just to note

Hurray for Scott Brown! But I don't want him or President Obama in the White House in 2012. Brown is good for Massachusetts but is bad for the Republican party.

Intellectuals

Thomas Sowell has a new book about intellectuals that looks very interesting. The National Review has a review:

Sowell writes that it “was part of a long-standing assumption among many intellectuals . . . that it is the role of third parties to bring meaning into the lives of the masses.” Many people were shocked when in early 2008 Michelle Obama proclaimed, “Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. . . . That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.” Sowell probably just shook his head in knowing disgust.

Sowell's observation is true. In many circles, especially , I think, in sociology, anthropology and philosophy, meaning is something created and imposed on human beings by the ruling class. Meaning is understood to be something that we create, not something we discover. Because we make it, we can change it, and we can change it for the better. This is the source of the intellectual temptation to create meaning for other people. A lot of intellectuals, especially in the aforementioned fields, spend their time thinking about how people's lives could be better spent. Intellectuals convince themselves they can create a better purpose for the lives of the masses. Devotion to the cause of social revolution, however vaguely defined, is surely more noble than devotion to an invisible God.

It is important to be conscious of intellectual vices, and it looks like Sowell's book will aid us in this task. If we are to be persuasive, we need to constantly practice intellectual humility, to limit the scope of our understanding. In a world that believes in constant progress and limitless change, this can be difficult. But it is no less necessary.

A YouTube Video Is Worth a Thousand Words

Digital food for thought on two of America's most irritating, botoxed, hairsprayed women in politics - one from the national scene and one who aspires to the same:

1. Not that I'm Jack Cafferty's #1 fan or anything,  but as Laura Ingraham said about The Situation Room correspondent, "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day." Here he tells Wolf Blitzer how he really feels about Nancy Pelosi. Amen, Cafferty.

2. If you're not familiar with Massachusetts politics (or Massachusettes, as Coakley seems to think it's spelled), a special election next week will determine who will fill the Senate seat formerly known as "Ted Kennedy's." Scott Brown (R) has taken on Martha Coakley (D); his election would be a massive upset for Democrats on a national level, and a triumph in a state that is so ridiculously left-leaning that Coakley barely had to wage a campaign for the seat - or so she thought. As her public appearances (though few and far between) consistently show how uninformed and pathetic she is, Brown is seriously closing the gap. To add insult to Coakley's injury, one of her staffers recently assaulted a reporter from The Weekly Standard who attempted to question Coakley about her statement that "there are no more Taliban in Afghanistan." She reponds with, "I'm sorry, does anyone else have a question?" and her staffer responds by shoving the reporter to the ground. Politics as usual in Massachusettes - after all, the race is for the Kennedy seat. The reporter's last name? No, not Kopechne.

Back to Basics

I always thought that I was a bit old school, even before I really committed to Catholicism. I felt uncomfortable in immodest clothing; I enjoyed cooking for people and liked family dinners; I preferred to read a book instead of watching tv; I thought Amish people were interesting; even swearing felt forced...the list goes on.

I like simpler things. I assumed I was just weird.

But today I learned about a movement called voluntary simplicity! The blogger at A Woman's Place... noted that she is reading a book called Back to Basics, I clicked on the Amazon link, and was immediately intrigued. Apparently the general concept of voluntary simplicity has lots of levels (I'm not the kind of person who's going to start using an outhouse! Let's be serious.), and people choose to pursue simple living for many reasons - a cursory Google search leads me to believe that most of these simplicity seekers are anti-consumerist or those trying to reduce their carbon footprints. I really don't fall into either of those categories. But for those of us (like the blogger at A Woman's Place) who strive to live an authentically Catholic life, reducing our dependency on material goods and earthly affirmations of our worth could only be a positive thing. This makes me think of the number of Catholic speakers I've listened to (Peter Kreeft, Matthew Kelly) who talk about people being slaves to technology - tv, cell phones, ipods, Facebook. These things are created to make our lives easier, simpler, more efficient - but they end up consuming chunks of our day, until there is no time for prayer or talk or authentic relationships with those around us.

Zach, I would be interested to see if/how the simpler life fits in with Pieper's Leisure.

This post, interestingly enough, coincides with the week that my husband and I have decided to cancel our cable services - Comcast has increased our prices and, while saving for our home, it just seems ludicrous to waste money on a luxury like HDTV. Thus begins our journey into the depths of voluntary simplicity...

"Do it again and I'll uppercut you"

I play in a recreational soccer league. It's just for fun - my cousin assembled a rag-tag team of family members and friends to compete on Thursday nights. We don't practice and many of us do not have much experience in soccer, myself foremost among the bunch. My first experience with soccer was last year, and I think I have played 13 games to date and never once practiced. Anyways, we played a game tonight against what appeared to be a semi-professional team. At the very least, they were a group of very skilled players from a local college team. They utterly destroyed us - we were outmatched in every way. And this was fine, because we all had fun, and learned some things too.

During the course of the game, I was attempting to score on the other team's goal and I was near the goalie. He fell over after running into me, and after getting up he yelled in a rather terrifying voice, "what the **** man." Not realizing that I had committed some type of foul, and hearing the pain I caused this guy, I apologized. Not anticipating this goalie's intensity, I was shocked when he yelled back, "yeah, you better be - do it again and I'll uppercut you". It's hard to convey the animosity of this remark in words, but needless to say I was scared.

My immediate reaction was to fight back, to taunt him or something of the sort. I'm not proud of this, but it is what it is. I didn't end up doing anything but apologize again, but reflecting on this I realize how strong a feeling came over me. I think this is an experience common to any person who is attacked, or who feels attacked. You want to fight back - you want to attack back.

Christianity challenges us to be better, to be higher and more dignified creatures, and to avoid these animalistic reactions. The Christian challenge is to forgive. Not later, not minutes after the feeling passes, but instantly. Forgiveness is to be our natural reaction. Saints achieve this great habit of virtue, and it is something we are all called to.

New Blog Announcement!

My wife has a new blog. She will be writing about family, faith, books and babies. She's a talented writer, check it out if you have some time!

One Good Reason to Avoid Facebook and Blogging

Brought to you by Lydia McGrew of What's Wrong with The World:

The Internet, and especially the blogosphere, allows us to think of other people only in relation to ourselves and our own ideas. When someone is a commentator on your thread, you are tempted to think of him not as a person with a family and a life, with hobbies and feelings, but just in relation to your thread. That's it. What did he say about what I said? And something similar is true of someone who writes a blog post on which I comment. He has said something. I have something to say in response. That's it. If I don't like what he said, we argue about it. And that's all. The almost overwhelming temptation is to make the other person simply a foil for oneself. If he seems to have scored temporarily, one is tempted to try to think of ways to get around admitting to the fair tag--a temptation to intellectual dishonesty. If he says something that seems particularly stupid, one is tempted to think of him merely as an opportunity to exercise one's cleverness at his expense. Thus it comes about that one can move in a world full of people all of whom take on a shadowy, one-dimensional semi-existence in one's own mind as mirrors--positive or negative--of oneself.

Internet messages wait. So do e-mail messages. If someone knocks at your office door, yells "Mom!" or calls you on the phone, he's much harder to ignore. Paradoxically, this makes it tempting to take more time answering e-mail than talking to physically present people, who suddenly seem--as real people increasingly come to seem to Wentworth--annoyingly loud and importunate.

The Internet allows you to create your own persona and present yourself to others as you would like to be rather than as you really are. This point applies even to networking sites like Facebook which have the advantage over the blogosphere of giving a more human and personal face to the people involved. But I, myself, am still presenting myself at my best and through the filter of the computer. This creates the dangerous illusion that I am engaging in normal social contact and interaction but don't have to deal with those faults that I don't have to reveal on the Internet. If people think highly of me there, I get the idea that I must be just fine. The Internet (like Wentworth's flattering succubus) provides a terrible opportunity to feed one's vanity.

This is something I've thought but never been able to give eloquent expression to. I myself fall easily into this type of behavior, so I try to avoid it. I do not think facebook is evil per se, but like the television, I think it very easily facilitates a type of compulsive, self-obsessed behavior. And yes, I am aware of the irony that I am writing this on a relatively personal blog. Maybe this is a good reason to stop blogging altogether. My time would be better spent in prayer, or engaging with other live human beings. Maybe someday I'll learn this lesson.

For Catholics: The Proper Sign of Veneration before Communion

I didn't know this: before receiving Communion Catholics in the United States are obliged to simply bow their heads. Via the USCCB:

Sign of Veneration
In a similar way, the General Instruction (no. 160§2) assigns to Conferences of Bishops the responsibility to determine "an appropriate gesture of reverence" to be made before receiving the Blessed Sacrament. Thus, in the dioceses of the United States of America, the communicant is directed by this particular law to "bow his or her head before the sacrament as a gesture of reverence and receive the Body of the Lord from the minister."

Uniformity in Posture
The General Instruction of the Roman Missal emphasizes that in matters of gesture and posture "greater attention needs to be paid to what is laid down by liturgical law and by the traditional practice of the Roman Rite, for the sake of the common spiritual good of the people of God rather than to personal inclination arbitrary choice" (Girm, no.42)/ Throughout their consideration of GIRM numbers 43 and 160, the Bishops repeatedly recalled the need for uniformity in all prescribed postures and gestures.

Such uniformity serves as a "sign of the unity of the members of the Christian community gathered for the sacred Liturgy" and it "both expresses and fosters the spiritual attitude of those assisting" (GIRM, no. 42). Likewise, a lack of uniformity can serve as a sign of disunity or even a sense of individualism. A particular example of this disunity has been cited by many of the Bishops in regard to a diversity of postures during the Eucharistic Prayer, "the center and summit of the entire celebration" (GIRM, no. 78). Thus, the variation from kneeling as the uniform posture during the Eucharistic Prayer is permitted only "on occasion" and when the circumstances found by GIRM (no. 43) are clearly present.

Personal forms of veneration are explicitly condemned. This makes sense; I should have looked this up years ago!

if ever I have understood anything in this world

Anthony Esolen:

Whom have we in heaven, good psalmist, but the Lord? And the Lord saw our weakness, and came down to us as a babe, then a child, then a man, that we might break bread with Him, hear His voice, look into His eyes, and feel His touch. Many have been the days when I have stood alone on a crag of the soul, without a human hand to warm the shoulder, or a human voice to say, "I am with you always." But, time and again, the Lord has turned my gaze to see the child, my King, my God, naked in His mother's arms, or asleep in those swaddling bands, image of the shroud that also could not hold His glory. Much is wrong with the world. It will always be so. And our love hardly toddles, while we grow old in sin. The world brays out its pride, boasting of wealth and godless power. It has always done so. And we listen to the braying, and join in its witless song. But always there is the Babe, who speaks a world of love in His speechless simplicity.

I am far, far from the courage of the psalmist Asaph. But the Word has become flesh, and dwelt among us, and that gives me the warrant to say: If ever I have understood anything in this world, it was but a glimpse of You; if ever I have loved with but a trace of self-forgetting, it was You I loved. I am an old sinner in a cradle; be near me, Lord Jesus. I am a mere son of earth; raise me, to be born again. I am a witless man, who has wandered by the way; lead me to the place where you have gone. For whom have I in heaven but thee? And on earth there is none beside.

Mass at Midnight on Christmas Morning

This Christmas my local parish was something to behold. Midnight Mass began with light only from decorations on the Evergreen trees, the Priest, escorted by the Deacon and members of the local Knights of Columbus, processed through the Pews with an icon of the baby Jesus to be laid in the Manger. The entire Church was silent and it was beautiful.

As is typical of Christmas and to a lesser extent Easter Masses, the Church was full. This is an unusual circumstance for my parish, as on any typical Sunday the Church is probably half empty. In New England, people who don’t usually come to Church come to Church on Christmas. This is a disheartening reality of Catholic life in America. Is there anything that should be done about it?

Faithful Catholics try to have the mind of Christ. They care about these people that show up in a Catholic Church once a year. Once a year, after all, is not good enough. If they are Catholic and they are not attending Mass every Sunday of the year, they are in grave sin and put themselves in danger of eternal separation from God. This is a reality more distressing than the lack of universal health insurance. Indeed, these people are not simply at risk of dying, like everyone else, but they are at risk of dying and being separated from God forever. I think that if this is true something needs to be done about it.

There are lots of factors that contribute to infrequent Mass attendance and poor catechesis is chief among them. Lots of good people, good Catholics, simply do not know that they are obligated to attend Mass on Sundays. If you are reading this you likely know that Mass is not optional for Catholics; if we are to consider ourselves Catholic then we must consider Mass attendance a necessary component of our salvation. Another factor that contributes to poor Mass attendance is simply lack of faith. Many Catholics do not believe in the God of the Bible. Rather they believe in a god of their convenience, one that fits their particular idiosyncrasies and who is conducive to them “being a good person.”

Given that it seems that poor Mass attendance is largely the result of intellectual problems, it is wise to think an intellectual solution will be the most efficacious. So my question is this: why don’t priests say anything about this? Is it wrong to include simple truths about the Faith in Christmas sermons? And I don’t just mean priests who aren’t deeply in love with God – even very holy priests, very orthodox, very prayerful priests would seem to have qualms with discussing the truths of the faith at the pulpit.

I would be the first one to admit that the Sermon cannot be only an exposition of the Church’s teaching on faith and morals. The true proper place for this type of teaching is during Confirmation classes. But another sad fact about Catholic life in America is that catechesis doesn’t happen at Confirmation anymore. At least in my Diocese, we have moved from teaching the truths of the faith to trying to teach the experience of a personal encounter with Christ (this is difficult to teach for a number of reasons). So more often than not, a person’s only encounter with the Church and Her teachings is that once a year experience at Christmas or Easter. This is a holy opportunity to reach out to these wayward souls, and it is being squandered.

My priest, who I believe to be very holy, very orthodox and very much in love with Jesus and the Church (even the teachings) gave a homily that spoke of the obligations imposed on a person in relationship with God. This was good – very good, except that the content of these obligations was left undefined. Yes! The Incarnation means we are in a new and holy relationship with God. Yes! Catholics have obligations to God. But what those obligations exactly are, well, we’re not allowed to talk about? Does a priest have an obligation to define these obligations, especially on Christmas? It would seem to me he does.

Or maybe I’m asking the wrong questions. Maybe the sermon isn’t the place to catechize the Catholic people. Maybe I’m supposed to accept the thousands of Catholics who are being left out of life’s greatest joy, which is the fullness of the Catholic faith. But maybe I’m not.

the new world order?

An eminent Professor of Political Philosophy predicts a New World Order by 2010 (meaning the collapse of American government in its present form).

It's a bit too cynical for my tastes, and also a bit too plausible.

Starving eternally

It is not simply that God has arbitrarily made us such that He is our only good. Rather God is the only good of all creatures: and by necessity, each must find its good in that kind and degree of the fruition of God which is proper to its nature. The kind and degree may vary with the creature's nature: but that there ever could be any other good, is an atheistic dream. George Macdonald, in a passage I cannot now find, represents God as saying to men, 'You must be strong with my strength and blessed with my blessedness, for I have no other to give to you'. That is the conclusion of the whole matter. God gives us what He has, not what He has not: He gives the happiness that there is, not the happiness that is not. To be God - to be like God and to share His goodness in creaturely response - to be miserable - these are the only three alternatives. If we will not learn to eat the only food that the universe grows - the only food that any possible universe can ever grow - then we must starve eternally.

C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, Ch.3 Conclusion, (pp. 47)

Here is a profound insight into happiness and the nature of sin. When we sin, we participate not in the life of God, but in disorder and nothingness. God creates this universe and He also sustains it: everything that is not of Him is essentially nothing, doomed to disappear into the void. This is I think in a very real sense what Hell is: total lack of true being.

We must learn to do only God's will because in reality that's the only thing there is to do. Any time we deviate from God's will we participate in a life that is doomed to nothingness, that is, to death.

crash and burn

There is a band I enjoy sometimes named Further Seems Forever. They are not quite a Christian band, but their lyrics are deeply influenced by Christian themes in a way that is refreshing. Their last CD is titled "Hide Nothing" and has some excellent songs on it. The title track opens with this lyric:

We live and we learn and we crash and we burn and we're gone /
We take what we know and we learn as we go and we run /
run until that day /
we can see who we are

I like this. It's rare to see a lyricist deal with life and death in a way that contains any semblance of wisdom or hope, and I think this song exemplifies both virtues. Many other tracks on the CD have the same qualities. And on top of this the guys in this band are phenomenal musicians, especially the drummer. It's not Led Zeppelin, but it can be awesome.

independents are annoying

crankycon says:

One of my particular pet peeves is the way that so-called independents or “independent-minded” thinkers always like to remind everyone on a seemingly constant basis that they are independent-minded thinkers. They act like they expect a treat or pat on the belly for their “ferocious” independence of thought, as though everyone else on planet Earth but them is a sheep.

on social charity

JVS: When I read a passage like this, I am concerned about what is the subject of this "social charity." The human person is the substantial bearer of all human reality. The state is not a person. It is not a substance. It does not have an intellect and will of its own. There is no such thing as corporate guilt or corporate virtue that belongs to some collective "being" that transcends the persons who actually live and die.

The Trinity is the heart of the Church's social teaching. Here we have a multiplicity of persons, a unity of nature, a divine nature. All love is ordered to another person who actually exists. However, there is an order in this relationship. Sometimes it sounds like we are more responsible for those far off beings we do not know than we are for those we do. This is dangerous doctrine. It makes any real charity impossible. It smacks of Rousseau, of loving man but not one's actual neighbor. Sometimes it sounds like we should reduce everyone to the lowest common denominator in the name of the common good. The whole of Aquinas was in the opposite direction. We should bring out the full potential of everyone. That was the "common good" meant, not some kind of collective being. This meant that some are more talented, some will have more than others in a ways that has nothing to do with injustice.

-Schall

The whole interview is well-worth reading.

Metanoia

I saw this on Pentimento's blog and I really liked it:

Metanoia, or repentance, is that moment of grace when the truth about ourselves and God strikes us, pierces the heart, and makes new life possible. (Irénée Hausherr, SJ)

It's easy to hide from that moment.

Philip Hamburger's new book is a rare find

Michael McConnell, a Law Professor at Stanford, offers this in a First Things review of Philip Hamburger's new book titled Law and Judicial Duty:

Hamburger traces the development of modern conceptions of the law to the realization, in Europe and especially Britain, that human reason rarely provided clear answers to moral questions and therefore that an attempt to ground law in divine will, or a search for abstract reason and justice, would inevitably lead to discord. As a result, "Europeans increasingly located the obligation of law in the authority of the lawmaker rather than the reason or justice of his laws." The task of judges, then, was not to seek after elusive notions of justice and right reason but to enforce the law of the land. Natural law shifted in emphasis from moral content to legitimacy and authority, and increasingly to an understanding of authority based on the will of the people.

This seems to me a profound explanation of how and why we understand law today the way we do. It simultaneously shows you what is wrong with the modern conception of the law and what is right.

As Hamburger argues, Europeans and the British especially were right in an important way in seeing the insufficiency of human reason in uncovering moral truths. They were also right to be skeptical of claims to divine authority in public life because of the fact of pluralism. Not all persons are of the same mind and so there is moral, cultural and philosophical divergence that necessarily produces social discord. Therefore, the Europeans and the British were right to change the emphasis of the law as they did. But it is immediately apparent that something is deeply wrong with this new emphasis placed on the authority of the lawmaker (i.e., the will of the people).

Without a firm or solid grounding in natural law, the will of the people is and will be arbitrary, unfixed and anarchical. Without the natural law, politics becomes a contest of competing desires. This is part (perhaps the most important part) of what is wrong with liberalism. Insofar as liberalism is foundationless, it will produce social discord. But its foundationaless nature is also its greatest strength: it produces a certain social stability by resting the authority of the law in the hands of those it serves. No one is excluded by philosophy or religious belief from the liberal society. Tocqueville said Liberalism requires a moral and religious people: a people with a particular character. He was right. In the absence of such people, liberalism cannot produce social harmony, and this is what we see today in the faithless 21st century America.

The task of the person who appreciates the virtues of liberal republican government (the conservative) is then clear. We must promote the proper understanding and relevance of natural law and religious faith in our public life. How we do this, exactly, I'm not sure. I think the best place to start is at home, in our families and our local communities and fraternal associations. Personally I like to drink beer and talk about important things.

The wisdom of Father Schall

Every sentence he writes is gold:

Joseph Pieper once wrote: “No calamity causes more despair in this world than the unjust exercise of power. And yet, any power that could never be abused is ultimately no power at all – a fearful thought.” Such are sage words. The “power” to create “values” exists. The alternative to the unjust use of power is not "no" power, but the just use of power, one that recognizes the measure.

The just use of power, however, rejects wickedness. We are to be defended against wickedness by first knowing that it exists and can be identified. It can likewise be chosen, even democratically, as a public policy.

Civilization depends on there being a truth to which those who suffer under unjust power can turn even in the face of established and enforced wickedness. It is this latter ground that relativism denies us. The central issue behind every public controversy and every threat against our national existence lies here. Yet this is the one threat to civilization that we choose not to recognize. We have “created” our own “values” in order to deny the truth in our being.

Exciting News

My wife and I are going to see our baby for this first time tomorrow (ultrasound)!

nothing but an unformed gaze

There is an interesting article in this month's First Things that argues there is no such thing as natural desires. Every desire, he contends, is not natural in that it has been deformed by original sin. A discussion of this contention forms the main part of the article. Desires, the author contends are infinite, of every variety and can take any form. This largely rings true to experience, but I think the language he employs overreaches. He seems to suggest that natural law theory does not recognize or account for this sense in which all desires are "unnatural," and this is not true. Despite this petty criticism of mine, the author demonstrates deep wisdom and learning throughout.

My favorite part comes at the end and is a distillation of his argument into a neat anthropological/psychological insight:

Among the strongest currents of thought these days is one that encourages us to discover who we are and to act accordingly - to gaze with the inward eye on our glassy essence and respond to what we find there. That gaze yields a vast range of identities: of gender and sex and ethnicity, of trait and temperment and passion. If what I have argued is right, when we attempt to discover who we are in that way, we find only phantasms - creatures of the imagination that wither when we turn our imaginations away from them.

This rejection of the language of natural desire opens us, instead, to the truth that we are creatures - inchoate, unformed, and hovering over the void from which were made - who must seek either to return to that void or to find happiness in the arms of the one who brought us forth from it. There is no glassy essence to discover; there is nothing but an unformed gaze that receives form only by looking away from itself and receiving the gift of being looked at by God.

- Paul J. Griffiths, "The Nature of Desire"

The last image is an especially beautiful one, and one that is entirely true. Philosophy agrees. Socrates devoted his life to answering the Oracle's riddle: Know thyself - his somewhat paradoxical answer was that one can only know oneself by looking outside oneself, by asking questions and practicing the virtue of humility. Humility is openness to the truth. This is another way of saying one can only find oneself by looking outside oneself; we must look at God.