Lively Sacrifices

Walking the Labyrinth-January 8, 2010—St Abo was a perfumer, chemist and a dabbler in the mystic arts. An Arab, he was born in Baghdad during the days of the caliphs and, his biographer tells us, “was well-versed in the lore of Islam.” He also loved to argue religion. He would argue with Muslim imams, Christian priests and Jewish rabbis about the doctrines of each religion, often asserting there was no truth to any of them. His skill in the perfumer’s art won him the attention of the royal court and he was eventually brought into the household of Nerses, one of the Caliph’s sons. That seemed a good thing until Nerses and all his household were exiled by his father to the far shores of the Caspian Sea. There Abo met a monk who refused to argue religion with him, but eagerly spoke to him about prayer and the life of piety. The perfumer, drawn to what he heard, abandoned his Muslim prayers for those he learned from the monk and was baptized. When Nerses’ father died, Abo returned with him to live in Tbilisi (in modern-day Georgia—the one that used to be part of the Soviet Union, not the Georgia famous for peaches and Driving Miss Daisy) despite his conversion. Abo was denounced by those “jealous of his skills” as having abandoned Islam. He refused to deny his new faith and was beheaded on January 8, 786. Before his execution the perfumer thanked God for leading him to know “the sweet fragrance of Christ.” Today he is patron saint of Tbilisi and, not surprisingly, of perfumers. Marco Polo, the Venetian merchant who traveled more than 15,000 miles during his Great Journey, died happily in his bed on January 8, 1324. He left Venice for “Cathay” with his father and uncle when he was 17, in 1271. For the next 24 years the three traveled through China, Burma, India and places between, amassing a fortune in the service of the Great Khan, Kublai. When they returned to Italy, Marco determined to write a book recounting their adventures, but new mercantile opportunities “left me little time or inclination.” Several years later, during an inter-city war between Venice and Genoa, Marco was captured shipboard by the Genoese and jailed for spying (which, by his own account, is just what he was doing). He spent 4 years in prison, where he did find the time and inclination to write. With the help of a cell-mate, he wrote the book we know as The Travels of Marco Polo. After his release, Marco returned to Venice, resolved to never leave his home again. His fortunes continued to prosper and in 1300 he married the daughter of a fellow-merchant, and by her had three daughters. He died as the sun set the evening of January 8, 1324, at home in his bed, surrounded by his family, friends and parish priest, having kept his vow never again to leave Venice. Everybody knows Galileo (technically, Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei), who died on January 8, 1642, was imprisoned by the Inquisition. What most don’t know is that he had two daughters, both of whom were nuns. His eldest, Virginia, took the name Sister Maria Celeste at her profession. She was the brightest of his children (he had a son who most definitely did not become a monk!) and the closest to her father. They corresponded regularly through the time of his troubles up to the end of his life (124 of her letters survive). Their content may surprise those who think of the father of modern astronomy as a bold scientist of the new age, free from the shackles of religion and faith. Sister Maria Celeste saw no contradiction between her father’s new discoveries and the old Faith in which he had brought her up. Neither did Galileo. Even after his trial before the Inquisitors, Galileo privately professed belief in the Church’s faith to his daughter. Disgraceful as the acts of the Inquisition were, Galileo and his friends distinguished between his enemies (in the Church and out) and the faith the Church espoused. Galileo admitted that he had a temper and a sarcastic wit, and that calling the Pope a “simpleton” in his famous treatise on the Copernican theory wasn’t the wisest thing he’d ever done. Sister Maria Celeste is entombed beside her beloved father in Florence’s Santa Croce Church. Baskerville—you know the name. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle liked it so much he appropriated it for one of Sherlock Holmes’ greatest stories. Umberto Eco borrowed it from Doyle as the name of his friar-detective in The Name of the Rose. You also know it as one of the type fonts on your computer. All three uses trace back to John Baskerville, an eighteenth-century Englishman who was the official printer for Cambridge University from 1758 until his death on January 8, 1775. He worked for years to develop a typeface he thought elegant and easy to read; the result was the typeface we now call Baskerville (he didn’t call it that, but didn’t object when Benjamin Franklin, a printer himself who thought it the best typeface he’d ever seen, did). After developing the typeface, Baskerville began experimenting with various types of paper that would best show off his work. All this was preparatory for what Baskerville planned as the great accomplishment of his life, the printing of a large, folio Bible. Subsidized by the University, he completed the project in 1763, and it was a resounding success. While you and I may be familiar with John Baskerville for the three reasons mentioned above, in his lifetime he was renowned as the Printer of the Baskerville Bible. The fun of all this is that John Baskerville was a rather militant atheist, though his militancy softened a bit as the sales of his Bible increased. In his will, though, he pointedly required that he not be buried “in or near” a church, “nor interr’d in consecrated ground.” After his death, he was buried in the garden of his home. Within a decade, though, a canal was built through John’s property, necessitating his removal from the garden tomb. For several years his coffin lay in a book warehouse (he probably would have liked that), then he was re-interred in the underground crypt of Christ Church, Birmingham. When that church was demolished in 1899, John’s remains were carted to the Church of England Cemetery in the same city. There he rests (perhaps), surrounded by those with whom he did not wish to spend eternity. The War of 1812 formally ended with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent on Christmas Eve, 1814. Two weeks later, on January 8, 1815, General Andrew Jackson commanded a hodge-podge force of 4,000 Americans—700 members of the US Regular Army, several well-dressed militia units out of New Orleans, Jean Lafitte’s Baratarian pirates, a group of former Haitian slaves, now free men of color living as artisans and businessmen in the Crescent City, and a band of Choctaw American Indians, (their chief was a “blood-brother” of General Jackson)—who defeated 11,000 British troops under Sir Edward Pakenham “on the immortal plains of Chalmette,” seven miles downriver from New Orleans. While it’s often remarked that the war was over at the time, Sir Edward didn’t know that anymore than General Jackson, and his intention was to raze New Orleans as British forces had earlier in the war burnt Washington City. The men fighting to save New Orleans did save it. Those of us who love that city should always remember January 8 with a toast to the General who swore “By the Eternal, I will drive them back to the sea!” and did. Our national story runs a gamut of tales. On January 8, 1935, shortly before dawn, Gladys Love Presley gave birth to the second of a pair of twins in her bedroom. Earlier, in the middle of the night, she’d delivered a still-born son. Her husband, Vernon, took the mother and surviving child to the Tupelo hospital, afraid he’d lose them all. Both the mother and her son, who they named Elvis Aaron Presley (“Elvis” from his father’s middle name, “Aaron” after his father’s best friend) returned home safely. On his nineteenth birthday, Elvis went to a Memphis recording studio and, after paying a $4.00 fee, cut his first record. Two years later, on his birthday in 1956, his recording of “Don’t Be Cruel”/ “You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog” went to the top of the music charts and remained there for a (pardon me) “record” eleven weeks. Sixteen years after his death, the United States Post Office issued a commemorative Elvis Presley stamp—on January 8, 1993—his 58th birthday. His home, Graceland, was declared a National Monument in 2006; it is the second most frequently visited home in the United States, after the White House. Sometimes, I have no comment; I simply pass along information. Today, seven days after the kalends of Ianuarius, the ancient Romans kept the feast of Iustitia, the goddess of Justice. Her statue depicted her blindfolded, balancing a pair of scales and holding a sword. We have adopted the statue and her symbols unaltered. Sometimes, when the citizens of old Rome believed their courts issued unjust or unwise rulings, small, satirical statues would appear for sale with the scales out of balance (sometimes loaded down with gold coins) or the blindfold slipped from its place. There just might be a market for those little statues nowadays. This is the eighth day of 2010, 357 remain in the year. On this day in 1944, Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters topped America’s music charts with Pistol Packin’ Mama. January is, by Congressional mandate, both Family Fitness Month and National Candy Month. I could be mistaken, but is it possible our national legislators are not of one mind?

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As every decade passes, there is a custom among Observers of the Times to mark a particular distinction of the ten years just passed and “title” it: i.e., the decade of the “Me” Generation, the “Free Love” of the Sixties (those two weren’t the same?) and so on. As I look back at the past ten years, two things glare back at me: the economic restructuring we are doing to ourselves (but this is more likely to be the beginning of a story stretching through the first several decades of this century) and the War. The War against Terror (or call it what you will) has been on-going since October, 2001. That's longer than it took for the country to fight the War Between the States and World War Two combined. The new President was elected as (among other things) an anti-war president, but he shows little sign of keeping that pledge. John McCain’s ominous 100-year commitment might not be that far off target. Those things are far beyond my competence to analyze or criticize. There is A LOT most of us don’t—and won’t—ever know. But there are some things we can observe, question and comment on. In fact, we as citizens are required to do that. I'm not going to write a discourse on the War, but I do want to ponder one small aspect of it with you as we walk the Lord’s labyrinth. It impacts our spiritual lives and how we walk.

Both the terrible conflicts I mentioned above called for great sacrifices on the part of everyone involved (not that everyone made them). In most of the wars fought by this nation, people sacrificed—not only the soldiers who carried weapons and got shot at—but the families and friends of those soldiers. Communities across the country came together and sacrificed their standard of living: they ate less, worked more and prayed mightily for those in battle far away. When we went to War, it was a national commitment of ourselves, our souls and bodies. That’s what a republic does in wartime. We have believed our republic worth fighting and dying—worth sacrificing for. After the solemn speeches of September 11, 2001, after the members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, stood together on the steps of the capitol building and sang “God Bless America,” instead of calls for national sacrifice, we were exhorted to go shopping.

In George Orwell’s 1984, the world is perpetually at war. This serves as a perennial excuse for the chronic shortages in Big Brother’s society. We needn’t worry. Our culture nowadays is much more like that of Imperial Rome, demanding for itself “bread and circuses,” than that of post-war Britain or America, willing to sacrifice for a worthwhile goal. When the Nazis unleashed their planes and bombs during the Battle of Britain, the Brits dug in their heels and redoubled their efforts and shot their enemies from the air. When Al-Qaeda destroyed the Twin Towers and crashed a jet into the Pentagon, we got mad…and went to the mall.

Are we really that pathetic? Our national leaders, of both parties, believe we are. But if you think back to that terrible morning, there were four airplanes seized, not three. By many accounts, the fourth was intended to destroy either the Capitol Building or the White House. It never got close to either, because the men and women aboard made a sacrifice. They gave themselves up to save some of the rest of us.

“Sacrifice” comes from two good Latin words mashed together: “sacra,” which means “holy,” and “facere,” “to make.” A sacrifice makes something holy. No one, recalling what went on in the Pennsylvania skies on November 11, 2001, can imagine the passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 did anything less than make something terrible holy. The firefighters and rescue workers in New York City, who threw themselves into those smoking, twisting masses of steel, glass and concrete, made something holy. America’s politicians, most wrapped in the mire of self-service, don’t seem capable of calling us to national sacrifice. Few of us could take them seriously if they did. The President talks about Service, but you may have concluded long ago, as I now have, that his words are…just words.

Sacrifice comes from within. We all have the impetus for it (as we do for selfishness); Holy Scripture provides us with examples of it, from Abraham to Jesus. Without exception, the lives of the saints and heroes of faith are sacrificial. Those of us in the Labyrinth are called on to live sacrificially. My sacrifices may be different than yours, but if we are worth the air we breathe, our sacrifices are daily made and the opportunities for them are ever present.

Ayn Rand, the Objectivist philosopher, regards sacrifice as a sign of “altruism,” one of the deadly sins for Objectivists. She defines a sacrifice as when someone greater gives him/herself up for someone lesser. It’s a sign of mental illness. Selfishness, self-centeredness (called “pride” in Christian moral theology, the deadliest of the Deadly Sins) is the highest virtue of Objectivism. Nothing justifies sacrifice.

Our Faith and our culture say otherwise. Some things are worth fighting and dying for. Some things justify sacrifice. We as a society should be continually debating what those “some things” are. And we in the Labyrinth, who walk by faith, are duty-bound to join the debate. We are now almost 10 years at War. Should we be? If so, why are we handling it so ineptly? If not, why do we continue its pursuit? This isn’t a matter of “conservative” or “liberal” answers, but of a reasoned discussion of purposes and goals. The politician asks “How is it going? How do we look?” They won’t—they can’t—ask “Is it right or wrong?” That’s your job and mine. Those of us walking in the Labyrinth may end up answering those questions differently. But if we don’t struggle with these questions, who will? Enough time put walking the Labyrinth gives us a different, dare I say, eternal perspective. And before we pat ourselves on the back, remember: “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.”

We are not on the Labyrinth only for ourselves. We have been called here. And labyrinthine struggles (and sacrifices!) aren’t for long-faced mourners or croaking Cassandras. We’ve been put where we are to rejoice in the journey and call those around us to hope—not that government programs will someday work—but that Things Eternal put stuff temporal into proper perspective. “Wars and rumors of wars” we will have with us as long as this world limps along, despite what politicians promise and academics predict. But “joy cometh in the morning,” and each new sunrise, for those in the Labyrinth, is a promise of Good Things To Come (even when it’s 22 degrees as the sun breaks over the Texas Hill Country!).

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FROM MY BOOKSTACK: Last week I evidently wrote with convincing force about David McCollough’s book, John Adams. No less than six people are now reading it (or waiting for their copies to arrive via Amazon). I should work out some commission deal with booksellers. Aloyce recommended Those Who Love to me, a fictional account of John and Abigail—and I’ve ordered my copy!

Not every book is worth reading, though. This week I picked up, with high expectation, Stakes of Power, 1845-1877 . It covers the decades before, during and after the War Between the States, a time in which I have some interest. It addresses the political, economic and social concerns of the period, again, topics of much interest to me. But so poorly is it written, so predictable are its conclusions and so few are its insights (few? I can’t recall any right now) that I would recommend it only to someone I don’t like.

Now I’m reading The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy by Aristeides Papadakis. It’s pretty good, so far. Even if I end up disappointed with the book’s contents, though, I’ll tell people about it just so I can say “Aristeides Papadakis” and they can enjoy hearing his name as much as I enjoy saying it.

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QUOTES OF THE PRINCIPALS:

Marco Polo-"I have not told half of what I saw."

Galileo Galilei-"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."

"I love the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."

"The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go." I know this is too many quotes but I couldn't resist this last.

Andrew Jackson-"Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a better man to acknowledge without reservation that he is in error."

"Elevate that cannon a little lower." (To the gunners at Chalmette Plains, 1815)

Sir Edward Pakenham-"Send forward the reserves and we've got them." (His last words before being shot from his saddle at Chalmette Plains, 1815)

Ayn Rand-"It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master."

Elvis Presley-"From when I was a kid I always knew something was going to happen. I just didn't know what."