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.

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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.

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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.


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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.”