A Rhyme for the Beginning of Lent
by Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
Is this a Fast, to keep the larder leane?
and cleane from fat of Veales and Sheep?
Is it to quit the dish of Flesh, yet still
to fill the platter high with fish?
Is it to fast an houre or rag’d go,
or show a down cast look, and sour?
No: ‘tis a fast, to dole thy sheaf of wheat
and meat unto the hungry soule.
It is to fast from strife, from old debate
and hate:
to circumcise thy life.
To shew a heart grief-rent; to starve thy sin,
not Bin
and that’s to keep thy Lent.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Dogmas Secular and Sacred
Walking the Labyrinth-February 12, 2010—Few things provide me more fun and fascination than perusing an antique Martyrology. Martyrologies are collections of the lives of the saints, written to preserve the stories of those whose feasts are celebrated on the calendar of the Church year. The oldest surviving collections go back to the fourth century. The writing is stylized, and follows predictable patterns, but there are those occasional delights that jump from the page straight to the heart. Today is one such for me. St Luden was a medieval pilgrim, the son of a minor Scottish nobleman, who lived at the end of the twelfth century. He resolved to travel to Jerusalem to pray for his family and friends at the Holy Places, setting out in 1198, when he was 24 years old. Two years later he arrived at Jerusalem; he visited the Holy Sepulchre, walked the Via Dolorosa, bathed in the Jordan River, and prayed at the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth. Along the way, the young man kept a diary of his travels, thoughts and prayers. After almost a year in the Holy Land, he left for Scotland during the summer of 1201. Luden never returned home. While traveling through the Alsace border of eastern France, he got sick outside the small village of Nordhouse. On February 12, 1202, he sat under a nearby tree and died. When villagers approached him he had a large pouch at his side; they carried him to the parish priest who opened the pouch and found Luden’s diary. It began “I am Luden, the son of Hildebod, a Lord of Scotland. I have become a pilgrim for the love of God.” His diary revealed a profound piety and the local people began to speak of Luden as a saint. A chapel was built in his honor on the site his body was discovered; it was enlarged to a church in 1492, when his remains were formally enshrined in a tomb. The Ludenkirche is still there today. No big miracles, no great accomplishments in Luden’s life, but piety put to practice, walking the path of a pilgrim. For me at least, clumsily walking my labyrinthine path, Luden isn’t a bad saint to remember. He died on his route (as each of us will), but he arrived at his Goal.
Some people are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Two such unfortunates, joined only by today’s date and a mutuality of distresses, are Zahir ad-Din Toghtekin and Lorenzo Cardinal Campeggio. Toghtekin (known as “Dodeghin” in the French chronicles of the Crusades) by some accounts began his life as a Turkish slave about 1060. He rose through the ranks of the military and in 1092 came to the attention of the emir of Damascus, who put him in charge of his army. Toghtekin, though, had set his sights higher than mere military rank. Over the next several years, through scheming, bribery and murder, he made himself Lord of Damascus, marrying his predecessor’s widow. Before the end of the year his troubles began. The Great Army of Godfrey de Boullion, the leader of the First Crusade, appeared, unexpectedly, before the walls of Antioch. Toghtekin, who hadn’t even known there was such a thing as a Crusade, sent some men to drive them off. When they didn’t return, Toghtekin led a force of 500 against the invaders only to discover Godfrey was at the head of an army of 40,000. This was the first in a whole series of Very Unwelcome Events. For the next 31 years of his life, Toghtekin fought a losing war against the Crusaders, and when he wasn’t fighting them, he had to put down rebellions by his own vassals. In 1103, the Crusaders took Homs, in 1106 they captured Tripoli, a few years later Tyre fell. His empire crumbled around him. After the loss of the great commercial center of Tiberias in 1113, he made peace with the “Franks,” signing a treaty with Baldwin I, the King of Jerusalem and allying with the Crusaders against his fellow Muslims. He repented within a year and joined an army to drive out the Crusaders, but it was resoundingly defeated. Toghtekin participated in three more campaigns against the Franks but lost each one. He died on February 12, 1128, the treasury of Damascus depleted and his name in disrepute across Islam. Sometimes, it’s just better to “bloom where you are planted.”
Lorenzo Campeggio was born in Milan on February 12, 1471. He came from a well-to-do family, not noble but prosperous. In 1500 he took his doctorate in canon and civil law from the University of Bologna and immediately married. After his wife died giving birth to their sixth child in 1509, Pope Julius II (who in my mind will always look and sound like Rex Harrison in “The Agony and the Ecstasy,” rather than the old bearded man of Raphael’s portrait) convinced him to take up the life ecclesiastical. He quickly rose through the hierarchy, sent as papal legate to the Emperor Maximilian I in 1510, created Bishop of Feltre in 1512, in 1513 appointed papal legate to Milan. Pope Leo X made him a cardinal in 1517 and Maximilian immediately named him Cardinal-Protector of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1518 he was made papal legate to England, where he clashed with Cardinal Wolsey, jealous of the much-titled new arrival. In January, 1523 he was named Cardinal-Protector of England and the next year Bishop of Salisbury. Late the same year, the pope made him Bishop of Bologna. With his many positions, endowments and benefices, Campeggio was one of the best-connected (not to say richest) men in Europe. “What goes up,” the adage says, “must come down.” In 1527, when troops allied to Emperor Charles V sacked Rome (it’s always smart to pay the people with guns) Campeggio was left in charge of the city as the pope fled. The cardinal saw his estates destroyed, his fortune seized by the mob, his family scattered. In the midst of the disaster, King Henry VIII decided he could wait no longer to marry Anne Boleyn, and ordered Campeggio to return to England and see to it. Ever the diplomat, Campeggio tried to delay a decision, hoping one or more of the parties would die—or at least—change their mind. He stalled for three years, until an angry Henry took matters into his own hands (to see how successfully it all came out, look up “General Synod, Church of England” in this week’s newspapers). Campeggio returned to Rome, his policies in shambles—Henry had kicked him out of England, revoked his titles and—in what would become a Henrician habit—confiscated his incomes. He found both pope and emperor in a forgiving mood. The emperor gave him a nice castle in Germany and the pope made him Bishop of Huerca in Spain, Candia in Cyprus (he never had to visit either one) and he was given the income of Majorca—his son having been named bishop of the island but still too young to act in the office. Campeggio died quietly at home during the summer of 1538, his fortune re-established by both church and state. Both his sons, two of his brothers and one of his nephews became bishops of wealthy dioceses, thanks to his influence. In spite of the pious priests and reverend clergy you may know, Religion Can Pay.
Lady Jane Grey, “the Nine Day’s Queen,” was beheaded at the age of 16 on February 12, 1554. She never quite understood why.
The Reverend Doctor Cotton Mather, American Puritan and apologist for the Salem Witch Trials, was born on February 12, 1663. As a boy he attended Boston Latin School—where Meg teaches today!—and, following family tradition, he, like his father and grandfather before, became a Puritan clergyman. He was a prolific author (he wrote more than 400 books and pamphlets in his 65 years), who, in addition to worrying about witches, experimented with the hybridization of plants and was one of the first Americans to have his family inoculated against smallpox. Though Cotton wrote some very long books (the only one really read anymore is his Wonders of the Invisible World, written in 1693, wherein he describes and defends the Salem Trials), most people of his day knew him from what were then known as “Execution-Sermons.” These were short pamphlets recounting in lurid detail the crimes of those people executed—usually for murder—in Puritan New England. They were best-sellers in their day and Cotton mastered the form. Mather re-published a collection of his favorite Execution-Sermons in 1699 under the title Pillars of Salt. In 2008, The Library of America reprinted the entirety of Pillars of Salt in its retrospective two centuries of American True Crime writing. Cotton Mather—the literary progenitor of Dashiell Hammett?
On February 12, 1797, Franz Joseph Haydn, court composer for the noble Esterhazy family, introduced what he hoped would become the National Hymn of Austria. He’d lived for five years in England and was impressed with the English “national song”—“God Save the King.” Wanting to produce something similar for Austria, he wrote a tune for the words Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser (“God Save Emperor Francis”) for the birthday of Francis II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It is sometimes called the Kaiserhymne (“Emperor's Hymn”), though the name of the tune in most English-speaking hymnals is “Austria.” The English hymn opens with the words “Glorious Things of thee are spoken, Zion, City of our God.” The tune was also used, long after Haydn’s death, by German poet Hoffmann von Fallersleben in his Das Lied der Deutschen (1841). The opening words are “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles" and despite its tinny use in Germany during the 1930’s, it remains the German National Anthem today.
On February 12, 1809, two births of immense consequence for the century took place. In Hodgenville, Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln, future President of the United States was born in a log cabin; the same day, in Shrewsbury, England, in the mansion of Richard Darwin, his wife Susanna gave birth to their fifth child, Charles. In 1859 that same Charles published On the Origin of Species. There isn’t a lot I can tell you about either of these men you don’t already know—but I bet you didn’t know this: last year, on the bi-centennial of their natal day, Google designed a special logo to run on all its web-pages, celebrating Darwin Day (of which more later). They received so many complaints about the perceived slight to the Great Emancipator the logo came down and, if you look at today’s Google logo, you’ll find no sign of either nativity. Incidentally, Newsweek Magazine ran a special cover (see the illustration up and to the right) and story that day about the two men, asking which was more influential (Lincoln won). Letters over the next few weeks, however, indicated that many readers—or at least, lookers—thought the story was about which of the two could “take down” the other in a wrestling match. Now there's a historical question. Unsurprisingly, Abe won that one, too.
On February 12, 1878, Frederick W. Thayer, captain of the Harvard University Baseball Club, patented the baseball catcher’s mask. Later, he became a dentist. I know those two things have to be related.
On February 12, 1915, Lorne Greene (that’s Ben Cartwright to you and me) was born in Ottowa, Ontario to Russian Jewish immigrants (in those days he was Lyon Hyman Green). While studying chemical engineering, he took a job at the university radio station and enjoyed it so much he left school for a job with the Canadian Broadcasting Company. He was nicknamed “The Voice of Canada” by the mid-1930’s, but in the early days of World War II, as he delivered the somber news day after day, Canadians took to calling him “The Voice of Doom.” The Bonanza television program turned him into an icon of the Old West (I remember going to rodeos in my youth and seeing “Ben” and “Hoss” and “Little Joe” taking a quick ride around the ring, waving them hats, their pistols a-blazin’, and then later appearing to sign autographs. Don’t know where any of those old signed pictures are nowadays). Later in life, after Bonanza was off the air, Lorne recorded ten albums between 1960 through 1966—including Bonanza Ponderosa Party Time and Welcome to the Ponderosa. They make painful listening today—as they must have then to the impartial listener. Still, True Believers gave ole Ben six weeks at the top of America’s music charts in 1964 with “Ringo.” It tells the story of a lawman of the Old West and an outlaw named Ringo (loosely based on Johnny Ringo). Sometime, somebody in Hollywood, needs to tell actors that just because they can make money acting in front of a camera, that doesn't necessarily mean they are qualified to sing behind a microphone. Nor, for that matter, does it make them intelligent commentators on American politics.
Today is the 43rd day of the year. 322 days are left in 2010 (are you used to writing “2010” yet?). The ancient Romans dated today as ante diem idus Februarius. For Coptic Christians today is Amshir 5, 1726, the Coptic Martyrology lists "saints Anba Bishay of the Akhmim Monastery, and Anba Abanub, known as the owner of the Golden Fan." I have no idea what the “golden fan” is or was, but I’m determined to find out. When I do, I’ll let you in on it. The Congress of the United States has declared February 12 “National Jello Day” (hm-that’s not so inappropriate, when you think about it), and a number of groups across the globe—though not the U S Congress—have named today “Darwin Day.” I don’t have a thing against Darwin’s theories qua theories, except that many adherents seem to believe those who would question their unquestionable certainties are dangerous throwbacks to a Neanderthal past. Scientific inquiry ends where federal dollars begin.
Lent is upon us, and soon. Monday is “Clean Monday” in the Orthodox Churches, the first day of their Lenten observances. This coming Wednesday is “Ash Wednesday,” when Lent begins for Western Christians. Between now and then lies Shrove Tuesday, commonly called (by those who don’t know about Tuesday Shriving) Mardi Gras—Fat Tuesday. I hope your Tuesday is fun—I’m having pancakes and sausages to eat, watching Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and having a nice cup o’ bourbon—and your Wednesday is holy—I’m off to confession, laying aside my beloved Cicero for forty days and forty nights and wrasslin’ through the Gospel of Mark in Greek (with a fat lexicon by my side). Happy fasting.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Many thanks to Steve Mitchell, who suggested I change the format of the first part of Labyrinthus so as to make it easier to read. Breaking the single run-on paragraph up, he suggested, makes each topic easier—and the whole more pleasant—to read. This week’s emails tell me several of you agree. Just don’t think I change easily. It took Steve, Barry, Tanya and Beata seven years—the time it took Jacob to labor for Rachel—before I’d agree to use a computer at all!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I’ll say, right off the bat, I’m a believer in dogma. For years I taught Dogmatic Theology: I taught it, believed it, and liked it. Still do.
Dogma, the noun, dogmatic, the adjective, dogmatically, the adverb are negative words in our current vocabulary. They connote close-mindedness, ignorance and a self-satisfied, self-contained view of the world. A dogmatic person, by this account, suffers from an inability to distinguish between established facts and personal opinions. I’ve known a lot of people who fit this mold. Some are Christians, some atheists, some Jews, some Muslims, some are scientists: any religion—or lack of it, any point of view—can be forced into the mold.
Dogma wasn’t originally a bad word. It comes to us from the ancient Greeks and at first it meant “things so obviously true everybody accepts them,” and so a dogmatic statement would be something like: “the sky is blue” or “justice is better than injustice.” This actually is where Socrates got his start, where philosophy, as we know it, began. Socrates didn’t necessarily deny the daily dogmas of Greek life, but he did ask questions about them. “If justice is better than injustice,” he might ask, “how is it better? What do we mean when we say ‘justice?’ ” In its earliest form, then, dogma simply meant “the truths we all accept.” It wasn’t a particularly religious word.
Over time, dogma came to mean those particular tenets which distinguished one school of philosophy from another. What did a follower of Plato believe as distinct from a disciple of Epicurus? Those distinctions came to be called dogmas, “distinguishing opinions.” If you look up “dogma” in most dictionaries, that’s how it defines the word. Dogmas are the characteristic beliefs of one group or another. We’ve refined the word a bit since, and some of us (me included) distinguish between “dogmas”—“essential beliefs”—and “doctrines”—those beliefs which flow from dogmas. That’s best left to another discussion in another place. We can say that dogmas are “core beliefs.”
The important word here is “belief.”
When I tell you I believe something, I mean more than “I guess this might be so.” I mean, “this is true.” All of us have had the unpleasant discovery of realizing something we believed to be so wasn’t so. Sometimes we shrug it off, sometimes it brings us to a personal crisis. We don’t stop “believing” things when that happens, because “believing” is an essential part of us. I go to bed believing I’ll wake up in the morning, though someday I won’t. I believe the merchant will take my cash as good for my purchases (though someday he may not!); I believe the waitress will understand my language when I give her my order, it’s safe to believe my hair color will still be gray next week. These basic beliefs, these daily dogmas, help us move through our lives with order and continuity.
But, in the tradition of our western culture, dogma does imply more. It has become a religious word.
In fact, dogma can describe something intensely personal and liberating. When a Jew recites the Sh’ma, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One,” when a Christian says the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord…” and when a Muslim intones the shahadah, “There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is His Prophet,” all are speaking dogmatically. Each is saying “this I believe.” We are grounding ourselves in the reality of God, in His presence and Grace. This is no mere intellectual assent. It is prayer at its most fundamental level. We will disagree about the contents of these dogmatic statements: neither Jew nor Christian will accept the Muslim’s claims about Mohammed and both Jew and Muslim will reject the Trinitarian faith enshrined in the Apostles’ Creed (some “who profess and call themselves Christians” reject it too). Dogma lies at the heart of any religious belief. Without dogma you can still have a religion, but it will be entirely self-centered and ultimately self-absorbed (“I’m not very religious but I’m a very spiritual person” is another way of saying “I decide what’s true or false, right or wrong, good or bad, for me.” Try that line on the sufferers of Buchenwald).
I’m not a scientist or a climatologist. I have no empirical data to tell me whether the claims made by those who make dire predictions about “global warming” are true or not (I suspect though, some people this week may have thoughts of their own as they shovel their driveways or contemplate their snow-shrouded patio furniture). It's worth noting that a growing number of news organizations are carrying stories about the doctoring or suppression of any evidence that calls those New Dogmas into question. There’s an old Latin phrase worth remembering: Cui Bono? “Who benefits?” Detectives consider “who benefits” when they look at a crime, as do judges and lawyers and sometimes even reporters. We have it in the back of our minds when something happens we don’t like. We may not say. “Hmm-‘cui bono?’ ” But we do think “what are they getting out of that?” Perhaps the old phrase can even be applied to scientists.
When I was young, I was taught the basics of Darwin’s theory of evolution. I accepted it. I had the good fortune to have pastors and teachers who saw no conflict between scientific and religious truth. Evolution, as I understand it, makes sense to me. God can create using whatever methodologies and tools He wants (St Augustine’s famous phrase, “God still creates, He still redeems, He still sanctifies!” doesn’t seem too out-of-place in this context). If Darwin is correct—or as I imagine is more likely—partially correct, good for him and good for us. If he’s completely wrong, and all things sprung into immediate and full existence as many “creationists” seem to insist, that’s great too. One way or another, we were called into being. However, Dogmatic Darwinians not only demand that I assent to Darwin’s evolutionary theory but require me further to renounce the superstitious shackles of religion (look at any one of the many “Darwin Day” sites on the internet). Darwin didn’t seem to think that necessarily followed, but in our day, scientific dogma carries a political clout the Inquisition might envy. Scientists who question the many conclusions of Global Warming—shown at least sometimes to be nothing more than speculations, as in the case of the Not-Quite-Dead-Yet Himalayan glaciers—are refused seating at conferences or tenure in universities—hmm—cui bono? Is it a victory for Science—or for scientists seeking for more global warming research dollars? I dunno, I’m not a scientist but a lot of this scrambling around of researchers lately looks like something other than a dispassionate interest in facts.
Dogma is not about scientific facts but religious belief. Every time somebody trots out the latest research on the Shroud of Turin, I—inwardly at least—roll my eyes. Whether it’s a clever medieval forgery or a genuine relic of Christ’s Resurrection makes no difference to my belief in what happened on the first Easter Day. Science will not make me pray more, sin less or love my neighbor as myself. That’s not its job. The Church 500 years ago learned to its chagrin that throwing Galileo in the calaboose didn’t affect the movement of the planets. Dogma tells us who we are; science tells us where we are (or, in Galileo’s elegant phrase, “The Bible tells us how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go”). Both things are good and important. When one trespasses into the expertise of the other—nobody benefits.
One of the reasons so many “people of faith” question evolution, global warming or the latest scientific orthodoxy is that some scientists-or people who are called scientists—speak with an increasingly dogmatic tone. It’s not simply that evolution seems best to match the world as it appears, but if we understand it properly, we can-and should-jettison any notion of God as a stale leftover from our Dark Past. It’s okay to question the most intimate details about a life of faith—(I was particularly irritated when I read several years back that somebody somewhere had done research on whether or not prayer “worked” by having one set of sick people prayed for while leaving a controlled set “unprayed” for) but evidently many of today's "scientists" don't want the details of their research examined too closely. Some of them expect us to accept what they tell us on faith-the same faith they mock if it's attached to religion.
“Faith” St Paul said, “is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
We chaff at the dogmatic claims of scientists not because they are about science but precisely because they are not. When they speak dogmatically they are intruding in the courtyard of faith. And why? Because dogma is religious, and-to speak bluntly-they are propounding a new religion, even if they don’t know it. Their new dogma replaces the God Who speaks to the individual hearts of men and women with impersonal forces which we can harness and ultimately control. The ancient Greeks knew better. One of their words—even older than dogma—is hubris, "over-reaching pride."
I’m a believer in dogma, but it matters very much which dogmas you believe.
Some people are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Two such unfortunates, joined only by today’s date and a mutuality of distresses, are Zahir ad-Din Toghtekin and Lorenzo Cardinal Campeggio. Toghtekin (known as “Dodeghin” in the French chronicles of the Crusades) by some accounts began his life as a Turkish slave about 1060. He rose through the ranks of the military and in 1092 came to the attention of the emir of Damascus, who put him in charge of his army. Toghtekin, though, had set his sights higher than mere military rank. Over the next several years, through scheming, bribery and murder, he made himself Lord of Damascus, marrying his predecessor’s widow. Before the end of the year his troubles began. The Great Army of Godfrey de Boullion, the leader of the First Crusade, appeared, unexpectedly, before the walls of Antioch. Toghtekin, who hadn’t even known there was such a thing as a Crusade, sent some men to drive them off. When they didn’t return, Toghtekin led a force of 500 against the invaders only to discover Godfrey was at the head of an army of 40,000. This was the first in a whole series of Very Unwelcome Events. For the next 31 years of his life, Toghtekin fought a losing war against the Crusaders, and when he wasn’t fighting them, he had to put down rebellions by his own vassals. In 1103, the Crusaders took Homs, in 1106 they captured Tripoli, a few years later Tyre fell. His empire crumbled around him. After the loss of the great commercial center of Tiberias in 1113, he made peace with the “Franks,” signing a treaty with Baldwin I, the King of Jerusalem and allying with the Crusaders against his fellow Muslims. He repented within a year and joined an army to drive out the Crusaders, but it was resoundingly defeated. Toghtekin participated in three more campaigns against the Franks but lost each one. He died on February 12, 1128, the treasury of Damascus depleted and his name in disrepute across Islam. Sometimes, it’s just better to “bloom where you are planted.”
Lorenzo Campeggio was born in Milan on February 12, 1471. He came from a well-to-do family, not noble but prosperous. In 1500 he took his doctorate in canon and civil law from the University of Bologna and immediately married. After his wife died giving birth to their sixth child in 1509, Pope Julius II (who in my mind will always look and sound like Rex Harrison in “The Agony and the Ecstasy,” rather than the old bearded man of Raphael’s portrait) convinced him to take up the life ecclesiastical. He quickly rose through the hierarchy, sent as papal legate to the Emperor Maximilian I in 1510, created Bishop of Feltre in 1512, in 1513 appointed papal legate to Milan. Pope Leo X made him a cardinal in 1517 and Maximilian immediately named him Cardinal-Protector of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1518 he was made papal legate to England, where he clashed with Cardinal Wolsey, jealous of the much-titled new arrival. In January, 1523 he was named Cardinal-Protector of England and the next year Bishop of Salisbury. Late the same year, the pope made him Bishop of Bologna. With his many positions, endowments and benefices, Campeggio was one of the best-connected (not to say richest) men in Europe. “What goes up,” the adage says, “must come down.” In 1527, when troops allied to Emperor Charles V sacked Rome (it’s always smart to pay the people with guns) Campeggio was left in charge of the city as the pope fled. The cardinal saw his estates destroyed, his fortune seized by the mob, his family scattered. In the midst of the disaster, King Henry VIII decided he could wait no longer to marry Anne Boleyn, and ordered Campeggio to return to England and see to it. Ever the diplomat, Campeggio tried to delay a decision, hoping one or more of the parties would die—or at least—change their mind. He stalled for three years, until an angry Henry took matters into his own hands (to see how successfully it all came out, look up “General Synod, Church of England” in this week’s newspapers). Campeggio returned to Rome, his policies in shambles—Henry had kicked him out of England, revoked his titles and—in what would become a Henrician habit—confiscated his incomes. He found both pope and emperor in a forgiving mood. The emperor gave him a nice castle in Germany and the pope made him Bishop of Huerca in Spain, Candia in Cyprus (he never had to visit either one) and he was given the income of Majorca—his son having been named bishop of the island but still too young to act in the office. Campeggio died quietly at home during the summer of 1538, his fortune re-established by both church and state. Both his sons, two of his brothers and one of his nephews became bishops of wealthy dioceses, thanks to his influence. In spite of the pious priests and reverend clergy you may know, Religion Can Pay.
Lady Jane Grey, “the Nine Day’s Queen,” was beheaded at the age of 16 on February 12, 1554. She never quite understood why.
The Reverend Doctor Cotton Mather, American Puritan and apologist for the Salem Witch Trials, was born on February 12, 1663. As a boy he attended Boston Latin School—where Meg teaches today!—and, following family tradition, he, like his father and grandfather before, became a Puritan clergyman. He was a prolific author (he wrote more than 400 books and pamphlets in his 65 years), who, in addition to worrying about witches, experimented with the hybridization of plants and was one of the first Americans to have his family inoculated against smallpox. Though Cotton wrote some very long books (the only one really read anymore is his Wonders of the Invisible World, written in 1693, wherein he describes and defends the Salem Trials), most people of his day knew him from what were then known as “Execution-Sermons.” These were short pamphlets recounting in lurid detail the crimes of those people executed—usually for murder—in Puritan New England. They were best-sellers in their day and Cotton mastered the form. Mather re-published a collection of his favorite Execution-Sermons in 1699 under the title Pillars of Salt. In 2008, The Library of America reprinted the entirety of Pillars of Salt in its retrospective two centuries of American True Crime writing. Cotton Mather—the literary progenitor of Dashiell Hammett?
On February 12, 1797, Franz Joseph Haydn, court composer for the noble Esterhazy family, introduced what he hoped would become the National Hymn of Austria. He’d lived for five years in England and was impressed with the English “national song”—“God Save the King.” Wanting to produce something similar for Austria, he wrote a tune for the words Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser (“God Save Emperor Francis”) for the birthday of Francis II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It is sometimes called the Kaiserhymne (“Emperor's Hymn”), though the name of the tune in most English-speaking hymnals is “Austria.” The English hymn opens with the words “Glorious Things of thee are spoken, Zion, City of our God.” The tune was also used, long after Haydn’s death, by German poet Hoffmann von Fallersleben in his Das Lied der Deutschen (1841). The opening words are “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles" and despite its tinny use in Germany during the 1930’s, it remains the German National Anthem today.
On February 12, 1809, two births of immense consequence for the century took place. In Hodgenville, Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln, future President of the United States was born in a log cabin; the same day, in Shrewsbury, England, in the mansion of Richard Darwin, his wife Susanna gave birth to their fifth child, Charles. In 1859 that same Charles published On the Origin of Species. There isn’t a lot I can tell you about either of these men you don’t already know—but I bet you didn’t know this: last year, on the bi-centennial of their natal day, Google designed a special logo to run on all its web-pages, celebrating Darwin Day (of which more later). They received so many complaints about the perceived slight to the Great Emancipator the logo came down and, if you look at today’s Google logo, you’ll find no sign of either nativity. Incidentally, Newsweek Magazine ran a special cover (see the illustration up and to the right) and story that day about the two men, asking which was more influential (Lincoln won). Letters over the next few weeks, however, indicated that many readers—or at least, lookers—thought the story was about which of the two could “take down” the other in a wrestling match. Now there's a historical question. Unsurprisingly, Abe won that one, too.
On February 12, 1878, Frederick W. Thayer, captain of the Harvard University Baseball Club, patented the baseball catcher’s mask. Later, he became a dentist. I know those two things have to be related.
On February 12, 1915, Lorne Greene (that’s Ben Cartwright to you and me) was born in Ottowa, Ontario to Russian Jewish immigrants (in those days he was Lyon Hyman Green). While studying chemical engineering, he took a job at the university radio station and enjoyed it so much he left school for a job with the Canadian Broadcasting Company. He was nicknamed “The Voice of Canada” by the mid-1930’s, but in the early days of World War II, as he delivered the somber news day after day, Canadians took to calling him “The Voice of Doom.” The Bonanza television program turned him into an icon of the Old West (I remember going to rodeos in my youth and seeing “Ben” and “Hoss” and “Little Joe” taking a quick ride around the ring, waving them hats, their pistols a-blazin’, and then later appearing to sign autographs. Don’t know where any of those old signed pictures are nowadays). Later in life, after Bonanza was off the air, Lorne recorded ten albums between 1960 through 1966—including Bonanza Ponderosa Party Time and Welcome to the Ponderosa. They make painful listening today—as they must have then to the impartial listener. Still, True Believers gave ole Ben six weeks at the top of America’s music charts in 1964 with “Ringo.” It tells the story of a lawman of the Old West and an outlaw named Ringo (loosely based on Johnny Ringo). Sometime, somebody in Hollywood, needs to tell actors that just because they can make money acting in front of a camera, that doesn't necessarily mean they are qualified to sing behind a microphone. Nor, for that matter, does it make them intelligent commentators on American politics.
Today is the 43rd day of the year. 322 days are left in 2010 (are you used to writing “2010” yet?). The ancient Romans dated today as ante diem idus Februarius. For Coptic Christians today is Amshir 5, 1726, the Coptic Martyrology lists "saints Anba Bishay of the Akhmim Monastery, and Anba Abanub, known as the owner of the Golden Fan." I have no idea what the “golden fan” is or was, but I’m determined to find out. When I do, I’ll let you in on it. The Congress of the United States has declared February 12 “National Jello Day” (hm-that’s not so inappropriate, when you think about it), and a number of groups across the globe—though not the U S Congress—have named today “Darwin Day.” I don’t have a thing against Darwin’s theories qua theories, except that many adherents seem to believe those who would question their unquestionable certainties are dangerous throwbacks to a Neanderthal past. Scientific inquiry ends where federal dollars begin.
Lent is upon us, and soon. Monday is “Clean Monday” in the Orthodox Churches, the first day of their Lenten observances. This coming Wednesday is “Ash Wednesday,” when Lent begins for Western Christians. Between now and then lies Shrove Tuesday, commonly called (by those who don’t know about Tuesday Shriving) Mardi Gras—Fat Tuesday. I hope your Tuesday is fun—I’m having pancakes and sausages to eat, watching Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and having a nice cup o’ bourbon—and your Wednesday is holy—I’m off to confession, laying aside my beloved Cicero for forty days and forty nights and wrasslin’ through the Gospel of Mark in Greek (with a fat lexicon by my side). Happy fasting.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Many thanks to Steve Mitchell, who suggested I change the format of the first part of Labyrinthus so as to make it easier to read. Breaking the single run-on paragraph up, he suggested, makes each topic easier—and the whole more pleasant—to read. This week’s emails tell me several of you agree. Just don’t think I change easily. It took Steve, Barry, Tanya and Beata seven years—the time it took Jacob to labor for Rachel—before I’d agree to use a computer at all!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I’ll say, right off the bat, I’m a believer in dogma. For years I taught Dogmatic Theology: I taught it, believed it, and liked it. Still do.
Dogma, the noun, dogmatic, the adjective, dogmatically, the adverb are negative words in our current vocabulary. They connote close-mindedness, ignorance and a self-satisfied, self-contained view of the world. A dogmatic person, by this account, suffers from an inability to distinguish between established facts and personal opinions. I’ve known a lot of people who fit this mold. Some are Christians, some atheists, some Jews, some Muslims, some are scientists: any religion—or lack of it, any point of view—can be forced into the mold.
Dogma wasn’t originally a bad word. It comes to us from the ancient Greeks and at first it meant “things so obviously true everybody accepts them,” and so a dogmatic statement would be something like: “the sky is blue” or “justice is better than injustice.” This actually is where Socrates got his start, where philosophy, as we know it, began. Socrates didn’t necessarily deny the daily dogmas of Greek life, but he did ask questions about them. “If justice is better than injustice,” he might ask, “how is it better? What do we mean when we say ‘justice?’ ” In its earliest form, then, dogma simply meant “the truths we all accept.” It wasn’t a particularly religious word.
Over time, dogma came to mean those particular tenets which distinguished one school of philosophy from another. What did a follower of Plato believe as distinct from a disciple of Epicurus? Those distinctions came to be called dogmas, “distinguishing opinions.” If you look up “dogma” in most dictionaries, that’s how it defines the word. Dogmas are the characteristic beliefs of one group or another. We’ve refined the word a bit since, and some of us (me included) distinguish between “dogmas”—“essential beliefs”—and “doctrines”—those beliefs which flow from dogmas. That’s best left to another discussion in another place. We can say that dogmas are “core beliefs.”
The important word here is “belief.”
When I tell you I believe something, I mean more than “I guess this might be so.” I mean, “this is true.” All of us have had the unpleasant discovery of realizing something we believed to be so wasn’t so. Sometimes we shrug it off, sometimes it brings us to a personal crisis. We don’t stop “believing” things when that happens, because “believing” is an essential part of us. I go to bed believing I’ll wake up in the morning, though someday I won’t. I believe the merchant will take my cash as good for my purchases (though someday he may not!); I believe the waitress will understand my language when I give her my order, it’s safe to believe my hair color will still be gray next week. These basic beliefs, these daily dogmas, help us move through our lives with order and continuity.
But, in the tradition of our western culture, dogma does imply more. It has become a religious word.
In fact, dogma can describe something intensely personal and liberating. When a Jew recites the Sh’ma, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One,” when a Christian says the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord…” and when a Muslim intones the shahadah, “There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is His Prophet,” all are speaking dogmatically. Each is saying “this I believe.” We are grounding ourselves in the reality of God, in His presence and Grace. This is no mere intellectual assent. It is prayer at its most fundamental level. We will disagree about the contents of these dogmatic statements: neither Jew nor Christian will accept the Muslim’s claims about Mohammed and both Jew and Muslim will reject the Trinitarian faith enshrined in the Apostles’ Creed (some “who profess and call themselves Christians” reject it too). Dogma lies at the heart of any religious belief. Without dogma you can still have a religion, but it will be entirely self-centered and ultimately self-absorbed (“I’m not very religious but I’m a very spiritual person” is another way of saying “I decide what’s true or false, right or wrong, good or bad, for me.” Try that line on the sufferers of Buchenwald).
I’m not a scientist or a climatologist. I have no empirical data to tell me whether the claims made by those who make dire predictions about “global warming” are true or not (I suspect though, some people this week may have thoughts of their own as they shovel their driveways or contemplate their snow-shrouded patio furniture). It's worth noting that a growing number of news organizations are carrying stories about the doctoring or suppression of any evidence that calls those New Dogmas into question. There’s an old Latin phrase worth remembering: Cui Bono? “Who benefits?” Detectives consider “who benefits” when they look at a crime, as do judges and lawyers and sometimes even reporters. We have it in the back of our minds when something happens we don’t like. We may not say. “Hmm-‘cui bono?’ ” But we do think “what are they getting out of that?” Perhaps the old phrase can even be applied to scientists.
When I was young, I was taught the basics of Darwin’s theory of evolution. I accepted it. I had the good fortune to have pastors and teachers who saw no conflict between scientific and religious truth. Evolution, as I understand it, makes sense to me. God can create using whatever methodologies and tools He wants (St Augustine’s famous phrase, “God still creates, He still redeems, He still sanctifies!” doesn’t seem too out-of-place in this context). If Darwin is correct—or as I imagine is more likely—partially correct, good for him and good for us. If he’s completely wrong, and all things sprung into immediate and full existence as many “creationists” seem to insist, that’s great too. One way or another, we were called into being. However, Dogmatic Darwinians not only demand that I assent to Darwin’s evolutionary theory but require me further to renounce the superstitious shackles of religion (look at any one of the many “Darwin Day” sites on the internet). Darwin didn’t seem to think that necessarily followed, but in our day, scientific dogma carries a political clout the Inquisition might envy. Scientists who question the many conclusions of Global Warming—shown at least sometimes to be nothing more than speculations, as in the case of the Not-Quite-Dead-Yet Himalayan glaciers—are refused seating at conferences or tenure in universities—hmm—cui bono? Is it a victory for Science—or for scientists seeking for more global warming research dollars? I dunno, I’m not a scientist but a lot of this scrambling around of researchers lately looks like something other than a dispassionate interest in facts.
Dogma is not about scientific facts but religious belief. Every time somebody trots out the latest research on the Shroud of Turin, I—inwardly at least—roll my eyes. Whether it’s a clever medieval forgery or a genuine relic of Christ’s Resurrection makes no difference to my belief in what happened on the first Easter Day. Science will not make me pray more, sin less or love my neighbor as myself. That’s not its job. The Church 500 years ago learned to its chagrin that throwing Galileo in the calaboose didn’t affect the movement of the planets. Dogma tells us who we are; science tells us where we are (or, in Galileo’s elegant phrase, “The Bible tells us how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go”). Both things are good and important. When one trespasses into the expertise of the other—nobody benefits.
One of the reasons so many “people of faith” question evolution, global warming or the latest scientific orthodoxy is that some scientists-or people who are called scientists—speak with an increasingly dogmatic tone. It’s not simply that evolution seems best to match the world as it appears, but if we understand it properly, we can-and should-jettison any notion of God as a stale leftover from our Dark Past. It’s okay to question the most intimate details about a life of faith—(I was particularly irritated when I read several years back that somebody somewhere had done research on whether or not prayer “worked” by having one set of sick people prayed for while leaving a controlled set “unprayed” for) but evidently many of today's "scientists" don't want the details of their research examined too closely. Some of them expect us to accept what they tell us on faith-the same faith they mock if it's attached to religion.
“Faith” St Paul said, “is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
We chaff at the dogmatic claims of scientists not because they are about science but precisely because they are not. When they speak dogmatically they are intruding in the courtyard of faith. And why? Because dogma is religious, and-to speak bluntly-they are propounding a new religion, even if they don’t know it. Their new dogma replaces the God Who speaks to the individual hearts of men and women with impersonal forces which we can harness and ultimately control. The ancient Greeks knew better. One of their words—even older than dogma—is hubris, "over-reaching pride."
I’m a believer in dogma, but it matters very much which dogmas you believe.
Friday, February 05, 2010
Love To Hate
Walking the Labyrinth-February 5, 2010—On February 5, 1597, twenty six people walked to the crest of Nishizaka Hill outside Nagasaki and were crucified. Six were Franciscan friars who led them in hymns as they climbed the hill. Paul Miki, a Japanese Jesuit, preached a sermon about forgiveness to the crowds from his cross. Among the twenty-six were three boys, eleven and twelve and thirteen, several old men, and a collection of artisans, cooks, and clerks. Fifty years earlier, St Francis Xavier first brought Christianity to Japan and his missionary efforts met with much success. Within six years, almost 60,000 Japanese had been baptized. The Shogun Oda Nobunaga welcomed the presence of the foreigners (he used the new religion to offset the immense power of Buddhist priests), but the suspicions of his successor were aroused as the new Japanese Christians took “new, strange and foreign names” at baptism (often, since the Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries were either Spanish or Portuguese, the saints’ names were Spanish or Portuguese); sometimes the new converts adopted European-style dress and manners. Christianity came to be seen as “unJapanese,” the new converts as potential spies. Spurred by these fears and the complaints of Buddhist clergy , the Shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi outlawed Christianity, destroyed the churches and monasteries throughout the country, and arrested the Twenty-Six, most of whom were associated with Paul Miki, the eloquent Japanese Jesuit. They were marched from Kyoto to Nagasaki (about 560 miles) in the snow and crucified on their arrival (Nagasaki was the center of Christian activity in Japan; the Shogun hoped to make a spectacle of the converts but failed. As the Twenty-Six hung from their crosses, several in the crowd presented themselves to the presiding samurai and confessed their faith—they died in prison when the Shogun decided public spectacles didn’t always turn out as one might wish). The conversions didn’t cease. By 1600, almost 300,000 Japanese had turned to the new faith. Over the next thirty years, three vigorous periods of persecution resulted in the deaths of about 40,000 people. In 1629, the government, knowing many Japanese Christians continued to practice the illegal religion secretly, instituted the fumie or “treading.” Since Nagasaki was the Christian center of Japan, it became the site of an annual ceremony at which every adult in Nagasaki was required to participate. Carved images of the Crucifixion of Jesus and depictions of the Blessed Virgin Mary holding her Child were placed on the ground, long lines formed, and everyone was ordered to step on the icons. Those who refused were arrested, when they refused a second time they were thrown into the Mount Unzen volcano. Between 1629 and 1856, when fumie was discontinued due to the arrival of Commodore Perry, more than 300 Japanese were tossed into the depths of the volcano. Since the faith had been outlawed more than two hundred years before Perry’s arrival, foreigners showed much curiosity but held little hope of finding “secret Christians” in Japan. In 1865, however, priests of the Foreign Mission Society found more than 20,000 Japanese still “keeping the faith.” Many had Christian symbols hidden in their homes. Chief among them: images of Jesus, pictures of the Virgin Mary, and depictions of the Twenty-Six Martyrs of February 5.
Marcus Porcius Cato, Roman statesman, orator, and—most rare—an uncorrupt politician, committed suicide on this day in 46 BC. Serious-minded from his youth, Cato was reared in a wealthy and politically influential home. The great men of Roman politics in the last generation of the Republic, before Julius Caesar came to power and his nephew Augustus rose to the Imperium, were frequent callers at his parents’ home. Many a politician remarked at how uncomfortable the boy’s questioning made them. One, in a letter to friends, wrote “Young Marcus had the temerity to ask me why I and so many other senators did what seemed to benefit only ourselves and not the people of Rome!” The Roman dictator, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, liked to talk with young Cato when visiting with his parents. Sulla told his friends how the young Cato one day brought the conversation to an abrupt and embarrassed silence. The boy asked the dictator why he ordered his political opponents put to death. Before Sulla could respond, Cato asked “Don’t you expect someone will kill you one day in just the same way?” (It takes a man secure in his power to tell such a story on himself. As a matter of fact, Sulla died an old man at home, of liver failure. He had been a drinker of some repute for most of his life.) When the slaves revolted under Spartacus, Cato volunteered for the army—by the time he was 26 he commanded a legion. His men noted two things about their commander: his strict adherence to army regulations and his willingness to share their burdens. When the army built a road or erected a stockade, Cato worked alongside his men, eating the same rations and sleeping in a common soldier’s tent. His men protested when he announced to them his commission had expired and he would be returning to Rome—as a reward for their devotion, he gave them a long speech about “the importance of duty.” He took up the study of philosophy, but his friends got him elected to office (as quaestor, responsible for overseeing public expenditures). One of his first acts was to bring corruption charges against his predecessor in office. He allied himself with Cicero and the conservatives in the Senate. His reputation as a speaker and party advocate grew; eventually, it brought him into conflict with Julius Caesar, who he believed wanted to make himself king. His increasingly harsh speeches against Caesar, often made while Caesar sat in the same room, accused the general of plotting to overthrow the Republic. When Civil War did break out between the warring factions of Great Men (Caesar and Pompey, both of whom wanted to rule), Cato foretold the end of the Republic. When Caesar emerged victorious from the wars, he publicly stated he would pardon those who opposed him. At the news, Cato told friends to reconcile with Caesar if they could, but he would “not live in a world where the Republic was a memory.” Neither would he allow Caesar to pardon him. He went to his villa in Utica determined to commit suicide. The Roman historian Plutarch says Cato wanted to kill himself with his own sword, but failed because of an injured hand. “Cato did not immediately die of the wound; but struggling, fell off the bed…making such a noise that the servants heard it and came running…when his son and all his friends came into the chamber, seeing him in a pool of his own blood, a great part of his bowels out of his body, but himself still alive and able to look at them, they all stood in horror. The physician went to him, and would have put in his bowels, which were not pierced, and sewed up the wound; but Cato, recovering himself, and understanding the intention, thrust away the physician, plucked out his own bowels, and tearing open the wound, immediately expired.” Caesar told his friends “I grudge that man his death.” Over the centuries, Cato became the symbol of the incorruptible politician and the man of fixed principles. In 1712, Joseph Addison, the British playwright, published Cato: A Tragedy, recounting the last few days of the old Roman’s life. It may have been the most influential play of the century. With themes opposing liberty and tyranny, republicanism and monarchy, logic and emotion, it was frequently performed in the American colonies as well as in Great Britain. George Washington said it was his favorite drama and saw it repeatedly; he is said to have read it aloud to his officers during the harsh winter at Valley Forge. Cato was the man many of our Founding Fathers hoped to be. In Washington today, ethical conflicts are usually handled by hiring a publicist (once you’ve been found out), and letting everyone know that since God has already forgiven you, the electorate should, too.
On February 5, 1848, Belle Starr was born. She had the reputation of being a famous outlaw in the Old West, but Belle, it turns out, was mostly a girl who liked to date—and sometimes marry—Bad Boys. She was given a classical education in a private academy for young women and was an accomplished pianist. When the Union army attacked their home town of Carthage, Missouri, during the War Between the States, her father, a judge, packed up the family and moved to Texas. That’s where things started to go bad. Shortly thereafter she eloped with a man she’d had a crush on as a young girl; unfortunately he was wanted for murder in Arkansas. Two years into their marriage, she gave birth to a daughter—whose father was not her husband. He was one of her husband’s “business associates,” Cole Younger, of the notorious Younger Gang. She told Cole she was carrying his child and he immediately had to leave town. So did her husband: the law was after him. He went to California to escape, but, as so many others have found, Texas was irresistible. Shortly after returning to the Lone Star State, he was killed during a stagecoach robbery. In 1878, while still officially in mourning for her husband, Belle married another member of the Younger Gang, but left him after three weeks. The next year she married Sam Starr, a Cherokee who lived in what is now Oklahoma (then, Indian Territory). The pair set up a lucrative business near the Arkansas border fencing stolen goods, especially horses and bootleg whiskey. Sam was killed by a sheriff in a classic Western shoot-out; Belle moved on. Over the next couple of years, she took on a series of lovers with colorful names: Jack Spaniard, Jim French and Blue Duck, the notorious Indian outlaw. In order to keep title to her residence on Indian land, she married a relative of Sam Starr fifteen years her junior. By this time she was famous. National Police Gazette publisher, Richard K. Fox published a whole series of dime novels with Belle as the “Starr.” Belle began dressing and acting the part portrayed in Fox’s books: she wore a black velvet riding habit and a plumed hat, carried two pistols, and strapped cartridge belts across her hips. She made money posing for photographs and autographing Fox’s dime novels. He wrote a long novel, Bella Starr, the Bandit Queen, or the Female Jesse James, in 1889. Finally things were going her way. On February 3, 1889, two days before her 41st birthday, the Bandit Queen was riding home after “visiting” a friend. She was shot from her saddle by an unknown bushwacker, who came to her body and emptied his gun into it. No one was ever convicted, but the sheriff investigating said, “Almost everybody who knew her is a legitimate suspect. Nobody really liked her much, even her childrens [sic].” Someone, it’s unknown who, paid for her tombstone. On it is carved a horse and these words: “Shed not for her the bitter tear, Nor give the heart to vain regret, 'Tis but the casket that lies here, The gem that fills it sparkles yet.” One of those many guys she knew along the way evidently wasn’t all bad.
Marcel Proust, the French novelist and playwright, was sensitive about criticism. If he read something critical of his work in the newspaper, he often sent the critic a challenge to meet him for a duel. Only once was he taken up on it. On February 5, 1897, Proust met Jean Lorrain in the “dueling woods” outside Paris. The men had originally agreed to meet at 9 AM, but Proust, a notoriously late sleeper, sent word he would come at 3 PM instead—“No respectable man is up and busy at nine in the morning,” he wrote. Fortunately for French literature, both men were poor marksmen. Shots went wild, the requirements of honor were met, and Proust went to the theater that evening.
About 2 AM, on the morning of February 5, 1958, a B-47 bomber was flying a simulated bombing mission out of Homestead Air Force Base in Florida. It was carrying a hydrogen bomb. Suddenly, in the black of the night, something collided with the bomber. It was a “F-86” fighter, part of the same simulation. The fighter dropped into the sea, but the pilot of the bomber remained in the air, although the plane was badly damaged and in danger of falling from the sky. The captain’s mind raced. What would happen if he crashed on land with a hydrogen bomb? He was given permission to jettison the bomb over water. The crew waited nervously as it fell from the plane into the darkness. The only thing they could definitely say is there was no explosion. The pilot landed the crippled plane at Hunter Army Air Field outside Savannah, Georgia, and the search for the bomb, a 7,600 pound Mark 15 explosive, began immediately. More than 100 missions were launched between February 6 and April 15, before the Navy announced they couldn’t find it. “It is believed to be embedded in silt, between two and five meters deep” (that’s 5-15 feet for most of us) “at the bottom of Wassaw Sound.” It’s still there. The Air Force disclosed the bomb’s loss late in 1958. At that time, an Air Force spokesman said there was no significant danger because, “although it contains 400 pounds (180 kg) of conventional high explosives and highly enriched uranium, the bomb's nuclear capsule, used to initiate the nuclear reaction, was removed prior to flight.” In 1966, though, Assistant Secretary of Defense W.J. Howard said otherwise when subpoenaed by Congress to testify about the incident. When asked about the claim that it was relatively safe, Howard contradicted earlier statements about the bomb’s safety. “It is a complete weapon, a bomb with a nuclear capsule," he told the committee. “There is legitimate cause for concern.” After a 2004 study, the Air Force determined "It is prudent to leave the bomb covered in mud at the bottom of the sea floor rather than disturb it and risk the potential of detonation or contamination." As the highway signs say in Texas whenever you pass a group of maintenance workers along the road, here are “Your Tax Dollars at Work.”
This is the 36th day of 2010. 329 days remain in the year. The ancient Romans (Cato and Caesar) called this the nonae Februarius. The month was sacred to the goddess Februa, mother of Mars, and goddess of passion. Her name is derived from the Latin word febris, the “fever” of love. St Valentine, a third century priest in Rome, had the misfortune of being martyred this “feverish” month and his name is now synonymous with saccharine poetry printed on overpriced cards. February is also congressionally-mandated as “Potato Lover’s Month” and “National Return the Grocery Cart Month.” “Marijuana Awareness Month,” also in February, is not sponsored by Congress, but by a (pardon me) “grassroots” organization, Students for Sensible Drug Policy—the other campaign of the SSD, in case you’re wondering, seeks to lower the legal age for drinking. International Hoof Care Week ends today; February 5th is National Weatherman’s Day (shouldn’t that be “Weatherperson?”) and American Bubble Gum Day. In Finland, today is Runeberg Day. Johan Ludvig Runeberg (who died in 1877) is still called “the national poet of Finland.” An essential part of the day’s celebration calls for the ingestion of Runeberg's Tart, a Finnish pastry seasoned with almonds, rum and raspberry jam, circled with a ring of sugar. According to legend, Runeberg enjoyed the tarts so much he insisted on having one served every day with his breakfast. In Finland they are available from New Year’s Day until Runeberg's birthday on February 5. Popular legend says Runeberg's wife, Fredrika, created the tart. Her recipe book from the 1850s has the recipe. “See You Later, Alligator” by Bill Haley & His Comets topped America’s music charts today in 1956.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Pardon me, while I fulminate. I will be brief. Earlier this week, before I wrote about the Martyrs of Japan, I was reading some news story or other on the internet and came across a mention of “Islamic martyrs,” that is to say, suicide bombers. I am a man who loves words in their richness and subtlety—and I reckon you are, too, if you’re still reading these pages after all these months.
I don’t doubt the “sincerity” of a suicide bomber (no one doubted Hitler’s sincerity either—it’s an overvalued quality in my mind), but I most emphatically dispute calling a suicidal killer a “martyr.” You can call someone who kills others for his beliefs many things, but “martyr” is a misnomer. A “martyr,” in a definition hallowed by 2000 years of continual use, is a person who gives up their life as a “witness” for what they believe. The word comes from classical Greek; originally it was a legal term. The martyros was the “witness,” the person who stood before the jury and told them what he knew to be so. Jews and Christians in the Greco-Roman world, adapted the Greek word to mean those persons who took a stand for their beliefs, regardless of the personal consequences. Islam itself is heir of this tradition; the noble sect of the Sufis have long endured persecution for thier faith, not returning evil for evil. Only in the last 15 years or so has this word come to include the insidious notion that other people might bear the consequences of the martyr’s belief. This novel and unhappy adaptation corrupts the meaning of the word; once noble in its context, in our day the Jewish or Christian martyr and Islamic jihadi have been made equals. They are not. If a Christian were to do the horrific deeds now sadly commonplace in strife-torn Iraq or Afghanistan, no one—lest of all Christians—would call him a martyr. He would be classified as mentally unbalanced. The Martyrs of Japan prayed for their killers from their crosses—wishing them well, hoping for their salvation. Only in this modern era, where murdering unborn babies by the bushel-load every day is given the euphonious epithet “pro-choice,” is such an abuse of the language possible. Unless we…okay, okay, I'm becoming unbrief. Here endeth the Lesson.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Unless you are in the habit of telling yourself the truth, what I’ve got to say will be shocking. If you know how to peel away your veneer, though, you’ll recognize the truth of it: we like to hate. If we give ourselves enough room, we love to hate. We each have our own view of the world we carry around with us, and regardless of complex we like to imagine that is, or how subtle is our thought, as far as most of us are concerned, some people wear black hats and some white ones. The guys sporting gray Stetsons are simply ones we haven’t pegged yet.
We do this as a matter of course, all of us—it’s “Us” versus “Them.” Each generation has its own set of “Us-es” and “Thems.” How we group ourselves—racially, religiously, ethnically, sexually, economically, politically or culturally—endures from generation to generation. You are an “Us” to some people, a “They” to others, and as people come into your life you will classify them and they will classify you. To your momma, you are one of “Us.” To your “ex,” you are one of “Them” (the IRS has been “Them” to everybody at least since Bible times). Our enemies let us know who our friends are, and vice versa (the old Arab proverb runs “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”). Having friends and enemies, heroes and villains, helps us “divvy up” the world.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not writing this sitting guru-like on a mountain top, dispensing wisdom. I’m observing myself. This is what I do. As the Roman poet said (albeit in a different context), “I love and I hate.” What I notice, though, is my losses usually outweigh my gains when I do this. I am a Catholic. If I hate those who are not—Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, or Episcop—well, I don’t want to go overboard with this!—I’m the loser. Hating diminishes my ability to understand, to discover anew that God is limitless—His Grace flows like rivers regardless of how I want to dam it up and define what He is allowed to do. I am an old-line conservative, a “States-rights” type so outdated the only description that will do is an “anti-federalist” of the Patrick Henry school. All my political compatriots died out by 1820! But I live in a world of leftist Democrats, Libertarians, Socialists and Neo-conservatives—to mention but a dizzying few!—and if I refuse to listen to anyone except my fellow True Believers, I’ll be conducting monologues till the cows come home (which, here outside Seguin, is about 7.30 PM). I love baroque music. Nothing can set my spirit soaring as quickly as a chorus by Handel or Vivaldi’s Magnificat. My friend Whitten tries to get me to appreciate the music of “my” generation: the Beatles—and, what is it Whitten calls it?—“the music of the ‘British invasion,’ ” (which, as far as I’m concerned, happened in during the War of 1812) the-uh-let’s see-Rolling Stones—and I know there are others but since I don’t care about the ones I mentioned, the rest are beyond irrelevant to me. But I also love early American folk music, the music of the 1700’s and 18oo’s. That led me to discover classical Zydeco, the bayou music of the Cajuns. I can’t dance (“don’t ask me”), but that music is as much fun as a Bach cantata! Every now and then, though, I’ll hear a little something and be told “It’s a Beatles’ tune.” Not bad—when properly orchestrated.
I used to have a parishioner who hated white people—at least, that what he’d say (he wasn’t white himself). He’d come into my office once or twice a year and go on a long tirade about how white people are responsible for most of the suffering of the world in general and of his life in particular. I never argued with him, I just listened. After forty-five minutes or so, his head of steam gone, he’d look over at me and smile. More than once he concluded “And you are white, too, you son-of-a bitch” (over my many years as a priest, that’s one of the lesser accusations I’ve heard). He had suffered much in his life, had made a lot of compromises for his success, and he needed a safe place to vent his anger and hatred. He was a good man: he came to Mass almost every Sunday and Day of Obligation till he died, he was generous in with his time and money, and helped many young people to climb the ladder in Hollywood. But he was not a happy man. He endured life, he didn’t enjoy it. His walk through the Labyrinth, I am convinced, took him to his Goal. But it was a joyless walk in many ways, despite his success.
Hatred doesn’t necessarily condemn us, but it certainly stunts us. It doesn’t put any obstacles in the way of the person I hate, but it does prevent me from seeing goodness in unexpected places.
Over the years, I’ve been involved in many quarrels, ecclesiastical and otherwise. I expect to be in more before I’m shuttled into purgatory where the music of Elvis Presley will be piped in just for me, and I’ll be forced to listen to interminable readings by self-satisfied French existentialists. But at some point God gave me an underserved grace. While I can get angry—and cold-hearted—in the midst of a fight—I don’t hate. My mind continually clings to the notion that my opponent believes he is right, and is fighting me based on that belief. That doesn’t make me give up the fight, but it does help me to reconcile easily. I don’t carry around hatred. Grudges blind me and rob me of the chance to bind up wounds—my own and others’. It also, I’ve discovered over the years, helps me enjoy arguments, quarrels and disagreements more, not thinking about the reason my fellow combatant has taken up cudgels. He believes he’s right. So do I—most of the time.
Every hatred can be addressed if we bring an Eternal Perspective to it. Walking the Labyrinth of your life patiently and steadily, asking for signs of Grace and taking them when offered, remembering that every person you know is walking a Labyrinth of their own—the lady who seems to encourage her poodle to use your lawn, rather than her own, and the jihadist who wants to kill your grandchild. We are called on to support the good, correct the erring and fight the evil as it appears in each of our lives.
I love to hate. It comes naturally to an experienced sinner like me. But it’s a misplaced love—or lust, like the endless pit of desire an alcoholic has for his liquor. It has not, does not and never will satisfy. “Love your enemies,” the Lord Jesus said. I don’t want to. That doesn’t mean I can’t. Loving them doesn’t mean I approve. It does mean I can understand.
If we choose love—and genuine love is a choice—Grace will transform enemies, but at a radical cost, a cost we might not want to pay. Why is the Kingdom of God slow in coming? Because we don’t really want it to arrive. For just a moment, dare to consider the possibilities if we did.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
QUOTES OF THE PRINCIPALS:
Marcus Porcius Cato-“I would not be beholden to a tyrant, even for acts of kindness. For it is but usurpation in him to save, as by right, the lives of men over whom he has no place to reign.”
St Paul Miki-“As I come to this supreme moment of my life, I am sure none of you would suppose I want to deceive you. And so I tell you plainly, my religion teaches me to pardon my enemies and all who have offended me. I do this most gladly.” (from his sermon while on the cross)
Joseph Addison-“Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honor is a private station.” (from Addison’s Cato: A Tragedy)
Belle Starr-“I’m a woman who has seen a lot of living.”
Marcus Porcius Cato, Roman statesman, orator, and—most rare—an uncorrupt politician, committed suicide on this day in 46 BC. Serious-minded from his youth, Cato was reared in a wealthy and politically influential home. The great men of Roman politics in the last generation of the Republic, before Julius Caesar came to power and his nephew Augustus rose to the Imperium, were frequent callers at his parents’ home. Many a politician remarked at how uncomfortable the boy’s questioning made them. One, in a letter to friends, wrote “Young Marcus had the temerity to ask me why I and so many other senators did what seemed to benefit only ourselves and not the people of Rome!” The Roman dictator, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, liked to talk with young Cato when visiting with his parents. Sulla told his friends how the young Cato one day brought the conversation to an abrupt and embarrassed silence. The boy asked the dictator why he ordered his political opponents put to death. Before Sulla could respond, Cato asked “Don’t you expect someone will kill you one day in just the same way?” (It takes a man secure in his power to tell such a story on himself. As a matter of fact, Sulla died an old man at home, of liver failure. He had been a drinker of some repute for most of his life.) When the slaves revolted under Spartacus, Cato volunteered for the army—by the time he was 26 he commanded a legion. His men noted two things about their commander: his strict adherence to army regulations and his willingness to share their burdens. When the army built a road or erected a stockade, Cato worked alongside his men, eating the same rations and sleeping in a common soldier’s tent. His men protested when he announced to them his commission had expired and he would be returning to Rome—as a reward for their devotion, he gave them a long speech about “the importance of duty.” He took up the study of philosophy, but his friends got him elected to office (as quaestor, responsible for overseeing public expenditures). One of his first acts was to bring corruption charges against his predecessor in office. He allied himself with Cicero and the conservatives in the Senate. His reputation as a speaker and party advocate grew; eventually, it brought him into conflict with Julius Caesar, who he believed wanted to make himself king. His increasingly harsh speeches against Caesar, often made while Caesar sat in the same room, accused the general of plotting to overthrow the Republic. When Civil War did break out between the warring factions of Great Men (Caesar and Pompey, both of whom wanted to rule), Cato foretold the end of the Republic. When Caesar emerged victorious from the wars, he publicly stated he would pardon those who opposed him. At the news, Cato told friends to reconcile with Caesar if they could, but he would “not live in a world where the Republic was a memory.” Neither would he allow Caesar to pardon him. He went to his villa in Utica determined to commit suicide. The Roman historian Plutarch says Cato wanted to kill himself with his own sword, but failed because of an injured hand. “Cato did not immediately die of the wound; but struggling, fell off the bed…making such a noise that the servants heard it and came running…when his son and all his friends came into the chamber, seeing him in a pool of his own blood, a great part of his bowels out of his body, but himself still alive and able to look at them, they all stood in horror. The physician went to him, and would have put in his bowels, which were not pierced, and sewed up the wound; but Cato, recovering himself, and understanding the intention, thrust away the physician, plucked out his own bowels, and tearing open the wound, immediately expired.” Caesar told his friends “I grudge that man his death.” Over the centuries, Cato became the symbol of the incorruptible politician and the man of fixed principles. In 1712, Joseph Addison, the British playwright, published Cato: A Tragedy, recounting the last few days of the old Roman’s life. It may have been the most influential play of the century. With themes opposing liberty and tyranny, republicanism and monarchy, logic and emotion, it was frequently performed in the American colonies as well as in Great Britain. George Washington said it was his favorite drama and saw it repeatedly; he is said to have read it aloud to his officers during the harsh winter at Valley Forge. Cato was the man many of our Founding Fathers hoped to be. In Washington today, ethical conflicts are usually handled by hiring a publicist (once you’ve been found out), and letting everyone know that since God has already forgiven you, the electorate should, too.
On February 5, 1848, Belle Starr was born. She had the reputation of being a famous outlaw in the Old West, but Belle, it turns out, was mostly a girl who liked to date—and sometimes marry—Bad Boys. She was given a classical education in a private academy for young women and was an accomplished pianist. When the Union army attacked their home town of Carthage, Missouri, during the War Between the States, her father, a judge, packed up the family and moved to Texas. That’s where things started to go bad. Shortly thereafter she eloped with a man she’d had a crush on as a young girl; unfortunately he was wanted for murder in Arkansas. Two years into their marriage, she gave birth to a daughter—whose father was not her husband. He was one of her husband’s “business associates,” Cole Younger, of the notorious Younger Gang. She told Cole she was carrying his child and he immediately had to leave town. So did her husband: the law was after him. He went to California to escape, but, as so many others have found, Texas was irresistible. Shortly after returning to the Lone Star State, he was killed during a stagecoach robbery. In 1878, while still officially in mourning for her husband, Belle married another member of the Younger Gang, but left him after three weeks. The next year she married Sam Starr, a Cherokee who lived in what is now Oklahoma (then, Indian Territory). The pair set up a lucrative business near the Arkansas border fencing stolen goods, especially horses and bootleg whiskey. Sam was killed by a sheriff in a classic Western shoot-out; Belle moved on. Over the next couple of years, she took on a series of lovers with colorful names: Jack Spaniard, Jim French and Blue Duck, the notorious Indian outlaw. In order to keep title to her residence on Indian land, she married a relative of Sam Starr fifteen years her junior. By this time she was famous. National Police Gazette publisher, Richard K. Fox published a whole series of dime novels with Belle as the “Starr.” Belle began dressing and acting the part portrayed in Fox’s books: she wore a black velvet riding habit and a plumed hat, carried two pistols, and strapped cartridge belts across her hips. She made money posing for photographs and autographing Fox’s dime novels. He wrote a long novel, Bella Starr, the Bandit Queen, or the Female Jesse James, in 1889. Finally things were going her way. On February 3, 1889, two days before her 41st birthday, the Bandit Queen was riding home after “visiting” a friend. She was shot from her saddle by an unknown bushwacker, who came to her body and emptied his gun into it. No one was ever convicted, but the sheriff investigating said, “Almost everybody who knew her is a legitimate suspect. Nobody really liked her much, even her childrens [sic].” Someone, it’s unknown who, paid for her tombstone. On it is carved a horse and these words: “Shed not for her the bitter tear, Nor give the heart to vain regret, 'Tis but the casket that lies here, The gem that fills it sparkles yet.” One of those many guys she knew along the way evidently wasn’t all bad.
Marcel Proust, the French novelist and playwright, was sensitive about criticism. If he read something critical of his work in the newspaper, he often sent the critic a challenge to meet him for a duel. Only once was he taken up on it. On February 5, 1897, Proust met Jean Lorrain in the “dueling woods” outside Paris. The men had originally agreed to meet at 9 AM, but Proust, a notoriously late sleeper, sent word he would come at 3 PM instead—“No respectable man is up and busy at nine in the morning,” he wrote. Fortunately for French literature, both men were poor marksmen. Shots went wild, the requirements of honor were met, and Proust went to the theater that evening.
About 2 AM, on the morning of February 5, 1958, a B-47 bomber was flying a simulated bombing mission out of Homestead Air Force Base in Florida. It was carrying a hydrogen bomb. Suddenly, in the black of the night, something collided with the bomber. It was a “F-86” fighter, part of the same simulation. The fighter dropped into the sea, but the pilot of the bomber remained in the air, although the plane was badly damaged and in danger of falling from the sky. The captain’s mind raced. What would happen if he crashed on land with a hydrogen bomb? He was given permission to jettison the bomb over water. The crew waited nervously as it fell from the plane into the darkness. The only thing they could definitely say is there was no explosion. The pilot landed the crippled plane at Hunter Army Air Field outside Savannah, Georgia, and the search for the bomb, a 7,600 pound Mark 15 explosive, began immediately. More than 100 missions were launched between February 6 and April 15, before the Navy announced they couldn’t find it. “It is believed to be embedded in silt, between two and five meters deep” (that’s 5-15 feet for most of us) “at the bottom of Wassaw Sound.” It’s still there. The Air Force disclosed the bomb’s loss late in 1958. At that time, an Air Force spokesman said there was no significant danger because, “although it contains 400 pounds (180 kg) of conventional high explosives and highly enriched uranium, the bomb's nuclear capsule, used to initiate the nuclear reaction, was removed prior to flight.” In 1966, though, Assistant Secretary of Defense W.J. Howard said otherwise when subpoenaed by Congress to testify about the incident. When asked about the claim that it was relatively safe, Howard contradicted earlier statements about the bomb’s safety. “It is a complete weapon, a bomb with a nuclear capsule," he told the committee. “There is legitimate cause for concern.” After a 2004 study, the Air Force determined "It is prudent to leave the bomb covered in mud at the bottom of the sea floor rather than disturb it and risk the potential of detonation or contamination." As the highway signs say in Texas whenever you pass a group of maintenance workers along the road, here are “Your Tax Dollars at Work.”
This is the 36th day of 2010. 329 days remain in the year. The ancient Romans (Cato and Caesar) called this the nonae Februarius. The month was sacred to the goddess Februa, mother of Mars, and goddess of passion. Her name is derived from the Latin word febris, the “fever” of love. St Valentine, a third century priest in Rome, had the misfortune of being martyred this “feverish” month and his name is now synonymous with saccharine poetry printed on overpriced cards. February is also congressionally-mandated as “Potato Lover’s Month” and “National Return the Grocery Cart Month.” “Marijuana Awareness Month,” also in February, is not sponsored by Congress, but by a (pardon me) “grassroots” organization, Students for Sensible Drug Policy—the other campaign of the SSD, in case you’re wondering, seeks to lower the legal age for drinking. International Hoof Care Week ends today; February 5th is National Weatherman’s Day (shouldn’t that be “Weatherperson?”) and American Bubble Gum Day. In Finland, today is Runeberg Day. Johan Ludvig Runeberg (who died in 1877) is still called “the national poet of Finland.” An essential part of the day’s celebration calls for the ingestion of Runeberg's Tart, a Finnish pastry seasoned with almonds, rum and raspberry jam, circled with a ring of sugar. According to legend, Runeberg enjoyed the tarts so much he insisted on having one served every day with his breakfast. In Finland they are available from New Year’s Day until Runeberg's birthday on February 5. Popular legend says Runeberg's wife, Fredrika, created the tart. Her recipe book from the 1850s has the recipe. “See You Later, Alligator” by Bill Haley & His Comets topped America’s music charts today in 1956.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Pardon me, while I fulminate. I will be brief. Earlier this week, before I wrote about the Martyrs of Japan, I was reading some news story or other on the internet and came across a mention of “Islamic martyrs,” that is to say, suicide bombers. I am a man who loves words in their richness and subtlety—and I reckon you are, too, if you’re still reading these pages after all these months.
I don’t doubt the “sincerity” of a suicide bomber (no one doubted Hitler’s sincerity either—it’s an overvalued quality in my mind), but I most emphatically dispute calling a suicidal killer a “martyr.” You can call someone who kills others for his beliefs many things, but “martyr” is a misnomer. A “martyr,” in a definition hallowed by 2000 years of continual use, is a person who gives up their life as a “witness” for what they believe. The word comes from classical Greek; originally it was a legal term. The martyros was the “witness,” the person who stood before the jury and told them what he knew to be so. Jews and Christians in the Greco-Roman world, adapted the Greek word to mean those persons who took a stand for their beliefs, regardless of the personal consequences. Islam itself is heir of this tradition; the noble sect of the Sufis have long endured persecution for thier faith, not returning evil for evil. Only in the last 15 years or so has this word come to include the insidious notion that other people might bear the consequences of the martyr’s belief. This novel and unhappy adaptation corrupts the meaning of the word; once noble in its context, in our day the Jewish or Christian martyr and Islamic jihadi have been made equals. They are not. If a Christian were to do the horrific deeds now sadly commonplace in strife-torn Iraq or Afghanistan, no one—lest of all Christians—would call him a martyr. He would be classified as mentally unbalanced. The Martyrs of Japan prayed for their killers from their crosses—wishing them well, hoping for their salvation. Only in this modern era, where murdering unborn babies by the bushel-load every day is given the euphonious epithet “pro-choice,” is such an abuse of the language possible. Unless we…okay, okay, I'm becoming unbrief. Here endeth the Lesson.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Unless you are in the habit of telling yourself the truth, what I’ve got to say will be shocking. If you know how to peel away your veneer, though, you’ll recognize the truth of it: we like to hate. If we give ourselves enough room, we love to hate. We each have our own view of the world we carry around with us, and regardless of complex we like to imagine that is, or how subtle is our thought, as far as most of us are concerned, some people wear black hats and some white ones. The guys sporting gray Stetsons are simply ones we haven’t pegged yet.
We do this as a matter of course, all of us—it’s “Us” versus “Them.” Each generation has its own set of “Us-es” and “Thems.” How we group ourselves—racially, religiously, ethnically, sexually, economically, politically or culturally—endures from generation to generation. You are an “Us” to some people, a “They” to others, and as people come into your life you will classify them and they will classify you. To your momma, you are one of “Us.” To your “ex,” you are one of “Them” (the IRS has been “Them” to everybody at least since Bible times). Our enemies let us know who our friends are, and vice versa (the old Arab proverb runs “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”). Having friends and enemies, heroes and villains, helps us “divvy up” the world.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not writing this sitting guru-like on a mountain top, dispensing wisdom. I’m observing myself. This is what I do. As the Roman poet said (albeit in a different context), “I love and I hate.” What I notice, though, is my losses usually outweigh my gains when I do this. I am a Catholic. If I hate those who are not—Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, or Episcop—well, I don’t want to go overboard with this!—I’m the loser. Hating diminishes my ability to understand, to discover anew that God is limitless—His Grace flows like rivers regardless of how I want to dam it up and define what He is allowed to do. I am an old-line conservative, a “States-rights” type so outdated the only description that will do is an “anti-federalist” of the Patrick Henry school. All my political compatriots died out by 1820! But I live in a world of leftist Democrats, Libertarians, Socialists and Neo-conservatives—to mention but a dizzying few!—and if I refuse to listen to anyone except my fellow True Believers, I’ll be conducting monologues till the cows come home (which, here outside Seguin, is about 7.30 PM). I love baroque music. Nothing can set my spirit soaring as quickly as a chorus by Handel or Vivaldi’s Magnificat. My friend Whitten tries to get me to appreciate the music of “my” generation: the Beatles—and, what is it Whitten calls it?—“the music of the ‘British invasion,’ ” (which, as far as I’m concerned, happened in during the War of 1812) the-uh-let’s see-Rolling Stones—and I know there are others but since I don’t care about the ones I mentioned, the rest are beyond irrelevant to me. But I also love early American folk music, the music of the 1700’s and 18oo’s. That led me to discover classical Zydeco, the bayou music of the Cajuns. I can’t dance (“don’t ask me”), but that music is as much fun as a Bach cantata! Every now and then, though, I’ll hear a little something and be told “It’s a Beatles’ tune.” Not bad—when properly orchestrated.
I used to have a parishioner who hated white people—at least, that what he’d say (he wasn’t white himself). He’d come into my office once or twice a year and go on a long tirade about how white people are responsible for most of the suffering of the world in general and of his life in particular. I never argued with him, I just listened. After forty-five minutes or so, his head of steam gone, he’d look over at me and smile. More than once he concluded “And you are white, too, you son-of-a bitch” (over my many years as a priest, that’s one of the lesser accusations I’ve heard). He had suffered much in his life, had made a lot of compromises for his success, and he needed a safe place to vent his anger and hatred. He was a good man: he came to Mass almost every Sunday and Day of Obligation till he died, he was generous in with his time and money, and helped many young people to climb the ladder in Hollywood. But he was not a happy man. He endured life, he didn’t enjoy it. His walk through the Labyrinth, I am convinced, took him to his Goal. But it was a joyless walk in many ways, despite his success.
Hatred doesn’t necessarily condemn us, but it certainly stunts us. It doesn’t put any obstacles in the way of the person I hate, but it does prevent me from seeing goodness in unexpected places.
Over the years, I’ve been involved in many quarrels, ecclesiastical and otherwise. I expect to be in more before I’m shuttled into purgatory where the music of Elvis Presley will be piped in just for me, and I’ll be forced to listen to interminable readings by self-satisfied French existentialists. But at some point God gave me an underserved grace. While I can get angry—and cold-hearted—in the midst of a fight—I don’t hate. My mind continually clings to the notion that my opponent believes he is right, and is fighting me based on that belief. That doesn’t make me give up the fight, but it does help me to reconcile easily. I don’t carry around hatred. Grudges blind me and rob me of the chance to bind up wounds—my own and others’. It also, I’ve discovered over the years, helps me enjoy arguments, quarrels and disagreements more, not thinking about the reason my fellow combatant has taken up cudgels. He believes he’s right. So do I—most of the time.
Every hatred can be addressed if we bring an Eternal Perspective to it. Walking the Labyrinth of your life patiently and steadily, asking for signs of Grace and taking them when offered, remembering that every person you know is walking a Labyrinth of their own—the lady who seems to encourage her poodle to use your lawn, rather than her own, and the jihadist who wants to kill your grandchild. We are called on to support the good, correct the erring and fight the evil as it appears in each of our lives.
I love to hate. It comes naturally to an experienced sinner like me. But it’s a misplaced love—or lust, like the endless pit of desire an alcoholic has for his liquor. It has not, does not and never will satisfy. “Love your enemies,” the Lord Jesus said. I don’t want to. That doesn’t mean I can’t. Loving them doesn’t mean I approve. It does mean I can understand.
If we choose love—and genuine love is a choice—Grace will transform enemies, but at a radical cost, a cost we might not want to pay. Why is the Kingdom of God slow in coming? Because we don’t really want it to arrive. For just a moment, dare to consider the possibilities if we did.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
QUOTES OF THE PRINCIPALS:
Marcus Porcius Cato-“I would not be beholden to a tyrant, even for acts of kindness. For it is but usurpation in him to save, as by right, the lives of men over whom he has no place to reign.”
St Paul Miki-“As I come to this supreme moment of my life, I am sure none of you would suppose I want to deceive you. And so I tell you plainly, my religion teaches me to pardon my enemies and all who have offended me. I do this most gladly.” (from his sermon while on the cross)
Joseph Addison-“Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, The post of honor is a private station.” (from Addison’s Cato: A Tragedy)
Belle Starr-“I’m a woman who has seen a lot of living.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
