In Paradisium...

Walking the Labyrinth-January 22, 2010-The old martyrologies (catalogues of saints and martyrs) of the Church list no less than four St Vincents today: Vincent of Saragossa, who died about AD 304; Vincent of Nice and his brother, Onontius, who were killed in 305; Vincent of Digne, a bishop of North Africa who went to his heavenly rest in 380; and Vincent of Pellotti, who died in 1850. While the story of each of these is fascinating (in the school-records of young Vincent of Pellotti, who later earned a doctorate in theology and taught in a Roman college, his teacher recorded “he’s a bit of a block-head”—so there is always hope!), St Vincent of Saragossa is the one who attracts most attention. He was a deacon in Spain when the Emperor Dacian instituted a general persecution of Christianity in AD 303. That year 18 Spanish Christians were killed for their faith. When St Vincent, along with his bishop and several priests were arrested the following year, no one doubted their fate (at the time, it was a capital crime simply to be a clergyman). Vincent’s bishop, Valerius, had a speech impediment and chose Vincent to speak for them at their trial. The bishop was exiled but Vincent, as the spokesman, was singled out for torture, hoping to get him to renounce his faith. Vincent was stretched on a rack (dislocating his joints), hung on a hook, and burned on a large grill. Nothing broke him, so his jailers tossed him in a dungeon, the floor of which was covered with broken pottery shards. He unnerved them by singing hymns. A sympathetic jailer allowed some Christians to come and tend to Vincent, but too late. He died in prison. A hundred years later St Augustine of Hippo said Vincent’s fame “extended everywhere in the Empire; everywhere the name of Jesus was known.” Given the various tortures the saint endured (and I didn’t mention them all), he is patron to all sorts and conditions of men. Bakers (for being “cooked”), roofers and pottery-makers (for the broken shards), sailors (-uh-), schoolgirls (?). Because his feast falls late in January, he was also invoked by medieval vintners against seasonal frosts damaging to burgundy wine. Having never tasted a burgundy I like, I’m not sure how efficacious this practice is. On January 22, 1561, Sir Francis Bacon was born in London. He rose to be Lord Chancellor of England under King James I (of Bible fame). Some people (the same type who believe in the multi-tentacled Illuminati), believe he was the true author of Shakespeare’s plays. Whether or not the Bard was merely Bacon’s amanuensis, it is certainly true that, from his youth, Bacon loved Things Scientific. While some of his experiments were typical alchemical ones—looking to transmute lead into gold—his interests ran from astronomy to zoology. On April 1, 1626 (not an inappropriate day, given what followed), Bacon was traveling with a friend through Highgate, then a rural section of London. The two were discussing Bacon’s theory that ice could be used as a preservative for meat (it was a cold, snowy day). He was convinced ice could preserve meat indefinitely and to prove the point, had their carriage stop at the next farm they came to. Bacon’s companion recounts: “We went into a poor woman's house at the bottom of Highgate hill, bought a fowl, and made the woman exenterate it for our use" (I was ignorant of the word ‘extenterate’ until I read this account—it means to ‘eviscerate’). Bacon then took the plucked and gutted chicken outside, dug around in the snow and stuffed the bird. He then packed it in snow and wrapped his icy bundle in sacking. Unwisely, he decided to hold the big ball of ice in his lap till he got home. Shortly afterward he came down with chills. For reasons inexplicable, his doctor put him into a bed with damp sheets. Chill turned to pneumonia and after three days a priest read the Last Rites of the Church of England over his shivering body. His final letter, poignant if not quite Shakespearean, told a friend that he died a martyr for science. You remember the old adage, “Those who will not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.” Neither the “DotCom” collapse of the 1990’s nor our current crumbling economy are New and Unprecedented Events. Today, January 22, 1720, the South Sea Bubble burst and rocked England’s financial and political establishment to the core. I won’t recount the details, but suffice to say they involved inflated claims for stocks fed by investment bankers, aided by politicians who received “loans” and a populace eager to “flip” stocks to make a quick bag o’ shillings. Stocks in the South Sea Company rose in one year from 100 to over 1000 pounds. When the dividends came due and it was revealed the Company could not pay, values dropped overnight, fortunes were lost, businessmen committed suicide and members of the government went to jail (Sir Isaac Newton lost the equivalent of $3,000,000.00 and for the rest of his life refused to discuss it; the composer George Frederic Handel—of Messiah fame-however, made an immense fortune from the fiasco—he “bought low” at the beginning of the craze and “sold high,” divesting himself of his stocks only weeks before the Bubble burst). Sub sole nihil novi est, quoth the Preacher. James Shields was sworn in as the newly-elected Senator from Missouri on January 22, 1879. Though this was undoubtedly a red-letter day in his life, it hardly seems worth a mention except for the fact that twenty years earlier he had served as Senator from Minnesota and ten years before that he went to Washington as a Senator from Illinois. He's the only man to hold that record. He's also the only man who ever challenged Abraham Lincoln to a duel. In 1842, Shields was the State Auditor for Illinois. Some unpopular rulings on his part resulted in his vilification in the press and among those who attacked him was the future Great Emancipator. Lincoln turned his famous wit on Shields in a series of letters to local newspapers and made him look the fool. Shields angrily demanded an apology, Lincoln refused, and a challenge to a duel resulted. Lincoln was mortified, but as an up-and-coming public figure, he couldn’t refuse without being accused of cowardice—never good for an aspiring politician. Both men had a following and news of the duel quickly spread. Since dueling was illegal in Illinois, an island on the Missouri River (where dueling was not illegal) was chosen as the spot. As the challenged party, Lincoln had the choice of weapons. He was convinced that firing pistols one at the other might result in serious injuries, so he set out to make the whole thing as ludicrous as possible. Rather than guns, he chose “Cavalry Broadswords of the largest size.” Lincoln was 6’4”, with the nickname “the Railsplitter.” Shields was a foot shorter and had a slight build. Lincoln added several other stipulations which increased the absurdity of the affair, but Shields accepted them all. When the two met for their duel, hundreds of people crowded the Illinois shore to watch the outcome. Once the pair with their seconds and attendants disembarked, the heavy swords were produced. While Shields tried to wield his, Lincoln made a point of cutting down tree limbs with ease. Form required the seconds to make a final attempt at reconciliation before the combat began. After a moment, Shields agreed to take back his challenge if Lincoln would apologize. Lincoln did, everyone shook hands and took their boats back to Illinois. That night, the two men appeared together at a “post-duel” party. Six years later, Lincoln supported Shields in his run for the US Senate. One hundred and nine years ago today, Alexandrina Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, died in her sleep at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. She was crowned Queen on July 20, 1837 and reigned till her death, more than 63 years (she still has 6 years on Queen Elizabeth II). The last year of her life her health steadily declined and by December 16, doctors entertained little hope of her survival. Bulletins were issued several times a day for a week before she finally died: England held its breath. Finally the morning edition of the London Times carried the announcement: “All day long, the Angel of Death has been hovering over Osborne House. One could almost hear the beating of his wings, but at half-past six, those wings were folded and the Queen was at rest.” England went into official mourning for three months. On January 22, 1907, Richard Strauss’ opera “Salome” (based on the play by Oscar Wilde) debuted at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. The performance was so shocking to patrons (with the sensual “Dance of the Seven Veils” and Salome’s declaration of her love for St John the Baptist made as she caressed his severed head) that it was immediately banned; it wasn’t performed again until 1934. Some Americans—not ones usually associated with the opera—became familiar with the music because it was a favorite of “strip-tease” artists in burlesque theaters through the 1920’s! President Harry Truman signed a directive on January 22, 1946, creating the Central Intelligence Agency. Not to be outdone, on January 22, 1964, the Wisconsin Dairy Association created the Largest Piece of Cheese in the history of the world. Steve’s Cheese Factory, in Denmark, Wisconsin, produced the 34, 591 pound block of cheese for the State of Wisconsin’s entry to the 1964 World’s Fair. The cheddar block measured fourteen and a half feet long and five and a half feet high. A special glass-walled truck was built for the display. After the Fair ended, people were invited to consume as much of the cheese as they could, and they did. The refrigerated truck and all the nifty signs were returned to Wisconsin and a debate ensued about what to do with the stuff. Today, if you go to Neillsville, Wisconsin (population 2,600), you can find the Refrigerated Cheese Truck on display, together with a styrofoam replica of the World’s Largest Cheese and, to introduce you to the display, the city erected the World’s Largest fiberglass Cow, Chatty Belle. Chatty has a voice box which is supposed to tell visitors about the Cheese, but it broke in 2002 and, by visitors’ accounts since, has yet to be repaired (it’s part of the collapse of our National Infrastructure you hear about). Chatty, who herself is sixteen feet to the shoulders and twenty feet long, would tell you if she could that 170,000 quarts of milk from 16,000 Wisconsin cows went into making the Cheese. This is the 22nd day of the 2010; 343 days remain in the year. On the ancient Roman calendar, today is ante diem xi kalendas Februarias (literally, “eleven days before the first of February”—not the easiest way of keeping track of dates. There have been some improvements in 2000 years!). Finally, on January 22, 1951, the future Jefe de Cuba, Fidel Castro, a talented left-handed pitcher, was cut from the roster during a winter league tryout game for the Washington Senators. What if…?

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There are two Wal-Marts within easy distance of where I live. I never shopped at a Wal-Mart before, but I’ve been to both stores several times now since returning to the Lone Star State. The lay-out is different, but similar. I can find what I want now easily in either one, which, no doubt, is the intention. Clustered around the Wal-Marts are other places to buy things, equally similar—a MacDonald’s, a Taco Bell, a store selling fried chicken, a Texaco and a few strip malls within a block or so. The two areas look as if they were both drawn from the same architectural plan. If you drive around Los Angeles, California, Manassas, Virginia, Denver, Colorado or Seguin, Texas, you’ll see an identical urban landscape. We can find what we want easily, which, no doubt, is the intention. There are still places we can go in Los Angeles and Manassas and Denver and Seguin that are peculiar to the place—the white-and-black lighthouse sitting out by itself at the entrance to the Los Angeles harbor, the battle-scarred stone bridge at Manassas, the eerie Richthofen Castle in Denver, or the World’s Largest Pecan outside the Courthouse in Seguin—these are remnants of our past. How much, though, are they part of our future?

This past year, I wasn’t the only American who moved from one place to another. Forty-eight million others did the same in 2009. According to the Census Bureau, the “average” American changes residences twelve times from cradle to grave (not counting either of those). We are the most “mobile” people in history—with the possible exception of the nomads—and an argument could be made that our culture is “nomadic.” This mobility can bring new opportunities, new experiences, new people and new promises into our lives. We can make more money and "broaden our horizons." But we do so at a cost. That’s what I’ve been pondering of late.

Last week, I wrote about Fr Karas and the Coptic monastery outside Barstow. The Coptic (Egyptian Christian) community here in the United States is growing. My good friend Fr Robert Sanchez and I-both of us students of Liturgies Ancient and Modern-began attending a Coptic church in Los Angeles about a year and a half ago, initially from liturgical curiosity. As we got to know the people, though, our interest shifted from the academic to the personal. How does a group of Arabic-speaking Christians, a minority persecuted in their homeland, adjust to life in Los Angeles? The city, which officially prides itself in its cultural and racial diversity (but is racked with cultural and racial divides), must seem a continual contradiction. Will the Copts (a close-knit community in Egypt ghettoized by the Muslim government) lose their identity here? How will their faith, which reaches back to the first centuries of Christianity, survive in a secular society—indifference to religion is not religious intolerance. As I came to know the Copts, I came to admire and love them. These Egyptian Christians, often mistaken for Muslims because of their looks and language—and thus disdained by many in their new homeland for being un-American—are enthusiastic about their new country and certain of their Faith. I confess to paternalistic feelings about them. But what does any of this have to do with Wal-Marts and cookie-cutter neighborhoods?

At the request of the editor of a Catholic magazine, Fr Sanchez and I began research for a series of articles on Copts living in the United States. He was curious about some of the same questions we raised. As our research continued, further questions came up. Some I’ve asked myself for a long time. Most basically, “What does it mean to be ‘from’ somewhere?” I’ve moved at least twenty-four times—twice the average—and my life’s not quite over yet (although I pray my movings are). Anyone unfortunate enough to ask me “Where are you from?” won’t get a simple answer! In a sense, my Coptic friends are pilgrims, walking a complex labyrinth of their own. They’ve come to America in search of more than a job, and they bring more than a little of their homeland with them. If you ask them where they’re from, you’ll get a fascinating assortment of answers. Miriam, a mother of three boys all born here, told me emphatically “I am from here! I am not an Egyptian. I am an American and my sons are American!” but in a more quiet discussion she revealed her fears about America. “My boys love the church, but they love video games, too. They watch too much TV.”She clung to her youngest son and said, “My older boys like girls and it’s too soon.” She sounds like an American mom. Joseph is an older man. In Egypt he wanted to go to the university but was blocked time and again because of his religion. He immigrated in his mid-thirties, went to UCLA and is now a successful electrical engineer. “In America I achieved my dream,” he told me, “but I love Egypt. To achieve my dream I had to give up my home.” His life is torn; Joseph, unlike Miriam, is a hyphenated American. Ask where they are “from” and you’ll get two very different answers.

Ask where I’m “from” and I’ll tell you “Texas”—and even name a specific place in the Great State, although thus far I’ve lived more of my life in California than here. Being “from” a place is important. It defines us, sometimes more than we know, often more than we’re willing to admit. Fr Davis, my old curate, used to excuse some of the things I’d say by telling people “He can’t help it. He’s from Texas.” He didn’t just mean “Fr Wilcox was born somewhere else,” but “he’s from a provincial backwater where his attitudes are not only acceptable, but the unfortunate norm.” Most of us have a sort of “pride of place,” Texans famously so, but even people from Oklahoma don’t usually try to conceal their natal origins (well, maybe that’s not the best example—I’m pretty sure there are some Oklahomans who pretend they’re from Texas). Californians boast “California is a State of Mind,” believing others admire them for that. Being “from” somewhere matters. It tells me something about who I am.

We are more and more a nation of restless nomads, with cell phones fixed in our ears and the internet clipped to our pockets; a people on the go. We shop the same stores coast to coast, eat the same food from Virginia Beach to Long Beach and listen to the same music, watch the same television and are fed the same news in Altoona and Azusa. Where are we from? What does it matter?

If it doesn’t matter where I’m from, if one place is pretty much like another, if everything looks the same, sounds the same, tastes the same, smells the same, then every place pretty much IS the same: no place is special. No place is home. When we become disconnected from our past, all that matters is what’s right here, right now. The world loses its wonder—it becomes not a symphony of Creation but just stuff to look at. The world ceases to be a sacrament of God’s presence and becomes just the place I am right now. Without a place to be “from” we aren’t just disconnected from our past; we become disconnected from ourselves, “a stranger in a strange land.”

We each need to be “from” somewhere—not necessarily where we’re born—but we need a special place, a place we are connected to. Our walk in the labyrinth of this life has to start “from” somewhere. If we are a nation of nomads, if we don’t know where we’re from, how can we know where we’re going? “New Age” wisdom (i.e., what you hear on Oprah and read in fortune cookies) tells us “It’s the Journey that Matters, Not the Goal.” There is some truth to that—some of the winning lotto numbers on the back of your fortune cookie are correct, just not now and not for you. We know the Journey is important. What God does with us (maybe sometimes “to” us) along the Way is essential to each of us being who we are and who He wants us to be. But we are not homeless on our Walk: we started somewhere, and are intended to end up Somewhere Else.

After the Mass for the Dead is ended, as the body is carried from the church for burial, one of the most beautiful of chants is sung, the In Paradisium: “May the angels lead you into Paradise, may the martyrs receive you in your coming, and may they guide you into the holy city, Jerusalem. May the chorus of angels receive you and may you, with Lazarus once poor, have eternal rest.”

If you know where you’re “from,” you’ll have a better chance of getting where you want to go (even if you have to shop at Wal-Mart along the way).

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FROM MY BOOKSTACK: Whenever I see Minister Farrakhan is going to be on C-SPAN, I make an effort to watch. I will never forget the-uh-speech he delivered at the Million Man March. Till I go for my purgatorial wire-brushing, I will remember how mesmerized I was by that bizarre locution. With his first real national audience, he wandered off into numerological, Masonic and historical fantasies that would have strained the credulity of any member of the Flat Earth Society . He has, on occasion, spoken with force and conviction and sometimes truth. But that day too many of his hidden cards fell on the table. I do enjoy watching him speak. Not so Jesse Jackson. His attempts to convey education by alliteration not only fail to convince but even fail to entertain. He’s boring. He’s the Angry Black Man who wants you to know he’s angry, but if you give his organization some money, he’ll find someone else to be angry at (his model has been successful for a couple of other national black figures, too). When I see Jackson glowering on the TV, I change the channel. But there’s a new man of late, Michael Eric Dyson. Unlike Jesse, he’s genuinely educated and undoubtedly bright. Unlike Minister Farrakhan, he knows some whites will actually listen to what he says. A lot of his work is directed their way. Like Jesse, he knows how to be the Angry Black Man; like Minister Farrakhan, he speaks with force and conviction and sometimes truth. So when I was in a used bookstore two weeks ago and saw The Michael Eric Dyson Reader in the discount book bin, I couldn’t resist.

The book is a series of essays (500 pages of ‘em), running the gamut from “When You’re a Credit to Your Race, the Bill Will Come Due: O J Simpson and Our Trial by Fire” to “It’s Not What You Know, It’s How You Show It: Black Public Intellectuals.” I will admit there are several of the essays I’ve not read, a few, like “Michael Jackson’s Postmodern Spirituality,” which I almost certainly never will. Like those I’ve mentioned, and others I’ve not, Professor Dyson is a Professional Black Man. By that I mean being a black man is his profession, his distinction. That isn’t to say his has nothing to offer, but to get to his underlying thought, you have to wade through his asides, his anger, his frustration. For those who want to grapple with the racial problems of America today, it’s worth doing. For better or worse, his will be the face and voice of many black Americans for the next generation. Understanding his thought may not bring us much closer to healing the pain of the past and the divides of the present, but it will show us something of the limits that healing will be allowed to go for the next generation.

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QUOTES FROM THE PRINCIPALS:

Sir Francis Bacon-“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”

Queen Victoria-“I don't dislike babies, though I think very young ones rather disgusting.”

Harry Truman-“ Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it.”

Jesse Jackson-“ I cast my bread on the waters long ago. Now it's time for you to send it back to me - toasted and buttered on both sides.”

Chatty Belle-“Hi, so nice to see you. My name is Chatty Belle. What's your name? Well, nice to meet you. Did you know I’m the world's largest talking cow? I'm 16 feet high at the shoulders and 20 feet long, seven times as large as the average Holstein."