I got a container of pepperoncini the other day. You know, those hot peppers you sometimes get topped on a salad? I've never bought them in such a large quantity, before. What am I gonna do with a peck of pickled peppers?
I just wanna announce that I love 'em and they're going fast! I can easily knock out a half dozen in a single sitting or continually munch on them while hanging out in the kitchen. They are particularly good with meaty, salty things, hence the oft used combination with pepperoni or mozzarella cheese. I have found that wrapping then in a crispy slice of bacon works just fine, as well.
Eating these little peppers requires a physical, whole body commitment. You gotta get involved. Most Italian food is like that--You throw the pasta against the wall, tear off slabs of bread, and meditatively stir the sauce like you were a gondolier. So with the peppers, you hold the stem, grab the pepper with your teeth and pull the stem off. Juices may squirt all over the place, but if you do it right they drizzle over your salad or sandwich or leave a tangy ring around your mouth to flavor your next bite. I don't want to make this sound too precise, because it isn't. It is more invigorating and refreshing. It does require a level of attentiveness much different than mindlessly drubbing your hand into a bowl of party mix.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Protestants Love the Patristics, Saints and Monks
One of the reasons I have remained a Catholic is because I don't see any sense in leaving when everyone else is trying so hard to come back. I say this to joshingly jab at my Protestant friends, but there is some truth to it.
I switched on my radio yesterday, and it was tuned to a conservative Christian station. You know what the sermon was about? A raving and in-depth study and appreciation for . . . guess who? Augustine.
Don't get me wrong, I totally understand why an evangelical would find Augustine outrageously appealing. In fact, I'm surprised there hasn't already been a more natural connection with the patristics (early church fathers). The early church writers were powerhouses of spirituality and theology, and you can't help but appreciate them. But it wasn't that long ago where you never would have heard such a thing coming from the conservative evangelical community. Denominational barriers no doubt played a part.
I think the Catholic Church is rooted in good stuff. The traditions--which may be difficult for us all to understand--are there for a reason.
Take the saints, for instance. Many Protestants have been outraged at the Catholic veneration of the saints. How can we pray to dead saints or have statues and relics of them? Isn't that idolatry? But as my college chaplain pointed out, Protestants will complain about this but then talk to their deceased relatives. They keep photographs and relics of their loved ones, too. Well, what do you think the saints are? That's right: Deceased loved ones who we stay in relationship with. Whether we come to know them through personal experience or through the Church does not make for a real difference.
Just the other day, I saw statuettes of angels in someone's car. Protestants usually do not believe that saints are hovering around you and interceding on your behalf. Yet, there is all this talk about angels. Stepping back, it looks awfully familiar.
There are strong new monastic movements drawing in Christians of all faiths. As traditional orders of nuns and monks dwindle in numbers (with great sadness), there are plenty of people from all denominations looking to create something like it anew. Why? Because monasticism is a true calling. People seek it out, they yearn for it, and frankly they just do it. It radically changes form over the years, but it is always there. The early Desert Fathers and Mothers (hermits) were quite different from the Benedictines (monasteries) and the Friars (freelance agents) after that. But monasticism--in some form--has always been around. It speaks to people. It needs to be there. The next wave in monasticism is underway right now. Hint: It looks a lot like the Catholic Worker.
Many monasteries are respectfully being visited today by Protestants. They are hungry for it. And I'm glad--now is the time to learn before the traditional orders wither away.
I've seen a lot of non-liturgical churches that seem awfully . . . liturgical. I've even heard hushed murmurs about a renewed interest in Mary among evangelicals, too.
I think most Protestants have softened their view on religious artwork, as well. In the Reformation, many took pride in destroying paintings, statues and stained glass with wild abandon. Some literally painted over beautiful frescoes with thick, white paint. Imagine taking a paint roller and going to town on the Sistine Chapel. The loss to our heritage is unimaginable. I can appreciate the stark asceticism, but I'm sorry I do not consider it enlightened to destroy art with a . . . passion. However, I do understand why they did it, just like I understand why medieval Catholics burned books or the Spanish Inquisition tortured heretics--I understand, but certainly do not agree nor condone it.
The Reformation was a bit headstrong in removing these traditions--baby out with the bathwater. My biggest criticism of the Reformation was exactly this tendency to be headstrong and sometimes too heady. People got on fire for Jesus and purged themselves of precious traditions without knowing what they were getting rid of. However, those traditions were there for a reason and attempts to squelch them have not lasted. Over time, the Spirit has found a way to work its way through the cracks and crevices and come back to the surface, as you can see in all these examples.
As I said at the beginning, this is in good humor as there is plenty of mutual learning. Catholics have largely reconciled with many of the original complaints of the Reformers. We are moving toward vibrant Bible studies in our parishes, Protestant-influenced scholarship in our universities and so on. We're doing very Protestant-y things. In fact, most Christian denominations are more invested in learning from each other and reconciling differences than maintaining their divisions.
Did we need reform in 1517? You betcha. We can stand to have some more reform right now--and so can the Protestants. But even though Catholics are constantly being told how bad we are, it is refreshing when others are discovering what we already knew--that maybe, just maybe, we aren't all that bad, after all.
I switched on my radio yesterday, and it was tuned to a conservative Christian station. You know what the sermon was about? A raving and in-depth study and appreciation for . . . guess who? Augustine.
Don't get me wrong, I totally understand why an evangelical would find Augustine outrageously appealing. In fact, I'm surprised there hasn't already been a more natural connection with the patristics (early church fathers). The early church writers were powerhouses of spirituality and theology, and you can't help but appreciate them. But it wasn't that long ago where you never would have heard such a thing coming from the conservative evangelical community. Denominational barriers no doubt played a part.
I think the Catholic Church is rooted in good stuff. The traditions--which may be difficult for us all to understand--are there for a reason.
Take the saints, for instance. Many Protestants have been outraged at the Catholic veneration of the saints. How can we pray to dead saints or have statues and relics of them? Isn't that idolatry? But as my college chaplain pointed out, Protestants will complain about this but then talk to their deceased relatives. They keep photographs and relics of their loved ones, too. Well, what do you think the saints are? That's right: Deceased loved ones who we stay in relationship with. Whether we come to know them through personal experience or through the Church does not make for a real difference.
Just the other day, I saw statuettes of angels in someone's car. Protestants usually do not believe that saints are hovering around you and interceding on your behalf. Yet, there is all this talk about angels. Stepping back, it looks awfully familiar.
There are strong new monastic movements drawing in Christians of all faiths. As traditional orders of nuns and monks dwindle in numbers (with great sadness), there are plenty of people from all denominations looking to create something like it anew. Why? Because monasticism is a true calling. People seek it out, they yearn for it, and frankly they just do it. It radically changes form over the years, but it is always there. The early Desert Fathers and Mothers (hermits) were quite different from the Benedictines (monasteries) and the Friars (freelance agents) after that. But monasticism--in some form--has always been around. It speaks to people. It needs to be there. The next wave in monasticism is underway right now. Hint: It looks a lot like the Catholic Worker.
Many monasteries are respectfully being visited today by Protestants. They are hungry for it. And I'm glad--now is the time to learn before the traditional orders wither away.
I've seen a lot of non-liturgical churches that seem awfully . . . liturgical. I've even heard hushed murmurs about a renewed interest in Mary among evangelicals, too.
I think most Protestants have softened their view on religious artwork, as well. In the Reformation, many took pride in destroying paintings, statues and stained glass with wild abandon. Some literally painted over beautiful frescoes with thick, white paint. Imagine taking a paint roller and going to town on the Sistine Chapel. The loss to our heritage is unimaginable. I can appreciate the stark asceticism, but I'm sorry I do not consider it enlightened to destroy art with a . . . passion. However, I do understand why they did it, just like I understand why medieval Catholics burned books or the Spanish Inquisition tortured heretics--I understand, but certainly do not agree nor condone it.
The Reformation was a bit headstrong in removing these traditions--baby out with the bathwater. My biggest criticism of the Reformation was exactly this tendency to be headstrong and sometimes too heady. People got on fire for Jesus and purged themselves of precious traditions without knowing what they were getting rid of. However, those traditions were there for a reason and attempts to squelch them have not lasted. Over time, the Spirit has found a way to work its way through the cracks and crevices and come back to the surface, as you can see in all these examples.
As I said at the beginning, this is in good humor as there is plenty of mutual learning. Catholics have largely reconciled with many of the original complaints of the Reformers. We are moving toward vibrant Bible studies in our parishes, Protestant-influenced scholarship in our universities and so on. We're doing very Protestant-y things. In fact, most Christian denominations are more invested in learning from each other and reconciling differences than maintaining their divisions.
Did we need reform in 1517? You betcha. We can stand to have some more reform right now--and so can the Protestants. But even though Catholics are constantly being told how bad we are, it is refreshing when others are discovering what we already knew--that maybe, just maybe, we aren't all that bad, after all.
Lost and Found Books
Continuing the book purge mentioned in my last post:
I am getting rid of books as if it were a matter of social justice: Get them to the people who will use them, I say! Book hoarding is just another form of book burning--yes, I'm talking to you, Jackie!
I was a teenager the last time I read a Jack Londen work, so why do I have the Complete Jack London? Or the Unabridged Shakespeare, for that matter? These books are so bulky that even if I were to read one of these works I'd probably get another edition. My two volume Complete Sherlock Holmes is a treasure, but if I need early 20th century British wit I always have Chesterton. I once had a penchant for books with the words "complete works" or "unabridged" in the title.
I found Girl with the Pearl Earling--wasn't I supposed to send this to someone? I also noticed part III of Dante's Divine Commedy. Didn't know I had it! I bet parts I & II are in there somewhere, too! I was embarassed to find Ray Brown's New Testament Essays--the same book I was gonna check out from the library the other day.
I would love to read all 1,259 pages of James Clavell's Shogun, but I don't see where I'm gonna find that much time for Japanese historical fiction. I would no doubt love to have read it--pay close attention to my verb tense there. However, I can't part with B-29: The Plane that Won the War, by--no joke--a man named Major Gurney. That book is as much history as what it describes. Maybe my copy of Go Ask Alice can save the life of another teenager as it may have saved mine--I always knew that hard drugs were to be avoided, and there were lines I knew never, ever to cross. I just assumed all kids knew that, but I have realized that that's not the case. I still haven't read the selections for my freshman college class on Science Fiction, so into the Goodwill box they--finally--go.
A Moral Issue
Should I be giving away the books I like or the books I don't like? One man's junk is another man's treasure, they say, but I feel like I need to justify keeping the best stuff behind. Am I gonna read it again? Refer to it in an upcoming paper? Or am I just putting a lid on the light of the world?Or maybe I would accomplish more in life if every little decision I made wasn't laid out in terms of a moral and social justice dilemma. Sometimes a stack of books is just a stack of books.
Ancient History
Should I keep a Dictionary and Thesaurus around to show the next generation how it was back before the internets?
Do I really need the fourth edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers when I am currently using the sixth?
Misappropriated Books
The copy of Zwick's The Catholic Worker movement is not mine. Nor is The Long Lonliness, for that matter. Or Henri Nouwen's Can You Drink the Cup? If the owners are reading this (you know who you are) all I can say is: I didn't steal these on purpose! They just . . . sorta got absorbed into my overall stuff.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Dusting my Junk
My apartment landlord decided to replace the ancient steam heating system with a new fangled (or at least cheap) forced air one. This involved putting new duct work and pipes all through the apartment. I came home one day to find that everything I owned was covered with a thick layer of plaster and paint dust. I was horrified.
While it is probably mostly plaster, the inner layers of paint are no doubt leaded as this building is about 100 years old. The thought of curling up on my couch breathing in leaded paint dust was too much. And the cleaning job that lay ahead was epic.
We're not just talking about sweeping the floors and dusting the furniture. No, the heating system was installed into my closets, so upon request I had previously taken mountains of junk out of the closets and lined the center of my rooms. I have a lot of stuff. So the dust did not just cover bare tabletops and wood floors--it was in the cracks and crevices of all my papers, souvenirs, nostalgic items, family heirlooms, Christmas decorations, boxes and boxes of bills, scraps of paper and just assorted junk I have kept because I have never known what to do with it. It wasn't in neat, covered boxes, either, but open and loose and ready to suck in all sorts of construction dust. Even worse: Clean laundry was not put away in a dresser but rather strewn across the bed and hanging on a drying rack, so it was all covered, as well. The dust was in and through everything.
So I tried to find the rainbow. These things often happen for a reason, or at least, they bring with them opportunity as well as obstacle. But with working full time and taking more than full time coursework, this was not the challenge I wanted. [This also isn't the time to detail the atrocious job these people did, who must have been drunk as they left some implements and a shirt, for crying out loud, in my apartment, as well as large holes in the wall. Nor is it time to talk about the dust that got into my exposed piano, computer, printer and other electronics. No, not right now.]
Base of Operations
Erin came over and helped me establish a beachhead--we got the bedroom in order so there was a place that was "clean" from where I could mount an assault on the rest.
It was time to purge. I want to live lighter. I don't want to hold on. Dragging all this stuff around was just sabotaging what I could be doing right now. I was annoyed as I was going through papers deciding to keep them or not. It was taking too much time--time I could be using to make new memories.
I also approached this from a perspective of sharing. I keep lots of stuff because I may someday find it useful in the future, such as the Handbook of Medical Spanish. I got it from my cousin before I went to Honduras for a brief trip as an interpreter. That was 10 years ago and I barely cracked the book then or since. While I can theorize that I may find such a book useful one day possibly in the future maybe, it occurred to me that I am hording things that may be directly useful to other people. I haven't used them yet, what makes me think I'll use them in the future? Knowing that this stuff may help others helps me let go. [But HELLO we're investigating opening up a medical clinic with the Columbus Catholic Worker, so I'm gonna hold onto this one for a minute!]
I found a copy of Chesterton's Orthodoxy. You know, the book I just bought a few weeks ago and posted about. It was another copy--yes, I bought a book I already had. I found Alison's book that Jackie dropped off about a year ago which I've been meaning to send back. Maybe it was two years ago. I should just lie and say it got destroyed in the construction.
There's loads and loads of books--many I've never read. I realize it is an injustice to keep something and not use it when someone else may benefit from it. I should send them forth like so many seeds. I know how to get them if I ever want to read them, and that's the key idea. Some of these books been lining my shelf since childhood, so they cross the line between stuff and nostalgia, which makes it harder to part with them--whether I've read them or not!
My big weakness is nostalgic items. Few things leave my hands if they have a personal attachment. It is nice going through stuff and remembering the events that they remind me of. But I can't help but wonder that every time I hold onto stuff from the past I may be holding myself back in the present. There is so much in life you just can't hold onto: Conversations come and go. If I have no record of my daily conversations, why is it so important to keep every scrap of email I receive? No one is following you around with a video camera catching every moment of your life, and even if they did, you wouldn't want to spend half your life watching it! You'd rather live the 2nd half of your life! Life is meant to be lived in the here and now. We don't have any opportunity to go into the past or reach into the future, everything we have is right now. Letters, videos and tapes make us think we still have direct access to the past, but I wonder if that is always such a blessing.
In theory, there is nothing wrong with keeping boxes of stuff in a closet. Just tuck it away, and it's there if you ever want it. In reality, I feel congested and cluttered and want to purge. Even though this stuff has been in a closet, I still feel like I drag it around with me every day. Baggage is baggage. The more stuff you are carrying around, the less strength and attention you can give to what is going on right now--even if you are not consciously aware of this stuff you are keeping! If you are cluttered in your mind and spirit, then there isn't much room for new growth. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: You tell yourself that it was good to hold onto that stuff because nothing has happened to exceed it. But you weren't really open to anything new either, not really, because you were too busy dragging the past with you--or trying to. The problem is that you can't have the past again. Mementos are great, but they are only a slice of the past, not the real thing. Sacrificing the present in favor of a partial past is a losing deal.
Don't get me wrong: Mementos and memorabilia are important--but not every scrap of paper or record of every conversation.
Until the "plaster and paint dust incident," I had every bill I have ever paid--except for the stuff I pay online, which got me thinking: If I don't keep my online records, why do I keep anything else? Do I need my entire billing history from all three landline phone companies I had in 1999? Of course, since my bills are not neatly organized but rather in overflowing boxes and stacks, intermingled with personal letters, I had to go through every last blessed one to figure out what to throw out and what not to. It was an immensely time-consuming but satisfying process dumping these mounds of paper into the recycling bin. I was saving a tree, baby, and maybe saving my life.
Much of this stuff wasn't even difficult to part with. In my haste, I often just shove stacks into the closet just to get them off the table. So I had piles of papers from job searches in 2001 or a house search in 2005. None of these leads were even remotely relevant anymore. I had thick folders from medical insurance plans I don't have anymore and stacks of magazines I've never read.
Habitual purgers like Erin would probably be disappointed with the amount of stuff I still kept. Heck, she throws bags and boxes away without even looking to see what's inside! I can't even pretend to wrap my mind around that. But for me, this was a big deal. The amazing thing was that so much of it went into the recycling bin easy as pie. There were few hard feelings. I was ready to get rid of it. In fact, it didn't even feel like purging--much of it was just junk that was in the way.
While it is probably mostly plaster, the inner layers of paint are no doubt leaded as this building is about 100 years old. The thought of curling up on my couch breathing in leaded paint dust was too much. And the cleaning job that lay ahead was epic.
We're not just talking about sweeping the floors and dusting the furniture. No, the heating system was installed into my closets, so upon request I had previously taken mountains of junk out of the closets and lined the center of my rooms. I have a lot of stuff. So the dust did not just cover bare tabletops and wood floors--it was in the cracks and crevices of all my papers, souvenirs, nostalgic items, family heirlooms, Christmas decorations, boxes and boxes of bills, scraps of paper and just assorted junk I have kept because I have never known what to do with it. It wasn't in neat, covered boxes, either, but open and loose and ready to suck in all sorts of construction dust. Even worse: Clean laundry was not put away in a dresser but rather strewn across the bed and hanging on a drying rack, so it was all covered, as well. The dust was in and through everything.
So I tried to find the rainbow. These things often happen for a reason, or at least, they bring with them opportunity as well as obstacle. But with working full time and taking more than full time coursework, this was not the challenge I wanted. [This also isn't the time to detail the atrocious job these people did, who must have been drunk as they left some implements and a shirt, for crying out loud, in my apartment, as well as large holes in the wall. Nor is it time to talk about the dust that got into my exposed piano, computer, printer and other electronics. No, not right now.]
Base of Operations
Erin came over and helped me establish a beachhead--we got the bedroom in order so there was a place that was "clean" from where I could mount an assault on the rest.
It was time to purge. I want to live lighter. I don't want to hold on. Dragging all this stuff around was just sabotaging what I could be doing right now. I was annoyed as I was going through papers deciding to keep them or not. It was taking too much time--time I could be using to make new memories.
I also approached this from a perspective of sharing. I keep lots of stuff because I may someday find it useful in the future, such as the Handbook of Medical Spanish. I got it from my cousin before I went to Honduras for a brief trip as an interpreter. That was 10 years ago and I barely cracked the book then or since. While I can theorize that I may find such a book useful one day possibly in the future maybe, it occurred to me that I am hording things that may be directly useful to other people. I haven't used them yet, what makes me think I'll use them in the future? Knowing that this stuff may help others helps me let go. [But HELLO we're investigating opening up a medical clinic with the Columbus Catholic Worker, so I'm gonna hold onto this one for a minute!]
I found a copy of Chesterton's Orthodoxy. You know, the book I just bought a few weeks ago and posted about. It was another copy--yes, I bought a book I already had. I found Alison's book that Jackie dropped off about a year ago which I've been meaning to send back. Maybe it was two years ago. I should just lie and say it got destroyed in the construction.
There's loads and loads of books--many I've never read. I realize it is an injustice to keep something and not use it when someone else may benefit from it. I should send them forth like so many seeds. I know how to get them if I ever want to read them, and that's the key idea. Some of these books been lining my shelf since childhood, so they cross the line between stuff and nostalgia, which makes it harder to part with them--whether I've read them or not!
My big weakness is nostalgic items. Few things leave my hands if they have a personal attachment. It is nice going through stuff and remembering the events that they remind me of. But I can't help but wonder that every time I hold onto stuff from the past I may be holding myself back in the present. There is so much in life you just can't hold onto: Conversations come and go. If I have no record of my daily conversations, why is it so important to keep every scrap of email I receive? No one is following you around with a video camera catching every moment of your life, and even if they did, you wouldn't want to spend half your life watching it! You'd rather live the 2nd half of your life! Life is meant to be lived in the here and now. We don't have any opportunity to go into the past or reach into the future, everything we have is right now. Letters, videos and tapes make us think we still have direct access to the past, but I wonder if that is always such a blessing.
In theory, there is nothing wrong with keeping boxes of stuff in a closet. Just tuck it away, and it's there if you ever want it. In reality, I feel congested and cluttered and want to purge. Even though this stuff has been in a closet, I still feel like I drag it around with me every day. Baggage is baggage. The more stuff you are carrying around, the less strength and attention you can give to what is going on right now--even if you are not consciously aware of this stuff you are keeping! If you are cluttered in your mind and spirit, then there isn't much room for new growth. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: You tell yourself that it was good to hold onto that stuff because nothing has happened to exceed it. But you weren't really open to anything new either, not really, because you were too busy dragging the past with you--or trying to. The problem is that you can't have the past again. Mementos are great, but they are only a slice of the past, not the real thing. Sacrificing the present in favor of a partial past is a losing deal.
Don't get me wrong: Mementos and memorabilia are important--but not every scrap of paper or record of every conversation.
Until the "plaster and paint dust incident," I had every bill I have ever paid--except for the stuff I pay online, which got me thinking: If I don't keep my online records, why do I keep anything else? Do I need my entire billing history from all three landline phone companies I had in 1999? Of course, since my bills are not neatly organized but rather in overflowing boxes and stacks, intermingled with personal letters, I had to go through every last blessed one to figure out what to throw out and what not to. It was an immensely time-consuming but satisfying process dumping these mounds of paper into the recycling bin. I was saving a tree, baby, and maybe saving my life.
Much of this stuff wasn't even difficult to part with. In my haste, I often just shove stacks into the closet just to get them off the table. So I had piles of papers from job searches in 2001 or a house search in 2005. None of these leads were even remotely relevant anymore. I had thick folders from medical insurance plans I don't have anymore and stacks of magazines I've never read.
Habitual purgers like Erin would probably be disappointed with the amount of stuff I still kept. Heck, she throws bags and boxes away without even looking to see what's inside! I can't even pretend to wrap my mind around that. But for me, this was a big deal. The amazing thing was that so much of it went into the recycling bin easy as pie. There were few hard feelings. I was ready to get rid of it. In fact, it didn't even feel like purging--much of it was just junk that was in the way.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Abortion, Infant Baptism, Stoplights and the Western Mind
The Western Mind
In order to break the stalemate in the abortion debate, it may be useful to step back from our culture and look at it from a distance. When historians tell our tale, they will probably have a lot of words to classify our era, but among the terms would certainly be "western individualism." Just like the Renaissance, Dark Ages, Enlightenment and numerous other schools of thought before, there are themes deep in the psyche of each era. Each movement is characterized by a particular world view and assumptions.
Individualism is many things, but one of the defining points is that the individual is the ultimate reality. The more distinct and separate the individual is, the better. Our society is oriented toward the individual, with everything else taking second or third consideration.
Individualism is endemic in both liberal and conservative ideology. In fact, it is the axis on which those viewpoints revolve. We see this manifested in capitalism, our environmental approach as well as religious movements today. The rights of the individual are paramount, and the effects of our individual actions on each other and the world are an afterthought.
We are starting to collectively realize the shortcomings of such a worldview: When each of us is focused on getting something for ourselves we end up shortchanging each other and ultimately ourselves, as well. Many of us are now looking for a more holistic worldview in which we acknowledge our togetherness and inter-relatedness.
Stoplights
Half of Columbus was without power a couple weeks ago. It amazed me how slowly traffic moved without stoplights. Many of us usually dislike stoplights--we want to drive unimpeded and hate having to stop at every 3rd intersection for a red light. Yet, without those lights, we move at a snail's pace. Instead of a long line of cars moving through an intersection when it's their turn, you instead have one car at a time. It does make people become more aware and cooperate on their own, rather than mindlessly obeying a stoplight. But the end result is that it takes forever to get from one side of town to the other.
In the case of the stoplights, if we were to focus so much on the individual's "right" to travel without being told when to stop and go, we would end up with a society in which we are more limited than before. When every intersection is a 4-way stop no one gets anywhere. Taking your individual freedom away and making you stop at red lights and go on green actually gives us all more freedom when it is all said and done.
Infant Baptism
Let's look at religion as an example: The current evangelical movements strike a chord with a lot of folks today. The emphasis on a "personal relationship with God" is very individualized. Many people think of religious salvation in individual terms--this person gets saved and that one doesn't. Maybe you think we all get saved--each individual. Whether you have a conservative or liberal view, many of us are still looking at the issue on individual terms. By contrast, traditional Catholic views hold for the salvation of a people, consistent with Old Testament Judaism.
Many folks have trouble understanding things such things as infant baptism, such as in Catholicism. People don't understand how an infant baby can make a decision for Christ when the infant is just a few days old! Well, that's a misunderstanding--infant baptism is a community sacrament.
We celebrate the fact that God's grace is a gift and you can't actually go and get it yourself. It is a sacrament of God's promise and our hope that the gift will be there through no work of our own. In this light, infant baptism makes all the sense in the world. Celebrating our faith, hope and love that God's grace will shine on this person in whatever way God wants, we make our commitment to raise the child in the body of Christ--the Church. It may even make more sense than adult baptism, which emphasizes the individual's decision for Christ.
In my view, both baptisms are just fine. Each version emphasizes certain elements and not others. With adult baptism, it is easy to forget that the adult is able to make a decision for Christ only through the work of the Holy Spirit in the first place. With a baby, it is much easier to remember that the baby isn't making any decision at all and the child is totally dependent on God's grace. And with infant baptism the decision of the individual for Christ is still to come.
Abortion
Pregnancy really boggles the mind of a western individualist. How can it be that two bodies are joined as one? This issue is really not that hard for someone living in another time period, but for our era of western individualism, this is a real stumper. The decision that gets reached in the mind of the western individualist is that the baby must not be a real life. That is the only solution that makes sense to the modern person.
To acknowledge the life of the child (and rights) would be to challenge western individualism itself--it would be to acknowledge that there is something greater than the self. It is not just your body anymore, no matter how much western individualism tells us that we are entitled to think that way. The western mind simply cannot conceive of two bodies ultimately joined, and in frustration the western mind simply devalues one in favor of another. It doesn't know how else to handle this. However, you can see the discomfort in people around this--they know deep down this isn't a satisfactory answer.
Western individualism is ultimately limited. The truth is that we are fervently inter-connected to each other. The actions of one person can and do affect others, no matter how much the western mind wants to pretend that we are totally separate. We all live downstream from someone and upstream from another. Your right to smoke impedes my right not to breathe dirty air. None of us is totally "independent"--that is another myth of western individualism. Instead, we are all in various stages of growth and development, and each stage is vital to us. All day long my actions affect others, and their actions affect me.
A lot of the hot button social issues today can be intensely challenging to figure out--abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, etc. We all have beliefs about life that we take for granted, but when we wrestle with extreme situations like these we can have real difficulty finding a way to make the ends meet. Some things just don't fit. It is easy to throw up our hands and be glad when we don't have to make decisions about these complicated issues. However, I would hold that when these issues are so challenging it is because they are exposing the limitations of our worldview. Maybe it's a sign to change our worldview. Individualism sounds fine in certain arenas, but it quickly falls short in describing what is going on here on earth as these issues show us.
We need to approach the issue of abortion out of the mindset of an inter-connected people, not as separate individuals who happen to be in society together. With individualism, we focus on the individual first, and we use our legal system to sort out what to do when the rights of one interferes with the rights of another. The focus here is the individual, with limitations imposed only when these clashes occur--considerations of society come second.
You see, the question in abortion is not a matter of deciding what the rights of the baby are versus the rights of the mother. The real question is deciding what the responsibilities of the baby and mother are to each other and our mutual responsibility as a society to and with these people. Only then are we going to get out of this abortion stalemate.
We are in stalemate, because we are asking the wrong question. We end up with all sorts of awkward ideas in order to maintain our western individual mindset, such as claiming that the baby is not a baby--or even if it is, it doesn't have rights because of some arbitrary criteria picked out of a hat such as which stage of development it is in. Let's be honest: Those criteria are not for the baby's benefit, those are designed to uphold the freedom of the mother first. In our society, the baby only has rights when the mother does not have to be involved anymore. So we define the start of the baby's life as the point by which the mother can check out--as if that actually has anything to do with the start of the baby's life at all.
A baby has become an object. The only way to support abortion is to devalue babies--probably the core value the human race has ever had. There is probably nothing that defines our species more than the intense love of adults for babies. This is the tie we have to sever in order to justify abortion. We have to make babies into objects.
I don't even want to imagine what that does to the human spirit or what long-term impact that will have on a society which is working hard every day to devalue life in all it's forms and reduce us all to mechanistic formulas--psychology, science, you name it. You see, the western mind does not just want to kill the unborn. The western mind wants to kill everybody. Scientists are working hard every day in their laboratories trying to kill us all as quickly as possible. "You see, there's nothing special about you--you're just a lump of cells in an impersonal universe!" That's what they tell us. I really have to ask why they are trying to hard to do this? They can't wait until they have taken everything special out of life. (Those of you familiar with G. K. Chesterton may notice his influence here, in particular on this last paragraph.)
In order to break the stalemate in the abortion debate, it may be useful to step back from our culture and look at it from a distance. When historians tell our tale, they will probably have a lot of words to classify our era, but among the terms would certainly be "western individualism." Just like the Renaissance, Dark Ages, Enlightenment and numerous other schools of thought before, there are themes deep in the psyche of each era. Each movement is characterized by a particular world view and assumptions.
Individualism is many things, but one of the defining points is that the individual is the ultimate reality. The more distinct and separate the individual is, the better. Our society is oriented toward the individual, with everything else taking second or third consideration.
Individualism is endemic in both liberal and conservative ideology. In fact, it is the axis on which those viewpoints revolve. We see this manifested in capitalism, our environmental approach as well as religious movements today. The rights of the individual are paramount, and the effects of our individual actions on each other and the world are an afterthought.
We are starting to collectively realize the shortcomings of such a worldview: When each of us is focused on getting something for ourselves we end up shortchanging each other and ultimately ourselves, as well. Many of us are now looking for a more holistic worldview in which we acknowledge our togetherness and inter-relatedness.
Stoplights
Half of Columbus was without power a couple weeks ago. It amazed me how slowly traffic moved without stoplights. Many of us usually dislike stoplights--we want to drive unimpeded and hate having to stop at every 3rd intersection for a red light. Yet, without those lights, we move at a snail's pace. Instead of a long line of cars moving through an intersection when it's their turn, you instead have one car at a time. It does make people become more aware and cooperate on their own, rather than mindlessly obeying a stoplight. But the end result is that it takes forever to get from one side of town to the other.
In the case of the stoplights, if we were to focus so much on the individual's "right" to travel without being told when to stop and go, we would end up with a society in which we are more limited than before. When every intersection is a 4-way stop no one gets anywhere. Taking your individual freedom away and making you stop at red lights and go on green actually gives us all more freedom when it is all said and done.
Infant Baptism
Let's look at religion as an example: The current evangelical movements strike a chord with a lot of folks today. The emphasis on a "personal relationship with God" is very individualized. Many people think of religious salvation in individual terms--this person gets saved and that one doesn't. Maybe you think we all get saved--each individual. Whether you have a conservative or liberal view, many of us are still looking at the issue on individual terms. By contrast, traditional Catholic views hold for the salvation of a people, consistent with Old Testament Judaism.
Many folks have trouble understanding things such things as infant baptism, such as in Catholicism. People don't understand how an infant baby can make a decision for Christ when the infant is just a few days old! Well, that's a misunderstanding--infant baptism is a community sacrament.
We celebrate the fact that God's grace is a gift and you can't actually go and get it yourself. It is a sacrament of God's promise and our hope that the gift will be there through no work of our own. In this light, infant baptism makes all the sense in the world. Celebrating our faith, hope and love that God's grace will shine on this person in whatever way God wants, we make our commitment to raise the child in the body of Christ--the Church. It may even make more sense than adult baptism, which emphasizes the individual's decision for Christ.
In my view, both baptisms are just fine. Each version emphasizes certain elements and not others. With adult baptism, it is easy to forget that the adult is able to make a decision for Christ only through the work of the Holy Spirit in the first place. With a baby, it is much easier to remember that the baby isn't making any decision at all and the child is totally dependent on God's grace. And with infant baptism the decision of the individual for Christ is still to come.
Abortion
Pregnancy really boggles the mind of a western individualist. How can it be that two bodies are joined as one? This issue is really not that hard for someone living in another time period, but for our era of western individualism, this is a real stumper. The decision that gets reached in the mind of the western individualist is that the baby must not be a real life. That is the only solution that makes sense to the modern person.
To acknowledge the life of the child (and rights) would be to challenge western individualism itself--it would be to acknowledge that there is something greater than the self. It is not just your body anymore, no matter how much western individualism tells us that we are entitled to think that way. The western mind simply cannot conceive of two bodies ultimately joined, and in frustration the western mind simply devalues one in favor of another. It doesn't know how else to handle this. However, you can see the discomfort in people around this--they know deep down this isn't a satisfactory answer.
Western individualism is ultimately limited. The truth is that we are fervently inter-connected to each other. The actions of one person can and do affect others, no matter how much the western mind wants to pretend that we are totally separate. We all live downstream from someone and upstream from another. Your right to smoke impedes my right not to breathe dirty air. None of us is totally "independent"--that is another myth of western individualism. Instead, we are all in various stages of growth and development, and each stage is vital to us. All day long my actions affect others, and their actions affect me.
A lot of the hot button social issues today can be intensely challenging to figure out--abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, etc. We all have beliefs about life that we take for granted, but when we wrestle with extreme situations like these we can have real difficulty finding a way to make the ends meet. Some things just don't fit. It is easy to throw up our hands and be glad when we don't have to make decisions about these complicated issues. However, I would hold that when these issues are so challenging it is because they are exposing the limitations of our worldview. Maybe it's a sign to change our worldview. Individualism sounds fine in certain arenas, but it quickly falls short in describing what is going on here on earth as these issues show us.
We need to approach the issue of abortion out of the mindset of an inter-connected people, not as separate individuals who happen to be in society together. With individualism, we focus on the individual first, and we use our legal system to sort out what to do when the rights of one interferes with the rights of another. The focus here is the individual, with limitations imposed only when these clashes occur--considerations of society come second.
You see, the question in abortion is not a matter of deciding what the rights of the baby are versus the rights of the mother. The real question is deciding what the responsibilities of the baby and mother are to each other and our mutual responsibility as a society to and with these people. Only then are we going to get out of this abortion stalemate.
We are in stalemate, because we are asking the wrong question. We end up with all sorts of awkward ideas in order to maintain our western individual mindset, such as claiming that the baby is not a baby--or even if it is, it doesn't have rights because of some arbitrary criteria picked out of a hat such as which stage of development it is in. Let's be honest: Those criteria are not for the baby's benefit, those are designed to uphold the freedom of the mother first. In our society, the baby only has rights when the mother does not have to be involved anymore. So we define the start of the baby's life as the point by which the mother can check out--as if that actually has anything to do with the start of the baby's life at all.
A baby has become an object. The only way to support abortion is to devalue babies--probably the core value the human race has ever had. There is probably nothing that defines our species more than the intense love of adults for babies. This is the tie we have to sever in order to justify abortion. We have to make babies into objects.
I don't even want to imagine what that does to the human spirit or what long-term impact that will have on a society which is working hard every day to devalue life in all it's forms and reduce us all to mechanistic formulas--psychology, science, you name it. You see, the western mind does not just want to kill the unborn. The western mind wants to kill everybody. Scientists are working hard every day in their laboratories trying to kill us all as quickly as possible. "You see, there's nothing special about you--you're just a lump of cells in an impersonal universe!" That's what they tell us. I really have to ask why they are trying to hard to do this? They can't wait until they have taken everything special out of life. (Those of you familiar with G. K. Chesterton may notice his influence here, in particular on this last paragraph.)
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Bailout Follow-Up Post
There was crazy moving weekend last year. We got a group together from the Columbus Catholic Worker and the Newman Center. In addition to helping Erin move to her new house, we transported massive amounts of furniture to and from several locations, much of it going to the Catholic Worker's Emmanuel House. It took two full days to get it all done. It was truly a moving experience, in more ways than one.
During that weekend, Erin had been hinting that she knew someone else who could use some help: A single mom who had gotten a much-deserved break in life and was moving from graffiti-laced tenements to a much nicer home. We were exhausted from all the work, but many of us decided to help out. How much stuff could a poor woman like that have? We figured we'd throw a few items onto the truck and quickly wrap it up.
I had rented a 26' Penske truck for the weekend--the largest moving vehicle I could have gotten without a CDL license. I mention this because it took us two full loads with this vehicle to transport all the items of this impoverished woman.
During that weekend, Erin had been hinting that she knew someone else who could use some help: A single mom who had gotten a much-deserved break in life and was moving from graffiti-laced tenements to a much nicer home. We were exhausted from all the work, but many of us decided to help out. How much stuff could a poor woman like that have? We figured we'd throw a few items onto the truck and quickly wrap it up.
I had rented a 26' Penske truck for the weekend--the largest moving vehicle I could have gotten without a CDL license. I mention this because it took us two full loads with this vehicle to transport all the items of this impoverished woman.Now, I want to be very careful here before we are tempted to jump to any conclusions about this woman's poverty. None of these items were worth much--we're talking about smoke-soaked, urine-stained mattresses and furniture that practically fell apart when you touched it. Everything was broken, and you would be lucky to get a nickel for any of it.
I also don't want to jump to any conclusions about how she acquired all this stuff. Maybe it was all donations or picked up by the side of the road. It could have been left by previous tenants in the apartments she has lived in It is possible she didn't spend a cent for any of it in the first place.
But I would be lying if I said that the thought never crossed my mind that a part of this woman's poverty could involve decisions she was making about these items. If she were actually spending money for this stuff, maybe she could be doing it differently. The stuff she had was barely even usable, by middle-class standards. If she were spending money on it, even if it were the most low-cost church rummage sale, what she was getting was hardly doing the job. Maybe instead of buying several extremely low-cost beds, for example, she could instead have bought one or two nicer ones.
Again, I don't want to create an impression that poor people are all living with mountains of valuable possessions and have loads of resources they just need to shift from one place to another and then all their problems are solved. I'd invite anyone to take a tour with me of some of these homes before you think that poor people are running away with highway robbery of government support.
But it is also no secret to say that many of us--including the very poor--just don't have good resource management skills. We don't spend our money wisely or accumulate items in the most forward-thinking way. In poverty, people deal with violence, fear, long periods of unemployment--they are immersed in a culture of substance abuse, multi-generational depression and a constant state of emergency. People don't always have the time or resources to cut coupons or do smart shopping. Still, if they were somehow able to do this, I wonder what kind of possibilities would exist.
And while many of us are living paycheck-to-paycheck without a retirement plan in sight, how many trucks would it take to haul away all of your stuff? You see, I write this post not to criticize the very poor and certainly not this woman in particular, whose life story would chill your blood. I describe this as as an example for middle-class America: Those truckloads of useless junk lining the walls of your basement or attic are your future. That stuff could be your retirement plan, heirloom furniture, trips to Jamaica, donations to the poor or literally anything else. Those boxes of stuff you bought for a dollar here and a dollar there add up to hundreds and even thousands of dollars squandered away.
This poor woman probably didn't even buy the stuff she had--what's your excuse?
Bailout
With all the depressing talk about the economy lately, there are some rays of hope. Some folks are saying that if it becomes harder to get credit it may actually have a positive effect on our culture. People may invest more wisely and save up for things. Imagine that!
We feel so entitled to have things right now in our culture. We feel entitled to buy a house--even though we don't have a blessed cent to put up for it. We feel entitled to have the latest flashy thing in the store window, whether we truly need it or even if we'll still want it when we wake up the next day. We think getting that TV for "zero money down" is an amazing deal--at least, it seems that way. But looks can be deceiving.
Erin told me about someone who did not buy a dining room set until she had the money saved up. Until then, she and her family ate dinner on the floor. Pondering this, I realized there isn't any furniture that you actually need right now. Sure, 30 years eating on the wood floor would be difficult. But a few days? Weeks?
The grim reality in our culture is that our need for things right now has actually made us have less! We think we are ahead of the game, when in reality we are far behind. Let's say you found a dining room set for $500. It seems like a good deal, so you buy it on credit. But how much do you actually pay for it? By the time you pay the interest, fees, delivery (because you couldn't wait until you were able to borrow a truck or double-up with somebody else) you might be paying $600... $700... more?
You would have paid $500 if you saved up for the dining set. Your need to have it right now made you pay an extra $200--money you could have spent on something else. That's a nice lamp you're not going to have. What would have been the harm in waiting? 6 months eating dinner Indian-style on the floor is not torture. It may actually be a cute story to tell your kids in the years to come. God forbid--it may actually be a fun adventure!
I should also mention that the woman who waited for her dining set is a wealthy woman. It is smart decisions like this that got her where she's at. The rest of us have an addiction to stuff. We need stuff and we need it now. The paradox is that we end up with less while the woman who severed her unhealthy attachment to stuff ends up with more.
Credit is a wonderful thing, but it should only be used if the situation meets one of these criteria:
A. Will the benefits outweigh the costs? Let's say you run a gardening service, but you do not have money to buy a rotor tiller. Instead, you have to dig gardens with a shovel by hand. You end up digging up 2 gardens by hand instead of rotor tilling 10. In this case, it would be totally worth it to buy a rotor tiller on credit. You can increase your revenue by 5 times with this one smart investment which would no doubt cover the interest and them some. In the case of the dining room furniture, there is no real benefit to having it right now.
B. When emergency dictates it. There are times when you just gotta have something and it's for real. You may need fly to Bolivia to investigate your son and the commune of "happy, loving people" he joined. However, this point is really an extension of the point above: The benefits need to outweigh the costs. In this case, the benefits are not material but still valuable.
People can be richer if they just slow down a bit. Every time you use your credit card, you are actually taking out a loan. You will pay for it eventually. If you don't have enough money to buy it now, what makes you think you are going to have enough money to pay for it in the future with interest on top of that? You will have to severely restrict your lifestyle to accomodate these unwise investments.
The rotor tiller investment is wise because it will enable you to increase your income so that you will more than compensate for the interest. You should only go into debt when it will enable you to expand your resources enough to cover the extra cost of having it now. If you use this criteria every time you swipe yourcredit card, you may find yourself swiping it less.
One person can have a dining room set and a lamp. The other person has just a dining room set. Just think how these people are going to differe after 10 years of these kinds of decisions! One may have a house decked out with exquisite furniture (all paid for), while the other is scrambling to pay interest on the few simple items they got on their so-called amazing zero money down deal. They first person gets two items for every one the other gets.
Most Americans live in a fog where we think they can have it all and never have to pay. As Al Gore says, America may be entering into a period of consequences--in the environment, in foreign policy and in personal finance. The loans become due whether we pull the covers over our head or not.
Take it from me as someone who is living much humbler than I should. For the past few years, not only have I been paying back all my credit debt but also paying a couple hundred dollars each month in interest (thankfully I'm near the end of it). I am living like I'm making half the money I'm making. I believe in simple living so I'm not too upset, but that is money I could have spent for charities or else to save up for a house or retirement.
For most of us, there is no bailout. We end up paying it all back. With interest. All for junk you can live without.
We feel so entitled to have things right now in our culture. We feel entitled to buy a house--even though we don't have a blessed cent to put up for it. We feel entitled to have the latest flashy thing in the store window, whether we truly need it or even if we'll still want it when we wake up the next day. We think getting that TV for "zero money down" is an amazing deal--at least, it seems that way. But looks can be deceiving.
Erin told me about someone who did not buy a dining room set until she had the money saved up. Until then, she and her family ate dinner on the floor. Pondering this, I realized there isn't any furniture that you actually need right now. Sure, 30 years eating on the wood floor would be difficult. But a few days? Weeks?
The grim reality in our culture is that our need for things right now has actually made us have less! We think we are ahead of the game, when in reality we are far behind. Let's say you found a dining room set for $500. It seems like a good deal, so you buy it on credit. But how much do you actually pay for it? By the time you pay the interest, fees, delivery (because you couldn't wait until you were able to borrow a truck or double-up with somebody else) you might be paying $600... $700... more?
You would have paid $500 if you saved up for the dining set. Your need to have it right now made you pay an extra $200--money you could have spent on something else. That's a nice lamp you're not going to have. What would have been the harm in waiting? 6 months eating dinner Indian-style on the floor is not torture. It may actually be a cute story to tell your kids in the years to come. God forbid--it may actually be a fun adventure!
I should also mention that the woman who waited for her dining set is a wealthy woman. It is smart decisions like this that got her where she's at. The rest of us have an addiction to stuff. We need stuff and we need it now. The paradox is that we end up with less while the woman who severed her unhealthy attachment to stuff ends up with more.
Credit is a wonderful thing, but it should only be used if the situation meets one of these criteria:
A. Will the benefits outweigh the costs? Let's say you run a gardening service, but you do not have money to buy a rotor tiller. Instead, you have to dig gardens with a shovel by hand. You end up digging up 2 gardens by hand instead of rotor tilling 10. In this case, it would be totally worth it to buy a rotor tiller on credit. You can increase your revenue by 5 times with this one smart investment which would no doubt cover the interest and them some. In the case of the dining room furniture, there is no real benefit to having it right now.
B. When emergency dictates it. There are times when you just gotta have something and it's for real. You may need fly to Bolivia to investigate your son and the commune of "happy, loving people" he joined. However, this point is really an extension of the point above: The benefits need to outweigh the costs. In this case, the benefits are not material but still valuable.
People can be richer if they just slow down a bit. Every time you use your credit card, you are actually taking out a loan. You will pay for it eventually. If you don't have enough money to buy it now, what makes you think you are going to have enough money to pay for it in the future with interest on top of that? You will have to severely restrict your lifestyle to accomodate these unwise investments.
The rotor tiller investment is wise because it will enable you to increase your income so that you will more than compensate for the interest. You should only go into debt when it will enable you to expand your resources enough to cover the extra cost of having it now. If you use this criteria every time you swipe yourcredit card, you may find yourself swiping it less.
One person can have a dining room set and a lamp. The other person has just a dining room set. Just think how these people are going to differe after 10 years of these kinds of decisions! One may have a house decked out with exquisite furniture (all paid for), while the other is scrambling to pay interest on the few simple items they got on their so-called amazing zero money down deal. They first person gets two items for every one the other gets.
Most Americans live in a fog where we think they can have it all and never have to pay. As Al Gore says, America may be entering into a period of consequences--in the environment, in foreign policy and in personal finance. The loans become due whether we pull the covers over our head or not.
Take it from me as someone who is living much humbler than I should. For the past few years, not only have I been paying back all my credit debt but also paying a couple hundred dollars each month in interest (thankfully I'm near the end of it). I am living like I'm making half the money I'm making. I believe in simple living so I'm not too upset, but that is money I could have spent for charities or else to save up for a house or retirement.
For most of us, there is no bailout. We end up paying it all back. With interest. All for junk you can live without.
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