Late Papers

Camino de Lago de Frisco

2012-06-02T10:13:00.000-05:00

Walked in Frisco Lake Park today, as I do on many days. Typically, I carry my rosary, and lately the rosary I'm carrying is my grandfather's (my olive wood one is missing). Although the beads are normal sized, it's a bit clunky because it has the big long beads for the Our Fathers with the mysteries printed on them.

This morning I saw a couple walking: she in a white workout jacket and black pants, and he in black shorts and t-shirt. He was listening to salsa music on earphones, and she was speaking loudly to him over the music. On the next loop, she beamed at me and gave me a thumbs up— for the sake of the rosary. On the next loop after I had pocketed my rosary, she asked "Done?" And I smiled and answered "Yes!" After that, we returned to mutual anonymity, although a couple of passes later I thought I recognized the cadence of the Our Father in Español.

Thinking of Webster in Spain and Allison in suburbia, I thought of the title to this post: Camino de Lago de Frisco. The lake is an old reservoir for steam trains, where it presumably gets its name. Thinking of the lake in Spanish made me realize that Frisco is short for San Francisco, that is Saint Francis. Like Webster, I am on a path whose name recalls the memory of Christ.

Nihilism as inevitable consequence of anthropocentric presumption

2012-06-01T07:29:00.000-05:00

Giulio Andreotti interviewing Don Giussani,
Milan, 15 October 1994 (30 Days)

October 1994, an interview by Giulio Andreotti

"Nihilism is, primarily, the inevitable consequence of the anthropocentric presumption according to which man is capable of saving himself by himself. But so false is this that all those who live their lives defending such a position, ultimately come to realize their own stark ‘dissolution’ within a type of Manichaeism whose bitterness they try to banish through flights of fancy taken from eastern religions or other spiritualist movements that the western world offers. These images from the eastern world or from certain spheres of the western world, at bottom always bring about a pantheist ideal. Thomas Mann, for example, in his Buddenbrooks paints the portrait of the last man in the family line left to defend the vast wealth the Buddenbrooks accumulated. It is a dramatic, even tragic story. In him it becomes tragic. During his long day’s work, exhausted by his efforts to hold on to his father’s, his grandfather’s inheritance, he can allot himself just ten minutes, a quarter of an hour of repose. Sinking into his armchair he catches his breath. Thomas Mann says, thinking constantly of that last moment in time when the drop of water (as he sees his life) will fall back into the great ocean (I don’t know if he says the ocean of ‘being’, as we would say)... into the great ocean of being, and thus vanish, with his individuality, and become immersed in universal, peace-restoring homologation. I believe, perhaps paradoxically, that this passage of Thomas Mann is significant of the positive aspect – if we can talk of a positive aspect – of this ultimate nihilism whose dominion over the world has been growing since the rebellion of the 17th and 18th centuries, and before that to a degree since the birth of Protestantism itself, and it continues to grow today."

(He is because he is present, in 30 Days, no. 10, October 1994, p. 10)
http://www.30giorni.it/articoli_id_12928_l3.htm

Two roads diverged

2012-05-31T20:20:00.000-05:00

Frisco Lake Park, 5/31/2012

I've been following Webster on his trek along the Camino de Santiago with his daughter. I would like to walk my own pilgrimage some day from Notre Dame to Notre Dame, the Péguy pilgrimage
—I see that Rod Dreher just mentioned it, but here's the official site—
So I was a bit startled today when Webster called to mind the fact that for the original pilgrims, the destination of these pilgrimages was the halfway point before walking back instead of catching a train or a plane back to one's home. And so it was even for Charles Péguy.

I was touched to read that after Webster and she separated from a group of fellow pilgrims, Webster's daughter pushed on ahead of him, making him a solitary pilgrim. I sympathize. I remember the first time my daughter sped ahead of me on her scooter at the park. And tonight as I walked and she biked, she asked 'can I go around the opposite way?' Yes, sure. I always think of Péguy's little girl Hope, who running ahead and coming back, makes the journey twenty times.

Right now, however, I'm thinking of another pilgrimage. Two summers ago, I was hiking on vacation when I passed out at the destination and had to be driven back up a mountain in Arkansas. Last year, on vacation in Colorado, I skipped the hike (being well acquainted with the lies that trail guides tell). This summer, we are going back to Colorado and I am looking forward to the hike. About 100 lbs lighter and walking 70-90 minutes a day. Also, I'm going to get some trek poles!

Ten Popes (I stopped after Five)

2012-05-30T20:48:00.000-05:00

I started to read Ten Popes Who Shook the World by Eamon Duffy. I got through five. It's a breezy pop summary, not surprising since it originated as radio broadcasts. It lacked the charm and insight, however, of someone like Simon Schama. The popes listed are: St. Peter, Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, Gregory VII, Innocent III, Paul III, Pio Nono, Pius XII, John XXI, John Paul II.

A Renewed Commitment (to education and to sales)

2012-05-29T22:27:00.000-05:00

Recently, a friend encouraged me to open an Amazon Affiliate store, and to sell the books reviewed and discussed on the blog. Although I was skeptical at first, I now see this as an invitation to take the blog to a new level: to provide more value and to be more accountable as a blogger. One of the ideas I ran into when studying to be a teacher was that of education as initiation. The teacher not only passes on certain facts, but even more so welcomes the student into a community of learners. A couple of recent events have also encouraged me along the way:

my pastor recently read my Amazon review of The Threefold Garland by Hans Urs von Balthasar, and bought the book as a result. I looked it up to see that I had posted the review 10 years ago…
Standing in front of a book table that a friend was running, I sold two copies of The Quiet Light by Louis de Wohl. The book is subtitled "A Novel of Thomas Aquinas," but in fact, Aquinas is not in the book that much, and instead the book is very much concerned with the characters (named and unnamed) of the Divine Comedy.

So, I hope this will be the opening of a dialogue. I welcome questions about these books and related books.

Cities of God: a prequel of St. Francis

2012-04-17T22:22:00.004-05:00

I'm reading the Google Books edition of Cities of God by Augustine Thompson, O.P. If the Google Books edition of Jacopone's Lauds is a good reading copy, this book is more like reading a manuscript copy— good enough if not exactly good. The photos have been removed, and they would be worth seeing at some point. But the sea of books in my bedroom and closet are such that I truly insisted on a digital copy.

I decided to read this book because I had seen Amy Welborn's recommendation to read Thompson's new biography of St. Francis, and because I remembered her review of this book as well. Also, I had already started to read Jacopone da Todi's Lauds, and figured this would make a good complement (as will the St. Francis bio, eventually). I've been reading to see how the close examination of the laity here confirms certain points made by Hans Urs von Balthasar in his books: The Laity and the Life of the Counsels and Spouse of the Word — among others. I was interested to see that the Italians of the Communes preferred praying Our Fathers to reading the Hours and also to read about the decline of the practice of lay preaching, something common in the confraternities of the penitents. I've also seen how the devotion of the lauds arose, and while Thompson mentions that Jacapone was a Franciscan and not a penitent, in fact he lived as a penitent for ten years before becoming a Franciscan.

What fascinates me above all in this book is its character as a personal exploration for Thompson. As a Dominican, he has been formed in the mendicant tradition begun by St. Francis, and yet he is interested in what preceded the mendicant movement. He's interested in the vibrant lay life of the Communes, which the Dominicans and Franciscans re-ordered along clerical lines. The publisher has the astonishing introduction to this book online:
http://www.psupress.org/justataste/justatasteThompson.html

This book is in many ways a prequel to the bio of St. Francis because it describes the setting that Francis emerged from, discovering along the way certain analogues of Franciscan practice that were already a part of the life of Italy before Francis.

What I'm Reading: Google Books

2012-04-03T19:11:00.001-05:00

Cities Of God: The Religion Of The Italian Communes, 1125-1325
Augustine Thompson

The Lauds
Jacopone da Todi

I got both of these via Google Books because neither is available for the Nook or Kindle. I don't know where to put the books I already own, and I'm pretty rough on my books: so ebooks are my preferred format.

Google Books have been scanned in and then cleaned up (maybe) by Captcha. The books do have typos, but are predominately readable— except for numbers, years, footnotes.

Cities of God does not have the photographs or cover art, but The Lauds does.

Overall, these Google editions are an ok value and I expect to buy more over time. Of course, Kindle is the best. I plan to blog a bit about these two books when I can.

God's Method: To Jesus through Mary

2012-02-24T23:08:00.003-06:00

Madonna and Child with God the Father
and Cherubim by *clairity* on flickr

Well, in yesterday's post, I made a mistake in transcribing the words of the Nicene Creed, from the fragment Et incarnatus est: I left out the words by the Holy Spirit. I've since fixed it, but noticing the mistake reminded me of the great proximity between the Holy Spirit and Mary. the Word 'by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.'

When I was 20 years old and lived in Washington, DC. I would often go to the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and look around at the great and diverse treasury of Christian symbolism there. I loved the crypt church, the grotto of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the simple wooden statue of Mary outside the chapel of the Eucharist. I was provoked, however, by the phrase 'to Jesus through Mary' which I saw at a certain shrine there. I asked a friend about it, and he gave a sentimental defense that did not move me at all. Yes, I loved Mary, but I had no difficulty addressing Jesus in prayer (and I still address Jesus directly in prayer!).

As I pondered this question, I left it open, but that same year I would come across a reasonable articulation of that insight into the Christian mystery. In the very first sentence of his book on the rosary, The Threefold Garland, Hans Urs von Balthasar says: "Christian prayer can attain to God only along the path that God himself has trod; otherwise it stumbles out of the world and into the void, falling prey to the temptation of taking this void to be God or of taking God to be nothingness itself" (19). What is the path, the method, that God has trod? The very path laid down in the Creed: the Son, the Word, 'by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.' Christ is the one who was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and if we seek another christ, a christ different from the one preached in the Creed, we will find only an idol of our own making, an abstraction, an ethical or political ideal. And so today, I confidently pray veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni per Mariam.

I would mention, by the way, that the phrase 'to Jesus through Mary' comes from St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, who recommended a devotion known as total consecration to Mary. Now, I have never been moved to make this devotion, but it is interesting that this year it started on Ash Wednesday, giving this year's Lent a particularly Marian character. So, as I ponder the Creed, I will be pondering Mary's mission in the Christian mysteries.

Learning the Creed by Heart

2012-02-23T21:48:00.001-06:00

Duomo Milan by *clairity* on flickr

"Not without reason, Christians in the early centuries were required to learn the creed from memory. It served them as a daily prayer not to forget the commitment they had undertaken in baptism. With words rich in meaning, Saint Augustine speaks of this in a homily on the redditio symboli, the handing over of the creed: 'the symbol of the holy mystery that you have all received together and that today you have recited one by one, are the words on which the faith of Mother Church is firmly built above the stable foundation that is Christ the Lord. You have received it and recited it, but in your minds and hearts you must keep it ever present, you must repeat it in your beds, recall it in the public squares and not forget it during meals: even when your body is asleep, you must watch over it with your hearts'" (Porta Fidei, 9).

One of my tasks this Lent will be to take this concrete recommendation seriously and to re-learn the Apostle's Creed:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, his only Son,
our Lord,
who was conceived
by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again
from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand
of God the Father almighty;
from there he will come to judge
the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting. Amen.

Also, after listening to some other singers, I saw that The Morning Prayer Post recommended this video of Barbara Bonney singing Mozart's Et incarnatus est.

This is not merely a beautiful song, but the proclamation of a fact: The Word by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,and became man. Mozart's arrangement and the work of the orchestra and singer are an attempt to proclaim this fact in a form that does justice to it. By listening to this proclamation, we beg that this fact in all its beauty may pierce our hearts and to become decisive for our lives.

Memory Eternal

2012-02-22T22:04:00.000-06:00

Today, I picked up sandwiches from Jimmy John's for a lunch meeting at work. When I went out to my car, I heard this sharp birdsong from a tree. I couldn't see anything until I was right under it, and then I saw the red feathers and the crest of the head of the cardinal. I hadn't gone to this Jimmy John's location before, and I was surprised to see it was near Shawanoe Elementary, one of the few elementary schools I substituted at a few years ago. I remember that the SRO (school resource officer, police officer) was the same guy who did it at the Catholic school were I had taught full time. I saw him when I was on recess duty (must have been in the spring). I felt a bit sheepish seeing him, and I tried to justify myself for having failed, but he didn't let me get away with it. I appreciated the honesty.

Yesterday, I walked almost 3 miles on my lunch, and went as far as West High School, another school where I had substituted, 2 or 3 times. One time when I parked at West for a job, I saw a young man on a bicycle looking over at the school filled with memory. I mentioned him to school security, and they said that they knew him. And they confirmed that yes, he was autistic (I remembered Temple Grandin said that her autism gave her a strong nostalgia for place). I walked up along the busy 87th Street, but walked back through the residential streets. Just leaving the high school, I noticed a house that I recognized. It was the l'Arche house for l'Arche in Overland Park (don't know if they're still there). I visited a couple of times when I came back to Kansas City from my time in l'Arche Washington DC. One of the people that I remember from my time in DC is Eugene, who died in this past year. We didn't always get along, but as a walker, I felt a certain connection to Gene, who mystified everybody by going for long walks. I asked him where he went. He said that he would walk to all the places where his friends used to live, many who had died. It was a way of remembering for him, a kind of rosary I thought. So seeing West High School and the l'Arche house yesterday, and seeing Shawanoe today makes me wonder about my own history. Why did I teach, what was the ultimate value of that teaching in my path toward destiny? Even more, what is the meaning of these places in my life and destiny?

Recently, I posted a photo of graffiti on the side of a train car. It depicts a man whose face looks as if it is blowing away, like sand. The car has been parked there for a couple of weeks now, and seeing it as I drive back and forth from work it has penetrated a bit more into my mind. I see now that the face is amid twisted girders, and behind him are the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Where was I ten years ago? I was working for a trade publisher, just around the corner from where I work now. It was in the third floor conference room where I watched the replay of the first plane crash, and saw the unthinkable repetition of the second one. I remember sitting in my southeast cubicle waiting for five o'clock and pretending to be busy with work as outside a place circled for what seemed like forever. Why does this event rebound upon me ten years later: in the place where I work and even along the path of my commute?

"When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and stars that you set in place—"

when I hear the insistence of a cardinal's song, or wonder at the tangled branches of my history…

"What is man that you are mindful of him,
and a son of man that you care for him?" (Psalm 8, NAB)

Where Penance Coincides with Joy

2012-02-21T18:31:00.000-06:00

Balance by *clairity* on flickr

One morning, I found him [Fr. Giussani] reading the Bible. He closed the page he had been reading and welcomed me with the quotation of a Gospel passage: “How can the wedding guests fast when the bridegroom is with them?” And he commented, “This is the concept of Christian penance,” where penance coincides with joy; this was written all over his face. Like when he said, “Our position brings the flesh back into Christian life, as it has never been since the Fathers of the Church.” Or when assessing the character of a mutual friend, whom he judged to be rather fragile, he used an effective metaphor: “Tenderness is not only flowers; tenderness is a trunk.” ("Make Friends with Five People and You Will Reach Fifty")

How can penance coincide with joy? Or can it? Maybe it's not possible: maybe my life is as bitter as anybody else's, but knowing the end of the story I put a happy face on things— I smile because, like Stoics, I know that this too will pass away. If this is the case, then joy is a ruse, a tactic, to ensnare the unwitting in a secretly despairing triumphalism.

Fr. Robert Barron and Cardinal Timothy Dolan have both proclaimed that joy is the most convincing witness to the Gospel, and yet I cannot believe that a semblance of joy convinces anyone. The most critical priority of the New Evangelization is not to speak with joy but to discover for myself the joy of Christianity, and then who could be silent? I know myself that I cannot create joy, choose joy, make myself believe in joy: to be credible, I must discover it, encounter it. Fr. Barron says: "The most effective way to evangelize is to share the contagious joy of being a friend of Jesus Christ." And Cardinal Dolan says that "God does not satisfy the thirst of the human heart with a proposition, but with a Person, whose name is Jesus." To heed these two evangelists, I must encounter Christ here and now. Sunday's reading perhaps sounds as strange to our ears now as it did when it was first uttered: "Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" Christ became man, yes, but is it possible that I could meet Him 'under my roof' — in my house, at my workplace?

The event of penance that Jesus describes in Mark 2:18ff is like a razor's edge. In the first place, penance is the mortification of my measure, my gloom, my plans, and welcoming His extraordinary presence instead. His presence definitively in the sacraments, but also increasingly in the situations of life. For example, seeing a son trust his father to cross a stream at the park— at a moment when I feel my work situation has reached an impasse. A joy because He is here, because He shows His face to me. In the second place, penance is sorrow at having missed Him (and paradoxically this cannot happen to me except as a sign of His Spirit). The penance given by the Church has these two dimensions as well: fasting not only reminds me that I do not live by bread alone, but also connects me to the people Christ has gathered. And this is why a fish fry can be a joyful occasion too— so long as Christ is remembered.

No doubt the coincidence of penance and joy is also a reason for the popularity of the non-obligatory celebration of Ash Wednesday. It is a joy to be marked by the ashes of death in the sign of the One who has conquered death. And even wearing ashes can testify to this joy. As we begin this Lenten journey, let us mourn our absence from Christ, our refusal to embrace Him in our human circumstances, so that we may grow in the joy of His presence.

February 22, 2012. Seventh Anniversary of Fr. Giussani's death. Memory eternal.
And the beatification process is beginning.

2012-02-10T13:20:00.000-06:00

"A man must first happen upon the notion that God has something special in mind for him and that, in turn, he must help Him— then his soul spreads its wings and his reason plucks up its courage to bring things under its control and to step forward as their master, though the tasks be as manifold as those in Peteprê's blessed household in Wase in Upper Egypt" (Joseph and His Brothers, 751).

The Camel by clairity on flickr

Year of Faith: the Creed

2012-02-07T23:08:00.000-06:00

In his apostolic letter Porta Fidei, Benedict XVI proposes that: "Religious communities as well as parish communities, and all ecclesial bodies old and new, are to find a way, during this Year, to make a public profession of the Credo." I was pleasantly surprised, then, to see a meditation on the creed at the beginning of a presentation by Fr. Julian Carron:

“There came a Man, a young Man, who entered the world in a certain town, a certain place in the world that can be identified on a map, Nazareth. When one goes to the Holy Land, to that little town, and enters the shadowy hut where there is an inscription on the wall that reads Verbum hic caro factum est (the Mystery of God, here, was made flesh), he is overcome by shivers.”

The song Et incarnatus est (And was made flesh), from the “Great Mass” in C minor by Mozart, is 'the most powerful and convincing, the simplest and greatest expression of a man who recognizes Christ. Salvation is a Presence: this is the wellspring of the joy and the wellspring of the affectivity of Mozart’s Catholic heart, of his heart that loved Christ.”

Et incarnatus est– Father Giussani says–“is singing at its purest,when all man’s straining melts in the original clarity, the absolute purity of the gaze that sees and recognizes. Et incarnatus est is contemplation and entreaty at the same time, a stream of peace and joy welling up from the heart’s wonder at being placed before the arrival of what it has been waiting for ,the miracle of the fulfillment of its quest.[...]

Would that we too, like Mozart, could contemplate with the same simplicity and intensity the beginning in theworld of history of mercy and pardon, and drink from the wellspring that is Mary’s ‘Yes’! This beautiful song helps us to collect ourselves in grateful silence, so that, in the heart, the flower of our ‘Yes’ can germinate and come up. [...] Just as it was for Mary, this girl from Nazareth, in front of the Child who had come out of her: a boundless relationship filled her heart and time" (Christ Is Something that Is Happening to Me Now).

Reading these words, I searched to hear this proclamation for myself, and I was moved by the beauty of this performance of Mozart's great fragment.

When I sang in a choir as a child, I loved singing Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus, but I remember one time we also sang a full Mozart credo (an explosion of song). In this year of preparation for the year of faith, I hope to have many occasions to contemplate the creed in the richest, most beautiful, and profoundly human ways.

Discovering Destiny

2012-02-04T20:30:00.003-06:00

Train Car with Graffiti

I've been reading Joseph and His Brothers by Mann. I'm not quite half way through, and Joseph has started his life as a slave in the house of Potiphar. Joseph is an attractive character for me, aware of his place in the great symbolic web of life, aware of his life as a repetition of the life of his fathers, patient and clever— although to this point he's lived mostly in potentiality, watching and learning.

Destiny is not only a question for the young, but remains a concern throughout life, and there are few things more frustrating than being at an impasse in front of one's destiny, to feel one's path blocked by an insurmountable obstacle. At moments like this, I would like to someone to come along and shove me in the right direction… As I was reading another book, however, I read the following passage:

"If I were forced to reach my destiny, I would not be able to be happy. It would be neither my happiness, nor my destiny. It is through my freedom that destiny, the end, the goal, the ultimate object becomes an answer given to me. Human fulfillment would not be human — would not be fulfillment— if it were not free. Now, if reaching destiny, fulfillment, is to be free, freedom must 'play a role' even in its discovery" (The Religious Sense, 121).

I don't make my destiny (I don't make myself so how could I?), but neither is my destiny handed to me like a to do list (as in certain movies which end up as grand failures). A bit further on, there's another tantalizing passage:

"An education that forms attentiveness and acceptance, marked by a sensitivity towards all the factors in play, teaches one to open doors, perhaps already prematurely closed, even if for a perfectly good reason: for at any hour whatsoever, even at night, the substance of reality might knock at the door" (126).

And so I'll break off here with Joseph as he begins his service to Potiphar:

"Seven rounds of the year— an imitation and repetition of a father's years in the life of his son, corresponding to the period of the period of time in which Jacob had gone from a fugitive and beggar to man weighed down with riches, Laban's indispensable partner in an enterprise bursting with prosperity from the power of his blessing. Now it was Joseph's turn to make himself indispensable— how did that happen, and what did he do? Did he find water as Jacob had? That was totally unnecessary. There was water in abundance on [Potiphar's] estate, for not only was there a lotus pond in the pleasure garden, but square basins had been dug among the plants in the orchard and vegetable garden, and though these were not connected to the Great Provider they still nourished the gardens, for the were filled to the brim with groundwater. […] it was at any rate overflowing with material prosperity that that it would have been difficult, if not superfluous, to be its 'increaser.'" (676).

Leaves, Energy, and Losing Weight

2012-01-14T09:24:00.001-06:00

In my last post, I mentioned that:

"Along the way, I'm discovering other beauties— the beauty of walking in all kinds of weather, the beauty of raking and bagging leaves: the beauty of sunset and cold while raking leaves, the beauty of combing over the lawn and counting every leaf, the beauty of taking care of my lawn and discovering a relationship with these trees we have."

Responding to these lines, a friend asked me if I have more energy now that I've been losing weight. I'm going to say yes, but not for the reason that I would have expected before I set out on this journey. I do have more energy now because I'm learning not to stifle the need of my heart, which is the engine which drive me toward destiny. I learned that every hair on my head is counted, and I realized that the One who fed the 5,000 could teach me how to eat reasonably. What is this need of the heart? It is that need for truth, justice, happiness, and love— a need that is infinite, and which, like the physical heart, grows through exercise. It grows from truth to truth, from justice to justice, and from happiness to love (as the father says in Claudel's play, The Tidings Brought to Mary: "We are too happy, and the others are not happy enough").

When I started to exercise in the last couple of years, I felt that it was extremely banal. I'm reminded by something Fr. Giussani says in The Risk of Education: "to walk without direction is perceived as a waste of time by a lively and vibrant mind" (55-56). I started by walking 15 or 20 minutes at a time, praying the Rosary (or other prayers), and begging for life, more life. Eventually, I discovered a GPS speed tracking app for my phone, which enabled me to push myself in real time to go faster. This year I saw the leaves in the yard, and as in previous years, I saw that it would be good if someone bagged them up. In a reversal from previous years, I realized that I could track calories and supplement my walking with a different exercise. Also, it didn't seem fair to leave it all to my wife or oldest son. There was a glimmer of good in this banal task. When I started raking and bagging, I enjoyed being outside, watching the sunset, playing in the leaves. My daughter surprised me by coming out and helping me several times.

The energy is given to me— I just have to embrace it. It's a desire for the infinite that begins to be satisfied in everyday things. And as I embrace it, I'm spurred on by a greater desire with surprises I could never have imagined.

A Misplaced Hunger

2012-01-02T14:20:00.000-06:00

the road is beautiful for the one who walks

According to Myfitnesspal.com (alias freder1ck), I've logged in 184 days in a row, and have lost 57.5 pounds. I was recently asked how I did this. My first answer (why) is that I've been lucky— I've come up against something that has reordered my desire, made me more reasonable, and strengthened me. My second answer (how) is various: I eat less and exercise more (Catbert); have studied a bit on fitness and overeating (The Culprit and the Cure, Overcoming Binge Eating); use online tools (myfitnesspal, Runtastic app).

People are typically more interested in the how than in the why. However, there's not much of a secret about the how— as Catbert's advice suggests.

What's more interesting to me is the why. To begin with, I noticed that there are many products out there to control appetite, but I recognized that I ate contrary to appetite. I ate when I wasn't hungry and when I was full, and my eating was increasingly disproportionate to my hunger, as if attempting to fill infinite desire with finite matter, or to stop up an infinite desire with finite materials. If the reason for eating is prolonging life, overeating has the opposite impact— an action that betrays an unreasonable attittude.

In 2002, I heard a beautiful song that promised "liberty that Abraham Lincoln could not have given me." This was at the presentation of Luigi Giussani's book The Religious Sense in Atchison, Kansas. In 2007, I attended Spiritual Exercises of Communion and Liberation in Winona, Minnesota, on the theme of "Christ in His Beauty Draws Me to Him." Two points in this weekend fascinated me: 1. instinct is good and 2. instinct is ordered toward totality. As soon as I heard this, I perceived that it would be possible to live in freedom. At the same time, I realized that I would not be content to only lose weight or only to be free of 'the dictatorship of desires.' Only totality, only infinite beauty would be enough.

Why did it take years for me to discover a new relationship with food and exercise? Freedom is a long road, but in the last 6 months things have come together for me. If you're following infinite beauty, you're content to wait a bit for this or that finite beauty. At any rate, Camus wrote that “It is not by means of scruples that man will become great; greatness comes through the grace of God, like a beautiful day."

Along the way, I'm discovering other beauties— the beauty of walking in all kinds of weather, the beauty of raking and bagging leaves: the beauty of sunset and cold while raking leaves, the beauty of combing over the lawn and counting every leaf, the beauty of taking care of my lawn and discovering a relationship with these trees we have.

Christmas Bells

2011-12-26T12:12:00.003-06:00

On Thursday as I rounded the lake I thought I heard the rustle of bells, and seeing nothing wondered. As I rounded the lake again, at the same spot, I heard the rustle again and noticed the geese walking across the ice. On Friday and Saturday, I heard the crackling of ice again. Friday was colder so the tone was different, but Saturday it was similar again to sleigh bells. This reminds me of the time I went to Dallas and heard the sputter and crackling of Grackles— dismissed by the locals as a pest and a nuisance, but audible to me as a tourist or pilgrim. I'm grateful to discover this openness in my everyday life, the experience of being a pilgrim even when at home.

New Evangelization: at the Portal of Faith

2011-12-16T08:01:00.000-06:00

Waiting by *clairity* on flickr

Here's a talk by Joseph Ratzinger on the new evangelization: Address to Catechists and Religion Teachers: Jubilee of Catechists, 12 December 2000.

The main point of the talk is that the new evangelization is rooted in personal conversion (expropriation of the person) in the context of a "a progressive process of de-Christianization and a loss of the essential human values, which is worrisome. A large part of today's humanity does not find the Gospel in the permanent evangelization of the Church: That is to say, the convincing response to the question: How to live?" The method of evangelization does not change, but there is a need to bring the authentic method to those unlikely to hear the word in a parish or other traditional setting. Using new media, the internet and social media, may or may not be new evangelization. Does it speak in the agora— the public marketplace, or does it speak in a parochial way, to the choir as it were (although the choir often harbors the hardest hearts: those most distant and above the mystery).

As Ratzinger says: "The Kingdom of God always starts anew under this sign. New evangelization cannot mean: immediately attracting the large masses that have distanced themselves from the Church by using new and more refined methods. No—this is not what new evangelization promises." It seems to me that there are plenty of attempts to build success by increasing numbers among Christians today: X-Boxes at the megachurch, rock-style services, a whole Christian subculture with a veneer of pop trappings. Another new method is that of interpreting pop culture, mediating it for young people. This approach was popularized by Francis Schaeffer, but young people did not learn how to critically examine pop culture but only to repeat the criticisms of others. I speak from personal experience and that of others.

The new evangelization is not a new moralism (recall the movie, A Nun's Story, for example— a movie which defined a generation of priests and religious). The attempt has left us with a series of reduced images of Jesus, as Ratzinger notes: "The 200 years of history of the 'historical Jesus' faithfully reflect the history of philosophies and ideologies of this period."

Reading Ratzinger's article, I'm reminded in a great way of the book of Jonah, which many commentators see as a satire on insular attitudes. But the book of Jonah was a great touchstone in the life and teaching of Jesus, and Jesus seemed to take it pretty seriously. Jonah was sent to the gentile city of Ninevah to announce God's judgment and mercy. Even though he resisted the call, Jonah allowed himself to be expropriated to the point of death (Sheol) for three days in the belly of the great fish. And like Jonah, Christians are ready to sit on the hilltop awaiting the destruction of the city when Jesus has invited us to announce the presence of God among the nations.

Where is there a "convincing response to the question: How to live?" New York Encounter, in January, is one place. Here is another.

CYO: Basketball Season

2011-12-12T08:01:00.000-06:00

mural photo by *clairity* on flickr

After getting her feet wet with volleyball, our fourth grade daughter decided to do basketball also. Basketball is definitely a more intense game than volleyball— for the players and the parents alike. I was surprised last week when we went to see how intense my fellow parents were compared to volleyball. When I got home, I checked the Play Like a Champion CYO handbook, and sure enough we were guilty of multiple 'toxic behaviors.' Well, freedom is a long road! And we were such good citizens during volleyball season…

This week I was tapped to be a scorekeeper. With one person from each team keeping score, it felt like a civic duty, like being an election volunteer. Both sides working together to ensure a fair process.

I played basketball one season for the Jewish Community Center, and I've enjoyed stories of basketball in the last few years: Conroy's My Losing Season and Franzen's Freedom. At any rate, I'm glad to see that she's learning to be part of a team, having fun, and getting some time with the ball.

In Gratitude for the Light

2011-12-10T10:17:00.001-06:00

All my life I've taken snapshots, things that are interesting to me. With my camera phone, I've started instead to look for the light (full disclosure: I learned about finding the light on America's Next Top Model).

At sunrise, to see the light illuminating certain things while leaving others in shadow. Over the course of a day or many days, the sun lights up everything, and this illumination dominates us so much that we trust sight above all.

In the summer the heat of the sun dominates everything. So much so, that in fall or spring I can't help remembering Aesop's fable about the man with the coat. The wind and the sun compete to see who can get him to remove it. No matter how hard the wind blows he just hugs it tighter. The sun wins just by welcoming him with warmth until he no longer needs his coat.

Now that it's winter, however, I see that even though the days are short, and the air is cold, the sun still wins by making everything visible. What's amazing is how the beams spotlight this thing first, and then that thing later, like a curtain being raised and showing the audience one part, and then another part of the stage.

Mann: The Jealousy of God

2011-11-08T22:32:00.000-06:00

Sprig of Yellow by *clairity* on flickr

Reading Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann is not unlike watching Monty Python's Biblical movies. Impious to be sure, but at the same time a seriousness in front of the human situation described: a surprise and wonder before the strangeness of things witnessed.

Here's a bit on the contrast between Rachel's and Leah's fecundity:

"The letter of tradition is the only point of reference offered us when it comes to explaining these melancholy events of life. In brief, it reads: because Leah was hated by Jacob, God opened her womb and made Rachel barren. That's why. It is one attempt at explanation like any other. It has the ring of supposition, not that of authority, for there is no direct and determinative utterance by El Shaddai as to the meaning of His decree, be it directed against Jacob or some other party— and without doubt He never offered one. All the same, it would be proper to cast this interpretation aside and offer another only if we knew a better, which is not the case. Indeed, we shall take the kernal of the one offered to be true.

That kernal is that God's action was not directed against Rachel, or at least not at first, nor was it done for Leah's sake, but rather was meant as instructive chastisement for Jacob himself, who was in fact rebuked inasmuch as the selectivity and gentle despotism of his emotions, the arrogance with which he nursed and proclaimed them, did not have the approval of the Elohim— even though such a tendency to single out by displaying unbridled preference, this pride of feeling that evaded all criticism and desired the whole world's reverent acceptance, could appeal to a higher model and indeed represented its earthly imitation. Even though? Jacob's emmotional despotism was punished precisely because it was an imitation. Anyone attempting to address this matter must take care how he expresses himself; but after scrupulous examination of the text at hand there can be no doubt that the supreme motive for the action under discussion was God's jealousy of a privilege, which in humbling Jacob's emotional despotism, He intended to designate as His privilege. This interpretation may well be censured and will surely not escape the objection that a motive as petty and passionate as jealousy is inappropriate for explaining divine decrees."
[... a bit of digression here on God's evolution ...]
"For what is the unbridled feeling of one human being for another— such as Jacob allowed himself to feel for Rachel and later transfered in an even stronger form, if that is possible, to her firstborn— if not idolotry?"
[...]
"Call it a vestige of the desert, but the truth remains that it is in passion, first and foremost, that the tempestuous term 'living God' is actually and demonstrably fulfilled. And in retrospect, one will say that Joseph, however much his own flaws hurt him, had a better sense of this living God and was far more adept at taking Him into consideration than the father who begot him" (255-257).

'And With Your Spirit' according to Adrienne von Speyr

2011-11-04T05:30:00.000-05:00

Trinity, French, second half of 15th c
by *clairity* on Flickr

"The priest's greeting and the congregation's accompanying response are repeated again and again in the course of the Holy Mass so as to draw the congregation anew into what is happening. It is almost as if the priest, in the depths of his prayer, his ecclesial prayer, were in danger of becoming remote from the congregation. It is almost as if, again and again, he draws the congregation into what he is doing.

Through its response, the congregation hopes and wishes and believes that the priest in all his functions will remain in unity with and at the heart of the Church, so that the Lord will be with his ministerially endowed spirit.

When Holy Mass is celebrated correctly, as an act of love in the Church, this exchange of greetings functions again and again to test the axis, coordinates, and alignment of priest and congregation toward the heart of their common service. It is a check to make sure that the state of the Church is in accordance with that of the Lord." (The Holy Mass, 30-31).

Blessed is He - a dramatic shift in the Sanctus

2011-10-14T07:01:00.000-05:00

Towers, Sagrada Familia, Barcelona
by clairity on flickr

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

Traditionally, the Sanctus is understood as a two-part prayer: the Sanctus and the Benedictus. The first part is from Isaiah 6:3, and the second part from Matthew 21:9.

"In the Sanctus it is first and foremost the Lord of creation who is given praise, whereas in the Benedictus it is first and foremost the incarnate God. The transubstantiation is a third mystery, after the creation and the Incarnation that nonetheless stands in the most intimate relation to both. The first sign of the vitality and sanctity of God in the world was the creation, the second sign was the Incarnation. The third sign sums up and unites the two, but does so without constituting a midpoint between them or blurring the significance of either. On the one hand, the transubstantiation is like the creation, since out of a kind of nothing the Lord's presence comes into being It is also like the Incarnation, since the Lord's body and blood once again become present among us. Thus the transubstantiation is a reminder of both mysteries, but it does not coincide with either." (p54, The Holy Mass by Adrienne von Speyr).

Thus, the Sanctus in its entirety compresses adoration of the Father in His eternal majesty with the condescension of the Son in the Incarnation. It's a dramatic moment that remembers the Incarnation and anticipates the transubstantiation.

I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry

2011-10-09T13:35:00.000-05:00

Voila - Coq au Vin by clairity on flickr

"Ordering one's instinct towards the goal (which is to say, the whole) is the fundamental gift of self to the whole, the so-called 'duty,' whose essence, then, cannot be but love, which is self-surrender. […] But giving oneself is not human unless it is to a person. Loving is only human if one loves a person…"At the Origin of the Christian Claim, 94

Or as Saint Paul proclaims in today's reading:

"I know also how to live with abundance. In every circumstance and in all things. I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need.I can do all things in him who strengthens me."

Recently, Father Carron recalled the words of Msgr. Giussani:

“Expect a journey, not a miracle that would spare you your responsibilities, that would save you an effort, and make your freedom mechanical. No! Don’t expect this. This is something profoundly different from before, from the journey made up to now. The profound difference is that you cannot follow us if you are not intent on understanding. Now you have to begin to really love life and its destiny.”

The only thing I would add to the above is a profound gratitude that Christ has shown his face on me, that his loving gaze has reached me through a people and through the Church. And because his face is my desire, everything else is becoming a sign of that desire. So I'm learning to love food for what it is: a transient sign of the infinite. A greater love for time, things, and people: and yes, even food. Thanks also to my parents who recently sent me a big cooler from Omaha Steaks.

2011-10-05T00:05:00.001-05:00

"6 By insisting on self-control alone as the only reality, and on the human will's presumed ability to succeed, spiritual directors betray the young." ~Father Luigi Giussani

Fading by Clairity on flickr