Lenten Meditations on Purgatorio: Lust

Canto 24 is taken up with the climb of the three poets from the terrace of greed to the terrace of lust, and an extended conversation they have along the way in which Statius explains for Dante's benefit the relationship between the physical body and the soul (according to a mix of theology and Aristotelian biology) and how this accounts for the fact that the bodies of the souls in purgatory cannot die yet can suffer the visible deprivations of hunger. This is a sort of Aristotelian SciFi element to the Divine Comedy which, though doubtless fascinating to its medieval readers, often give the work a reputation for being hard to understand among 20th century readers.

At last, the poets come reach the next terrace, much of which is covered by a wall of fire. They begin to move carefully along the edge of the terrace, with fire to the left and a precipice to their right, and soon realize that there are spirits moving through the fire, and calling out to one another encouragement in the form of examples single and marital of chastity from Christian history and pagan mythology.

From inside the fire, souls call out to Dante asking him who he is that he walks unburned and still in his mortal body, but as he is about to explain he sees another group of souls coming through the fire walking in the opposite direction of those who have stopped to speak to him.

For down the middle of the burning road
Came people with their faces opposite
To these, and they made me stare in suspense.

There I saw all the shades on either side
Hurrying and kissing one another
Without halting, content with this brief greeting:

As ants in black battalions rub their muzzles,
One with another, so as to seek out,
Perhaps, their prospects and their way ahead.

As soon as these break off their friendly welcome,
Before they take the first step to set off,
Each one attempts to outshout all the rest,

The newcomers crying "Sodom and Gomorrah!"
The others, "Pasiphae climbs in the cow
To let the bull come gallop to her lust!"

Then just like cranes that fly away, some
To the Riphean mountains, some toward the sands,
These to escape the frost and those the sun:

One group of people leaves and one comes on,
And they return in tears to their first chants
And to the shout most suitable for them.
(Purg. XXVI, 28-48)

[Note: In Greek mythology, the Cretan queen Pasiphae was taken with a lust for a bull as a result of a spell put on her by the god Poseidon. She had a wooden cow (with necessary openings) made for her so that she could attract the bull's attention, and as a result conceived the Minotaur, half man and half bull.]



Once the other group of souls has moved off, those who had first asked Dante for his story repeat their request, and he explains about how Beatrice's prayers have resulted in the gift of a chance to travel through hell, purgatory and heaven in order that he may return to the road of virtue. Dante then asks the souls the nature of the other group which just passed going in the other direction and they explain the nature of their own sins and those of the other group of souls.

"The people who don’t come with us offended
By that same sin for which Caesar in triumph
Once heard a voice call out against him, ‘Queen!’

"And that is why they run off shouting ‘Sodom!’
Railing against themselves, as you have heard,
And so support the burning with their shame.

"In sinning we were heterosexual:
But since we did not yield to human law,
Following our appetites like beasts,

"To heap opprobrium upon ourselves,
Leaving those shades, we blare the name of her
Who bestialized herself in beast-like planks.
(Purg. XXVI, 76-87)

Dante's point here about the two forms of sexual sin (gay and straight) is interesting: He labels both sodomy and "straight" fornication and adultery as sins against nature, the former for obvious reasons and the latter because they violate the state of faithful natural marriage. Because Dante sees monogamous fidelity as the natural state of the human person, even "straight" sexual sins are deformations of nature's intent.

Sinners gay and straight now share a brief embrace and kiss as they pass each other in the flames, in sign that they now understand the right place of physical affection and do not allow it to be a lure which draws them from the path towards salvation.

The shades speaking to Dante then introduce themselves personally. They prove to be authors of courtly Italian love poetry, which was a great influence on Dante's early style, and the poets take a few moments to express admiration for each others' work before the penitents continue their journey through the flames and Dante (after promising to pray for them) continues along the terrace with his guides.

A little way further and Dante reaches his most difficult point yet on the journey which has taken him from the wasteland of sin, through hell and repentance to this point. They reach the pass up from the terrace of lust, guarded by the angel of chastity.

He stood upon the bank, outside the flames,
And sang aloud, "Blessed are the clean of heart!"
In a voice far more alive than ours.

Then, "You may go no further, holy souls,
Unless the fire sting you: enter it,
And don’t be deaf to what is sung beyond,"

He said to us when we drew near to him;
And when I heard him speak so, I became
Like someone buried in the pit, alive.

I now arched forward over my clasped hands.
Staring at the fire, I clearly pictured
Human bodies I had once seen burned.

My kindly escorts turned in my direction,
And Virgil said to me, "My son, there may
Be suffering here, but there can be no death.
(Purg. XXVII, 7-21)

Despite Virgil's reassurances, Dante is terrified of going through the fire. When Virgil does convince him to go through, it is only with Virgil reminding Dante that it is only by going through the fire that Dante can see Beatrice again.

It's interesting, I think, that this last penance is one suffered at least briefly by every single soul, and which Dante himself (who has not yet actually been subjected to any punishments or penances in his journey through the afterlife) too must suffer from the flames that purge away lust. Lust is, after all, one of the most basic of human sins, and is found admixed in even the most virtuous married relationships. While it was not through sexual sin that Adam and Eve fell, the first sign of their fall was when they realized that they were naked, and became ashamed. As John Paul II pointed out, writing 700 years after Dante, the first result of the fall was that Adam and Eve each realized that they were capable of taking sexual advantage of the other, and as such sought to protect themselves from each others' gaze.

At last, Dante follows Virgil into the fire.

At that he shook his head and said, "What’s this?
You’d have us stay on this side?" Then he smiled,
As one does at a child won by an apple.

Then he stepped in the flames ahead of me,
Requesting Statius, who a long way now
Had walked between us, to approach behind.

Once in the fire, I would have flung myself
Into molten glass to feel cooled off,
The burning heat inside was so intense.

My tender father, trying to comfort me,
Kept talking about Beatrice as we walked,
Saying, "I seem to see her eyes already!"

A singing voice, beyond, was guiding us;
And we, while listening all the time to it,
Came outside at the point which starts to climb.
(Purg. XXVII, 43-57)

Dante finds himself now on the ascending stair from this last terrace of penance. However, sunset and darkness falls on the poets, and they are forced to take their rest on the steps, spending one last night in Purgatory.

Taking one more moment on this last terrace of purgation, in which Dante share (however briefly) in the redemptive suffering, the contrast between the punishments of Purgatorio and Inferno strikes me yet again. Though Dante certainly gives us a powerful image of the heat (wishing he could throw himself into molten glass to cool himself) he spends far more time on his effort to gain the strength of will to enter the fire, and to keep moving through it. No one will push Dante into the fire. While in the Inferno demons, fellow sinners and other keepers constantly force the damned back into their punishments, and capture them if they try to escape, the "punishments" of the Purgatorio are all voluntarily assumed. Dante could, should he have chosen, waited indefinitely on the terrace, refusing to enter the fire.

Climbing a mountain really is the ideal metaphor for Purgatory and for the efforts at spiritual and moral self improvement in life which Purgatory, in Dante' and the reader's earthly lives, represents. It is a difficult task requiring effort and at times suffering, but undertaken because one knows and desires the goal.

No one is going to do anything to these penitents in Purgatory, but they choose to undergo these sufferings because they know that only through the purgation of disordered habits and loves can they reach the promised goal of heaven.

---

Thanks to:

The translation and notes of James Finn Cotter

The translation, original text, and notes provided by AllenMandelbaum

And most especially the translation and extensive commentary by Dorothy Sayers, which Penguin keeps appearing to drop, but never quite has.

Novena for Order, Day 2

Sleep

For most of my child-raising career, I've never gotten up at a set time, and rarely before the kids wake up. I like being lazy in the morning. It should have been obvious from the beginning that getting up late would have serious repercussions for the rest of my day, but it's only recently that I've begun to change this pattern. My Lenten sacrifice this year was to give up sleep -- to get up early, in other words, and use that morning time to say Lauds. I've had mixed success with this, mostly because I rely on Darwin's alarm to get me up, and he gets up a different times depending on his morning schedule, and hits the snooze. That's fine for him; he always gets out the door when he needs to. But it doesn't work so well for me, because I don't have the accountability of getting to the office to keep me on schedule.

I've been starting to wake up the girls at a set time each morning, in hopes that this will make bedtimes easier in the evenings. So now it's time for me to get up at a set time as well -- preferably a good hour and a half before the kids, so that I can have some quiet time to set my day in order.

For Ordering a Life Wisely
St. Thomas Aquinas

O merciful God, grant that I may
desire ardently,
search prudently,
recognize truly,
and bring to perfect completion
whatever is pleasing to You
for the praise and glory of Your name.

Put my life in good order, O my God

Grant that I may know
what You require me to do.

Bestow upon me
the power to accomplish your will,
as is necessary and fitting
for the salvation of my soul.

Grant to me, O Lord my God,
that I may not falter in times
of prosperity or adversity,
so that I may not be exalted in the former,
nor dejected in the latter.

May I not rejoice in anything
unless it leads me to You;
may I not be saddened by anything
unless it turns me from You.

May I desire to please no one,
nor fear to displease anyone,
but You.

May all transitory things, O Lord,
be worthless to me
and may all things eternal
be ever cherished by me.

May any joy without You
be burdensome for me
and may I not desire anything else
besides You.

May all work, O Lord
delight me when done for Your sake.
and may all repose not centered in You
be ever wearisome for me.

Grant unto me, my God,
that I may direct my heart to You
and that in my failures
I may ever feel remorse for my sins
and never lose the resolve to change.

O Lord my God, make me
submissive without protest,
poor without discouragement,
chaste without regret,
patient without complaint,
humble without posturing,
cheerful without frivolity,
mature without gloom,
and quick-witted without flippancy.

O Lord my God, let me
fear You without losing hope,
be truthful without guile,
do good works without presumption,
rebuke my neighbor without haughtiness,
and -- without hypocrisy --
strengthen him by word and example.

Give to me, O Lord God,
a watchful heart,
which no capricious thought
can lure away from You.

Give to me,
a noble heart,
which no unworthy desire can debase.

Give to me
a resolute heart,
which no evil intention can divert.

Give to me
a stalwart heart,
which no tribulation can overcome.

Give to me
a temperate heart,
which no violent passion can enslave.

Give to me, O Lord my God,
understanding of You,
diligence in seeking You,
wisdom in finding You,
discourse ever pleasing to You,
perseverance in waiting for You,
and confidence in finally embracing You.

Grant
that with Your hardships
I may be burdened in reparation here,
that Your benefits
I may use in gratitude upon the way,
that in Your joys
I may delight by glorifying You
in the Kingdom of Heaven.

You Who live and reign,
God, world without end.

Amen.

translation by Robert Anderson and Johann Moser

Novena for Order, Day 1

I've been feeling lately the lack of order in my life, from the stresses of homeschooling to the stresses of a messy house. How unordered am I? I'd meant to start this novena on Friday, but couldn't find time to get around to it.

I'm praying St. Thomas Aquinas' Prayer for Ordering a Life Wisely, found in The Aquinas Prayer Book from Sophia Institute Press. It's well worth having; the Prayer for the Forgiveness of Sins is perfect while waiting in line for confession.

For Ordering a Life Wisely
St. Thomas Aquinas

O merciful God, grant that I may
desire ardently,
search prudently,
recognize truly,
and bring to perfect completion
whatever is pleasing to You
for the praise and glory of Your name.

Put my life in good order, O my God

Grant that I may know
what You require me to do.

Bestow upon me
the power to accomplish your will,
as is necessary and fitting
for the salvation of my soul.

Grant to me, O Lord my God,
that I may not falter in times
of prosperity or adversity,
so that I may not be exalted in the former,
nor dejected in the latter.

May I not rejoice in anything
unless it leads me to You;
may I not be saddened by anything
unless it turns me from You.

May I desire to please no one,
nor fear to displease anyone,
but You.

May all transitory things, O Lord,
be worthless to me
and may all things eternal
be ever cherished by me.

May any joy without You
be burdensome for me
and may I not desire anything else
besides You.

May all work, O Lord
delight me when done for Your sake.
and may all repose not centered in You
be ever wearisome for me.

Grant unto me, my God,
that I may direct my heart to You
and that in my failures
I may ever feel remorse for my sins
and never lose the resolve to change.

O Lord my God, make me
submissive without protest,
poor without discouragement,
chaste without regret,
patient without complaint,
humble without posturing,
cheerful without frivolity,
mature without gloom,
and quick-witted without flippancy.

O Lord my God, let me
fear You without losing hope,
be truthful without guile,
do good works without presumption,
rebuke my neighbor without haughtiness,
and -- without hypocrisy --
strengthen him by word and example.

Give to me, O Lord God,
a watchful heart,
which no capricious thought
can lure away from You.

Give to me,
a noble heart,
which no unworthy desire can debase.

Give to me
a resolute heart,
which no evil intention can divert.

Give to me
a stalwart heart,
which no tribulation can overcome.

Give to me
a temperate heart,
which no violent passion can enslave.

Give to me, O Lord my God,
understanding of You,
diligence in seeking You,
wisdom in finding You,
discourse ever pleasing to You,
perseverance in waiting for You,
and confidence in finally embracing You.

Grant
that with Your hardships
I may be burdened in reparation here,
that Your benefits
I may use in gratitude upon the way,
that in Your joys
I may delight by glorifying You
in the Kingdom of Heaven.

You Who live and reign,
God, world without end.

Amen.

translation by Robert Anderson and Johann Moser

Some photos, and a liturgical music post

Music first.

This past weekend was our parish's ministry fair, in which all the ministries set up tables in the parish hall and try to convince the post-Mass-going hordes to sign up for their ministry. My job as hawker-in-chief for the Schola is to "build awareness" so that those interested in listening will know we exist, and those interested in singing (the few, the very few) can be winnowed down to those with the requisite ability. To that end, I utilized my mad calligraphy skillz and made a nice display board, of which I display a poorly-photographed selection here.


My table was in the music ghetto with the tables of the five weekend Mass choirs. I had a CD player set up to waft chant and polyphony to draw in the music lovers. As I stood at my station on my third go-'round, two guys with guitars hustled over to the table next to mine, dedicated to the choir whose Mass had just ended. They started playing some vaguely familiar yet distinctly non-liturgical instrumental. In another moment, another choir member sauntered over and started singing along with the guys in what she must have thought was a soulful, down-wit'-dat sort of style. Although I couldn't understand a word she mumbled, I finally recognized the tune: The House of the Rising Sun. After a while, they switched to Good Riddance by Green Day.

On the other hand, I had more people show interest in the Schola's music after that Mass than after any other.

And some photos:




These are our Greek charts, for the edification of the young ladies here. (Do you know that with a few small adjustments, you can sing the Greek alphabet to the tune of the Alphabet Song? Try it.) We keep them behind the computer so that when the girls sit down to play games, they're really picking up the Greek alphabet by osmosis!

Ummmmm...

I liked his acting in Three Kings.

I liked his directing in Being John Malkovich and Adaptation.

But watching the trailer for Spike Jonze's Where The Wild Things Are, I can only think of the need for a whole new award category: Most over-psychologized full-length movie adaptation of a very short children's picture book ever.

Seven Quick Takes

Thanks as always to Jen for hosting.

1. The light posting this week was partially due to the wave of sickness that swept the house. Darwin and the baby spent all day in bed with fevers on Wednesday (the day after this post, for all concerned about Darwin's sliding work ethic). The other children did NOT spend all day in bed.

2. The WSJ did an interview with pianist Murray Perahia, in which his playing was extolled as having "lapidary precision". Wondering what that meant, I listened to his interpretation of Bach's Goldberg Variations.


Each note is indeed a gem, cut, polished, and set in Goldberg. This CD is on the top of my to-buy list.

3. The baby started rolling over last Friday. Since then he's rolled off a bed twice, rolled off the couch twice, thrown himself out of his Bumbo seat (which was on the floor, fortunately) and worked the tray off his swing and thrown himself out. I'm afraid to put him anywhere but the floor now. When I have to leave him sleeping in my bed, I tuck him well with pillows, for when the madness takes him, he must needs roll.

4. Also -- he bit my finger on Monday. It starts.

5. I hadn't thought I'd had a problem, but after inadvertently buying a box of decaffeinated tea, I fell asleep twice during the day.

6. Gardening time! This really merits its own post. We've started our seedlings, and this year we're thinking heat resistance. We've loaded up our seedling trays with two different kinds of tomatoes, two different varieties of squash (which I hope we like, because they've gone mad in there), bell peppers, jalapenos, tomatillos, serranos, two different varieties of eggplant (one of which, Money Maker, had vivid blue seeds), and strawberries. Darwin has extended the garden this year, and we've been reading Designing the New Kitchen Garden: An American Potager Handbook for design ideas. Pictures soon.

7. I've come to the sad realization that I just can't wear one of my favorite colors -- robin's egg blue. It simply doesn't work with my coloring. That, however, wouldn't stop me from buying one of these if the opportunity ever presented itself:
What a fabulous color!

Fairy Tale Economy

You can tell that I've got to used to thinking in economic terms when my three daughters are sitting in a row watching the Disney Sleeping Beauty (mummy is off at schola practice) and my immediate reaction to the animated classic is, "What did the rest of the kingdom have to say about King Stephon's resolution to burn all spinning wheels in the kingdom? Was there resistance? A black market for spinning? How did trade shift?

I'd happily listen to someone with a British accent read the phone book, but it's even better when the speaker is an articulate politician slicing through the politi-babble:

Confession keeps you honest

Jen finds that the accountability of confessing her sins to a priest compels her to make restitution:

As I recently discovered, evil always works through lies. I regularly confess my sins to God in private prayer, but when my confession remains within the safety of my own internal thoughts, it is fertile ground for lies to run wild. Too often my silent confessions to God tend toward mental meandering, bringing up only certain sins that are at the forefront of my mind, skipping over some of the older ones that lurk comfortably in the shadows. Too often the little stories I tell myself -- "I'll pay for it later" -- sound pretty good when they're fleeting thoughts in the shelter of my head, safe from the scrutiny of another human being.

But Confession drags my thoughts out of the shadows and forces me to examine my sins in the full light of day. Having a set place and time where I must account for all my sins since the last Confession remedies my all-too-convenient tendency to "forget" certain things. Having to codify my thoughts into spoken words brings clarity to all those amorphous ideas that ebb and flow in my brain. Having to go over my sins with another human being -- to be questioned about my actions by someone whose voice is much less easy to ignore than the still, small voice of God -- brings conviction and humility in a way that private prayer cannot for someone as spiritually immature as I am.

I've sometimes found that the thought of having to confess a sin out loud is enough to deter me from committing it.

On a related note, a few months back I had almost the same experience as Jen describes: I was unloading groceries from my cart into my van when I discovered that a tube of chapstick has been overlooked under a grocery circular while I was checking out. The kids were in the car fighting, the baby was crying, and I didn't feel that I could leave them alone while I ran back in to pay. It took me two weeks to make restitution, and oddly enough, during that time the chapstick was lost. I didn't find it again until after I'd paid for it. Served me right.

Office Life

Sometimes even the subtle revenge of quiet misbehavior is not enough to overcome one's feeling of ill use.

Fraud, Folly or Probability

As the government continues to pump money into AIG, the foundering insurance giant which found itself at the center of the real estate and financial crashes, I've seen increasing numbers of commentators demand to know why no one is calling for the jailing of AIG executives on charges of fraud. How, the argument goes, was their selling of financial insurance products any different from the sort of fraud Maddoff carried out? They sold insurance policies they couldn't cover! They took money and gave nothing in return!

I think this tends to underline that people don't actually understand insurance and how it works very well. This is doubly concerning in that insurance has become increasingly central to people's ideas of economic security in the last few decades. Indeed, we've reached a point where lacking health insurance is itself considered a health problem, regardless of whether this actually results in someone failing to receive needed treatement.

What is insurance? Basically, insurance is a way of extending your savings for unlikely but high cost eventualities. For example, if I were to die this year, it would place a very heavy burden (in the form of lost earnings) on my family, such that it would be very difficult for me to save enough money to be prepared for the possibility. However, for a few hundred dollars a year, I can buy life insurance that would, if I should die in the next ten years, pay out a lump sum equivalent to 5-10 years of my current earnings.

The insurance company can afford to offer this to me because they believe they have an accurate model of how likely a healthy 30-year-old man is to die before 40. However, if a horrific plague were to strike the US, killing 10% of the population, and I was among its victems, could I console myself on my deathbed with the knowledge the insurance company would be taking care of my family?

No. Their models do not account for the possibility that 10% of the healthy, adult population would die in a single year. They would undoubtedly go bankrupt and my family would get little or nothing.

This is something we don't normally think of in regards to insurance, because insurance companies have good enough models that it would take something very unexpected to make them unable to meet their obligations. Still, because insurance companies base their prices on what they believe to be the probability of having to pay out, if something unforseen by their models occurs, they may well find themselves on the rocks. One should always understand insurance to come with a "all other things being equal" sort of proviso.

But shouldn't AIG have been able to forecast the possibility of a global real estate downturn and take that into account in their pricing? To my knowledge, there's never been a real estate downturn of the scale of the current one on such a wide scale. Sure, plenty of people were predicting the housing market would go down. That was one of my own reasons for getting out of California back in 2003 -- but those who bought a house there when I left would have seen 50% appreciation over the next four years before things went south. And even though many people were going around saying, "It has to go down," there was no historical precident for such a widespread downturn. In the past, it looked like so long as the economy and population were growing, real estate would continue going up.

Now, if you'd asked me in 2006 to insure mortgages against real estate values going down (and the resulting mortgage defaults), I would have refused. And some cautious companies doubtless did. But since there was a decent historical/statistical case to be made that they wouldn't go down, it's not exactly a surprise that someone agreed to meet the need.

Shouldn't there have been regulations in place to prevent people from offering insurance products that they wouldn't actually be able to pay out on in an emergency? Well, here we run into the probability problem again. Is it in fact likely that something will occur which will bankrupt an insurance firm? There's no reason to believe that regulators will be all that much better at understanding what could happen in the future than insurance actuaries are.

In the end, we probably just need to accept that sometimes bad and unexpected things happen. We can do our best to prevent them, but the funny thing about unexpected events is that it's hard to know they'll happen until they do.

So no, I don't think there was necessarily fraud involved here. Though there was an excessive faith in our ability to forecast the future. We'd do well to avoid such excessive faith in analytics in the future, and yet most of the suggestions for "fixing the problem" simply involve having government regulatores forecast the future instead of private insurance writers. I rather doubt that ends us up in a better place.

I said, keep it down!

Truer words: "Parents are not interested in justice, just quiet!" -- Bill Cosby


The quote is at 1:35.


This is particularly appropriate for the feast of St. Joseph, the one father in the world's history who surely didn't have to put up with all this.

Reverse Psychology

Here's a little phrase guaranteed to make even the most contentious siblings play peacefully together while creating long involved games full of imagination, for several hours at a stretch:

"I want that playroom cleaned by the time Daddy gets home."

Internet, Ph.D

Alright, Internets: anyone have any advice on what to do for a six-month-old with a cold? I've never had one get sick this early, and I'm not sure what I can give him, if anything. Recommendations? Advice? War stories? He snuffs so pathetically.

How Dry I Am

As I wrestle in my mind with whether St. Patrick's day is sufficient cause to take a day off my alcohol fast, it seems a reasonable enough time to put down a few thoughts on the project.

Last year, as I was trying to think of something improving to do for Lent, I told myself: "It would, of course, be completely impossible to give up coffee or alcohol. I need those."

As soon as I said it, however, I realized I didn't like the sound of that "need". So alcohol it was. (I'm willing to admit needing coffee, but having 1-2 drinks a day is something I'd rather "enjoy" than "need".)

Last year it was moderately hard. The point I get home from work tends to also be the point when the dinner prep/hungry child cacophony reaches fever pitch, and daddy Darwin likes his chance to pour a glass of beer or wine and try to slow down a little from 9-12 hours of coffee and multi-tasking. Giving it up required me to work harder to remain patient while listening to the cares of two or three high pitched voices talking rapidly and simultaneously. And yet it was, when I put my mind to it, eminently doable. And in a sense liberating to recall that one does not "need" these sorts of things.

I took the same discipline this year, but found quickly that although I went straight back to having 1-2 drinks most evening after last lent, the detachment had remained. It's been oddly easy to give up alcohol this year. Sure, I'd enjoy having a drink of an evening, but there's no longer any sense of "needing" just of "enjoying".

This is, perhaps, a terribly trivial example, but it seems to me that this detachment from material things is one of the disciplines we see encouraged again and again in the Bible. In the most extreme example: Job has a great many of the things which people consider to make life worth living: home, wealth, family, respect, social standing, etc. Yet he's called to remain faithful to God even when all these cans can be, and indeed are, taken away.

And this is, I think, why we're called as Christians to engage in fasting during certain times of the year. Going without food for most of the day is something we can sustain, though it takes concentration and is not enjoyable. And the discipline helps us recall our ownership over ourselves -- something which we must often achieve in subtler circumstances in order to obey God's laws. Finally, in this affluent place and time in which far more people are afflicted with obesity than hunger, fasting is a reminder that we came into this world with nothing, and with nothing we shall leave it. All that we have may vanish, yet we ourselves, not our possessions, are what have moral and human dignity are are loved by God.

Capitalism is 3rd World's Safety Net

While Americans weather layoffs and watch their 401ks dwindle, the developing nations in which many of our products originate are being hit even harder by the global downturn. Many of these developing nations have virtually no social safety net, and job loss can be crippling. However, as jobs manufacturing good to be sold to the West dry up, many are turning to the "informal economy" the open air markets, street vendors, and in-home manufacturers which make up more than half the economy in countries ranging from India and Mexico to much of sub-Saharan Africa.

The informal economy consists of cash and in-kind transactions and its practitioners do not pay taxes, hold licenses, or obey regulations. Pay is simply however much money is made, and there are no benefits. Because informal businessmen pay no taxes and work on a cash only basis (they seldom capitalize through loans, nor do they put savings into banks) economists have generally seen them as a drag on the economy. But as export-based jobs dry up, it provides a fallback safety net for many workers:

Until late December, Pilaporn Jaksurat, 33, was working full-time on a cotton spinning machine in a textile mill in Bangkok. She made about $7 a day and her benefits included bonuses of $30 a month for good attendance and a severance package worth about $800.

Then she was laid off when her factory, which sells fabric to clothing manufacturers in Europe, said it had to cut costs to cope with the global economic crisis. Finding a similar job wasn't an option, since other local factories were also dumping staff due to a massive decline in orders from buyers across Europe and North America. She decided to start her own business, selling shots of medicinal wine to truck drivers and motorcyclists on the highway by her home -- an adult version of the neighborhood lemonade stand. With help from friends, she fashioned a makeshift bamboo stand on vacant grass by the roadside. The start-up cost was about $275, she says, paid for with money from her severance package.

A few weeks later, shouting to be heard over the roar of oncoming trucks, Ms. Pilaporn says she's making a profit of about $10 a day after expenditures for ingredients, including herbs and wine. That's better than the $7 or so she made at the garment factory. She likes being her own boss, she says, and the income allows her to keep sending money home every month to help support her parents and 2-year-old child, who live together in a rural area in northern Thailand.

"It's a bit noisy here, but you get used to it," she says. If business "keeps up like this, I'll be fine."

The outcomes of this shift aren't always so good. While Ms. Jaksurat makes more than she did in her export-based job, most others find themselves making less.

Kavitaben Uttambhai Parmar, 25, says she had one of the better jobs in the city until recently, stitching pants and other clothes in one of the few remaining major textile factories. During her five years there, her salary more than tripled to 115 rupees per day [about $2.25]; she recently dreamed of buying a refrigerator. Then one day in November, she was laid off with one of her best friends, 30-year-old Jayshree Kantilal Makvana.

"That was a bad day for us," says Ms. Parmar, whose income helped support a household of five, including her mother, brother, sister and grandfather. "I went home crying."

Both later found informal work, doing stitching for a smaller textile company that pays only by the piece, allowing each woman to earn about 50 rupees per day [about one dollar]. They also are making bracelets in their spare time to sell at festivals for about five rupees per 12 dozen.

Ms. Parmar says she is cutting back on electricity. Ms. Makvana says she's using city buses to get around instead of more expensive rickshaws. But they're happy they're still earning something.

"At least we're surviving," Ms. Makvana says.

In countries such as India where resources do not allow for providing the kind of social safety net services we take for granted in the US (much less the more expansive "guaranteed living wage regardless of employment" some advocate for) this kind of underground free market economy often provides the safety net, in combination with family/community support networks.

I also always find it a bit humbling reading about how prized manufacturing jobs that pay only a few dollars a day are in many developing nations. One often hears well meaning people in our country talk about wanting to avoid buying clothes made in developing nations, because of their concerns about unfair labor practices. And yet, it was those "Made in India" and "Made in Tailand" labelled products which gave Kavitaben Parmar and Pilaporn Jaksurat their jobs -- and decrease in demand for them which caused them to be laid off. Here's hoping that one way or another, Ms. Parmar gets to buy her refrigerator some day and that the deman for Ms. Jaksurat's roadside drink stand holds up.

Biber's Passacaglia for violin

Darwin has up a post on "babe violinists" over at American Catholic. Well, this guy isn't a babe violinist, but I love this piece of music:



The Passacaglia (also titled "Guardian Angel Sonata") is the last in a series of sonatas called the Rosary Sonatas, each of which involve tuning the violin a different way. They're all beautiful.

UPDATE: Ask and you shall receive... a reader sends us to a video of babe violinist Elizabeth Derham playing the Passacaglia.

Another Dante Blogger

Another Catholic blogger, a fellow by the name of Murray, is doing a start-to-finish blog-through of Dante's Purgatorio for Lent this year.

Halftime Report

So Lent is just about at the halfway mark, and I was sitting back and congratulating myself. "I'm not doing too badly," I thought. "It actually hasn't been that hard to get up early and say morning prayer." And upon further reflection I realized: it's not been that hard because I haven't been doing it. Not consistently, that is, and not early enough to be a true sacrifice. I kind of roll over when Darwin's alarm goes off (which isn't at the same time every morning, and to which sound I have a strong immunity from years of ignoring it), and if I shake myself enough, I reach for the prayerbook and say Morning Prayer nestled under the covers snuggled up with baby. (Well, he's gotta eat, doesn't he?) And a few times, I've fallen back asleep altogether. All in all, a rather cushy Lenten gig.

But: Now is the acceptable time! Now is the day of salvation! I still have the second half of Lent to make things right. New Lenten practice: to get my own alarm clock, get up at the same (early) time every morning, and say Morning Prayer sitting up. Not in bed.

Rerun time: Let Not the Precious Time Be Lost

Darwin's Lenten series on Purgatorio, and my own reading of Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life, brought to mind this piece from 2007 on sloth. Interestingly enough, many of the particulars are the same now -- I'm still exercising, and "the baby" is now potty-training herself. And my kitchen is still a mess.

Here's Darwin's Purgatorio meditation on sloth.

Lately, I've been feeling burned-out. The kids have more energy than I do, and they burn it off by fighting with each other or throwing all their stuffed animals on the floor or raiding the freezer. On top of that, keeping house is a dull occupation for a results-oriented person, because even if you clean the kitchen one day you have to do it again the next day, and the next day, and the next day. It seems like I have to run as fast as I can just to stay in one place, and recently my speed has been slacking.

And speaking of placing one foot in front of the next, I'm physically tired. Darwin and I have finally come to terms with the fact that our average metabolisms and relative youth won't last forever, and have decided to take steps to get and stay in shape. And that means running. (Well, for Darwin it means running -- for me it means a mixture of walking and jogging and hoping to God that no one drives by and sees me.) The fickle bathroom scale is putting me at a pound or two less, but the progress is hard and slow and sometimes seems pointless.

There are times when all I want to do is just read my book, for Pete's sake, but real life keeps trying to intrude. Julia's potty training is going oh-so-slowly because she doesn't seem to care about it, and it's getting to where I don't either. Baby is a good-natured little thing, but she gets tired of sitting in the recliner with my book long before I do, and she loathes the computer. Eleanor wants to raid the fridge or climb up to various shelves to get picture albums or dishes to play with. And I just want to be left alone to do my own thing, because what's the point of wiping down the table or folding the laundry when I'm just going to have to do it again tomorrow? LEAVE ME ALONE and let me read!

Yesterday afternoon as I was standing amidst the wreckage of the kitchen, I realized that my shirking of responsibilities was more than mere laziness or burn-out. It was sloth -- "not merely idleness of mind and laziness of body: it is that whole poisoning of the will which, beginning with indifference, and an attitude of 'I couldn't care less', extends to the deliberate refusal of joy and culminates in morbid introspection and despair."* Sloth can take different forms -- Tolerance, Disillusionment, Escapism. And I was worn-out with being slothful, and I was ready to combat it.

So I pulled out our copy of Dante's Purgatory to discover what the penitents on the Fourth Cornice did to atone for their sloth, and what prayer they chanted. Upon flipping to Canto 18, I at once found the passage where the souls cry to each other, "Quick! Quick! Let not the precious time be lost for lack of love! ...In good work strive, till grace revive from dust!" The slothful souls are the only ones in Purgatory who are given no prayer to pray -- their prayer is in their labor.

And the labor that makes up their penance? Ceaseless activity. Namely, running.

*The description of sloth is taken from the commentary on the Image of Sloth in Dorothy Sayers' translation of Purgatory, Penguin, 1955