God and Math

A while ago I challenged a friend to a math duel. The rules: we send original proofs back and forth, each trying to refute the other's, and at the end of the school year present them to our former math teacher, who will judge which is the 'coolest' proof and also the 'most impressive'. For the opening proof I went big:

Prove Euclid's definition of a point: 'that which has no part'.

I'll save you the infinite series notations, and explain this in a pseudo-philosophic way. Take a line segment, from 0 to 1. Now remove the middle third, inclusively, such that you have two line segments, from 0 to 1/3, and 2/3 to 1, including all end points. Now remove the middle third of those two, and keep doing that infinitely. Lets define the term "length" to mean the total "unremoved" portions, so at the beginning it is 1, then 2/3, and next 4/9. (This is called the 'Cantor Set', after a certain Georg Cantor, who did a lot of work with infinity, and such). The length becomes infinitely smaller, until it reaches 0 (this can be proven with an infinite series). Yet there are also an infinite number of points, since the end points can never be in the middle third, thus 0, 1/3, 2/3, and 1 are four of the infinitely many end points. This means that there is infinitely many points within 0 and 1, but infinitely little length. Therefore, a point has no part.

I thought that was cool enough, but then I encountered another Greek, Zeno of Elea. He cleverly pointed out that if a point has no part, no matter how many of them you stick together you will never get anything of substance (a line). So in the first place we have proven mathematically that a point does not have any length, yet that means that infinitely many points of no length somehow constitute length.

And people say there is not a God?

Mahler Symphony No. 2 - Text

Mvt. IV

Primeval Light (Urlicht)
O red rosebud!
Man lies in deepest need!
Man lies in deepest pain!
Oh how I would rather be in heaven.
There, I came upon a broad path;
There, came a little angel and wanted to send me away.
Ah no! I would not let myself be sent away!
I am from God and want to return to God!
The loving God will give me a little light,
Which will light me into that eternal blissful life!

Mvt. V

Rise again, yes, rise again,
Will you My dust,
After a brief rest!
Immortal life! Immortal life
Will He who called you, give you.
To bloom again were you sown!
The Lord of the harvest goes
And gathers in, like sheaves,
Us together, who died.
O believe, my heart, O believe:
Nothing to you is lost!
Yours is, yes yours, is what you desired
Yours, what you have loved
What you have fought for!
O believe,
You were not born for nothing!
Have not for nothing, lived, suffered!
What was created
Must perish,
What perished, rise again!
Cease from trembling!
Prepare yourself to live!
O Pain, You piercer of all things,
From you, I have been wrested!
O Death, You masterer of all things,
Now, are you conquered!
With wings which I have won for myself,
In love’s fierce striving,
I shall soar upwards
To the light which no eye has penetrated!
Its wing that I won is expanded,
and I fly up.
Die shall I in order to live.
Rise again, yes, rise again,
Will you, my heart, in an instant!
That for which you suffered,
To God will it lead you!

On The Eucharist

Every now and then I wish I was a parish priest. This never occurs out of any reasonable desire for such a life, but mostly because I with the parish priests we do have were better at their jobs, a job which I as a layman am incapable of fulfilling.

Understanding that, if I were a parish priest next Sunday's homily would be on the Eucharist. It's relevant for a few reasons: one, it means thanksgiving, and my parishioners would be fresh off their Thanksgiving festivities, likely to enjoy left over turkey after mass. Such a topic is a sermon on it's own, but more to the point, I'd address what's going on in Rhode Island, with our pro-abortion supposedly-Catholic Congressman Patrick Kennedy. If you haven't heard, here's the long and short of it: Bishop Tobin reminded Congressman Kennedy that his pro-abortion stance is in fundamental disagreement with the Church's teachings. Kennedy said "that doesn't make me any less Catholic"; Bp. Tobin said "well, actually it does... being Catholic means you assent to Catholic teaching. Because of this, it isn't proper for you to receive the Eucharist".

So today I went to the dreaded (unfortunately!) Newman Center, giving it one last chance to redeem itself by presenting Church history in a positive light, or impressing the necessity of the sacraments, or faithfully teaching Church teaching. Unfortunately I was let down on all three fronts. What got me most worked up was the comment "I have largely ignored the Bishops and The Pope. I have no time for anybody who is going to say that you cannot receive The Eucharist".

I have no doubt that this gentleman speaks out of an understanding of the love and community of The Church, which is a fundamental message of the Gospel, no doubt. I don't think he is as much of a schismatic as he professes, I think he's just uneducated. And furthermore I think the majority of Catholics are just like him; the majority of non-Catholics no doubt simply do not understand the Church. So as a parish priest I would rectify the situation.

See, The Eucharist is The Body of Jesus. That is central to the whole thing. He said "this is my body", and that explains it quite well... that fact, as you might have guessed, has some implications, to put it mildly. Firstly, The Eucharist ought to be treated with extreme reverence: its God after all. I would encourage my parishioners to receive the Eucharist on the tongue, rather than holding Jesus in their hands. It's curious that we will use a fork so that our mashed potatoes and gravy doesn't touch our hands, but we won't take a simple measure to avoid The Eucharist touching our hands. But more to the point, the individual receiving The Eucharist must be in a state to do so! It's not as if we can ever merit receiving Jesus, or merit anything he did for us, or merit the fact that he existed at all, but what we can do is at least show a little respect.

Perhaps a whimsical example would illustrate the situation: imagine a average looking high school nerd right around prom time. By some miraculous event he ends up going to the prom with the best looking (read "most modest"), nicest (read "most Christian") gal in the school! In preparing for the prom he surely realizes that he is not worthy of such a wonderful date, nor is anything he does in the duration of the night going to earn him any merit, so is he going to show up in jeans, without having showered? No! He's going to dress himself up nice, clean his car and use a spray of cologne! That's what the Eucharist is like! It's not as if you are ever going to impress upon God the necessity of him giving you Jesus; he gives it to you out of love, just like the girl goes with the boy out of love, not out of any self-interest.

Make sure that you are in a worthy state to receive, lest you offend the God who so lovingly gave himself to you. Bp. Tobin isn't being a jerk; he's actually being all the more loving: he doesn't want Congressman Kennedy to have the grave sin of a sinful communion on his soul! And it truly would be sinful, lest we believe that The Church does not express the will of God in it's teachings, at which point you're really unprepared to receive the Eucharist anyways.

Recently I convinced an (now former!) nonpracticing Catholic to being going to Sunday mass with me. Unfortunately he did not go to Confession before. Now, time comes around to receive the Eucharist, and he gets in line! I said "wait! Did you go to confession?" and he said "No..." with a mostly-confused, slightly-angered look on his face. Thanks be to God he did not receive the Eucharist, and he later thanked me for reminding him. But what's going on! I haven't been Catholic for a whole year yet, and somehow these kids who were raised in The Church aren't aware, or at least it's not a pressing issue, that they need to be free of mortal sin, as a bare minimum, to receive the Eucharist? I'm proud to report that he went to confession for the first time in 5 years and became the second person I have had a meal with at Eau Claire who is in full standing with the Roman Catholic Church! He confessed to 82 year old, nearly miniature, Monsignor Klimick, who, so the penitent reported, dropped his Bible when he reported that it had been 5 years since his last confession. I made sure to find an extra loving priest for his return confession, and aside from his slippery fingers, I'm sure Monsignor Klimick fit the bill: the crusty priests are the real softies.

Hopefully you could walk away from mass understanding why it is that The Eucharist is not fit for reception by anybody who is not in full communion with The Church. It's not an elite club, and it's not a superiority thing: it's an issue of gratitude for what you are doing, and ultimately the Church hierarchy is only interested in protecting it's members, and it's non-members, from grave sin, nothing more, nothing less. Like everything else in life, you have to do a little work to reap the rewards of The Eucharist, and what a reward it is!

UGH!

How could any young Catholic boy not feel like they're missing out on something getting married?

Would you have some decency please!

ORA PRO NOBIS, SANCTO AUGUSTINUS HIPPONENSIS!

So last night I showed up to what I thought was going to be a rather innocent residence hall association meeting, only to soon learn that the next activity set for planning is "Sex in the Dark". Initially I figured "can't (and surely don't) people have sex in the dark on their own accord... what do we have to plan this for." I found out soon enough that the idea is to gather in a hall basement, turn off the lights so that nobody can see each other, and ask "experts" (anonymously, read without consequence) questions about sex. I quote experts, because I doubt anything real like this, or even this will come up (by the way, isn't New Advent the best thing since sliced bread? I verified this humorous bit on just that website today).

BEATUS VIR QUI NON ABIIT IN CONSILIO IMPIORUM

ET IN VIA PECCATORUM NON STETIS

IN CATHEDRA DERISORUM NON SEDIT!!

After the meeting I went to get my now-traditional ice cream cone (a tradition that may soon be stopping, due to the weather) when I ran into some people I knew. I have come to quite enjoy eating by myself, because I don't really enjoy the conversations that occur, and, unlike high school, where I suffered the same thing, it is quite possible to live your whole college life talking to nobody, with anybody caring to disrupt that situation. But alas, sometimes you get wrapped into it, and I didn't have the conviction to decline their offers. Once again I was sorely disappointed as one gentleman, and I use that term extremely loosely, went on to discuss his sex life, quoting his girlfriend as saying "well, if we got the parts we mind as well use them". He further dismayed me by "assuring" me that they rolled out of bed and went to mass together the next morning, where the priest, in hopes of preventing the swine flu, promoted a fist bump approach to the sign of peace, right before the sinful couple was going to frivolously receive the Eucharist.

MEMORARE, O PIISIMA VIRGO MARIA!

So, I was pretty well disgusted with it all when, much to my dismay, I walked past the pro-choice club meeting today. Now, I don't mean to disparage their existence, because, while they are misguided and wrong, that doesn't negate their right to have a club, in the same way that it wouldn't be right to deny advocates of another Jewish Holocaust the right to organize (right?). But it was their sign that set me off. I should point out that groups usually don't have signs, much less a larger piece of presentation board with condoms all over it. Now, please tell me, what does the pro-choice movement even stand for now? It used to be, "this poor woman was raped, she should not have to give birth to the resulting kid", which is a tragic circumstance indeed, and it is at least understandable how a misguided person, poorly trained in ethics (and it's difficulties) might have lapsed.

DOMINE DEUS MEUS IN TE SPERAVI

SALVA ME AB OMNIBUS PERSEQUENTIBUS ME

ET LIBERA ME!

But it's just sex all the time now! Sex, sex, sex! Lets have sex without consequence (good or bad I might add)! Lets have sex without cares (for ourselves our the person we "love", if we are even that noble)! Lets have sex for no reason at all! If you got the parts, you mind as well use them, right?

AUDITORIUM NOSTRUM IN NOMINE DOMINI

QUI FECIT CAELUM ET TERRAM!

College

Rapture

As you know, I'm reading St. Theresa of late. I couldn't help but laughing today. After treating 4 stages of prayer she treats rapture. She says offhandedly: "sometimes my whole body has been affected, to the point of being raised up from the ground," and continues "but once, when we were together in choir, and I was on my knees and about to communicate, it caused me the greatest distress. It seemed to me a most extraordinary thing [no kidding...] and I thought there would be a great deal of talk about it [understandable]; so I ordered the nuns not to speak of it. On other occasions, when I have felt that the Lord was going to enrapture me (once it happened during a sermon, on our paternal festival, when some great ladies were present), I have lain on the ground and the sisters have come and held me down, but none the less the rapture has been observed.

I didn't think I'd ever be provoked to laughter reading about rapture, but God is just too weird to let anything he does be normal.

P(Contemplative) ^ P(Healthy) = .98

Lately I've been pondering all sorts of ways I could become rich and famous using statistics.

My first idea was to become the actuary of the monasteries. I have no idea how monasteries handle their health care needs, but I could do a monster survey, taking into account everything that is cool about all the different types of monks (contemplative/active, eat meat/don't eat meat, sleep/don't sleep, wear the habit/don't wear the habit) and statistically determine how much money these monasteries ought to save for health care expenses! Unfortunately I don't think monasteries are looking for elaborate mathematics to ensure health... they're too cool to care about such things.

But then I figured that I could write a news column. Everybody loves a witty news column right? Each week I would go out on the streets with a tape recorder, and ease-drop on people's conversations, and later record different aspects of their speech. For instance, while sitting at the lunch table I often hear about the excessive drinking habits of the friends of those sitting around me. I would mathematically show (to put some teeth behind the decidedly light commentary) that students here are more likely to use the word "fucked up" or "trashed" to describe an inebriated friend than simply "drunk". Of course I'd have to insert a good quantity of wit into the whole thing, but I would show how it is that these students seem to be enamored with destruction and ruin. Perhaps the surprisingly well-written and well-balanced newspaper on campus will have more interest in me than the Carmelites.

Unfortunately I didn't come up with this idea, but another genius did: over at CentSports.com they give you 10 cents for signing up to their sports gambling website. You get the 10 cents completely free, and when you get $20 you can cash out your money. The idea is genius when you consider the math involved (the study of risks: actuarial science!). See, the 10 cents doesn't actually exist. The company could have absolutely no money in their bank account when they started, and give out 10 cents to the whole world. It's only by time that the user multiplies his money 200 times that he can get a single cent out of the company. How prone is the company to a freak sports event? How many clicks (advertising money) does it take to win your $20? How many users will stop using the website after a while, turning their clicks into pure profit? The math behind this would be wonderful!

Party Sufferings!

So I've been reading St. Theresa's "Life" in the library recently. I don't know why, but it seems so romantic to me to go into the library every time I want to read the book, and go to the section BX, second stack in, second shelf from the bottom, and select the book. I re-read her chapter treating the beginning prayer life today. She was discussing how it is that beginners are anxious about their prayers and agonize over their spiritual progress, rather than commending yourself to God. She also touched on sufferings, and how it is that the Lord sees fit to give us sufferings, but that we must patiently endure them, because he loves us, and how could we doubt that in his infinite love and wisdom he isn't always bringing us closer to him, even if it doesn't feel good.

It was the sort of reading that easily starts to fly over your head, not because of it's wild complexity, like St. Thomas, but because of it's wild simplicity. Now, on my way to the library I saw in a field a large snow penis. It's not uncommon to see artistic renderings of the twig and berries here on campus. About a week ago several large rocks were assembled to the effect that all those walking over the river bridge were gifted with the sight of the larger-than-life one-eyed trousersnake. So, while I'm reading about prayer, and how great God is, and thanking him for all the wonderful sufferings he gives me, and asking him if just maybe he'd let me be a Carmelite because all my experience with the Carmelites, including Theresa, tells me that they are really cool, and I'd like to suffer the rest of my life, only to gain my reward at death; all I could think about was plowing through this penis. It's been some time since I've played football, but I've been watching football on TV on Sundays (as part of my commitment to myself to spend 2 hours a week being simply lazy) and I had in my mind a rushing defensive end, having shoved his blocker aside, who is running at the quarterback. The unsuspecting passer has his back turned to the warrior, and, when he least expects it, he is nailed in the back, torn down like a gazelle on the Serengetie. Alas, Theresa dedicated some time to the distractions which come in prayer when you are attached to this world.

So I did it. I walked out of the library and the bell tower rang 7pm. I knew it was meant to be, for after all, who can say that they ran into a snow penis at 7pm on October the Twelfth, in the Year of Our Lord 2009! God truly blesses his children! I advanced towards the snow creation, and when I was about 100 feet away I broke into a run. I had some pro-life literature with me, so it was decided early on that I should transfer that from my right arm to my left arm. Completing the transfer I put out my right arm, in preparation for the splitting blow. I lowered my shoulder, and pow! The penis broke in two!

I then immediately thought of St. Therese of the Little Flower, who, when she was caught being noisy simply ran away! She stood on the top of the stairs proclaiming victory over her desire to defend herself, even though she was most guilty. Of course I wasn't guilty of anything. Sure, there were plenty of giggling girls who were photographing the penis who would be disappointed when they saw the decimation. And sure, I was inflicting my anti-penis sculpture values on the rest of the campus. But it was so worth it. So I ran away like a little child until I rounded the corner.

So, I implore you: accept the sufferings of the Lord most humbly. Perhaps he will give you a pain, or keep you up all night unable to sleep, or let everybody be wholly indifferent to you so that your vanity has no fields to sow itself in! Or best yet, maybe he'll inflict you with the misuse of His Name, and the Blessed Name of His Son all day! And this world doesn't even compare. As wonderful as it was to slam into the snow penis, that strikes me as utterly boring compared to the wonders of Heaven.

Blessed be God.
Blessed be His Holy Name.
Blessed be Jesus Christ, True God and True Man.
Blessed be the Name of Jesus. Blessed be His Most Sacred Heart.
Blessed be His Most Precious Blood.
Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete. Blessed be the Great Mother of God, Mary Most Holy.
Blessed be her Holy and Immaculate Conception.
Blessed be her Glorious Assumption.
Blessed be the Name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most Chaste Spouse.
Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints.

Snow!

I woke up to snow this morning! Cardigan season is finally here!

I hope the "Party for Trees" fails because nobody loves their trees enough to freeze for them.

Perhaps Hickory Tate will be there? He was on the front page of the school newspaper for holding a picnic in honor of the Council Oak, which, thanks to our mother the earth, will not be removed.

Abecedarius Rex wrote about manliness recently (and here also, I suppose). Now, a certain Gunnar Andreen came to talk about sustainability as a source of business profit a few days ago. My accounting teacher announced the event several times, and I could just tell that he wanted to say "gunner", as in one who shoots a gun, but he forced himself to say "goon-er", as in one who is a goon. Perhaps I'm way off the mark, but is sustainability (and cultural sensitivity) making men like my accounting teacher and Hickory Tate sissies? Would we have put a gun in Mr. Andreen's name 50 years ago?

A New Word

I learnt the word "isogloss" on Friday. It is an imaginary line on a map which distinguishes between two different uses for the same word. The Atlantic Ocean (or even "the pond") is a huge isogloss. We wear our boots and bonnets, they pop them (meaning trunk and hood of a car repectively). We fish in our ponds. Over there to "knock somebody up" is to wake them up from sleeping. A more local example: those in Eastern Wisconsin almost universally use the word "water fountain" to describe a fountain from which you drink from. Those in Western Wisconsin (and Minnesota, I can attest) use the word "water fountain" to mean an outdoor statue which spurts water. Of course we understand the usage of the two words, but, at least using my class as evidence, it's an actual phenomenon. I also learned that the folks in Eastern Wisconsin call outdoor watery statues "bubblers".

Which brings me to another thing I learnt: the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis says that you are only as smart as the words you know (anyone else find my crude definition ironic? I digress). As an example, if the theory holds true, not having a word for the color yellow would make you unable to comprehend yellowness. Of course you'd see the same banana that everybody else saw, but you'd have to call the color something else. Thus, your ability to distinguish between colors would be far less than somebody who spoke another language, because you'd never distinguish between yellow and orange. Perhaps this is a better example: in English you can feel frustrated, perturbed, agitated, exasperated, infuriated, wrathfull, uncontrolled and impassioned, but if the only word you know is "mad", you have no way of expressing your feeling with any more certainty. Perhaps you will struggle to describe your exact feeling with words you know, but likely you never figured there were any different types of mad, and you're content to just call yourself mad.

Am I portraying my Minnesotan ethnocentrism when I say that the Eastern Wisconsinites and their word "bubbler" says something about their intellect?

Questions

I learned early on in my life that asking the right questions in politics is a wonderfully fun experience. I'll explain:

A liberal literature professor was talking to a group I was in, explaining to us the imense worth of the "campus climate survey" which we will be taking in the coming weeks. He explained that this will inform "equitable and inclusive" action for years to come. He also mentioned that the last time a survey like this was administered was 11 years ago. Now, the witty minds out there know that this liberal bunch of manure needs to be outed, but how? The perfect question came out of the crowd: "so what was done 11 years ago"? [Long pause] "Well... I don't know, but I'd guess nothing".

And again, a residence hall was promoting it's Friday night "Condom bingo" as the best thing since sliced bread, and the question emmerges "What's the point"? [Long pause] "Well... it could be fun".

We just gotta ask the questions the liberals don't want to answer.

No lie...

$2.5 million is being spent to consider alternate designs for the new campus center to avoid removing the Council Oak Tree. To be fair, the tree is featured in the UWEC crest, and has some sort of Indian significance, but it should also be remembered that the actual tree died... this is an impostor oak. This was decided in the same week that the city council approved the original plans.

The same chancellor who elected to save the tree (might I suggest that $2.5 million could have been used as an effective landscaping budget to place plenty of greenery around the new building) is also leading the Tour de Chancellor, to support clean commuting. Of course it's non-competitive.

The local Newman Center, when there are few people in the congregation, celebrates mass by inviting the congregation to surround the alter for the entirety of the Liturgy of the Eucharist, neglecting to kneel at all. A rather flagrant liturgical abuse huh? Unfortunately the kids here don't think so. Where did we go wrong? I've been Catholic for 6 months and I know that the congregation stays away from the alter until after the priest's communion. This rule is commonly violated when the army of alter server's assembles so that the distribution takes 7 seconds, during which the priest can hastily clean the vessels, and get right to the fun stuff: announcements! Even the most liberal Catholics kneel! What's up? They don't even have a crucifix on the wall. Not even a Lutheran no-Jesus crucifix. Not'in!

Serving as the representative for the all-male sanctuary which is Emmet Horan Hall to the Ideas and Improvements board of the Resident's Hall Association I realized that all improvements in modern society are going to come down to how green they are. The hand dryers currently installed in the resident hall bathrooms are worthless. Because they dry your hands so unsuccessfully, most people simply choose to use their pants, or walk away with wet hands. The proposal for a more effective method of drying your hands was proposed. Understanding that paper towels are perceived as ungreen, a more effective hand dryer was suggested. But unfortunately these hand dryers use more energy than the current ones. But the humorous kicker: if we improved the hand dryers, people would actually use them, which would even further increase energy use. Why don't car manufacturs start making cars that only go 3mph, so it ends up being more effective to just walk?

I'd like to add that the University is being sued by the Sierra club for burning coal in their power plant. What an awkward position for the ultra liberals to be in. Imagine it... your all puffed up because in a week your going to go biking to promote freezing your butt off in the middle of winter biking to school (global warming?), when you get slapped with a law suit for burning too much coal. I can just envision it:

Ultra-Liberals who run UWEC: We propose that we offset our carbon emissions with carbon credits, as long as you drop the law suit.
Sierra Club: But think of the irreparable damage you've done so far.
Ultra-Liberals who run UWEC: Fine, we'll pay for the last 116 years of coal use.
(aside) we'll just raise tuition.

Christian Perception

So many things in the Christian life are about perception. I will give a few examples, and please remember suffering is redemptive!:

Due to computer malfunctions, only 1/4 of my math lab was printed, and so me and my group only got 1/4 of the points. It would have all been a rather simple fix except that the computer was unable to save the file, so we had to do it again. Now, to the grade-grubbing girl in my group this was horrible. "Maybe we won't get full credit! Maybe we won't be able to figure it out again!" Oh! Ye of little perseverance! What a great opportunity to humble ourselves, one ought to think. We did all of the work, knew all of the stuff, and we didn't get the grade for it. We were cheated! What a wonderful opportunity to endure! And of course, as it always does, things turn out wonderfully if only you let God make it so. We re-did 2 hours of work in 30 minutes and got to go up to our math teacher's office, where he was sitting with his lights out on his computer. He got up, after I alerted him that his stapler was out of staples, and he says "it's dark in here! Oh wait, I didn't turn the lights on".

Lately I've been pondering the plights of parish priests. They must be very lonely people: they live, without a wife, with few friends who don't view him primarily as their priest... they live alone. But what a gift that really is! Mary was given an immense gift in remaining a virgin because she didn't have to complicate her life with sex. I'm surprised college students haven't realized this... Priests are given the gift of not having sex! So too, they are given the gift of being alone. Thomas a Kempis is unrelenting in his prohibitions against frivolous conversation: only those who love silence can break it; only those who hate company can have it. If we love any of these things we close ourselves off to the love of God. Now, I'm not saying that these men are never a little annoyed with their gifts; the likely feel as if they were the wife who received a washing machine for her birthday. But such wives are overly attached to material goods, and so too such priests are overly attached.

I have to walk 2 miles to mass on Sunday and 3 miles to confession on Saturday, and because of my club feet I often find myself limping around hoping to not step on my foot the wrong way and send pain shooting up to my knee, and then I screw something up from limping all the time, and it all goes down hill very quickly. But what an opportunity the Lord has given me! I can trust in him to make my walks bearable. And again, such trust is always rewarded in this world, but even our consolations you have to be prepared to receive. There is a joy which comes with giving yourself to God! Hearing a leaf scuttle across the pavement, or being able to crush little cherries falling from the tree by your foot, or having somebody say "hi" to you; what gifts from God! God knows just how to please us... he made us!

You'll never be able to bear any suffering if you insist upon the misery of it to yourself. If you insist on the necessity of what you don't have, if you dwell on the urge (wrong, or often times completely legitimate, right and healthy) that isn't satisfied in you. You have to mediate on the goodness of the Lord! You have to mediate on how good He is to you! Is it any wonder that the Psalms, despite the rather undesirable life the Jews lived, are constantly filled with commands to meditate on the goodness of the Lord, to Love him, etc. I stopped observing feast days while praying the LoH for a while because the actual psalms often come from the First Sunday's psalms, and they are just obnoxiously gushing with praise of God. What a foolish man I am!

Mere Semantics

"Please discard your cigarette's in the proper recepticle".

Teacher>> What is wrong with the above sentence? Billy, do you know?
Billy>> Well yes... I think that cigarettes should not have an appostrophy. It isn't possesing anything.
Teacher>> Yes Billy! Absolutly correct.

That is a scene which ought to be played out in 2nd grade classrooms across America, and yet, sadly, on college campuses today employees much older than Billy prove to have much less control over the English language. Another example, though perhaps more picky:

"Please do not walk in the flower beds, it is killing the flowers".

Here we have a comma seperating two complete sentences. I should point out that what seperates me from any real grammarian is that I have no clue what that missused comma is called. No, I am just an ordinary guy who knows the English language. At any rate, you cannot seperate two complete sentances with a comma. A period is most commonly used for this, though (my personal preferance) a semi-colon can be used. Observe:

WRONG: Dick went to the store, Bill went to school.
CORRECT: Dick went to the store. Bill went to school.
CORRECT: Dick went to the store; Bill went to school.
OR EVEN: Dick went to the store while Bill went to school.

We have a wonderful language, and it pains me to see it trampled on like this. Or perhaps I should say:

Please do not trample on the English language; it is making us sound like idiots.

Allocate Your Profanities... Please!

So I'm in the laundry room, throwing my clothes into the dryer, and as I vacate the washing machine another member of the Most Honorable All-Male Emmet Horan Hall is tossing his clothes into the washer. He finishes throwing them in, and realizes he forgot his detergent. But this wasn't an passive forgetting... no. His response to this event was "holy fuck!".

And it occurred to me that, 1) not only is it a problem that college students are SO PROFANE, but 2) they don't bother to think of what they are actually saying. Something like forgetting your detergent deserves a "darn!" or possibly even "shit!", if your having a particularly bad day. But at the point when "holy fuck!" becomes your expletive for forgetting your detergent, what are you going to use for anything else? Nothing holds any meaning any more. You've reached the top with forgetting your detergent! If your leg gets run over by a car, your verbal reaction can be no more emphatic than forgetfulness. If you hammer your thumb into the wall, you got nothing. There is a 104 step stairwell to my dorm here at Eau Claire; you fall down that and, if you can still speak, you got nothing. See the problem?

College students just don't think about what they are saying any more. Requesting God to damn something is a grave act that, well, really isn't our job, right or option. Why can't girls say "I don't intend to be mean/rude/obnoxious" instead of "I don't intend to be a bitch"? It's even more descriptive! You can't carry a conversation with most, even the most gentile of girls without them using God's name in vain. Nothing is ever difficult or confusing any more: it's fucked up.

My roommate is from China, and he tells me that Chinese has far more expletives than English. Perhaps that is our problem: there simply aren't enough words to go around? No! There are plenty of words to go around. I know them because a) I learned them in school and b) I think! The epidemic of poor choice of words infects all words. Look at the word 'decent'. Most people truncate the second syllable these days, saying simply "dec" to describe something which is adequate, sufficient or mediocre, acceptable, unexceptional, or, if words with 3 or more syllables scare you, fair or good.

Please, allocate your profanities properly! I don't care if you say, as drummer Phil Hay did, "I might use words that you guys aren't used to", but at least he did so intelligently!

Liturgia Horarum

Lately I've been clutching to my Liturgia Horarum. I don't normally pray Matins, principally because I can't understand the readings, and it is called "The Office of Readings" in the new hours. As an aside, I love that the hours have their own atitudes. Lauds is such a "isn't God great!" type of hour (which is why I thought the insertion of Psalm 42 (43) was a bit odd today...),while Compline is a "I'm horrible! The world is horrible! Save me God!" type of hour, and Vespers strikes me as the happy medium; the perfect hour to pray before dinner, when that 4 o'clock slouch hits you. At any rate, lately the readings (of Matins) have been coming from Jeremiah and The Imitation of Christ, two books that I happen to have. So, in fulfillment of my promise to sport some more Latin (which will always be in italics) on this blog I present to you the readings from Matins today, Tuesday in the Twenty Second week of Ordinary Time:

De libro Ieremiae prophetae (20,7-18)
(English Translation)

seduxisti me Domine et seductus sum
fortior me fuisti et invaluisti
factus sum in derisum tota die
omnes subsannant me

quia iam olim loquor vociferans
iniquitatem et vastitatem clamito
et factus est mihi sermo Domini
in obprobrium et in derisum tota die

et dixi non recordabor eius
neque loquar ultra in nomine illius
et factus est in corde meo quasi ignis exaestuans
claususque in ossibus meis et defeci ferre non sustinens

audivi enim contumelias multorum
et terrorem in circuitu
persequimini et persequamur eum
ab omnibus viris qui erant pacifici mei et custodientes latus meum
si quo modo decipiatur et praevaleamus adversus eum
et consequamur ultionem ex eo

Dominus autem mecum est quasi bellator fortis
idcirco qui persequuntur me
cadent et infirmi erunt
confundentur vehementer quia non intellexerunt
obprobrium sempiternum quod numquam delebitur

et tu Domine exercituum
probator iusti qui vides renes et cor
videam quaeso ultionem tuam ex eis
tibi enim revelavi causam meam

cantate Domino laudate Dominum
quia liberavit animam pauperis
de manu malorum

maledicta dies in qua natus sum
dies in qua peperit me mater mea
non sit benedicta

maledictus vir qui adnuntiavit patri meo
dicens natus est tibi puer masculus
et quasi gaudio laetificavit eum

sit homo ille ut sunt civitates
quas subvertit Dominus
et non paenituit eum
audiat clamorem mane et ululatum in tempore meridiano

qui non me interfecit a vulva
ut fieret mihi mater mea sepulchrum
et vulva eius conceptus aeternus

quare de vulva egressus
sum ut viderem laborem et dolorem
et consumerentur in confusione dies mei


E Libro De imitatione Christi (Lib. 3, 14)
(English Translation)
1. Intonas super me judicia tua, Domine, et timore ac tremore concutis omnia ossa mea et expavescit anima mea valde. Sto attonitus et considero, quia cæli non sunt mundi in conspectu tuo. Si in Angelis reperisti pravitatem, nec tamen epercisti, quid fiet de me. Ceciderunt stellæ de cælo, et ego pulvis quid præsumo? Quorum opra videbantur laudabilia, ceciderunt ad infima, et qui comedebant panem Angelorum, vidi siliquis delectari porcorum.
2. Nulla est ergo sanctitas, si manum tuam retrahas, Domine. Nulla sapientia prodest, si gubernare desistas. Nulla juvat fortitudo, si conservare desinas. Nulla secura castitas, si eam non protegas. Nulla propria prodest custodia, si non adsit tua sancta vigilantia. Nam relicti mergimur et perimus; visitati autem: vivimus et erigimur. Instabiles quippe sumus, sed propter te confirmamur; tepescimus, sed a te accendimur.
3. O, quam humiliter et abjecte mihi de me ipso sentiendum est, quam nihili pendendum est si quid boni videor habere. O, quam profunde me submittere debeo sub abyssalibus tuis judiciis, Domine; ubi nihil aliud me esse invenio, quam nihil et nihil. O, pondus immensum, o pelagus instransnatabile, ubi nihil de me reperio, quam in totum nihil. Ubi est ergo latebra gloriæ? Ubi confidentia de gloria concepta? Absorpta est omnis gloria vana in profunditate judiciorum tuorum super me.
4. Quid est omni caro in conspectu tuo? Numquid gloriabitur lutum contra formantem se? Quomodo potest erigi vaniloquio, cujus cor in veritate subjectum est Deo? Non eum totus mundus erigeret, quem sibi subjecit veritas. Nec omnium laudantium ore movebitur, qui totam spem suam in Deo firmavit. Nam et ipsi qui loquuntur, ecce omnes nihil, et deficient cum sonitu verborum. Veritas autem Domini manet in æternum.

Musical Oberservations While Packing

As I pack for college and listen to Brahms, I can't help but wonder if there is a necessary connection between higher education and drinking: his Academic Overture is a potpourri of drinking song!

As an aside, I have decided that this blog needs far more Latin, with English translations a click away. Today your click comes in the form of a Wikepedia article. One such drinking song is Gaudeamus igitur (a more inebriated example was not available, sadly):

Maria's Music does not support the views or opinions expressed here in (the fifth verse especially), but simply wishes the world would sing drinking songs more often in this day and age.

Gaudeamus igitur juvenes dum sumus.
Post jucundum juventutem, post molestam senectutem
Nos habebit humus.

Ubi sunt qui ante nos in mundo fuere?
Vadite ad superos transite in inferos
Hos si vis videre..

Vita nostra brevis est brevi finietur.
Venit mors velociter rapit nos atrociter
Nemini parcetur.

Vivat academia vivant professores,
Vivat membrum quodlibet vivat membra quaelibet,
Semper sint in flore.

Vivant omnes virgines faciles, formosae.
Vivant et mulieres tenerae amabiles
Bonae laboriosae.

Vivant et republica et qui illam regit.
Vivat nostra civitas, maecenatum caritas
Quae nos hic protegit.

Pereat tristitia, pereant osores.
Pereat diabolus, quivis antiburschius
Atque irrisores.

Well, this all led to a YouTube search of drinking songs. It's quite a popular thing among colleges I guess... MIT does a good one (catch the quote around 4:30?), and the same tune here again (and again)... U of Michigan Ann Arbor...

Spiritual Growth

Fundamentally there are two types of people in the world: those who reconcile themselves to human nature, and those who reject it. After that, the only way people distinguish themselves is by how willing they are to pursue that. A school friend of mine recommended I read "Prayer: Living With God" by Simon Tugwell (she was recommended the book by another Dominican). Being quite willing to pursue my humanity, understanding my condition to the full, I checked it out, and it has paid off.

Tugwell makes the claim (by his admision copying Aquinas) that humility is rooted in the proper understanding of our humanity, and central to that is the fall of man. There he goes to St. Irenaeus (not St. Augustine), who claimed that man was born immature, and God intended for him to grow up slowly, but man was too hasty, and suffers the consequenses. This is reasonable enough. By eating the apple man grew up too quickly: he took knowledge that he wasn't ready to handle. It's the reason why we don't tell our 4 year old children there are souls burning in hell for all eternity. They aren't ready to handle such a reality.

Here is the amazing part: God, knowing that his beloved 4 year old now knew far too much about himself than he was able to handle made him mortal! He ended his sufferings. Man truly does know God's mind, in the small way that our mind is capable to handle such things. It's not any of our buisness to about sin, heaven, or hell. Why? None of it has anything to do with us really. Oh how I wish the world knew this: the saints do not preach fire and brimstone! Their message is one of love! Jesus is a burning funace of charity. Every drop of water in the ocean would not account for our sins, yet all that water would not cause any hesitation to the fire which is God's love for us. We messed up, but God loved us too much to let it really hurt.

Being a saint is not a matter of not sinning. It's not a matter of aeseticism. It's not a matter of anything! You just have to be yourself. Of course, this is wildly difficult in this day and age. I'm wasn't the kind of guy to play music. It's not that music is bad: God creates people who can play music, but not me. There are different religious orders because everybody is called to do different things. It would be misery for some people to contemplate God in silence all day, and, so too, some people simply could not contain themselves if they had to live with (not in) the world each day.

All you have to do to be a saint is be yourself. You have to understand your human nature. That's no easy task, be so warned. No easy task at all: confronting yourself never is. Crosses and pennences, spiritual reading and prayer, these are all just ways to understand your human nature. Of course they are good for other things too; don't missunderstand me, prayer is not all about us. But at the course of the spiritual life is the pressing desire to reconcile yourself to yourself. (To continue St. Irenaeus' understanding) to do this is to grow up.

True Atheists and True Theists

A new blog was brought to my attention: Quantitative Metathesis. The writer just recently became a Passionist nun, so she's done posting. I began reading her blog from the beginning and have been thoroughly in awe on a number of occasions. She is such a good writer.

At any rate, I've always been annoyed with Atheism these days. You get this contingent of kids who for whatever reason don't profess the existence of a God, but they leave their philosophizing there (I saw many such kids at my Catholic high school). Then these kids grow up, in bodily age only, and operate in Christian civilization uninterruptedly while still denying a Christian God. They accept an innate understanding of right and wrong, not explicitly, but implicitly, never admitting to themselves that their sermons on "equality" and "fairness" assume that equality and fairness are rights owed to man. The real atheists knew you can't deny God and accept a moral law not stemming from socialization. Quantitative Metathesis girl puts it much better:

When we begin denying the legitimacy of our natural inclinations, we simultaneously begin denying the legitimacy of our selves. In effect, we deny that we have the ability to know good from evil, truth from falsehood, happiness from grief. We deny that there is more to the world than its face value, that there is something other than physical reality. That these distinctions must exist is among the most basic of our gut feelings – even the most hardened materialist and cynic would like them to be true, and is driven to despair and/or madness when he convinces himself that they are not. He denies the truth his heart professes and, in doing so, destroys himself. His self cannot deal with the rejection of truths it knows to be true, even though he is the one who has rejected them, and it wilts within the barred walls of its logical prison.

As you no doubt caught on, this was written in the midst of a post discussing natural inclinations, in fact, the natural inclination Chesterton had towards God. What I think she is identifying is the initial irrationality of so many Christian doctrines. There are so many things that Christians believe that you aren't going to be able to explain to anybody. They may make perfect sense once your in the door, but until then, it's a mystery. That's why the Church calls the Sacraments the Sacred Mysteries! I think God gives us the inclinations that QM talks about in order to get us in the door, and once were in there then he can start to explain it all to us.

Take not that the explicit theology of the Epistles is not in the Gospels. Look at the Gospel for today: Jesus says (last week) "whoever eats my body and drinks my blood inherits eternal life", at which point the crowd responds "this is a hard teaching, who can believe it", and Jesus says "if you wish to leave, go". Jesus knew full well that he wasn't going to be able to insist on the grave, central and incredible nature of the Eucharist in the Church he was establishing. Even after centuries of theology we can hardly put two and two together.

A Thesis

Modesty is the virtue of limitation which influences all actions. Often we understand modesty to be the wearing of sufficient clothing, but modesty really goes much farther. Mark Twain said “modesty died when clothes were born”. Twain identified an acutely American problem; not the immodesty resulting from too little, but the immodesty of too much. American today suffers under the weight of too much. Austerity (modesty applied to personal possessions), humility (modesty applied to actions) and self-awareness (the modest understanding of one’s self) are all lacking in American society. These lack of these three interconnected virtues is a contributing factor to growing personal debt, increasing health care needs, the widening wealth gap, increasingly centralized power, and a pervasive entitlement mentality. These problems are both problems themselves, and the causes of further problems, most concerning among them the problems we begin to face as the people’s understanding of government’s role becomes more socialistic in nature.

Psalm 94:7-8

As long as were on the Liturgy side of things: at my favorite high school, back when Father M was around, we'd say "If today you hear his voice / O harden not your hearts", I believe as the psalm antiphon, but possibly as the alleluia verse; I wasn't as attentive to the mass back then. At any rate, in my study of the Liturgy of the Hours, Latin style, I encountered that very verse in Psalm 94, used in the Invitiatory!

Utinam hodie vocem eius audiatis:
Nolite obdurare corda vestra

As seems to almost always be the case, I'm more fond of the Latin rendition. "Utinam" means something to the effect of "if only", "would that" or "oh, that"; it is an adverb of longing. "Nolite" comes from the verb "nolle", and is in the imperitive form. It's the subtulties that did me in: what an opportunity you have to hear his voice today! Don't you dare harden your heart.

I should have been born in 1922, Part 2

On account of my 7am Calculus II class in the coming months I'll have to follow the wonderful liturgy The Church has without being a part of it. As a side note, isn't it awesome that the Catholic Church has daily mass? And not only can you go to mass everyday, but there are different prayers, antiphons, readings and prefaces for each day. There are different masses for every saint, common masses for different types of saints, and masses for different occasions. So yes, I don't want to miss out on all of that cool stuff even though I'm going to be in a lecture hall instead of a chapel, so I went out and got myself the Vatican II Weekday Missal.

Today, August 6th, The Feast of the Transfiguration, I was rather excited to use my missal for the first time, only to find out that those crooks over at Vatican II make you buy their Sunday Missal if you want to follow the Transfiguration, so, lacking such a Sunday Missal I turned to my much prized, if rarely useful in the modern era, Catholic Missal a la 1943. Check this out:


The modern priest says: Blessed are you, God of all Creation, for it is through your goodness that we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become the bread of life.

But from 1943 to 1962(?) it was: Accept, O holy Father, almighty, everlasting God, this stainless host, which I, thine unworthy servant, offer unto thee, my God, living and true, for mine innumerable sins, offenses, and negligence, and for all here present; as also for all faithful Christians, both living and dead, that it may be profitable for my own and for their salvation unto life eternal. Amen

And then: We offer unto thee, O Lord, the chalice of salvation, beseeching thy clemency that, in the sight of thy divine majesty, it may ascend with the odor of sweetness, for our salvation, and for that of the whole world. Amen.

I Quote Exactly

I'm learning it's tough to learn utter crap. I think the reason I never studied any to much in high school was because it all made so much sense. The only things I had to learn were the things that I couldn't make sense of except by memorizing them: trigonometry identities and biology vocab come to mind. All of my teachers were so good at making sense. That's because they were teaching me how to think more than they were shoving knowledge down my throat. Well, in Sociology 242, Modern Social Problems, this is the stuff I'm memorizing. I think the individual statements are ridiculous enough, I'll forgoe the commentary. I quote exactly:


"The powerful, by making and enforcing the laws, create and define deviance."

"In essence, the largest corporations control the world economy"

"Capitalism generates inequality"

"Thus, the candidates tend to represent a limited constituency - the wealth"

"The law does not exist as an abstraction"

"The schools, for instance, consciously teach youth that capitalism is the only correct economic system. This indoctrination to conservative values achieves a consensus among the citizenry concerning the status quo.

"Whenever the interest of the wealthy clash with those of other groups or even of the public at large, the interest of the former are served"

"The poor, being powerless..."

"Foreign policy seems to be carried on in the light of the needs of the munitions makers, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the multinational corporations"

[My favorite] "Religious beliefs, such as the resistance of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and of fundamentalist Muslim regimes such as in Saudi Arabia to the use of contraceptives, are a great obstacle to population control. However, religion is not an insurmountable barrier. Despite the Catholic hierarchy's resistance to family planning, some nations with overwhelming Catholic majorities have extremely low birthrates"

[My other favorite] "Malnourishment also causes a low level of energy. [Footnote:] Although low energy levels are a result of poverty, many persons have blamed poverty on an inherent lack of energy, or "drive" in the poor - a classic example of blaming the victim"

Deviance

"A guiding assumption of our inquiry here, however, is that norm violators are symptoms of social problems, not the disease itself. In other words, most deviants are victims and should not be blamed entirely by society for their deviance; rather, the system they live in should be blamed."

'Social Problems' - Eitzen, Zinn and Smith

A wise history teacher of mine once made the claim that liberals have a problem with human nature. I didn't completely understand what he meant (I had actually just finished saying liberals were complete idiots... his refined analysis caught me off guard), but now I think I do. If we can't accept our nature, that we have free will, that there is evil/wrong and good/right actions, and that our free will can choose evil, then you get the above quote. Get this: if we say that there are deviants and there are non-deviants, and the deviants are victims of a society of which they are not a part of, that means that non-deviants cause deviance. How's that work?

The Obligitory Monthly End of the World Political Conspiracy Post

The bottom of my UWEC tuition bill:

The Legislature and the Governor have authorized $1,189,756,579 of state funds for the University of Wisconsin System and its students during the 2008-09 academic year. This is a tuition subsidy of $8,041 per student from the taxpayers of Wisconsin.

If only the government paid for 1/3 of my home, or 1/3 or my heating bill. If only, if only.


Socialism is comin' folks.

Liturgica Horarum!

I've been using the Liber Usualis for all of my chanting needs for the past few months (in which time I also picked up a copy of Wheelock's and began translating the Psalms from the Vulgate). I think I'll explain my predicament in economic terms:

Concerning the goods market, the supply of the Liturgica Horarum is extremely low, provoking a high price level (and I suppose a low national output for the Vatican). The demand for the Liturgica Horarum has been steadily increasing for a number of reasons, despite it being completely unnecessary and totally expensive. Mainly, a recent influx of M1 money (as a result of graduating high school... who knew?) caused what I guess would be small time inflation in my wallet.

I should add that I was extra inspired by an article about Padre Pio which reported that he slept 4 hours at night with two 2 hour naps during the day and ate 3 grams of food a day. And also by St. Isadore who had 2 angels help him work in the fields so that his boss didn't get mad at him for always being late because he was at mass. Seems to me that God will allow you to get beyond your little human weaknesses if you ask him (well... not that kind of teasing asking). I figured the books were a bit expensive to have sitting on my book shelf, as nice as they would be employed in such an instance. I always wanted to chant in college, both as a way of getting all the music in me focused on something that will get me to heaven, and as a way of reminding myself (as I lock myself in a small soundproof room) that Christians are called to a life completely different than the rest of the world.

Warning, Long Digression: On that note, I want to start a red cardigan society at Eau Claire: red because that's the color of martyrs, and cardigans because they are wildly different, but horribly practical at the same time, just like the martyrs. The members of The Most Noble Chapter of the Red Cardigan Society of Eau Claire would wear red cardigans to class when the weather was fit for such attire. We'd never advertise what were doing; we'd act as if cardigans are it, because they really are! It'd be intended as a way of encouraging those kids who have an inkling that Christians are somehow called to something outside of this world to completely embrace it, and be encouraged by the "cool" guy walking across the lawn in a red cardigan.

The decrease in supply and increase in demand probobly did not lead to a lower price level (because the Vatican no doubt hopes to avoid bidding wars for such books, the competition over them being so high), but the real GDP of the Vatican increased by $400.

More to follow for sure, but for now a page (actually, my favorite page in the whole book. Pay special attention to the Heth, Teth and Jod bits from the book which was free, but just a bit too usual:

***** This is from the Good Friday Matins. I consider myself supremely lucky that on the day of my first Holy Eucharist and Confirmation I prayed Matins and Lauds at the beautiful St. Agnes . Throughout the two hours candles are put out one by one, until only one remains. This one candle is then hidden behind the alter for a while, and then all those chanting pound on their books until the candle is brought back out. (Watch Father Stromburg of Holy Family during the entrance: when everybody is ready to kneel he pounds on his hymnal, and the whole procession kneels.) I'm also glad I didn't have to sing a song after the festivities as so many poor children are forced to do these days.

But do we have to act like 6 year olds?

This year I didn't sleep all night before Pentecost mass, and I was (understandably) falling asleep during the mass. I remember getting the hiccups during the Eucharistic rite, and I had no doubt in my mind that God loved me. I suppose that was the best I was going to be able to do that day. It’d be ridiculous for me to look at that and say “you didn’t pray that mass like you should have, and it was most inappropriate to be smiling wildly because you were hiccupping.” It’s okay to love God like a 6 year old on occasion!

I ended up at St. Alphonsus church in Brooklyn Center at 5:30 this Sunday for mass. I should include that it was 5:30 pm, because the story would have been different 12 hours earlier (and a average 50 years older... there seems to be a positive relationship between mean age and quality of sacred music). I got to mass very early, knowing that I was going to have difficulties praying such a mass. God is good to me though, and I was laughing from the very beginning: the entrance hymn was in 5/4 and it reminded me to no end of "Take 5". To actually pay attention to the mass I had to wipe the thought of the ridiculous entrance from my head, otherwise I'd substantially back up my claim that "The Gather Hymnal" ripped off Dave Brubeck. What else could I have gotten out of that ridiculous song than a good laugh with God!

I'm a big fan of child-like love of God, because it makes all the sense in the world. It's not paradoxical in the least to say that God, the fountain of all intellect, is sometimes best approached by children with little intellect. It came as a bit of a shock to me to think that I could sit in the chairs at adoration, but that's what God wants from us: he wants to live with us. God is everything, which means that he is both a God you can sit in a chair and talk to, and he is a God that you must kneel before and wonder at. He is a God that you can say "I love you" and he is pleased, but he is also a God that you have to understand. He is an indulgent God, and gives his children every little thing they want, but he is also a demanding God who expects you to deny yourself everything.

It’s great that we can act like children around God. We can even have wild swings of temperament around him and make great resolutions that no man tied to his intellect would keep. Such abandonment is so pleasing to him. But you can’t live that. It’s not as if there are rules for such things (you can only laugh at the entrance hymn once a month) either, which makes it all the more difficult. The 5:30 parishioners of St. Alphonsus act like 6-year olds every Sunday, where as the 10:00 parishioners of St. Agnes never act like 6-year olds (even those who are properly aged for such behavior). I can’t hiccup my way through mass every day, but I can’t be mad at God for not being able to pray the mass either.

So yes, you do have to act like a 6-year old every now and then.

I Love Nuns!

They've just got it figured out. This is the best:

I want to tell Ms. Graham that if she only knew how many hell-raisers and “bad girls” have come to the convent — and stayed — that she would probably have seemed like a wall flower in comparison.

A Nun's Life is now on my Bloglines feed.

National Debt

I've been perusing government websites checking out national debt information, and I had to chuckle a bit. The Congressional Budgets Office proudly proclaimed that it was the 3rd best place to work in the government. Then the Bureau of the Public Debt proclaimed that it was the 4th best place to work. Oh government...

What I've been learning is that we have our undies in far to tight of a bundle when we discuss the national debt. Here's how it works.

The national debt is a whopping 11.4 trillion. About 3 trillion is held by foreigners. What that means is that 8.4 trillion dollars is owed to Americans by Americans. So even though the debt per-person is 37 thousand dollars, they only owe 9 thousand to somebody other than themselves. Of course all those evil rich capitalists own all the debt while the poor victims own nothing.

And only government could set up a system where a people owe themselves trillions of dollars.

Freedom

It so happens that every once in a while God sees fit to put me in a group of people who I have no reason to be around other than to pray for them. Recently I was in such an environment and (this is the one subject that everybody in the world has an opinion on) college advise was being dispensed. The general consensus was summarized articulately as "you have the freedom to do whatever you want".

Freedom is a horribly popular theme in high school too, especially when uniforms, rules and expectations are the norm. Everybody seems to think that it would be freeing to somehow make a clothing statement by it's absence, or that what is really holding them back from being free is that the glue which adheres their hand to their cellphone must be (most annoyingly, no doubt) removed at 8 and reapplied at 3. That's no freedom at all though. It's freedom to be miserable, sure, but what kind of freedom is that? Unfortunately freedom is rarely defined literally as "the ability to do good as one pleases". Instead it's only "to do as one pleases".

Perhaps Mssrs Miriam and Webster assumed on the common sence of English language speakers. What slave ever said "thank the Lord that I have been given the freedom to be enslaved while these pitiable white men do not have the freedoms I enjoy"? It's a mistaken notion of sin which fosters the statement "you can do everything you want". If the speaker understood that that which does not get us to heaven simply serves to make us miserable they could never celebrate the ability to distance themselves from happiness.

In the end you don't really gain many freedoms in college. The other word I'm sick of is "success", and college won't give you any opportunity at that either. What success is it to make money when that money means nothing compared to the riches God offers us every day, free of charge? What freedom is it to drink like a fish when that will only ever make you miserable. Maybe you'll be able to supply a fair amount of temporary happiness for yourself, but once you get tired of convincing yourself that your happy your true state will set in. We already have the freedom to pursue God. If were enslaved on earth we're all the more pleasing to him. That is freedom.

Americans and Their Money

"In 2005, U.S. consumers spent (in real terms) $7878 billion - an amount that exceeded their total after-tax income! Businesses invested $1921 billion, even though total U.S. saving was negative [Investment = Savings, theoretically]. The Federal government spent $1988 billion, financing more than one-fourth of that amount through borrowing."


That's from my economics book. It's frighting enough to begin with that American's are doing everything on credit, but it's even more frighting that this credit is foreign credit. All of this spending offsets the inflationary effects of massive imports.

And what a social commentary! The rest of the world is saving their money so that businesses can increase production while America is consuming like crazy and starving their businesses. Maybe there is something to being a capitalist pig

I should have been born in 1922.

I promise I'll stop writing these awful flowery-fiction bits. At least God has given me a small insight into my future: it's not in fiction. Now if only he could just blurt out which one it is.


I should have been born in 1926.

Maybe I would have been born on April 22nd, the same day Charles Mingus was born. Mongo Santamaria was born a week or two earlier. Judy Garland and Charles Shultz were born later that year. Flutists will be able to appreciate that I'd be the same age as Jean-Piere Rampal. Pope Benedict XV died and was succeeded by Pius XI. Women were able to vote! Ghandi was at work (in the form of being imprisoned for sedition), as were the rising Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini. Politics might have been ominous (or maybe it only appears so in the modern lens), but American music was starting to simmer. Louis Armstrong started playing with King Oliver, Kid Ory started recording. Irving Berlin and George Gershwin were both writing, but they waited to become great until I was a bit older. Massenet, Hindmouth and Stravinsky were writing new stuff too.

People still had kids back then. And they lived in small houses, and they didn’t make much money. The depression would have hit when I was a child. What a great gift! Self-imposed mortification is always done so half-heartedly. Maybe not having food, cloths and such would have served to increase my attachment to them, but hopefully not. My parents would have been smart: God provides, and when you think he doesn’t he’s really just providing in a different area. Cheap entertainment would have been a necessity, idleness being seen correctly: somewhere between the “all idleness corrupts” philosophy of the late 1800s and the inactivity of the hippies. The sound of the family radio might have filled the small living room many nights. TVs would have been unreasonably abhorred by my family. I have no reason to feel the way I do about TVs now. Newspapers were still read back then too. And books. Lots of books. I could bought E.E. Cumming's poetry the day it hit the shelves. And F. Scott Fitzgerald, and T.S. Elliot. It might have become incumbent upon me to somehow incorporate single letters into my name, since using your first name in it’s entirety was so out of style. Instead of the Border's book shelf being filled with Maya Angelou (word, Abecedaries), E.E. Cummings, and would have filled the shelves. You can buy a book for than the cost of a movie ticket, and it gives you hours of entertainment and learning. Movies give you 2 hours (the first and last half hour are filler anyways). I’m reluctant to call modern movies as a whole entertaining, enjoyable or anything of that nature. Not so when I would have been a kid though. Movies were art.

I would have been drafted into WWII (after lying about my age). Despite being a skilled saxophonist I would have thought playing music was sissy, and that I was drafted to shoot. My love would have been dismayed, but she would have sent me beautifully written letters while I was over seas. Women had beautiful handwriting back then. Now girls stylize it so much you can hardly read it. An "S" mind as well be a "l" and a "r" looks just like a "v". But not when I would have been 18: women wrote in beautiful cursive. I would have gotten back in '45 or '46. We would have married soon after. CS Lewis' writings would have come to me when I was about 20: if I was confused about God, he would have set me straight. Probably wouldn't have been: moral degradation seems to be a modern invention. Ugly churches, lame priests and "praise music" too. People got married at 20 back then. And they didn't have to go to college to avoid unemployment or mindless manual labor. I could have done very well for myself without spending 4 years at an institution, whether it be one of higher learning or mindless occupation (the line is now quite blurred).

My children would have enjoyed groups like "The Cadillac’s". They might have seen "The Sound Of Music" on their first date. My son would have opened the car door for his date (a 1957 Mercury Monterey. He had to wait until his senior prom to drive dad's car, a black 1956 Thunderbird). She would have said “thank you” too. Men hold doors today and women stick out their arms (they apparently are worried the man might forget their is a women passing through the doorway and in their forgetfulness allow the door to shut in their face). Probably all feminism at work. They don't need men to hold doors open for them. Back then feminists were real women who wanted respect, not these jokes of women who devalue themselves constantly by trying to be men. The kind of women who get treated wrong and say “I think very highly of myself, and I’m not going to marry you if you act like an idiot”, and the boy is scared into knowing what’s what. Nope, my son’s girlfriend would have been a real woman. Maybe they would have danced to Elvis. I wouldn’t have revolted like the rest of society. The same ridiculousness surrounded jazz musicians, all of whom I would have liked as a kid. I would have been justifiably critical of many groups inability to play a 4/4 ballad though. The relentless presence of pulsing triplets would have unnerved me.

I would be 70 years old right now. I’d be old enough to embrace the modern world correctly. Too often kids today cling to their iPods, televisions, computers, cell phones and all the rest thinking that it will make them happy. I would have lived 70 miserable years knowing where true happiness consists before any of the “revolutionary advances” of the modern world. I would probably sit and read books all day. I would have grown up when the church still spoke Latin, so I’d study Latin too. If my wife were to die before me I’d have a requiem mass is Latin said for her soul. I would go to daily mass also, but unlike the wonderful old men and women at daily mass these days I would refuse to utter a single word of conversation until I was well away from the sanctuary. Perhaps I’d go to get a cheap breakfast with my friends after the 7 o’clock mass. I’d go home and perhaps do a little cleaning. Perhaps Rachmoninov’s 3rd Piano Concerto would be playing in the background. I’d sing along, even if I was reading a book. I think in my old age I would have recourse to books that are even older than I am.

I would die without much to do. My kids wouldn’t dare sell my books. They would understand that books are a representation of a person. Knowing what books are on a person’s bookshelf tells you more than talking with them for an hour. They are the physical representations of that man’s understanding. My books would be full of years of scribbles, underlines and discourses. The handwriting would be slightly different at various points, as I came back to the great classics at least every decade. I would direct my house to be given to my grandchild who was engaged at age 22. My corpse would rot just as effectively in this day and age as it will in 70 years when I might actually die, but I have to think that as time presses on the rot which eats away at the soul will only grow.

The - I've Read That - Book Store

I got so excited about this I figured I'd tell the world about it. So here is what a day in my brand new business idea:

A young customer comes in. Perhaps he has a half hour to kill, or the prospect of many more free hours brought him to the book store. At any case, this is not the kind of book store that you would choose to go to with a particular best selling book in mind. There are stores for that already, and the I've Read That bookstore is one of a kind. The store front is relatively plain: white bricks and two windows suffocate the small door. In one of the windows a small piece of cardboard is turned to reveal "open", painted with a steady hand in red. Over the doorway in obnoxiously large red letters reads "I've Read That Book Store".

Once inside the building the young customer takes a quick survey of the surroundings. Books shelves built into the wall surround the store, and each section has two or three of it's own. In the middle of the first section is an over sized chair. A stack of new books surrounds the chair in a haphazard arrangement. A selection of loose leaf tea, a few snack items and a large 3-ring binder filled with loose leaf papers, complete with scribbles, sits on a small table next to the chair. Inside the chair a man who glows with scholarship sits. There are 8 such sections in the store. In the middle of the store is a circular fireplace. On one side is a wood pile. Across is a manly assortment of fire-tending tools, and on either side coffee makers and an assortment of glasses. The fireplace is no doubt the focus point of the store, and it is around here that a half dozen men stand, talking about who knows what.

The young boy, a bit frightened by the apparent depth of the fireplace conversation walks over to the first section (one of the many whose chair is not occupied) and begins to search through the books. One can tell that the books were once alphabetized, but under the strain of masculinity have fallen out of what was inevitably feminine perfection. On the shelves he sees all sorts of books that he knows he ought to read. He pulls out "Paradise Lost" when an animated man with a slightly rectangular face pops up. "I've read that!". The boy is startled, as most men would be, but that is to little effect. The scholar is the sort of man who doesn't care about such trivial things. He continues in the same relentless manner he began. "Milton said it was his attempt to 'justify the ways of God to man'. It's sure somethin'." The boy hadn't said anything yet, and this man was the sort of man who could talk uninturupted for hours. Seeing no reason to stop he continued on, "he writes it in the style of the great Greek epics (the illiteration causes profound excitment in the man's voice), except it's all Christian stuff."

The boy, having regained use of his vocal chords mutters, "yeah... I've heard about it." "Well let me tell you, it's a great read. You might not want that edition though. This one here has a great set of footnotes in it, but the font is a bit small." The two exchange books and an odd silence ensues. "Make sure to come back and tell me what you think" the scholar practically shouts as he hammers the young man's back. The boy goes to the cash registar, but the cashier is a passive participant in the fireside conversation. One of the scholars tells the cashier he's got to get to work and laughter ensues. A characteristic cackle is heard over it all as the cashier runs over to the register, a feat which would have been extrordinary for any of the schollars, who are all a head of hair older than the cashier. Eventually, perplexed by it all, the young man leaves.

Yet the cozyness of it all intrigues him, and after finishing Milton's epic he goes back in. The store is the same save exactly 8 obnoxious hanging signs with names on it. Today all of the scholars are sitting in their chairs reading. They shout out lines every now and then. A "Bill" looks around the corner of his book shelf and says to "Arthur" - you ever read Aquinas' bit on temperance? "Yeah... I got a doctorate in the stuff". "He surprises me every time!". A "Kevin" shouts across the aisle to "Adam" - "Era algo menor que yo, y no sabia de ella desde hacia tantos anos que bien podia haber muerto. Pero al primer timbrazo reconoci la voz en el telefono, y le dispare sin preambuls: - Hoy si... What eloquence!" "Indeed" is the laconic man's reply.

The young boy wanders around and finds Todd, the man who had handed him what really did prove to be a superior edition of Paradise Lost. The scholar is engrossed in his book. The schollar looks up and shouts "Hey Tony, can we get some music with a beat on here". The boy hadn't noticed that music was playing. For a moment he appreciated it, but a profoundly British voice covered it up: "That's Mahler's 2nd Symphony! (He begins to translate the text) 'Man lies in deepest need! /Man lies in deepest pain!Oh how I would rather be in heaven.'" Another Kevin, this one learned in German instead of Spanish, continues "Da kam ich auf einen breiten Weg: /Da kam ein Engelein und wollt’ mich abweisen. /Ach nein! Ich ließ mich nicht abweisen!" It is firmly cemented in the boys mind that these men, with their sweatervests and glasses of tea are, at the heart of it all, really old children.

As this was happening the man labeled Todd immediatly recognized the frightened boy. The two discuss the book in some detail, and (nobody really cared about the music anyways) the other scholars join the conversation in the same way. "Is that Paradise Lost?", "Yep", "I've read that!".

As we approach what in the rest of the world is the Feast of Corpus Christi...

Being relatively new to Catholicism I often have questions. I suspect that may continue into my old age, but for now the pressing question is this:

Why is it that the United States has a special calender such that all of the solemnities are moved off of weekdays onto Sundays?

I have taken to using these guys as my authority on all things liturgically scheduled and according to them us Americans have gotten jipped out of the Ascension and the Feast of Corpus Christi. So all of you learned calendrical liturgists (too much of a stretch?) out there, I ernestly implore your explenations.

Sappy Socialism

Over at Apologus I announced the beginning of my first college course: Economics 104 - Macro Economics. I have my worries about economics. The tendency to make man a rational animal is certainly present. It's to be expected: it's not within the economists field to posit a role for Christian love which supersedes rationality and we should be glad that they don't overstep their bounds. Aristotle and Plato (and no doubt more whom I've failed to read) did well with a loveless-philosophy. Notions of private property are also seemingly continuously attacked by those who are supposed to explain it. After the first day it's been going well though. The book is careful (and never obnoxiously so) to present unbiased truths. At one point they are discussing resource supplies when they say "although some of our energy and mineral resources are being depleted, new sources are also being discovered," and that's the end of it.

I was worried when I read the discussion question:

In our world of limited resources, no one can have all the economic goods and services they want. Therefore, each society must have a way to determine who gets what and how much. In practice, this is often determined by a combination of many different factors. Over the last 30 years, income inequality in the U.S. has steadily increased. There are more poor and more (extremely) rich people than ever. The number of middle-income people has been decreasing.

In your view, what factors determine a person's income in the U.S.? What is the "fairest" way to allocate goods and services? Should we have so many poor people and so many rich people? Should the government use taxes, government spending, and regulations to alter the "free market" results? Briefly explain your ideas.

The door is wide open for the private-property-hating socialists to scream "Bill Gates needs to give up his money because there are kids starving in the slums of Chicago"! But nobody has yet. My offering to the discussion made the claim that "invaluable" skills (such as those possessed by business executives) really do deserve more money and thus equality of goods and services is impossible. True fairness consists in each getting his due.

The only flaw that my classmates seem to be hung up on is that money has to come from somewhere. Outright socialism or capitalism are both intellectual pursuits. Capitalism with a sprinkling of socialism is an emotional pursuit ("but I just feel so bad that he doesn't have a college education"). In as much as I tend to think that most of America is ruled by the latter I think we see how the sprinklings of socialism have showed up throughout the years.

A Mr. S thinks that low-interest government loans should be given to those desiring college education or pursuing legitimate business plans. Miss. E thinks that college education ought to be free. They forget that a college education is over and above "humane" education. It would be inhumane to deny anybody a high school education, but beyond that your going for specialty training. It's inhumane to deny anybody basic nutrition, but T-bones ought to be regarded as over and above the basics. College is not a need, and while our society has faulted us all into thinking so we ought to be careful.

If the cost of sending one kid to college really is $10,000/year then the 220 billion Americans over 19 will be paying 173 trillion dollars a year to send the 17 billion 18-21 year old college students to school. Maybe only 1/3 of them go to college (approximately the number of college graduates 22-25 currently). That's still 60 trillion, costing each American another $250 in taxes a year. And even that number is low. Public universities already get government money to offset the cost to the consumer (that is what we are). Private educations run as high as $50,000 at some colleges. So the price is probobly higher than $10,000/year. More over private donors who provide scholarships, grants and other financial aid to colleges would cease to be as prominent of a reality.

And here is the painful reality of it. Lets say you pay taxes from 22-82. The government gets your money for 60 years. Assuming a flat tax you'd pay $15000 to this college fund anyways. But it doesn't work that way. Those who go to college are going to make more money and pay more taxes, while those who do not go will pay less in taxes. In the end the free education simply pay for itself over 60 years. I suppose it is a low interest, long term loan at it's best, but how's that been working out for America?