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.