Bring on the Feudalism

As one reads about the continuing blogflap over kneeling in the Diocese of Orange County, I've run across a couple comments from contra-kneeling advocates that kneeling was adopted in the West (the Eastern Rites generally do not kneel during the Divine Liturgy) as a carry-over from feudalism. When taking an oath of fealty, the vassal knelt before his lord and put his hands together in what we know generally recognize as a praying position (palms together) . The lord clasped his hands around the vassal's hands, accepted his oath and invited him to rise.

Okay, so perhaps some of our cultural language of gesture in the West still bears the stamp of feudalism. So?

People often talk about feudalism as some knuckle-dragging form of idiocy which enlightenment humanity has now grown far beyond. Yet for all it's weaknesses (and there were some times and places where feudalism did some terrible things, both on a grand scale and as a matter of everyday cruelty) feudalism is simply another way that people found, over the years, to govern themselves. Having been developed by humans, it reflects certain truths of human nature -- different truths, certainly, than democracy, but truths nonetheless.

Among its virtues was the fact that the feudal system recognized a hierarchy of obligation, with the vassal owing loyalty and service to the lord and the lord owing protection and faithfulness to the vassal. These obligations could be played out in the context of vice and cruelty, as in the mob which operates on essentially feudal principles, or in the context of virtue, as in the case of some of the sainted monarchs of medieval Europe.

Democracy, a more ancient system with its own history of cruelty and abuses (none more so than in Athens) reflects other important truths of human nature, such as the inherent equality of the human person, regardless of functional ability.

Feudalism employed a vertical symbolic language, in which the vassal offered obedience and service in return for protection and benevolent care. Though no human institution can reflect the perfection of God's relation to his creation, our feudal past provides a better set of symbols for relating to God than our egalitarian present.

So if kneeling with folded hands is feudal, I say, "Bring it on."

Barr Takes the Center Course

Stephen Barr (who with Fr. Oakes helps to stem the tides of ID at First Things) has a good short piece up today on On The Square dealing with the foolish comments of Fr. Coyne's remarks on evolution and providence on the one hand, and the overreaction of Touchstone's Martin Hilbert on the other.

Further Update on Jack

From Barb:

I wanted to update you on Jack...
We heard this morning that his blood counts are coming back up, the infection is clearing up, and he is feeling better....hopefully, he will be able to come home on Monday. He will be having another MRI next Thursday to see if the chemo has helped at all. The next step will be determined from the results of that.
Thank you for all of your prayers....it is such a comfort to us that there are people who don't even know Jack who are willing to pray for him.

And the prayer for Jack:

Venerable Louis and Zelie Martin, Servants of God,
You offered many prayers for your own sick children.
We unite our prayers with yours for Jack's healing.
May God look favorably on your intercession and, in His Mercy, grant us our request.
May His will be done in all things.

Venerable Louis and Zelie, pray for us!

In which Mrs. Darwin discovers her "mothering style"

Your type is: intp —The “Love of Learning” Mother

“I keep the encyclopedia in the kitchen so we can look up things together while we eat.”

• Intellectually curious and patient, the INTP mother relishes those times with a child when they are learning something interesting together. Whether they’re at the zoo or computer terminal, she sparks to answering his or her “whys” with in-depth responses or new knowledge.
• The INTP mother is also objective and introspective. She listens to and discusses children’s ideas and questions as she would those of a peer, fostering self-esteem and confidence. Open and non-directive, she allows children the freedom to do for themselves and quietly encourages them to believe they can do it.
• Independence, autonomy, intellectual development, and self-reliance are probably the INTP’s highest priorities for her children. An avid reader, she naturally imparts an appreciation and love of reading as well.
• Drawn to all types of learning, the INTP may also value her mothering experience for all the new insights about life it provide her.
  

Here's what the P stands for:

Perceiving parents take things as they come and keep their options open. They are flexible and spontaneous, and generally tolerant and accepting of children. They enjoy hanging out and can be relaxed about clutter, but struggle to do chores regularly and keep the house in order.

Yeah, that's me...

Find your Mothering Style. (H/T to commenter BarbfromCincy.)

The First Liturgy Committee Meeting

The first meeting of the St. Elizabeth's Liturgy Committee was Wednesday night, and I showed up, baby in tow. As it happened, baby and I were the youngest ones there, but there were no pantsuit-wearing women named Gerty (so there, Rick!). I was the only person there who was not already involved in some other aspect of parish ministry or maintenance, and the six other people there all seemed to know each other like family.

(A week or two ago I mentioned to the leader of one of the choirs that I was joining the new Liturgy Committee. "What committee?" he asked. The one Father talked about in his bulletin announcement, I said -- didn't you see that? "Oh, I never read the bulletin," he replied.)

To forestall any questions: Father seems to have his heart in the right place. He talked about why he decided to start a liturgy committee -- because people seemed to think that they could place flowers and furnishings wherever they pleased in the sanctuary. Father wanted to put a stop to this (and have a committee to deflect the inevitable criticism of the oldsters who situated the flowers in the first place) and to have the church more accurately reflect the liturgical seasons while conforming to current guidelines.

"You aren't looking for any strange innovations such as dancing girls on the altar, Father, are you?" I asked tentatively.
"Oh, no, no," he quickly answered. "No, that's not allowed."
"We had liturgical dancers once," one of the ladies said.
"Well," said Father, "that's not allowed. And the children getting involved -- like that Christmas pageant. That can't happen during the liturgy."
"Really?" squawked the surprised chorus. "I never knew that." "What about the parents?" "I think there needs to be more communication about this."
"Well," Father explained patiently, "that's why I'm forming this committee."

So it doesn't look like I'll have to wage a war for orthodox liturgy (which I didn't think would be the case anyway). It looks like my role will be to fight for beauty as well as truth. Father pulled over the whiteboard and started making an outline.
"There are three aspects of preparing a church for the liturgy," he said, and began to tick them off.
A. Environment
B. Music
Ah, I though, the next one is Art.
C. Banners

And so we all trooped over to a table on which was laid out a banner for Pentecost (being slightly reworked from its role as Confirmation decor). It was a long strip of red cloth with a dove and seven flames glued to it -- not high art, but inoffensive. However, the phrase COME HOLY SPIRIT in block letters had not been attached yet, and Father wanted to work on the arrangement -- not too straight, not too much empty space. After much wrangling, COME was curved over the dove, and HOLY SPIRIT straggled down diagonally under the flames. (I pointed out that since the dove and flames were the most important parts of the banner visually, it might be better not to put the letters over top the flames.) The letters were crooked.
"We are not drunk," I murmured. "It is not yet nine in the morning!"
"Yes," agreed Father enthusiastically. "Drunk with the Spirit! That's what this should convey."
So everyone debated the best angle for the letters to be placed. In the end it looked kind of like something my four-year-old might have pasted together, and I think that the congregation will not be moved to reflect on drunkenness of Spirit, but just plain drunkenness.

However, everyone's heart is in the right place -- it's just a manner of getting their heads there as well.

In the right direction

I ran across (I can't recall where) a link to the site for this wonderful company that does liturgical murals. In an age when it seems like many 'restorations' ruin churches rather than improving them, take a look at this work on St. Mark's in Peoria.

Before:

After:

And a close-up of the altar and crucifix:

Should we all just get along?

Goodness knows, it's easy to be disgusted with both political parties these days, but nonetheless I can't help thinking that the Unity Ticket movement is heading in the wrong direction. Unity08 has the goal of running a ticket with one Democrat and one Republican running on the "crucial issues" facing America today. Here's their statement of beliefs:

Unity08 divides issues facing the country into two categories: Crucial Issues – on which America’s future safety and welfare depend; and Important Issues – which, while vital to some, will not, in our judgment, determine the fate or future of the United States.

In our opinion, Crucial Issues include: Global terrorism, our national debt, our dependence on foreign oil, the emergence of India and China as strategic competitors and/or allies, nuclear proliferation, global climate change, the corruption of Washington’s lobbying system, the education of our young, the health care of all, and the disappearance of the American Dream for so many of our people.

By contrast, we consider gun control, abortion and gay marriage important issues, worthy of debate and discussion in a free society, but not issues that should dominate or even crowd our national agenda.

In our opinion – since the disintegration of the Soviet Union – our political system seems to have focused more attention on the "important issues" than the "crucial issues." One result: The political parties have been built to address the interests of their "base" but have failed to address the realities that impact most Americans.

Now, I suppose one of the things that marks me as a hard core conservative is that just about any attempt to "capture the center" always strikes me as an attempt to move us to the left. (Heck, on most issues the compromises we're told we should make to maintain the Republican majority strike me as often trending left, so there's no way that a 50/50 coallition is going to do better in my book.)

But is it just me or do some of their "important" vs. "critical" distinctions seem a little odd? Or instance, if either side is right about abortion, allowing the other side any ground is unacceptable. If it's murder, it should be ended. If it's like having a wart removed, there should be no restrictions. I don't see the point of a "unity" approach on this.

And how the heck does global climate change end up on the "critical" list?

A Fatal Helping Hand

I've been reading the copy of Bernard Lewis' The Middle East and the West which was given to me a while ago. Written in 1964, it clearly doesn't deal with the topic in the light of recent events, but since it's mostly dealing with the happenings of the 1700s through the 1950s, that doesn't matter a great deal -- though I definitely want to pick up one of Lewis' more recent books when I'm done with this one.

Two things strike me, which I gather Lewis expands upon in other books:

First, the sense of shock and anger of a civilization which had long regarded itself as far superior to its northern neighbors in battle, culture, learning and religion must have felt to suddenly find that the barbarians next door have (while you weren't watching) sprung far, far ahead in culture, technology and political institutions. The period from 1650 to 1800 saw little progress in the Ottoman world, and incredible change (for good and ill) in northern Europe. When the Ottoman military academies started teaching French and putting Diderot's encyclopedia in their libraries, cultural and political turmoil could not be far away.

Second is a disconcerting feeling that attempts to help a 'less developed' culture are often not merely wasted, but dangerously counter productive. From 1800 to 1918, middle eastern reformers, well versed in the political ideals of the west, tried to introduce representative government and political freedom into the middle east, and failed repeatedly. After World War I, the English and French simply imposed such reforms, in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, with results that were often counter productive.

The natural response to encountering a poorer and more illiberal nation is to wish to provide a measure of material aid and political development, and yet imposing this from without seems to have caused even more trouble than was there to begin with. Is the answer some sort of STNG "prime directive" where one must simply step back and not interfere? That hardly seems right. And yet it's clear that helping can cause a great deal of damage.

One can't help wondering what would have happened in a world where modern Americans and Europeans had suddenly shown up circa 1780 and started pouring money, technology and political advisors into the American and European countries of that time. Would we have still seen the development of American and European democratic institutions and economic progress, or would the continents have sunk into jealous client-state status?

Jimmy Akin on Evolution

Jimmy Akin had a very good (though very long) post up yesterday about Dr. Lawrence Krauss' published letter to Benedict XVI. Dr. Krauss (who is not, to my knowledge, a Catholic) wrote the letter (cosigned by several Catholic scientists) asking Benedict to clarify the Church's teaching on the lack of opposition between Church teaching and biological evolution, in the wake of Cardinal Schonborn's NY Times column in which he unleased a broadside against evolution which many considered a 'chance in Church teaching'.

Dr. Krauss' letter is on the whole good, and Jimmy's commentary on it is excellent. Defnately the best treatment of the topic I've seen out of an A-list Catholic blogger.

Save the Planet the Iowahawk Way!

My boy Iowahawk is back with these stylin' tips for taking care of Gaia:

Nearly ten years after the Kyoto accords, our planet continues to careen helplessly toward certain environmental destruction. The skies are choked with pollutants. Polar bears are plunging through the thinning ice caps. Ben Affleck is still having problems finding a decent comeback project.

Thankfully, with the new release of Al Gore's blockbuster eco-documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," the world is finally heeding the disaster looming on the horizon. But mere consciousness is not enough to cure our current climate ills - it takes action. Here are a few simple things you to put the planet on the road to recovery.

...3. Crush a Third World economic development movement. One of the most pressing threats facing our environment is rising incomes in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Only a generation ago, these proud dark people were happily frolicking in the rain forest, foraging for organic foods amid the wonders of nature. Now, corrupted by wealth, they are demanding environmentally hazardous consumer goods like cars and air conditioning and malaria medicine. You can do your part to stop this dangerous consumer trend by supporting environmentally aware leaders like Robert Mugabe and Fidel Castro to foster an economy of sustainable low-impact ecolabor camps.

4. Don't Have Babies. Many people are shocked when they learn that fewer than 25% of the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild have been spayed or neutered. Sure, babies make great fashion accessories and it's fun to give them awesome names, like Kumquat Wildebeest Paltrow and Toploader Enchilada Cage. But these miniature humans will eventually grow and begin ravenously consuming the Earth's depleted reserves of aux pairs and psychotherapists.

Just doing my part to help out the cause.

Reason to Believe

As I mentioned the other day, I'd been following a thread on a science blog about the compatibility (or lack thereof) of science and religion. One of the interesting things about this kind of discussion, is that one finds oneself hitting up hard against the basic assumptions that people work off of, assumptions so basic that people have difficulty even realizing that they're making them.

One of the standard materialist assumptions appears to be that since there is (in the materialist's opinion) nothing more to the world than the physical world, then obviously the main purpose of religion must be to explain the material world. Thus, one commenter on the thread said this:

The late Douglas Adams told a story about a man who thought there were millions of tiny people inside television sets, shifting everything inside around. After an engineer friend sat him down and carefully walked him through the technical processes and mechanisms involved in forming tv images, the man eagerly embraced the new explanation. BUT he still figured that, for all that, there might be just a couple little men inside that tv set. You shouldn't rule them out.

I think the science vs. religion debate comes down to the theme behind this story. One method builds from the bottom up through dint of hard work and discipline: the other way follows intuitive top-down explanations. Cranes and skyhooks. Those who operate and understand cranes -- and who still look upward for skyhooks -- are not unlike the moderate gentleman who wants to reserve a couple little men inside that television set.

The conflict isn't that they couldn't be there. It's in understanding how they got there in the first place, and why there are now so few of them.

There's an annoyingly trite vibe to the story, which I think mostly stems from the clear implication that religious people are these ignorant rubes who, if they only understood how the world really worked, wouldn't have to believe that the world was run by the little men in their TV sets and the big man up in the sky. According to this meme (perhaps using a Dawkins term is appropriate...) these ignorant rubes become so attached to the emotional assurance of believing that they are surrounded by little magic men, that even when they're shown how the world really works they often insist there might be a few more somewhere, just for old times sake.

Certainly, this fits with a certain Enlightenment idea of why religion came about: All these poor benighted people were sitting around the camp fires thousands of years ago, wondering why the world was the way it was, and so they assumed that everything must be commanded by a god -- the sun god, the moon goddess, the fire god, the fertility god, the war god, the love goddess, etc.

Now, for the most ancient forms of paganism this way of looking at things is not wholly without merit, but I think it's still something of a simplification. Your average neolithic person doubtless knew the making of fire, the planting of crops, the phases of the moon and the cycle of the seasons far better than the average member of your local chapter of the Skeptics Society. To the extent that people deified fire, the celestial objects, the seasons, and so on -- I think one must find the source more in a "There must be more to it than the simple patterns I observe" line of thinking.

Another thing many people forget in assuming that the ancients invented gods to explain how the world got there is: A great many ancient religions assumed that the world was eternal. The idea of creation ex nihilo is fairly unique to the Judeo/Christian tradition. Some pagan mythologies assumed that the current world was formed from some sort of primordial neutral state. (There are echoes of this in the Genesis account, where the "waters" appear to have existed from the very beginning.) Other mythologies assumed some sort of great cosmic cycle in which the world was reformed at intervals, mirroring the cycle of the seasons.

One of the earliest materialist/atheist philosophies, Epicurianism, theorized that the universe consisted of atoms falling parallel to one another until (at certain random intervals) an atom swerved, causing collisions which created the material world, which would in turn degrade, and finally return to the primordial state of falling atoms, only for the cycle to repeat itself. (A cosmology with an oddly modern ring to it.)

Nor, when one reads about the period in which the Classic world became the Christian world, does one hear about the Christian explanation of the world's origins being a major (or even minor) factor. Was the Good News, "Lo, I say unto you that the world was created in six days and a union mandated work break"? No, the Gospel message which proved so powerful that it transformed the known world was that there was but one God, that He was infinite in goodness, love, mercy and justice, and that He had died to redeem us from our sins and lead us to life everlasting.

One of the beliefs found in nearly every culture the world over is that the human person is not a mere assemblage of water, carbon-based molecules and trace elements that for a while performs a complex series of chemical reactions that produce the experience we call "consciousness" but rather that there is something which truly is the person which departs the body at the moment of death. Some three thousand years ago, as the Iliad was being composed, the idea that some animating principle which contained the consciousness left the body at death was so obvious to the Greek bards that "his blood poured out upon the sand and his soul went howling into the underworld" (with numerous variations thereon) was the standard way of describing violent death.

I think the two greatest attractions of Christianity to the pagan world were firstly that there was but one Christian God, and that He was infinitely good, just and loving (compare that to the personality profile of most pagan deities) and secondly that there was hope for the just of a life everlasting significantly more compelling than either an endless repeat of one's life or a dreary, ghostworld existence. (See Odyssey XI and Aeneid VI for how dreary the classical conception of the afterlife was.)

It's not the little man in the TV questions that have, throughout history, caused people to turn to religion for answers. Rather, people seek from religion answers to the questions that no amount of knowledge about the physical world can hope to answer: Why are we here? Is there an afterlife? How do I lead a 'good' life?

Though an atheist himself, Douglas Adams provides a quote for every occasion. My own reaction to the materialist credo is drawn from the same author: The universe is a terribly big place. So big, indeed, the most people choose to live somewhere rather smaller of their own creation.

Update on Jack

Barb writes:

I just wanted to update you on Jack....unfortunately, he had to go back into the hospital last Wednesday because his blood counts were so low and he was running a fever. They put him on antibiotics and he was doing better. Now he has developed a secondary infection...they had expected him to get mouth sores, but instead he has gotten terrible sores on and in his bottom...they are very painful. He will be having a CT scan done to determine the extent of the infection. They have him on morphine and another antibiotic and told us he will probably be in the hospital all week. Very depressing for him and his parents...
We really do appreciate all your prayers...

Please keep praying for this little boy and his family. We've been asking for the intercession of the parents of St. Therese, Louis and Zelie Martin.

Venerable Louis and Zelie Martin, Servants of God,
You offered many prayers for your own sick children.
We unite our prayers with yours for Jack's healing.
May God look favorably on your intercession and, in His Mercy, grant us our request.
May His will be done in all things.

Venerable Louis and Zelie, pray for us!

Remembrance of Things Blast

Last Wednesday's WSJ featured an article about the remnants of World War I still surfacing in places like Ypres, Belgium.

The region saw (depending on how you count them) nine major battles during the course of 1917, as the allies fought to capture the town of Passchendaele, and the Germans tried to bleed the Allies dry in a war of attrition. Some half a million men died in the area during 1917, and as many as 15 million shells were fired in what became one of the most heavily shelled regions in military history.

Today, a 120 man bomb disposal unit from the Belgian army works the area year round. When live munitions are found (usually on a construction site or by a farmer plowing his fields) the unit is called in. There are too many munitions found each year for the soldiers to dispose of them in place. In stead the pack the shells in sand and haul them back to the military base, where shells are carefully identified before demolition. Shells containing poison gas are carefully drained under hazmat procedures. Then the shells are blown up. The soldiers have to stop work whenever a train passes downwind in case they fail to identify a gas shell before demolishing it.

While bomb disposal units in most of deal with the occasional unexploded bomb or shell from one of the world wars, the disposal unit in Ypres processes 330 tons on munitions in the average year, and this year is already looking like producing a record haul.

Many of the sites they clean up are ad hoc ammo depots of 12-20 artillery shells abandoned by one side or another. The scattered munitions cause a steady stream of 2-3 civilian casualties a year. Last year, two construction workers tried sawing through what they thought was an old pipe. It turned out to be an artillery shell which blew up, killing one and injuring the other. Two years ago, Mr. Cardoen-Descamps (who owns a farm and runs a museum/bed and breakfast with his wife) plowed over a buried shell in his field. The blow blade cut the shell open and struck a spark against the casing, sending a 30-foot-high flame into the air. A friend of his had a similar experience this year, which sent a piece of shrapnel clear through his tractor, but left the farmer unharmed.

As we approach the hundredth anniversary of the Great War, and it's events become a matter of history rather than memory, these explosive remnants of things past live on.

Who bringeth to my remembrance the sin of my infancy?

As I've been thinking about sparring toddlers, I thought a bit of Augustine might be appropriate.

Who bringeth to my remembrance the sin of my infancy ? For before Thee none is free from sin, not even the infant which has lived but a day upon the earth. Who bringeth this to my remembrance? Doth not each little one, in whom I behold that which I do not remember of myself? In what, then, did I sin ? Is it that I cried for the breast ? If I should now so cry,--not indeed for the breast, but for the food suitable to my years,--I should be most justly laughed at and rebuked. What I then did deserved rebuke; but as I could not understand those who rebuked me, neither custom nor reason suffered me to be rebuked. For as we grow we root out and cast from us such habits. I have not seen any one who is wise, when "purging" anything cast away the good.
--Confessions, Bk 1, Ch. VII

Sometimes when the girls fight, it's because they're tired or cranky or hungry. But often it's because of jealousy or selfishness. Anyone who says that children are naturally sweet and innocent hasn't seen how a toddler reacts when another kid starts playing with one of his toys, even one that he had no interest in before. It's selfishness -- of an irrational and uncalculated variety, but selfishness nonetheless.

13. Did I not, then, growing out of the state of infancy, come to boyhood, or rather did it not come to me, and succeed to infancy ? Nor did my infancy depart (for whither went it ?); and yet it did no longer abide, for I was no longer an infant that could not speak, but a chattering boy. I remember this, and I afterwards observed how I first learned to speak, for my elders did not teach me words in any set method, as they did letters afterwards; but myself, when I was unable to say all I wished and to whomsoever I desired, by means of the whimperings and broken utterances and various motions of my limbs, which I used to enforce my wishes, repeated the sounds in my memory by the mind, O my God, which Thou gavest me. When they called anything by name, and moved the body towards it while they spoke, I saw and gathered that the thing they wished to point out was called by the name they then uttered; and that they did mean this was made plain by the motion of the body, even by the natural language of all nations expressed by the countenance, glance of the eye, movement of other members, and by the sound of the voice indicating the affections of the mind, as it seeks, possesses, rejects, or avoids. So it was that by frequently hearing words, in duly placed sentences, I gradually gathered what things they were the signs of; and having formed my mouth to the utterance of these signs, I thereby expressed my will? Thus I exchanged with those about me the signs by which we express our wishes, and advanced deeper into the stormy fellowship of human life, depending the while on the authority of parents, and the beck of elders. -- Confessions, Bk 1, Ch. VIII

Reflecting on how much small children learn from their parents, not just from their words but from their actions as well, always gives me pause. My girls may well be picking up habits and quirks of behavior amd unconscious attitudes from me that they'll carry with them throughout their lives. The time to instill in a child what's most important to you is when they're young and pliable and molding themselves to their parents' routines -- I think it must be a common mistake to wait until kids are old enough to "understand" a routine before it's implemented. (I recall some point in my teenage years when my mother decided that we needed to call her "ma'am". It didn't fly with us -- we were too old for it to come naturally and it felt forced and showy. )

And here's a paper for all of you interested in learning more about the concept of child development in Book I of Augustine's Confessions:

1 Book I of Augustine's Confessions⁽¹⁾ contains a remarkable account of child development. The maturation from infancy to later childhood is presented in its relation to the Trinitarian spiritual principle which animates human life, which is both the principle of its creation and the end which it seeks. Augustine's account is thus vibrant and exacting because it has hold of the objective principle of human subjectivity, because it knows the spiritual logic of the development of human reason and will.

2 It is this comprehensive standpoint which allows Augustine to speak vividly to those in our own time, which accounts for his attractiveness to those who profess either modernity or post-modernity, and which in its full development allows us to profess both.⁽²⁾ Augustine's portrait of child development does not fall into the trap of confining the contours of the human spirit to the patterns of his own specific social world. Were this the case he might be thought a guide to the cultural practices of North Africa under Roman dominion in the fourth century A.D. As such he might offer a sociology of child development but not a philosophy, and the significance of his account would be merely historical.

3 It is a genuine difficulty of our time to find in speculative thought a freedom which cannot be reduced to such social-psychological parameters. The contemporary reader of the Confessions, then, faces a difficult confrontation with a text which advances an infinite spiritual logic unfettered by contingent cultural structures which is by its own account the determinate principle by which we would understand the truth of all social engagement. Where the determinate expression of practical life extends no further than the production and acquisition of goods and the creativity of an unbounded aesthetic will, fueled by the moralism which either upholds or descries these expressions, one will find philosophical thought foreign and estranged from itself.

Our weekend plans

Three-day Memorial weekend? Yep.

Guest from out of town coming in? Check.

Big barbeque on Monday? You betcha.

Baptism to attend Saturday night? Oh yeah.

Four-year-old tests positive for strep? Of course.

That may explain part of the general combative atmosphere. And now (since the lab called, before the antibiotic arrives home) the girls are playing like a dream, and sharing cups, and hugging each other, and kissing the baby. No, girls, not that!

Toddler bleg

Anyone have any practical tips for dealing with toddlers who fight tooth and nail, especially when mom is tied down nursing the baby? Noogs and Babs are big enough and active enough to leave scratches and bruises on each other -- they both look appalling. And of course neither of them take it very seriously when I'm sitting in the arm chair trying to get the baby to sleep and quietly bellowing, "Both of you stop it right now! I mean it! If I have to count to three and get up, you two are in Big Trouble!"

Science & Religion, Compatible or Not?

John Farrell linked to a really interesting post on Dispatches From The Culture Wars yesterday, which talked about the controversy within the pro-evolution side of the creationist/ID/evolution debate over whether religion and science are compatible.

The author, a self described deist, takes Dawkins, Dennett and their various blogsphere supporters to task for asserting that science and religion are totally incompatible, and that true intellectuals are "too smart" to be religious.

Normally, when I wade into the evolution controversy, I'm arguing either against fellow Christians who assert that evolution is untrue, or secularists who insist that religion has been disproved by science. So it's interesting reading someone who is not in the religious camp (being a deist but not of any particular religious creed) dealing with a similar set of questions. The author's comments are general sensible and well thought-out, but perhaps more interesting is the range of opinions displayed by the commentors (most of whom disagreed with the author and asserted that religion and science are incompatible.)

Definately worth a read.

The Christian in the World

Christians are indistinguishable from other men neither by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrines. With regard to dress, food, and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives. They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law.

...To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restrictions the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments.

Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body's hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian's lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself.

--Letter to Diogenes

Celiac disease and First Communion

Every now and then there's a flap about a family leaving the Church because special accomodations aren't made for their child with celiac disease (in which the child cannot digest wheat, and so can't receive the Host). Here's how an faithful Catholic family dealt with problem of celiac disease:

Sparky made his First Holy Communion on Sunday. It was a very special day of course, but even more special, in a way, because he has celiac disease. Celiacs cannot digest wheat and so Sparky could not take Jesus in the form of bread. Instead, he took only the Precious Blood.

Our pastor did a lovely job using Sparky's special circumstances as a teaching moment. In his homily he spoke of how Jesus, Body and Blood, is present in both the form of bread and wine.
...on Sunday, my heart lept for joy. I wept joyfully as my son took the chalice into his hands. All that mattered was that Sparky really loves Jesus and was thrilled to be partaking in Holy Communion. The wheat thing didn't matter at all.

Read the whole story, including Maureen's OSV article about her pain at realizing that her son could never receive the Host and the current options for sufferers of celiac disease.

My Civility Score

Which Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Are You?

YOU ARE RULE 8(a)!You are Rule 8, the most laid back of all the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. While your forefather in the Federal Rules may have been a stickler for details and particularity, you have clearly rebelled by being pleasant and easy-going. Rule 8 only requires that a plaintiff provide a short and plain statement of a claim on which a court can grant relief. While there is much to be lauded in your approach, your good nature sometimes gets you in trouble, and you often have to rely on your good friend, Rule 56, to bail you out.
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