He was a born Materialist, only worse – a Materialist lacking imagination, at least to the extent that's not redundant. Thus shortly after he turned ten, when his father sat down and informed him of the facts of life, he gave a lecture of his own: “No dad, only pee comes out of the penis! That's why they call it a pee-nis.”

“Consider it a dual-use instrument,” his father replied, “like a trumpet that becomes a trombone.” 

“No, that just isn’t possible…how would it know when to pee and when to, when to…do what you said?”

“Well, you have a point there. It’s not exactly known as an organ of intelligence.” 

And so the child went his way like St. Thomas the Apostle, not believing until he experienced it for his own, at which point he was briefly surprised by how wrong he was, and of his reluctance to believe his father, but that soon passed...

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 07:31
 
 


 
Jonah Blog

Jeff Miller continues the fine tradition of his humorous bible blogs. I was thinking briefly of Methuselah's. Lots of posts like: "All right with the emails already. I'm still alive. Just because I miss a day posting doesn't mean I'm dead!"
*
Also, very interesting Disputations post discussing "Love the sinner, hate the sin". 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:42
 
September 23, 2003   


 
Willing to be Free

Bill O'Reilly recently had a guest who was a PhD in sex therapy, and he attempted to discern the nature of free will in a five minute segment. I'll try to name that tune in three minutes.

The subject was sex addiction, and O'Reilly argued that the sex addict in question had free will all along, while the PhD said that, by definition, having an addiction means not having free will. 

My understanding of it is that there is a continuum along with you are less and less, or more and more, free. Not an either/or.

The therapist suggested that addicts engage in behavior that is self-destructive. It follows their will must not be free, since why would anyone intentionally hurt themselves? O'Reilly then asks the other guest (the sex addict) how he stopped. The addict said that it got too self-destructive. So O'Reilly implied that okay, you could stop at point A, but not point B, which suggests some freedom.

It reminds me of one of Amy's favorite Flannery O'Connor lines, the one that goes something like, "she coulda been good with someone to shoot her everyday". You might look at that statement two ways: that she was less free, because she had a gun to her head improving her behavior, or that that proved she'd been free all along, because her behavior was changed given the proper motivation. 

It also reminds me of the parable of the prodigal son, where the son engaged in much self-destructive behavior but wouldn't go back to his father until the destructive behavior reached the level where he was living worse than his father's livestock. It was then he swallowed his pride and went home.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 06:57
 
 


 
May Your Days Be Long and Stressful
From NYT article:

To many, the good life may be lying on a hammock strung between palm trees, sipping a long cool drink, doing nothing, planning nothing, worrying about nothing. 

But the latest scientific research offers more evidence that this version of the the good life and good health may not be the same thing.

Of course, the research is preliminary and involves mostly insects and rodents, but some experts, like Dr. Mark Mattson, chief of the laboratory of neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, are taking no chances.

His goal is to subject his body to daily low-level stress — like abstaining from food for much of the day. "Stress is a very ill-defined term, and there's clearly bad types of stress," Dr. Mattson said. "It is very clear that uncontrollable chronic stress and psychological stress is bad for the brain and the body." But, he and others say, mild stress is a very different, beneficial thing.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:26
 
September 22, 2003   


 
On Prostelyzin'

My wife's sister received a book as a birthday present from a family friend yesterday. Since books aren't normally given as gifts (my wife's family aren't big readers, hence vive le difference), I was immediately suspicious. And since the giver is left of center politically, I thought: 'hmm....no way did she give her an apolitical book'.

My suspicion was confirmed when I went to amazon.com and looked at some of the reader's comments on the book given - a left-winger's wet dream. You can say it takes a prostelyzer to know one, for I am not without sin - years ago I gave the same sister-in-law Scott Hahn's "Rome Sweet Home", which seems embarrassing in hindsight both because I didn't know her very well and she wasn't open to it. It seems a measure of respect to not try to inflict your faith or ideology on someone else, unless they are hungry for or open to it. My sister-in-law didn't read Hahn, dismissing it with an amused look: "you aren't trying to convert me, are you?". Since she is a conservative, I think this book will hit her similarly. In both cases, while the giver of the gift ostensibly wanted the person's highest good (in their view), they wanted the good in a way that was forced. But at that time I was in the giddy mode of the recently reverted, with the attendent high of wanting to solve other people's blindnesses (OPBs) since my own was now gone. Eventually you realize your own self's got a long way to go yet. 

Our pastor recently said that it is only when others want what we have that conversions will result. And it is only when Christ is incarnated in us that we will have what others want.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:33
 
 


 
Video killed the newsprint star

Frank Rich's white-hot hatred of Mel Gibon's movie The Passion is due, I think, to a tacit understanding of what was discussed here concerning abortion pictures. In the game of rock-papers-scissors, rock trumps paper and likewise do pictures trump text, at least non-biblical text. Mr. Rich understands this, and hence the hysteria over a movie - moving pictures, both literally and figuratively. If Rich's goal is an utterly secular society, a movie like Mel Gibon's is a terrible threat indeed. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:50
 
 


 
Vas You Ever in Zinzinnati?

It wouldn't be fair to my German forebears to celebrate only Irish festivals and not German ones like Oktoberfest. So, in an an act of ancestral piety, I enjoyed an intellectually-arid but family-rich weekend at the Zinzinnati Oktoberfest. My brother delivered the gladsome news that I will be an uncle again next March. This surprise led to our pitching possible names to his wife. My brother suggested Killian, and I Spaten, after our respective beers (any St. Spaten's or St. Killian's?). 

The Spaten Doppel Bock was remarkably good - first time I'd had it but it immediately overtook Warsteiner and St. Pauli Girl as my favorite Deutsche beer for many good reasons including these. 


No nephew named 'Spaten' likely

Update: Kudos to Bill White for pointing out that there is indeed a St. Killian. My sister-in-law expressed concerns that his nickname might become "Kill" though, so I doubt this new information will change things. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:18
 
 


 
Gall Stone

To his cell the monk repaired,
held fast by some exotic puzzle
bound in thorned caliography
of St. Matthew’s Passion story;
a galling stone
he could not pass.

Down the long hall he strode,
past a statue of St. Therese
in whose arms a crucifix bloomed
from a bouquet of roses.
He kissed her left hand,
the hand that held both rose and crucifix.

The white-stone walls whispered
of freedom and captivity;
bare but for the Corpus that
radiated a sober warmth;
While the green-bound bible on his bed
lay open to John 11:39--
“‘Take away the stone’, Jesus said.”

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:13
 
 


 
Hilarity Ensues

Jeff Miller strikes again! Hi-laire! 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 21:53
 
September 19, 2003   


 
The Parable of the Challenge Lane

There's a congested road near us that has two lanes going north for about a mile, although the right lane eventually becomes a turn-only lane. The temptation, of course, is to use this "free" lane to pass a zillion cars and then get over into the left lane.

There are three methods drivers use to getting back into the coveted left lane (assuming they don't want to make a turn):

1) Roll down your window, make eye contact with the driver to your left and make an arm motion that basically says, "can I squeeze in?".
2) Given six inches between bumpers, simply muscle into the spot. Turn-signals are frowned upon because they telegraph the move. 
3) Slowly troll down the lane with your turn signal on, hoping for some unwarranted grace, but being willing to make the right turn rather than simply stop in the lane and hold up drivers behind you who want to make a right. 

Assuming the driver is intimately familiar with this particular strech of road then:

Number 1 displays the sin of presumption. I will pass all the other drivers and then presume upon their good grace to let me in.
Number 2 is the sin of despair. I despair of anybody letting me in, because they know that I'm cutting in line and I wouldn't let a bastard like me in. 
Number 3 gets it about right, neither presuming nor despairing. 

Saints, of course, patiently wait in the left lane and let numbers 1, 2 and 3 in.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:42
 
 


 
Oy vey, You Can Tell It's Friday

Blogger's been a pain in the proverbial lately (blame it on the hurricane?) so I got to musing...what if I lost all my archives and posts, and tomorrow I had to start again with just my children and my wife? ....hmmm, with help from Lee Greenwood...


If tomorrow all the posts were gone,
I’d written all my life.
And I had to start again,
with just my laptop and my wife.

I’d thank my lucky stars,
to be livin here today.
‘Cause the blog still stands for freedom,
and they can’t take that away....

REF: And I’m proud to be a blogger,
where at least I get my say,
And I won't forget the folks who hit my site
some I don't even have to pay... 

And I'd gladly stand up,
and write a poem and blog it here today
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love St. Blog's
God bless 'em every day. 

From the lakes of Disputations,
to the hills of Particulae.
Across the mines of Gospel,
From fotos to Flos bay...

From Wolfram down to Kairos,
and Amy to Mark Shea
Well there's pride in every St. Blog's heart,
and it's time we stand and say....

REFRAIN 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:37
 
 


 
So Much Material...

Camassia shoots barrelled fish here. 

This prompted a potential new form of blogger comedy - what would a teenage 'zine bible for boys look like? I briefly thought alonge the lines of the Field & Stream...then Maxim...the only thing that immediately came to mind was: 

The Ultimate Fantasy Football League - Rating Your Bible Heroes

This is obviously a job for Jeff Miller.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:45
 
 


 
Nicht zu Gut

My bookroom is the one place where I more or less keep things in order, mostly because I'm not in there all that much, at least during the summer. So I notice when books are disturbed. And two books were disturbed, presumably by my evangelical stepson (my wife doesn't read outside of her MBA stuff). So which two volumes were apparently tolle lege'd? Augustine's "City of God". Fine. And Belloc's "How the Reformation Started". Ouch. My stepson's pastor is no fundamentalist; he is very respectful of Catholicism. So now Belloc's red meat approach will not do much to further Christian unity. Belloc is sort of the Ann Coulter-like in that he preaches best to the choir. Hope I didn't dog-ear/highlight any anti-Protestant passages. Relatedly, regarding this discussion, my pastor recently suggested that Protestants are in the same position as Jesus' disciples before the institution of the Eucharist, i.e. ministers of the Word. 

St. Augustine once said that he trembled at being placed in the bishop's chair rather than with the congregation, saying "salvation" lay there, with his brethern, rather than being placed in a seat of responsibility. This reminded me of Amy's quote of another saint who suggested that hell is lined with the bones of bishops. Gruesome image! But Catholics, given the greater responsibility of being ministers of the Word and Body, should probably likewise tremble given our (read: mine) lacklusterness.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:54
 
 


 
LA Times article via Amy on Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life book. 

Say what you will about the "fads" of evangelicalism, as Mark Shea's blog attempts to deride, but I think they're on the mark with this one. This ain't no Jabez, it's about service and doesn't deserve to be dismissed. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:07
 
 


 
Please say the Mighty Barrister's inspiring prayer.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 07:39
 
 


 
Pantheism, Trinitarism and other "isms"

The "Bible Answer Man", the alliteratively-named Hank Hanegraaff, says that most heresies occur out of a mistaken understanding of the nature of God. 

I think that's true, and I pondered that recently in connection with Islamic fundamentalists. If you see God as totally transcendent, as wholly "other" as the Muslims do, then humans (at least of the non-saved variety) tend to look totally depraved and murdering infidels less of a difficulty.* 

The other extreme, Pantheism, makes moral absolutes impossible. Everyone is their own god, doing their own thing. 

But Christianity seems to reconcile these two opposite notions about as well as they can be reconciled. 

I've often tended to see God more as Father than as Trinity, to my detriment. (Gosh, Mark's going to say I sound like Peggy Noonan - I've, my.) Tom of Disputations says, "I think it's as hard as it is important for Catholics to be consciously Trinitarian." Our pastor recently pointed out that "unless you see God as a relational God, you will not understand that we are most human when we are relational, since we are made in the image and likeness of God".

* - (Not to say that Christians are without blame in this area, we just have less of an excuse.)

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:19
 
September 18, 2003   


 
Cross and Clocks...Sacred and Secular

Alicia of Fructis Ventris has a post that asks whether you have more clocks than crosses in your home...

What especially interests me most about this question is whether I should worry about becoming somehow immune to, or at least less moved by, the Crucifixtion by seeing it too often, in too many rooms. I have a dread of taking God for granted. I already wonder about running the risk of having the Eucharist too frequently could lead me to take it too lightly. I do realize that too many pictures of my wife would not lessen my affection for her so perhaps it is groundless. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:19
 
 


 
Ready for the next scammer...so you won't have to

Nigerian scammers are sort of like restaurants that serve Hungarian Goulash - they're never around when you need one. But I am now prepared should the need arise, in this "kill 'em with kindness" reply: 


Dear Nigerian Scammer,

Greetings my new-found Republic of Burundi friend, and thank you for the email dated September xx, 2003. Back in the late '70s I had a foreign penpal from Norway, just outside Stavanger, which is about a hundred miles from Oslo. I'm sure you know where Oslo is - just go to fjord in the road and take it, tee-hee!

Anyhow, my correspondent was a very prolific writer despite the time it took to receive mail. You mightn't believe this unless you're of a certain age, but back then we had to write letters by hand and then pay seventy cents for an airmail stamp, which would take upwards of 4-6 weeks to arrive by carrier pigeon. 

But you're probably not interested in my old penpal (although do let me know if you are, because there are many stories I could tell like the time she casually mentioned "bottle parties" and I had no idea what that meant because I'm not Norwegian nor could I easily read her writing and I thought she wrote "battle parties" and asked her what battle parties were and she said something about drinking, which, I'll be honest, was not even on my radar since KoolAid was the strongest stuff I drank and to this day I'm not sure what bottle parties were because she was vague about it, as if if I didn't know she wasn't going to tell me just like you'd get with kids who know about the birds and bees but don't want to discuss it with you unless you already know, but if everyone did that how would anybody know anything, ya know what I mean? You don't happen to know what bottle parties are, do you?).

As I said, you're probably not interested in those days before email, this amazing electronic invention. I greeted your note with gladness and surprise, since I share your interest in free market initiatives such as the one you are proposing, as long as they be of a legal nature. The situation you describe reminds me of a clogged drain - if I spring for the Drano, you'll have water galore with which to share with me. 

But one thing still bothers me though. Bottle parties....just what the heck are they? 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:04
 
 


 
Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of posts 

On Books (from Spanish Blogger Hernan Gonzalez, thru the fracturing lens of Babelfish):

I bought some books the weekend. And it gives a little me shame to confess it. Because I have too many books (and too many without reading...)? No, not as much for that reason... to that already I have resigned myself. 

Anyway, the Yankee technical books (at least, those that are not too popularizer , those that has quality within their branch) usually have his; there is writers who have their cuasi-literary grace, and some that another characteristic of culture, breaking a little the stereotype nerd... 

And - retaking what said in the beginning, on libraries too much populated... brought an appointment of Borges, that alluded as well to Cicerón (I mention of memory, safe Borges that it said it better): 

"Like all person who has a great library, Cicerón felt like culprit not to know it absolutely..."

Indeed... 

Indeed... I do feel like a culprit sometimes, most especially when recently, and astonishingly, I lost two books. I hie'd to the library and borrowed one of them, which is surely what I should've done in the first place. 

Reading Hernan Gonzalez thru the lens of babelfish, we Northern Americans are usually referred to as "Yankees" which either makes me feel like I wear the pinstripes Mantle wore, or I'm about to battle the greycoats at Gettysburg. Update: Hernan G. wrote me and said that to refer to us as Americans is of course, not precise since since he is an American also. So "North Americans" is sometimes used, albeit wordy. Nothing wrong with Yanqui, just don't call me late to dinner! 
*
Kathy Defends an Ass! ...film at 11

"The only thing I would quibble with (both then and now) is the defamation of the character of Balaam's ass. Balaam's ass was the instrument of the Lord; her speech was supernaturally produced!"

Other colorful KTC quotes include:

"I did inform one young lady that she was on 'the bullet train to hell'".

"In my little sphere, though, I'm not asked so much to give advice; rather, I end up hearing presentations of the cultural values of my seeker friends (and they ARE friends, not merely curiosities or my version of 'the white man's burden'." 
*
"...thyme’s always short." - Gregg the Obscure
*
"There’s a word for this book and the word is crap. This cost maybe $0.75 at the thrift store. When I think of the 20 oz. Coke I could have bought with that money, I’m peeved." --Literarium
*
On the more serious side of things, see Crystal's confessional story.   And from today's local paper came this bon mot: "The icon of mother and child is probably the most powerful symbol and the most accurate synthesis of Christianity....Between divinity and humanity, there is a unity. God made himself little to join humanity and allowed man to achieve his full dignity." - Rev. Johann Roten
*
"If they knew what it was, they'd know where to put it." - our pastor, regarding confusion over where to place the Tabernacle in the sanctuary. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:34
 
 


 
Karol Wojtyla Minces No Words!

This is from a series of sermons he preached during spiritual retreats in the 1960s. This excerpt was from a talk for male students:


There is a certain tendency to see religion as a women's matter and something rather unsuitable for men. Men always feel more at home in the role of Nicodemus, who was a member of the Sanhendrin who recognized Jesus, but only in secret. We have a tendency toward the Nicodemus type of religious attitude, toward the type of devotion which is characterized maybe only by superficial discretion but very often also by fear of what others might think. 

This male Catholicism is not interior or deep enough; the male believer does not have a true interior life. What he maybe thinks of as his own particular religious style - this discretion and distance or detachment from devotional practices and the sacramental life - in effect means that his interior life is defective and lacking depth.

Christ said that we should go out and teach. My dear sons, this does not refer only to bishops and priests, but to all of us. Now, when have you, as grown men, taught somebody? Have you taught any children their catechism? Or started a discussion of some religious topic with a colleague? You may feel that such matters are embarrassing, but here we must make a clear distinction between discretion and cowardice or simple superficiality... 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:55
 
 


 
What Value Symbol? 

Amy posted a link of atheists wondering aloud. They are wondering, "why do we fight Christians over trivial issues like the slab of Ten Commandments?". 

CalPundit links Alan Dershowitz, who apparently opines that fighting the fight against Judge Moore is something upon which lies the fate of civilization. But then Alan's business is controversy, he makes money off of it, so it's easy to discount. 

But what about when my side weighs in? 

Deal Hudson, for example, a better Catholic than I, strives to remove pro-abort Leon Panetta from some bishop's panel. Tom of Disputations asks, "does this solve anything?", and it does make the issue look paltry when he puts it that way. Leon Panetta seems an unlikely target for all our Catholic angst. 

(I didn't realize until recently that I had a litmus test as to who is a "real" Catholic - those who are against abortion. My pride in proclaiming that I would become a Democrat if they became the pro-life party morphed into the thought that any Catholic Democrat voting for a pro-abortion candidate isn't a real Catholic. But since Christ wasn't in the business of litmus tests when He walked the earth, nor can I. Although for me, Ono's blog is still a near occasion of sin.) 

In the political arena, the two most effective political lobbies are probably the NRA and NARAL. What they have in common is a take-no-prisoners, surrrender-no-ground attitude. Thus the NRA can defend firearms designed to raze a village and NARAL can defend partial birth abortion and cast a blind eye to infanticide. They see value in symbolic victories.

Obviously just because something "works" in the political sphere doesn't mean we should approach religious controversies the same way. Maybe it should even be a "contrary indicator", although we are told to be "wise as serpents and harmless as doves." At the very least, the no surrender approach leads to polarization rather than fraternization. JPII, to my mind, has walked that tightrope as well as anyone, sometimes polarizing sometimes fraternizing and thus gaining enemies on both the "left" and the "right". 

For now I'm going with my pastor and following the kids. Like this one.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 18:01
 
September 17, 2003   


 
What if the prophet Jonah had a blog? inspired by Jeff Miller



Awful dark in here. I'm guesstimating it's been three days but my sense of time is hosed. Seems like an experience worth blogging about. I'm writing on my hand just now. 
   posted by Jonah 806 BC 10:09 a.m.

Hmm...maybe I got my lighter in my back pocket....let me "fish" for it. [insert groan here] There, got it. I can see! Reminds me of the ol' saw about the blind carpenter: 'I can see', said the blind man, as he picked up his saw and saw. 
   posted by Jonah 806 BC 10:11 a.m.

Peeps, I got to be honest, the smell in here leaves a lot to be desired. Whale bellies could use one of those odd-looking air freshners some people got in their cars. My advice to you is just do what the Lord commandeth so that you won't find yourself in this position. Maybe a cigar will overcome this stench. 

Ahh...that's better. 
   posted by Jonah 806 BC 10:14 a.m.

whoa moby what the h*ll is happening?! The cigar smoke must be causing him to regurg--
   posted by Jonah 806 BC 10:15 a.m.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:17
 
 


 
Paraphrased Pastoral Commentary III 


On the importance of loving self
St. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote that we cannot know or love others without first knowing and loving ourselves. What makes this possible is that we were made "in the image and likeness of God" which means there is a divine element within each of us. Christ came not only to reconcile the world to God but to reconcile us within ourselves, our own sinfulness with the divine within. 

On the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross
Jesus made reference to this obscure anecdote in the book of Numbers [the death of some by serpents and their healing by the bronze serpent mounted on the pole] in order that we might see sin for what it is and be converted. In the OT, the serpent is a symbol of sin, and many of the Israelites, disgusted by the journey in the desert, were bitten by the sin of desiring a return to the former lives of slavery in Egypt. When we look at our sin and where it leads, we see the folly in it, we open ourselves up to purgation. Any time we look at the Cross we see where sin leads and how horrendous it is. 

A seminarian came to me recently and said that he was thinking of leaving the seminary. I asked if it was because of the scandals in the Church and he said no it was because he has seen a side of himself that scares him. But that is where healing begins. That is what we and the Church need, for as many of the Israelites who saw the sin for what it was lived. 

On Michael Jackson
There is no such thing as a "self-made man". Yet we live in an age in which it is our desire to re-make ourselves. Michael Jackson is the icon for our age. Neither black nor white, neither male nor female he is a prime example of someone who desires to make himself in his own image. 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:57
 
 


 
More Commentary from our Pastor


Look at Youth 2000. The positive side of the crisis is that it is our purgatory and that makes things clean again. American bishops prior to Vatican II, influenced by the culture of their time, wielded great power. Do you an event like Youth 2000 would've happened if Cardinal Spellman was still around? Or Cardinal Cody? They would've squashed it like a bug. And yet, these kids have an authentic faith, great enthusiasm, incredible devotion to the Eucharist and to Eucharistic Adoration. Follow the kids, for the Holy Spirit is there. They'll sin and often get it wrong, but they will lead us out of this Egypt. 


I have a good friend who lives in Paris. He told me that when the Pope came there, the media was very dismissive and treated it as a joke. They were shocked and even angry when one million showed up for the outdoor Mass. A reporter on live TV caught a young person running towards the Mass and asked him, "Do you know what this Pope thinks of condoms? What do you think of that!?". The teen looked at him and said, "What I think of condoms is none of your business. And if you think this is about condoms then you're crazy". 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 22:40
 
September 15, 2003   


 
From Terry Teachout's Blog.. my fav's:

PAINTING: any decent Eastern Orthodox icon 

MUSIC: La Mort de Cléopâtre

NOVEL: Don Quixote 

FILM: Schindler's List

POP SONG: Seal's "Kiss by a Rose" 

Update (this just in...): Sub "I'm getting married in the morning" as pop song, any Walker Percy novel for Don Quixote.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 22:13
 
 


 
Poetry Corner

Well, the local paper is having a poetry contest and so I went through the old stuff and contributed the following poems. In the second poem, I start out with somewhat disjointed and not rhyming leading to rhymes. This is to show how my foray into the fields lead to harmony and peace. You buy that? :) 

Premature Enfrostation

The cold enters by the back door;
October leaves with a growl and a whip
The hourglass runs out
with no redemption left. 

They fall in great numbers;
a Persian carpet of hoarfrost
into the dark abyss they drop
like deaf and blind soccer players
the ball never sent true
half-hits and lucky glances
the ball advances only by grace. 

Believing evergreens stand athwart the winter yelling “stop!”
they keep their heads 
while all about lose theirs
and calmly face the summer’s demise.

*

Hocking Hills in Indian Summer

There lay a field in view of the highway 
a field mown high for my tastes
chastening heels and calves
though bidding me come like Lorelei
to see what lie beyond.

A sea of sailors with dashed hopes 
the up-cupped lip of earth beckons
as if this greenish knoll 
should prove the earth flat after all. 

A passageway to a field beyond
I tread this new-secluded land
how maddening it was to see
another bank of trees and passage lea!

I tread the threshold once again
enclosed and ovalled like a womb,
to reach the thrice-hid field held back 
perchance another meadow loomed. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 21:54
 
 


 
What if Adam had a blog? Curt Jester has uncovered a new form of blogger comedy here...the mind reels at the potentialities, though it's tougher than it looks. I started Jonah's blog but only got as far as "Awful dark in here." 
Excerpted below is one of "Adam's" posts... I found it especially humorous given my inclusion, four years ago, in the son-in-law fraternity:

Be careful what you ask God

I was walking in the garden today and I started to feel really sleepy. I laid down to take a nap and fell into a deep sleep to wake up some unknown hours later. When I woke up I was missing a rib and my new helper was there.

It is hard to describe my new partner, looks much like me but significantly different in some parts of the anatomy. Overall I am pretty impressed and I had to create something which I called poetry to describe this event. So here goes:

This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.

I named her Eve and she didn't seem to object. So far so good.

I also now have this strange compulsion to tell mother-in-law jokes which is kind of strange considering that neither of us has mothers.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:11
 
 


 
Dylan speaks! Yea!

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:36
 
 


 
Pastoral Thoughts

My pastor is a marvel. I know I sound like a broken record, after my praise of the recently transferred Dominican friar, but you, the reader, can make the call. I'll post some of my pastor's reflections this week in ye old blog and if I'm lyin', I'm dyin'. Rather than to constantly write "he said", I'll do the blockquote thing even though it's a paraphrase...


In order that we might better understand Christ, we must understand the milieu and culture from which he came. Rather than stripping Christ from his Judiasm and presenting his life out of context we must study where he came from in order to understand what he was trying to do. 

For the Semitic mind, image = reality. That is why there could be no graven images of God, because to create a graven image meant you could control God. Similarly with words, since symbol = reality, they couldn't say the name of God. 

They also didn't see time the way we do. They saw time as non-linear, as the past wrapped up in the present which is wrapped up in the future. All at once. The linear view of time became prevalent among Christians with the Protestant Reformation; many reformers criticized the Church for being too Judaic. 

But for the Israelites, the past was not merely remembered but could become present by saying certain words and phrases - ritual. The words are what that which gets them beyond themselves, otherwise it is their own creation. This is ancient and inborn and God-intended; every religion from animists to Buddhists to Native Americans have ritual. We call this liturgy.

The Hebrews didn't believe in the afterlife as we do now. They believed that the way you "lived forever" was through your ancestors (given their notion that time was not linear). Father Abraham wasn't the founding father as George Washington is for America, but actually is still alive, coursing through their veins. Blood for them was the life-force. This is why having descendants as numerous as the stars meant everything to Abraham - it meant he would have eternal life, because his offspring would be so numerous as to never be wiped off the face of the earth. The problem with the Pharisees (and we have to deal with the same issue) was that they knew salvation was guaranteed - the future is secure because the blood of Abraham was inextinguishable - therefore they naturally turned to ameliorate the present. The mystical is out, the externals are in. We fight the same battle. "Peace and justice" is in. Not to in any way disparage working peace and justice! But it can't be divorced from the mystical. 

So when Jesus instituted the Eucharist and started a new ritual - a new Covenant - what was "New" in the "New Covenant"? It is nothing less than exchanging the blood of Abraham for his own. It was de-linking the salvation and life-force of Abraham's blood and substituting "God's DNA" in the Eucharist. It was saying that salvation would now come from Jesus, and not from being Abraham's offspring, and that now you would have Christ's blood within you instead of Abraham's. 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:02
 
 


 
languorous thoughts ...aka a self-indulgent post signifying nothing



Spent the long Sunday read in the print-scent of an evanescent Percy novel. Languidly the words pass easily as through a thin membrane, inducing either sleep or reverie or sleepy reverie, and it impregnates memories - inchoate memories of a land as foreign as that of German soldiers wearing the Kaiser Bill helmets - i.e. my youth.

Fatigued of late by a surfeit of argument, of bickering: “left!, left!, left-brain, left!” goes the marching chant. Great suffusions and infusions of poetry needed, 'where is my Yeats!' I call to the assistant librarian, a sprawled cat. My hand finds the fat volume from the library’s moted shelf; reads lead to other leads and I go to the computer and parse online biographies of disparates like Milton, Mae West and Ben Franklin and ask - how did they die? Looking in the back of the book, West was 86 and unrepentant. On his deathbed Franklin was asked: ‘do you consider Christ divine?’. Franklin replied that he hadn’t fully studied the issue but that he expects he’ll know soon enough.

Der Bone

My unemployed friend "Bone" continues his existence outside of reality. He works hard on his lottery tickets, known vulgarly as screenplays. I’m more curious, though I forget to ask, about such matters as whether his attention span changed, if it’s affected his marriage and how, whether he’s gotten to know the neighbors better…How do the satisfactions of corp life compare to creative writing? What is it like grocery shopping in the meditative non-weekend hours? Does he ever hang out at the local McDonald’s chewing tobaccy and the fat with the AmVets? Lingering over coffee with the 3-day bearded anarchists at Starbucks?

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:24
 
 


 
Blame it on the Irish?

Our pastor recently made some interesting statements concerning the scandal. He told us that it is pretty much limited to the English-speaking church - there were only a couple cases in Germany, for example. 

The root cause is surely a lack of faith, but since he recently worked at a seminary for five years, he seemed to imply that seminary formation might have something to do with it too. Or which candidates for the priesthood are accepted (good ones sometimes slip through and become priests, he said, alarmingly). 

But I wonder...he pointed out that the main problem occurred in the the American, Irish and Australian churches. What do they have in common? 19th century Irish emigrants heavily influenced all three. Even though there were many German Catholics, the American church was more or less Irish-controlled, in terms of hierarchy and seminaries. And the epicenter of the whole crisis might well be Ireland, in terms of per capita numbers. 

So one has to ask what is wrong with the Irish church, much as the subject pains me. And while she had strengths such as an incredible exporter of priests, perhaps her view of sexuality leaves something to be desired. I've heard it said that it was taught as something dirty, the body treated as evil... and thus sexuality in becoming the forbidden fruit becomes all the more enticing. And sex becomes the worst sin. As our pastor once said, "when in habitual sin, if you determine to end it by focusing all your strength on it, you feed it. You begin obsessing over the sin instead of looking to the only thing more powerful than sin - Christ. Sin falls off as heavy baggage as you get closer to Christ."

Perhaps I'm off base on blaming the Irish. But I do wonder what was special about the English-speaking church... 

Update: Thomas the M.P. says that a priest he spoke to "made an interesting connection between the sort of Manichean hatred of the body and hedonism. For both there is no essential connection between the person and their body. The body is either an evil to be punished, or an instrument for getting all the pleasure one can. In neither case does our embodiment, especially our embodiment as male and female, signify." Good point.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:22
 
September 14, 2003   


 
Wonderful Eve Tushnet post:


You know the thing Stephen Fry says, in his amazing novel The Liar? The thing about how everyone is afraid that he will be found out? How you are not merely wrong in certain particulars, but somehow horribly wrong and wrong-footed from the start?

God has found you out. He knows; and He forgives; and He will make you change; and He will make it possible for you to change.

That's all, really. What else can there be?


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 00:42
 
September 12, 2003   


 
It's Sex Week at St. Blogs says Fructus Ventris, from whom came these links:

Sex and Growing up Catholic by Fr. Jim, (who also homered with this post).

and this at Cross & Crown.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:25
 
September 11, 2003   


 
Baton Dropped?

Jeff of El Camino Real has an excellent post exposing the GNP for what it is. 

He also has a post stating that the "main event of the 20th century is this: the Greatest Generation failed to pass the baton." 

I don't know. Seems as though the problems go back farther than that. I've been reading about the 1920s and given the excesses and promiscuity I'm wondering how spiritually healthy that generation was. Perhaps it was somewhat masked by the U.S. still being mainly a rural nation; farms give you less opportunity to get into trouble. (Thomas Jefferson felt so strongly about the virtues inculcated by farming that he wrote that America would be a good nation as long as it was mainly agricultural). The 1940s & '50s almost seem an aberration caused by the hard times of war and Depression, since hard times appear to have a spiritually healing dimension to them. Perhaps this new book, Turmoil and Truth by Phillip Trower might provide more of an answer. 

I came across this recent review by Barry Gewen of a Rudoph Valentino bio: 



''SEXUAL intercourse began / In nineteen sixty-three / (Which was rather late for me).'' Philip Larkin was off by 42 years. Sexual intercourse actually began in 1921, on Oct. 30 to be precise. That was the date on which ''The Sheik,'' featuring Rudolph Valentino, opened at two movie houses in New York City. Valentino had already become a star some months earlier with his dazzlingly erotic tango in ''The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,'' but it was ''The Sheik'' that launched him into the stratosphere. Crowds mobbed the theaters, breaking attendance records. Across the country, female fans shivered and went limp. Smart young men with an eye for the ladies were soon being called ''sheiks'' -- and looking for adventure with girls called ''shebas.'' Some years later, Sheik condoms went on sale, with a silhouette of Valentino on their packages. What does a woman want? Apparently, in 1921, what millions of women wanted was the fantasy of a swarthy, intense, exotic stranger with flowing robes and piercing eyes sweeping them up and forcing himself upon them. 

The ground for Valentino had been prepared in the preceding decade -- with bobbed hair and rising hemlines, dance crazes and petting parties, campaigns for birth control and woman suffrage. But you would have to look back to 19th-century celebrities like Byron, Liszt and Paganini to find comparisons, and even those pale: it took the modern media to turn female hysteria into a mass phenomenon. And if a Rudolph Valentino had never been seen before, it is necessary to add that nothing truly like him has been seen since. 

Later in the century, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and the Beatles all attracted followings that were Valentino-like in their frenzy. But there was a difference. The crowds pursuing the singers were made up of girls, not yet enmeshed in the web of interconnections and responsibilities that is adult life. Their sexuality was innocent, prelapsarian, even if it oozed out of every pore. The teeny-boppers lost control of themselves when all the Beatles asked to do was hold their hand. The Rolling Stones pushed into darker realms, but they were promoting the same kind of carefree sexual utopia, ecstasy without complication; ''Midnight Rambler'' was sadomasochism as good clean fun, S-and-M with a smiley face. 

Valentino's fans came in all ages, but generally they were older, more mature than the fans of the teen idols who followed him. They had spouses, children, often jobs; so in this sense their open display of sexual energy was much more subversive of the social order, even if that's not what the parents of teenage daughters thought during the Presley and Beatles madnesses. (The one pop star whose audience might be said to bear a resemblance to Valentino's was Tom Jones, but the resemblance is only casual. Jones's women lacked the honest spontaneity of Valentino's hordes. The matrons who threw their underwear up onstage at Jones concerts were self-consciously acting out a ritual.) 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:32
 
 


 
Around the Proverbial Horn

"Well Daddy, don't you know it's a fallen world and I have a sin nature?" - seven year-old girl to group leader after being asked, "why did you pick that flower when I asked you not to?"
*
"Still, if it's true, at least according to Samuel Johnson, that 'No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money,' it's probably more the case that, 'No man but a blockhead ever edited what he wrote, except for money.'" - Mark of Minute Particulars
*
"Note that St. Catherine failed in her attempt to prevent schism, few of her pleas bore the fruit she intended, and the Church in the years following her death wasn't appreciably holier than it was during her lifetime.

Further, whoever claims her as their patron in the charism of exhortation should know that she taught that those who punish priests on account of any personal defect offend God, that the faithful owe bad priests reverence that should never diminish, and that it is forbidden by God for layfolk to judge His priests." - Tom of Disputations
*
Amy Welborn's favorite Flannery O'Connor quote - "She would of been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life" - always makes me wonder how much firmer my "firm purpose of amendment" would be if I had a gun to my head. 
*
"I do not live in the hinterlands but in The Southern Promised Land, the One True State, the Land Where Literature is Alive and Prized, a Land So Beloved of the Lord that all Prayers are Local Calls, Alabama" -- Literarium
*
"Tu quoque." comments "RC", to which Tom points to his post title. A blog with a name like mine works really well.
*
Fr. Paul wrote on Amy's blog, "I've always been wary of charismatic priests - not as in the charismatic movement, but in those who have such charisma that they attract a following of devotees. Peter Kreeft once said that the Lord allows those who suffer from pride to fall into sins of the flesh to keep them humble. I don't particularly like that explanation, because it seems like a cop-out, but I have noticed one common trait among many abusers: narcissism."
*
"I will continue to ensure that California’s prosperity is shared by the very people who created that success. As a former state controller, I know how important it is to be tight with tax dollars and to live within our means.” – Governor Gray Davis on his website, doing his part to rob words of their meaning. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:52
 
 


 
One Promise Keepers rally = 992 more days in prison   via the Dispatch


Willie Chapman’s request to stay an extra day in prison for a religious rally was costly. 

Willie Chapman made headlines this summer by seeking — and receiving — permission to spend an extra day in prison so he could attend a Promise Keepers rally at the Marion Correctional Institution. 

Turns out he’ll get an extra 992 days — at least. 

Demonstrating an almost-biblical ability to give, take away and give again, the Ohio Parole Board voted yesterday to postpone Chapman’s release until May 1, 2006, at the earliest. 

"I’m basically devastated," Chapman said last night after learning of the decision. 

The 36-year-old, in prison for killing his wife, said he realizes he’d be free now if he hadn’t asked to stay in prison long enough to participate in the Aug. 12 religious rally. 

"I did that for God, and I could never regret that," he said. "I’m going to keep my faith. I’m not going to give up." 

The parole board, which initially had decided to free Chapman in August, reversed course after the children of the woman Chapman stabbed to death in 1988 came forward — for the first time — to fight his release. 

Chapman, who became involved in Promise Keepers, a nationwide Christian ministry, two years ago, said he intends to move to Cleveland and become a preacher after he’s released. He said the extra time in prison will give him an opportunity to do more work "on the inside." 

"I just look at it as a trial or tribulation," he said. "God has given me the strength to get through it. There’s no need to get mad at the parole board or the victim’s family. 

"I’ll continue to pray for them." --Eve Mueller, Columbus Dispatch 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:21
 
 


 
Exhortations R Us

Tom of Disputations pooh-poohs the idea of exhortation excess. It's an interesting subject to me since I actually sympathize with both sides. The old bromides apply: the squeaky wheel does get grease* and evil does thrive when good men do nothing. 

I'm not sure conservatives (excuse the use of labels - for illustration purposes only - please don't try this at home) are by nature activists. Recall the liberal shock and awe when there were Florida protestors - thickish 30-ish white men who looked about as comfortable protesting as they would dancing - during the Bush/Gore fiasco. 

Of course Popcak's proposal would mainly be a letter-writing campaign, as I understand it, which ought to be in the sweet spot of the blogger's swing. 

But I have reservations my own self. First, I like my bishop and trust him and consider the student teaching the teacher a distasteful role reversal, although if I lived in Boston's diocese I'd probably feel differently. Second, I recognize that my ability to see the big picture is limited at best (that's the best I can do modesty wise, I wouldn't have a blog if I didn't think I didn't know everything). Third, the disciplinary pendulum naturally swings from "kumbaya" to "strictness unto death" and I'd rather not affect the pendulum, even in a minuscule way, since over-swings are brutal. The 50s were one extreme, the 70s another. Who am I to say how tight or lose the fisherman's net should be? If they go after the sinners of omission as vigorously as sinners of commission then they'll probably throw me overboard. 

* - witness KTC's recent winsome request for emailed affirmations

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:50
 
September 10, 2003   


 
Your Musical Guide to Fall

Well it's officially fall, the start of the liturgical season of Nostalgia in the secular world. The radio announces this with songs like Kansas's "Dust in the Wind" and Don Henley's "Boys of Summer". The mood is wistful (say in your best Password voice). Where's the station with the Irish Republican standards? How about a little rebel chune?

"Oh then tell me Sean O’Farrell tell me why you hurry so"
“hush me bhuachaill hush and listen” and his cheeks were all a glow
I bear orders from our Captain get ye ready quick and soon
for the pikes must be together by the Risin’ of the Moon

I flip to the country station and hear a song that doesn't even pass the "straight face" test:

"She says: "Don't stare at me."
She's afraid that I might see,
Those five extra pounds she talks about.
Man, I don't know what she's talking about."

Five pounds? Jumpin' Jehosaphat I should hope not. Crazy newlyweds.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:16
 
 


 
Foreign Language Blogger Discusses Foreign Words in the Gospel  ...film at 11

Hernan Gonzalez of fotos del apocalypse posts something of interest on the gospel reading from last week. That blasted Babelfish butchers, but here are some enticing entrails: 



... "and it said to him: " Effathá ", that it means: "Abrete" ... ". 
Why, we asked , the gospel of Marks contains the original word, along with its translation? 
Some data, first: 
One assumes (that somebody corrects to me if makes lack; I am touching of ear, as usual) that Jesus spoke in arameo , the common language of the Palestine of then. Although Greek vulgar ( koiné ; the international language) and the Latin (the language of the empire) enough were known. 
By his side, one thinks that Marks - Jew-it wrote (around year 60) the gospel in Rome, in Greek , for a mainly Latin public, desconocedor of the language and the customs of the Jewish town. 
This last one returns more explicable the one than Marks are the unique one of the synoptic ones that bring translated Jewish words (" Talita kum ", " Eloi Eloi... "). But, it does not explain why it indeed left the original word ("ipsissima vox") in the case that occupies to us (and other very little ones more). In almost all the rest of the gospel, Marks simply relate the sayings of Jesus without worrying to put the words "original". Why here yes? What adds knowledge that Jesus pronounced " Effathá "? 

Interesting... Our priest briefly mentioned this in the homily Sunday. He said that the reason for the 'Effatha' (or however you spell it) was a word that would resonate with the Jewish people given that it was a sort of liturgical word - it meant to "open" in the phrase "opening of the scrolls". 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:54
 
 


 
Whew!
Novelist David Foster Wallace's favorite books....


Historically the stuff that's sort of rung my cherries: Socrates' funeral oration, the poetry of John Donne, the poetry of Richard Crashaw, every once in a while Shakespeare, although not all that often, Keats' shorter stuff, Schopenhauer, Descartes' "Meditations on First Philosophy" and "Discourse on Method," Kant's "Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic," although the translations are all terrible, William James' "Varieties of Religious Experience," Wittgenstein's "Tractatus," Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," Hemingway -- particularly the vital stuff in "In Our Time," where you just go oomph!, Flannery O'Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, A.S. Byatt, Cynthia Ozick -- the stories, especially one called "Levitations," about 25 percent of the time Pynchon. Donald Barthelme, especially a story called "The Balloon," which is the first story I ever read that made me want to be a writer, Tobias Wolff, Raymond Carver's best stuff -- the really famous stuff. Steinbeck when he's not beating his drum, 35 percent of Stephen Crane, "Moby-Dick", "The Great Gatsby." 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:12
 
 


 
Over, Around or Through

Greg Popcak says we have to yell, yell, yell that we might counter the liberal voices influencing the bishops even though yelling on our side will beget more yelling by theirs, ratcheting up in a sort of arm's race of screaming. 

In the political sphere, conservatives impotently cried in the wilderness for years while the network anchors and the New York Times and The New Republic howled with laughter. 

They don't laugh anymore. And since Mr. Popcak says we're in a battle, I'll stick with the war imagery. What finally "worked" for conservatives was not a frontal attack, not a charge of the stupid brigade, but a flanking manuever. And so was born National Review magazine, which greatly influenced Ronald Reagan. Later came conservative talk radio and cable TV pundits. Hearts and minds were won. 

Now the bishops don't howl and the cases are dissimilar in other ways. But the principle remains that converting hearts and minds, rather than power displays, ultimately wins the day. (Which is why I'm pessimistic about Iraq, but that's another post). As far as universities go, you can try to force Ex Corde Ecclesiae down their throat, but their heart won't be in it. Institutions, like nations and individuals, rise and fall in their religious devotion, and rarely do forced conversions work. Rather than beating up recalcitrant universities who will make niggardly progress and follow only the letter of the law, why not support new ones? Heterdox universities may be moved to a more orthodox flavor simply by the existence of alternative universities. 

So, instead of yelling at the bishops what excites me is the following strategy:

1) Donate to alternative universities like Ave Maria and Franciscan University. May their tribe increase. 
2) The check on corrupt clerics is done by Caesar, not the Church, as Mark Shea wrote. 
3) Check pro-abort policians by converting Catholic voters via the spread of magazines like Crisis. 
4) Grass roots - holy priests via holy families via prayer.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:13
 
September 9, 2003   


 
Tuesdays with Flannery


On Bad Bishops & Other Catholics:
"As for bad Catholics, this is simply one of the facts of life. I am reviewing some sermons of St. Augustine on the psalms and ran across this: 

'Still I want to warn you about this, brothers; the Church in this world is a threshing floor, and as I have often said before and still say now, it is piled high with chaff and grain together. It is no use trying to be rid of all the chaff before the time comes for winnowing. Don't leave the threshing-floor before that, just because you are not going to put up with sinners. Otherwise you will be gobbled up by the birds before you can be brought into the barn.' 

She probably sees more stupidity and vulgarity than she does sin and these are harder to put up with than sin, harder on the nerves."

Of Faith & Novels:
"I don't think you should write something as long as a novel around anything that is not of the gravest concern to you and everybody else and for me this is always the conflict between an attraction for the Holy and the disbelief in it that we breathe in with the air of the times. It's hard to believe always but more so in the world we live in now. There are some of us who have to pay for our faith every step of the way and who have to work out dramatically what it would be like without it and if being without it would be ultimately possible or not. I can't allow any of my characters, in a novel anyway, to stop in some halfway position. This doubtless comes from a Catholic education and a Catholic sense of history - everything works towards its true end or away from it, everything is ultimately saved or lost..."

Billy F.:
"Yesterday I sold a pair of [peacocks]...These people showed up in a long white car...The man was a structural engineer. He said he had a friend who was a writer in Mississippi and I said who was that. He said, 'His name is Bill Faulkner. I don't know if he's any good or not but he's a mighty nice fellow.' I told him he was right good..."
--Flannery O'Connor

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:15
 
 


 
Back, back, back...

Mark Shea hits a 500-footer with this post: 

Does that mean there should be no check on corrupt clerics? No. There must be. And that check exists: his name is Caesar and he is doing his job tolerably well in this hour. But the way to *reform* the Church is not to turn it into a department of Caesar's state. It is to raise up holy bishops, holy priest, and a holy people.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:18
 
 


 
Walker Percy Excerpt

Spent a lot of Sunday reading Percy's "The Last Gentleman" and came across this excellent diagnosis of modernity. The protagonist of the novel finds these notes/journal of a psychiatrist: 


Lewdness = sole concrete metaphysic of layman in age of science = sacrament of the dispossessed. Things, persons, relations emptied out, not by theory but by lay reading of theory. There remains only relation of skin to skin and hand under dress. Thus layman now believes that entire spectrum of relations between persons (e.g., a man and woman who seem to be connected by old complexus of relations, fondness, fidelity, and the like, understanding, the comic, etc.) is based on "real" substratum of genital sex. The latter is "real", the former is not. 

Science, which (in layman's view) dissolves concrete things and relations, leaves intact touch of skin to skin. Relation of genital sexuality reinforced twice: once because it is touch, therefore physical, therefore "real"; again because it corresponds with theoretical (i.e., sexual) substrata of all other relations. Therefore genital sexuality = twice "real".... 

Christianity is still viable enough to underwrite the naughtiness which is essential to pornography (e.g. the pornography of the East is desultory and perfunctory).

The perfect pornographer = a man who lives both in the anteroom of science (not in research laboratory) and who also lives in the twilight of Christianity, e.g., a technician. The perfect pornographer = lapsed Christian Southerner...who presently lives in Berkeley or Ann Arbor, which are not true places but sites of abstract activity which could take place anywhere else, a map coordinate; who is perhaps employed as psychological tester or opinion sampler or computer programmer or other para-scientific pursuit. 

The so-called sexual revolution is not, as advertised, a liberation of sexual behavior but rather its reversal. In former days, even under Victoria, sexual intercourse was the natural end and culimination of heterosexual relations. Now one begins with genital overtures instead of a handshake, then waits to see what will turn up (e.g., we might become friends later). Like dogs greeting each other nose to tail and tail to nose. 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:01
 
 


 
In the Garden

Cry tears
Blood-sweat 
Nearing the 
Denouement.

Knew he the prophet’s fate
Shan’t Divinity itself 
the pattern break? 

May this Cup pass, he asked
while obedient to the last. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 07:53
 
 


 
More Flannery O'Connor quotes here from Mark of Minute Particulars.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:01
 
September 8, 2003   


 
Miswanting

This Times article suggests we Ohioans wouldn't be any happier in a sunnier climate...

... if Daniel Gilbert is right, then you are wrong to believe that a new car will make you as happy as you imagine...''You know, the Stones said, 'You can't always get what you want,' '' Gilbert adds. ''I don't think that's the problem. The problem is you can't always know what you want.''... Why did I think retiring to Sun City, Ariz., would please me?

There's a few things in this article that rankle. From a Christian perspective, obviously, the number one goal shouldn't be maximizing our happiness but discerning and following God's will, but from within His parameters we usually attempt to maximize happiness. 

What is interesting to me is this "adaptibility" feature. It suggests that even if we find sacrificing (money, time, food, etc...) painful in the beginning, we will pyschologically adapt to it. Which suggests that to the extent sacrificing is regular, rather than irregular, we will be happier for it - both in the short run and the long run. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:10
 
 


 
Books do not avail...

From NY Times Laura Miller:



I can't say I've seen much evidence to support the notion that reading is good for us. Some of the most voracious readers I know are also some of the most rigid thinkers. An individual can be remarkably insensitive to the feelings of others despite having studied stacks of great novels. As in the case of Emma Bovary, reading can even spoil your appetite for real life. There's not much indication, either, that reading substantially improves anyone's character -- in fact, it often seems to have the opposite influence. Nor does it sweeten the disposition. The imperious Harold Bloom could well serve as Exhibit A to that effect.

Ouch. I had no illusions that reading the classics makes us better, but I was surprised that Laura Miller thinks it might have the opposite effect...

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:59
 
 


 
Short Atttention Span Monday
   ...one line thoughts. Remember what you paid

Does the tune of this song match its lyric? The former seems more cheerful & consoling than the latter...

I love relics as much as the next guy but am glad for the Assumption. Viewing her relics would just seem unseemly. 

Never feel cocky about humility.

Dislike change? Become a Cincinnati Bengals fan. 

When tempted with lust at the sight of a beautiful person, turn to God and say, "Okay! You sure knew what you were doing."

A combination of words I never thought I'd hear: "Some 'bakers’ get all medieval on mixers." - Lee Ann Morawski

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:40
 
 


 
Therese Movie

This movie looks good. Here's the form to request a showing in your town. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 20:11
 
September 7, 2003   


 
The Scandal

Amy Welborn hits a nerve, writing this and answering here..

Just as we can't link efficacy of a sacrament to the personal holiness of the minister, we can't link what the Church brings with the holiness of her members. I don't believe that grace, thank God, is dependent on our performance. Commenter Steve posts this Flannery O'Connor quote on Amy's blog:

"The merit of the Church doesn't lie in what she does but what she is. The day is going to come when the Church is so hemmed in & nailed down that she won't be doing anything but being, which will be enough."

Mark Shea writes: Truth is, we know no more about where the Church Really Is In the Grand Scheme of Things now than we did when it seemed everything was going swimmingly. My own suspicion is that the worst may already be past (in terms of sin in the Church) since it was a sin that fed on darkness and darkness is no longer being provided. So I have hope that the Spirit is doing his work of healing and giving life. It's just that the surgery is a bitch and will be for the foreseeable future.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:49
 
 


 
Naturally

Our pastor mentioned in his homily today that the two wrong reactions people have to miracle stories in the Gospels are doubt, or seeing them as "magic". 

He said that we too often tend to think of miracles as supernatural "intrusions" on "natural" life. But the whole of Scripture suggests that it is not "natural life" that is natural, but the opposite, at least for humans. Moral and physical evils are of the same ilk, and miracles give us a glimpse of the next life. 

There seems to be too much tendency to respect what is natural rather than what is good. Some homosexuals equate "God-given" with the natural, saying that since they were "born gay" there can't be anything wrong with it. But what of the studies that heterosexual men are biologically programmed to spread their seed, to impregate as many women as possible? What of those who claim monogamy is unnatural? 

That the natural is flawed as a result of Original Sin should be obvious. The fact that a child instinctively does not want to share his toys or food does not make the practice of selfishness worthy of respect. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:21
 
 


 
Local Pastor Email

The local Protestant pastor was declaiming against the Eucharist on the airwaves last week, and since I had just written about the subject on my blog, I felt the perverse need to offer it since it would only involve a cut ‘n paste. 

I have of the past year a much more sanguine and laid-back view of my Protestant brothers and sisters, partially due to the fact that I’m more interested in goodness just now than truth. I fought my truth battle and understand where it lies and so now understand my battle is to be virtuous. A man who’s just slaked his thirst but hasn’t eaten for a week is necessarily more interested in food than a Coke. Flannery O’Connor wrote in one of her letters that the old saw about Catholics being more interested in truth and Protestants in goodness was only a “partial truth” - which I found amusing, given that she was doing the “Catholic thing” in discerning truthfulness while saying it wasn’t a necessarily “Catholic thing”. 

So he emailed me back saying he appreciated my writing more than I would know, which I honestly wasn’t exactly sure how to take given that the rest of his email attempted to disprove the Eucharist, in part by saying that Christ isn’t a physical door, yet He called himself one. I wasn’t sure whether I should be flattered that he was taking his precious time to try to disprove the Eucharist to lowly me or be insulted because he was trying to disprove the Eucharist to me. Mixed emotions ensued. 

I do respect him - he has more strength in his convictions than most Catholics do theirs and he also recently took the unpopular stand that Judge Moore of Alabama should've resigned. Given that 80% of his radio audience disagreed with him and vehemently let him know, he gets points there. 

I replied that before my reversion I used to think that the material elements in the Sacraments were for those weak in faith -i.e. the water in Baptism and bread in Eucharist were those for those who needed a physical thing to believe that a spiritual thing occurred. But that I've come to the realization that God could do things the way he wanted (imagine that!) and that he created us as physical beings with souls and intended likewise with the sacraments - physical things which carry great grace, up to and including even Himself. I told him I didn’t expect him to see my view of the Eucharist, of course.... Ironically, the thing I much respect about him - his impervious faith - is also that which would be his greatest foe as far as being able to view the Eucharist for what it is. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 00:33
 
September 6, 2003   


 
via Two Sleep-deprived Mommies:


the Abominable Snowman
Circle I Limbo

Pauly Shore
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

the Witch on the Wizard of Oz
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

Bud Selig
Circle IV Rolling Weights

Militant Vegans
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

PETA Members
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

Inventor of Designated Hitter rule
Circle VII Burning Sands

Senders of Spam
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

Margaret Sanger
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:53
 
September 5, 2003   


 
Comedy Break - Stock news headlines 

WeightWatchers Int'l sheds 6

Bakers Dozen Donuts down a baker's dozen 

American Cigars torched 2 2/3 to 11 

Gutfreund's Kosher Meats circumcised 1 to 8 1/3 

Travel and Associates travels south 2 1/3 

Silly Putty Inc. stretches up 4 

Liberty Baptist College Corp. swears off 4 to 52 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:26
 
 


 
Interesting Matthew Arnold Quotes 

My brother Saxons have, as is well known, a terrible way with them of wanting to improve everything but themselves off the face of the earth; I have no such passion for finding nothing but myself everywhere; I like variety to exist and to show itself to me, and I would not for the world have the lineaments of the Celtic genius lost.

On English Poetry

Here, then, if commingling there is in our [i.e. English] race, are two very unlike elements to commingle: the steady-going Saxon temperament and the sentimental Celtic temperament. . . . It is in our poetry that the Celtic part in us has left its trace clearest [sic], and in our poetry I must follow it before I have done. If I were asked where English poetry got these three things, its turn for style, its turn for melancholy, and its turn for natural magic, for catching and rendering the charm of nature in a wonderfully near and vivid way,—I should answer, with some doubt, that it got much of its turn for style from a Celtic source; with less doubt, that it got much of its melancholy from a Celtic source; and with no doubt at all, that from a Celtic source it got nearly all its natural magic.

The Future
..we ride one force of our nature to death; we will be nothing but Anglo-Saxons in the Old World or in the New; and when our race has built Bold Street, Liverpool, and pronounced it very good, it hurries across the Atlantic, and builds Nashville, and Jacksonville, and Milledgeville, and thinks it is fulfilling the designs of Providence in an incomparable manner. But true Anglo-Saxons, simply and sincerely rooted in the German nature, we are not and cannot be . . . 

--Matthew Arnold

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:01
 
 


 
Sunday's Homily

Our pastor gave a marvelous homily last Sunday about the Pharisees. I wish he'd put it on-line, but the best I can paraphrase it is that the reason the Pharisees, both then and now, are the way they/we are is as a self-defense mechanism. It is a way for them/us to protect ourselves from this "dangerous" God, dangerous in the sense of desiring us to change. And we certainly don't like change. 

He compared it to marriages where the man and wife go through their rituals but are never in danger of changing the other. Yet part of the purpose of marriage is for our sanctification and sanctification means change. (As is oft-said, "a saint is someone who has changed often"). I feel convicted in this area, as the Protestants say. I'd heard too many stories about hen-pecked husbands, known more oft as p-whipped husbands. (Can you say that on a Catlicker blog?) Maybe I've been too unduly influenced by the cynical line in Shakespeare's As You Like It:

Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you
what marriage is: this fellow will but join you
together as they join wainscot; then one of you will
prove a shrunk panel and, like green timber, warp, warp.

Or grow, grow, grow?

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:48
 
September 4, 2003   


 
Commenting on Commenting

Minute Particulars has an amusing and piquant look at those who comment on the blogs of the major "playas" of St. Blogs, Amy & Mark. 

Mark applies the hammer to the nail head. Commenting on a blog means never having to admit you're wrong. I'm not saying I'm without sin here, obviously. But you read them and you crave to hear, as Mark puts it, "You know, you're right with that last comment; what I was saying is complete unthinking twaddle. Forgive me." Maybe not so much as that, but just an inchworm of modesty. Just an "I may be wrong" thrown in goes a long way, even if the commenter has to add that caveat on faith. 

Bad commenters tend to drive out good; Mark sees the hopelessness of it and abstains. Bad ones come in two flavors: stylistically poor and wrong-headedly poor. It is surprising how often the two go together, but they are separate. Examples of stylistically poor commenters are those who insult, shout and in general exhibit poor table manners. Ham of Bone says that this is merely the "east coast style" and "in your face" is something we Midwesterners aren't used to. Could be.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:28
 
 


 
Interesting Quote


The more I think about it, the more I think the pace of modern life is one of the devil’s chief weapons. C.S. Lewis thought as much about 60 years ago. In The Screwtape Letters, a devil recalls how he deterred a nonbeliever who was starting to seriously consider Christianity. Instead of choosing any especially intellectual or spiritual attacks, the devil simply moved to get the man out of the library where he’s reading a Christian author and into the street. 

"Once he was in the street the battle was won. I showed him a newsboy shouting the midday paper, and a no. 73 bus going past, and before he had got to the bottom of the steps I had got into him an unalterable conviction that, whatever odd ideas might come into a man’s head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of “real life” (by which he meant the bus and the newsboy) was enough to show him that all “that sort of thing” just couldn’t be true."

Since Lewis wrote, life has gotten even busier for most of us. All the more reason to step off the merry-go-round for a while, to get away from all the appointments and assignments and noise. When you're not trying to work is when God does some of His best work in you. 
from Matt Kaufman"The Virtues of Vacation". 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:02
 
 


 
Thursdays with Flannery

More excerpts from Flannery O'Connor:

"God never promised [the Church] political infallibility or wisdom and sometimes she doesn't appear to have even elementary good sense. She seems always to be either on the wrong side politically or simply a couple hundred years behind the world in her political thinking. She tries to get along with any form of gov't that does not set itself up as a religion. Communism is a religion of the state, committed to the extinction of the Church...She condemns Communism because it is a false religion, not because of the form of gvt it is." 

***

"The things that we are obliged to do, such as hear Mass on Sunday, fast and abstain on the days appointed, etc. can become mechanical and merely habit. But it is better to be held to the Church by habit than not to be held at all. The Church is mighty realistic about human nature. Further it is not at all possible to tell what's going on inside the person who appears to be going about his obligations mechnically. We don't believe that grace is something you have to feel. The Catholic always distrusts his emotional reaction to the sacraments." 

***

"If [Cardinal John Henry] Newman is a saint, his saintliness didn't destroy his scrupulous intellect or his finickiness and you'll have to accept a finicky saint. Anyway, here he is dealing with [Charles] Kingsley, enough to bring out the finickiness in anybody. I didn't read the stuff in the back from Kingsley, couldn't stand it..."

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:38
 
 


 
Conservative Bloggers Select The Worst Figures Of The 20th Century
(via Gregg the Obscure)

The Results:
20) Josef Mengele (6)
17) Hideki Tojo (8)
17) The Rosenbergs (8)
17) Adolf Eichmann (8)
14) Benito Mussolini (11)
14) Ayatollah Khomeini (11)
14) Emperor Hirohito (11)
13) Ho Chi Minh (13)
12) Kim Il-Sung (14)
10) Kim Jung Il (15)
10) Fidel Castro (15)
9) Osama Bin Laden (18)
8) Idi Amin (21)
6) Yasser Arafat (24)
6) Saddam Hussein (24)
5) Vladimir Lenin (28)
4) Pol Pot (31)
3) Chairman Mao (35)
1) Joseph Stalin (39)
1) Adolph Hitler (39) 

One way to rank them would be the number of deaths they were responsible for. So the list is (very roughly) in the ballpark. Hussein started the Iran-Iraq war which involved one million casualties. Yasser maybe should be moved down quite a few places by this definition and the North Korean dictators moved up. Emperor Hirohito up, Osama & Fidel down...

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:25
 
September 3, 2003   


 
More Flannery O'Connor Excerpts

On Spritual Direction

I don't doubt she needs a good spiritual director but this takes a kind of genius and much grace and they are as hard to find as any other rarity. As to a confessor - one is as good as another. The confessional is not a place to discuss problems.

On the Beat Poets

They seem to know a good many of the right things to run away from, but to lack any necessary discipline. They call themselves holy but holiness costs and so far as I can see they pay nothing. It's true that grace is a free gift of God but in order to put yourself in the way of being receptive to it you have to practice self-denial...As long as the beat people abandon themselves to all sensual satisfactions, you can't take them for anything but false prophets. A good look at St. John of the Cross makes them all look sick.

On Priests

It takes a strong person to meet the responsibilities of the priesthood. They take vows for life of poverty, chastity and obedience, and there are very few defections. Most of the priests I know... are unimaginative and overworked. Also the education they get at the seminary leaves much to be desired. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:00
 
 


 
catholic (small 'c') Reading

I'm always interested in what other people read. I can't say I'm surprised that Flannery O'Connor read John Updike and the life of Rabelais, for example, although I would be if she'd read Kinky Friedman if he were writing back then. Too ironic, shallow & comic? 

Lee Ann Morawski posted a link to her amazon.com wish list and I was struck by the juxtaposition of the sacred and profane. The Pope & Kinky Friedman make strange bedfellows. Since my reading is along the same lines (I have five of Kinky's novels), I wonder what to make of it. 

An attempt to have our feet in both worlds? Symptomatic of a spiritual battle? Does reading the one sometimes seem as though it were a relief for the other?

I was reading a book called "Saints for Sinners" the other day and the essay on St. John of the Cross cautioned us not to fall into despair while reading his works. The idea being that presenting the ideal can lead to discouragement. Perhaps reading about about those struggling even more spiritually than ourselves is the salve for reading about those who are much more spiritually advanced. Flannery O'Connor alternated reading bios of St. John of the Cross and Rabelais and called it an "edifying contrast".

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:54
 
 


 
The Great Mission Field?

A former co-worker was converted shortly after meeting his future wife. Ditto my stepson after meeting his girlfriend. 
(UPDATE: Also one of St. Blog's own - William Luse.) 


I thought these were unusual examples, but then I heard Lee Strobel on a Christian radio station say that by far most conversions are the result not of preaching, not of books, but of spouses. And 80% of cases where one spouse is converted by another spouse (obviously initiated by the HS) are men being converted by women, since Mr. Strobel says "studies show men are more resistant to the Gospel". 

Mr. Strobel credits his wife with his conversion because her transformation into such a winsome person gave him an openness to Christianity he had heretofore lacked, leading him to explore the claims of Christ. 

So perhaps the greatest mission field is in the home...probably the living room...or to pin-point further, the recliner. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:09
 
September 2, 2003   


 
Flannery O'Connor Excerpts

From "The Habit of Being":



I have a biography of St. John of the Cross and one of Rabelais. I read a little of one and then a little of the other; edifying contrast.
*
I am much more interested in the nobility of unnaturalness than in the nobility of naturalness. As Robert [Fitzgerald] says, it is the business of the artist to uncover the strangeness of truth. The violent are not natural. St. Thomas's gloss on this verse [i.e. the 'violent bear it away'] is that the violent Christ is here talking about represent those ascetics who strain against mere nature. St. Augustine concurs.
*
The Church's stand on birth control is the most absolutely spiritual of all her stands and with all of us being materialists at heart, there is little wonder that it causes unease. I wish various fathers would quit trying to defend it by saying that the world can support 40 billion. I will rejoice in the day when they say: This is right, whether we all rot on top of each other or not, dear children, as we certainly may. Either practice restraint or be prepared for crowding...
*
The Catholic finds it easier to understand the atheist than the Protestant, but easier to love the Protestant than the atheist. The fact is though now that the fundamentalist Protestants, as far as doctrine goes, are closer to their traditional enemy, the Church of Rome, than they are to the advanced elements in Protestantism. 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:01
 
 


 
If you haven't yet read Flannery O'Connor's Collected Letters (titled "The Habit of Being") then you are missing a real treat. Witty, intelligent and opinionated - she is eminently bloggable. In fact, there ought to be a blog of excerpts from her letters. In lieu of that, I'll be posting a few over the next few days. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:35
 
September 1, 2003   


 
My Big Fat New Job (fiction)

I applied for Poet Laureate of the corporation. 

HR laughed: “Poet laureate? We don't have a poet laureate!”. 

“Exactly! Isn’t that the problem around here?" I replied. "Don’t we need the uplift of poetry? Couldn’t poetry make people feel good about losing their jobs if that will cut expenses and make our numbers? Instead of beginning the exit interview with ‘I’m sorry…we have to let you go.’ You could start with some poetry.” 

My contact told her bosses’ bosses’ boss, mostly for humor's sake. But I received a call back a few days later.

“Are you the poet laureate man?” said a voice into the phone.

“Yes.”

“You’re certainly thinking outside the box! Give us a roadmap and a vision statement of the development opportunities. Maybe with some re-tooling your idea could be used to resource broker a strategic initiative that would more easily leverage the knowledge transfer of rightsizing the corporation.”

Eventually I understood that I was to email her a few poems by Monday.

The pressure was immense. I stared at the blank screen of death, the whitness of Microsoft’s Word GUI overwhelming me. 

“Monday, Monday….
can’t trust that day.”

Ooops, copyright infringement. I wanted to pull a sheet of paper out of the typewriter and ball it into my fist and fling it towards the trash can like they do in the movies. But you can't with a computer. 

How about...

“Where synergy and teams prevail
there profit’s ever found
Six Sigma and a Crosby class
will never let you down.” 

Hmmm…probably not what they wanted, but getting warmer...

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:08
 
 


 
The Cafeteria Worker

Calm, he lords over the food 
with his tall cap and skillet to sail her by;
leaning over the thermal periphery
irenic and fully Mertonized:

“lean, little known, effortlessly laconic,
happy for no particular reason,
kindly disposed towards all.” * 

* -- what Thomas Merton wrote of a friend whom he wished to emulate. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 00:20
 
 


 
Salvation and Atonement

Orthodox priest Fr. Theodore Pulicini writes that he always found the view of salvation that Christ paid the penalty for sin and removed a just sentence unsatisfying and legalistic. "Why would a loving God require such a price? Was the Father really so angry and vengeful that he would require the death of his own Son in order to be appeased?" he writes. 

Way beyond my ken, obviously, and it is a mystery as to exactly how it works, but it is a fact that Christ reversed the disastrous sin of Adam. I accept it on faith. But I see it as love rather than appeasement. The study of anthropology (as well as any college fraternity) suggests that what binds humans is the presence of a scapegoat. God became the scapegoat in order that we might love each other (and not scapegoat each other) and that we might understand his tremendous love for us in dying for us. 

The key loss over the past three hundred years might not so much be a loss of faith in a Divine intelligence but in a Divine intelligence that loves us. The 18th century Deists began a downward spiral from which we have not recovered. When I look at the Cross and understand that He would have done it for me alone (ala the parable of the good shepherd going in search of the one lost sheep), I am blown away at the extreme God would go to to show his love. How non-Christians believe in a loving God in a world of suffering is not something I fully comprehend. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 22:26
 
August 30, 2003   


 
Phileo 

Kathy has a wonderfully honest post about blogs and ego gratification. Just where is the line between ego gratification and affirmation that all humans need? We should seek our affirmation from God, or so I tell myself, while often doing the opposite. What percentage (to be coldly analytical) of our support should come from God, spouse, friends, etc..?

This was the question that had occurred to me while pondering Kathy's request for a friendly email. And then came this thought-provoking post, which provides nice in-roads towards the answer. Tolle, lege! Another nice thing about St. Blog's is that we can cross-pollinate our reading lists. I'd never read "The Four Loves" and now I'm tempted to. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:58
 
 


 
Small World   (an act of fiction)

“What’s yore favorite ale?” I asked the Irishman.

“Ach, like I the (indescipherable), except on Friday’s when it’s (indescipherable)”.

I talked to his more sober friend, a younger man in his mid-30s whose hair was dark and had about him the manner of the manor. He explained that he liked to go to the States now & again. I asked whereabouts.

“I’ve been to New York, L.A., San Francisco. But my favorite city is Columbus, in Ohio”.

”I know where it is, I live there. How did you know I was from Columbus?”

“I didn’t!”

”Come on. Columbus can’t be your favorite city.”

“Why not? The sky is an azure hue between clouds that sit like pillows. There is a wonderous bronze statue of Christopher Columbus downtown. His jaw is set like a martial man, standing athwart history and yelling ‘Go!’. The Scioto river rushes like a colossus over the landscape, that great southern boundary that separates a Centre mall from “little Germany”. The city sits like a jewel in the middle of Cornfield, USA, a megapolis of ‘scrapers rising from the ground at sharp right-angles.”

“But plenty of cities rise out of cornfields at right-angles.”

“I don’t compare to Columbus to Kansas City or Sacramento. I compare her to the cities near the Yangtzee in 17th century China. Of course I’ve never been to China or lived in the 1600s, but I’ve seen pictures in Nat’l Geographic. If you compare fair Columbus to 17th century China, she looks positively other-worldly.”

“How is it that you chose China to compare her to?”

“China, schmina. You’re missing the point completely. Think not as man thinks but God. You measure everything, set up elaborate hierarchical models…you want to know if Ted Williams was a better hitter than Lou Gehrig and why. You’d date Jennifer Lopez and study her toenails and wonder if they are as fine as Sandra Bullock’s.” 

“I would be happy with either Ms. Lopez’s toenails or Sandra F. Bullock's, thank you very much.”

”Ha, you say that now. It’s to the extent you see, you do not see. You look at Columbus, and Bullock, with your eyes, and jaundiced eyes at that. Sophistication is the paintin’ that learning puts on tin structures. Still tin underneath, like the lean-to I lived in outside Boone, North Carolina. Split an oak to put shingles on it; still tin underneath. Get it?”

“I think so.”

“The radical thing is divine innocence. God’s not parceling his love out based on the latest numbers manufactured by angels in the Division of Statistics. Yes, the hairs on your head are counted but that’s a different Bureau and is completely independent of the Quantity of Love Committee.” 

“Since you brought up the subject of God, did not Jesus love John the most?”

“Yes, but that was with his human nature. Two natures, remember?”

“So what does all this have to do with the price of tea in 17th century China?”

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 00:32
 
 


 
Summer, R.I.P.

The summer, faithless hag, appears to be diminishing in her affection. Yellow school buses ominously portend the end. I sit at the corner waiting indefinitely to make a left turn as the buses relentlessly roll. The ease of the summer months is scandalous. The easy drives to work without the hassle of buses. The needlessness of hat, gloves or coat. The hot massage of the nylon lounge chair, baked to five degrees over body temp, against your skin. The vacations. The free days of Memorial Day-Independence Day-Labor Day. 

Here it is a day shy of September and I haven’t spent one glorious day watching the Cincy Reds. Haven’t gone to one Shakespeare at Schiller Park. When I’m sitting in the sun in late August/early Sept it feels similar to the way I felt going to last couple college football games at my alma mater – spoiled by nostalgia. It was no longer about the moment – it was about something else. About remembrance of times past. 

As a wiser self intuited: the summer wanes and wastes away, the tomatoes and peaches small recompense. Her last days feel strangely uncharismatic; we look forward already to autumn, not wishing to witness her long Roman decline and fall. The fruits fall from the vine, begging to be picked, the natural course of things goes on, and God, in his heaven, always manages to replace creation with greater creations, the old Law with the New in the unending march towards perfection.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 23:59
 
August 29, 2003   


 
Quote


“We, the Church, are the Bride; Christ is the Bridegroom….There is something odd, almost ugly, about the bride bragging about her own beauty and specialness, pointing to her own uniqueness or special relationship with the bridegroom. It should really be the bridegroom that speaks of his beloved, the Church, and he does, and he will. The Church, the Bride, should be speaking of her beloved, The Bridegroom: about how wonderful he is, about how she owes everything to him, about how good he is and how truthful and faithful.”

-- Ralph Martin

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 23:55
 
 


 
Around the Proverbial Horn

[Steven] Pinker strikes me as the kind of person who (like Conchis in The Magus if you know it) might say, "Why should I wade through a two-hundred page novel just to get a couple of notions that could be stated on one page?" There is a refusal to acknowledge that some aspects of the human condition lie just beyond formulation in crisp and concise algorithms. --Mark of Minute Particulars

From Jim on Kathy's blog:

Before my reversion, I was somewhat infatuated with Ayn Rand. Then I discovered that everything noble and admirable in Rand is already in Aristotle, and from there it moves into St. Thomas and is incorporated into Gospel ethics. 

The best antidote to Nietzsche is to concede his main point, namely, to concede that the ethical experiment of Kant (which Nietszche inadvertently identifies with "morality" as such) is a radical failure. An ethics of pure obligation that does not have a robust moral psychology that accounts for the longings and restlessness of the heart is is deeply inhuman and dehumanizing. On that point, Nietzsche was right. However, it is not necessary to trace the failure of Kant through a geneology of morality. Such a method leaves the human being worse off than in the Kantian system. Everything that Nietzsche wants is available from Christ when the Holy Spirit is "poured forth into our hearts" and we progress developmentally through life in the Beatitudes. 

I recommend the book "Morality: The Catholic View" by Servais Pinckaers. It gives a counter-narrative that is as deeply anti-Kantian as Nietszche, but without the conclusions that give cause for despair.

Carl Olsen has some good thoughts on Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy. 

"My doctor favors Tylenol 3, so named because if you take it with three glasses of wine, you might get to sleep through the night.--Nancy Nall. (I take them mainly for the placebo effect - although if you know you are taking something mainly for the placebo effect, does the placebo effect still work?)

Joke mined from Disputations:


Two Dominican friars, a novice and an old-timer, are out begging for food. As they walk along, they meet the local miser. The older friar calls out a greeting. "God be with you! In the name of our Master and yours, will you give us a coin or two that we may buy food for our convent?"

"Hmph!" the miser answers. "And supposing I don't?"

"Then we shall all grow another day thinner," replies the friar with a gentle smile.

"Look, if I did give you money," the miser says with a shudder, "how do I know you won't just spend it on more of your fancy books?"

At this, the novice pipes in, "Oh, we've got book money!" 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:39
 
 


 
All MBTI, All the Time



I don't see any grand Jungian conspiracy in the Myers-Briggs tests...it is a tool and a tool can be used for good or for ill. But the test is based on self-reported answers...(Disputations has a devastingly funny send-up here). 

Fr. Jim finds it interesting that 6 of the 10 SJ'rs in St. Blog's have Latin names. I can't speak for the rest, but Latin isn't special to me other than it holds the otherness of a foreign language. I would be just as happy with a German title, for reasons of opacity. As a lover of mystery, I like trapdoors and hidden passages. How cool was it that a decorative bust at Wayne Manor hid a button that when pressed opened a wall to a pair of firehouse poles? I used to have an unlabeled asterisk on my blog which, when clicked, led you to my rather anemic website. Wouldn't it be fun to have a wall of books that when a certain book is removed you find it open into a secret passage to - where? A secret library of course.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:29
 
August 28, 2003   


 
Ham of Bone Update*

When last we saw our valiant hero, Bone was busy writing a screenplay while the birds sang and sun shone... His jaunt in out-of-work-dom reminds me of the ol' Saturday morning cartoon where Wile E. Coyote is suspended in mid-air, still running, not yet knowing the ground is no longer beneath him. Bone has all the sensations of full employment - i.e. a nice severance - without the actuality of it. But may he succeed in his venture and pessimism be d*mned! He writes: 

   I am in the clutches of a stubborn screenplay that won't let me go. The creation has usurped its creator's authority and I can think about nothing else. To use a sports metaphor where the competition is so fierce that a difference of 1/100th of a second makes the difference between the amateurs and the pros, I am flexing and training my muscles (writing and rewriting) to eke out some advantage, with the help of some steroid juice (aka vodka) of course.

To further the sports analogy, sometimes it seems as though we who are living are watched and cheered by the dead, who graciously cheer for our salvation, hoping that we will run the race well. I feel that way watching Bone, as if I am on the sideline cheering he who is running this race against the clock that he might do what he loves. 

* - "Bone" or "Ham of Bone" is my friend who prefers to remain anonymous. He lost his job due to corporate downsizing and is now writing screenplays.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:53
 
 


 
Way Cool

I love it - the Mighty Barrister has his own gift shop! Hi-laire. Sharp design and graphics too:



 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:10
 
 


 
Pope Leo XIII in Providentissimus Deus: 


For the saving and for the perfection of ourselves and of others there is at hand the very best of help in the Holy Scriptures, as the Book of Psalms, among others, so constantly insists; but those only will find it who bring to this divine reading not only docility and attention, but also piety and an innocent life. For the Sacred Scripture is not like other books.
--via Disputations

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:59
 
 


 
Three Degrees of Separation

One of the joys of the internet is how close you can get to previously completely unavailable folks. (Another is its unpredictability - I recall that three years ago or so Shelby Foote commented on his Civil War triology on amazon.com, complete with his email address and a misspelled word. Because he had mentioned money, it ran true. It was also removed, presumably by authorial request, a few months later. I like to think that ol' Shelby had knocked down a few too many whiskeys while compulsively checking his book rankings and had to add his two cents). Anyhow, I digress. No one can digress like the Irish...I recall stopping for a pint outside Sligo and-- nevermind.

So, with blogs, you may have someone read your blog who keeps a blog that is read by someone else who keeps a blog read by a third party - perhaps Kevin Bacon himself. For example, it is possible though unlikely that Mark Shea has read this blog. That's one degree of separation. And who has read his blog? The inestimable Fr. Richard Neuhaus. And who has read Fr. Neuhaus's writings? 

Rod Dreher. I am only three degrees from Rod Dreher. Yippee! (Just teasing Rod, if you've Google-searched your way here).

Fructus Ventris has a post on how you know you've made it in blogdom. By her definition this blog hasn't (note that I separate myself from this blog, it's the blog's fault not mine). But I actually revel in the anonymity. I can be much more uninhibited although admittedly more self-indulgent. Hopefully there are posts which are of some value even if it not be this particular one...

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:29
 
August 27, 2003   


 
         Song long not heard    

Twenty-five years of water    
Rush headlong over rock,    
The pliant body bends    
At every fleshy shock.    
Cells replace, cilia strain    
To hear the music's sweet refrain.    

To listen again as he once did-    
That ancient air, that callow ear    
Innocence stiched in all his sinews    
Stretched but saved in attention dear.    

Watched with a watchman’s care until    
that fateful age his robe defiled     
Flung back at God for service ill-rendered    
But forged anew when Reconciled.     


The "robe defiled" describes an era in the past when I decided that God wasn't taking care of me and so I would take care of me.



 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:53
 
 


 
Interesting comment on flos carmeli concerning truth and Revelation:


"Wesley Kort elaborates that certain specific types of beliefs are essential for 'an adequate, workable world to appear,' namely, beliefs about temporality, other people, borders, and norms and values. These types of beliefs, he asserts, are closely connected to languages and texts. In fact, in his estimation, they 'can be textually identified because they and their relations to one another are borne by language.' And this leads to the importance of 'scriptures.' Such texts, Kort adds, function by articulating 'the beliefs that go into the construction of a world.' For this reason, as Paul Ricoeur notes, the meaning of a text always points beyond itself - it is 'not behind the text, but in front of it' - for it projects a way of being in the world, a mode of existence, a pattern of life, and it 'points towards a possible world.'"

What this means - in clearer language - is that, when we read the Scriptures or hear our pastor preach on a text, the Holy Spirit speaks to us and is at work effecting our transformation (Rom 8.10, 2 Cor 3.1, constructing a new world in which we are to dwell (2 Cor 5.17). To say that Scripture is "inerrant" then means that no part of Scripture is an obstacle for this new creation - that all chapters and verses must be heard, read, marked, learned, and digested (as the Book of Common Prayer nicely puts it). 

After all, very few people practice lectio divina or reread their favorite sermons to brush up on their archaeological knowledge. We do so for the Spirit to speak and give us a new mode of existence, a new pattern of life, in which, amazingly, becoming a monk or opening a Catholic Worker House just might make perfect sense. --Neil Dhingra 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:18
 
 


 
Light Begets Light

I was brushing my teeth when all went dark. The thunderstorm's apex shut off the music, the musing, and vision itself. I couldn't recall where the candles were - I would have to look, a power no longer available. But I remembered where my cheap cigar lighter was. And so that small flame led to a bigger flame which led to a heavenly host of flames such that I could say with the healed blind man, "I can see!"

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 07:19
 
 


 
Follow-up on McInerny Quote

Mr. McInerny writes: "Our daily problems are never enough. We always multiply them by imagining variations on them. What would we do if.... Very, very true. It is difficult at times to be thankful for our material good fortune when others have so little. We may wonder, "would I still be faithful to God under unpleasant circumstances? Would I have stood for God under the persecutions of the early Church?"

This may be part of the reason it is so difficult to focus on the gospel as it relates to us individually, in simply attempting to progress where we are deficient. Instead we worry about whether all will be saved, or what percentage will and all the variations of sin and obedience, of doctrinal flavoris and of doubt and faith.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:57
 
August 26, 2003   


 
Art is not optional

Nice post on art from Church of the Masses (via Disputations): 

The notion that the arts are optional is absurd in the same way that the suggestion that making choices could be optional for human beings. We are constituted as a kind of being that chooses and a kind of being that decorates. Both things set us apart and define us.

Notre Dame professor and Catholic author Ralph McInerny writes:


Think of those prehistoric hunters, then, returned from the arduous pursuit of prey. They are weary, they have been, let us hope, successful. They are certainly very practical men. Yet some among them begin to draw on the walls representations of the animals they have hunted and will hunt again. The rest presumably marvel at the pictures. They let them be. They ponder and enjoy them.

The human need for art is present here. Man is a creature who not only lives, directs his choices rationally, pursues goals. He is also the only earthly being who reproduces the reality in which he is engaged. Our daily problems are never enough. We always multipy them by imagining variations on them. What would we do if...

If our doings were merely fugitive events, their meaning wholly exhausted by their occurrence, there would be no stories. But we know that what we do is decisive for who we are. The choices and decisions human agents make, particularly under great pressure, reveal what they are, they enforce or erode character.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:42
 
 


 
From the Sacchio's Shakespeare Lectures

In Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar most of the characters have a tremendous self-consciousness and refer to themselves mostly in the third person. Professor Peter Sacchio found this off-putting and recalls telling his companion at a performance in London that "the problem with this play is everyone tells Brutus how wonderful he is and he is always agreeing." His friend, a British woman of the prior generation and still imbued with a whiff of British aristocracy, replied somewhat condescendingly, "Peter, you are the son of American democracy....There self-importance is the worst sin on the calendar". 

Professor Sacchio said that in hindsight he was 10%....right. He could point to only one place in the play where it seemed Brutus was fatuous. It occurred to him that any other response from Brutus or the other characters would be mock-modesty. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:41
 
 


 
Time is not a static variable

Written after surviving my wife's friend's 40th birthday party...

After the age of, say, 30, parties have a vestigial quality to them, much like male nipples. You can’t drink enough to make the small talk tolerable given the strict driving under the influence laws. 

And although I'm not sure Chesterton addressed this problem specifically, he did argue for a “democracy of the dead”, meaning that we shouldn’t just assume that past cultures are foolish given that, over the course of millennia, they've often discerned what works and what doesn’t.

And ancient peoples had an intuitive wisdom such that they understood sitting around and struggling to find an interesting topic of conversation was not the best use of their time. Instead, they gathered and danced in circles around fires to the beat of a drum. They were enjoying the high of the endorphins of the dance or losing themselves in the beat of the drum. Gatherings were a vital part of the bonding of their communities, but let’s not kid ourselves - they were all getting something out of it. 

The problem of parties past the age of 30 would hardly be worth mentioning but for the generally acknowledged fact that time accelerates as you get older. (Since I have experienced this myself, it must be true). This is both good and bad - good during work days, bad during vacations or weekends.

The “time inflation” coefficient might be assumed to be five percent a year, which means that the 48-hour weekend you get when you’re 20 years old is equivalent to a 30-hour weekend when you’re 35*. This is shown even more dramatically on vacation – a 3-day vacation at 23 is equivalent to a 5-day vacation at 37 years of age. Employers understand this, so they gradually bump up the vacation time available to you. But make no mistake – although you are gaining vacation time you are really barely staying even due to time inflation. 

But to be serious for a moment, I do have to constantly remind myself that time is a gift and privilege - not a right - and that it is God's, not my own.

* -all figures extremely approximate. I don’t have time to figure present values.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 07:29
 
August 25, 2003   


 
Ways of Knowing

Interesting NY Times article about Lawrence Summers, president of Hah-vahd:


...The great universities have traditionally defined themselves as humanistic rather than scientific institutions. Summers's point is not so much that the balance should shift as that the distinctions between these modes of understanding have blurred, though clearly in a way that favors the analytic domains -- the soft has become harder, rather than the other way around. 

Most faculty members at Harvard worry much more about this hard-soft spectrum than they do about the left-right one. ''By training and temperament, economists are intellectual imperialists,'' said the political theorist Michael Sandel. ''They believe their models of rational choice can explain all human behavior.'' Summers has, in fact, driven a wedge through the government department by appearing to favor rational-choice theorists over more traditional political scientists.... Summers [may] will be seen as the man who decisively moved those universities toward increasingly analytical, data-driven ways of knowing. 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 19:10
 
August 24, 2003   


 
Visited by God

President Bush has never visited me. Nor Pope John Paul. Cardinal Ratzinger doesn't make house calls. 

This is to say that it is typically not within our experience to be personally visited by important and powerful people, let alone the King of kings and Lord of lords. Anything not within our experience is more difficult to ascertain*, obviously. So it might be a stretch to believe that Jesus visits us, body, soul and divinity, in the Eucharist.

But another way to look at it is this: National Geographic once did a story on the unlikeliness of the universe not imploding immediately. It compared the odds of a stable universe such as the one we enjoy to a pencil standing upright perfectly balanced on its point. So if we can accept from this macro-level a micro-level of care and concern, we can believe that God holds each of us together literally, our every cell, at every moment. In this consciousness of God, it then becomes more understandable that he would visit us bodily in our Communions. 

I once wondered how can God be ‘specially present’ – isn’t he present always? Can’t we call upon him anytime in prayer? But then: "why cut off any pathway to my Grace? Would you tear down a road and expect me to build another?". Indeed the men on the road to Emmaus didn’t realize he was Christ until the breaking of the bread and their hearts were enflamed... The Eucharist is a perfect example of God's simultaneous majesty, in effecting an impossibility, and humility, i.e. the God of the universe in a wafer of bread. 

* - Another reason why it so crucial that we love. For if it is not in someone's experience to be loved, it will be harder from them to believe God loves them. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:53
 
 


 
Bestill my heart!

It's been a long, long time since last I received a Nigerian scammer email. I was beginning to think they didn't want my prose. (Longtime readers know that I cherish Nigerian scammers because I figure if they can write some nice fiction for me, then I can return the favor). Fortunately, I believe I have something ready. I'll let you know what "Mr. Alabi" says in reply to Aunt Pixel's pickle. 

FROM:MR. TIMI ALABI (NDDC)

Sir,
PROPOSITION FOR JOINT BUSINESS VENTURE.

This letter may come to you as a surprise but i have to write you because of the importance that that is demanded. The Niger Delta Development Commission(NDDC),the commission that has been given the responsiblities of building and developing all the crude...this is why i am contacting you.

Now I have to write up something new for the next Nigerian scammer since I don't believe in recycling Nigerian scammer replies. Hmm.... 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 01:14
 
August 23, 2003   


 
I want a recount

A reader confirmed my suspicion that ISTJs have a weak sense of humor. We must be the Germans of the Myers-Briggs world (expect more humor in this blog to counteract Myers and his associate Briggs). 

Not that a sense of humor is so important, of course, but here's what she says:

As far as my husband goes ISTJ he's not a very joyful, happy person. And when someone tries to tell him jokes or reads a cartoon, he'll say "So?" Which makes no one want to tell him jokes especially if they have to be explained. I have a daughter who is ESTJ and she is a happy enough person, but her joke understanding is the same. 

Even more enlightening was this:

We J's are pretty time-oriented and we don't flow very well. Things bother us more as our expectations are obligatory etc. But as an N I have a less of a problem with flow. SJ's are the tightest.

That rings true, I am time-oriented. Multi-tasking is an obsession. Thoreau said it important to have a "broad margin to life" which translated means lots of free time. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 00:13
 
 


 

Beautiful image from Gerard's blog

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:46
 
August 22, 2003   


 
Jaded at Nine Months Old


By six months of age, infants can perform as well as adults in distinguishing new faces from previously encountered faces. Intriguingly, at nine months, infants do even better than adults at identifying monkey faces they haven't seen before. Neuroscientists discovered this by observing six- and nine month-old infants while they looked at a picture of a new monkey face. The six-month infants looked longer at the new faces, implying that they recognized something new and novel. The nine-month infants, in contrast, looked at the new and the old faces for the same amount of time, a pattern best summed up as, 'If you've seen one monkey, you've seen them all.'
- Richard Restak, "The New Brain"

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:41
 
 


 
So Few

Bill of Summa Minutiae has a good Newman quote on the importance of the few: 

As the physical universe is sustained and carried on in dependence on certain centres of power and laws of operation, so the course of the social and political world...Dogma runs along the line of Athanasius, Augustine, Thomas. The conversion of the heathen is ascribed, after the Apostles, to champions of the truth so few, that we may almost count them, such as Martin, Patrick, Augustine, Boniface. 

A few years back, two co-workers and I received a visit from a corporate vice-president (of course, vice presidents in corporate America are as common as fake boobs in Hollywood). This rare visit was intended to inspire the troops (we call it the "Normandy speech" now, although "we" mostly don't work there anymore since one left for another job and the other, Ham of Bone, is happily writing screenplays off his severance). 

"Never has so much depended on so few," he memorably said, while urging us to "storm the beaches". The feeling that much was riding on us felt true at the time. 

But ultimately it didn't. And even though in corporate America everyone is replaceable, it isn't like that in the spiritual life. Certainly the penultimate example of this is Christ, who, by resisting the temptations of the devil and taunts of men to "come down from that cross", made possible our salvation. Moses interceeded on behalf of the Israelites to save them. And the Blessed Mother, in her free-will "yes" to God, made it possible that everyone thereafter might share of the fruit of her womb, just as everyone after Eve shared in her sin's misfortune. 

Of them it could be truly said - "never had so much depended on so few". 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:55
 
 


 
Quotes from the Land of Blog

"Never mess around with breathing difficulty." - pediatrician to Nancy Nall

"California reminds me of Weimar Germany." - a friend of Rod Dreher's 

Camassia lamented modernity's "unpleasant Star Trek-y condescension toward the past." 

"They think they're going to save themselves, they think salvation must consist of some sort of deception." - Torgny Lindgren, via Steven Riddle's flos carmeli

"Her vituperation might be half-way to entertaining but, face it, if you raised yourself on Florence King’s invective, [Ann] Coulter is just sad." - Literarium

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:15
 
August 21, 2003   


 
The Baptist Pastor on the local radio station had a poll question on his internet site (results included): 

Evangelicals & Catholics: 
 -The Difference Isn't Enough To Talk About -- 3%
 -There Are Big Differences -- 86%
 -To Discuss Differences Is To Cause Division -- 3% 
 -I Don't Have A Clue As To The Real Differences -- 7%

He chuckled at and blasted the Catholics who had emailed him saying that the very question was anti-Catholic... I have to agree with him on that. Catlickers need to have a tougher skin, self included. Perhaps we're a little punch-drunk, since the pastor has proven himself to be egregiously anti-Catholic in the past. He once said that the only reason the Church is against artificial birth control is so that there will be more Catholics to further the Vatican's desire to dominate other denominations. He also posted on his website something headed "Catholic Curses" which listed the anathemnas from the Council of Trent. 

His poll question is interesting and seems ripe for the classic "yes and no" answer. The Pope once said his papal office is as nothing compared to his role as a baptized Christian. On the other hand, doctrine matters, and Romano Guardini made the point that doctrinal truth and moral goodness are both obediences to the one God. Bishop Sheen once referred to the differences between Catholics and Protestants as a "lover's quarrel" which may support my "yes and no" answer. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:09
 
 


 
Watched BookMark on EWTN last night and Doug Keck had on the author of a book about the Rapture (obviously contra-Rapture). The author made a fine point about how the heresy of Modernism, which does not allow for the supernatural to act on the natural, has attacked both components of the Mass - the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The latter is mere symbol, and the former has errors and is not inspired...

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:55
 
 


 
Hung over

I feel a little draggy today from the over-stimulation yesterday. Spent a lot of time working on the "de-nazification" process - removing the decals and insignias and jackets of the corporate library. I also began to address shelf-space issues by rooting out the books I think I can do without, at least in the book room. 

Speaking of overstimulation, I recall one home librarian who installed curtains over his bookshelves so that he could read in his library without the cacophony of voices calling to him (in the form of the garish modern day dust covers). He marvels at how restful the books of the 18th century look, with their muted browns and reds and blues. Books today need to stand out in order to sell, and so they do. The 18th & 19th centuries did it right, no?

Given my love for melodrama, the decline and fall of the corporate library (in terms of its sale of all non-business related items) feels like fodder for indulging that side... And so I wrote:


Marilyn vos Savant, author of the "Ask Marilyn" column in Parade magazine and known for her exceptionally high IQ, was once asked what is the single thing we can do to improve our brain power. She advised the questionner to read a novel of some complexity - an opportunity once provided as a corporate benefit, a benefit that bespoke a civilized company. But now the Visigoths have come.

The library was a symbol - a chivalric nodding of the head to the liberal arts - of our inheritance from preceeding generations. I know not what rough beast, its hour come round at last, that slouches towards us with budgetary panic writ upon its face. But I am saddened that the library, which stood athwart the fortress of ignorance yelling "Stop!" is now defunct. As Shakespeare wrote: "Sir, those cold ways that seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous." 

Completely unrelated, (blogging means never having to have a segue): Camassia, a pyschology major, weighs in with an interesting post on the Myers--Briggs types. She's right that Tom of Disputations fame is the pluperfect INTP. I like to think I have too much of a sense of humor to fit in with the typical ISTJs*, plus I can't decide if I'm all that decisive. Doing things the way they've always been done can be a form of laziness, something I've never denied having, rather than an anal-retentive brand of conservatism.** But my streak of Irish fatalism/pessimism is such that I can relate to St. Thomas the Apostle: "When told that Lazarus had died, Thomas said, "Let us go and die with him." (He could just as well have said something like, "I knew this was bound to happen sooner or later.") 

* - Thomas (Christ's disciple), George Washington, Andrew Johnson, Benjamin Harrison, Herbert Hoover, George H. W. Bush, Paul Coverdale (U.S. Senator, R-GA), Jack Webb (Joe Friday). God love them all, but not much fun at a party. 

** -One of the things I so adore about uber-conservative Russell Kirk was his ability to merge mysticism with practicality - to be simultaneously a dreamer (normally a left-wing characteristic) and a realist. He once said that conservatism is an "openness to reality...including transcendental reality".

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:50
 
 


 
Feeding Frenzy

Went to the so-called "mother of all booksales". There was a mini-Who concert at 8am when the doors opened to the selling off of the corporate library. Mild-looking bookworms thrust and jostled into tiny spaces, greed getting the better of etiquette. 

All pre-2000 books were 50 cents, 2000 & after = $1. Needless to say, I was smitten by this unusual opportunity. It is with resignation and a touch of sadness that I realize that I will never, in my lifetime, be able to read all the books I own. 

Some of the prizes? David Lodge's "Think...", Chesterton's Complete Fr. Brown mysteries, "Fear and Trembling" by Kierkegaard, a Tolstoy bio, two Updike novels, a Christopher Buckley comedy and some cheap fiction. 

I was talking with a co-worker behind me in line and successfully avoided cringing at the Andrew Greeley novels in her arms.

the Full Monty
Horse Heaven - Jane Smiley
Latin/English Dictionary 
Abracadever – Ralph McInerney
Class – Paul Fussell
She Stays – Bettye Shelton, story of Ricky Van Shelton & wife
Tolstoy – Henri Troyat
1916 – Morgan Llywelyn novel based on the events in Dublin
Ironweed – William Kennedy
Ways of Escape- memoir of Graham Greene
Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History – Erik Larsen
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex - Nat Philbrick
Work and the Nature of Man – Frederick Herzberg
Discovering Britain and Ireland – National Geographic
The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America - Louis Menand
Fear and Trembling - Soren Kierkegaard
Think... - David Lodge
Andrew Jackson and his Indian Wars - Robert V. Remini 
Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life - Kathleen Dalton 
Edge of Reason - Bridget Jones
No Way to Treat a First Lady: A Novel - Christopher Buckley 
The Complete Father Brown - Chesterton
Sacred Clowns - Tony Hillerman 
Basilica - William D. Montalbano 
The Overworked American - Juliet Schor 
Seek My Face - John Updike
Lincoln: The War Years (2 vols) - Carl Sandburg

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:06
 
August 20, 2003   


 
Sex, Books and Dog Treats

My dear wife often mentions how dogs are "food motivated". She can get our dog to quit barking at other dogs, to come in when she calls, or raise a paw in a gesture of shaking hands - for a dog treat. Many men of the two-legged variety could be called "sex-motivated". (Surprise, surprise as Gomer would say). This can turn sex into a bargaining chip. 

I appreciate Pope John Paul II's thoughts on love and sexual love, even if they seem a bit ethereal. Love-making, the mutual physical expression of wedded love, can look different closer to the ground. At our annual golf outing, one of the guys mentioned how 'quid-pro-quo' sex has become. You want sex? Okay, you have to do (fill in the blank). Sex can become a sort of currency, the equivalent of cigarettes in prison. Fortunately, and thank God, my wife does not look at it this way although the temptation is there given that many of her women friends do. 

It is understandable that any time one party has a greater need or desire for something it puts the other party in a position of power. But power is obviously not what relationships are all about even if the world says it is. It also isn't what the Church is about - I'll quote Ratzinger:


There is an ideology that fundamentally traces all existing institutions back to power politics. And this ideology corrupts humanity and also destroys the Church. Here is a concrete example: If I see the Church only under the aspect of power, then it follows that everyone who doesn't hold an office is oppressed. And then the question of, for example, women's ordination, as an issue of power, becomes imperative. I think this ideology produces a totally false point of view, as if power were the only category for explaining the world and the communion present in it. If belonging to the Church has any meaning at all, then the meaning can only be that it gives us eternal life. We are not in the Church in order to exercise power as if in some kind of association. 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 07:16
 
 


 
Quotes from the ever-interesting Russell Kirk



President Nixon asked Kirk: "what one book I should read?" Kirk did not hesitate. "T.S. Eliot's Notes towards the Definition of Culture".
*
"Despite [Kirk's] activity in the Goldwater campaign, there had echoed in his mind Gissing's aphorism: politics is the preoccupation of the quarter-educated."


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:33
 
August 19, 2003   


 
Myers-Briggs

I came out ISTJ, although the "j" was only 55% (i.e. close to a "p")... Survey says:

"ISTJs are often called inspectors. They have a keen sense of right and wrong, especially in their area of interest and/or responsibility...ISTJs are most at home with "just the facts, Ma'am." They seem to perform at highest efficiency when employing a step-by-step approach... ISTJs are easily frustrated by the inconsistencies of others, especially when the second parties don't keep their commitments...SJ"s are traditional, practical people that keep the home fires burning. They are also great athletes. (Okay, the last sentence was a fib). Men are more likely to be ISTJ (19.4% of the male population), whereas women are more likely to be ESFJ (14.1% of the female population).

I'm a little skeptical about how few fellow ISTJ'rs among St. Blog's. It is one of the most common types and the description above doesn't sound all that rare. Looking at the Murderer's Row of INTPs (I mean that in a good sense), it must be the "desired" type:

Xavier+ INTP 3.3% of general population 
Disputations INTP 3.3% of general population 
SecretAgentMan INTP 3.3% of general population 
Gospel Minefield INTP 3.3% of general population 
Fructus Ventris INTP 3.3% of general population 
Recovering Choir Director INTP 3.3% of general population 

Them's some good apples! And very, very smart. (I wonder what ol' Hernan is?) I hope I haven't offended anyone - I'm not implying the other groups don't have great folks and, of course, and who am I to judge, but this group is jam-packed with people I'd like to emulate.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:19
 
 


 
Current Read

Just started A.N. Wilson's, "The Victorians" with a tinge of concern over what his treatment of Cardinal Newman will be. I am far too sensitive on Newman's behalf. The introduction expresses the author's amazement that Newman is now more well-known that Cardinal Manning, which gives me pause.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:21
 
 


 
Magnificent Magnificat Excerpt - St. Maximillian Kolbe


...the phrase "I am not able to correct myself" [is], in reality, only concealed pride. Why? Because people often admit they have the ability to do some things, but then they say they cannot repress a given fault, avoid a given circumstance. This only proves that they only count on their own strength to master their lives. But this is a false concept, since with our sole strength, just by ourselves, without God's help, we can do nothing, absolutely nothing (Jn 15:5)...In fact, we exist because God is giving and supporting our existence at every moment.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:21
 
 


 
NRODT Excerpt

Michael Potermera reviews Peter Robinson's "How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life":


One important lesson Robinson learned from [Ronald] Reagan was that realism and optimism are not mutually contradictory; rather, both are essential. Here Robinson quotes Catholic priest Rev. Lorenzo Albacete:

"We all have to take reality as it comes to us. [The question is] what you choose to do with reality. Reagan never permitted his misfortunes to interfere with his development as a human person. Instead he used them...All his life Reagan exercised his free will by choosing to seek the good in reality as it came to him...Bringing good from bad. Why should that be possible? Because of the deep structure of creation. Because of the way God himself ordered the universe. Remember Genesis? 'And God saw that it was good.' What you have in Ronald Reagan is a man who has made contact of the most direct and intimate kind with divine Providence itself. That's why Reagan is so serene."

[Reagan] understood himself not as an angry Jeremiah fighting a doomed rearguard action, but as a man lucky to be living in God's own world...Reagan was able to balance the truths of predestination and free will - not, naturally, at the level of the discursive intellect, where it is probably impossible, but in the process of creative living. Reagan just knew that each life is the object of a personal God's benevolent plan, and this gave him peace of heart; but he also knew that he himself had a role to play and choices to make... 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:20
 
 


 
Feuds

In the 60s it was William F. Buckley vs Gore Vidal. Now it's O'Reilly versus Franken. Draw your own conclusions.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:20
 
August 18, 2003   


 
There's a kind of hush...

It looks as though some sort of blogging exhaustion (aka "blogaustion") has set in. How else to explain the flaccidness of stalwart blogs like Disputations, Flos Carmeli, GospelMinefield and Minute Particulars? Actually, I'm happy for them. Real life is better than bloggin' and I think it a healthy thing, to have periods of down-time. My down times seem infrequent...see blog title for the explanation.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:29
 
 


 
Vacational Thoughts Deux



The vacation is o'er. Back to reality. 

My initial plan was to read the great works of literature. Dante, Shakespeare as well spiritual classics like Karol Wojtyla "Love & Responsibillity". And it started out that way, but by Tuesday afternoon I was becoming unloving and irresponsible. 

I switched gears and went the more traditional way (for me): double the exercise and double the pint intake. I usually drink on Fridays, but extended the largesse. Besides, doubling the exercise without the beer usually just makes me sick. It's a joke around the family compound that I always get a cold or flu on vacations because I overdo it. I don't know why bike rides, long runs, roller-blading would cause that, but I inadvertently found the cure. Drinking two to three beers before bed works amazingly well. I rarely get colds on vacations now! For once the old saying "for medicinal purposes only" rings true. 

But I have a new theory of beer imbibing. I'm not a mean drunk, just a mean 1-beer man. 

Two recent trivial episodes expose this: I got urinated off, quite unnecessarily, by my stepson's death penalty views. This happened with one beer in me. 

I also got peeved a couple months ago at a close relation and didn't slough it off. This also happened with one beer in me.

(Come to think of it, in both episodes the beer in question wasn't a Guinness...that could be the root cause).

Teetotaling is okay. So is having 3.5 beers. But one beer!? Watch out!



*
Remembrance of Bike Rides Past

Fêting the sun-gardens of the mind
poems broke and bled 
unwound on transcendental rides
past the sweet-apple hay-thrown flower-frothing stumps
that appeared on those spark-lit August roadsides.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:32
 
 


 
I seen it happen 'fore my very eyes

The sad tawdry-ization of country music.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 20:44
 
August 17, 2003   


 
Elderly journal entries never die...(they just get posted)

A Fishy Story

  Note: Our corporate office decided to purchase a $10,000 aquarium with 350 fish, one for every cent of earnings we were hoping for. At the unveiling, only two dozen were stocked. Our cubby reporter managed to eavesdrop on the fish themselves:

"What kind of dog and pony show is this Earl?"

"Dunno. Some kind of corporate @ss-ignment. I hear there were supposed to be 350 of us and we were downsized to 20 or so."

"Reeks if you ask me. Food sucks too - at least it's subsidized - it ain't for the cube jockeys who'll be coming to see us."

"Got that right, the poor schmucks. Didja hear that?"

"Yeah, sounds like the main blow-hard is blowin'. Must be close to our cue."

"It'll be good to get this black bunting off. Feels like a funeral. Speaking of funerals, check out at Jonesy - looks like he's assuming water temperature. Hope it ain't catchin'!"

The curtain opens, a jaded crowd half-heartedly applauds. The crowd's applause diminishes the farther afield they are from the epicenter, the CEO.

"Holy mackeral, on with the show this is it!"

"Break a fin buoys!"

"Man those lights are bright."

"Look at all the yuck-yucks out there fishin' for a little time away from their cube farms"

"Swim it boys! Remember what Jose the choreographer says - show some tail and work your caudals!"

And the rest, as they say, is fishst'ry...

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 20:32
 
 


 
Some funny P . G . Wodehouse quotes in today's paper:


"Some policemen are born grafters, some achieve graft and some have graft thrust upon them." —from Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen 

"Chumps always make the best husbands. When you marry, Sally, grab a chump. Tap his forehead first, and if it rings solid, don’t hesitate. All the unhappy marriages come from the husbands having brains. What good are brains to a man? They only unsettle him." — from The Adventures of Sally


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:40
 
 


 
Welcome, welcome

To the soul who came via "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious orthodox" - you've come to the right place. 

And as for the query "Thomas Aquinas Guinness record writing"? If he didn't, he should have. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 01:21
 
 


 
Travel

Geez, who knew a Cleveland tour could be so interesting? I'm a sucker for exploring ethnic enclaves and Amy found a boat-load of them in the land of Cleve:

Michael had found a Byzantine Catholic Church in Parma that he decided we’d go to Assumption vigil Mass (or Dormition, if you’re talking Eastern Christianity, of course). 

The liturgy was in English, and besides us, there were, I think, eight 75 year old Clevelandites in attendance. There were two books – one the regular aid for the liturgy, and the second, a mimeographed booklet for the Dormition. About five or ten minutes into the liturgy, the most astonishing thing happened. Evidently, one of the women was having a hard time figuring out where we were in the mimeographed booklet. Another lady said, loudly, “Father, wait,” and he stopped, his back to us in front of the iconostasis, while the women, in voices that edged up in volume with each exchange because the confused one was also rather deaf, straightened things out. “The first part.” “Where, on the first page?” “No, it’s on the fourth page.” “The fourth part?” “NO, the fourth PAGE!”

And I mean, they were yelling. Like they were haggling over a periogi recipe or something. So much for the organic structure of THAT liturgy…


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:06
 
August 16, 2003   


 
The Uber-Discipline of Priestly Celibacy

Amy had a link to a book review that concluded, "the church will have to decide whether preserving a celibate male clergy is more important than offering the sacraments--it could be that simple".

I commented on Amy's blog that the question might be: when is the best time to lift a discipline - when it comes under attack by society or when it's not as needed (because society recognizes it as a value)? 

I don't know whether or not the requirement should be lifted but I do see less a stubborn Church holding to antiquated celibacy rules than a Church, rather inspiringly, holding onto celibacy rules in an age that hates chastity. She takes her role as a "Sign of Contradiction" very seriously.

Selfishly, I think Humane Vitae and its emphasis on periodic chastity goes over a little better with a celibate priesthood. It's pretty hard to get upset about a lack of sexual license when you look up at the pulpit.

At least in theory.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:03
 
 


 
Churchill anecdote

These sort of historical oddities fascinate me. Winston Churchill idolized his stern, harsh father. When asked who he would like to have dinner with if it could be anyone living or dead he said without hesitation, "My father of course". 

Ten years before his death he mentioned that his father died on July 24th. (I think that was the date). And he said he would die on that same date. 

Fast forward ten years. He lapsted into a coma ten days before his death - on July 24th. 

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on July 4th, but they were conscious of it being the 4th, leaving open some room for auto-suggestion possibilities. But apparently not Churchill.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:00
 
 


 
Top 4 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Apologize for Sucking at Apologetics

1) God converts, not you.

2) Bishop Sheen said, "win an argument, lose a soul". Fortunately, should you inadvertently win an argument, you can pray God not let you be an obstacle to their conversion.

3) John Henry Newman wrote, "Men go by their sympathies, not by argument."

4) See number 1 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 01:07
 
 


 
'Round the Horn

Impressive list of influential books on Amy's blog.

Nice Mark Shea post on the Assumption. He can flat-out write. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:27
 
August 15, 2003   


 
Vacational Thoughts

Context, context, context! And associations. They enrich so much.

I played the “Hooligans” cd, and, like Bone, realized it not only paled before the original experience but in some way could damage future Hooligan experiences. Why? Because to “routinize” anything is to kill it. If I play those songs ad nauseum in the sterile Guinness-less, Bone-less, crowd-less environment of my living room, it seems the actual Hooligan experience might be enervated. Similarly if everyday were St. Patrick’s Day, would any day be St. Patrick’s Day? 

I thought of this as I took a magnificent long bike ride into the country. I’d take such rides before, after work or on a weekend, but there is no comparison between the two. I wondered how to “unfragmentize” daily life such that I could not need vacations so much. That I could truly appreciate the bike ride outside a holiday....A book read in 10 minute intervals is a qualitatively different experience than one read in leisurely 1 or 2 hour clumps.



The six stages of a vacation are:

- Anticipation
- Fulfillment
- Early-onset nostalgia for vacation time past (Wednesday eve)
- Late-onset nostalgia for vacation time past (Friday)
- Grief at the loss (Sunday noon)
- Resignation (Sunday, midnight)

On Wednesday I visited the alma mater. Here is my journal entry: (nice segue, huh?)

In front of a vast expanse of lawn in front of MacCracken Hall, sans shoes, sans shirt. I’m just under the wall that overlooks a broad plain. For the past couple hours I’d been recording Miami with my camera via running and biking. Passed the stone-chisled poem marking site of the poet-in-residence almost a century ago:

Trees of Miami, Beautiful Trees…
Truth, Remembrance, Youth – 
Of These You Brood
In Your Ancient Reveries.
--Percy MacKaye

How fine to have a poet-in-residence! Back then they appreciated poets, knowing they were not just aesthetic endearments but part of the soul of the university. Not to mention their utility.

I remember most of all the tremulous excitement of this place – the electrons and the electricity...College represented, somewhat oxymoronically, the hardest work and most leisure I ever had. 

Out in the heat – maybe 84 – I’m reminded at how climactically-incorrect I am. Sweat pours off my body though I but sit and write and make hardly a movement. Shade seems a poor trade given that I will long for this hour in the sun come December. And so I spend this hour sweating to assuage a future self. God-willing.

MacCracken Hall sits in the middle distance as a kingdom unto herself. The “moat” is this large battlefield in front of me, visitors and trespassers would be spotted at once. A weather-vane tops her cupola as if by whimsy. The fjords and bays and hidden crevices delineate themselves in the cornices and pillars and patios. It’s sad that so much of modern architecture refuses to surprise. Modernism makes no concessions to mystery.

The 4pm sun mottles the landscape. She is so qualitatively different from her noon cousin; a difference I scarcely noted when I took the sun for granted, when it was ubiquitious as water. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:21
 
 


 
Spiritual Directors

Kathy had a nice post on spiritual direction followed up by Fr. Jim:


Spiritual Direction -- Kathy the Carmelite has some very good words on spiritual direction. I'm of the opinion that most good, practicing Catholic people (not all, but most) can get nearly all the spiritual direction they really need in the course of their monthly confession. And in that context, there's no need to go into all the details of what made them sad that month, what they're upset about, what they thought in prayers, etc. Rather, get to the point and confess your sins. Then, if you have a specific question, ask it. That's all that most people need. 

Read some good, spiritual books (including the Bible!!). Have a few sound, spiritual friends off whom you can bounce your ideas and concerns. Say your prayers, try to live right, do good works, and make it to confession regularly for your tune-up. Don't neglect your physical and mental health: many people confuse problems in these two areas with spiritual problems and think a priest can fix them. He usually can't. Another important tip to remember: your baptismal anointing as priest, prophet, and king is a powerful resource: use it. 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:09
 
 


 
Russell Kirk opines on socialist Norman Thomas:

It was to Thomas's credit that he did not profess "Christian socialism"; there was no humbug about him. He knew that Jesus meant to save sinners, not to give commands to the dominations and powers of this earth; Thomas understood that religion is a means for ordering the soul, not for ordering politics and economics. 



 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 19:12
 
August 14, 2003   


 
Past Performance Does Not Guarantee Future Results

I understand the sentiment, "once burned, twice shy", but, as I commented on El Camino Real, given the rise of anti-Semitism in post-Christian Europe, why do some still see the connection between the Gospels and anti-Semitism?

I understand what happened in centuries past, but now Christians seem the most friendly to Jews (certainly compared to Muslims & secularists!). Why wouldn't Jews want this movie to get out and do it's part in possibly making more Christians! Is there anyone friendlier to Israel than American Christian evangelicals? Sixty Minutes did a segment on that very fact last year. 

As a local radio talk show host put it: "Does anyone know a living, breathing soul who hates Jews because they think they killed Christ? They may dislike the Jews because they have money or they feel they have a disproportionate impact given their numbers, but almost nobody does because of a connection to the death of Christ." 

My uninformed opinion is that "the Jews killed Christ" masks the sin of envy at their success. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:59
 
 


 
Excerptables

I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. That is the way Jesus came to reveal God's love. --Henri J.M. Nouwen

We need to be open about our brokenness, our need for a savior. Why do so many who proclaim Jesus as their savior act like they do not need one?--Michael Bud Uzoras

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 22:25
 
August 13, 2003   


 
Heard the following recently and I liked it, so I pass it along to you free of charge: 

God doesn't go to all the trouble to convert us only to mince on the sanctification process.

Some conversions seem to have taken an embarrassing amount of trouble on God's part, such that we may want to, out of gratitude, say in effect, "Thank you - don't worry...I'll take it from here." Not consciously of course, but in attitude (which, I suppose, is everything). But it's not only not supposed to work that way, it doesn't. For best results, see John 15:5. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 22:10
 
 


 
Good Point

Kathy the Carmelite writes:

I thought, AH, but I'm a bad housewife: I don't do my housework. And the thought occurred to me: "BEING A WIFE IS NOT A JOB."

My husband and children think of it as a job, and score it as if it were a job--but the greatest part of the contribution is not tangible in meals cooked or laundry folded. The wife is the heart of the home. 

I like this in part because it suggests a role for the wife & mother, husband and father that is not solely functionary..i.e...just as we don't refer to God as the Creator in the sense that he is only God when he is creating, so too does the head and heart of a household have a special role outside of what they produce.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 06:34
 
 


 
Excellent meditation from Kevin Miller concerning St. Dominic:


Perhaps I find Dominic an attractive figure in part because his personality may have been the opposite of mine in many ways, but in ways that constitute a welcome challenge...No one will ever say of me that I "spoke only with God or about God." Like Dominic, I love the Bible, but it is probably not at the heart of my intellectual life as it was of Dominic's.

Perhaps especially, I value an explicit intellectual life. Now, "Dominic has the reputation of having founded an Order of intellectuals. Though the expression may seem exaggerated, the affirmation is not false. ... St. Thomas Aquinas is in perfect accord with the intellectual ideal of the Founder of the Order he chose to join. ... As for Dominic ... he unequivocally commanded [his brethren] to study the truth of 'sacred doctrine,' all of them, whoever they might be ..." Yet, Bedouelle explains, 

"But the noblest form of Dominic's audacity was his unbounded confidence in God, and consequently, in his brethren. It was this which moved him to send out the least clever of his sons to preach, saying to them, "Go in confidence, for the Lord will give you the gift of divine preaching. He will be with you; you will want for nothing." They went, and everything came out just as he had predicted ... There is a quality of daring discernible in all holiness, consisting in the special confidence displayed when the "gospel of God" is to be preached, so stressed by Paul (1 Th 2:2). Dominic possessed this on all occasions: in the initial organization of the Order; in the assurance that they would receive their daily bread ...; in his unfailing hope for the conversion of the brethren. In all these circumstances he had complete confidence in God's action, a full assurance that all would be achieved by divine will."

Do I, sometimes, trust scholarship more than God?


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 06:13
 
 


 
I'm not sure how much I agree, but I found the following quote fascinating. Seems a bit harsh at first glance but...It was from an "Ask Father" insert in our Byzantine Catholic Church bulliten and describes why the "orans" position (laity praying with their palms up) during the Our Father at Mass is nicht zu gut. First the author (Fr. Perricone) argues that the gesture is strictly a priestly one but then says the following: (which vaguely reminds me of the beauty of the Irish dancers, who, in their restraint - arms always pasted to their sides - dignify the dance):



[It also] conveys a disfigured idea of prayer. What always characterized the Latin Liturgy was a disciplined, ascetic and restrained ritual of adoration. Rubrics ...imposed uniformity so as to produce beauty, while also bridling the personal excesses of piety which can produce distraction (and vanity).

Prayer is a lifting of the mind and heart to God, an exercise of intellect (conversation) and will (love/heart). These profound movements of the soul to God never include emotions, though emotions are inevitably moved as the will moves. But this is prayer's accidental, and entirely secondary, effect....Emotion easily drags man from his properly human acts of communication and love and the saints universally inveigh against it. For instance, St. Cyprian, "When we pray, our words should be calm, modest, disciplined...The same modesty and discipline should characterize our liturgical prayer as well." And St. Teresa, "Those deceive themselves, who believe that union with God consists in ectasies and raptures, and in the enjoyment of Him. For it exists in nothing except the surrender of our will...to the will of God. 

Unsuspecting Catholics will unquestionably believe that the "orans" position enhances prayer's power. The writer Peggy Noonan suggests the orans want "to get more God on them." But this cannot be so, and it will not be long before the faithful equate a prayer's efficacy with the bombast of emotion. By that time they will not be speaking to God any longer, but only to themselves. -- Fr. John Perricone


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 06:10
 
 


 
Corralling Books

Been attempting to lasso my library into shape and finding delightful little surprises. I didn’t know I had Robert Louis Stevenson’s Collected Letters! Or Balzac’s “Droll Stories”! Sure, there's an infinitely small chance I'll actually read either of them but it could happen...besides, having unexplored books is a joy, just as knowing there are unexamined places on the planet and having a God not fully known. 

How can one have books you don’t remember buying? Easy. 

Every spring and summer, the mighty Ohio State University library has the mother of all book sales. Books abound; I once lugged two full encyclopedia sets home for $10 – one for me and one for my sister. Into the book sale womb I crawl and suckle at the great works! I recently found Edwin O'Connor’s ”The Last Hurrah” – a book I would’ve bought “retail”. The hardbacks are $1 and after a certain hour you get a grocery bagfull for $5. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 21:20
 
August 12, 2003   


 
Nice link from Two Sleepy Mommies entitled What Use Literature?:

What it means to be human, [Sophocles] shows us, is that you take responsibility for your actions. In a world of uncertainty and chance, where so much is out of our control, this is the only way we can assert that we are moral creatures with free will, whose doings have meaning, rather than being just part of the mere flux and confusion of brute creation. This is a hard doctrine, but one that has undiminished resonance for us in our own era, whose search for extenuation and victimization diminishes rather than ennobles all it touches. And it is this acceptance of responsibility that makes Oedipus truly a tragic hero, with equal emphasis on both those words.

Now flash forward two millennia to a dramatic world that seems as though it belongs on another planet, the world of Mozart’s magical comic opera Cos&#igrave; Fan Tutte—“They All Do It.” Its libretto, written by Lorenzo da Ponte, who also wrote the libretti for Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro before ending up in New York as Columbia’s first professor of Italian, tells the wonderfully silly story of a bet two handsome young men make with their cynical older friend. Your two girlfriends, the older man says, whom you claim to be paragons of faithfulness, will not stay true to you if put to the test. Pretend to be called off to war, then come back disguised as noble Albanians, woo each other’s girls, and you’ll see. 

Well, you know the result. But when the boys pretend to go off to war, the girls sing such a piercingly sweet lament of loss and farewell (for we are in a realm of literature-plus) that you know their love is real, even though they later fall for the supposed Albanians and so prove—temporarily—unfaithful. And the opera’s point is that, yes, from one point of view, one good-looking boy is much like another; still, from another point of view, the person we choose is unique and special and the only one for us. We are creatures of animal instinct; but as we marshal that indiscriminate instinct into an act of discriminating and binding choice, we transform the natural into the human and create a new realm of feeling and meaning in the process. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 19:25
 
 


 
Undergrads & Teletubbies 

Interesting article giving new meaning to the term "arrested development". 



The pathology of adulthood was strikingly depicted through the lives of Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer in Seinfeld. Disorientation, meaninglessness and stagnation were some of the defining features of adulthood on this programme. The characters revelled in their childish behaviour and continually strived to avoid any of the obligations conventionally associated with adulthood. With Seinfeld, the rejection of adulthood is absolute - it simply has no redeeming features.

The sense of despair that surrounds adult identity helps explain why contemporary culture finds it difficult to draw a line between adulthood and childhood. Childishness is idealised for the simple reason that we despair at the thought of living the alternative. The depreciation of adulthood is a result of the difficulty that our culture has in asserting the ideals usually associated with this stage in people's lives.

Maturity, responsibility and commitment are only feebly affirmed by contemporary culture. 
--Frank Furedi


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:21
 
 


 
Must-read quote of Cardinal Newman's here via Bill of Summa Minutiae... (We trade Newman quotes).

Sort of answers my last post!

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 18:37
 
August 11, 2003   


 
Lay Christian

I'll have to keep an eye on Integrity, who promises to explore the character and mission of the lay person. 

I've long struggled with how to live like a Christian as a layman and how to make a valuable contribution without falling into the pernicious world view that "you are what you produce". 

I fool myself into thinking that the jobs that *really* matter are doctor, lawyer and Indian Chief clergyman. Of course I would add Alicia's midwifery, nurses, stay-at-home mom & many others. They have vocations that scream "vocation". But paper-pushers? They need not apply.

But the reason I say I "fool myself" is for at least two reasons:

1) If I were a doctor, lawyer or clergyman I have the suspicion that I would begin, slowly and inexorably, to feel my job still wasn't of enough value. My general practictioner used to basically sublet any symptoms other than the common cold to other doctors. "You got arm troubles, you go to arm doc. You got eye troubles, you go to eye doc," he'd say. His specialty was apparently knowing who to refer you to. He was on the golf course every day by two o'clock. (Hmmm...sounds pretty good...).

2) All work is valuable. I've read Pope JPII on work, and labor, by virtue of being connected to the human person, is of great value. I realize this. I just sense that back when men were making horseshoes - i.e. they had a craft - they were better off. If you've seen the beginning of the movie Seabiscuit you'll know what I'm talking about. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 18:17
 
 


 
Aquinas Wouldn't Use "Journal"* as a Verb

Tom of Disputations makes a good point about this post: 

I can't picture Thomas Aquinas even keeping a journal. It seems a bit too inward-looking for the Thirteenth Century.

True. Harold Bloom seems to to date the modern uber-inwardness to Shakespeare, particularly the character of Hamlet. Of course, Harold Bloom attributes everything to Shakespeare. 

Tom also says: "No Church that practices infant baptism can expect very much from its members." 

* - Latin equivalent of course. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 18:03
 
 


 
More on Cassian

For me, the nature of grace is the crack-cocaine of theology discussions. Eschatology leaves me bored. From the Catholic Encyclopedia:


Yet Cassian did not himself escape the suspicion of erroneous teaching; he is in fact regarded as the originator of what, since the Middle Ages, has been known as Semipelagianism. Views of this character attributed to him are found in his third and fifth, but especially in his thirteenth, "Conference". Preoccupied as he was with moral questions he exaggerated the rôle of free will by claiming that the initial steps to salvation were in the power of each individual, unaided by grace. The teaching of Cassian on this point was a reaction against what he regarded as the exaggerations of St. Augustine in his treatise "De correptione et gratia" as to the irresistible power of grace and predestination. Cassian saw in the doctrine of St. Augustine an element of fatalism, and while endeavouring to find a via media between the opinions of the great bishop of Hippo and Pelagius, he put forth views which were only less erroneous than those of the heresiarch himself.

He did not deny the doctrine of the Fall; he even admitted the existence and the necessity of an interior grace, which supports the will in resisting temptations and attaining sanctity. But he maintained that after the Fall there still remained in every soul "some seeds of goodness . . . implanted by the kindness of the Creator", which, however, must be "quickened by the assistance of God". Without this assistance "they will not be able to attain an increase of perfection" (Coll., XIII, 12).

Therefore, "we must take care not to refer all the merits of the saints to the Lord in such a way as to ascribe nothing but what is perverse to human nature". We must not hold that "God made man such that he can never will or be capable of what is good, or else he has not granted him a free will, if he has suffered him only to will or be capable of what is evil" (ibid.). The three opposing views have been summed up briefly as follows: St. Augustine regarded man in his natural state as dead, Pelagius as quite sound, Cassian as sick. The error of Cassian was to regard a purely natural act, proceeding from the exercise of free will, as the first step to salvation. In the controversy which, shortly before his death, arose over his teaching, Cassian took no part. His earliest opponent, Prosper of Aquitaine, without naming him, alludes to him with great respect as a man of more than ordinary virtues. Semipelagianism was finally condemned by the Council of Orange in 529. 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:08
 
 


 
Ha!

As I've said before, in today's America you can be an adulterer, a liar, a sodomite or most anything really -- just not a hypocrite. So the lesson is, work to conform your conscience to your actions rather than the other way around. Life is so much easier that way.

--Mike Petrik

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:04
 
 


 
Chat Me Up 

This particular Irish tradition seems more appealing in theory than in 
practice: (My hour hike at Darby Creek would last a half day)...

Allihies turned out to be a great base for hiking the Beara....While walking, I began to realize that the suggested hiking times in my guidebooks would have to be nudged upward. Not because the trail was difficult, but because local etiquette made it impossible - indeed, impolite - to pass any person without stopping for at least a four-minute chat. A simple hello would just not do. The first time I attempted the local pleasantries, encountering an ancient sheep farmer in a tweed coat pockmarked with holes, I froze, wondering what I could possibly say after "Good day." 

But soon I caught on, as he was a pro: "Looks like we're getting a bit of sunshine. Could hold up, but you never know. Yesterday had a bit of fog in the morning. They say the same for the afternoon " 

Irish weather was no longer a nuisance; it was a conversation starter. -- DAISANN MCLANE

Of course, it's easier to be garrulous with strangers when you spend the bulk of your days talking to sheep on a forlorn path in rural Ireland. Reminds me of what an old boss once said - you can tell who is single and who married by how much they talk during the work day (suggesting that singles, having less outlet, talk more). 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:46
 
August 10, 2003   


 
Ham is a truthteller:

Thanks to last week, with universal cloud cover providing a gray cast, I have finally thrown in the towel on Ohio. Central Ohio only gets 75 sunny days a year and that has never bothered me until now.

Now that I am unemployed I actually pay some attention to the weather. Yuma, AZ gets almost 300 sunny days a year. At no additional cost I might add.

I'm trying to fend off vague sense of panic that it’s August 8th already. The fresh signs for the Labor Day Greek Festival look like tomb stones. The rains have come all week and the mosquitos are thick as Welbornian blog posts. The past week doesn’t count as summer; we got gypped. No sinking into the back porch furniture in sun so hot that it melts you into the fabric. Fencing with draculean mosquitos seems to defeat the purpose of summer. Hope the bastards like 0+. 

Completely unrelated, one of the interesting notions about blogging is at what point you (I) don't post my poetry. If you have three visitors a day, you do. I'm right about at the line where there are too many. If blogging is the karaoke of writing, then posting bad poetry might be equivalent to passing gas in a crowded elevator.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:54
 
August 9, 2003   


 
Today's Thought

Husbands need to feel needed even if they don't want to be.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:52
 
 


 
On the monk St. John Cassian*

Tom of Disputations points out that St. Dominic always had two books at his side: the Gospel of St. Matthew and the Conferences of John Cassian. Here is an excerpt from The Conferences:

AND when Christ in His own Person called and addressed Paul, although He might have opened out to him at once the way of perfection, yet He chose rather to direct him to Ananias and commanded him to learn the way of truth from him, saying: "Arise and go into the city and there it shall be told thee what thou oughtest to do." So He sends him to an older man, and thinks good to have him instructed by his teaching rather than His own, lest what might have been rightly done in the case of Paul might set a bad example of self-sufficiency, if each one were to persuade himself that he also ought in like manner to be trained by the government and teaching of God alone rather than by the instruction of the Elders. 

And this self-sufficiency the apostle himself teaches, not only by his letters but by his acts and deeds, ought to be shunned with all possible care, as he says that he went up to Jerusalem solely for this reason; viz., to communicate in a private and informal conference with his co-apostles and those who were before him that Gospel which he preached to the Gentiles, the grace of the Holy Spirit accompanying him with powerful signs and wonders: as he says "And I communicated with them the Gospel which I preach among the Gentiles lest perhaps I had run or should run in vain."

Who then is so self-sufficient and blind as to dare to trust in his own judgment and discretion when the chosen vessel confesses that he had need of conference with his fellow apostles? Whence we clearly see that the Lord does not Himself show the way of perfection to anyone who having the opportunity of learning despises the teaching and training of the Elders, paying no heed to that saying which ought most carefully to be observed: "Ask thy father and he will show it to thee: thine Elders and they will tell thee." --From the Conferences of John Cassian

* - I had originally promoted him to sainthood. Thanks to Chris of Veritas for correcting me.

Update: Turns out Cassian is a saint in the Greek calendar, and honored as a saint in Marseilles....via Tom of Dispuations. As recently as May 21, the Pope referred to "St. John Cassian" in a general audience. Also, the Catechism footnotes note him as a saint, as well. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:18
 
August 8, 2003   


 
Patronal Thoughts

It's a deep, dark, closely-held secret that my wife is more handy at home repairs than me. My role is to stand by and ask, "How about if I just blam it?" - in other words apply brute force to a problem where intelligence and subtley might be more effective (if less satisfying). It's not that I couldn't be better at it*, it's that I don't want to. How something works is infinitely boring compared to why it works, just as how the world began is infinitely less interesting than why it did.

My desire to use force in home repairs occurred to me as I listened to the gentle voices of the Dominicans on their founder's feast day, singing a Latin hymn; as did Thomas Jefferson's advice to "take things always by their smooth handle". 

Our infinitely strong God is a God of breathtaking gentleness. An oxymoron to ponder. "The Force be with you" gets it exactly wrong. 

*Just unlikely. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:03
 
 


 
Improving your Golf Confidence


The easy path to increasing your confidence is to decrease the competition. Instead of playing with guys who shoot in the 80s, I invited two co-workers who struggle to break bread, much less triple digits. 

It took some coaxing to get Hack A. Way (his true name must be protected, for reasons that soon will become obvious) to tee it up at Mentel Memorial (the former Bolton Field). But he’s an intern, so he really had no choice. Hack and his game proved the perfect antidote for my foundering confidence. 

At No. 12, a 161-yard par 3, Hack pulled driver. ’Nuff said. By the end of the first nine holes, Hack had inherited a new nickname, East, which describes his typical ball flight. After 18 holes, his game resembled Einstein’s theory — E=mc2, otherwise known as East=my confidence doubled. 

And his scorecard was marked with more p.u.’s (picked ups) than at a Pepe Le Pew charity scramble. 

The irony of the day was when I began teaching Hack how to hit the ball; kind of like Mo showing Curly how to toss cream pies. 

The second playing partner, Bud Weiser, was another coworker who claimed to break 100 as often as he broke open beers. Considering he made the turn with a 53 in one hand and a six-pack in the other, it’s no wonder his game and vocabulary resulted in a back-nine brew ha-ha. 

"(Bleep) the Little Red Book," was all he had to say about Harvey Penick’s golf instructional classic. 

With Hack hitting it sideways — "It defies the law of physics," he moaned — and Bud belching his way around the track, my confidence soared. --Rob Oller, Columbus Dispatch 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:52
 
 


 
 Happy Feast of St. Dominic

   O lumen

  Light of the Church, Teacher of truth, Rose of patience, Ivory of
  chastity, You freely poured forth the waters of wisdom. 
  Preacher of grace, Unite us with the blessed.
 

And when the prior and the other brothers had solemnly prepared themselves for the commendation of a soul and had gathered about him, Dominic said to the prior and brothers: "Wait a little while." While waiting, the prior said to him: "Father, you know how you leave us desolate and sad. Remember to pray for us to God." The blessed friar Dominic with hands raised to heaven, prayed: "Holy Father, Thou knowest how I have freely remained steadfast in Thy will, and have guarded and kept those whom Thou hast given me. I recommend them to Thee. Keep and guard them." And the witness said that he had heard from the brothers that when they asked him concerning themselves he answered them: "I will be more useful and fruitful to you after death than I was in life." Then, after a short interval, Dominic commanded the prior and brothers: "Begin." And they solemnly began the office for the commendation of a soul. And, as he believes, the brother, Blessed Dominic himself said the office with them, because he moved his lips. While the office was being said, he gave up the ghost. 

-From the canonization process of St. Dominic via Disputations.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:54
 
 


 
Home Runs

More proof from Cacciaguida that Belloc was right when he called Islam a Christian heresy. Via the effervescent Kathy the Carmelite.


*

Marvelous meditation by M. D. Molinié, O.P. (via Mark of Minute Particulars:)

We do not know how to love God because we don't know that God loves us. We don't know that he loves us because we don't love him. And that, in sum, is the vicious circle from which revelation tries to snatch us. . . .

There is no conflict -- but rather perfect continuity -- between the Old Covenant and the New. The education given the sons of Abraham had the sole purpose of plunging them into adoration, and adoration is indispensable to anyone wishing to encounter Jesus Christ. It is necessary to be a Jew -- that is, an adorer, a worshiper -- before one can become a Christian -- a friend and son. It was hard to initiate the best of the Jews into this secret, and it is even more difficult for us to learn it today. God was forced to prune and pummel the hearts of his adorers, polishing them to a high luster, down through a long and animated history in order that they could attain the high, subtle level of spirituality he required to prepare the way for his Son and for the unveiling of trinitarian life.

The extraordinary education given the Jewish people is much more important to us than their ethnic peculiarities. We need this same education, and we have to obtain it by following the same route if we wish to penetrate into the mystery of Christ. The history of the Jewish people remains the one and only model for initiation into the love of God.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:36
 
August 7, 2003   


 
Complaints about Complaining

I feel expertly able to discuss & recuss this particular issue. 

I realize that complaining about complaining might be hypocritical, but... During the past year I bought two books by reknowned spiritual writers Thomas Merton & Henry Nouwen. They are both journals of their last year on earth, and I found them a bit depressing (I ended up returning the Nouwen book). 

Why? Because here they are at the end of life's journey and they still don't seem to have much peace. After all those years Thomas Merton was stuck in the "what do I want to be when I grow up" phase - still struggling with where God wanted him to be and what his vocation really was. I'm not criticizing Merton, Lord knows I have much sympathy for him. I just wish he'd found peace, for him and the hope it'd bring to others. I can't help wondering if he was over-thinking things a bit. (I feel similarly towards Pope Paul VI, a very saintly man for whom peace was also elusive. Of course if you're the Pope, the pressure must be enormous). 

Worse, Merton was very hard on his fellow monks, too. But of course these are journals, which by definition have a lot of vetching and complaining in them (like mine). I imagine St. Paul's journal, if he kept one, might've said something like, "those damn Corinthinians! I'm wasting my time with them...". Still, some saints it's almost impossible to imagine an unkind word from. I can't picture Thomas Aquinas' journal as anything but clear-headed and calm and full of peace.

Henry Nouwen was not harsh on others, just harsh on himself. Lots of self-flaggelation. Perhaps there was peace at the end, I didn't finish the book.

In the Book of Psalms, David often moves from whining and complaining to finish with good ol' fashioned praise by the end, putting the "alms" back in the Psalms. He gives his worries, fears, anxieties, and angers to God and then moves past them. In that sense, it's unfair to look at journals as anything other than the first part of some of the Psalms. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:16
 
 


 
Contra the Utilitarian View of Conversions

An evangelical Christian once told me she needed to pray for this particular person because they could be a great witness. He was a good-looking, outgoing fellow. And I've found myself thinking similar things - like "wow, wouldn't it be great if Bill Mahrer became a Christian!". I would pray for somebody's conversion not for them per se but for what they could do for God. It seems an non-personalist approach, a utilitarian, means-to-an-end type of deal doesn't it? What about praying for the person who - on the outside at least - looks like a poor bet? 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:50
 
August 6, 2003   


 
What about Andrew Sullivan?

Amy describes Ur-blogger Andrew Sullivan as "a life-long Roman Catholic and has some degree of attachment and self-identification wrapped up in - what? I'm not sure - perhaps the externals of Catholicism".

One of the characteristics of Catholicism is that it teaches that creation is good. Beauty is good. Art is good. The body is not something to be ashamed of. So the senses can be used as teaching tools rather than disparaged. The very stones of cathedrals catechize. 

Another great facet of Catholicism is, of course, the sacraments, especially the Eucharist - the true Body & Blood of Christ. Once you go there, everything else pales. 

I've commented in the past that given the hierarchical nature of Catholicism, it makes no more sense for the Catholic to ignore what the Church says on faith and morals as it would for an Amishman to have a microwave oven and a satellite dish. It's an oxymoron. But I realize now that there is so much richness to the Faith that some stay in the Church for different reasons. Maybe the sacraments, the beauty of the church, the peace of a Mass. No wonder there are so many so-called "cafeteria Catholics"! There are many reasons to be attracted to the Church, not just the beauty of its doctrine. So unless we want to hold our services in warehouses, smash all the icons and have a sacrament-less church in a vain search for "purity", there will be Catholics attracted for other reasons. 

I never left the Church even though during stretches in my past I was mortally unfaithful to her teachings. Bottom line is that one can never know when a grievous sinner will change. The Church remains open 24/7. For Andrew Sullivan we can pray. 

I don't mean to minimize the tremendous damage of "Catholic Lite", merely that I can understand it. As George Weigel wrote:


"The answer to the current crisis will not be found in Catholic Lite. It will only be found in a classic Catholicism--a Catholicism with the courage to be countercultural, a Catholicism that has reclaimed the wisdom of the past in order to face the corruption of the present and create a renewed future, a Catholicism that risks the high adventure of fidelity." 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:42
 
 


 
Never play with your template. It is addicting. That's St. Dominic on the right and St. Therese on the left. This design shan't last long. It looks like the saints are goalposts! 

The Comments feature is now on-line again. You could be in the next Video Melioria mailbag feature (if you want - I go by the Steven Riddle email policy). 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:29
 
 


 
Buy or Rent Books?

Here and here.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:56
 
 


 
Inequalities

Whether nature or nuture, most agree that gays don't choose being gay. So I wonder if part of the issue of homosexuality and religion isn't simply a refusal to believe God gives unequal size crosses to people. Because there is no doubt gays are being asked to carry a larger cross than most. In an egalitarian society like ours, that is a difficulty. But God doesn't allow more difficulty than than we can bear. Do we really believe that? Are we willing to accept that life below is a test and that even in the Garden of Eden there was a small cross to bear - that of forsaking the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Are we humble enough to accept free will - i.e. testing - and inequalities of not only of talent but of cross? 

Commentary 

Jesus, the saints and even the pagan philosophers said that illumination is somehow contingent upon virtue. In other words, I may see only to the extent 
that I am good.

With regard to doctrinal statements and our knowledge of them - I think the trick is to have faith that it doesn't matter whether the jury came in 12-0 or 7-5. We either believe the HS is protecting these men (who often seem to have no clue themselves what the truth is) or we don't.

I have no problem with the fact that the culture affects these things. But personally I don't want to be in the vanguard of change unless I am a virtuous person to the point of sanctity. I trust the Pope more than myself or Andrew Sullivan or others.

Every Church age has had its seemingly insurmountable difficulties. Consider the Arian difficulty. We have our problem of having too much knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes - be it Church councils or the modern historical-critical studies of Scripture. Our reward shall be greater for it.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 07:41
 
 


 
George Will made some humorous comments on Imus. When Imus asked what a conservative does on vacation, he replied "we loosen our tie". Says he goes to the beach but doesn't walk on it to avoid sand in his wingtips. 

His vacations are this: he reads books and goes to baseball games while his family does "whatever". Says that "family vacations" is an oxymoron because everyone is in such close proximity...

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 07:13
 
 


 
TLC Behind the Scenes

I saw a guy I used to work with on TV. He was on 'Trading Spaces', a show where families do a home improvement on a room in the others' house. He wrote:

TLC says "life unscripted"? There is nothing unscripted about TV....They have a complete plan and we're coached, persuaded, directed, and sometimes told what to say. In fact, we had to re-do severl scenes since no swearing, drinking etc. I started to fall off a ladder and said of sh** and the director yelled CUT - this is a family show - re do it. 

Good thing he didn't hammer his thumb! 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:00
 
August 5, 2003   


 
I always like reading Richard Brookhiser. Here he is (via the Corner) on gay marriage:

The great question is: Are we bodies, and if so, what effect does that have? Emerson wrote about "the iron wire on which the beads are strung." He thought the iron wire that controlled our destinies was temperament. Is there also a dash of biology in the alloy? Do our bodies give us options, and limit options? Are we discarnate souls, or dying animals? And should the law care?

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:54
 
 


 
Superstition

Steven Riddle had an interesting post the other day about a disturbing strain of Catholicism. 

The formula, said to be a private revelation to Saint Bridget, reminds me of the scapular and the instruction that whoever wears it will avoid hell. Our Dominican father points out that the intention of wearing the scapular must be to clothe yourself in solidarity with the Carmelite order and therefore to follow God. It follows that if you follow God you will be saved. 

I think some of this type of stuff is related to fear.  My guess is that the more one teaches about hell and its dangers and likelihood, the more you will have superstitious "amulet" type deals to dodge hell and give us security.  Since the moderns believe hell to be mostly empty, we are less likely to fall for superstitions.

But to my ears, some of it sounds similar to OT Leviticus type stuff. Even in the NT, there is the story of the woman who was healed after touching Jesus' garment which sounded close to superstition. She could've asked Jesus for healing, although I guess she did - in a way. Perhaps that is what people are indirectly doing with these devotions. 

Regardless, it certainly gives a bad witness.  The Protestant preacher I listen to said he'll never forget the time when he was a child and he went on a car trip with his uncle, a Catholic.  He'd just pulled out of the driveway and went down the street before becoming panicked and agitated.  He raced the car back home.  He ran into the house like a man possessed and came back out to the car.  He had forgotten his St. Christoper medal. Ouch. 

Of course, as Kathy suggested, it's possible this story got embelled, much as the fisherman's fish gets bigger with each re-telling. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:21
 
 


 
Comments

The gracious host of my comments is going off line. So email me at tdsorama at hotmail dot com temporarily (a couple hours or a couple days). 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:47
 
August 4, 2003   


 
Where the Miracles Lay...or is it Lie?

Been pondering Amy's startling post concerning the time she spoke to an author who said that no authentic miracles can take place outside the Catholic Church. She reports:

"A person who'd written a book on apparitions, visions and other miraculous things said that there was no way, no how that a "miracle" of any sort, healing included, that occurred in any context outside the Roman Catholic Church could be authentic. Here was his logic: Miracles occur, in part, to point people to the truth - to reveal the truth to them. Hence, any miracle that occurred in any tradition other than Roman Catholicism must be inauthentic, for if it was authentic, it would mean that God was revealing truth through the means of that other tradition, and since those other traditions aren't the True Church, then God would be pointing people to untruths, or something less than the Full Truth so....such events must either be coincidental, natural or demonic - but no way from God."

My initial reaction was that he or she was a Triumphalist. But then....the test of the truthfulness of the OT prophets was their miracles. Jesus said believe in Him because of the miracles if you must, and so it seems there is a biblical tradition of linking the miraculous with truth. And yet God is not bound by the sacraments, so why would He be bound by miracles? Sacraments are gifts of grace, similar to miracles... But isn't conversion to the truth much more difficult if one has seen a miracle in one's own religious tradition? 

A relative I know clings to the Medjugorje apparations because, I think, it gives her certitude in the faith. My wife and stepson report the miraculous at their charismatic services - why would they flee the miraculous? If God is there in such a palpable way, why would they leave? Whether they are true who can say? I'm not aware of any other religion who certifies miracles rigorously as the Catholic Church does, at least at Lourdes.

Highly regarded author Fr. Thomas Dubay would seem to agree with Amy's triumphalist author: "Miracles are a conclusive sign of the divine. And by miracles I mean the real thing. I do not mean secondhand reports that may issue from an emotion-filled prayer meeting, good as that may be...I refer to happenings which by rigorous scientific probings can have nothing but a supernatural origin."

One reason miracles are important is because reason is not. Conversions usually do not occur because of well-reasoned arguments which is why apologetics only goes so far (and can have an equal and opposite effect). 

John Henry Newman wrote:


"Men go by their sympathies, not by argument...The heart is commonly reached, not through reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us."
Even in science, Max Planck said that important scientific innovations come about not by gradually winning over and converting its opponents, but by its opponents gradually dying out! A new generation arrives who are familiar with the idea from the beginning.

Dubay continues, "Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas quoted Chief Justice Charles Evan Hughes' bit of advice to him, "You must remember...[that] at the constitutional level where we work, 90% of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections."

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:50
 
 


 
Having a blog means never having to have a segue, so from the ridiculous to the sublime:

A Bioethicist's Take on Genesis by Ed Rothstein:

Genesis is punctuated with human attempts to be radically self-sufficient. This is what was so problematic about Babel's tower, Mr. Kass notes; residents aspired "to nothing less than self-re-creation through the arts and crafts, customs and mores of their city." Genesis is deeply suspicious of cities; it is even suspicious of civilization itself. Its heroes are not farmers (cultivators), but shepherds (guides).

The danger, Mr. Kass suggests, is the snake's promise that full knowledge can be had simply by exercise of human faculties. The snake is, he writes, "an embodiment of the separated and beguiling world of autonomous human reason," a voice of "rationalist mischief." 

But civilization cannot be avoided; after Cain and Noah and Babel even God has to acknowledge as much. So, in Mr. Kass's telling, other constraints on hubristic humanity become necessary. In this case it is a covenant, an agreement that God makes with Abraham and his descendants. A covenant binds; it also promises. For Mr. Kass this notion of a transmittable tradition, is crucial; it becomes the central preoccupation of Genesis. 

Ultimately the covenant is so precarious that it must be supplemented by binding law. Nothing mitigates Genesis's skepticism about the nature of humanity. As a religious book Genesis is dark and troubling. Its skepticism, common to many religious traditions, also gives religion a peculiar place in modern societies. It can seem illiberal and threatening: it sees limits on humanity's abilities to perfect itself through the use of reason alone. 

and 

a book review of Catholicism and American Freedom

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:56
 
 


 
Reporting Live from Irishfest



Spent much of Friday and some of Saturday at Dublin, Ohio's "Irishfest", a festival that lasts three days because Irish wakes and medieval feast "days” usually lasted that long. Who am I to dishonor the ancient wisdom that deems three days the right amount of time to celebrate? I'll head back today for more fiddle-playing. 

We heard a wonderfully eclectic batch of bands Friday. Stark Raven began at the stroke of 5pm, while the sun still ruled the sky. By 7 we were listening to a band straight off the boat, five youngish players who looked so Irish you could put them in a movie. Their clothes and mannerisms and facial structures all gave them away long before their accents. The girl singer looked so pluperfectly Irish, at least Irish of a particular variety – mousy, nervous, famine-Irish sort with eyes that mourned even when she smiled. By eight we were listening to a wonderfully-voiced 70+ year old Irish singer who apparently was a hit on the Arthur Godfrey show back in the 50s. My grandmother listened to her records and so we went to listen out of nostalgia. She was a live wire, telling jokes, making audience members in back move forward and having people finish lines from big band music-era hits. 

But the real show didn’t begin until 9pm with the Hooligans. Bone escaped from the noose long enough to join me. All before was loss, like earthly life before the New Jerusalem. They played their usual set of greatest hits, one song topping the other in an orgy of adrenalin-producing standards. By the end, their litany of “God Bless Ireland” and “Give Ireland Back to the Irish” was nearly unbearable for its intensity! I could not sing loud enough or disperse the adrenalin that coursed thru my veins. No wonder wars are fought on alcohol and battle hymns. 

Two working-class elderly gents kept looking back at us and smiling at us. Hooligan enthusiasts, they seemed greatly cheered by the fact that we knew the words to obscure standards and that the "next generation" were as enthused as they were.* We had something to give him – the surety that the younger Hooligan fans would be as rabid as they were and they had something to give to us – the passing of the torch as it were, and the manly-man gift that white collar types hope blue collar types will give them – legitimacy. 

(By the way, the picture you see is of the redoubtable Dominican father I've written about in the past). 

* -It wasn't just us - many more Hooligan-heads backed us just behind us. I heard later we were so loud that at a nearby tent another entertainer pointed our way and said, "I guess we're going to get louder to overcome them." 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:55
 
August 3, 2003   


 
Frugality Tip from my friend Bone

Tired of washing and waxing your car? Unwilling to pay the $2-$7 the local car wash extorts? Unwilling to cough up the fifty cents per month in increased water bills that washing your car at home entails? Then try the new Bone-approved method: 

Hambone bought his mini-van in 2001 and never washed or waxed it. His wife was involved in an accident; she was not at fault*. The body shop not only repaired the vehicle but washed and waxed it! For no additional charge. 

So, this means all you have to do is have someone drive into your car to get a free wash and wax. Enjoy!
________

* - Bone mentioned that his wife occasionally looks over his shoulder and reads this blog, including this post. Have I lately mentioned what a wonderful wife and mother she is? And how I no longer like alcohol but have developed a fondness for lemonade? :)

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:01
 
August 1, 2003   


 
Mark & Amy 

Amy is having a fascinating discussion on personal experience versus the ideal. 

Mark Shea (to another commenter, not Amy): You are speaking as though the burden of proof is on the Tradition and not on the innovator. My question is why should the Church and ordinary human society be compelled to pretend that gay unions constitute marriage simply because some gays feel really really really strongly? The common sense positions of the Tradition: that it's not according to nature, that it has no place in the Tradition of the apostles carry a lot of weight. Why should I accept these tortured pro-gay marriage arguments, based largely on really really really strong feelings. 

Amy (in a post): In past eras, there was no question for most that if your experience did not mesh with Church teaching, too bad. You were wrong and the Church was right, and it was up to you to bring yourself in line.

Of course, over the past couple of centuries, our sense of truth has shifted. And individual's experience is just as important, or even more important than pronouncements from authority, a sensibility exacerbated by our greater awareness of the historical context of authoritative teaching. We know about development of doctrine, we know about battles over doctrinal statements. We may believe that the Holy Spirit is at work in all of this, protecting the Church from error, but we also know Church teachings, as articulated over the centuries, is not unassociated from the cultures in which it is articulated.

So in the present day, it is well nigh impossible for many to simply discount their personal experiences. I am not saying that there is hopeless dissonance - if that were true, then there would be no truth. But given the context in which we are presently working these things out, we have to take into account the value people place on their personal experience as a means to discern truth.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:49
 
 


 
Walker Percy Interview

When is it okay to be called a slut? When the word "book" precedes it. Which is where I got the news of this previously unpublished Walker Percy interview:


In writing novels I often find that it works to turn things upside-down and to set forth a character, say, a woman with severe free-floating anxiety as more interesting, more hopeful, possessing greater possibilities than, say, another perfectly adjusted symptom-free woman. To say this is to say a good deal more than that illness is more interesting than health. 

Q: The work of Gabriel Marcel has had a tremendous impact on your philosophy. For Marcel, hope - real hope - lives only in the face of near impossibility or real despair. Is your hope of this variety? For what do you hope? And how does hope differ from faith? 

WP: I would agree with Marcel that even in the worst of times - for example, in the twentieth century, when man is behaving at his most perverse, apparently intent on self-destructing - there is always an extraordinary trait in man of paradox...

Faith, I would think, is the actual belief that what one hopes for is attainable. A man dying of thirst in the desert may hope for water and have no faith that he will get it. But suppose there is a second man, who stands atop the next dune and makes a signal to him, perhaps with semaphores, signifying two H's and an O. Now the first man is entitled to faith. 

Writers are the "Protestants" of art, with nothing but their Scripto pencils and Blue-Horse tablets; painters are the "Catholics," with concrete intermediaries, clay, paint, models, fruit, landscape, etc. This is why writers drink more and painters live longer. 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:45
 
 


 
Unruly Biology

There is a scene in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in which the protagonist, in his discomfiture over his wife's barrenness, embarrasses her in front of a crowd. He suggests that she perform a superstition in order that she might become fertile. But he also embarrassed himself in a way, for he could rule everything except biology. We, too, want to rule our biology, be it via gay marriage or gender roles or our genetic tendencies.

I don't understand why it matters whether it's "nature" or "nurture" with respect to how someone becomes gay. Is it any less unfair if, perhaps due to a bad or weak father, someone "becomes" gay? Is it the gay person's fault they are gay? Usually not. If it's "nature", does that mean God made them that way and they can do what they will? Some ethnic groups are genetically disposted to alcoholism - does that mean God doesn't mind if they're always drunk? 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:14
 
July 31, 2003   


 
Steven Riddle posted something he suggested might be controversial and I readied myself for outrage but found none. 

It was interesting to read speculation about where McVeigh (or any soul for that matter) was spiritually at the very end of the line. The more sinners that make it into heaven the more - i.e. to put it crudely - bang the Lord got for his buck - and therefore the more cause there is to rejoice. In dying on the Cross he opened the way to Heaven. Every sinner who takes him up on his offer makes his sacrifice more "worth it" in some sense. How can anyone begrudge that? 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:56
 
 


 


Truth be Told

Some Christians trust only their internal gyroscopes...doctrine and dogmas are 'suggestions' or 'theories'. Others trust only the Church, possesing an "I wouldn't belong to a club who would have me as a member" attitude - i.e. I wouldn't believe a truth that occurred only to me.

I was reminded of this when reading this passage by Kenneth Sacks in a book about Ralph W. Emerson: 

"Emerson acknowledged understanding derived from observation of external phenomena, but believed that the more important truths are eternal and intuitive, emerging from within. Ostensibly a struggle between the schools of Locke and Kant, after 2200 years it still pretty much came down to Aristotle versus Plato." 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 06:51
 
 


 
Verweile Doch went on the road



Given the pluperfect sunshine, my normal Sunday read-a-thon (aka verweile doch) was moved out-of-doors. Spent an hour reading “Lord Have Mercy” by Scott Hahn in a fly-ridden horse stable at the quiet county fairgrounds. The aroma of hay and old resin and manure and sight of the fields in the mid-distance made up for the flies. 

Then spent a couple hours at the little industrial lake off Knob Road, surrounded by the shit of Candian geese but also the singular image of the rippled lake, and every time I looked up it rippled still, constant, with the endurance of rock. An image of God’s eternalness. A fisherman sat on the other side of the lake and I fished too - for knowledge. Read Thoreau's "Walden" accompanied by a St. Pauli Girl Dark. 

Love the picture above - two boys exploring (or 'sploring as my brother used to say). You gotta know what's beyond the next hill don't you?

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 18:12
 
July 30, 2003   


 
July, We Hardly Knew Ye

Summers are to me what New Years Eves’ are to partyers – the high time of the year. And that induces a certain pressure to “live up to". 

With July nearly o’er, the question occurs if I’ve lived it fully. But that depends on my definition of “living fully”. If by living I mean getting enough sun and fun and alcohol and sex, then by that definition the Botox-less prostitute standing on West Broad St. “lives” the most. I don’t think so. 

By that definition I probably did well enough anyway. But if by “lived enough” I mean “have I made the world a better place” I can be less pleased. Have I helped others? That should be my definition of not only a successful month but a successful life. I get the definitions wrong too often. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:27
 
 


 
Blog Game

Kevin Cherry writes: "Socrates says in the Gorgias, the necessary preconditions for asking serious questions are candor, intelligence, and good will." 

Given this daunting trifecta of requirements, perhaps this is the future of blogs!

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:39
 
 


 
Brave Man

Bumper sticker sighted: "Bad Cop - No Donut!"

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:39
 
 


 
Russell Kirk writes of his travels and the Shroud:


No strong political power endures forever. In those times, when Roman emperors were bred up in the Province of Africa, no man expected that all this splendor would become the abomination of desolation. Only after Alaric's barbarian Goths had taken Rome did St. Augustine see that Roman might, too, was a vanity that must pass; and he wrote The City of God, about the community of souls that endures when the cities of this world have been given up to fire and sword.

In the amphitheater of Carthage, still to be seen, Saint Perpetua and Saint Felicia (after whom Kirk's third daughter would be named) and many other Christians gave up the ghost...
*
If by the end of the twentieth century the modern age's priests, who are called scientists, should certify that the Shourd [of Turin] appears to have been Jesus' winding sheet and that the image upon it is inexplicable in physical science's laws of matter - why, then an Age of Faith might return.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:55
 
 


 
Peter Kreeft writes that Perfect Fear Casts Out All "Luv"

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:44
 
 


 
Fear makes me stubborn

Beautiful confessional story about Confession: 

I still wanted to chicken out. But I couldn’t leave. I knew He was telling me to be there. So we waited for the priest to arrive. I was on the ball enough to know that I was supposed to be recollecting my sins. That was the easy part. The tough part was trying not to cry and make an even bigger fool of myself. Because at that point I knew I was staying. Fear makes me stubborn. --Lee Ann Morawski

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:41
 
July 29, 2003   


 
Interesting Post from John Miller on The Corner



Frank Buckley of George Mason University replied with a very smart response, drawn from his review of the Jenkins book in Crisis magazine: "When anti-Catholic prejudice is used to advance a left-liberal agenda, we need whistleblowers like Philip Jenkins. Still, one should not get too upset at the liars, scribes, and hypocrites. Apart from senior Democrats or federal court nominees or natural lawyers seeking a job on a law faculty, the chances that anti-Catholic prejudice will closely affect one are exceedingly small. Nor have Catholics suffered for their faith as Jews have, or anything remotely close thereto. There is also an antiwhining ethic among Catholics, unlike their opponents. 'Stop killing us,' yelled the ACT-UP protestors, before they trampled on the Host. Catholics like to think of themselves as tougher than that, and we may therefore take some pride that books such as The New Anti-Catholicism, though useful, are also rare."


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:15
 
 


 
Imposing Order on Chaos

Bill of Summa Minutiae has inspired me to begin categorizing and organzing my books, and I've noticed that I have two (and almost three) eclectic volumes by once obscure author Bruce Feiler. (His latest is a big hit, but I knew him when - sorta like my recognizing the quality of Disputations before many did. I figure if you can't be great, recognizing it is the next best thing.)

But what's interesting is how we're around the same age and we seem to be on the same track interest-wise.

In my mid-20s, I lusted after things ivy.

In my late-20s, early 30s I got interested in country music.

Now I am fixated on matters religious. (Haven't bought this one, although I read parts of it in the library; it seems a bit too ecumenical for my tastes.)

It will be interesting to see where he goes from here. Success tends to taint, so he may not have the same freedom to write about anything now as he did when he was a mid-lister. He may write for the pocketbook instead of from the heart.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:04
 
 


 
Drunken Authors for $200 Alex!

* burp *

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:27
 
July 28, 2003   


 
The Fragility of the Flesh

Sad story of the emotional and spiritual carnage suffered by the nine Western Pennsylvanian miners trapped and rescued last year. One of the rescuers killed himself, apparently in part because of the stress of fame and the bitter anger of many of the miners, who couldn't understand why he was cut in on the movie deal (and receiving $150,000 like they did). The pettiness is surreal, but small towns seem to have this claustrophobic atmosphere that can make small things huge. People in big cities suffer from anomie and isolation, but it's not all sweetness and light in small towns. Many of the miners are now on antidepressants; the one practicing Catholic in the group is still working and seems the most happy. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:00
 
 


 
New country song by Buddy Jewel. If mawkish, I still succumbed to the touching lyrics:



The moment was custom made to order
I was ridin’ with my daughter
On our way back from Monroe
And like children do
She started playing twenty questions
But I never could have guessed one
Would touch me to my soul

She said:

Chorus:
Daddy when we get to heaven
Can I taste the Milky Way
Are we goin' there to visit
Or are we goin’ there to stay
Am I gonna to see my grandpa
Can I have a pair of wings
And do you think that God could use another angel
To help pour out the rain

Well I won't lie, I pulled that car right over
And I sat there on the shoulder, tryin’ to dry my misty eyes
And I whispered, Lord I wanna thank you for my children
Cause your innocence that fills them often takes me by surprise

Well I thought about it later on
And a smile came to my face
And when I tucked her into bed
I got down on my knees and prayed:

Lord when I get to heaven can I taste the Milky Way
I don't want to come to visit cause I'm commin home to stay
And I can't wait to see my family and meet Jesus face to face
And do you think lord you could use just one more angel

To help pour out the rain

Can I help pour out the rain


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:50
 
 


 
More Nostalgia

I think back to my bachelorhood, that long-nursed self-sufficiency out of which grew a sense of heroism such that marriage felt feasible. Only a bachelor, ensconsced in his ritual relaxations, would have the confidence to get married. A married man is humble, understands his limitations, and would not be so bold. No wonder it is single men who marry. 

I remember the Friday nights of yore, captainin’ the third seat from the back at Chubby’s, the rural bar in the sticks that could’ve been in a Billy Ray Thornton film. Walking into the joint was an overpowering experience – the mated fragrance of perfume and cigarette smoke, the pulsating crowd living for this very moment, this Friday night, so alive and alert! I claim my seat and frosted beer and the music climbs the walls and rolls the floors and envelopes my ears and women waft about, appealing to my reptile brain, and I sit contented and receptive, yes *receptive*! – not aggressively pulling or pushing or prodding, but captive, captive as the smoke smoulders and music mellows and women waft and the beers cast their benevolence. Chubbys incarnated the rural bar experience. It was like a novel I could sink into but better because I could observe in real-time and even be a character, to be *in* the novel.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:19
 
 


 
         The '61 Mick

         

I feel a bit nostalgic just now…perhaps it’s the music playing. Let me ‘splain. 

(Is nostalgia a waste of time or does it serve to integrate a past self?)

I’m fortunate enough to have grown up with a best friend who was a second generation German and whose uncle was the leader of a German band orchestra. We grew up listening to them. Lord did I love that Schnitzelbank song! 

   Ist das nicht dein schnitzelbank? (Isn't that your carving bench?)
   Ja, das ist mein schnitzelbank. (Yes, that is my carving bench.)
   Ohhhh, du schoene,
   Ohhhh, du schoene,
   Ohhhh, du schoene,
   Schnit-zel-bank! (Oh, you wonderful carving bench!)

I have their CD playing now and it is sort of a time-warp to hear his uncle sing again.

I remember the time we felt entitled to go through his attic – what we were thinking I can’t imagine though perhaps we were given permission – and were shocked to find a couple Playboy magazines amid the boxes of baseball cards. Funny, I remember wanting the cards more than the magazines (that would soon change). Amid the no-name ‘50s cards was a Mickey Mantle. I still recall the awe (and shock)! I was too young to have ever seen the Mick play so he'd taken on mythical proportions, a sort of modern Babe Ruth who'd once hit a ball over 500 feet. My friend was given the card by his uncle, and for years held onto it. But finally I managed to trade for the card (probably giving up Reds cards for it since the currency of Reds was great). I never traded it back. The card was pure class - the Mick a HOF'r, the Yankees royalty, and the card itself a work of art. Baseball cards teach you lust of ownership.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 00:28
 
July 26, 2003   


 
Now playing...



We're Not The Jet Set 
©Bobby Braddock
(vocals with Iris DeMent)

By a fountain back in Rome I fell in love with you
In a small cafe in Athens You said you loved me too
And it was April in Paris when I first held you close to me
Rome, Georgia, Athens, Texas And Paris, Tennessee

No, we're not the jet set
We're the old Chevro-let set
There's no Riviera 
In Festus, Missouri
And you won't find Onassis 
In Mullinville, Kansas
No, we're not the jet set 
We're the old Chevro-let set
But ain't we got love

No, We're not the jet set
We're the old Chevro-let set
Our steak and martinis
Is draft beer with weenies
Our Bach and Tchaikovsky
Is Haggard and Husky
No, we're not the jet set
We're the old Chevro-let set
But ain't we got love

No, We're not the jet set
We're the old Chevro-let set
The Prine and DeMent set
Ain't the flaming suzette set
Our Bach and Tchaikovsky
Is Haggard and Husky
We're the old Chevro-let set
But ain't we got love


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 23:13
 
July 25, 2003   


 
William F. Buckley discusses Edward Klein's book on the Kennedy's:

He takes the reader back to Joseph Kennedy, the founding father, who chiseled his way to the Court of St. James's as ambassador in 1937. On a trip back to the United States, aboard an ocean liner that was also carrying Israel Jacobson, a poor Lubavitcher rabbi, and six of his yeshiva students, who were fleeing the Nazis, Kennedy complained to the ship's captain about the distracting noises caused by the Jewish passengers praying on the high holy days of Rosh Hashanah, demanding that they be forbidden to continue exercises so distracting to fellow passengers. "Rabbi Jacobson put a curse on Kennedy, damning him and all his male offspring to tragic fates." 

Now it isn't entirely said in just that language, that Klein believes that curse to have taken effect. But he encourages something of the sort as he recounts the macabre fate of the Kennedys. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:23
 
 


 
Wanted to briefly share a meditation from our outgoing Dominican father. He pointed out the fact that the miracle of the loaves and the fishes was a re-creation of the Old Testament manna and quail from heaven. The manna and quail came from the sky, from God - not Moses. Who gave us the loaves and fish? Jesus, showing himself to be God. And rather than feeding his people himself, who did he direct to distribute the food? His apostles. In one miracle there is an analogy of everything. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:57
 
July 24, 2003   


 


Lie not in wait against the home of the just man, ravage not his dwelling place;
For the just man falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble to ruin. 
Rejoice not when your enemy falls, and when he stumbles, let not your heart exult, 
Lest the LORD see it, be displeased with you, and withdraw his wrath from your enemy. [Proverbs 24:15-18]

Tom writes, Although it's usual to interpret falling and stumbling as sinning, the NAB interprets the just man falling seven [i.e., many] times as meaning he "overcomes every misfortune which oppresses him," which I suppose means the just man hopes while the wicked despairs. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:15
 
 


 
Uday, Uday, Uday Gonna Pray For?

The Bell Curve may be the normal distribution, but isn't it surprising that Tom's blog could draw, simultaneously, two outlyers so far from the mass of consensus? I'm speaking of his commenters, which include (arguably, ha) the most polite and least polite persons in St. Blogdom. Interestingly, the presence of the former seemed to impact the style of the latter. 

The thread in question draws much from the seemingly mundane question of whether to pray for Saddam's sons. 

Mr D'Hippolto writes persuasively: The implication in your questions is "there but for the grace of God go I." That not only smacks of fatalism but of a kind of false humility that Catholicism has promoted to keep the faithful pliant and quiet through unnecessary guilt....Consider this as you pray your rosary, and don't criticize yourself for "not doing enough". That kind of self-doubt is the work of Satan, who wants that self-doubt to overwhelm your prayers.

St. Philip Neri's prayer was "Jesus, watch over me always, especially today, or I shall betray you like Judas." 

Really St. Philip? Are saints guilty of pious exaggeration when they proclaim their unworthiness, or do they actually see themselves more accurately than we do ourselves? 

It seems to me the trick is to incarnate the truth that without God I can do nothing without letting that devolve into my doing nothing except pray, i.e. letting God do the heavy lifting. On the other hand, too much confidence in self can lead to disunity and a lack of obedience. Americans, inculcated by democratic values and used to getting their own way, are expert at this. 

The stark differences of the thread writers remind me of what Tom wrote about during the lead up to the Iraq war. To paraphrase, he suggested that perhaps in making up the Body of Christ it is necessary to have both pacifists and JWT's, and for the individual to attempt to become both is not what God desires. 

But isn't it necessary that we strive towards the opposite pole? If St. Augustine was accused of being too hard on the sin of lust, was this not in part a reaction against his own battles? Is the Golden Mean to be achieved by individuals or by the Body of Christ composite? Or is that "nuny'all" - none of my business, but God's? 

Keepers

KTC writes, 
Since when does "prayer" consist of setting aside a block of time to sit down with a list of names, then composing words to say on their behalf?

That's not the ONLY way to pray, O esteemed Dominican! John of the Cross says that a simple thought (not necessarily even a clarified one) to heaven about someone is a form of prayer. John goes on to say, the Holy Spirit does not lie. If you've got a special love, intensity, or "burden" on your heart for something or someone, it's put there by the Lord.

On the other hand, if someone makes a request of you to pray and you are indifferent, just offer up a brief prayer on the spot and be done with it. You need feel no condemnation for not praying every day for that need.

The Lord, in short, puts each of us into a different sphere of influence. 

* 
It just seems odd that our knowledge of the past proscribes God's ability to have acted in the past based on our prayers in the present. And how dare we presume to watch television when there are unprayed-for souls who died in the Tartar invasions? To me, it simply sounds like a soft-hearted theory unsupported by historical Catholic witness.

The question of whether a notoriously evil non-Christian halfway around the world needs my prayers even more than my wife does is kind of interesting. Granting his objective need is greater, that he requires "more" grace to be saved, does it follow in justice that I must pray for him more than, or before, I pray for my wife? I don't think so, for much the same reason that I don't think I have to make sure no one in the world is starving before I feed my wife.-Tom

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:52
 
 


 
Summer of '03

Bone, having more time on his hands these days, is now a regular reader of ye olde blog so I gotta keep the Protestant gibes to a minimum. Maybe just to tease him I'll link a Chesterton quote from a fellow Bellocphiliac. Bad, Tom bad!

(There is not one Google hit on 'Bellocphiliac'. Western civilization is in a steep decline if I have to coin that term.) 

Anyway, here is the news from Lake Woebegon (literally, 'woe be gone'!):
   Bone's wife: "I've never seen you so happy....how will you come down from this if the screenplay doesn't sell?"
   Bone replies, "The saying goes 'we'll always have Paris', well we'll always have the summer of 2003". 

His agent is positively giddy because another producer is interesting in reading his script. You have to admit, he's getting a heckuva ride out of this thing. If my mantra in the past was "I just want to be onto something", Bone is certainly on to something. He added a cameo appearance for us in the screenplay and he's going to insist the studio allow us to act as extras. The latte better be there an hour before shooting and I'll need a body double for any nude scenes - I haven't been running enough lately. Been pavin' too many patios! 

His agent finally read his screenplay and wrote "The first act, about 35 pages, is hilarious, in fact, I'd have to say outstanding. Good work..." He goes on to suggest the rest needs some work but then ends with "Anyway, if this is what you had for me months ago, it would have led me to sign you. I believe it can be successfully toned and then presented to the trade."

Well that's about all the news that is fit to print. The late night golf outing apparently has squandered the good will engendered by my providing material for his second screenplay - his wife is hinting that any Dublin Irishfest activity in August is now verboten. Oh where's the humanity? Bad, Bone, bad! 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:33
 
July 23, 2003   


 
Nancy wrote asking why, in relation to the Christian Bookseller's Association, everything is a knock-off of popular culture. Christian hip-hop music, Christian alternative music, "the ya-ya sisterhood begets the yada-yada prayer group".

I think that Christians are on the defensive now and our faith is weak. The great works of Christendom came when everyone was Christian - not enough good writers and artists are Christian now to get the "synergy" going to create good art.

Kids grow up in nominally Christian homes, so they learn to like hip-hop & nihilistic music before their conversions. And they still like the music, post-conversion, if not the lyrics. Asking kids (or anyone) not to be conformists is asking a lot. 

If serious Christianity became mainstream, we'd have more risk-takers, with better art as a byproduct. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:34
 
 


 
Amy is back from the surreal land of the Christian Bookseller's Association and all I got was this t-shirt reportage. 

   Apparition booklet: $4
   Contemporary Christian music CD: $20
   Getting your picture taken with Tammy Faye? PRICELESS!

Amy's a bad influence on me...I'm now wondering where the "celebrity kitsch" line is, such that pictures taken with them are taken as irony. Probably the cast of Gilligan's Island would qualify but not that of Little House on the Prarie. Eight is Enough but not the Brady Bunch. Your mileage may vary. Hal Lindsey was right on the kitsch buoy for me but blew it with the tropical shirt...a nice suit can put you above the line. 
_ _ _

Amy also mentioned the unholy alliance between marketing and evangelization. I can see it now....(fade to dream sequence): 

Stay tuned for FOX's newest reality television program - "Joe Christian"! 
Joe is a born-again Christian who attempts to convert Wiccans. He will receive $5,000 per convertee...

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:05
 
 


 
The Unbearable Beauty of Summer

Nancy cryptically writes, "Ah, summer. What will I do when the light leaves? (Answer: This year, reach for the medicine chest. 2002 -- never again.)"

Perhaps some Merlot in that medicine chest? Or a full spectrum lamp? 

Every year about this time I succumb to great fatigue. I know because I checked my journal. "July 17, 2002: Unbelievably exhausted. Tired beyond belief..." Foolish, I know. 

As one too susceptible to the sun's charms, I find it hard to sit still. Not when there's running, hiking, biking and home improvement projects to do. And the rest of the time I stare dumbly at my new paver patio and watch the grass grow around it. Heretofore I'd foolishly imagined watching the grass grow was a euphemism for boredom. 

I'd re-graded the area around the patio and the piles of dirt made it look forlorn. I waited impatiently for the grass to grow and lo & behold each day it did: Thicker, lusher and more luxuriant, setting off the white of the patio like the green around an Ostian ruin. Is there a thing as too much beauty? It's nearly impossible to read out there without gazing at the fine Douglas Firs in the distance, birds posing as sentries on the tops, or watching the sheen of the grass at patio's edge.

And backyard home improvements beget more backyard home improvements. I remembered that concrete patch, the place where the previous owner had set a pole for a clothesline. Immediately I've got a small chisel & sledge hammer in hand and two hours later, sweat poring off, I've got a decent sized hole in which to plant....more grass. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:04
 
 


 
Anti-Semitism & the NT

While I'm not sure it's kosher to refer to them as "kibitzers", this article does make a good point about the asininity of calls to re-write the New Testament. 

Guns don't kill people, people do. Similarly, the gospels don't cause anti-Semitism, people with warped notions do. 

Given that Jesus was a Jew, anti-Semitism among Christians should be an oxymoron. To the extent groups try to become defacto "thought police" they will not only fail, but will be counter-produtive because no one likes to be told what to think. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:26
 
 


 
"My Understanding Will Be Forever Shaped..." - K. O'Beirne

On Mel Gibson's The Passion:

"Heartbreaking," Michael Novak told Gibson. "The Exorcist" author William Peter Blatty called the movie "a tremendous depiction of evil." MPAA President Valenti was perhaps the most enthusiastic. "I don't see what the controversy is all about," he told fellow audience members. "This is a compelling piece of art. I just called Kirk Douglas and told him that this is the movie to beat."

From Article in the Washington Post. 

Kate O'Beirne weighs in on the film at The Corner:

The movie is intense and riveting, and the time quickly passes as you are completely drawn into the events in biblical Jerusalem. One can’t imagine grabbing a bucket of popcorn with a super-sized diet coke before settling down to witness this graphic depiction of Christ’s passion and crucifixion. My understanding of Christ’s ordeal will be forever shaped by this remarkable movie. Some will unfairly use Gibson’s labor of love to create a controversy, which is wholly unjustified in the case of this masterful film, but hopefully Gibson realizes that this too shall pass. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:03
 
July 22, 2003   


 
Interesting excerpt from John O'Donohue's Anam Cara:



God is mysterious and reserved. Patience with this reserve is one of the profound recongitions of the Celtic mind. The world of the soul is secret. The secret and the sacred are sisters. When the secret is not respected, the sacred vanishes. Consequently, reflection should not shine too severe or aggressive a light in on the world of the soul. 

There is an unprecedented spiritual hunger in our times. Yet one of the damaging aspects of this hunger is the way it sees everything in such a severe and insistent light. The light of modern consciousness is not gentle or reverent ; it lacks graciousness in the presence of mystery; it wants to unriddle and control the unknown. Modern consciousness is similar to the harsh and brilliant white light of a hospital operating theatre. It is not hospitable to what is reserved and hidden.

It is interesting that the world revelation comes from re-valere, literally 'to veil again'. The world of the soul is glimpsed through the opening of a veil that closes again. There is no direct, permanent or public access to the divine. When the spiritual search is too intense and hungry, the soul stays hidden.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:18
 
 


 
Steven Riddle posts about "Just War" theory and wonders how objective or subjective it is. Clarity is often elusive. Our Dominican friar has said that Church doctrine is a fence on the far edge of the landscape pointing to cliffs that have already been discovered and we can enjoy the diversity of opinion in the field with a certain abandon. But having the freedom to believe wrong things seems a mixed bag.

For example, I'm suspicious when someone says "God told me to do..." XYZ. It is entirely possible that God did tell them to do XYZ, through an inspiration, a calling of the heart. Certainly those impulses to obey are most likely to be true if in line with Church teaching like, "volunteer at the local food bank". 

But private revelation is not always reliable, even among saints. St. Vincent Ferrer felt that God told him that the coming of the Antichrist and the end of the world would come in his generation (the 15th century). He was still a saint, he just believed a wrong thing. For much of his life Pope John the 23rd believed and preached, heretically, that the dead would not see God until after the Last Judgement. Trust in the Church seems to be the best possibility that what we believe is true. 

So what about the "Just War" theory? I don't know, other than it's not prudent to abandon it until the Church does, and the Church has not. The Pope seems to have an intuition towards pacifism...he may be a saint but that doesn't mean what he feels God is telling him is correct. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:15
 
 


 
President Bush's poll numbers are in a free-fall, no doubt due to the mess of post-Iraq. Americans want their casualties all together, not spaced out in ones and twos over a period of months. And the enemy knows that and will use it. Our troops are targets for terrorist attacks and it appears that we simply don't have a military solution to terrorism. Israel, with her strong military, has tried to find a military solution and failed. It's hard not to fault George Bush for not seeing this coming or at least warning us this was going to happen. (Andrew Sullivan says we shouldn't be surprised). 

The former Soviet Union didn't have a terrorist problem because they didn't play by the rules. They were ruthlessless and invoked fear the way pitcher Ryne Duren used to invoke fear in batters because he was near-sighted and he didn't always know where his 95mph fastball was heading. The U.S. telegraphs her moves via CNN, gives ample warning, eschews assassinations, minimizes enemy casualties and is no Ryne Duren. This is a great and wonderful thing. But it also means we will have to adjust our policies accordingly, understanding are capabilities. 

Bottom line, it will be surprising if we can change the hearts and minds of potential terrorists. We are at the beginning of this experiment pitting the realists versus the neo-conservatives. I think we had the right to go into Iraq given Saddam's failure to comply with the conditions ending the first Gulf war, but that doesn't mean it was the prudent thing to do. The jury's still out.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:27
 
 


 
Mr. Dreher 

But the desire to go out had almost vanished since the day I met Julie in an Austin bookstore. I'd assumed I'd want to get in as much carousing as possible before I was lashed to hearth and home. But I was wrong...

Rod Dreher talks about his taming.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:49
 
July 21, 2003   


 
Interesting tidbit/comment on Amy's blog: 

...Rodney Stark over-states Aquinas' influence in medieval and renaissance Christendom. It really wasn't until Luther's revolt cast a shadow on the legacy of Augustine that Aquinas began to rise to the primus inter pares of theologians -- or even higher.  

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:08
 
 


 
I like the sense of strangeness in poetry...In country music this is now the exception given how banality rules (during the '90s country music became surbanized and sanitized and feminized). Sure it's not Milton or Shakespeare, but here's a snippet from “Almost Home” by Craig Morton: 

Then he said,"I was comin' round the barn"
Bout the time he grabbed my arm
When I heard Momma holler son hurry up
I was close enough for my own nose
To smell fresh cobbler on the stove
When I saw daddy loadin' up the truck
Game poles on the tailgate
Barbers blowin' in the wind
Since July of '55
That's as close as I've been. -“Almost Home” – Craig Morton

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:07
 
 


 
             Silly Stuff... a grab bag of disconnected thoughts

Received spam entitled "You Don't IM me anymore", which I guess is this generation's You Don't Bring Me Flowers.

*
Preoccupation (to tune of ‘Anticipation’)

We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway, yay
And I wonder if I'm really with you now
Or just chasin' after some future day

Ref: Preoccupation, Preoccupation
Is makin' me late
Is keepin' me waitin'...

*
Romantic or Not?

Wonder how Annie Denver took it that loving her was a difficult matter.... The first two lines of John Denver's Follow Me: 

It's by far the hardest thing I've ever done /
To be so in love with you so long

Chesterton wrote that for a thing to be entirely romantic it must be irrevocable... Love as an act of the will sounds much more romantic in the marriage vows:

For better or worse, richer for poorer till death due us part

*

Hiking in the woods Saturday, I notice leaves beneath the canopy flat as patens, seeking stray rays of the dappled sun. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:05
 
 


 
Prayer and Writing

Karen Hall of Disordered Affections fame urges we write about what we feel passionate about. Writing with passion removes self-consciousness, makes you forget the very act of writing. The words tumble out in forgetfulness like an orgasm makes you forget the physical act of sex. 

I was reading a passage from Spiritual Combat Revisited and the author mentioned that if you are aware of the act of praying then you are essentially not praying because you are not focused on or conscious of God. The truth of Christ's words, "do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing" marvelously encapsulates this truth. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:34
 
July 20, 2003   


 
  End of an Era

Our charismatic Dominican friar is leaving, going to become pastor at a church in Kentucky. I knew he wouldn’t be with us forever; he occasionally gave intimations of his mortality. He’s very overweight, he once mentioned in a sermon he dreamed he had a heart attack and died. 

I grew to acquire a proprietary feeling towards him. He was always there, available on Wednesday nights for a seeming endless stream of bible studies or RICA classes. I didn’t go as often as I wanted, but it was a comfort to know he was there. He was an inexhaustible resource. He was opinionated and imbued with a different world view. It was from him I first learned the Enlightenment was ill-named. 

Every hot August he’d dress in this eighth century Celtic warrior uniform, holding a spear, playing dress-up at the annual Dublin fest. I loved him for it. The innocence. The love of all things Irish. The strength of his convictions. The sense of honor, humor, chivalry and masculinity, the latter too rare today. 

Every St. Patrick’s Day parade he'd march in that outfit while bagpipes played, “Risin’ of the Moon” and the sight and sound would send chills thru every beating heart. Past midnight, at the Hibernian party, he’d be singing some stirring Irish anthem. He had the aura of celebrity about him. 

I’ll never forget the first time I saw him. I was taking an Irish language course at a local Catholic college. In the middle of class he rushes in in these strange Dominican robes, gigantic rosary at his hip like a Colt on a gunslinger. 

I shamefully admit to be initially off-put by his enormous girth and beard. He sat forward in the tiny chair the classroom afforded and eagerly responded in Irish to queries, showing off I thought. I didn’t know then that in an earlier life he’d graduated Summa Cum Laude with a biology degree and later became a lawyer. His vocation was late in coming, although he's still relatively young, maybe late 40s. 

Ah, but a beacon can’t be hid, and he is a beacon. He gathered a small coterie of followers, perhaps thirty or forty who went to every lecture, every bible study, every Theology on Tap. Many went to RCIA classes year after year just to hear the charismatic preacher and to wait for his fascinating digressions (which came early and often). He made you want to be better, and he felt a sense of responsibility for your improvement such that you would let him down if you weren’t better. The Holy Father triggers similar feelings. 

I bought the good padre's series of tapes on the Catechism, so at least I’ll always have those. Obviously this will be tough on him. Change is difficult and this is a big one. He asks we pray for him. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:42
 
July 19, 2003   


 
Shane McGowan

Watched a sad documentary on the former lead singer of the Pogues, the brilliant lyricist who wrote “Fairytale of New York”: 

It was Christmas Eve babe 
In the drunk tank 
An old man said to me, won't see another one 
And then he sang a song 
The Rare Old Mountain Dew

Toothless and seemingly lobotomized by drink, his wife seemed like a care-giver to a retarded person. She laughed at his incoherent gags and jokes and it was painful to watch, painful because it juxtaposed by interviews when he was young and sane and coherent and full of potential. But at the same time inspiring given his wife's unconditional love. Now he lurches from bar to bar, followed by cameras over period of months. So sad that his lyricism and sublime voice were purchased at the cost of so many brain cells. Art is a jealous god, more taking than giving. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:35
 
 


 
He read of the sacrament of Baptism as if cherishing the box score of a Dodger's World Series win, savoring every detail, one victory won, one gift given, one great advantage, like a sprinter admiring his splendid fast-twitch muscles. Would that he ponder the Giver instead of the Gift.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:31
 
 


 
Mastication is Normal judges books by their covers. Amazing how the internet fills a niche.

I much agree with her on the physical beauty of Steinbeck's "East of Eden":

The centennial editions have beautiful covers that hark back to an earlier era of design, featuring restrained typography and gorgeous woodcuts. I’m not so keen on the title treatment, but that’s quibbling....Even the paperback edition’s pages have those wonderful rough edges of classic hardback editions, for that old-time flavor.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:21
 
July 18, 2003   


 
Vast Auden Excerpt on Poetry & Sexual Love:

Why should so much poetry be written about sexual love and so little about eating--which is just as pleasurable and never lets you down--or about family affection, or about the love of mathematics? Sexual love has, in very acute form, the double impress of nature and spirit and is therefore ideally representative of our human condition. The weak self that desires to be strong is hungry. The lonely self desires to be attached. The spirit desires to be free and unattached, and not at the mercy of natural appetite. It also desires to be important, and that conflicts with its desire for freedom. The weak self wants other things to exist so it may encroach on them, the lonely self wants other existences to hold on to, in extreme cases to be absorbed in. But the spirit wants to be only "I," wants its attachment to other things to be its free choice. Consciousness plays the least part in the pleasure of eating, but it plays some--that's why we recognize gluttony as a sin. But the element of consciousness is so small that gluttony is a staple only of comedy--for example, the story of the man who gives up a beautiful girl to marry an ugly woman who happens to be a good cook. His choice can't involve difficulty, for eating is a comparatively innocent occupation. It also has a generalized object of desire: it doesn't make very much difference what the food is. It is comic to see an individual overcome by something general. Take the man who is conversing very elaborately, very beautifully, on matters of the highest spiritual nature. Suddenly, when no one is looking, he snatches a cake. As in all natural humor, though, the amusement to be derived from this sort of situation, where the individual comes in contact with the universal, is limited. For example, there's a party. Everyone is waiting expectantly for the great writer to put in an appearance. He enters. Instead of producing illuminating conversation, the first thing he does is ask where the bathroom is. At the other extreme, the passion for mathematics, though it can be in selected persons quite as intense as any love affair, is too spiritual. But because mathematicians are still obstinately people, you can still get a mild comic effect from the contrast between their interest and their human situation: for instance, the absent-minded professor who forgets the day of his wedding. 

Sexual love has both nature and spirit and the desire for personal choice. The desire begins with the individual object but ends in bed where things are generalized. I think that there's a good American story to illustrate this point. A man is on a visit to Chicago. He enters a restaurant. Yes, he sees a very beautiful girl in the restaurant, exquisitely beautiful, ravishingly beautiful. Yes, she is friendly, she smiles at him, she talks to him. Yes, her conversation is very witty, she is very agreeable, she is immensely entertaining. They go to the opera. Yes, she is very intelligent, she has a fine appreciation of the beautiful things in life, is keenly aware of values. They go to a night club. Yes, she is a wonderful sport, she enters wholeheartedly into the spirit of things. Later, yes, she responds beautifully to his love-making, is very understanding, says she loves him too. In the taxi, yes, her kisses are thrilling. And after that? After that it was like it is in Cincinnati. You see, any description of the sex act must be pornographic. To an outsider, to a child watching, it looks like eating. There is no realization that individuals are concerned. But they are, even at the last, though the fact may be not be evident. The nature of the act is that we must not remain self-conscious, it is destroyed if we do. Of course, to the child the act is comic, but it is not to the adult because he knows that spirit is involved. Literature makes people fornicating self-conscious and so violates the nature of the experience. 

Why is love so peculiarly the subject of lyric poetry? War and work are dealt with dramatically, not lyrically. You often get people writing poetry when they fall in love who are not moved by their other equally important experiences to do any writing about them. It isn't at all because love poetry has any practical value. No one was ever seduced by a beautiful poem, though a bad one may be effective on occasion. Work and war are less subjective, they can be imposed on one for pragmatic reasons. Of course, subjective reasons, the combative instinct, loving your work, may enter in, but you always advance pragmatic, causal reasons--I have to defend my country, I have to earn my living. Now, these reasons are never advanced in love. The sex drive is enough, and reasons are always inadequate. It is an entirely personal affair, it is my love. It is a matter of necessity, I can't help myself. Duty does not enter into falling in love, though it may later enter into love itself. 

Falling in love is the discovery of what "I exist" means. Now here we see the difference between essence and existence. I can readily imagine other people's feelings by analogy with my own, but I cannot readily imagine other people's existence by analogy with my own. My feelings, desires, etc., can be objects of my knowledge and hence I can imagine what other people feel. My existence cannot become an object of knowledge, and hence while, if I have the necessary histrionic imagination and talent I can act the part of another in such a way that I deceive his best friends, I can never imagine what it would be like to be that other person but must always remain pretending to be him. Falling in love is an intense interest in the existence of another person. That existence is not alone an object of knowledge, nor is it exclusively a goal of desire. That is why people write under these circumstances as they do not at other times. They are confronted with the question, "What is existence?" and with a tension between nature and spirit... 

--W.H. Auden, Lectures on Shakespeare

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:55
 
 


 
Interesting quote from yesterday's Magnificat:



Wisdom begins when we stop wanting to fight the reality of the present as if it should not exist, and start to accept it as it is. 

Our hearts must be filled with hope and they must be impatient, but our hope and impatience must be based on the reality of the now. It is in this reality of the moment that Jesus will speak to us, that the Spirit will give himself to us.

It is only when we learn not to fear, but to trust in God's love, to surrender ourselves, that we learn to relax. God likes relaxed children. He doesn't want us to strive to be perfect. He wants us to be confident that he will give us strength.

--Jean Vanier

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:09
 
 


 
Spectator Cartoon


‘One day, all of these will be Harry Potter books.’


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:57
 
 


 
Taking the "unexplained" out of the phrase "unexplained weight gain"

Bill O'Reilly was recently chastized by a letter-writer who chided him for being unsympathetic to overweight (weight-challenged?) Americans. The writer said that O'Reilly didn't understand the phenomenon of "unexplained weight gain", a phrase I'd never heard before. I always crudely thought that weight was the result of too many calories chasing too little activity. 

The combination of our inactivity, the plentitude of bad food and our tendency to mask negative emotions with food makes weight gain in Americans not surprising at all. (Personally, my favored euphemism for being overweight is "big-boned").

That having been said, I understand that women have a more difficult time losing weight than men do (due to having a lower percentage of muscle, which decreases metabolism) and that metabolisms slow as we age, but I consider a tumor to be an unexplained weight gain rather than something we have at least some control over. From a practical viewpoint, the pains we have to go to be at a 'right weight' are for most people not worth the trouble it takes to stay there, IMHO. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:42
 
 


 
I commented on Irish Elk concerning gay priests:

I echo Andrew Greeley who worries about the cumulative effect of so many gay priests. I don't think it's prudential to be ordaining more priests with homosexual inclinations for awhile. It is similar to the immigration problem - immigrants are a great boon when arriving in managable groups and learning English. Just as there is too much temptation to not learn English when your whole town is Spanish, there's too much temptation not to remain chaste (or to not assent to Church teaching) when your priest friends are all gay.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:36
 
 


 
I Did Not Know That...

"NFP" is derived from the Latin phrase 'haec jocatus sum, per jocum dixi' roughly translated as "male so horny".

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 08:34
 
 


 
Also from Nat'l Review

David Klinghoffer reviewed a book by Rodney Stark examining the role of monotheism on culture titled "For the Glory of God". Stark "writes as a sociologist and historian, not a theologian, and is careful to say nothing about his own faith except that he is not a Catholic." That last remark is presumably to fend off those who think him biased, given the credit he gives to the Church. 

Some excerpts from the review:



."...[Isaac Newton] regarded the universe as a cryptogram set by the Almighty."

A 'cryptogram set by the Almighty.' That is a beautiful thought, rightly depicting science and religion as twinned disciplines, both seeking to find out God's secrets. 
_______________________________

As a final instance of what religion has wrought in the West, Stark gives us an economically rendered history of anti-slavery activism....As an advocate of total abolitionism, the Catholic Church was far ahead of everyone. 'In the thirteenth century, Saint Thomas Aquinas deduced that slavery was a sin, and a series of popes upheld his position, beginining in 1435 and culminating in three major pronouncements against slavery by Pope Paul III in 1537'. 
________________________________

The very last sentence in his book is intriguing: 'In these ways, at least, Western civilization really was God-given.'...the point is that Scripture gives its readers the key to understanding how the world works. In this sense it's a blueprint. If you understand the bible, you understand the world. A corollary is that the civilization that possesses such a key is bound to flourish beyond the advancements of rival cultures. It's no coincidence that Biblical civilization developed as it did. Happily for those other cultures, the key can be duplicated. The fortune enjoyed by Christians and Jews is fully transferable. If Rodney Stark is right, it would follow that introducing the Bible to other peoples is indeed to impart a gift. Whether others are ready to accept the gift is another question.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:17
 
July 17, 2003   


 
From latest Nat'l Review

Excerpt of poem Summer Storm:

There are so many might have beens,
What ifs that won't stay buried,
Other cities, other jobs,
Strangers we might have married.

And memory insists on pining
For places it never went,
As if life would be happier
Just by being different.

--DANA GIOLA

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:05
 
 


 
Good post on the importance of prayer from the Pew Lady

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:02
 
 


 
Mailbag Wednesday

Mailbag xxxxxx, where xxxxx=the day of the week, is one of the most rare Video, Meliora... features because of a dearth of email. But today we find ourselves with some bon mots worth quoting. Mailbag XXXX can now hold its head high next to Fictional Friday, Verweile Doch, Poetry Thursday and other regular features. 

First, a reader named "leila" wrote suggesting I call her "for any pricing needs for home remodeling". Delapuente Irving wrote to say she lost 50 pounds in 3 months. Hawkins_Brittney3 made some unfortunate x-rated comments unsuitable for a family blog. 

Fortunately there were others! 

Bone received his first kinda/sorta fan mail. Kathy the Carmelite writes: I can't WAIT!! Who should play the Bone? Is there a love interest? Somehow I see a Debra Barone-type woman as the foil for all the cheapness.

The Debra Barone character needs to be able to roll her eyes a lot, place hands on hips and say with her actions "I can't believe I married this guy". 

Not sure who might play 'da bone'. Will run it by him! 

*
Another emailer commented on my post about a certain commenter. Preserving his privacy, I'll offer my reply: 

How to debate civily on the 'net is an interesting thing. It's rarely done well because those moved to comment do so usually because they are married to their opinion and consider it and themselves of one substance. A sort of homoousious if you will. And that leads to people defending not the truth but themselves. Not that I'm any better. "I'm no hero, that's understood." - (name that Springsteen song). 

*

Having had eight children, Jeanne of God's country (i.e. Ohio) writes with authority: 



How we raise our kids is how they will perceive God. At the first sign of difficulty, if they don't have experience in how to deal with those things, then they will see God as a cash cow always ready to give what they ask for. Not so. Now we have to have books written about "Why do bad things happen to good people". We never had to ask that question many years ago. Bad things always happened to good people, that was the way of the world then, and they learned faith to pull themselves through. No one thinks they need God now and don't realize they need him more to fill that hole.

If you make a kid pray beyond what he's capable as a kid, it will "spoil" him wrongly. But he needs to pray. Walk that fine line.


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:59
 
July 16, 2003   


 
Update to Bone Update

Talked to Bone and he says that the production company in question is well-known in the industry and has produced and released dozens of movies. They specialize in resurrecting dead franchises (that is they deal in sequels to sequels). Since Bone's script is a sequel, it looks tailor made. They are cheap to produce, they don't bring in a lot of money, but they would give him a foot in the screenwriting door.

He's 35 pages into a second screenplay about an extremely frugal guy. "Autobiographical?", he answered of course! This is going to be a killer script and something I'd like to be writing because it writes itself! I mean he gets to write about the modern corporation - like the time at our old company we had to go into a room and paint ourselves to discover our inner something or other. Or the time we played this "interaction exercise" that involved squatting and allowing someone else to sit on our lap to "build trust" (I'm not sure why having a young woman you don't know sitting on your lap builds trust, but then I'm not paid the big bucks). It's Dilbert on the large screen. Plus he gets to write about his sublime cheapness, like the "urine only" toilet he's infamous for. Finally I figure prominently (too prominently!) in that I'll be one of the characters in it, the staunch Catholic to his devout Protestant. A veritable fertile crescent of material!

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:37
 
 


 
The Bone Saga

Excerpts from his email:

I'm sitting here at 22 minutes after midnight. After 3 whole days of spiritual and legal scrutiny, I signed the agency contract.

Two of my biggest concerns were the fact that 1) he wanted to sign me without reading the script and 2) that he wasn't a signatory member of the Writers Guild.

He answered 1) by saying that he has a head of a production studio that wants to read my script. End of story. Whether he has read it or not, he wants to represent me for the chance that it offers to both of us.

He answered 2) by explaining that the Writers Guild will only except agents that are agents exclusively. Since he is a producer, writer, agent, and manager, the Guild is uncomfortable with conflict of interest issues.

His contract that he offered was a boilerplate agency contract approved by the California State Labor division, and he agreed to a term of 2 instead of 7 years

All in all, he was very frank with me saying, that he would never have considered signing me in a million years, if he didn't have this unique opportunity fall into his lap.

For the life of me, I can't understand why the agent wouldn't invest an hour of his life and read the script. He's probably not a reader - he probably is a salesman and salesmen don't generally make good readers. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:08
 
 


 
Just Put a Rosary in My Hands ...and say one for me 

Fellow Ohioan Jeanne emailed this concerning the following, concerning this tendency of prolonged adolescence:

One reason our culture allowed us to grow up in the past was the sense of responsibility we took on or was placed on us. As we did that, we were brought into the real world of what life is all about. Our culture now tries to keep us perpetually children and it succeeds in many ways. We have sports now which are good to keep the kids occupied because there is no real work to do, but there isn't any quid pro quo in getting anything out of it that helps us grow up. Yes, we learn working with each other and following orders, but our lives don't depend on it. We no longer have a survival society where we have to grup for a living, but an intuitive society which is the opposite. We have to develop other ways of growing up...

I think we tend to grow to the extent it is necessary that they grow. If I play tennis, I'm not getting myself in shape for golf - we only exercise the muscles we need, referring of course to spiritual muscles. 

There's a big picture in the paper today of a funeral of a Cleveland Browns fan, and his recliner & Dawg slippers & TV & pennants were all placed in the "chapel" next to his coffin at the visitation. It depressed me, and I wasn't sure why. Maybe because he never grew up? Or maybe because it trivializes death, the very moment we are most likely to think religious (instead of sporting) thoughts? 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:39
 
July 15, 2003   


 
One of the greatest, and, I think, the most tragic lines in Latin verse is that famous phrase:

"Video meliora, proboque: deteriora sequor."

It is a very epitome of the human story: of one man and of all.

--Hilaire Belloc, Survivals and New Arrivals

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:02
 
 


 
Go Figure Deux

The following vehicles are now listed as "collectible cars" for insurance purposes:

Chevy Vega
AMC Pacer
AMC Gremlin
Chevy Nova
Ford Maverick
Ford Pinto
Plymouth Duster

Can the Yugo be far behind?

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:01
 
 


 
Fictional Tuesday

The smell of rain permeated the air, but then it always did in Ireland. The villagers laughed and said that you have to prepare for all four seasons on any given day but in my experience it was mostly just spring. Rains and mists varied in intensity, but the temperature was moderated by the Atlantic to a steady 50 to 70 degrees. 

The tourists flocked for the Aran sweaters and Waterford Factory but I begged off to experience spring in all her myriad manifestations. I found an obscure bookstore/pub, an unusual combination in Ireland where reading and blarney are rarely mixed. There in the Yeats section lay his latest biographer’s effort. I shook the faerie dust from it and began to read. 

Soon aft a ne’er-do-well arrived appearing flummoxed and breathing threats. 

“Fenian Bastards!” he yelled to no one in particular. 

“Unrepentant Fenian Bastards!” he yelled for emphasis. 

He could tell by my tennis shoes, the blasted neon sign saying “tourist”, that I was American. But nevertheless I asked him where the unrepented Fenians were. 

“What’s the Yank doing here?” he said to no one in particular. 

I quoted Yeats by way of response: 

“Cast a cold eye 
On life, on death. 
Horseman, pass by!” 

& then we sang:

"An seanchrácamas, sparán folamh,
Nó baois an lae, aiféala oíche!"

“Aye, you'll be an Irishmen yet!” 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 14:58
 
 


 
East of Eden Quotes


"Lately I never felt good enough. I always wanted to explain to him that I was not good."

"And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good. Is that it?"

*

"I had to find out my stupidities for myself. These were my stupidities: I thought the good are destroyed while the evil survive and prosper.

'I thought that once an angry and disgusted God poured molten fire from a crucible to destroy or to purify his little handiwork of mud.

I thought I had inherited both the scars of the fire and the impurities which made the fire necessary - all inherited, I thought..."

"Maybe you'll come to know that every man in every generation is refired. Does a craftsman, even in his old age, lose his hunger to make a perfect cup - thin, strong, translucent?" He held his cup to the light. "All impurities burned out and ready for a glorious flux, and for that - more fire. And then either the slag heap, or perhaps what no one in the world ever quite gives up, perfection." He drained his cup and he said loudly, "Cal, listen to me. Can you think that whatever made us - would stop trying?" --John Steinbeck


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:12
 
 


 
Erik Keilholtz & Kathy make good points in discussing the difficulty of getting thru adolescence (on KTC's blog):

The whole thing is a cultural problem. "Teenager" as a state of life is a relatively modern invention. One used to go from childhood to adulthood in a short amount of time. I think that we have lost something by creating a period in which one is expected to basically be a consumer without contributing much to society. Then we wonder why our adults are in such messes! 

Response from KTC
I think the artificially-induced isolation of high school (Eve referred to it in the college context as the "hothouse environment) foments character problems, too.

Kinky Freidman said that a happy childhood is a terrible preparation for life, but it could apply to an extended adolescence also. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:20
 
 


 
David Brooks review of new book on West Point:


Sometime during his stay, he realized that ''of all the young people I'd met, the West Point cadets -- although they were grand, epic complainers -- were the happiest.'' The academy, he found, was ''a place where everyone tried their hardest. A place where everybody -- or at least most people -- looked out for each other. A place where people -- intelligent, talented people -- said honestly that money wasn't what drove them. A place where people spoke openly about their feelings and about trying to make themselves better.'' 


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 19:20
 
July 14, 2003   


 
Belloc's Prediction on the Church


Not a few profound observers (one in especial, a modern French-Jewish convert of the highest intellectual power) have proposed, as a probable tendency or goal to which we were moving, a world in which a small but intense body of the Faith should stand apart in an increasing flood of Paganism. I, for my part (it is but a personal opinion and worth little) believe, upon the whole, a Catholic increase to be the more likely; for, in spite of the time in which I live, I cannot believe that the Human Reason will permanently lose its power. Now the Faith is based upon Reason, and everywhere outside the Faith the decline of Reason is apparent.

But if I be asked what sign we may look for to show that the advance of the Faith is at hand, I would answer by a word the modern world has forgotten: Persecution. When that shall once more be at work it will be morning.

--H. Belloc


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:33
 
 


 
Online Debating

Today Tom of Disputations debates the value or lack thereof, of online debating: 

If, however, one party's primary interest is not to uncover the truth -- showing off, scoring points, annoying others, and feeling like a proud witness of Christ are some other interests that might take precedence -- the debate will be a failure, both for the people directly involved who were seeking the truth and for all those observing the debate. 

Very true, although, as is often the case, the parties who most need this advice are the least likely to take it, or to even think it applies to them. 

Theoretically, folks who annoy could serve as agents of Christian charity, in that we have to love them anyway and how much merit is there in loving a Mother Teresa compared to an abusive commenter? Of course, the annoying person could just as easily become an obstacle by fostering anger and negativity. 

Regardless, when I read a commenter like the one I recently saw on Disputations, one whose mean-spiritedness comes through loud & clear, I tend to have an equal and opposite reaction in the opposite direction to his thesis regardless of what truth he might possess. This isn't good, given that truth should not be judged on the worthiness of the messenger, but I see more clearly how powerful the witness of the messenger is. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 15:21
 
 


 
Depressing link from the NY Times entitled, "Why People Still Starve":



Late one afternoon, during the long melancholia of the hungry months, there was a burst of joyous delirium in Mkulumimba. Children began shouting the word ngumbi, announcing that winged termites were fluttering through the fields. These were not the bigger species of the insect, which can be fried in oil and sold as a delicacy for a good price. Instead, these were the smaller ones, far more wing than torso, which are eaten right away. Suddenly, most everyone was giddily chasing about; villagers were catching ngumbi with their fingers and tossing them onto their tongues, grateful for the unexpected gift of food afloat in the air. 

''There is no way to get used to hunger,'' Adilesi told me once. ''All the time something is moving in your stomach. You feel the emptiness. You feel your intestines moving. They are too empty, and they are searching for something to fill up on.'' -- Barry Bearak


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:15
 
 


 
Another Malcolm Muggeridge remembrance. 

I came to Carthage, where I found myself in the midst of a hissing cauldron of lusts. I had not yet fallen in love, but I was in love with the idea of it, and this feeling that something was missing made me despise myself for not being more anxious to satisfy the need. I began to look around for some object for my love, since I badly wanted to love something. 
—St. Augustine, Confessions 

Diversion is the only thing that consoles us in our wretchedness, and yet diversion is itself the greatest of our miseries. For it is diversion above all that keeps us from seriously taking stock of ourselves and so leads us imperceptibly to perdition. 
—Pascal, Pensées 

In part, [Muggeridge's] criticism [of liberalism] was reminiscent of Tocqueville’s. Unchecked, the impulse to equality became an impulse to homogeneity: the drive for democracy involved a democratic despotism that did not, as Tocqueville put it, so much tyrannize as infantilize. “The welfare state,” Muggeridge observed, “is a kind of zoo which provides its inmates with ease and comfort and unfits them for life in their natural habitat.” 
—Roger Kimball, Malcolm Muggeridge's Journey

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:13
 
 


 
Roberto Pazzi in the NY Times:



Germans and Italians are made to love each other, but never to esteem each other. They are doomed to attract each other without mutual understanding. They fill the empty spaces in the others' mind. A military alliance between two such different peoples, apart from the representation of the two mad dictators in Chaplin's film, is unthinkable. The Germans are the people of Luther, Leibniz, Bach, Goethe, Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, Wagner and Nietzsche. Germany's psyche is tempted, as Thomas Mann warned us in "Doctor Faustus," by a Luciferine dream of the Absolute, an intoxicating dream in which the Self dissolves into the All. 

Italy, however, cradle of Greek and Latin Mediterranean civilization, is still infused with the Euripidean assumption: character is man's destiny. Italians have always been incurable and marvelous individualists, resistant to any dream of the absolute, including the Christian one. Their Catholic faith is but a veil covering the pagan cult of beauty, imagination, youth, glory, etc. We call it success, but really it's the need of an exceptional Self — a Greek hero like Ulysses or a saint like Augustine of Hippo — to distinguish oneself from the crowd.

Just look at our prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. He's a rich man who derides professional politicians and who has made millions of Italians dream of emulating his luck by voting for him. What better expression of the Italian individualistic soul could there be?


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:09
 
 


 
Algorhythm predicts our sex (not amount but gender) based on our writing style. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:06
 
July 13, 2003   


 
From the God gives us what we need, not want we want File:

My wife and I have longed to live on five or ten acres out in the country, far from the madding crowds. This is more a romantic rather than practical vision since we are presumably taking the phrase "the grass is always greener" literally, and Little House on the Prarie exists only imaginatively. Though Horace in Epodes wrote of the happiness of country living, working the ancestral acres "like the pristine race of mortals". Samuel Johnson translated: "Like the first race in Saturn's reigh, /When floods of nectar stained the main.".... "Whom no contracted debts molest / no griping creditors infest". Don't know about that debt part. 

But we did buy a house with a generous backyard that overlooks a field, giving us the illusion of privacy and space. I say "illusion", because our driveway abuts a house with three windows overlooking it, three windows from which our movements are monitored with some precision. And we were gifted with a neighbor who to describe as "nosy" would be a disservice to nosy neighbors everywhere. On the bright side, she is so intimately caring of what goes on in our mundane lives that I can scarcely take offense.  

Is it providential that in craving privacy (in real life, ha) I am given a neighbor who thinks fences make bad neighbors? Surely!

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 12:39
 
 


 
Good News for Polybibliophiliacs 

Ed comments on Bill White's blog: 
TS, studies have not shown any correlation between adultery and polybibliophilia (the clinical term for the love of multiple books at the same time). :-D

In response to my comment:

I'm always reading twelve books at once too, and I remember my wife reading one of those "How to Tell If Your Man Will Commit" type of books, and she said that one of the danger signs is a man who is always reading a dozen books. The author wrote "if he can't commit to a book at a time, how will he commit to one woman?". Fortunately I've been faithful and my wife didn't take the book's advice and dump me for a one-book-at-a-time man.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:07
 
July 12, 2003   


 
Bone, Cal & I went on our annual Golf Outing tonight...

Napled hillocks, shaved close as fairways should, twine themselves around a horizon fading from view as the sun declines. In the middle distance mature trees dot the mercurial fairway, this elusive middle ground. I drive and putt and chip and manage to alternately find and lose this treasured real estate. 

On the green I look back over the great distance spanned; the hillocks assemble themselves like graduates to “Pomp & Circumstance” and I’m non-plussed that “Par” claims I should’ve been here sooner; I listen to the bullfrogs and crickets and birds, all those natural things who have no white-ball’d compulsions and notice no distinction between green and fairway. Come to think of it, most of my drives made little distinction also. 

Yet the compulsion contines, another flag is reached and conquered and another set of white tees bleat their challenge. Coming from a line of golfers, I feel the lack, as if the DNA got mishandled at conception. 

I shrugged it off well enough and we got to relax and catch up at Gatsby’s afterwards. The sign outside triggered memories like an old song. Inside the memories flood; that tiny dance floor where Boris Keymon and I fought to a draw, the clusters of girls and guys clenched or hoping to be clenched, a live band accompanying air thick with second-hand smoke and proliferating pheromones.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 02:18
 
 


 
We Have a Visitor...



Nice of ol' Reg of Disputations' fame to stop by and declare my lack of enthusiasm over the Democratic candidate for the Senate! Does Tom know you're out loose? 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:58
 
July 11, 2003   


 
Ham of Bone Follow-up

Der Bone received a contract from the agent who expressed interest in him. He had someone from the Writer's Guild eyeball it and they said that it has some non-standard things in it, like requiring seven years of servitude from Bone instead of the normal two. So Bone's a lot more wary than he was yesterday and is dampening down expectations. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:45
 
 


 
of Friendship & Imagination

Old Oligarch discourses vastly and discursively on why the night is better than the day...And the night, especially after a drink or two, makes us enthusiastic again that we can hop over the walls of modern anonymity and pragmatism and share souls with someone, which I believe was Plato's definition of true friendship.

Fr. Robert Hugh Benson wrote of friendship (how's that for a segue?): "Now the consciousness of this friendship of Jesus is the very secret of the saints. Ordinary men can live ordinary lives, with little or no open defiance of God, from a hundred second-rate motives. We keep the commandments that we may enter into life; we avoid sin that we may escape hell; we fight against worldliness that we may keep the respect of the world. But no man can advance three paces on the road of perfection unless Jesus Christ walks beside him. It is this, then, that gives distinction to the way of the saint - and that gives him his grotesque in the eyes of the unimaginative world than the ecstasy of the lover?)...

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 16:22
 
 


 
The day of the martyrs' victory dawned...

Read some of Eusebius: The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine last night and it served almost as a lectio divina for me. Deliver me, Oh Lord, from words! (Except your words! :) This book is full of acts. Novelists are constantly admonished to "show, don't tell" and reading the Gospels or reading the history of martyrs serves to show instead of telling me. 

I recall the ebullient moment I chanced upon the stories of Perpetua and Felicity. Sometimes I find them in the corners of my dreams. The day of the martyrs' victory dawned. They marched from their cells into the amphitheater, as if into heaven...
            

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 13:48
 
 


 
Interesting exchange on The Corner

IS FR. RUTLER THERE? [Peter Robinson]
Just about two decades ago Rev. George Rutler received me into the Church of Rome. I adore the man--he's brilliant, witty, and (dare I?) holy--yet since he lives in New York and I in California, it's been ages since we've been in touch. But now? Well, now we're both on the Corner. Up for a question, Father? 

You mention that the Church is reforming itself through "the removal of incompetent bishops." But shouldn't the National Conference of Catholic Bishops also issue an apology? I don't mean an apology for the sexual predators they've been harboring--that apology is already on the books. Shouldn't the bishops apologize for their two major pastoral letters of the nineteen-eighties? One, you'll recall, was on the economy. It was an attack on Reaganomics--at the very time when Reagan's tax cuts, restraint on spending, and program of deregulation were launching the most sustained economic expansion in American history, conferring more benefits on poor Americans than any government program could have begun to match. The second represented an attack on Reagan's nuclear policy, in effect granting the full authority of the Church to the nuclear freeze movement--at the very time when Reagan's policies were putting forces in play that would bring the Cold War to a peaceful end. 

The American bishops exceeded their authority, meddled in the political life of the nation, caused scandal to thousands of devout Catholics (I have a friend who left the Church as a direct result of these pastoral letters)--and got it all wrong. 

RE: IS FATHER RUTLER THERE? [Father George W. Rutler]
I have no objections at all to Peter Robinson's complaints about those defective teaching documents which were exercises in ill-advised clericalism. The pastoral letter on the economy was the work of a committee headed by Archbishop Rembert Weakland. It was thoroughly corrected, though not specifically cited, in the papal encyclical Centesimus Annus. The pastoral letter on nuclear armaments addressed a universe parallel to the real one and, had its indications been followed, there might still be a Soviet Union... I am glad to resume contact with my friend Peter. I hope that nearly two decades ago I instructed him well enough to know that adoration should be given only to God. Humans may only be objects of respect, reverence, and veneration. But if he continues to adore me, I am reluctant to discourage grassroots piety.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 11:25
 
 


 
Bill White asks the vexing question: Dewey or LOC? 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 10:45
 
 


 
From the same quote drawer, this from the Sunday NY Times Magazine: 


"I was in awe of my father's cerebral prowess. He was always intellectually trigger-happy, plus a bit hard of hearing, and the combination was deadly. If anyone happened to mention it was 'coldish' out, my father would starting bellowing Coleridge: 'Down to the sunless sea....'

During the many times he dragged us through Europe, every inscription on every doorway and pillar had to be decoded, whether from French or German, Latin or Greek. At museums he'd give the guards art history lessons. At a Japanese restaurant he'd correct a waiter's pronunciation. Even at a pizza parlor he'd order in extravagant Italian - a bit of Dante's 'Inferno' thrown in for good measure, complete with rococo arm gestures, kissing his fingers and writing in the air. It was always murder taking him anywhere."

A bit of Dante's 'Inferno'! Is that not rich!? Hi-lair-ious. 

I'm incorrigible at attempting to communicate in other languages with strangers. I've tried snippets of Italian on unsuspecting Romans, said "danke schon" when a waitress at the German restaurant in Hermann, Mo. handed me a menu, said "gracias" to the Mexican lady at the local Wendy's, "Dia Duit" to the farmer out standing in his field in Western Ireland, "How!"* to the Cherokee Indian working at a fast food joint just outside an Indian reservation...
* - Disclaimer, did not say "How!". Made that up for humor's sake. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:33
 
 


 
Serving Your Wedding Program Needs

I was going thru my old bin of collected quotes last night and came across these gems. In the unlikely event you need a quotation to put at the bottom of your wedding program, I offer these possibilities. Some are a little more romantical than others, see if you can tell the difference: 


“When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married” – Shakespeare

“…their collected
Hearts wound up with love, like little watch springs.” – Stephen Spender

"I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage.” – Shakespeare

“Hasty marriage seldom proveth well.” – Shakespeare, apparently favoring long engagements

“Love is not love which alters what alterations finds, or bends with the remover to remove.” – Shakespeare (I'll have to show my wife that one)

“Neither me without you nor you without me.” - anon

“I’m getting married in the morning,
Ding! Dong! The bells are gonna chime.
Pull out the stopper;
Let’s have a whopper;
But get me to the church on time!” - Alan J. Lerner

“May God, the best maker of all marriages, combine our hearts in one” – Shakespeare


 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:31
 
 


 
Knock me over... ...a Ham of Bone Update

I was waiting in line for lunch when an old co-worker by the name of Shelly asked me for a Bone update. I reported that he reads the IT positions in the want ads and tries to keep from vomiting - some of them read as though they should say, "must be willing to bend over"; such is life when employers are in the driver seat. Shelly has an innocence about her, a certain wide-eyedness that suggests gullibility. So when I mentioned that Bone was writing another screenplay her strenuous eye-rolling was amusing.  

But just as somebody has to win the lotto somebody's gotta sell a screenplay, else we'd all be reading books instead of going to movies. Bone forwarded me an email today that was shocking - his agent contact, who he'd begged to read his screenplay months ago, suddenly out of the bolt blue sent this:

"Hi -----*, 
How is the progress? I have, believe it or not, located a producer that is interested in [the screenplay]! We should talk about it if you're interested.

Peace,
Jack"

Despite (still) having never read Bone's screenplay, Jack wants to sign him up. He said he has only five clients, so Ham would get much of his time. On the phone he sounded like the cat who ate the canary, like he knew something that Ham didn't but wouldn't tell till Bone signed. Jack said, "Less than 1/10th of 1/10th of 1% of all screenwriters are sitting where you are. A head of a studio wants to read your script." Just not Jack apparently. 

Bone will retain an entertainment lawyer to look over any deals, but apparently there is no cash up front to Jack (i.e. no Nigerian scammer deal where a mere $5,000 will eventually net Bone a major motion picture deal). Jack is a pure "10%'r" - he receives 10% of whatever Ham does. 

The out-of-the-blueness of the offer lends credibility but I'd be curious if anyone has any thoughts on this. Just hit the ol' comment button and follow the destructions. Bone says his second screenplay is much better than his first by the way. 

* -- the agent remembered Bone's name, I just removed it for privacy purposes, lest you figure out who it is and break into his house in the middle of the night and steal his screenplays. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 17:14
 
July 10, 2003   


 
(Update: For what it's worth, I updated the last part of this vast post because I thought it was way too vague and didn't reflect what I was trying to say. Believe it or not, that happens in blogging. ) 

Labels...We've Got Labels...

There is a natural drive toward division, towards distinctiveness. It is painfully exhibited at our "ultra-orthodox" (to use a label) church by women who wear veils in church shunning women who don't. 

Protestants are now more likely to think of themselves as Protestant or non-denominational - in the 1950s, if asked their religion, they would say Baptist or Methodist, never Protestant. Is this bonding because the external threat - once perceived as the Methodists or Episcopalians down the road in the '50s - is now the Muslim or atheist in 2003? Or is it because they are apathetic about theology but passionate about politics? Have we "traded down" by getting worked up over politics instead of theology? 

There are legit times to stand up and be counted, so it's not as easy as just ascribe everything to this drive towards division. David Mills makes this point in his book, "The Saints' Guide to the Real Jesus", where he discusses and recusses how the early Christian saints were so dogmatic about the words - the creed - and why it was so important to them. Now we're willing to just fudge the differences - we all love Jesus right? The early saints were willing to die for seeming slight theological nuances because they loved Christ so much they wanted an accurate picture of Him passed on. "It is hard for us, trained as we have been to think that every conflict is a fight over power and control, to realize that some men may have fought for truth and love." 

Of course, they were saints and we're not and Mills is careful to say we probably shouldn't try this at home. He explains how the early saints were able to be neither cowards nor foolhardy folks taking joy in skewering, something he admits moderns are mostly unable to finesse. 

*
the Changes of the '60s
Fr. Jim Tucker writes: 
Changes [in the '60s] were swift, radical, sometimes self-contradictory, and often very poorly explained. Good changes came side-by-side with terrible ones...Most of these changes were effected by clergy and religious (who themselves didn't exactly understand what was going on), and the laity seems to have followed along with whatever Father and Sister said. It didn't take too long for people to see how arbitrary much of this was and either to ignore the religious "professionals" altogether or to follow them quite selectively...The fruits of the chaos seem fairly obvious to me: rotten for everyone....

All of these things (and the other arrangments that others come up with) are, I think, sincere attempts to make sense out of the confusion that we've had since the 1960s, even though they're not equally successful in conveying the full meaning of Catholicism.

Truth Uber Alles

If there were good changes in the Church as a result of Vatican II, that suggests that something of the truth was imperfectly understood in order for changes to have been good. Given that we believe the Holy Spirit guided the Church to Vatican 2, there is no reason not to think the changes were good, at least the changes that were specified in the documents and not simply bad interpretations. The fact that some changes were necessary suggests that the order and discipline in the Church in the '50s was acquired partially at the cost of "under-nuanced" truth. An example of less-than-nuanced truth might be the popular interpretation of "no salvation outside the church" meaning literally "no salvation outside the visible church". But that doctrine, taken in the 50s way, could possibly have produced better Catholics given that folks may've felt willing to give more of themselves to a church that was the sole means of salvation. A poor motivation compared to the pure desire of following Christ, but we do live in a fallen world. Similarly, Mormons may produce good fruits in the form of lower divorce and abortion rates even though their doctrine is haywire. But we must seek after the truth because it shall set us free.

Update: Came across this fascinating nugget from Simone Weil via Hernan's Spanish blog that seems appropo:
Dostoyevski professed a blasphemy when he said: "If Christ is not the truth, I prefer to be with Christ far from the truth". Christ said: " I am the truth ". Also he said that it was bread, that was drink; but he said: "I am the true bread, the true drink", that is to say, the bread only of the truth, the drink only of the truth. It is necessary to wish him first like truth, and only next like food. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:34
 
 


 
Sandra is the Constitution

Bill O'Reilly has often called Hillary Rodham Clinton the most powerful woman in America. 

Balderdash!

How can it not be Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the "swing voter" on the Court? Jonah Goldberg irreverently opines: 

As Charles Krauthammer and others have noted, Sandy Baby (as John Riggins once dubbed her) is the Constitution of the United States of America. If she wants the text to mean free speech for everybody, then free speech for everybody it is. If she wants it to mean censorship for everybody, well shut my mouth!
....
And, yes, I'm exaggerating when I say Justice O'Connor can single-handedly (single-mindedly) make the American charter mean whatever she wants, but we really do need something dramatic to signal to the public that the Supreme Court is pretty much making stuff up as it goes. 

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:12
 
 


 
Received email from a left-of-center acquaintence who said about Lee Greenwood's song, "It's not just that it's sappy cornball patriotism, it's that it's really become the Red-State Anthem, the way "Lift Ev'ry Voice" is the "black national anthem," etc. So it makes people nuts that way."

Understood. But is there a song embraced by the left that recognizes that the freedom and wealth we enjoy is on the backs of those who died, some in questionable wars but some in noble ones? I know many on the left approve of Guthrie's song, "This Land is Your Land" but I don't think that fits the gratitude bill. In fact, the final verse goes: In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple / Near the relief office - I see my people / And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin' /If this land's still made for you and me.

My sense is that many cry hysterically about freedoms not enjoyed while never paying homage to those who helped us get what we got. Gratitude is ever a hothouse flower...I recognize my own great lack in that dep't, so this is ridiculously hypocritical.

 posted by TS O'Rama @ Comment @ 09:11
 
 


 
From Oprah's Book Club Page on "East of Eden".....

THE NOVEL: Timshel—Man's Ability to Choose Between Good and Evil

The main theme for East of Eden turns on the correct translation of the Hebrew word timshel, translated differently in various versions of the Bible. The word appears in the Cain and Abel story in Genesis, when God discusses sin with Cain. 

What is the true meaning of this passage? 
(a) God promises Cain that he will conquer sin ("thou shalt rule over him")? 
(b) God orders Cain to conquer sin ("Do thou rule over him")? 
(c) God blesses Cain with free will, leaving the choice to him ("Thou mayest rule over him")? 

By studying the passage in the Bible, Adam Trask's Chinese servant, Lee, helps characters Samuel and Adam understand the intended original meaning in this passage from East of Eden:

"…this was the gold from our mining: 'Thou mayest.' The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin (and you can call sin ignorance). The King James translation makes a promise in 'Thou shalt,' meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word timshel—'Thou mayest'—that gives a choice. For if 'Thou mayest'—it is also true that 'Thou mayest not.' That makes a man great and that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win." 

Here is the choice each of the characters in East of Eden face; as does, ultimately, every human being. No matter how deep-rooted the sin, there is always a chance for redemption. In the authoritative Orthodox Jewish translation from The Chumash: The Stone Edition the passage in question reads: "Surely if you improve yourself, you will be forgiven. But if you do not improve yourself, sin rests at the door. Its desire is toward you, yet you can conquer it." 

****
According to the Bible, Cain was the first murderer in history, committing a sin not only against God but against another human being because he felt unloved. After strife between man and God in Eden, here was strife between man and man; the filial bond is stressed time and again in the sixteen Bible verses, Although the Bible gives no reason* for why God chooses Abel's sacrifice over Cain's, Cain's violence is sparked by anger at the rejection of his gift, and jealousy and resentment toward his brother. As a result, not only does he kill, he lies. As punishment, he is condemned to "till the ground" fruitlessly and to be "a restless wanderer." His mark is not a curse, but a protective sign of God's enduring care. --Oprah Book Club

* -- Aquinas writes that God's love is preferential: 

The good that God wills for His creatures, is not the divine essence. Therefore there is no reason why it may not vary in degree. 

Everything loves what is like it, as appears from (Ecclus. 13:19): "Every beast loveth its like." Now the better a thing is, the more like is it to God. Therefore the better things are more loved by God. 

I answer that, It must needs be, according to what has been said before, that God loves more the better things. For it has been shown (2, 3), that God's loving one thing more than another is nothing else than His willing for that thing a greater good: because God's will is the cause of goodness in things; and the reason why some things are better than others, is that God wills for them a greater good. Hence it follows that He loves more the better things. --St. Thomas Aquinas 

Update: Kathy the Carmelite writes, "Actually, God cursed the ground as the result of Adam's