The kids in elementary school who were ardent campers never seemed to be very pleasant. Early in life, we moved from a small suburb into a more heavily wooded area (now scarcely wooded at all, I understand) & we always had to travel by the deep waters of a reservoir. Decades later, "The Blair Witch Project" would capture my feeling about the woods of my home state, and about Nature (capital N) in general: I always feel like a stranger & intruder, not kindred at all, amazed & overwhelmed by beauty, but also sensing a huge antagonism from the life in these spaces.
The new series by Ken Burns on PBS has built a bridge to the natural world for me, by showing me the activity of those who, a century & more ago, saw the threat unchecked exploitation of resources posed to the immense & rare natural landscape of the country, and out of a love for it & for future generations, set out to do what they could to preserve it from being ravaged even further. The words of John Muir, of John Burroughs, of Theodore Roosevelt supply something that isn't in my temperament. For me, the awe has always been accompanied by a terror; partly, probably, from my feeling that mountains & rivers & forests are things without human language, apart from the human story. Through the narrative, written by Clayton Duncan, linked to these images, Ken Burns supplies the story that I haven't wished to discover on my own.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Creation
Divine-Watchmaker sorts of arguments, in any guise, for God's existence leave me cold. What seems far more persuasive to me is the feeling that comes from the sense that comes to everyone at some point in their lives that the beauty we see, the intimacy we enjoy, the sudden overwhelming senes of what an astonishing thing it is simply To Be, makes us experience the world & creation as a gift, that a Giver specifically has handed it to us, and that this outweighs all other doubts & experiences & arguments. Just as Christ comes in a backwater stable & goes around with a dozen ill-equipped men teaching among a people under a foreign power, our clues to God come humbly, mounted on a donkey.
Monday, September 21, 2009
'Heart speaks to heart'
'Because of the increase of evildoing, the love of many will grow cold,' Jesus warns, as St. Matthew's gospel reports. It's part of a general warning that, because of persecution, many will be led into sin, will hate & betray each other, and false prophets will come & deceive many -- as a result, love, divine charity, will grow cold in the faithful.
St. Paul tells us what charity is in the famous passage in 1st Corinthians -- and this is the love that's to be practiced especially with regard to those who don't share our own faith. Even if people are up to their eyeballs in dreadful things, divine love prompts us to believe that whatever their sins or errors, they're seeking God & looking for truth. The opposite attitude is pride, the belief that we can never be "like that": but St. Paul warns us that we can fall, can be cut off from Christ, through the failure of love and its corollary, humility. Love is transient when it isn't joined to humility, to the recognition that we're fallible & changeable & wholly subject to our own passions & bigotries, without the help & mercy of God.
There is a mercilessness in the air in the U.S. and elsewhere, a madness that resembles something out of Dante's inferno. We can't drive it out: but we can make certain that it doesn't drive us. Heart needs to speak to heart, in hope & in humility, or the fiery gales will be fed by our own worst impulses.
St. Paul tells us what charity is in the famous passage in 1st Corinthians -- and this is the love that's to be practiced especially with regard to those who don't share our own faith. Even if people are up to their eyeballs in dreadful things, divine love prompts us to believe that whatever their sins or errors, they're seeking God & looking for truth. The opposite attitude is pride, the belief that we can never be "like that": but St. Paul warns us that we can fall, can be cut off from Christ, through the failure of love and its corollary, humility. Love is transient when it isn't joined to humility, to the recognition that we're fallible & changeable & wholly subject to our own passions & bigotries, without the help & mercy of God.
There is a mercilessness in the air in the U.S. and elsewhere, a madness that resembles something out of Dante's inferno. We can't drive it out: but we can make certain that it doesn't drive us. Heart needs to speak to heart, in hope & in humility, or the fiery gales will be fed by our own worst impulses.
"What is truth?" asked jesting Pilate . . .
" . . . and would not stay for answer."
Our drive to discover the truth is the defining characteristic of our nature: our capacity to reason, but more than just the capacity: the NEED for truth, and the irritation and anger we feel when we've been misled or duped or used by someone promoting something else.
The shadow that follows the truth is the delight in falsehood, misrepresentation, and the fruits of deceit, especially when the deceit is undetected: when people simply glory in a lie, and spread it eagerly, and make no attempt to discern whether it's true or false, but revel in it because they want to feel the force of a rebellion or a reaction, the power of an angry mob.
By making the search for information easier, the internet makes the discovery of truth harder. Instead of the labor involved in copying passages out for ourselves, a few keystrokes allow us to cut and paste a link or a series of paragraphs: there's no need to re-assess the material as we repeat it. Poisoned-pen letters & chain letters have nothing on email; recipients of the former might suspect more readily that the contents were unreliable; but with the excitement of being Paul Revere, people pass on emails now, and rouse all the worst passions, waking the shadow of truth, the appetite for lies that curls in us always ready for stimulation & food, ready to be poked, ready to spring into action.
Our drive to discover the truth is the defining characteristic of our nature: our capacity to reason, but more than just the capacity: the NEED for truth, and the irritation and anger we feel when we've been misled or duped or used by someone promoting something else.
The shadow that follows the truth is the delight in falsehood, misrepresentation, and the fruits of deceit, especially when the deceit is undetected: when people simply glory in a lie, and spread it eagerly, and make no attempt to discern whether it's true or false, but revel in it because they want to feel the force of a rebellion or a reaction, the power of an angry mob.
By making the search for information easier, the internet makes the discovery of truth harder. Instead of the labor involved in copying passages out for ourselves, a few keystrokes allow us to cut and paste a link or a series of paragraphs: there's no need to re-assess the material as we repeat it. Poisoned-pen letters & chain letters have nothing on email; recipients of the former might suspect more readily that the contents were unreliable; but with the excitement of being Paul Revere, people pass on emails now, and rouse all the worst passions, waking the shadow of truth, the appetite for lies that curls in us always ready for stimulation & food, ready to be poked, ready to spring into action.
The Place of Refuge
St. Augustine wrote The City of God in response to the pagan Romans who had taken refuge in the churches, which the barbarians spared in the sack of Rome, but who then blamed the Church for the abandonment of the city's old divinities.
The revisionist attempt to class Pope Pius XII as a collaborator or at least as someone who was too silent during WWII on the Nazi persecution of the Jews is a very similar smear. A member of my parish was in the army that entered Rome after driving out the German army; on being shown around one of the city's churches, he was told that he was the first to have seen the relics & historical features of the church in several years, because on Pope Pius' orders, the churches had been turned into refuges for Rome's Jewish population & all Italian Jews who could be accommodated. -- On Hitler's ascent to power, then-Cardinal Pacelli had rebuked an Italian aristocrat who said "At least he's against the communists." "Don't talk such nonsense," the future pope replied, "the Nazis are infinitely worse." The Church in Germany was viewed as a foreign & race-mixing power, and all means were used first to bind, then to harass and silence the Church in Germany; in the three years in which Hitler held sway in Europe, the heaviest blows fell on Polish Catholics. Pope John Paul II's spiritual understanding of human suffering & evil & the need for grace & mercy was formed against the backdrop of what he experienced & shared as a young man; and the father of the current pope would move continually during the Third Reich in order to keep his sons away from the satanic monstrosity which gripped Germany during those years.
Throughout the 19th century, and well into the 20th, the non-Catholic parties, all the anti-clerical parties, had aimed at getting the Church out of political affairs; and the same people who condemn the Church now for interfering are those who blame the Church for not stopping the Nazis or for facilitating their rise or collaboration. Pope Pius X, the first pope of the 20th century, did all that he could to try to avert the first World War; and his successor, Benedict XV, elected at the start of that war, tried to recall Europe from the holocaust of that time. Both Paul VI and John Paul II, despite the calls of militants to confront communist powers politically, both followed a path away from conflagration & to living Christ wholly, even under the circumstances in the Soviet bloc and elsewhere, to avoid plunging humanity into yet another war.
Catholics are often foolish & purblind & wayward & stubborn & dim, whether lay or clerical; but the body & mind endure & surpass the quality of its members, because it is THE body that the Holy Spirit animates & gives a divine endurance & direction, so that Christ crucified & risen always be the center, so that the cross "be not emptied" of its power. What is not The Church, capital C, is built from its members, and has only what natural qualities they have: were the Catholic Church built from its members, rather than being Christ's body on earth, it would, having suffered the many losses & defeats over the ages, have fallen long ago. It's she who shapes us & places Christ in us, and then makes more of us than we can possibly be on our own. She takes us in that we may be taken out of ourselves, and remade in Christ: any other way is building on the sand of the self. Because we are not the stuff, the substance of the sanctuary, we find sanctuary & life there.
The revisionist attempt to class Pope Pius XII as a collaborator or at least as someone who was too silent during WWII on the Nazi persecution of the Jews is a very similar smear. A member of my parish was in the army that entered Rome after driving out the German army; on being shown around one of the city's churches, he was told that he was the first to have seen the relics & historical features of the church in several years, because on Pope Pius' orders, the churches had been turned into refuges for Rome's Jewish population & all Italian Jews who could be accommodated. -- On Hitler's ascent to power, then-Cardinal Pacelli had rebuked an Italian aristocrat who said "At least he's against the communists." "Don't talk such nonsense," the future pope replied, "the Nazis are infinitely worse." The Church in Germany was viewed as a foreign & race-mixing power, and all means were used first to bind, then to harass and silence the Church in Germany; in the three years in which Hitler held sway in Europe, the heaviest blows fell on Polish Catholics. Pope John Paul II's spiritual understanding of human suffering & evil & the need for grace & mercy was formed against the backdrop of what he experienced & shared as a young man; and the father of the current pope would move continually during the Third Reich in order to keep his sons away from the satanic monstrosity which gripped Germany during those years.
Throughout the 19th century, and well into the 20th, the non-Catholic parties, all the anti-clerical parties, had aimed at getting the Church out of political affairs; and the same people who condemn the Church now for interfering are those who blame the Church for not stopping the Nazis or for facilitating their rise or collaboration. Pope Pius X, the first pope of the 20th century, did all that he could to try to avert the first World War; and his successor, Benedict XV, elected at the start of that war, tried to recall Europe from the holocaust of that time. Both Paul VI and John Paul II, despite the calls of militants to confront communist powers politically, both followed a path away from conflagration & to living Christ wholly, even under the circumstances in the Soviet bloc and elsewhere, to avoid plunging humanity into yet another war.
Catholics are often foolish & purblind & wayward & stubborn & dim, whether lay or clerical; but the body & mind endure & surpass the quality of its members, because it is THE body that the Holy Spirit animates & gives a divine endurance & direction, so that Christ crucified & risen always be the center, so that the cross "be not emptied" of its power. What is not The Church, capital C, is built from its members, and has only what natural qualities they have: were the Catholic Church built from its members, rather than being Christ's body on earth, it would, having suffered the many losses & defeats over the ages, have fallen long ago. It's she who shapes us & places Christ in us, and then makes more of us than we can possibly be on our own. She takes us in that we may be taken out of ourselves, and remade in Christ: any other way is building on the sand of the self. Because we are not the stuff, the substance of the sanctuary, we find sanctuary & life there.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Summer's lease hath none too short a date
A good friend told me that she's fallen under the spell of autumn the last week, as the blistering summer heat retreats. Tonight, another friend & I took in a film, "Adam", centered on the title character, a young man with Asperger's syndrome whose father has just died, but who embarks on an unexpected relationship with the young woman, Beth, who moves into his building; as she begins to help him adjust & confront living without his previous security, the story develops into a study of faithfulness & falsehood & misunderstanding. Along with "(500) Days of Summer", it's romantic without the normal steps & conclusion -- and the couples don't wind up together. Instead, each comes away changed & deepened.
These seem to be signs that the film community, creating & viewing, is changing as the dynamics of blockbusters become insupportable.
These seem to be signs that the film community, creating & viewing, is changing as the dynamics of blockbusters become insupportable.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Frank Schaeffer on the same trail
During my brief years affiliated with the evangelical right wing, I read Frank Schaeffer's fathers books, only developing a more critical understanding during college. He now provides one of the strongest warning voices about what he terms a 'fifth column' of people raised in America but taught that the main culture was satanic & could be fought by any & all means. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/glenn-beck-and-the-912-ma_b_284387.html
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