Headline in the Sunday Colorado Springs Gazette
Iguanas Threaten US Virgins
Gee, I didn't know there were any left.
Sunday, January 19, 2003
Friday, January 17, 2003
I have had a lapse in posts due to a suddenly overwhelming work schedule. Being an accountant and it being January, I guess I should have expected it.
I am reading two or three books at the moment, they are:
John Paul II - Fides et Ratio
Willa Cather - Death Comes for the Archbishop (This for variety in my reading and out of love of the Southwest)
Josef Pieper - Leisure the Basis of Culture (Fides et Ratio led me to this, indirectly anyway)
And in the midst of all of this I feel a rant and rave coming on, this on the basis of an article in Newseek on the web. Hope you'll stay tuned.
Paz y bien
I am reading two or three books at the moment, they are:
John Paul II - Fides et Ratio
Willa Cather - Death Comes for the Archbishop (This for variety in my reading and out of love of the Southwest)
Josef Pieper - Leisure the Basis of Culture (Fides et Ratio led me to this, indirectly anyway)
And in the midst of all of this I feel a rant and rave coming on, this on the basis of an article in Newseek on the web. Hope you'll stay tuned.
Paz y bien
Wednesday, January 15, 2003
Circulating on the Internet - With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person that lmost went un-noticed last week. Larry La Prise, the man who wrote "The Hokey Pokey" died peacefully at age 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in... and then the trouble started.
Beauty - For the past week or so there has been a lively discussion taking place on the pages of Flos Carmeli and Disputations on the nature of beauty. I have wanted to take part in this but, to be honest, did not believe I could contribute much, if anything to the discussion. I feel the topic is over my head, at least a bit. I'm sure the rest of this post will prove my point.
I do believe that there is such a thing as objective beauty. Things that bring us joy and uplift us can, I think, be called objectively beautiful. Beauty is joyful, true and enduring whether expressed in words, letters, paint or sculpture. The classics in literature are classics because they have endured, they have had something to say to many generations of men. The Old Masters are enduring, not because they are old but because they have something to tell all people something about themselves. Beauty brings joy because it tells us something true about ourselves. I think we sense this instinctively when we struggle to understand a difficult concept, say a math problem. After we have struggled long and hard and we finally "get-it" we get a little rush of excitement and satisfaction. I think that is one example of the type of joy that truth, and beauty, bring us.
So much of what is called "art" today is not meant to be true, or uplifting but merely shocking. It is created for no other reason and, a fearless prediction, it will not endure.
The problem I have is that there are elements of ourselves that treat beauty subjectively. I know that I certainly experience this. I like rock and roll music and especially the Beatles. But I don't believe that rock and roll can be considered objectively beautiful. Yet, I get some of the same rush listening to it as I get looking at a Rembrandt painting. I don't understand it.
In any case, this is only meant to be my own musings on the nature of beauty.
I do believe that there is such a thing as objective beauty. Things that bring us joy and uplift us can, I think, be called objectively beautiful. Beauty is joyful, true and enduring whether expressed in words, letters, paint or sculpture. The classics in literature are classics because they have endured, they have had something to say to many generations of men. The Old Masters are enduring, not because they are old but because they have something to tell all people something about themselves. Beauty brings joy because it tells us something true about ourselves. I think we sense this instinctively when we struggle to understand a difficult concept, say a math problem. After we have struggled long and hard and we finally "get-it" we get a little rush of excitement and satisfaction. I think that is one example of the type of joy that truth, and beauty, bring us.
So much of what is called "art" today is not meant to be true, or uplifting but merely shocking. It is created for no other reason and, a fearless prediction, it will not endure.
The problem I have is that there are elements of ourselves that treat beauty subjectively. I know that I certainly experience this. I like rock and roll music and especially the Beatles. But I don't believe that rock and roll can be considered objectively beautiful. Yet, I get some of the same rush listening to it as I get looking at a Rembrandt painting. I don't understand it.
In any case, this is only meant to be my own musings on the nature of beauty.
Monday, January 13, 2003
Faith and Reason -- I had lunch with Craig, my neighbor, today. Craig is an evangelical guy who is seriously devoted to Christ but he made a comment that is somewhat uncharacteristic for an evangelical guy to make. He said, “The Bible is not the source of truth.” (I’m quoting him from memory, which, in my case, is not as good as it used to be, so if I’m mistaken, and if he happens to read this, I hope he will correct me.) I guess I’m getting so accustomed to being a Catholic, having converted seven or eight years ago, that the comment didn’t register with me as anything unusual. Of course, he is right, but his comment got me thinking about the topic of some of the original posts on this blogsite – the relationship of truth and faith and the role our intellect plays in connection with our faith. This has brought me face to face with a task I had been deferring for a while but feel I can no longer put off, that is a study of our Holy Father’s encyclical – Fides et Ratio. And, of course, if I study it I’ll have to write about it. So perhaps this will be the first installment of a series on Faith and Reason.
Craig was right when he said the Bible is not the source of truth, God is the source of truth; God, in fact, is truth. The Bible is inspired by God, inerrant and the source of God’s revelation of himself to us, but on it’s own, it is not the source of truth. As John Paul II put it in his introduction to the encyclical Fides et Ratio “God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth” and gave us faith and our ability to reason to discern truth so that we could come know God and thereby come to know ourselves. The full introduction is probably worth repeating here to see the Holy Father’s line of reasoning
“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8-9; 63:2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2).”
According to the Holy Father, we must come to know ourselves so that we can understand the reality of our human situation, so that we can know the world we live in and, again, ultimately come to an intimate knowledge of God himself. We are here to come to a fuller knowledge of the true meaning of our lives and to make that knowledge a part of, and a guide for, everything that we do. Without truth we are simply unable to function properly as human beings.
Now this may seem somewhat ethereal or pie in the sky, and to have nothing to do with live in modern society. But, if what John Paul II is saying is itself true, then this is the most practical activity we could engage in – it would improve our ability to do almost anything else because we would have a fuller understanding of reality. In other words, we would have a better roadmap to follow on the journey of our lives.
Stay tuned for further meditations on Fides et Ratio.
Craig was right when he said the Bible is not the source of truth, God is the source of truth; God, in fact, is truth. The Bible is inspired by God, inerrant and the source of God’s revelation of himself to us, but on it’s own, it is not the source of truth. As John Paul II put it in his introduction to the encyclical Fides et Ratio “God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth” and gave us faith and our ability to reason to discern truth so that we could come know God and thereby come to know ourselves. The full introduction is probably worth repeating here to see the Holy Father’s line of reasoning
“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8-9; 63:2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2).”
According to the Holy Father, we must come to know ourselves so that we can understand the reality of our human situation, so that we can know the world we live in and, again, ultimately come to an intimate knowledge of God himself. We are here to come to a fuller knowledge of the true meaning of our lives and to make that knowledge a part of, and a guide for, everything that we do. Without truth we are simply unable to function properly as human beings.
Now this may seem somewhat ethereal or pie in the sky, and to have nothing to do with live in modern society. But, if what John Paul II is saying is itself true, then this is the most practical activity we could engage in – it would improve our ability to do almost anything else because we would have a fuller understanding of reality. In other words, we would have a better roadmap to follow on the journey of our lives.
Stay tuned for further meditations on Fides et Ratio.
Saturday, January 11, 2003
Thursday, January 09, 2003
Alien Abduction?
Dr. John Mack is a psychiatrist and member of the faculty of the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Mack’s claim to fame is that he has a fairly substantial number of patients whom, he is convinced, have been abducted by aliens. How does he know this? Well, they woke up one morning and their pajamas were on backwards. Now, in my younger, wilder days, I can think of a number of occasions when, upon arriving home late in the evening I probably managed to get my pajamas on backwards, not really caring if they were on front wards, back wards or on at all. I can also state that it is likely that when I woke up the next morning I wasn’t all that sure that it was odd if they happened to be on backwards. Many of you have perhaps shared that experience and might be wondering, then, how one might come to the conclusion that they were the victims of alien abduction if they woke up with their pajamas on back wards.
It seems that, in the course of the alien abduction these folks underwent a fairly thorough medical exam conducted by the aliens. The aliens, upon completing their exam and not being familiar with pajamas screwed up and, in every case, managed to get the PJs on backwards. And this is how we know they were abducted by aliens.
Now, there are a couple of points that might be made about this theory. The first is that, is it not likely that we might question the credibility, at least a little bit, of someone seeking psychiatric care? Another point is that, in every case, the abduction victims describe their captors as possessing vastly superior intelligence to that of the human race. It seems to me that if that were the case, and given that the doctor claims there have been a fairly large number of abductions that have occurred in recent years, that these aliens would eventually be able to figure out how to put on a pair of pajamas and thus conceal the fact of the abduction. In fact, it seems that, the odds being 50-50 of getting the pajamas on right in the first place, just by sheer luck they might get it right and least some of the time. But no, these aliens, who possess the intelligence and equipment and skill to conduct extensive medical exams on human victims, not to mention travel vast distances through outer space to get here, are complete failures at getting their victims pajamas back on them in the proper order. It might be mentioned that, after an academic review by his colleagues at Harvard it was suggested that Dr. Mack get away from the office a bit more often and meet some folks off campus, vary his routine a bit, you know -- get a life.
Be that as it may, there is another interesting point about Dr. Mack and the way he views these abductions. In an interview for the PBS Television show Nova conducted a few years ago, he made the following statement:
“Now, the effect of that is -- or what seems to be going on there, in a number of abductees -- not just people I see, but the ones Budd Hopkins and other people see -- is to produce some kind of new species to bring us together to produce a hybrid species which -- the abductees are sometimes told -- will populate the earth or will be there to carry evolution forward, after the human race has completed what it is now doing, namely the destruction of the earth as a living system. So it's a kind of later form. It's an awkward coming together of a less embodied species than we are, and us, for this evolutionary purpose.
However, that might not be literally true. It might be that that this is a communication to us. That perhaps we need to change our ways. It may not be that these are literally our babies. It may be a kind of expression of images of babies; or it may be that these hybrids we're told is what will have to be. It's a kind of insurance policy if the earth continues to be subjected to the exploitation of its living environment to the point where it can't sustain human and other life as it's now occurring. But it may not be literally what is going to happen. So that's one area.
Another area is the whole visual environmental and informational aspect of this in which people are shown on television screens a huge variety of scenes of environmental destruction of the earth polluted; of a kind of post-apocalyptic scene in which even the spirits have been routed from their environment because they live in the same physical and spiritual environment that we do; and canyons are shown with trees destroyed; pieces of the earth are seen as breaking away -- portions of the East Coast or West Coast.”
This statement strikes me as a bit odd in a number of ways. The most obvious is that it sounds to me like these aliens who are doing the abducting have been reading the New York Times or Washington Post, or some other material written by some of the more liberal elements of the American Democratic Party. But there is another element. It sounds vaguely religious.
Note that what we have here is an, albeit half-baked, leftist version of the creation story – we are clones of aliens who are trying to create a superior human/alien species to populate the earth after the coming environmental apocalypse. (At least he thinks the West Coast might break away, if it hasn’t already.) Also, note the phrase “perhaps we need to change our ways”, sounds like a call to repentance. Now, perhaps I’m the one who needs to see a psychiatrist, but I think all of this goes to prove one or both of two points. The first, made by St. Augustine – our hearts are restless until they rest in God. The second by G. K. Chesterton – Those who do not believe in the Christian God will not believe in nothing, they will believe in anything.
Dr. John Mack is a psychiatrist and member of the faculty of the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Mack’s claim to fame is that he has a fairly substantial number of patients whom, he is convinced, have been abducted by aliens. How does he know this? Well, they woke up one morning and their pajamas were on backwards. Now, in my younger, wilder days, I can think of a number of occasions when, upon arriving home late in the evening I probably managed to get my pajamas on backwards, not really caring if they were on front wards, back wards or on at all. I can also state that it is likely that when I woke up the next morning I wasn’t all that sure that it was odd if they happened to be on backwards. Many of you have perhaps shared that experience and might be wondering, then, how one might come to the conclusion that they were the victims of alien abduction if they woke up with their pajamas on back wards.
It seems that, in the course of the alien abduction these folks underwent a fairly thorough medical exam conducted by the aliens. The aliens, upon completing their exam and not being familiar with pajamas screwed up and, in every case, managed to get the PJs on backwards. And this is how we know they were abducted by aliens.
Now, there are a couple of points that might be made about this theory. The first is that, is it not likely that we might question the credibility, at least a little bit, of someone seeking psychiatric care? Another point is that, in every case, the abduction victims describe their captors as possessing vastly superior intelligence to that of the human race. It seems to me that if that were the case, and given that the doctor claims there have been a fairly large number of abductions that have occurred in recent years, that these aliens would eventually be able to figure out how to put on a pair of pajamas and thus conceal the fact of the abduction. In fact, it seems that, the odds being 50-50 of getting the pajamas on right in the first place, just by sheer luck they might get it right and least some of the time. But no, these aliens, who possess the intelligence and equipment and skill to conduct extensive medical exams on human victims, not to mention travel vast distances through outer space to get here, are complete failures at getting their victims pajamas back on them in the proper order. It might be mentioned that, after an academic review by his colleagues at Harvard it was suggested that Dr. Mack get away from the office a bit more often and meet some folks off campus, vary his routine a bit, you know -- get a life.
Be that as it may, there is another interesting point about Dr. Mack and the way he views these abductions. In an interview for the PBS Television show Nova conducted a few years ago, he made the following statement:
“Now, the effect of that is -- or what seems to be going on there, in a number of abductees -- not just people I see, but the ones Budd Hopkins and other people see -- is to produce some kind of new species to bring us together to produce a hybrid species which -- the abductees are sometimes told -- will populate the earth or will be there to carry evolution forward, after the human race has completed what it is now doing, namely the destruction of the earth as a living system. So it's a kind of later form. It's an awkward coming together of a less embodied species than we are, and us, for this evolutionary purpose.
However, that might not be literally true. It might be that that this is a communication to us. That perhaps we need to change our ways. It may not be that these are literally our babies. It may be a kind of expression of images of babies; or it may be that these hybrids we're told is what will have to be. It's a kind of insurance policy if the earth continues to be subjected to the exploitation of its living environment to the point where it can't sustain human and other life as it's now occurring. But it may not be literally what is going to happen. So that's one area.
Another area is the whole visual environmental and informational aspect of this in which people are shown on television screens a huge variety of scenes of environmental destruction of the earth polluted; of a kind of post-apocalyptic scene in which even the spirits have been routed from their environment because they live in the same physical and spiritual environment that we do; and canyons are shown with trees destroyed; pieces of the earth are seen as breaking away -- portions of the East Coast or West Coast.”
This statement strikes me as a bit odd in a number of ways. The most obvious is that it sounds to me like these aliens who are doing the abducting have been reading the New York Times or Washington Post, or some other material written by some of the more liberal elements of the American Democratic Party. But there is another element. It sounds vaguely religious.
Note that what we have here is an, albeit half-baked, leftist version of the creation story – we are clones of aliens who are trying to create a superior human/alien species to populate the earth after the coming environmental apocalypse. (At least he thinks the West Coast might break away, if it hasn’t already.) Also, note the phrase “perhaps we need to change our ways”, sounds like a call to repentance. Now, perhaps I’m the one who needs to see a psychiatrist, but I think all of this goes to prove one or both of two points. The first, made by St. Augustine – our hearts are restless until they rest in God. The second by G. K. Chesterton – Those who do not believe in the Christian God will not believe in nothing, they will believe in anything.
Monday, January 06, 2003
Conversion
Over the last few days both Steven Riddle at Flos Carmeli and Christopher Cuddy at The Directed Path have been writing about conversion and they made a couple of interesting points that may not be so obvious to a “cradle” Catholic.
The first point that both make, although in very different ways, is that for someone who has undergone the process of coming home to the Church, it is very apparent that the process is and must be very much at the direction of the Holy Spirit. In my own case, coming from a Scots/Calvinist/Presbyterian background, coming into the church is not anything I would have done on my own.
For many years I would have very little to do with “organized” religion (in my experience another one of the great oxymorons of all time, along with Microsoft Works) and it was only by a very strange set of circumstances that I was led to come back to my Presbyterian roots. And then an off hand remark by the pastor of the church I was attending led me, ultimately, to the Catholic Church. The remark was – “If you don’t know what you believe, how do you know you believe it?” I had to know what I believed. After 5 years or more of investigation I realized to my horror that what I believed was likely more consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church than with Presbyterianism.
When I began seriously looking into the Church I still didn’t know for sure that the Church was Christian, if the Pope was the anti-Christ, or what I was getting myself into. But I had to investigate in the name of seeking the Truth. Steven Riddle had a similar experience, his problem was with Mary, and he describes his approach to solving the problem in this way:
"An example from my life: I was raised a Baptist and entered the Catholic Church not fully in tune with all aspects of Catholic Doctrine. Most particularly, I was virulently anti-Marian. Through time, I came to be cooly neutral but said to myself, "This is not enough." So I took up the practice of praying to God to reveal to me what He would have me know of His Mother and I bowed before her statue with an "I salute you, even if I am unsure of you." Through time the "I salute you" became, "I love you." And, of course, the other half of the phrase vanished entirely. I did nothing myself to encourage that love, but now I have an image of Mary in nearly every room of my house and feel that those places lacking Marian presence are somehow empty. I went through the outward motions--obedience, after a fashion--and God did as He would with the interior. We must act on belief and pray for the interior change that makes that out action more real. We are finite--as much as we like to think we know it all, we do not--and there is no shame in not knowing. The shame comes from insisting upon our ignorance and acting upon it in such a way as to cause scandal and division."
In my case I didn’t now if anything the Church taught was true and it was only when I realized that the Church taught that the Bible was the foundation of all that it knew about God could I relax and really begin the journey home. I prayed for understanding since, if the Church taught what was in the Bible, then either I didn’t understand the Bible properly or I didn’t understand the Church’s teaching properly. In either case, the problem was mine, not the Church’s. I had to pray and hope that the Holy Spirit would enlighten my mind and heart if it was God’s will that I come into the Church.
Christopher Cuddy says much the same thing when he writes:
“Conversion is not a matter of “joining a team,” or of adding more names to a roster. It is not a popularity contest. Conversion is about following the Truth of God no matter where it leads or how much it costs. Conversion, as with all things, is ultimately about Christ—for it is only within the fraternal arms of our Lord and Savior that we can ever hope of finding true peace and joy.
Salvation is not a matter of faith in a doctrine—whether it be sola scriptura or the perpetual virginity of Mary. Salvation is about Christ. As St. Paul states in his letter to the Galatians, salvation is a matter of ‘faith working through love.’”
To come to this realization requires the work of the Holy Spirit. It is a work that anyone seriously contemplating the “Journey Home” into the Church finds him or herself allowing to go on in their lives.
The first point that both make, although in very different ways, is that for someone who has undergone the process of coming home to the Church, it is very apparent that the process is and must be very much at the direction of the Holy Spirit. In my own case, coming from a Scots/Calvinist/Presbyterian background, coming into the church is not anything I would have done on my own.
For many years I would have very little to do with “organized” religion (in my experience another one of the great oxymorons of all time, along with Microsoft Works) and it was only by a very strange set of circumstances that I was led to come back to my Presbyterian roots. And then an off hand remark by the pastor of the church I was attending led me, ultimately, to the Catholic Church. The remark was – “If you don’t know what you believe, how do you know you believe it?” I had to know what I believed. After 5 years or more of investigation I realized to my horror that what I believed was likely more consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church than with Presbyterianism.
When I began seriously looking into the Church I still didn’t know for sure that the Church was Christian, if the Pope was the anti-Christ, or what I was getting myself into. But I had to investigate in the name of seeking the Truth. Steven Riddle had a similar experience, his problem was with Mary, and he describes his approach to solving the problem in this way:
"An example from my life: I was raised a Baptist and entered the Catholic Church not fully in tune with all aspects of Catholic Doctrine. Most particularly, I was virulently anti-Marian. Through time, I came to be cooly neutral but said to myself, "This is not enough." So I took up the practice of praying to God to reveal to me what He would have me know of His Mother and I bowed before her statue with an "I salute you, even if I am unsure of you." Through time the "I salute you" became, "I love you." And, of course, the other half of the phrase vanished entirely. I did nothing myself to encourage that love, but now I have an image of Mary in nearly every room of my house and feel that those places lacking Marian presence are somehow empty. I went through the outward motions--obedience, after a fashion--and God did as He would with the interior. We must act on belief and pray for the interior change that makes that out action more real. We are finite--as much as we like to think we know it all, we do not--and there is no shame in not knowing. The shame comes from insisting upon our ignorance and acting upon it in such a way as to cause scandal and division."
In my case I didn’t now if anything the Church taught was true and it was only when I realized that the Church taught that the Bible was the foundation of all that it knew about God could I relax and really begin the journey home. I prayed for understanding since, if the Church taught what was in the Bible, then either I didn’t understand the Bible properly or I didn’t understand the Church’s teaching properly. In either case, the problem was mine, not the Church’s. I had to pray and hope that the Holy Spirit would enlighten my mind and heart if it was God’s will that I come into the Church.
Christopher Cuddy says much the same thing when he writes:
“Conversion is not a matter of “joining a team,” or of adding more names to a roster. It is not a popularity contest. Conversion is about following the Truth of God no matter where it leads or how much it costs. Conversion, as with all things, is ultimately about Christ—for it is only within the fraternal arms of our Lord and Savior that we can ever hope of finding true peace and joy.
Salvation is not a matter of faith in a doctrine—whether it be sola scriptura or the perpetual virginity of Mary. Salvation is about Christ. As St. Paul states in his letter to the Galatians, salvation is a matter of ‘faith working through love.’”
To come to this realization requires the work of the Holy Spirit. It is a work that anyone seriously contemplating the “Journey Home” into the Church finds him or herself allowing to go on in their lives.
Venerable Bede
Before the unavoidable journey there, no one becomes
wiser in thought than him who, by need,
ponders, before his going hence,
what good and evil within his soul,
after his day of death, will be judged.
The Venerable Bede
Conversion
Christopher at The Directed Path has posted about as good an explanation of conversion as I have seen. This is right on the mark and most of us who have found ourselves coming into the Church know what he means.
Conversion is not a matter of “joining a team,” or of adding more names to a roster. It is not a popularity contest. Conversion is about following the Truth of God no matter where it leads or how much it costs. Conversion, as with all things, is ultimately about Christ—for it is only within the fraternal arms of our Lord and Savior that we can ever hope of finding true peace and joy.
Conversion is not a matter of “joining a team,” or of adding more names to a roster. It is not a popularity contest. Conversion is about following the Truth of God no matter where it leads or how much it costs. Conversion, as with all things, is ultimately about Christ—for it is only within the fraternal arms of our Lord and Savior that we can ever hope of finding true peace and joy.
Sunday, January 05, 2003
Media Review
The latest issue of Crisis magazine has a 6 page article on a new book by one Daniel Joseph Goldhagen that rehashes all the old slanders about the role of the Church and especially Pope Pius XII in World War II. The most disturbing thing about the appearance of another book on this topic is that the truth about what Pius XII did to help the Jews is so well documented in the press and statements of Jews made during the war. The Chief Rabbi of Rome was so grateful for Pius XII activities that he converted to Catholicism. Yet there continues to be a steady stream of these books that manage to find a publisher. It seems to me that publishers have at least some responsibility to investigate the truth of claims made in books by prospective authors. It seems to me that it is part of a dangerous trend in our society that we no longer believe it is important to write, speak or seek the truth; the only important thing is what advantage can we gain by pursuing any particular course of action – “What’s in it for me?” Pretty soon we will lose sight of the truth entirely and we won’t be able to rely on any fact published in a book or newspaper, we’ll be forced to investigate facts for ourselves which, in most cases will be difficult or impossible.
I also have mixed feelings at the six-page spread given to this book by Crisis. On the one hand I know it is important to refute these things as forcefully as possible. On the other hand, could Daniel Joseph Goldhagen afford to buy six full-page ads in Crisis magazine? Could this rather extensive coverage have the perverse effect of increasing sales of a slanderous, malicious book by say 5-15 thousand copies? I’ve debated buying a copy of this book myself, just to be better able to understand and refute the lies it contains. But, on further reflection, I won’t.
I also have mixed feelings at the six-page spread given to this book by Crisis. On the one hand I know it is important to refute these things as forcefully as possible. On the other hand, could Daniel Joseph Goldhagen afford to buy six full-page ads in Crisis magazine? Could this rather extensive coverage have the perverse effect of increasing sales of a slanderous, malicious book by say 5-15 thousand copies? I’ve debated buying a copy of this book myself, just to be better able to understand and refute the lies it contains. But, on further reflection, I won’t.
Friday, January 03, 2003
Wednesday, January 01, 2003
The Birds
The Birds- Hillaire Belloc
When Jesus Christ was four years old,
The angels brought him toys of gold,
Which no man had ever bought or sold.
And yet with these He would not play.
He made Him small fowl out of clay,
And blessed them til they flew away,
Tu creasti Domine.
Jesus Christ, thou child so wise,
Bless mine hands and fill my eyes,
And bring my soul to Paradise.
When Jesus Christ was four years old,
The angels brought him toys of gold,
Which no man had ever bought or sold.
And yet with these He would not play.
He made Him small fowl out of clay,
And blessed them til they flew away,
Tu creasti Domine.
Jesus Christ, thou child so wise,
Bless mine hands and fill my eyes,
And bring my soul to Paradise.
Off my chest
I am probably going way out on a limb with this post, and cutting it off behind me, but I guess I’m used to that. In addition, there probably won’t be all that many folks reading this so perhaps I won’t be drawn and quartered and run out of town on a rail. As Abraham Lincoln said of the fellow who was tarred and feathered: “If it weren’t for the honor of the thing, I’d just as soon avoid it.”
Tim Drake wrote a column in the latest edition of the National Catholic Register on the Prayer of Jabez vs. the Rosary. I wish he hadn’t written it. In it he seems to belittle the recent Evangelical phenomenon of the book The Prayer of Jabez, which he refers to as “an almost selfish prayer” and which he goes on to contrast with the Rosary. He almost seems to be saying “Nah, Nah, our prayer is better than your prayer.” It seems to me that this is not really a wise course of action.
First, while it is true that some of the promotion behind the Prayer of Jabez seems to smack of the so-called “health and wealth” doctrine that is not entirely true. There are many sincere evangelicals who are praying that prayer so that God might expand their ministries, in other words, to help them further the spread of the word of God in modern society. How many Catholics pray that they might be more effective evangelicals? Second, it seems to me that we do not do well to judge another’s prayer. It is fair and proper that, if we see difficulties in another’s spiritual life, we point them out in loving charity. But Tim Drake’s column seems much too judgmental. For example, there is this paragraph:
“The popularity of the Prayer of Jabez says a lot about evangelical’s doctrinal vacuum. On the one hand, they attack Catholics for what they describe as their ‘vain repetitious’ praying of the Hail Mary – a prayer taken from Scripture which reflects upon Christ. Then, some take an obscure prayer from the Old Testament, seemingly disconnected from Christ, and encourage people to pray it daily for material wealth.”
Are we going to say that one scriptural prayer is better than another? Is one part of scripture more valuable than another? It seems to me that Dei Verbum is quite clear when it says that the New Testament is hidden in the Old and the Old is made manifest in the New. You can’t have one without the other. Also, as pointed out above the prayer is not solely for material wealth. The prayer states that Jabez asked for a blessing and God granted his request – God did not reject this prayer, should we?
My point in all of this is that I wish Christians would stop picking on other Christians. I agree with Archbishop Fulton Sheen when he said that, as Catholics, our argument is not with our Protestant brothers and sisters. We share a common, and increasingly powerful enemy in our modern, relativistic, scientific materialistic and pagan society. Now, more than ever we need to try to find common ground with our evangelical brothers and sisters in Christ, we need the Christian unity that Christ himself prayed for. Many evangelical folks are sincere, Christ loving people that are living devoted and holy lives and seeking the truth of the faith. They do not deserve to be belittled and, in fact, would bring a great deal of new life to the Church if they could be brought to understand it’s truth and beauty.
I would suggest a different approach to our evangelical friends who have discovered the prayer of Jabez as an effective scripture based prayer. I would say to them, “Could I suggest another prayer you might find even more useful? The one I am thinking of is steeped in Christian tradition and in scripture and I have found that it has brought me immeasurably closer to Christ, perhaps you’d like to give it a try?”
Instead of belittling their devotion it might behoove us to share ours with them, explaining the value and peace it has brought us. This is what it means to be a “witness” or, to put it differently, to be a martyr.
Tim Drake wrote a column in the latest edition of the National Catholic Register on the Prayer of Jabez vs. the Rosary. I wish he hadn’t written it. In it he seems to belittle the recent Evangelical phenomenon of the book The Prayer of Jabez, which he refers to as “an almost selfish prayer” and which he goes on to contrast with the Rosary. He almost seems to be saying “Nah, Nah, our prayer is better than your prayer.” It seems to me that this is not really a wise course of action.
First, while it is true that some of the promotion behind the Prayer of Jabez seems to smack of the so-called “health and wealth” doctrine that is not entirely true. There are many sincere evangelicals who are praying that prayer so that God might expand their ministries, in other words, to help them further the spread of the word of God in modern society. How many Catholics pray that they might be more effective evangelicals? Second, it seems to me that we do not do well to judge another’s prayer. It is fair and proper that, if we see difficulties in another’s spiritual life, we point them out in loving charity. But Tim Drake’s column seems much too judgmental. For example, there is this paragraph:
“The popularity of the Prayer of Jabez says a lot about evangelical’s doctrinal vacuum. On the one hand, they attack Catholics for what they describe as their ‘vain repetitious’ praying of the Hail Mary – a prayer taken from Scripture which reflects upon Christ. Then, some take an obscure prayer from the Old Testament, seemingly disconnected from Christ, and encourage people to pray it daily for material wealth.”
Are we going to say that one scriptural prayer is better than another? Is one part of scripture more valuable than another? It seems to me that Dei Verbum is quite clear when it says that the New Testament is hidden in the Old and the Old is made manifest in the New. You can’t have one without the other. Also, as pointed out above the prayer is not solely for material wealth. The prayer states that Jabez asked for a blessing and God granted his request – God did not reject this prayer, should we?
My point in all of this is that I wish Christians would stop picking on other Christians. I agree with Archbishop Fulton Sheen when he said that, as Catholics, our argument is not with our Protestant brothers and sisters. We share a common, and increasingly powerful enemy in our modern, relativistic, scientific materialistic and pagan society. Now, more than ever we need to try to find common ground with our evangelical brothers and sisters in Christ, we need the Christian unity that Christ himself prayed for. Many evangelical folks are sincere, Christ loving people that are living devoted and holy lives and seeking the truth of the faith. They do not deserve to be belittled and, in fact, would bring a great deal of new life to the Church if they could be brought to understand it’s truth and beauty.
I would suggest a different approach to our evangelical friends who have discovered the prayer of Jabez as an effective scripture based prayer. I would say to them, “Could I suggest another prayer you might find even more useful? The one I am thinking of is steeped in Christian tradition and in scripture and I have found that it has brought me immeasurably closer to Christ, perhaps you’d like to give it a try?”
Instead of belittling their devotion it might behoove us to share ours with them, explaining the value and peace it has brought us. This is what it means to be a “witness” or, to put it differently, to be a martyr.
Tuesday, December 31, 2002
Spiritual Reading, cont’d (again)
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” G.K. Chesterton.
I have been dialoguing a bit with Steven Riddle at Flos Carmeli about reading the saints and about the role of the gifts God gives us to use for his glory in our lives, especially that of the intellect. In thinking about this, it seems to me that there is one way in which our intellect can lead us away from faith – when we either refuse to or simply fail to use it. It is possible to be so completely sure of ourselves, so sure that we have all the answers that we stop asking the questions. This amply demonstrated in the attitude of the media and the “intelligentsia” toward anyone who professes faith in Christian doctrine. Today, religious faith is popularly seen in one of two ways, either as a crutch used by someone who is otherwise unable to face the real world, or as some sort of psychotic delusion that is suffered by someone who is abysmally ignorant of the way the world is. Seldom do we see it portrayed as a valid response to the reality of the world around us.
Yet the very people who hold these views have never taken Christianity seriously enough to investigate for themselves whether it’s claims are true, or whether those claims are even worth investigating. They are so sure they are right that they don’t stop to think about the validity of their own position either.
Most of these folks hold to the idea that the universe and everything in it is the product of some highly fortuitous accident, an idea that seems to spring from Darwin and his theory of evolution. From modern “scientific” theory they hold that there can be no God because there is absolutely no purpose to anything in the universe. They never seem to stop to think that, if that is true, then there is no basis for human reason and thus no basis to assume that their ideas are any more valid than those of the Christian. They don’t seem to see the logical dead end their worldview leads them to. On the other hand, having never investigated the claims of Christianity, they don’t understand that there is a high probability that the Christian worldview would provide them with a very profitable framework within which to pursue research into how our universe really does work. They are too closed minded to consider that there might be a different way of looking at reality.
This situation not only prevents them from following a potentially profitable avenue of scientific research, it also has the unfortunate consequence of keeping them from faith. But modern intellectuals are not the only ones to suffer from this difficulty; many Catholics today don’t see the full beauty of the teaching of the Church because they don’t think there is anything there worth their interest. They are sadly ignorant of the fullness of their faith because they’ve been fed nothing but theological baby food all their lives. Even many folks who regularly attend Mass and are active in their parish are unable to cogently explain even the most elementary doctrines of their faith and don’t know that there is anything more to learn. The sad part about this is that so many are led away from the faith into such sects as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons because they are presented with something that on the surface appears richer and fuller than anything they’ve been exposed to in the Church. This is sad, but it is a consequence of people not using a gift given to them by God, that of their intellect, and not being challenged by the Church to do so.
When we come to Church we are not asked to check our brains at the door. We are presented, at Mass especially but I think in all of the Sacraments of the Church, with something that is intended to engage us totally as human persons, we are given the opportunity to love God with “all of our mind, all of our strength, and all of our hearts.” I wish this would become a greater reality for more Catholics today.
I have been dialoguing a bit with Steven Riddle at Flos Carmeli about reading the saints and about the role of the gifts God gives us to use for his glory in our lives, especially that of the intellect. In thinking about this, it seems to me that there is one way in which our intellect can lead us away from faith – when we either refuse to or simply fail to use it. It is possible to be so completely sure of ourselves, so sure that we have all the answers that we stop asking the questions. This amply demonstrated in the attitude of the media and the “intelligentsia” toward anyone who professes faith in Christian doctrine. Today, religious faith is popularly seen in one of two ways, either as a crutch used by someone who is otherwise unable to face the real world, or as some sort of psychotic delusion that is suffered by someone who is abysmally ignorant of the way the world is. Seldom do we see it portrayed as a valid response to the reality of the world around us.
Yet the very people who hold these views have never taken Christianity seriously enough to investigate for themselves whether it’s claims are true, or whether those claims are even worth investigating. They are so sure they are right that they don’t stop to think about the validity of their own position either.
Most of these folks hold to the idea that the universe and everything in it is the product of some highly fortuitous accident, an idea that seems to spring from Darwin and his theory of evolution. From modern “scientific” theory they hold that there can be no God because there is absolutely no purpose to anything in the universe. They never seem to stop to think that, if that is true, then there is no basis for human reason and thus no basis to assume that their ideas are any more valid than those of the Christian. They don’t seem to see the logical dead end their worldview leads them to. On the other hand, having never investigated the claims of Christianity, they don’t understand that there is a high probability that the Christian worldview would provide them with a very profitable framework within which to pursue research into how our universe really does work. They are too closed minded to consider that there might be a different way of looking at reality.
This situation not only prevents them from following a potentially profitable avenue of scientific research, it also has the unfortunate consequence of keeping them from faith. But modern intellectuals are not the only ones to suffer from this difficulty; many Catholics today don’t see the full beauty of the teaching of the Church because they don’t think there is anything there worth their interest. They are sadly ignorant of the fullness of their faith because they’ve been fed nothing but theological baby food all their lives. Even many folks who regularly attend Mass and are active in their parish are unable to cogently explain even the most elementary doctrines of their faith and don’t know that there is anything more to learn. The sad part about this is that so many are led away from the faith into such sects as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons because they are presented with something that on the surface appears richer and fuller than anything they’ve been exposed to in the Church. This is sad, but it is a consequence of people not using a gift given to them by God, that of their intellect, and not being challenged by the Church to do so.
When we come to Church we are not asked to check our brains at the door. We are presented, at Mass especially but I think in all of the Sacraments of the Church, with something that is intended to engage us totally as human persons, we are given the opportunity to love God with “all of our mind, all of our strength, and all of our hearts.” I wish this would become a greater reality for more Catholics today.
Monday, December 30, 2002
The Necktie– One of the reasons I am doing a blog is that I would like to develop some skill as a writer and I hope to impose upon myself some discipline in terms of writing about things I might not otherwise write about. For example, consider the necktie. Being an older guy I grew up in a world in which the necktie was commonplace, if there was any kind of a special occasion the gentlemen wore a jacket, actually a suit in most cases, a white shirt, and a tie. I can’t say as a boy that I enjoyed wearing a tie but I simply took it for granted that this was expected behavior in polite company. I did have one relative, my mother’s cousin, who, when we were all gathered wearing our neckties, was prone to ask the question, “Who invented this useless piece of cloth that men are forced to wear?” I never could answer that question, and it seemed to me a good one.
Life went on and after serving my country in the military, in which a necktie was part of the uniform, I graduated from college, became a CPA and entered the business world. For many years at the start of my career it was considered de riguer to wear a tie to the office every day, and again, while I never actually enjoyed the practice, I complied in the interests of fashion and keeping my job. Then I went to work for Joe Nowell who owned a construction company.
Joe had two rules in life. One, don’t shave. He considered shaving a barbaric practice engaged in by people who did not have to work for a living. Two, never wear a tie. The reason for rule number two is that one time, in a meeting with a real estate developer and an architect on a new project and the client, one of the developer’s employees piped up with a remark that was not going to have the effect of pushing the project toward fruition, in fact may actually have killed the project on the spot. The developer, apparently acting on the spur of the moment, reached across the table and grabbed the guy by the necktie and proceeded to punch him repeated in the nose. Stretched across the table as he was, the victim was virtually powerless to do anything but accept the chastisement. Thus, Joe’s rule number two, no neckties. In the four or five years I worked for Joe I don’t think I ever saw him violate the rule, no matter how important the occasion.
I have to say that ever after hearing this story I always felt a bit insecure wearing a necktie, even though I have never had a similar experience. However, while I think this is a good rule, it is not necessarily one of life’s vital requirements. And I think the habit of “dressing down” can be carried, perhaps, a bit too far. For example, living in Colorado I see any number of folks, some of whom should be old enough to know better, dressed in an extremely casual fashion while attending Mass. Some of these folks even wear sweats and other types of exercise clothes to church, even though it is very evident that, while they may be wearing this type of attire to church they have never worn it to exercise, and would likely suffer a fatal heart attack were they to do so.
It seems to me that this is more evidence that we have lost our sense of the supernatural. I think if I were going to a meeting with, say, the President of the United States, I might be more than willing to endure the inconvenience of putting on a suit and tie for the occasion. Should I not be willing to do the same to go to meet the Lord in his House? I think we have lost the idea that in going to Mass we are going to meet God. I wonder if this hasn’t just become another weekly activity to be gotten through in the most painless manner possible?
I realize that I may be getting a bit cranky in my old age, but it seems that there are some things in our lives that deserve our attention and respect.
Sunday, December 29, 2002
Steven Riddle at Flos Carmeli has put up several posts at his blog that have really attracted my attention. I am a regular at his place as of today. He has posted another reading list that is very good and contains a number of books that I hope to get to soon (although not John of the Cross). The first one I'm going to try to pick up is Chesterton's Heretics but almost all are worth reading (or re-reading) for sure.
One of the authors he cites is Ron Hansen, whom I was fortunate enough to meet at a writers conference at Steuby U in September. He read one of his short stories which was on the death of a dog that is one of the funniest stories I have ever heard. I laughed so hard it hurt and I wouldn't have suspected he would write something so funny. And he couldn't get anyone to publish it!!
One point he takes issue with in my first post on Spiritual Reading is as follows:
"One other point of mild demurral--I do not think St. Thomas is necessarily the best place to seek the truth about humankind. While he did dissect and lay open much--there are other sources (most notably the Bible itself) that tells us much, if not all, that we really need to know of humankind. St. Thomas did not so much discover much new in the truth, as lay open for us what was already clearly present. In a sense St. Thomas's work is a demonstration and proof of the concept of "development of doctrine." And St. Thomas himself with his final words on writing makes clear the recognition that his contribution was not in the realm of innovation so much as it was in the realm of explication."
Here he is right here in that St. Thomas showed the use of reason to arrive at a fuller understanding of truth already known, or at least intuitively understood by the Church. Thomas is a prime example of the development of doctrine, and actually, no one should come up with anything new, at least since the time of the Apostles. But he is also right that Thomas is not the only source of truth or understanding about the faith or about ourselves as human creatures. I guess one thing that has attracted me to Thomas is the work being done by the Dominican theologians, Frs. Servais Pinkaers and Romanus Cesario, who draw on the writings of St. Thomas, in the area of natural law and the virtues. This is so because of my interest in, and difficulty with, making my faith a part of my every day life and having it influence how I approach my responsibilites in life. When I get into the pressures of the day I am tempted to focus solely on the task and hand and lose sight of the reality of my faith and trust in God. I fail to see that everything is in his hands. I have found the idea especially of the virtues as habits that I can, at least to some extent work on to develop to help me grow in my relationship to God.
One of the authors he cites is Ron Hansen, whom I was fortunate enough to meet at a writers conference at Steuby U in September. He read one of his short stories which was on the death of a dog that is one of the funniest stories I have ever heard. I laughed so hard it hurt and I wouldn't have suspected he would write something so funny. And he couldn't get anyone to publish it!!
One point he takes issue with in my first post on Spiritual Reading is as follows:
"One other point of mild demurral--I do not think St. Thomas is necessarily the best place to seek the truth about humankind. While he did dissect and lay open much--there are other sources (most notably the Bible itself) that tells us much, if not all, that we really need to know of humankind. St. Thomas did not so much discover much new in the truth, as lay open for us what was already clearly present. In a sense St. Thomas's work is a demonstration and proof of the concept of "development of doctrine." And St. Thomas himself with his final words on writing makes clear the recognition that his contribution was not in the realm of innovation so much as it was in the realm of explication."
Here he is right here in that St. Thomas showed the use of reason to arrive at a fuller understanding of truth already known, or at least intuitively understood by the Church. Thomas is a prime example of the development of doctrine, and actually, no one should come up with anything new, at least since the time of the Apostles. But he is also right that Thomas is not the only source of truth or understanding about the faith or about ourselves as human creatures. I guess one thing that has attracted me to Thomas is the work being done by the Dominican theologians, Frs. Servais Pinkaers and Romanus Cesario, who draw on the writings of St. Thomas, in the area of natural law and the virtues. This is so because of my interest in, and difficulty with, making my faith a part of my every day life and having it influence how I approach my responsibilites in life. When I get into the pressures of the day I am tempted to focus solely on the task and hand and lose sight of the reality of my faith and trust in God. I fail to see that everything is in his hands. I have found the idea especially of the virtues as habits that I can, at least to some extent work on to develop to help me grow in my relationship to God.
Spiritual Reading cont’d – As a convert to Catholicism one of the things that I have come to be deeply grateful to the Church for is her acceptance of a great variety of different spiritualities, or different ways to respond to God’s call in our lives. God’s call to each of us is unique, he calls no two of us in quite the same way, yet the Church recognizes that there are enough similarities in the way we are called that we can share our experience with others. For example, the Franciscans share Francis’ call to “build the Church”; to be Franciscan is to be Catholic and support the Church in all she does. Franciscan spirituality also involves the deep desire to follow Christ and live the Gospel live as St. Francis did, seeing everything in creation as evidence of God’s providence and seeing its destiny to return to eternal union with God. There is also an aspect of it that calls us to evangelization, to spreading the Good News of the Gospel. The Dominican spirituality is closely related to Franciscan spirituality but emphasizes the study of theology and preaching the Word. Carmelite spirituality (which I admit I am not too familiar with) emphasizes the deep prayer life taught by Sts. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross.
When I began investigating the various Third Orders I thought I might be drawn to the Carmelite Third Order. However as I tried to look into it I was told that in view of my interest they were considering disbanding the Order on a worldwide basis so that there would never be any possibility of such a thing occurring. (Well, perhaps they didn’t put it quite that way, but there did seem to be several difficulties that I could not overcome.) In any case, I sort of fell into the SFO and it seems a pretty good fit, (despite what the fellow members of my fraternity here in Colorado Springs may think).
In any case, at various times, I have tried to read both Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, without much success. I have to admit I can’t make heads or tails out of St. John and reading St. Teresa brings it’s own problems for me. First, there is the guilt that I feel for being such a spiritual slug in the face of such holiness. Then, there is the heightened tendency to selfish introspection (“Let’s see, am I in the first mansion or can I claim to have progressed to the second mansion?” And “Will I ever be able to make it to the third mansion?”) that is not at all healthy. I view this inability to read these two great saints as a grave personal shortcoming, but there it is.
So there are saints that we might have great difficulty reading or might never be able to read and appreciate, depending on our spirituality. But you see, we don’t have to read St. Teresa, we don’t have to read St. Thomas, and we don’t have to read St. Francis to be good and faithful Catholics and Christians. We can understand that they all have something to teach us about the truth of our faith, and they have given the Church the great legacy of their individual wisdom, but not all of us will be able to read all of them with the same benefit. Each of us is different and drawn to God in a certain way and it is important for each of us to try to discover that way and do our best to grow within it.
When I began investigating the various Third Orders I thought I might be drawn to the Carmelite Third Order. However as I tried to look into it I was told that in view of my interest they were considering disbanding the Order on a worldwide basis so that there would never be any possibility of such a thing occurring. (Well, perhaps they didn’t put it quite that way, but there did seem to be several difficulties that I could not overcome.) In any case, I sort of fell into the SFO and it seems a pretty good fit, (despite what the fellow members of my fraternity here in Colorado Springs may think).
In any case, at various times, I have tried to read both Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, without much success. I have to admit I can’t make heads or tails out of St. John and reading St. Teresa brings it’s own problems for me. First, there is the guilt that I feel for being such a spiritual slug in the face of such holiness. Then, there is the heightened tendency to selfish introspection (“Let’s see, am I in the first mansion or can I claim to have progressed to the second mansion?” And “Will I ever be able to make it to the third mansion?”) that is not at all healthy. I view this inability to read these two great saints as a grave personal shortcoming, but there it is.
So there are saints that we might have great difficulty reading or might never be able to read and appreciate, depending on our spirituality. But you see, we don’t have to read St. Teresa, we don’t have to read St. Thomas, and we don’t have to read St. Francis to be good and faithful Catholics and Christians. We can understand that they all have something to teach us about the truth of our faith, and they have given the Church the great legacy of their individual wisdom, but not all of us will be able to read all of them with the same benefit. Each of us is different and drawn to God in a certain way and it is important for each of us to try to discover that way and do our best to grow within it.
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