RIP Monicomputer

I'm sure everyone's been wondering, "Where, oh where has my Monica gone?" Well, I'll tell you: nowhere! But my computer died this weekend, and I cannot say I am at all sorry. The fact of the matter is, I struggle with sloth, and having a computer at home and being plugged into the internet was more often a feather bed than a lash, which is what I really need. I'm not particularly interested in getting another one, either. I see this as providential.

I'm going to try to find a way to continue on with writing on the ol' blog, but I don't know how I'll manage that as yet. In the meantime, I can offer the occasional workplace adventure. Ran into another "Catholic" customer today. Here's what happened.

He writes a check. I check the check. I check the license. He has a Polish last name, and I say, "Is that a Polish last name?" He says, "Yes, Polish." I said, "Catholic?" "What?" "Catholic, are you Catholic?" "Yes...well..." and I know what's coming, "I go to a Presbyterian church, because my wife was Baptist..." And then I assume my nicest the-customer-is-always-right tone (and I'm not good at that, because they aren't): "Oh, I see. You married a Baptist. Mmmmm..." He asked, "Why, are you Catholic?" "Yes." Dude couldn't run out of there fast enough. I'm sure I warped before his eyes into some hardened old Polish relative of his. I hope I did. I came that close to saying, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself...or someone should be ashamed of themselves." But I didn't.

Fresh oranges

Where I work there's one of those sorts of people that talks just to say something. I used to open the store every day, so in the mornings it would be just the two of us, and even though I clearly didn't care, he would always run through the latest new bytes, both local and national. He will be talking. Just now someone was eating an orange, which led to a conversation about oranges, and I said, "My great-uncle has an orange grove in Florida..." and was about to continue when our friend chimed in with, "Are they fresh oranges?" There was a pause. He was waiting for me. I was waiting for me. I said, "Uh...yeah...fresh, fresh off the, you know...tree." Laughter ensued, and our conversation was at an end, because where can you go after that?

Happy Birthday, George!

That's right, George Lucas is 66 years old today. And no, I didn't just "know that." I promise. One of the greatest things on IMDB is the little birthday ticker thing. Today is also Cate Blanchett's birthday, along with Sofia Coppola, Tim Roth...and others.

Probably some people will think, "I can't believe he's that old," but I honestly thought he was older, if not dead. Star Wars, to me, is something that was made in the very distant past, and by the time I saw the movies, everyone already knew the lines and I found myself understanding past statements or actions as allusions. "Oh, that's why my dad said 'I am your father' in that weird voice. It's all clear to me now." So, it was already there as a cultural assumption, which made it feel venerable. I don't remember how old I was (less than ten, I would say), but I can remember that even at that age, everyone in my family was surprised I hadn't seen it yet, which is weird. It's not like my parents didn't know what movies I'd seen, but it still came as a (probably mild) shock that I hadn't seen Star Wars...I mean, everyone's seen it, right? It was also a cause of excitement--"Well, we're gonna watch 'em all!" And we did. The whole family--parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles--was on vacation in Arkansas, but one day we stock-piled all the best junk you can dump into your belly, and my elders wound me up all morning and early afternoon. Smelling my mom's and grandmother's cooking, looking at shiny junk food wrappers and hearing them crinkle impatiently at the hands of my sweets-loving grandfather, surrounded by loved ones and feeling a general air of carefree excitement and initiation--I can't think of a better way to prepare for a boy's first trip to Tatooine.

So thanks, George! Your philosophy might be crumby, but I didn't know it, and you still told a great story! And swords that are also lasers? Pff. I was in heaven.

Are you a Christian hipster?

Apparently there's some book coming out called "Hipster Christianity: When Church + Cool Collide." (Pre-order now!) See the website. I can't quite figure out what the point of it is...it seems to me like the kind of book a Christian hipster would write (and read), so all the clever barbs (and they are) seem a bit boomerang-ish. I was interested in the four "types" of Christian hipster, mostly because the props in some of the pictures are of Catholic imagery--mostly of the Sacred Heart--liturgical calendars and books by Catholics. Cherry-picking through Christian traditions and molding them around oneself, which totally misses the point. Growing up Protestant Evangelical and working at L'Abri exposes one to a lot of this kind of thing: rhetoric about "relevance" (ugh), concentration on matters really peripheral to the faith (like homosexuality, women in ministry, etc.), an almost obsessive focus on the church's "failures," especially in matters of "justice," that translates into long confessions and postures of welcome to and "engagement" with the rest of the world. Often I've found that the anti-establishment posture was against churches, because it was all the cradle Protestants knew, and stuff like NPR and voting Democrat was exciting, relevant, and edgy. In their world, they were going against the flow (just like Jesus, right?). Which is hilarious. I could go on. There really are types, and it's pretty funny to see how this author depicts them. Still, like I said...the whole exercise is one which would require one to be a Christian hipster to engage in with any amount of seriousness. (Note: not everyone who showed up at L'Abri was like that, but they were definitely around.)

There's even a quiz to see where you fit in the ranks! I took it, I admit. Most of the questions were completely irrelevant to me (so, joke's on them!), but I answered them as best I could.

Take the quiz here. I myself scored at 61/120, so apparently I have a...

"Low CHQ [Christian Hipster Quotient]. You probably belong to the purpose-driven, seeker-sensitive, Hawaiian shirt-wearing Christian establishment, even though you are open to some of the "rethinking Christianity" stuff. You seem to like edginess in some measure but become uneasy when your idea of Christian orthodoxy is challenged by some renegade young visionary who claims the virgin birth isn't necessary."

I can't decide how much the phrase "renegade young visionary who claims the virgin birth isn't necessary" is supposed to be a joke. How long has that been around? I think the old word for this kind of "visionary" was "heretic," but hey. I guess I'm just "uneasy." You know, easily shaken...and apparently "Hawaiian shirt-wearing."

Where do you fit in?

Shout out!

This one goes out to easily the loveliest Nashvillain in our state capital. ELV, this one's for you...especially the "Woo!" at the end.

"I just...DO things..."

This is a scene from the movie The Dark Knight. I don't think it's a great movie, but the Joker is a compelling character. The background for this scene is: the Joker had arranged for Harvey Dent (the guy in the hospital bed, now Two-Face) and his fiance, Rachel, to be trapped in two different buildings rigged to explode. While incarcerated, Joker tells Batman where each of them is, but with only enough time to save one of them. Though Bruce Wayne also loves Rachel, Batman chooses to save Dent, because he believes that Dent (a public figure) is capable of bringing order and justice into Gotham City, thus making his (Batman's) role unneccessary. Well, Rachel dies, and Batman does save Dent's life, but unfortunately not without horrible disfiguration to his face--as well as, it turns out, to his soul. Joker escapes and finds Dent, ultimately recruiting him as a fellow "agent of chaos."

In some ways, Joker reminds me of Gregory, the red-headed anarchist poet in The Man Who Was Thursday. When asked what his ultimate goal is, Gregory answers, "To destroy God!" or something like that. Joker has this difference with Gregory: he does not wish to kill Batman, who is supposed to represent an incorruptible goodness, or at least an immovable code. If Batman were dead, what would Joker have to do? Those of us who follow St. Augustine know that evil is a privation, and not a entity in itself, and it cannot exist without Good. Those of us who have read Milton know also that there's nothing to do in hell, nothing to destroy, nothing onto which a thoroughly corrupted thing may latch itself and tear. So Satan finds Paradise.

Joker is disarming. He says that all the order one may conceive is just a conception by someone or other that happens to be more powerful than you, and by rejecting that order, you may be as powerful, at least in thought, as God. "Better to reign in hell..." and so on. But Joker, I think, is even more depraved than Milton's Satan. In Milton, Satan is a prince. But the Joker does not care for reigning anywhere at all. You might say he is an egalitarian. He doesn't even care if he lives or dies--in this movie, he stares death straight in the face at least three times and is energized by it, by his own defiance of it. Because death is also, "part of the plan." There is no prize to win or lose for him; there is only doing things. And when one believes in nothing, the only thing to do is find people who do believe, and figure them out, and latch on, and destroy their faith. That's the thing. Joker doesn't care if people survive any more than he cares if he survives. Like he says to Dent, "It's nothing personal." And it isn't. The Joker does not hate Dent, nor did he hate Rachel. I wouldn't even call him bloodthirsty--he just despises their faith.

His effect on Harvey Dent is tragic. In Dent's adherence to Joker's creedlessness, he loses the ability to make assessments of good or evil, and justice is doled out at the flip of a coin, because it's the only thing that's "fair." Neither actions nor motivations have any meaning for him any longer, and whether you see the handsome side of his face or the rotting side is simply a matter of chance. Of course, he's ugly either way now.

The movie itself falls victim to this. In the end, it is decided that Dent's misdeeds should be pinned on Batman, because it gives people an ordered illusion--a "beneficent deception" I've heard it called--that makes it easier to get along in the world. The Joker's response to this would be, "See! It's just another scheme," and he would probably try to get the truth out.

Isn't it strange that at this point I am comforted by one of St. Thomas Aquinas's proofs for God's existence? It's the one about possible and necessary existence. Nothing we have experienced or known in creation is necessary. It might have been, and it might not have been. This is where Joker stops. He is obsessed and intoxicated by the might-not-have-been-ness of everything, which is why he loves "dynamite, and gun powder, and gasoline." Fire and ruin. But though it may have existed in a form other than it does, stuff does exist, and it cannot be accounted for by a series of infinite causes. At some point, causation itself is caused by something that necessarily is. I suspect that even were he to meet the Must Be, the Joker would be unable to see it as such. So he would go where Satan goes--to the fire that he loves best.

Dick Keyes: my old mentor

Doesn't seem like I've had a lot of time to write for the past few days, though really I think that's a good thing. Tonight after work I went to meet with a priest for spiritual direction--not that he is my spiritual director. I've been trying to get me one o' those for almost a year now, but I keep bouncing around and getting responses like, "Hmmmmm...I don't know..." When I made the appointment with this one, he said, "Hmmm. Yes, well I think I can tide you over till you find the real thing." So funny. Am I that difficult?

Anyway, it was a good meeting overall, with one of the greatest endings ever: "I hate to cut this short, but I've got a potato in the oven." Nothing so good for deflating pride as watching the balance of a man's interest tip in favor of a baking root. The meeting left me drained (in a good way), and now I find myself feeling encouraged but intellectually a bit blank. And nostalgic.

I often miss my old "spiritual director." He wouldn't have used that term. At the L'Abri in Southborough, if you stay there more than a week, you're given a "tutor," someone who meets with you around once a week and talks with you about whatever you're working on, and he assigns a study regimine for use until the next time you meet. This regimine is not always...uh...strictly adhered to. My tutor was the guy who ran the place. That's right, the head honcho. His name is Dick Keyes, almost certainly the most intelligent and articulate man I've ever known, as well as one of the kindest and most solicitous for one's spiritual well-being. And quick. I remember once, after one of his lectures (we had open lectures on Friday nights), a man with a grudge against the church (this is not the Catholic Church; Dick is an evangelical Protestant) stood up and ranted about how he thought the church was bogus. Dick sat there and listened to everything--aggressive and passive-agressive--with a look of such calm and yet such serious concentration and concern that I am amazed the man was not disarmed simply by that. When the man got finished and sat down, heaving, Dick thanked him and literally organized the man's tirade into points for him and answered every single objection, without a single note of triumph or superiority in his voice. I've never seen anything like it.

I could go on all day with stories about Dick Keyes. I also do a mean Dick Keyes impersonation--I mean, I met with the man once a week for at least an hour, and I worked with him every day. We got to be very good friends. I was in his son's wedding as a groomsman (I'm also friends with his son), and the night after the wedding, he invited me up to his house to talk about my becoming Catholic--I wasn't Catholic yet, but I was heading in that direction. Needless to say, I was very nervous. It wasn't like we hadn't disagreed before. He is Yankee through and through, and my very first conversation with the man was about the (so called) Civil War, about which we have a very marked difference of opinion. But this was different. This was a conversation with a man that I revered, and I was about to tell him that much of what he teaches and believes is fundamentally wrong. Not that I planned on arguing. It was just inevitably implied with the direction I was taking. The first thing he said to me was, "What's this I hear about you becoming Catholic?" Gulp. It looks threatening on the screen, but Dick is not hostile; he really wanted to know. The response I made was easily the most difficult of my life, and I nearly broke down a couple of times. L'Abri had become a second home to me, and this was my formal break--it was, in fact, the last real conversation I had with my mentor as a mentee. It was like the moment I realized I could beat up my dad. Not that Dick couldn't have debated me and won. Probably could have. I am no debator. But there he was, looking at me like he looked at the man going on a tirade (I was not tirading, though), except when I was done, he didn't have anything to say. Ah! Dick always had something to say to me! In our talks: some advice to give, some direction, some encouragement--and it was never cheap or mushy--and I realized he wouldn't do that ever again. It was very painful. We talked about other things after that, small things, plans and so on, but I didn't have my mentor any more. Haven't had one since, really. I'm trying, but it's difficult not to think of my first and best master. It's like going on a date after a spouse has died--you feel unfaithful. I guess it's good, then, that the goal is God, and not "relationships," though God is good enough to give us those as well. It's just...sometimes He takes them back. "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased the Lord so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord."

P.S. For more pictures of Dick Keyes and the Southborough L'Abri (and some of me), go here.

Catholic Code

Today in the bustle at work, a woman came in wearing a saint medal, and after we concluded our business, I asked, "Who've you got there on your medal?" "Oh...it's St. Bernadette. It's my confirmation name." "I see. St. Bernadette. Mine's St. Monica." She looked at me, pleasantly surprised, and said, "St. Monica?" I said, "Yes, it was a bit awkward when I was confirmed a few years ago...being presented to the priest as 'Monica' but I got over it." "I bet it was awkward. Why did you choose Monica?" "Many reasons. One of which was I figured if God could save a man like St. Augustine, then even I stood a chance, and if St. Monica was willing to hound God and her son until he was safe, then it would be a good idea to have such an advocate as she. I need hounding." "That makes sense." So, we spoke together this way for a few minutes, and in parting she said, "Well...I'm glad you're Monica." "And I'm glad you're Bernadette."

After she left, I looked around and realized I was being stared at by my fellow-workers. Truth be told, they looked a bit stupid--they had just witnessed their own language do things they never dreamed it was capable of, like when you see a contortionist do things with her body that should be painful, all with a smile. Also, they're used to my rants and religio-philosophical asides, but they are not used to them being accepted by others as a normal thing--how fitting, then, that Bernadette and I were talking about Confirmation. It was a moment of confirmation for them that this Catholic stuff exists outside of Monica Man's head, that it's not all part of a monologue that they happen in on at various times. There is action, and there are interlocutors.

Well, I used that opportunity, let me tell you. There were, as I said, strange looks, and these were followed by questions in semi-hostile (but really playfully so) tones with various mild oaths thrown in. No need to reapeat them. But I got to talk a little about St. Monica, which led naturally to St. Augustine, which led naturally to Christ, Who always seems a hop-skip-jump away. I have long ceased to understand why some (some) Protestants think that Catholics get "hung up" on  saints, because that is precisely what we do not do. We swing on 'em, like monkey bars, and the goal is always the other side. Hopefully some of the people there came a little closer to understanding that. But more importantly, I hope that in a couple of them particularly, there was some desire awoken for more than beer in the evenings...I mean, a desire for better beer, if nothing else. That Bud Lite stuff just ain't the stuff.

I'm not exactly what you'd call an evangelist. I have not that burning desire for souls for Christ that some have--my "methods" are soft, and my assumption is that this Catholicism stuff is true, and the truth will out. It's natural for me to think of this kind of thing in a way that it isn't for most people, and I think it has a kind of shock value when it comes up in normal conversation, which is why I was grateful for Bernadette. But really it comes out anyway. My tone is light (too light sometimes, no doubt) and matter-of-fact, which I think also has some shock value. I don't think my friends at work are shocked at me--they know the kinds of things I'm going to say and are used to my comments on the dissolution of the Roman Empire or Saint So-and-so, like I might be commenting on the weather. We laugh about it. No, they are shocked that they can understand what I'm saying, and my own assumption that they can and should understand it. Again, they witness their language performing odd capers and twists. They hear me speaking in code, but it's not a new language altogether. More like a crossword puzzle, and they find they can work it out.

He's at it AGAIN

I like this guy Vianini. He sort of looks like my (mostly) Italian grandfather, who died when I was six. I don't think my grandfather was a tenor, though, and I know he wasn't Catholic. Italian and Protestant? What? Well, nobody's perfect.

But here's Vianini doing his pulsing again. I'm trying to figure out if it's systematic in some way, but I need real expertise. VA made some comments in my previous post which make sense, and I wanted to point out some other examples of what I'm talking about. Bear with me.

He pulses two "beats" (again, I don't know the terminology) on dulcedo, starting at 0:16--dulce-e-do

He does it again at ergo, starting around 0:54--ergo-o

Iesum at 1:14--Iesu-um

Part of the "o" at o dulcis

And again at Maria at the end--Mar-i-i-a... Of course, he's doing it throughout, here and there, but these are the ones that stick out to me the most.

And yet there are extended notes also. Maybe he's pulsing every individual punctum (there's the word I was looking for), and the ones with little dots or lines above them he's extending as a continuous note. I know not. I need VA or the choirmaster to tell me what's what, not to mention I'd probably need to be looking at the music...not to mention I'd have to be able to read the music...aaaand we're back to needing VA and the choirmaster.

One more thing. I mentioned in the previous post that when he moves up or down from a note, he doesn't slide, but he doesn't exactly jump, either. The word I use is pulse; I'm sure it has some technical name. Maybe it's "sing" or something complicated like that. Anyway, I love the way he does it at clemens (1:34): cleme-ens. Maybe there's nothing systematic about it at all; maybe he's just feelin the vibe, man.

Signum Magnum...my favorite introit

This one's for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I sing it all the time. Calms me down. I sing it much lower, of course.

Signum magnum apparuit in caelo
Mulier amicta sole et luna sub pedibus eius
Et in capite eius corona stellarum duodecim
Cantate Domino canticum novum
Quia mirabilia fecit
Signum magnum...

Small update: I've noticed something that this guy Vianini does with his choir that we don't do in ours is that he gets them to pulse the notes (I don't know the technical terms) rather than extend them into one sound. So for example, with the word fecit we would sing feeeeeci-it in my choir. But in this one they sing it fe-e-e-ci-it. Even when they go up and down, it's less of a slide through the notes and more of a pulse to each note.

God-Man takes a beating

The other day I was given the opportunity to have a conversation with someone at work about the breakdown of Roman jurisdiction in (what became) Europe after the 5th century. Is that where I take all my conversations? Yes, yes it is. I break it down Roman style: slow and steady with the occasional mad barbaric rush. From that it turned into a conversation about law and property, and I told him that property is a metaphysical idea. After explaining the meaning of the word metaphysical, I told him (with some intensity) the only thing keeping me from overpowering him right then and there and taking all his stuff was a web of ideas and faith--my own and those of society--that, or it might have simply been he didn't have anything I happened to want at the time. There was no physical barrier of any kind, and I have had my share of triumphs on the Field of Mars. So there.

Belief in God is something that holds me back. It's the primary thing, technically. One can't get behind Him and push Him around. But there are other things as well, like a love of and respect for life and unbroken bones and things. All connected, but distinguishably separate, which is why I can tolerate living in the same society as someone like my friend, who also respects his unbroken bones (still a metaphysical idea) but who has no belief in God. It is so strange that the key thing is left out, and yet all the other stuff matters--which came first, God or the bones of Man? I mean, it ain't a riddle. You can't leave Him out forever, of course. Has anyone ever read Genesis 3 and realized that every single thing the serpent says will happen does? At first, anyway. "You shall not die the death." They don't. "Your eyes shall be opened." They were (v. 7). "You shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil." God agrees (v. 22). Did I just say you couldn't get behind God and push Him around? I did, yes. Yet here He is echoing Satan. Adam and Eve have also left out the key thing, and still they live, still their eyes are opened, still they are as gods. To modify a phrase from C. S. Lewis, this is the horror that cannot be, yet somehow is.

Ultimately, disagreeing with someone on anything of any importance means a fight, as our barbaric forbears in Gaul or Germania or wherever knew. You might avoid the topic or the person, because God has provided us with space; or you might "learn to live together," because God has given us other stuff to believe in and agree about...a mercy, no doubt, even though it makes things complicated. Intellectually, fights are easier, and the world will end in a fight of some kind, all debates settled, regardless of what T. S. Eliot says. It's either us or God taking the beating...but God figured out a way to do both.

The most difficult part of our Lord's Passion for me to imagine is when He is stricken, and His beard is pulled, and He is jeered at to prophesy who hit Him. And again. Prophesy! And again. Prophesy! I've taken a beating before, but not like that, and not from a man I knew I could beat, or from one who jeered at me. The thought rankles. But He has taken the beating, and He had already prophesied. On Monday our Gospel reading was from St. John, where Jesus says, "He that seeth me seeth the Father also." Properly speaking God the Father does not of course suffer, but there is a thread of "taking it" from the devil (again, God echoes him, which is nearly unimaginable to me, but there it is) and from us woven through the time from Adam until now. He doesn't have to allow that for any reason except His own love, but grant that, and it often means He lets us win, which is why Jesus can say to Pilate, "Thou shouldst not have any power against me unless it were given thee from above." Indeed. He should not and would not have power, but he does.

I am often amazed when I get away with things...that is to say, I'm surprised I'm not dead. I really have come out of the confessional and thought, "Another close one! I can't believe I made it!" Such strange things God allows to exist together, such good ideas marred by leaving Him out of the picture, such evil allowed to continue in His creation. But thinking of all this makes it more bearable, somehow, to live in the same world as a person who doesn't believe in God, but who does believe his own bones are sacred.

Cop Out

That's what this post is going to be. I am bushed today--"excuses, excuses" I know--because in my particular line of work, summer is the busiest time of the year, and I'm running around constantly doing things I don't like, which is draining. Well, it's not completely true to say I don't like what I do. It's complicated. Nevermind, it's not important.

What is important is the Blessed Virgin Mary. Some time ago my friend Sally wrote what she calls a little primer on Marian doctrine and devotion. Sally says she's linked to this so many times that it's a little embarrassing, but I haven't linked to it at all, not even one time, except that one time one sentence ago. This is for all my Protestant friends and family that read this blog who may have been confused by my own attempts to explain Marian devotion. Or perhaps it might just be good not to hear my particular brand of ranting. Not that Sally's ranting. It's just good to hear other people, and Sally tackles it in a way that I do not (and cannot, in some ways). Maybe it can stir some more dialogue amongst us; we can have a common reference. Anyway, friends, if you've got questions, you've got my e-mail; and if you've got objections, I've had them, too; and if you've got something snarky to say, I've got a knuckle-sandwich with your name on it.

You know, actually that does remind me of an historical anecdote. Once, when St. Ignatius was travelling, he met a Muslim who did not believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, and they debated. Eventually, the Muslim rode off. You've got to know that at this point in the Saint's life, he was only sort of "half there" as far as his conversion was concerned. Saint Ignatius had been a war hero, and chivalry (long dead, really, though the spirit remained) was hot in him. He couldn't have a Muslim dishonoring Mary like that! I'll let his biographer speak a bit: "He [St. Ignatius] was sorely troubled as he thought over the conduct of his fellow-traveller, and felt that he had but poorly acquitted himself of his duty of honoring the Mother of God. The longer his mind thought upon the matter, the more his soul was filled with indignation against himself for having allowed the Saracen to speak as he had done of the Blessed Virgin, and for the lack of courage he fancied he had shown in not at once resenting the insult. He consequently felt impelled by a strong impulse to hasten after him and slay the miscreant [what a great phrase] for the insulting language he had used." A different time. Well, St. Ignatius didn't kill the Saracen, in case you're wondering. His life is well worth reading, if ever you have the inclination. But just you think about that when you're reading Sally's stuff. Think long and hard.

Cum ergo exisset dicit Iesus...

It's time for Latin time, ladies and gents! I've been doing my Bible reading in Latin these days, because it makes me think harder about what I'm reading...and because, like St. Augustine, I like Latin better than Greek. I mean, I am Monica the Man, and St. Augustine is my boy. Better than both Latin or Greek, though, if I'm honest, I like English. Cry ad fontes all you want, but English is the fount from which I drink and have drunk, and however deeply I attempt immersion in the thought processes of another language (and I do), I will always be something of a translator at heart. Even a despoiler, bringing booty back to my native soil from victories abroad. Maybe that's one reason I like Chaucer so much..."le grand translateur" is what his contemporary Deschamps called him. But that's French, so heck with it, and it ain't time for another Chaucer rant, anyway. Now to business.

Today's Gospel reading was from St. John 13:31-35, which looks like this in Latin (you'll have to scroll down a bit). I noticed some stuff that I think is interesting and, yes, fun as well as an aid to understanding. Get outcher Bibles.

First off. In the beginning of this passage, the word clarificare shows up in various forms, which any English Bible translates as "to glorify." Nothing wrong with that. In Latin clarificare literally means "to make famous." It's interesting, though, because "glory" comes from another Latin word, which really means "fame" or "renown." It is only through a strange shift in etymology that the English "glory" is also associated with brightness, but I won't go into that. (In OE, this would be the word "wuldor," as in Caedmon's phrase "wuldor-faeder.") Clarificare, however, does betoken brightness and renown all on its own. It comes from the word clarare, which means "to make bright" which progressed to "make clear (specifically, to the mind)" or "famous," and it's where we get our word "clarify," though to use that word here wouldn't really do the job. There's this wonderful give-and-take of revelation here--from the Father to the Son, back to the Father, back to the Son, and so on. With revelation, as with glory, there is an indication of light, but when I think specifically of God's glory, I think of something that is basically independent of Man or any created being. God's glory is something that is, as God is, like the uncreated light, and we might be invited to have a vision of some part of that glory, or not. Revelation, however, indicates a hidden thing needing and receiving light. God is being made known to Man through Christ, the Son of Man, not simply stockpiling glory somewhere, for He has no such need. Specifically, He is being made known as betrayed--Judas has just left to sell Him out, and Jesus says, "Now is the Son of Man glorified (made known)..." Betrayed. Yet willing still to be known, as Jesus will show, when He suffers for it--for Man's betrayal and God's love.

Second thing. In the second part of this passage, you'll find the word diligere in various forms. English Bibles translate this as "to love." Fine word, love, fine word, and one which certainly fits here. I would only point out that it literally means "to choose apart" or "to distinguish by choosing" and hence, yes, to love. Jesus commands his disciples to choose constantly to love one another, pointing out that this is how people will know that they are His. The disciples know God through Christ, and those who do not know Him yet will know first that His disciples are indeed His disciples by their mutual love, and they make their choices from that...but they must make their choices from correct data, which Christians must provide. It's interesting to me that, gramatically, this command (mandatum) is not in the imperative mood, but the subjunctive. You didn't see that coming, did you? Ha! That's because it's grammar, baby! And grammar has effective natural camouflage. Subjunctive mood is a wily beast, and I know a grammar lesson is not the coolest. I'm going to explain it this way: imperative commands are Thou Shalt. Subjunctive ones are You Must. It's still a command, obviously, and no less binding in one mood than another. But, well, the mood is different. We might say "the delivery." Authoritative, yes. But man-to-man.

Chesterton pointed out that God, as Christians see Him, is brave. He gives the keys of the Kingdom to Peter; He gives responsibility of transmitting truth to the choice of a handful of men, one of which just left to betray Him, and another He knows will deny Him thrice. It's "brave" to create beings with wills. It's also patently nuts. But it's the kind of nuts that I can't help but laugh at with a kind of admiration, almost like one would laugh in the presence of someone with invincible innocence. I don't laugh at this moment in the Gospel, of course, because it's a somber (and tender, too) moment, but at the whole plan? Yeah. We are a spectacle of failure, friends. But it just doesn't seem to stop God from leading this rabble, and it turns out that, even in our betrayals, God is still made known. Cum ergo exisset dicit Iesus, "Nunc clarificatus est Filius hominis..." Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, one way or another. Glorificamus te.

Rain, I don't mind...

Even thunderstorms, I don't mind. A tornado, however... Sirens are squalling here in M-town, so I hope everyone is home safely. I can't help it, though, I love storms. I particularly love a coming storm. My dad is a little nervous of them, so when I was younger, Dad would herd us all into the laundry room. I guess we were supposed to be serious and scared, but I never was--some of my fondest memories in our old house are of the four of us, folded up in the laundry, dad listening to a portable radio or television on low volume, mom singing the Our Father with us. However, I'm sure that if a tornado touched down around here somewhere, I wouldn't be so keen. I remember there was a tornado touched down about 15 years ago or so, and our church received enough damage to keep us from meeting there for a while. Got repaired, of course. My roomie (a business major at the UofM) tells me that that church is in the wealthiest zip code in Tennessee, so I'm not sure how much of a tax it was to get it all fixed up. Still, it did "hit home," as it were.

I myself am just getting home from my grandmother's house. I go over there and read out loud every week--my grandmother (oh, and my sister) is the only one in the family who enjoys that kind of thing, and unless I'm with dear Sally, who holds court as Queen of the Castle in the Sea, it's the only chance I get to read out loud to anyone, except myself, which is not nearly as good. We've read Lord of the Rings, all the Harry Potter books, and now (thanks to Sally, to whom I now bow very ceremoniously) we're reading Rosemary Sutcliff books.

But I want to mention something I saw tonight which is impressive and typical of my grandmother. My grandmother (really, both my grandmothers) is a great reader of Scripture (KJV, of course). She reads the Bible through every single year, and has for as long as I can remember. Tonight I chanced to open the copy of Holy Writ she's using this year to the back cover pages, and I saw that it was completely covered with handwritten lists in three columns: (1) references, (2) "It says" and (3) "Should be." I said something like, "I know you know your Bible, granny, but 'should be?' Surely your not making wild theological speculations?" She said, "Oh no. Every Bible I've ever gotten has been perfect ("Naturally, granny, naturally"), but this one is so full of mistakes that I got annoyed and started listing them all. I wanted this one, because it had no commentary and no red-letter, but now..." So I started checking, and sure enough, the ol' scribe for this copy must've been asleep at the ink horn, because every single scrutiny was spot on. My family is Protestant, and that Bible, my Catholic friends, is all they've got. You've gotta hand it to 'em. As random and arbitrary as I think sola scriptura is as a doctrine which inevitably heaves away so much Christianity (I don't mean to offend, but it's what I think), for those who take it seriously, there's a manic rigor to it by which I can't help but be impressed. No commentary, and no red-letter, thanks very much...and by the way, you misspelled "Shibboleth;" it's two b's, dear, not one. And I can't find it in myself to be sorry I was raised in that atmosphere.

Anyway, if you don't want to think about that, then listen to the Beatles! And I've just described the 60s for you.

Oo-de-lally!

Robin Hood. If not the greatest Disney movie ever (and it might be), it definitely has the best soundtrack (except for that horrible romantic song sung through Robin and Marian's date). In today's Disney you couldn't imagine a line like, "While bonnie good King Richard leads the great Crusade he's on, we'll all have to slave away for that good for nothin' John...a pox on the phony king of England!" Or one of the best concatinations of words (in a different song): "Reminiscin' this'n that'n havin' such a good time, oodelally, oodelally, golly what a day..." Or when the evil sherriff comes in and takes money from the poor box? Woo, baby! It still gives me goose-bumps when Friar Tuck goes ballistic and shouts, "Get outta my Church!" The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up. The greatest thing about the particular scene above is that it interrupts a horribly cheesy moment between two foxes gazing into each other's eyes...predictably, it's the friar with the save. Near occasion of sin? Dealt with. Right on, friar.

It never gets old...

I think it's pretty amazing that Beatles stuff is still news. Here's a link about a group of photos found in some dude's attic that are now going on display. If you haven't seen the Beatles Anthology--that documentary thing they did a while back--it's totally worth the time.

Shave that 'stache!

This is a response to my sister's post about women shaving themselves in various places. Read that. Warning: ol' sis holds nothing back. Which is why we love her. Below is my response.

Many social conventions are of course non-moral. Some, though non-moral in themselves, are reflections of a broader adherence to a Belief, which may be moral or non-moral. The individual's adherence to conventions may be conscious or unconscious of the beliefs which are their founts. Rejection of a convention is usually conscious. Either way--adherence or rejection--it is a reflection upon that individual for other individuals to read, which they may only do in the context of their own time and place. One is not allowed, however good the reasons, to consider oneself the norm. Thus, to reject a convention is to allow heightened scrutiny and judgment.

Another way to approach this particular issue would be to ask: "Is a woman shaving her pits and legs morally repugnant in itself?" The answer of course is no. The reasons behind it MAY be: vanity, for example, on a vast scale; or financial exploitation, as you suggest; unreasonable expectation, etc. etc. But whatever its origins (and those are important), I think our dad is at least not wrong, if not wholly right in the most literal sense. Bodily hairiness IS generally a masculine trait. For example, if you went bald or grew a mustache or wiry chest hair, you would probably take action--"alter" yourself, as you put it. (As an aside, I would point out that men "alter" themselves as well, historically just as much as women, so you can't make that a sexist thing. 14th century dudes used to wear makeup, for example, and curl their hair. I see almost as many magazines in the rack pumping how a man should look as I do for women. I think they're both mostly ridiculous, of course. But I've got a goatee right now. I am on a diet. I'm trying to develop muscle tone. I don't wear t-shirt-and-jeans every day, like I want to. Etc. You could argue that putting on clothes is "altering" oneself.) Now, both of those traits (baldness and superfluity of body hair), though certainly far from universal, are natural in a man in a way that they aren't for a woman, though it does happen to some women. When it does, we recognize it as unnatural, or at least abnormal, like a hairlip. It's nobody's fault that they have a hairlip, and there's nothing morally wrong with it, but they have reconstructive surgery (more "alteration!") all the same. Obviously this is an extreme example. In many cases, a health issue is involved with a hairlip, I realize. But if a woman grows a mustache, we think DANG, she needs to do something about that mess. Why? Well, because it's not something that is typically female. On another level, there's an entire organization (Locks of Love) that exists to provide real-hair wigs to kids who lose it due to cancer treatment. Another extreme example (and I don't mean to offend with it), but it is a cosmetic charity which exists because we all recognize that this thing is not the norm...and there's that word again.

"But it remains a fact," you might retort, "that all women naturally grow hair on their legs and pits." Very true. I'm not saying that you (or any woman) SHOULD shave those things. I don't like shaving either, though facial hair on a man is more typical (though not all men have got the goods, if you know what I mean).

At this point I'm going to call on ol' Gilbert Keith Chesterton. I can't remember where, but there is a point in Orthodoxy when he says that we do not ornament something that we think is ugly to make it beautiful. We ornament something that we think is already beautiful. Perhaps women shaving stuff is vanity, perhaps it is male domination, or something cliche like that. (Though if I am to listen to Van Morrison, women dress up for each other.) Probably often it is this kind of thing, and I doubt many saints cared much for it. But it could just as easily be a kind of innocent extravagance, a heightening of that which is recognizably and beautifully female as distinct from male--i.e., generally less hair on the body and more on the head. It's trouble, yes, and much more trouble than I know about, which is why I wouldn't ever think worse of a woman for avoiding it. But I also cannot deny that it IS more attractive to me than a hairy leg or armpit, even if a hairy leg is not repulsive to me (it isn't). Culturally conditioned in me it may be, but I can't make myself born in another time and place, and it doesn't seem to me to be a practice grievous enough to change on a massive scale. You say women were shamed into behaving as they do, and that may very well be. My history-of-pit-shaving lore is pretty scanty. But it could just as easily be that women had minds of their own back in the day and said, "Hey! I like that!" when the option was presented to them. And they really might have.

Also...this other thing...

Is it true that you're supposed to change your sheets every week? 'Cuz...some people...don't...change 'em...much...at all...I've heard. I'm doing it now, though. I mean...somebody...who didn't change their sheets for a while...is.

Don't point at the friar, dear.

Tonight I went to Vespers/Eucharistic Adoration at my Church. The celebrant was one of those friars from the Franciscans of the Renewal chaps. Now, I happen to be very fond of St. Francis--and I mean, come on, who isn't?--I even wrote a paper on him once, well before I became Catholic. One of the very few papers I enjoyed writing. So tonight I was kind of excited to see a Franciscan, because I never had seen one before. It was a bit distracting, really. I got there quite early, and as I sat, I kept looking around for a Franciscan--"Is that? Oh, no it's just the deacon...Oh! is that? No, it's just a Knight of Malta...but that? Nope, parish priest. But hey! No! Dang it! Only a skinny guy with a bit of a beard...and of course that other skinny guy quick-stepping around like nature's calling is just the choirmaster, an air of fretty purpose billowing in and fanning from his robes (I say it with affection). Do we even have Franciscans here?" Well, they were there. Friaring around with their grey monk garb and big beards (I liked that). It wasn't a lifechanger or anything, and I don't have much to say about them, but I was glad to see them anyway. I hope God will forgive me if my focus was more than a little skewed. You like to convince yourself that you're not just some stupid slack-jawed show-goer, but sometimes, let's face it, that's exactly what you are. That's probably one reason why hermits can be so cranky when people come calling...might as well show up for a war with a picnic basket. Rubes or dilettantes by turns, all of us. But still, there was a pious thought or two rolling around this head of mine, so my faults were not completely definitive of the experience.

Elroy in the Confessional

Where I work there is a startling variety of people, considering its (small) size--rednecks, semi-reformed gangstas, semi-reformed hippies, Lutherans; ladies' men, mens' ladies, grandmothers, mamas' boys; world-weary types, old musicians, young musicians, and oh, I could go on...black, white, straight, gay. Many a priest of that modern day deity, "Diversity," has sacrificed many a church and school on his master's slab in hopes of founding such a temple, has been confounded when his god is deaf and dumb as wood and stone, and watched his older, better houses crumble to skeletons and dust. It works where I work, precisely because we do not serve this god, and it is not our temple. We're all just trying to make a living, and "diversity" as a thought (let alone an aim) is so peripheral that its lodge in the mind is usually somewhere between apathy and oblivion. Obviously I've thought about it, but I think too much. And even at that, I've exhausted the subject.

I could easily keep a blog on the daily interactions I have with these people, but there are other things. Today, however, I've been thinking about one of our regular customers, whom we jokingly call Elroy, because he looks like a fortysomething Elroy Jetson.

He even wears a baseball cap, though it doesn't have those little "I'm-Jewish-living-in-the-future" embellishments. He doesn't have footied overalls or golden upside-down dinnerplate neckwear, either, but nobody blames him, because they haven't started making those yet.

One day, our Elroy pulled up to the store. He doesn't know we call him Elroy, so we had to stop humming the Jetsons theme when he opened the door. Elroy talks a lot. Prattles, really. My friend once counted the seconds of continuous silence from Elroy when he came in the store, and I think it never got higher than three. But though he talks a lot, I can't remember a thing he's said, except one. On this day, Elroy bought a drink from our soda machine. I went away to get him something he needed, and upon returning, I discovered, much to my annoyance, that he had spilled the sticky stuff all over our floor. It's a hard floor, so the sticky lingers, and he could leave (please do!), but we had to clean it up. Well, he was smiling child-guilty and bumbling out apologies and shifting himself and shifting things, and somewhere in the midst of his ceaseless, pointless verbal activity, I marked the words, "blah blah blah...sorry, but it's okay, though, you know, because everybody makes mistakes...blah blah..." Well, I nearly fell out laughing, but I didn't. Managed to hold it together that time. It sounded like something chanted into him by dear ol' Mom, coming up now as a matter of course, like baby sick: "Ga ga g-blech!" Now wipe me and feed me again. I ain'tcher momma, son. But really! Here's the logic: mistakes are made, therefore is this my mistake okay. Of course, for some mistakes the penalty is imprisonment or death or even eternal perdition. Obviously I'm not putting his mistake on level with those kinds of mistakes...actually, if anyone was doing that, he was...in a way. I just want everyone to know that I understand that spilling a soft drink is not mortal...even if it is most grievous.

But the next day I could not stop thinking about and connecting that ridiculous statement from a truly ridiculous character with myself in Confession. See, it didn't matter to me at all that he was sorry or embarrassed, as far as the mistake was concerned. The thing was done, and I had to deal with it. To Elroy, though, it meant everything, literally everything. The man absolved himself with it. "Sorry" and "it's okay" both came from his mouth, connected flimsily by the most childish manner and the worst logic. And I thought, "Why is contrition necessary for absolution? It doesn't do God any good. Nothing does God any good, because He is Good. He doesn't need any good done to Him or for Him, and He has to deal (and has dealt) with every mistake made by Man. Even if He damned us all, that's still dealing with it. Contrition might be prerequisite, but it cannot be payment, cannot be the toll, cannot do anything to ease the labors of Him that has no need of ease, and even if He did have such need (absurd thought!), the contrition would have nothing to do with His labors anyway..." Thus I thought, really too long. Then I remembered that contrition, like the Sacrament of Confession, like absolution, like salvation, was a gift of grace. Even if it is something that feels as if it wells up from within, it is God feeds the well. We receive one gift to wrap our sin up in before it is buried, like the body of our Lord, wrapped in layers of spices. Sweet it is. But He does not need it; He has done His work; He will not decay; He has confronted the real stench. But we need only confront the horror a moment--if we lived our entire life in sorrow for our own evil, it would still be as the fleetingest moment compared with Christ's suffering, and even so, we need all the help we can get. Contrition is needful for us, and so it is given to us, just like everything else we have really needed.

So...sorry, Elroy. I fear that, to God, many times I must have sounded like you did to me. We must both do better, I think.

Look out, frogs!

Okay, I need to know if anyone in the world has heard this phrase before. This very evening I was walking through my aunt and uncle's yard. They are both great gardeners, and my uncle was giving me a very interesting tour through his work and nature's. Now, this day has been probably one of the most beautiful I've ever lived through: it started with a wonderful thunderstorm, abating and then meandering to overcast and cool-breezy, and by the time the soft light of the late afternoon sidled in, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. As we were walking along enjoying all this, my uncle alluded to the thunderstorm earlier. Except he said, "Yeah, this morning was a real frog strangler." Well, I had been in reverie, but I snapped out of it at this phrase, because the image it produced in my heretofore placid state of mind was quite shocking. I'm thinking of someone strangling a frog to death, which wouldn't be too difficult, unless one has a problem with being needlessly brutal. I knew, however, that this couldn't have been what he meant, and I couldn't connect this image with rain, unless it were some savage pagan ritual of sacrifice. So naturally I said, "What?" He said, "What?" I said, "What? Frog strangler?" He said, "Haven't you ever heard that before?" I said, "Uh, no. I'm thinking of somebody who's choked so many frogs that he's been assigned an epithet, which I can't connect with this morning...unless that's when he struck again." He laughed and said, "No. Frogs like water. This morning there was too much water. Even for a frog. Frog strangler. Sounds pretty simple to me." I guess it is simple, though it's interesting to me that the word "strangler" is used rather than "drowner" or something wet like that, or even "choker" makes more sense to me. Frog strangler. Anyone else ever heard that phrase? He insisted that it wasn't one of his own invention, that it had been around a while. I'm glad he said it. We made jokes about it for the rest of the evening.

I say Pieta, you say...MITLEID!

German. Always better in all caps and an exclamation point.

I often wake in the middle of the night, not so much with thoughts as in midthought, which has sometimes made me nervous. I wonder who's piloting this thing when the captain's away. But I'm still thinking about art comparisons, still with Mary holding Jesus, with a slightly different subject. Whenever we hear the word "pieta" we probably are thinking of Michelangelo's Pieta, which looks like this...

...and is beyond my ability to describe. He actually did another one, meaning it for his own tomb, but didn't finish it. Actually, it is said that he became frustrated with it and rushed it with a hammer, which he used on it, but was restrained by his pupils from further damage, and he then left off working on it any longer. It looks like this:

Looks more like a Deposition, but I think they do call it a Pieta. But what I really wanted to post on here was a much older and much different Pieta by an unknown German artist.

This is your gothic art. Is it any wonder that the word "Gothic" as applied to art was actually a term of abuse from Italian Renaissance types? "What's that?" "Ah! Another monstrosity from thost dreadful Goths that side of the Alps!" Well, mess on you, crazy Italian humanist! Thanks to you, Martin Luther freaked out and left the Church! Way to be the straw that broke the camel's back. I hope you're happy.

I have to work tomorrow, dang it. I guess I'd better sleep.

Art time again!

I love comparing things. Here's three different paintings of the same subject (Madonna Enthroned) by Italian artists in the 13th century. The first is by Cimabue.

This is mostly in that "Italo-Byzantine" style that we all know and love. I can't tell if the angels are meant to be supporting the throne. It doesn't make sense architecturally, since it's sitting on top of all those prophets and saints there at the bottom, but then, it's not terribly concerned with "real" space or physical necessities (as Eastern art often isn't). All those angels are stacked and linear and (except for two of them) looking at us. I rather think that they're drawn to the throne, like they need to touch it, and they're looking at us like, "I don't know, but I think you should come over here, too. Will you?" They've all got that stylized "inclined head" thing going on, which I take to be a kind of nudge..."don't want to do violence to your will or anything, but nudge-nudge, wink-wink, this really is the way, here." Those solid color backgrounds always kinda give me the creeps, I have to say, but of course lots of icons have that. Infinity is not comfortable, even if it is glorious and golden. It's the kind of thing you've got to be saint-ready for. Good thing there's Jesus and Mary there.

This one's by Duccio. Not as directly concerned with us, as the only one looking in our direction is the Blessed Virgin. All the angels are looking at Jesus, and Jesus seems to be blessing them. There is more attention to the architectural space here--Mary's sitting on a chair which rests on the "ground," and she turns with it, and there's that beautiful cloth behind her. All the angels are squeezed in there between the chair and the frame, no overlapping. Mary still has the head tilt. And is it just me, or does she a have a little bit of a scowl on her face like, "Just get over here, child, if you know what's good for ya."

Giotto now. Probably the most "believable" space. The chair totally closes in, there are steps leading up like she had to walk up there, and though the figures overlap on the side, there's a certain proportion to them that jives with me in a way that Cimabue's doesn't. (Not that Cimabue is inferior; I'm just talking about space.) Frankly I think the most amazing things in this painting are the two angels in green offering those gold containers and the two kneeling angels in white offering flowers. That's what's interesting as a contrast with the other two paintings as well. Jesus is looking off and giving a kind of general blessing, while the crowd offers actual gifts other than adoration, or rather, part of their adoration is the offering of actual gifts that they have (presumably) received. Casting their crowns and whatnot. All the colors are deeper as well, and everything in general feels more solid, which is interesting. It doesn't seem like it should feel that way, because there's more "empty" gold background in this than in the other two. Mary's head tilt is gone--to me that makes her more direct, like she's done playing games.

I like these kings of paintings for many reasons. One of them is that it feels like I'm being admonished to attend rather than just invited for a chit-chat. But most importantly, this thing is going on.

Also, as a sidenote: does anybody else hate Raphael's fat baby angels? Cuz I sure do.

Tired of Chaucer

I think it's happened. I've been reading so much of him over the past months that I've worn myself out. That's what happens with me, though. Whenever I read something, I familiarize myself with everything around it that I can get my hands on, and then I read it again--it's an immersion tactic, like going to Italy to learn Italian, or something. Right now, I think I could give a blasted lecture series on Richard II or John Hawkwood (who is totally fascinating, by the way; everyone should look him up...right now!). Thing is, I don't live in Medieval England, and I can't move there. So it's a huge leap for as manically thoroughgoing a reader as myself to go from 21st century 9-to-5 to 14th century court life every evening. So tomorrow I think I'm gonna rummage through the ol' bookcases and see if I can't find something I haven't read in a while, maybe something a little closer to my own century? Maybe the 19th, that's a fun one. Maybe I'll even go out and get something I've never read. I mean, it is the weekend. Suggestions? I know some of you have given me good ones before when I've been in this phase...Brideshead Revisited comes to mind, Janet. (I read that again fairly recently, before this Chaucer craze, and it was way better the second time.) No pressure, though. Believe me, I'll find something.

"The Lubrican s People"

Late this morning as I was driving to the post office, I saw a great big white truck, on the side of which was written: "The Lubrican s People." I assume that in the space there was meant to be a "t," but I thought it was so funny...really even if the "t" had been there, I still would have thought it was funny. The People of the Lubri Khan.

In Memphis-town did Lubri Khan
Some rough old stuff make slippery...

...slipping across the Lubricon...and so on. Lubrican is also another way to spell Leprechaun. Just so you know. I need this kind of diversion, because today's gonna be a long one at the office.

Medieval Books

It is very difficult for us in these our days of mass production to grasp what it meant to own a book in the 14th century. We have them flowing off our shelves, massed in teetering stacks, in the den, the kitchen, the bathroom, cast about on the floor around our beds...I mean...I've heard some people do. We have our first editions. I myself have the first American edition of Tolkien's Tree and Leaf--not a particularly rare volume by bibliophile standards, but one that is dear to me all the same. (Tolkien, by the way, will almost certainly be a main character in this here blog at some point, but I've held off.) I've also got a beautiful 19th century edition of Thomas Moore's poetical works (that's the English Romantic poet, not the 16th century martyr, hence the spelling). Books are, for the most part, easily attainable wherever you live, because internet is available and FedEx (a Memphian innovation) delivers "the world on time." Most of my books I've acquired in just this way, including Tree and Leaf. I find booksellers online from anywhere and have them send stuff to me at work. Those are hard days to get through, let me tell you, when a book comes in and I've got to do a bunch of stupid stuff.

I'm not saying this is bad (it's not), or that books, even just as objects, aren't dear to us (they are). Still, compared with a medieval book, the things we have are ephemeral. A book in the 14th century would be literally incarnate--written or indeed almost carved on vellum, on animal skin. I was reading Chaucer (surprise!), in his complaint to his scribe's bad copying, and he says, "So ofte a daye I mot thy werk renewe,/ It to correcte and eke to rubbe and scrape." Rub and scrape! Not, "mark a line through it and type it up again later." Every edition was a unique edition, not simply by virtue of it belonging to someone, the rather spectral value of it having been read by my dear aunt Ida, dead these many years and so on. You could see and feel the labor put into it, and, my dear, you were going to pay for it. A good book on vellum could cost as much as a burgher's house. No book bargain hunting. No shelves either, unless you were extremely wealthy (normally you'd lock them in a chest) or in a library, in which case the books would have been chained up to prevent people stealing them. Worth their weight or more in gold. Procuring books, then, would have required planning. I mean, financial planning, for it was an investment in every sense of the word. If Chaucer's Prologue to The Legend of Good Women is to be believed, he owned around 60 books, probably not on vellum and beautifully illuminated, but a huge investment all the same.

One of the most interesting things this does is obliterate the modern idea of plagiarism. Well, it didn't obliterate it, because it hadn't come along yet. We're so picky about that kind of thing! But this of course has to do with the fact that any yahoo can write any old thing any time...doesn't even require paper. Witness what you're now reading...yahoo! If you could write or translate, then, and you had the means and leisure to do so, it would be a service to "steal" ideas, or even to mock. It's quite possible that a man could have written an excellent book that was never known outside of his town, and if you came across it, you probably wouldn't be able to buy it. So, you'd remember. And write it again, in your own language (if it was different) or with your own "spin." Chaucer did this a lot.

To know--really know--a book is a huge feat. I think I'm close to knowing two. If Chaucer knew 60 and wrote nothing, though we wouldn't know it, he would still be a genius. Sometimes I think I would know better if I knew less. Think if you could, with hardship, acquire one book a year every year of your life--and that's still a lot more than most people would ever see back in the day--how well you would know them! How much you would have to give for them! Something to think about.

"Fetchez la vache!"

I was just thinking how I talked about "vache" ("cow") in one of my posts about Chaucer's poem, "Truth." And lo! Here it is, in one of the brutal French taunting scenes of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. There's a bit of blasphemy at the end; sorry about that. I think what I love most about this little scene is Galahad's and Arthur's polite "English" reactions to the taunting, along with their resolution to attack. Of course, like so much in this film, the former is an anachronism. It might interest you to know that the English did not develop the reputation for their manners (cool or warm) until after the 16th century.
"What a strange person." "Now look here my good man!" "Is there someone else up there we could talk to?" Great.

Medieval Maps

Woo! You know this is bound to be an exciting post, right? Well, it is.

Traveling around in medieval Europe could not have been a fun thing...even the word travel comes from the French "travail," which we still use in English to indicate a suffering in labor. Mothers, you know what I'm talking about...better than I do. The Old English word for going around is "faran," which has a friendlier ring...imagine that. We still use it in a phrase like "fare you well," and it seems I've heard people ask me "So, how'd you fare?" and so on, but "travel" replaced "faran" as the more common usage quite a long time ago. (I don't think "far" is from the same word, but I'm not sure. In OE, it's "feorr.") I've thought a few times that, for those crazed Germanic raiders, it was easier to sail the ol' Channel, spoil the island, carry some stuff back or maybe settle down--easier to do that than actually, you know, build roads and stuff. Just use the old Roman ones, if you need 'em.

Anyway, there really weren't any road maps back in, say, the 14th century, and there really wasn't any reliable way to get from here to there, unless you were going by sea. Seems strange, doesn't it? The sea is a fickle, violent thing, and it has no landmarks, because...it's...well...not land. What it does have is skymarks. Stars, you know. If you think about it, you can be more familiar with the rhythms of the sky and sail by that really anywhere, so long as your vessel holds together and you keep yourself supplied. I know some sailor'll read this and be like, "Arrr! Ye keep barkin' up barnicles, an' Ah'll have te give ye the keel haul!" Well, don't do that. I'm not saying sailing is easy; I'm saying travelling around medieval Europe was rough. So, get off my back, sailor.

At the time, maps were products of artistic ingenuity, works of intellect and book learning, because real travelling was travail: "The world is thus and so, and therefore obviously it must be shaped thus and so." Not exactly what we think of as scientific. But maps weren't really meant as road guides. For example, there was a map in the 14th century (the mappa mundi at Hereford Cathedral, pictured above) which showed Scotland as an island. Now, Scotland is not an island, nor would any Englishman (or Scot, though he might wish it) believe that Scotland was an island. The "map" represented an abstract political idea, and thus it was meant as an intellectual guide rather than a travel guide.

Completely fascinating. Admit it. Do it. Right now. Admit your fascination to the computer screen, and I'll catch the vibes.

Flight Of The Conchords - Albi The Racist Dragon (live)

For old times' sake. I woke up this morning thinking about this song. This is for all the inhabitants of the Castle in the Sea.

"Such a high-minded boy..."

That's what my grandmother says, anyway. I went over to her house on Saturday, at which time she asked me the question, "Well, what have you been doing?" "Working. Reading Chaucer." "Mmm...well, have you eaten today?" Well, it's very grandmotherly of you to ask, grandmother (I thought to myself), and I said, "No way! No time! Chaucer!" which was true; I hadn't eaten. "Oh...such a high-minded boy..." My grandmother, by the way, can be a bit snide, but it's the kind of thing that I find amusing, more often than not. But then, my default reaction is amusement, which I do not associate with high-mindedness. It's the most modern thing about me. Everything else, however, is good and old, except for my body, but that won't tarry too long. So, in honor of old stuff and high minds, let's compare some pictures of St. Matthew, shall we? His is actually my "least favorite" (what a stupid phrase, but I can think of no better) of the Gospels, and yet the symbol we have for his Gospel is the only one that isn't a beast. I must aspire. Let's see some pictures of St. Matthew being inspired.

This is from from the Gospel book of Charlemagne, around 800 AD. He's all trimmed up, and on his face is an expression that is satisfied. I imagine him thinking, "Write a Gospel? Oh yeah. Everybody knows I've got this. I'm the guy with the monster halo, after all." He's literate and considerate, reading over what he has written, resting his arm in the folds of his robe, propping up one of his feet--a scholar without choler. Everything about it is subdued, solid, manly.

And then there's this. It's in the archbishop Ebbo of Reims's Gospels, drawn a little later than the one above, but not much later. The poor man is almost frantic and tense. Look at his wrinkled robes and his buggy eyes like he's been there worrying a while. Look at his hair, so disheveled and crisp. There's an angel in the top right-hand corner reading from a scroll, which is dipping down into St. Matthew's ink horn. He's got pen-to-paper trying to keep up with God. This may sound silly, but his square face and curly blond hair makes me think of a jock in the 70s, like this is someone who isn't usually in this kind of position. No halo.

Caravaggio. Around 1600. Need I say more? No, but I am. The reason this is in black-and-white is because it was in Berlin during WWII when it got bombed to smithereens, so we only have photographs. Horrible, in so many ways. But enough of that. It was actually rejected by the people who commissioned Caravaggio to paint it. Deemed improper. Idiots. St. Matthew is barefooted, and one of his feet is jutting out at us. He is muscular, an Italian working man, hunched, tight--another who is not used to being in this position. He is illiterate, and he looks with shock at what is happening on the page, while the angel, probably unseen by him, is literally (haha) guiding his hand. All three of these are different ways of interpreting inspiration. Just look at the thing.

Caravaggio again, replacing the one above. Compare them.

Well, have fun with that.

Truth Out Loud

So. I think I've managed to embed. This is a recording I made some time ago when I was practicing Old and Middle English, and listening to it now, I think I would say a few words differently, but on the whole I think it's pretty good. The air conditioner's on in the background. Chaucer didn't have that, but then, ol' Geoff didn't live in Memphis.

Also, a sidenote: who the heck knew that our own Geoffrey Chaucer was, like, 20 hands high?

Chaucer's Truth: Some Background

I wanted the poem to have its own entry (below this post), because it deserves it. I also want people to hear it, and though I've made a recording of myself reading it in Middle English, I can't seem to figure out how to get it on here. I'll work on that this weekend...at some point. Really it does need to be heard aloud. But there are some words and references in there that aren't so obvious to us nowadays, and I can run through them, because that's what I do on Friday nights. Ahem!

I'll start at the end, first line of the last stanza. Lots of people puzzled over "Vache" for a long time--who it was, or what it meant. Literally it means "cow" in French, which Chaucer knew, but it also seems meant for someone--Chaucer could have just written "cow" after all--and some scholar in the last century puzzled out who. There was a friend of Chaucer's named Sir Philip de la Vache, a man of court like Chaucer--how it was he came from a cow, I know not. But nevermind that. When I learned this, the first thing I thought of was the Theophilus adressed by St. Luke in his Gospel and the Book of Acts. How much do we need to consider that this book was written to someone? Not much, maybe. In fact, the last stanza of Truth is extant in only one of many manuscripts, and I doubt many of us keep ol' Theophilus assiduously in mind while reading the Gospel of our Lord. But it keeps us in mind that this is not just a treatise, something to know and nod our knowing heads at. It has a truth universal, but it also has a sticking point--on this Theophilus, this lover of God, or on Sir Philip of the Cow. In the case of Chaucer, remember his milieu (note the French word) is the court, or the "prees," the press, that most mirror gazing crowd. Chaucer himself was somewhat bourgeois (French again!). His father was a fairly wealthy merchant, obviously with connections, since he had his son sent to a royal household for training, but still a merchant. Chaucer learned the movements of court well and early, but that division was always there, and he obviously felt both the need to play the game (for survival's sake) and also somewhat of a distance from it by definition of his not being of noble blood. Thus he could see the effects of court on people and the world, probably better than those most embroiled in it; perhaps he could see the effects of court on himself, and it is not really clear whether he ever stopped playing the game.

But the name Vache also has obvious connections to the rest of the poem. Chaucer talks about beasts coming out of their stalls in the third stanza. Now, it just so happens that Chaucer made a translation of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, and it just so happens that I have read it. The "heye wey" is a phrase that Chaucer uses to describe (in translation) the end of Hercules's labors, which I won't recount here. I'll give you the modern(ish) English: "Go now then, you strong men, there as the high way of the great example leadeth you...for the earth, overcome, yieldeth the stars, which is to say, that when earthly lust is overcome, a man is made worthy of heaven." The beast is of the earth, and this is its home. Man also is of the earth, but has he also a "gost," a spirit, which is not of this earth, but from God in heaven--"Know thy contree, look up, thank God of al." Now, if anybody knew about fleeing the press, it was Boethius, and one can imagine why Chaucer would be drawn to him--he was a shining man of the "court" of his day, cast suddenly and unceremoniously by Fortuna into the abyss; Chaucer was a merchant's son, cast suddenly (though at an early age) into the court. Boethius was an "insider" cast out, Chaucer an outsider cast in. Either way, there was no security, no stability but that of the mind, that gotten by philosophy. Fortuna's wheel is another classical image, used famously by Boethius as well as by Chaucer in the second stanza of this poem..."hir that turneth as a bal."

Now, I haven't said too much about the poem itself, and I don't really intend to. I've just tried to provide context, and you don't necessarily need it. I don't always need it, but I find it enriching all the same. Only a few more notes on certain words and phrases that may cause pause: "sothfastnesse" is security or moral stability, while its opposite is "tykelnesse," which is insecurity or Fortune and desire. "Wele" is prosperity--earthly in this case--and "blent" means blind. "Rede" is counsel. "Spurne ayeyns an al" basically means "kick against the pricks." "Daunte" means control. "Buxumnesse." ...doesn't mean what you might think it means. It means humility or obedience. So...be buxum. "Mede" is reward. The wonderfully beautiful refrain "it is no drede" means "without a doubt," but I love the word "drede" for doubt. Can I just say also that I love the line, "Savour no more than thee bihove shal?" It just rolls out of the mouth. Try it. Pronounce the final "e" in "bihove," and the "ee" in "thee" is more like "ey" in "they," without enunciating the final "y." And now I'm just gushing.

Chaucer's Truth

Truth, or Balade de Bon Conseyl

Fle fro the prees, and dwelle with sothfastnesse,
Suffise unto thy good, though it be smal;
For hord hath hate, and clymbyng tykelnesse,
Prees hath envye, and wele blent over-al;
Savour no more than thee bihove shal;
Reule wel thyself, that other folk canst rede;
And trouthe thee shal delivere, it is no drede.

Tempest thee nought al croked to redresse,
In trust of hir that turneth as a bal:
Gret reste stant in litel besynesse;
Be war also to spurne ayeyns an al;
Stryve not, as doth the crokke with the wal.
Daunte thyself, that dauntest otheres dede;
And trouthe thee shal delivere, it is no drede.

That thee is sent, receyve in buxumnesse;
The wrastling for this world axeth a fal.
Here is non home, here nis but wyldernesse:
Forth, pilgrym, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stal!
Know thy contree, look up, thank God of al;
Hold the heye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede;
And trouthe thee shal delivere, it is no drede.

Therfore, thou Vache, leve thine old wrechedenesse;
Unto the world leve now to be thral;
Crie him mercy, that of his hye godnesse
Made thee of nought, and in especial
Draw unto him, and pray in general
For thee, and eek for other, hevenlych mede;
And trouthe thee shal delivere, it is no drede.

I Hate Biblical Criticism and Lit Theory. So there.

If you want to know how to get on my bad side, just start talking about all the different "theories" or "criticisms" in biblical or secular literature as a "given" to understand anything. Odds are, you would be tuned out so completely that you might doubt your own existence, if you're philosophically sensitive to that kind of thing. But lit theories...Ah! Friends! How I hate them all! In all my academic experience, nothing was ever so tiresome or did so much to turn my joys and sorrows to undifferentiated mush as when we started forcing literature through these tight tubes, whether it be "form criticism" (in biblical studies) or "queer theory" (in literature). It's funny, because the criticisms were supposed to be "liberating" and open up "new perspectives" and so on, when really they are the unkindest taskmasters. I know they must have been exciting at one time, but the excitement I think came from some lust for destruction--destruction of the "old" ways of looking at things--but now they're just old hat, and people must begin to see that they were only a virus of thought, latching on to works with lives of their own, injecting them with itself and exploding them into a pathetic viral goo that defiled eveything it touched. I just realized that probably most don't even know what I'm talking about. Oh well. Let me vent.

I've played with the idea of writing up an extremely condensed history of biblical criticism, but I think that's a bit much for a blog post, hey? It's good to know the history, though, because it shows that certain ways of thinking are not inevitable, no matter how many "intelligent" people may adhere to them. I pretty much know I couldn't write a history of lit theory, because I'd get so agitated I'd have a heart attack. Heart attacks are always bad and often lethal. "Sad. He was only 27." "What did he die of?" "He tried to write a history of lit theory." "Ah. Such a senseless death." "I know, I know. Like I said. Sad."

Yeah, scrap that. I think I'll just write about Chaucer some more. I think next on the reading list is Troilus and Criseyde. Been a while. I love Chaucer's English, Frenchied up though it is. Until I finish that, though, I'll just post whatever stuff.

Take THAT, men!

Tonight I saw a woman sporting a shirt that read: "If it wasn't for WOMEN...men would still be sitting in caves scratching themselves," and I thought, "What?!?! You mean it's women that keep me from all my self-scratching-while-cave-sitting-in? Dang it, I knew those monks were on to something." Anyway, apparently whatever clever person it was that designed that shirt forgot that men do not self-spawn, so if it weren't for women, there wouldn't be any men at all--just the one Man, chillin' in the shade of the Tree of Life and hanging out with God in the cool of the day. Well, I guess you just have to enter the spirit of the thing, for the letter killeth.

Whaaaaaaat?!?!

Well, I'll tell you whaaaaaaat: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park is opening in June. Certain people, reading certain things I've written here on this blog (which they certainly will, and I hope will derive a certain enjoyment from them), might be like, "Whaaaaaat?" I like the Harry Potter books, though it's funny, because whenever they are criticized, I can't bring myself to defend them, unless it's against people accusing them of being satanic or something. Reactionaries. But as far as its literary quality is concerned, I get it: it's certainly not what I would call inferior, but it's got too much deus ex machina (but hey, it's a magical world, right? Magical...stuff...anything can...happen...you know?); the main villain is really not that scary (to me); the causes for which the people fight frankly leave me emotionally blank--the class wars are boring to me, as well as the "I'm fighting for elf-rights" type plot lines; even the main characters often just annoy me, and my favorites, though they are often important for the plot, are usually peripheral: Lupin is my favorite, then Dumbledore, and so on; I don't like Quidditch; and when people get excited, Rowling decides TO WRITE LIKE THIS IN ALL CAPS CUZ SEE THAT'S A CUE FOR BEING UPSEEEEEET! I could go on. I'm not going to write an apologia right now, either. I'm not sure it would be very good, and anyway it's been done (or attempted) enough times to last at least ten years. But I do want to talk about one thing; it's what I think I love most about the books, and that's the settings, especially Hogwarts. To do that, I'm going to talk about something else.

When I was very young, I was a big fan of the X-Men comic book series. It actually had many of the same themes as Harry Potter: good versus evil (of course), children discovering they had unusual powers and being sent to a school to develop and control them, an outside world that distrusted them (much more of an issue in X-Men), failure to control power, lust for more power and its usually destructive consequences, and yes, the most boring but perhaps inevitable: tolerance. The powers that these people had were much more varied and idiosyncratic than those of witches and wizards, who all draw from a common tap of "magic." No, there were telekinetics, teleporters, a person with claws and the ability to heal very quickly, one with the ability to control metal via magnetic fields, another had the ability to blast energy beams out of his eyes, and so on. But they were sought out and brought to the X-mansion, domain of Professor Charles Xavier, the most powerful telepathic mind in the world. This is what I loved. The characters and their stories and conflicts were cool, yes, but there were certain editions when the entire comic was people hanging out at the mansion and learning from the tremendously intelligent and vastly learned Professor X, and these were my favorites. The ultimate X-Men publication for me was a book (I have no idea where it is now) about the mansion itself (even down to its architecture), which had so many mysteries and so many promises of secrets left to be explored. It was my Marauder's Map. I pored over it, over and over. After that, my interest in the comics gradually dwindled, and it was a sad moment when I realized I didn't care any more: once the whole "tolerance" theme became more and more central, with its increasing ties to sexuality and politics, I dropped it altogether, without then knowing or understanding why it had become so tiresome. I've never forgotten the X-mansion, however. It may sound silly, but it was one of the joys of my "pre-teen" years.

I've been thinking about all this because, like I said, they're opening the Wizarding World of Harry Potter this summer in Florida. It's basically Hogwarts Castle and the town of Hogsmeade (with rides, of course). I've seen pictures of Dumbledore's office and Olivander's Wand Shop (which is actually in Diagon Alley, not Hogsmeade, but whatever). Looks great.

I've already talked about how much I love guides. Virgil (and Dante, too), Athenodorus. But Charles Xavier fits in there, as does Remus Lupin and of course Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. These are all good teachers, and the love we bear for them is forever linked to the love we bear for knowing anything lovely. In fact, they are those links. It's one reason we love our mothers, if they're good teachers, as mine was. My own mother read me the Narnia books over and over, and she taught me my letters as well, and I'll always associate wonder with her voice.

This has turned into a long post. I'll only say that the most involved I ever got in the battle with Voldemort (or the Minsitry of Magic) was when they threatened to damage Hogwarts, the place of wonder and learning, to shape it into a thing unlovely. This was intolerable. Frankly, Voldemort could have the Muggles as far as I was concerned. But he tried to take over Hogwarts, and for that, more than any other thing, I knew that fool had to die.