Misogynist? NOT.

Let it not be said that St. Augustine was a misogynist. He thought very seriously about the place in creation of human reproduction--of the male and the female and their particular beauty. Contrary to some contemporaries--mostly Manichees--he saw the female form as a cause of rejoicing.

Now, you may read the following excerpt to your village women's studies professor. She might react vehemently, "That's just so weird and sick--who cares about reproductive organs in heaven? Some sicko, that's who. Some white guy obsessed with sex and keeping women in their place."

Ignore her. Augustine was African.

Another possible interpretation of Augustine's thoughts on women is this: Augustine thought seriously enough about male and female reproductive organs to wonder. In his wonder, he could imagine with great reverence what God could have meant when He made us male and female. Far from being perverted, Augustine was able to extract his thoughts from lust for breasts and thighs and hips in order to simply regard them as gifts. I see lots of "free women" exposing female body parts, but I sure don't see much reverence. The female body in pop culture isn't taken seriously enough to make the question, what about eternity?, even make sense.

And, when our treatment of our bodies kills all imagination and wonder, when the questions become nonsense, then we have lost our childlike joy and innocence. In a world without questions, we are old and dry and impotent.

But Augustine, that dead "white" guy, is alive, virile, and exciting. His wonder is contagious: here he is on the female body and eternity.

"Because of these sayings, 'Until we reach the perfection of manhood, the stature of the full maturity of Christ,' and 'Being shaped into the likeness of God Son', some people suppose that women will not keep their sex at the resurrection; but, they say, they will all rise again as men, since God made man out of clay, and woman out of man. For my part, I feel that theirs is the more sensible opinion who have no doubt that there will be both sexes in the resurrection. For in that life there will be no sexual lust, which is the cause of shame. For the first human beings, before their sin, 'were naked, the man and the woman, and they were not ashamed.'

"Thus while all defects will be removed from those bodies, their essential nature will be preserved. Now a woman's sex is not a defect; it is natural. And in the resurrection it will be free of the necessity of intercourse and childbirth. However, the female organs will not subserve their former use; they will be part of a new beauty, which will not excite the lust of the beholder--there will be no lust in that life--but will arouse the praises of God for his wisdom and compassion, in that he not only created out of nothing but freed from corruption that which he had created."

~City of God,XXII.17

The gift of understanding.

The last two weeks have been a blur of emotions, a rush to understand, come to terms, and combat "the spirit of the age." The HHS mandate poked its head into our lives one day and changed forever the way faithful Christians and Jews see their position in our country. That takes some getting used to.

Of course, I hope that we do not lose this fight and that we do maintain our freedom to treat pregnancy as nature-gone-right.

It's hard, however, not to look into the future and wonder: Will my children--should they choose to remain Christians--be prohibited from attending medical school? Will the Scientist Dad and I be forced to pay heavy fines for refusing health insurance? Will our priests and bishops find themselves crippled by financial penalties or prison? Will Catholics who own businesses be forced to close them?

Those are the immediate fears that come to mind. But then I think again on those brave men and women who have gone before us--the English martyrs, the Japanese martyrs, the Mexican martyrs, the parents silenced in the Soviet Union, and so many more. Their sufferings have passed and they are blessed "who washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb." All these materials concerns--what if?--surely come to nothing. It is a shrug in the vastness of eternity.

That is not to say these fears are unreal or should be ignored. We must, in fidelity to the Word made flesh, resist the apocalyptic endings. God is found more readily, for weak souls such as me, in a peaceful life free from the temptations of persecution. "Who shall abide the day of His coming?" Grant us peace in our day, is our daily prayer.

What the Christian life gives to us, however, is not a promise that we will escape extreme hardship. Even if our generation is able to "flee the wrath," our surrender to Christ has asked of us the most difficult thing of all. Regardless of the rise and fall of churchmen and politicians, we who are in Christ have received the heavy cross of understanding.

Caryll Houselander writes of this in her phenomenal Reed of God:

"In the world in which we live today, the great understanding given by the Spirit of Wisdom must involve us in a lot of suffering. We shall be obliged to see the wound that sin has inflicted on the people of the world. We shall have X-ray minds; we shall see through the bandages people have laid over wounds that sin has dealt them; we shall see the Christ in others, and that vision will impose an obligation on us for as long as we live, the obligation of love..."

That is a much heavier burden than any fine, loss of healthcare, loss of livelihood. We can see so clearly behind the current threats of persecution and in our family and friends' cold reactions to our distress. We see the pain and darkness of the world outside of the Church. Our hearts are broken and "haunted" by a nostalgia, not for the 1950's or 1200's, but for a homeland we have yet to see. The HHS mandate breaks my heart, not because I'm worried that Bella can't become a doctor, but because of the "tragedy of misunderstanding" between those who have chosen the "middle way" with the world and those who have chosen the "danger of the Divine Lover."

What can I do?

Caryll again:

"The only thing to do is to go on loving, to be patient, to suffer the misunderstanding. Explanations even of what can be explained seldom heal--and there is so much that cannot be explained.

"Even the presence of Christ in us does not do away with our own clumsiness, blindness, stupidity. Indeed, sometimes because of our limitations, His light is a blinding light to us and we become, for a time, more dense than before. We shall be irritable, still make mistakes, and still very likely be unaware of how exasperating we are...

"If we realize we are a little absurd, the love of humility will come more easily."

Whatever the trajectory of our little nation--and it is so little in light even of human history--the Way is still the same. We will plug on either to glorious martyrdom or an insignificant ordinary old age. But we will have no fear, for along with the spirit of understanding we have been given the spirit of strength. The Bride shares the strength of her Lover, because when she received him and his sorrow, she received all his might as well.

Plato on the well brought-up child.

The well-trained child is one "who would see most clearly whatever was amiss in ill-made works of man or ill-grown works of nature, and with a just distaste would blame and hate the ugly even from his earliest years and would give delighted praise to beauty, receiving it into his soul and being nourished by it, so that he becomes a man of gentle heart.

All this before he is of an age to reason; so that when Reason at length comes to him, then, bred as he has been, he will hold out his hands in welcome and recognize her because of the affinity he bears to her."

How beautiful. How true.

Ghost sex.

That Bad Catholic has written a fabulous post on "How Descartes Ruined Sex." It's pithy, it's simplified, and it's hilarious (you laugh or you cry).

I was a bit miffed because he's made my latest idea, "Descartes' Bad Sex," moot. But that's just vanity. This, however, is just dead-on:

"Biology and anatomy are a bit brusque with this issue: Sex is the reproductive act, all else is imitation. In fact, if one must qualify sex as to its location, use mechanical devices to have it, or otherwise separate its form from its function, then it is specifically defined as being ‘not sex’."

He doesn't quite explain the leap here:

"But notice what its advocates use in its defense, or in the defense of any other exotic form of foreplay being ‘sex’ itself. They will, in one way or another, split the body and the soul. They must. It’s impossible to argue that parts of the body besides the genitalia were meant for reproduction, so they will move on to “sex is what the partners make of it,” or something of the sort. What your body is doing isn’t important, whether it be anal sex, oral sex — whatever. You can have sex without sex. The union of the sexual act can be achieved without the true, natural union of your body. You can have the soul without the body."

I think what he's arguing at the very end is this: The "soul" of sex is that union of two persons, the "body" is the physical act of reproduction (or the simultaneous use of the reproductive organs--yes, they're physical organs. But the world of the flesh (as in, sarx) tries to divorce the union of the reproductive organs--which normally leads to reproduction--from the union of the whole persons. They try to have the soul of sex without the body.

And it's all Descartes fault?

No. But he sure did help the whole durned thing to collapse.

Visions of Judgment

With the end of the Church year upon us, HG Wells' short story "A Vision of Judgment" seemed appropriate--both to the liturgy and the general malaise settling over the political candidates and their constituents alike.

Wells is not (disclaimer!) attempting to communicate facts about the End Times, nor is he attempting to formulate new and heretical doctrine about the nature of God and the new heavens and new earth.

The point of the story is that evil is banal. Sin is boring. The narrator arrives at the Day of Judgment and sees everyone: Darwin and Henry VIII make an appearance, as does his publisher. The first man to be judged is lifted up onto God's palm and ordered to tell all of creation his sins. He does so:

I was a king," said the little figure, "a great king, and I was lustful
and proud and cruel. I made wars, I devastated countries, I built palaces,
and the mortar was the blood of men. Hear, O God, the witnesses against
me, calling to you for vengeance. Hundreds and thousands of witnesses." He
waved his hands towards us. "And worse! I took a prophet--one of your
prophets----"

"One of my prophets," said the Lord God.

"And because he would not bow to me, I tortured him for four days and
nights, and in the end he died. I did more, O God, I blasphemed. I robbed
you of your honours----"

"Robbed me of my honours," said the Lord God.

"I caused myself to be worshipped in your stead. No evil was there but I
practised it; no cruelty wherewith I did not stain my soul. And at last
you smote me, O God!"

God raised his eyebrows slightly.

"And I was slain in battle. And so I stand before you, meet for your
nethermost Hell! Out of your greatness daring no lies, daring no pleas,
but telling the truth of my iniquities before all mankind."

He ceased. His face I saw distinctly, and it seemed to me white and
terrible and proud and strangely noble. I thought of Milton's Satan.

God asks whether all this is true. The Angel Gabriel answers that, well, yes. In a manner of speaking, all this is true. But then he goes on to tell the true story: The king had a bad stomach, he ate too much... the Angel reads out all the little, stupid sins and weaknesses that destroy "the dignity of defiance."

The king who imagined himself a great individual, unmatched in his accomplishments (evil though they were), was in fact not unlike the hairy prophet he tortured and killed. An upset stomach tempts us to rage. An embarrassing belch tempts us to imagine our importance offended. And on and on.

By the end of the litany, shame overcomes the little king.

The Wicked Man on God's hand began to dance and weep. Suddenly shame overcame him. He made a wild rush to jump off the ball of God's little finger, but God stopped him by a dexterous turn of the wrist. Then he made a rush for the gap between hand and thumb, but the thumb closed. And all the while the angel went on reading--reading. The Wicked Man rushed to and fro across God's palm, and then suddenly turned about and fled up the sleeve of God.

The whole story is really a treat. I should like to read it to my children--once they have reached the rhetorical stage. It is good to laugh at sin, especially when the evils of the world seem to weigh us down and the hours are long and dark in the night.

We are all as infants before God, before judgment. We can't even distinguish our selves from others by rebellion. There is nothing new under the sun.

There is only home. We only need the sense to run toward it.

Image source.

"I believe..."

This looks like it could be grand. I have the highest respect for any one of these Christians, and fond memories of the glory days of First Things. Give it a try!



It's for sale here.

Chaput on Religious Freedom.

Archbishop Chaput (almost of Philadelphia!) has been urging the youth in Madrid to holiness in all sorts of venues. You've got to love this blurb from his address in the Madrid stadium during the “Noche de Alegría” (Night of Joy):

“Ultimately, it will not be how you feel that will determine how genuine and profound your encounter with Jesus is,” he told pilgrims.

“Instead, it will be determined by how much you are transformed into Him and how much you burn in the desire to bring Him to others, by announcing the Gospel, by serving the poor and the needy, by defending the unborn, by securing a culture that is not hostile to the growth of Christian families,” he said.

The address that really struck me, however, was on religious freedom. Ever since Health and Human Services mandated contraceptive coverage from healthcare providers, I've been chewing on the concept. What is religious freedom, anyway? Can it be that we've reached a point in American history when the very idea of religious freedom no longer has any real meaning? It's a bothersome thought, and I was feeling rather reactionary. I'm no extreme Tea Partier (I prefer coffee. Wah-waaaah.). I wear pants. I don't mind women wearing the hijab around the park (Miriam thinks they're all nuns).

But I just can't shake the nagging feeling that, in the West, our freedom to profess and practice our faith in public ain't what it could be. Or what we like to imagine it is. Chaput said:

"Religious freedom means being able to worship as we choose."

Unfortunately, I think most of us tend to stop there. But Chaput goes on:

"It’s also the liberty to preach, teach, and practice our faith openly and without fear. But it involves even more than that. Religious freedom includes the right of religious believers, leaders, and communities to take part vigorously in a nation’s public life."

He then distinguishes two premises that underlie our Western belief in the freedom of religion: First, we assume that, because human beings are free, we are free to believe or not believe in God. Second, we assume "
that questions about God, eternity and the purpose of human life really do have vital importance for human happiness. And therefore people should have the freedom to pursue and to live out the answers they find to those basic questions without government interference."

He's saying that if either one of these two premises is absent, so is the basis for our defense of the freedom of religion. I'm not so sure that the West in general believes in either premise any longer.

He continues:

"Freedom of religion cannot coexist with freedom from religion. Forcing religious faith out of a nation’s public square and out of a country’s public debates does not serve democracy. It doesn’t serve real tolerance or pluralism. What it does do is impose a kind of unofficial state atheism. To put it another way, if we ban Christian Churches or other religious communities from taking an active role in our nation’s civic life, we’re really just enforcing a new kind of state-sponsored intolerance—a religion without God."

He then presents a sort of survey of the state of religious freedom world-wide. You'll want to read the whole thing.

And if the whole thing leaves you a little morose, or even (heaven forbid) nostalgic, then remember this: This has all happened before. The Church has never taught that the world is progressing ever-forward; nor do we believe that "it's all going to pot." GK Chesterton offers some solace:

"Today this is the way the world is going, if there is any such thing. But in fact there is no such thing. A Catholic perhaps should have seen it from the first; but many a Catholic has only seen it in a flash at the last. There is no way the world is going. There never was. The world is not going anywhere, in the sense of the old optimist progressives, or even of the old pessimist reactionaries. It is not going to the Brave New World... any more that to the New Utopia. The world is what the saints and the prophets saw it was; it is not merely getting better or merely getting worse.... [It] wobbles.

"Now that is fundamentally what the Church has always said.... [She says] that we must not we must not count on the certainty even of comforts becoming more common or cruelties more rare.... We must not hate humanity, or despise humanity, or refuse to help humanity; but we must not trust humanity.... 'Put not your trust in princes or in any child of man.'" ~The Well and the Shallows

And so it is. The world is not our home, and so the betrayals and disappointments we suffer should drive us neither to despair nor to self-deception. We don't need to pretend that religious freedom is alive and well. We don't need to bemoan our fate for living "in such times." We only need, as Chaput concludes, one, total act of submission. But not to the world:

"We can’t change the direction of the world by ourselves or on our own. But that’s not our job. Our job—and especially your job as young leaders—is to let God change us, and then through us, God will change others and the world. We win the world by winning one soul at a time for Jesus Christ and his Church, starting with ourselves. We win the future by beginning right here, right now, in this time we have together.

"Ignorance of the world is a luxury we can’t afford. Being uninformed about the world and its problems and issues is a sin against our vocation as disciples. Love Jesus Christ as your brother and Lord. Love the Church as your mother. Know your faith, know the world and its struggles—and then open your hearts. Let God use you to bring others to the salvation that God intends for all of us."

Image source.

The Assumption of the Mary

The Assumption! (Before I start, I just have to point out the icon to the left. I loved it because, at first glance, I thought it was Mary up in heaven throwing down a rope so that we could climb up to be with her. It's actually Thomas catching her girdle as she throws it down to him. Ah, well. It's still beautiful.)

Today we celebrate the pledge of the resurrection of our human bodies: our belief that God took his Mother, Mary of Nazareth, body and soul to heaven at the end of her life. As she is now, so we someday hope to be.

There is always some angst over this feast day. We Romans of the West tend to think of it as "something we have to believe" because Pius XII said it was so in 1950. This is not the case, as Pius himself emphasizes repeatedly in his declaration (which is in itself a masterful and fascinating survey of the history of Church liturgy and theology).

The reasons we--and our brethren in the Eastern Churches--believe that Mary now lives in her resurrected body in heaven are based on the living traditions of the Church--our understanding of Scripture (particularly Revelation 12), the ancient liturgies and Church fathers, and the evidence of the earliest Christian churches in the Holy Land. Wikipedia actually has an amazing run-down of the what the feast is and is not for both the East and the West.

What the feast is not, for the West, is the commemoration of Mary's death. Pius XII left that question open--Roman Catholics are not bound to believe either that Mary died before her resurrection or that she was directly assumed into heaven without suffering death. The Eastern Churches, in general, hold--but not dogmatically, as is their custom--that she did physically die and then was raised to heaven on the third day after the manner of Christ himself. Pius XII chose not to define that dogmatically, for reasons unknown to this Philosopher Mom. The question was also left open by some Church Fathers, so maybe Pius just didn't see himself as setting in stone what the ancients left to heaven.

The point of today is not dogma. It is not wrangling. It is this: "As the most glorious Mother of Christ, our Savior and God and the giver of life and immortality, has been endowed with life by him, she has received an eternal incorruptibility of the body together with him who has raised her up from the tomb and has taken her up to himself in a way known only to him." ~St. John Damascene

And this:

"When this mortal thing hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory." ~St. Paul

As she is, may we also be! And to end: This icon (below) is also a favorite. Look! It's Jesus holding his mom's little tiny soul! How much do I just want to swaddle up and nestle in his arms? So sweet. So real.

Miriam the Philosopher.

Miriam offered to do the dishes last week, and I figured that a little splashing in the sink wouldn't hurt anyone. To my delight, she actually washed them effectively! She has been happily doing my lunch dish work for the last few days. She's thrilled to be a big girl. I'm thrilled to let her do the dishes.

As she approaches 6 years old (oh, wow), she's also becoming quite the existentialist.

If you have any answers (that do not involve Sartre) to the following, please let me know.

Miriam the Platonist: "Mummy? If Daddy had married a different Mummy, would I be Miriam?"

Miriam the Thomist: "Mummy. If God had not made me to be me, who would I have been?"

Bella (3 years old): "Miwiam is so silly!"

Miriam the Wittgensteinian: "Mummy? If Daddy had married a different Mummy, would he live in this house?"

Miriam the Aristotelian: "Mummy. Why is the world so wonderful?"

Mummy the Husserlian: "Mummy! When I am not here, the trees will still be here!"

Becoming free...

...stretching my philosophical limbs a little bit.

A friend wrote: I've been talking with someone about what freedom is. What's freedom?

Freedom.

This is one of my favorites.

In nature, freedom just means "free from constraint." As in, the water is free to flow downriver when there is no dam obstructing its path."

At the level of human nature, though, freedom also includes a lack of interior (or psychological) obstruction, as well. Our freedom to choose is constrained by our passions: fear of pain or desire for some pleasure/good.

Because human freedom is part of who we are, though, it cannot be divorced from who we are as humans. Sounds simplistic: But it makes all the difference, especially in our "truth is relative, I make my own truth" culture. There is no freedom apart from truth, the truth about who we are and what we were made to be.

So, a person is perfectly free to act irresponsibly or wrongly. But in doing so, he is actually submitting to his own compulsions. And, because we are creatures of habit, a choice to submit to baser desires means that the next time we are confronted with that choice, we will be more inclined to act basely again. At a physical and psychological level, this is how addictions work: sexual pleasure, over-eating, nicotine, soap operas, etc... Freedom is easily lost, when we choose to need things lesser than ourselves.

On the other hand, when a person chooses freely to act well or rightly, he is actually becoming more free of his passions/desires/fears. Freedom expands as it is exercised well (and this is what it means that there is no freedom apart from truth). Curiously, submitting to an objective law higher than ourselves increases our freedom to choose what is good and true next time. And the world of good things to choose from is much broader, wider, vaster, and more beautiful than the world of bad things. This is why men and women exercise: physically, spiritually, and emotionally, we can expand our freedom from physical and psychological limitations.

In the Christian tradition: "For freedom Christ has set you free..." We're not just free to do what we like (although we are); Christ's law is not, "Whatever makes you feel schweet." Rather, we're free in order to become more free. And "more free" looks exactly like Jesus Christ.

Or, just read Avery Dulles, SJ.

Will the Real Christian Please Stand Up?

Back in early October, the Young Mom asked tough questions again. First and foremost: When do I stop being a "young" mom and become an "old" mom? Miriam says I'm not yet an Old Mom, "But you're not that young, either, you know." I know.

No, but seriously. Thus spake Young Mom (the condensed version) some weeks ago:

When can you know whether or not someone is a Christian? After what faults is our faith "negated"? Sexual abuse of a child? Adultery? Child beating? Does contrition or a sufficiently long "sober" period make them a Christian again? Does sin reveal who you really are deep down? Can you judge the "realness" of someone else's Christianity by the type of sin they struggle with or the amount of sins they they commit?

I may be beating the dead horse, but these questions have been around for a while and, I hazard, will still be beating that horse long after the Internet and blogging have gone out of style. So, as October beat us into a dead horse, I pondered them because these questions are worth pondering.

The first important point is, however, about answers.

If I'm going to ask "What makes a real Christian?" or "What sign do I look for in a real Christian?", then I'd better be ready to wonder. These questions are not abstract, but rather pertain to real, individual human beings. The minute I think I've determined the answer, "THAT makes a real Christian," I've also made myself a judge in some manner of real, honest-to-goodness human souls. God, however, is the only judge of souls, and His ways are not my ways. So, I need to be ready to wonder at and ponder these questions all my life, until I actually meet the author of the Answer.

After making myself a child (wonder), then I asked, "What are all these questions about "real" Christians really asking?"

I think there are two reasons we want to know (and these reasons are assuming the best about human beings).

1. Wondering about "real" Christians is really wondering about salvation. We all want to know, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" The young man asked Jesus, and we all ask Jesus, "What must I do?" There is no question, as Pope John Paul II said, that there is "a close connection between eternal life and obedience to God's commands... Jesus himself definitively confirms them and proposes them to us as the way and condition of salvation (Veritatis Splendor, no. 12)." But asking for a laundry list of sins or good works that will define me as a Christian is asking the wrong question. "Following Christ is not an outward imitation.... Being a follower of Christ means becoming conformed to him who became a servant even to giving himself on the Cross (no. 21)."

Darn! I think a laundry list would be easier.

So, if John Paul II is right (and he's basically just quoting St. Paul here), being a Christian means that Christ dwells in the heart of the believer. And, in my experience, the indwelling of Christ is an ongoing process. It's not like I woke up one day and was perfectly conformed to Christ (hot diggity, that would be swell!). Salvation comes, Paul tells us, through the name of Jesus, through whom we are adopted as God's sons and daughters. It sounds like a "real" Christian, then, is anyone who has entered upon this ongoing process, who has begun to be conformed to Christ on the Cross. That could include a lot of "sinners," as Jesus himself suggested on several occasions.

2. Wondering about "real" Christians is really searching for true companions. Aristotle's idea of true friendship, in which one person desires the true good of another simply for the sake of that other person, holds every human heart captive. We all want relationships with others who desire our true good, and, after the revelation of Christ, this means we all want to be with others who want us to be with God. We somehow know that only true Christians, "other Christs," can be true friends (again, in the ideal sense of the term). We want friends who won't betray us, who won't let us down, who won't embarrass us as Christians. We know that sin and failures among Christians hurt the whole body of the Church, while good and great Christians build up the whole body. There is no such thing as an individual's sins "that don't hurt anybody else"; neither is the any isolated virtuous man whose goodness does not somehow refresh and multiply the lovers of Christ around him.

And here's where we have to be real: The only true Christians are those who have fought the good fight and finished the race. We can all betray Christ right up until the moment of death and our particular judgement. We can all fail miserably to be Christian right up until we hit that far shore of the River. That's why it's so important to build relationships with the saints in heaven.

But what about here? Who are the "real" Christians here? Where can we find the true friend in Christ here?

Here are a few more thoughts. And then we will have to just sit and ponder.

"If you love you me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14) For the professed and catechized Christian, the true way to show we are Christians is by keeping the external commandments for the right, internal reasons. Jesus is quite clear: you have to have both a heart and actions conformed to him.

But what about when we (or other professed, catechized Christians) fail? All I can say is, read Romans 8: "What shall separate us from the love of Christ?" If we are followers of Christ, we know that there is no unforgivable sin, except the refusal of God's mercy. Period. As long as that Christian has opened his heart back up to the mercy of God, guess what? He's still as Christian as the day he was baptized. If we can't believe in unconditional forgiveness of a particular sin, then that indwelling of Christ is still imperfect in us as well. We, as well as the pederast or the adulterer, have to beg mercy. We, like the "obvious sinners," are still "on the way," "strangers and sojourners."

[I'm emphasizing "catechized" here for one important reason. If this is really a question about "Who may be saved?", then we can't limit the answer to just "good Christians." There may be that "anonymous Christian" lurking out there, along with the anonymous Catholic, anonymous theist, etc... But that's another whole post, as they say.]

In the end, the whole "Who is a Christian?" question may be the wrong question. A better question may be Christ's question to Peter, "Do you love me?" The answer is always, "I do, Lord, but not enough. Help me love you more."

Rehabilitiating obedience.

Needless to say, obedience gets a bad rap in our culture. It's as if our country spent the 60's and 70's shaking off authority, tradition, subjection, and obedience--some of which really had to go--and now can't salvage the beauty and strength of these disciplines. We got rid of the 50's suburban housewife thing, and also lost the way men and women can complement each other in a home. We were liberated from all sorts of harmful prejudices (real and imagined), and now can't find any reason for the only legitimate prejudice, a horror of sin.

But for the past few months I've been noticing the prevalence of obedience in the Scriptures. What I call "obedience words" also pop up repeatedly: subdued, subjection, authority, to reign. I've also noticed how happy the writers of Scripture seem about all this subduing. These are from the past week's Magnificat morning prayer sessions:

Paul: "Do you not know," he cries, "that if you present yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, of the one you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?" (Romans 6: 16)

And again, "When everything is subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the One who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all." (I Corinthians 15:28)

David (or whoever wrote Psalm 47): "The Lord, the Most High, we must fear, great king over all the earth."

Then, of course, there's the whole "obedience to other people" motif. Wives, be subordinate to your husbands. Children, honor your parents. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Those can be a bit harder to swallow, because although God may give these other people authority over me, I may not find their edicts palatable all the time. Don't I know better?

The first observation in order seems to be this: Human beings are an obeying sort of thing. That means that, just by virtue of being human, we are going to live in subjection to something. The second point is this: Also by virtue of being human, we get to choose to whom we subject ourselves.

That choice will either make us happy beyond all comprehension, leave us dissatisfied and wanting more, OR make us perfectly wretched and miserable.

For example, I am currently subject (among other pregnancy cravings) to Lime Tostito Chips. Wow. I just have to be munching on lime-flavor-dusted chips every ten minutes. And they leave me wanting more chips. Then I want more. I'm never full when I am obedient to the Lime Tostitos.

I have in the past chosen to be obedient to a debilitating frustration with a college roommate. Oh, that was a tough year. I was wretchedly miserable just thinking about going back to the room. I hated the way she hummed, talked on the phone, and dressed--it was like sandpaper on my soul. That was bad obedience, and it was my choice.

But there is one obedience that has given my endless joy: "Lord, I come to do your will." Subjection to God, and to God through the "righteous authorities" around me, is so much more fundamental than obedience to Lime Tostitos or to personal grudges. It is so fundamental, in fact, that it makes all the other slaveries--to sin and to weakness--seem small and silly. God subjects all the other authorities in my life to himself, and those that are found wanting he offers to take away.

I suppose that is why the persecuted Christians all over the world find so much joy in suffering for Christ. They may be frustrated day-to-day, being unable to raise their children in the faith or profess their beliefs openly, but they know they are not ultimately subject to anyone but God.

I'd like to end this now--the rambling must cease. I am subject to the authority of my children's needs, after all. And that obedience has certainly been a gift and a joy.

Bones and sinews.

I'm slogging through, er, writing a brief talk for a neuroscience class under the dubious title assigned to me): "What philosophy can do for neuroscience." Sigh. I'm off my game here, but Plato (being dead) never is. I came across a wonderful bit from the Phaedo that certainly helped me withstand materialist reductions.

When Socrates asked why he was sitting in the jail awaiting trial, he noted that Anaxagoras would have told him that he sat there because his limbs bent at the joints, his sinews stretched, and his rear touched the seat which was in the jail. In other words, Anaxagoras would have explained it all in terms of his body parts.

Socrates’s answer speaks to us today as we hear things like, "Well, the neurons explain away free will."

"By the dog, I think these sinews and bones could long ago have been in Megara or among the Boetians, taken there by my belief as to the best course, if I had not thought it more right and honorable to endure whatever penalty the city ordered rather than escape and run away. To call those things—sinews, bones, joints, sockets—causes is too absurd. If someone said that without bones and sinews and all such things, I should be able to do what I decided, he would be right, but surely to say that they are the cause of what I do, and not that I have chosen the best course, even though I act with my mind, is to speak very lazily and carelessly. Imagine not being able to distinguish the real cause from that without which the cause would not be able to act as a cause!” (Phaedo, 98e-99b)

He then goes on to a brilliant philosophical discourse on the immortality of the soul, asking all the deepest questions of our longings and attempting to grasp at answers that take account of all he knows—his body, his thoughts, his country, his upbringing, the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

And it is a bumbling brilliancy—as all such grapplings are. And Socrates would laugh at neurophilosophy's confidence that soon, at last, knowing the whole of the brain, we will understand ourselves. For we will understand only a little something of a much greater whole. And, without the reference to the whole, the material part will lose its certainty, for it will lose its context.

As Socrates knew, it is only in appeal to all things—seen and unseen—that the satisfaction of our deepest, and philosophical, questions even begin to emerge into the light.

St. Edith Stein rocks my world.

Okay, so how many hard-core philosophers do you remember using the image of a trusting little child to prove their point? Here, Edith Stein (in Finite and Eternal Being) is responding to Heidegger's idea that human life is a process, dominated by anxiety, of hurtling toward death. He made the case that the only "rational human attitude" is "a passionate ... consciously resolute and anxiety-stricken freedom toward death." She objects:

"By no means. The undeniable fact that my being is limited in its transience from moment to moment and thus exposed to the possibility of nothingness is counterbalanced by the equally undeniable fact that despite this transience, I a, that from moment to moment I am sustained in my being, and that in my fleeting being I share in [eternal] being. In the knowledge that being holds me, I rest securely. This security, however, is not the self-assurance of one who under her own power stands on firm ground, but rather the sweet and blissful security of a child that is lifted up and carried by a strong arm. And, objectively speaking, this kind of security is not less rational. For if a child were living in the constant fear that its mother might let it fall, we should hardly call this a rational attitude."

Interesting historical note: Stein was gassed at Auschwitz under Nazi rule; Heidegger defended National Socialism, apparently to the grave, and is still lauded as the most influential thinker of the 10th-century in continental philosophy. Nonetheless, I guess I'd rather be the happy child than speed with such accolades toward death.

Comforts for a sick philosopher:

"The best reason for a revival of philosophy is that unless a man has a philosophy certain horrible things will happen to him. He will be practical; he will be progressive; he will cultivate efficiency; he will trust in evolution; he will do the work that lies nearest; he will devote himself to deeds, not words. Thus struck down by blow after blow of blind stupidity and random fate, he will stagger on to a miserable death with no comfort but a series of catchwords; such as those which I have catalogued above." ~GK Chesterton, The Revival of Philosophy

If, after completing your education, you feel you still in any way reduce life to the "practical," you vote based on the "progressive" or the "evolution of civilization," or you measure happiness in terms of "efficiency," it's time to hit the books.

The connection.

I find it difficult to express--and, more fundamentally, to fathom--the tremendous leaps in scale employed in the "Culture War" arguments.

A favorite pro-abortion argument centers on the suffering of a particular woman, the victim of violence, who needs our loving support and encouragement to make the difficult, but necessary, choice and end her child's life.

Then there is the favorite atheist/agnostic argument that appeals to "science" and "scientific fact," the power of "progress," and the imbecility of "religion" and "religious experience." All these are categories so broad as to be entirely devoid of meaning. Similar non-concepts include: "nature," "quality of life," "tolerance," and "green."

I see, too, there's been an uproar over Dr. Jeff Steinberg's fertility clinic, which offers hair- and eye-color selection to prospective parents. This in the very same society in which Down Syndrome fetuses are aborted at a rate of 90%. Apparently, eye-color genes are off-limits, Down Syndrome genes are up for grabs.

Finally, with the advent of our current economic crisis comes the not-too-shocking revelation that perhaps the baby-boomers ought to have invested in children rather than lattes, put up with anything rather than divorce, and flushed those birth-control pills (which, incidentally, are killing frogs in suburban America--so much for "green"). The reaction, in my limited social circles, however, has largely been: shrug. Yes, someone really should start reproducing, but, ho-hum, how would I ever pay for college for more than one kid? The leap from "we need a next generation" to "I should consider having children sooner rather than later" is not made.

The fuzzy thinking is overwhelming. The rapid leaps from the particular to the general, and the inability to apply either one to me, here, now, render us mentally, spiritually, and emotionally obese and atrophied. Like the inert humans in Wall-E.

This has been up until now an exercise in Rage Against the Machine. But what is to be done? In order to escape the vicious cycle, the answer is for me, here, now to live the culture of life. All the mushy-brained arguments for our culture's ridiculous ethic spring from the basic error: That man creates himself. That our self-actualization is our highest ambition. That God is in my image. There is no one to answer to at the end of all things. Few are the ones who connect these thoughts to their misguided compassion toward the unwed mother, their devotion to nature, their "well-done" divorces, their 2.0 children. But this is the connection.

I must live in opposition to those convictions. Obedience to divine authority is our highest lifestyle choice. I am in God's image, an image not of my making. I will face him at the end of days. My life is his to do as he has asked: not just to reproduce (although I am particularly fond of reproducing), but to love and enjoy my children. Not just to witness to the world, but to suffer and pray for the world. Not just to plant my organic garden, but to take a holy pleasure in the gifts of the earth and the gift of a simple life. Making the connection and living the connection.

Quote of the day.

"Precisely because we are Christians, philosophy must become for us nothing but the love of wisdom; God's wisdom, however, is his logos--it is Christ; and thus we must love him in order to become true philosophers."

~Petrarch, letter to Giovanni Colonna

Truth and the academy.

Via Wine Dark Sea, I found "Thomism and the Archaeology of Ideas" on a lovely website, The Canterbury Tales (Wow, that was a lot of links...).

Taylor basically summarizes the distinction between doing theology (or philosophy) in order to arrive at truth and simply doing a historical survey of when and where ideas appeared. This distinction is fascinating and is, in large part, why I left the Academy: so many careers and conversations are wholly devoted to the historical particulars that few people get around to asking, "But is it true?" Or they think that question is wholly facetious, a non-question. I wanted to do philosophy so that I could learn to die (ergo, learn to live) well.

That being said, I don't think the distinction finds a simple expression in real academicians. A teacher who longs to know "Is it true?" will also concern herself with the historical situation in which an idea arose--we are historical creatures, after all. And even the history buffs in the philosophy department sometimes make judgments about an idea's truth (in my grad program, most of them had no problem concluding that Thomism was untrue).

The Judeo-Christian tradition gave us the idea of progress in history, and that includes the history of ideas (although many philosophers then had a heyday with progress and made it into a god). So, once again, I'm falling on the "both-and" side of the debate. Because we are finite creatures, our forays into history--a biography of Thomas--can become, from our point of view, an infinitely inexhaustible project. A whole lifetime can be spent on tiny minutiae and historical trivia. We have to know when to stop and ask the bigger questions sometimes. Both-and.

We need historical research and the question "Is it true?" The important point is that our thirst for truth should guide our history; we should do history in order to learn truth. What we must not do is make history and contingency our only truth: all is changing, all is contingent, we can never know, on and on and on...

Rehabilitating Obedience.

I've been pondering how desperately we need to reclaim the virtue of obedience (to rightful authority, of course). Pascal prompts me. Newman prompts me. I really should write an article or something...

Then, this from an old Richard John Neuhaus essay. And I realize he's said it so well that all I need to do is pass it on to you:

"I may not understand an authoritative teaching of the Magisterium, I may have difficulties with a teaching, but, as Newman understood, a thousand difficulties do not add up to a doubt, never mind a rejection. I may think a teaching is inadequately expressed, and pray and work for its more adequate expression in the future. But, given a decision between what I think the Church should teach and what the Church in fact does teach, I decide for the Church. I decide freely and rationally--because God has promised the apostolic leadership of the Church guidance and charisms that He has not promised me; because I think the Magisterium just may understand some things that I don't; because I know for sure that, in the larger picture of history, the witness of the Catholic Church is immeasurably more important than anything I might think or say. In short, I obey. The nuances of such obedience, of what is meant by thinking with the Church (sentire cum ecclesia), are admirably spelled out in the 1990 instruction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "The Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian." It is an instruction that can be read with enormous benefit also by those who are not professional theologians. My point is this: liberal Catholicism cannot be reinvented, it cannot be rehabilitated, it will not be vibrantly Catholic, until it candidly and convincingly comes to terms with obedience."

I'm convinced. (I'd add that liberal philosophy can't come to terms with the human condition until I also comes to terms with the tradition.)

Philosophy=Wisdom

Over Thanksgiving, I had the distinct pleasure--between the sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie--of good conversation with old friends. In particular, the Scientist Dad and I were able to discuss Blaise Pascal and the meaning of philosophy over baby food and coffee with a Philosopher Pater Familias.

One problem of teaching philosophy, posited he, is that you can only reward students with good grades when they demonstrate sufficient knowledge of the material. For example, the students who tend to get the best grades are the girls who sit in the back of the class and say nothing, but WOW do they know how to study. They may or may not have taken, for example, Augustine's Confessions to heart. Students, however, who engage the material, ask the philosophical questions, and apply their answers to their lives (i.e., put them into action) may or may not get good grades in philosophy class. But they are the students doing precisely what the teacher wants (or, at any rate, what a good teacher wants); the students philosophizing cannot be rewarded for actually doing philosophy.

This is the nature of wisdom: it eludes the obvious rewards.

But how to prod students to bring wisdom to their lives? Pascal recognizes the problem (of course): a man can study and even master the proofs for the existence of God, but five minutes after leaving his desk he will doubt God's existence. Reason's mastery of a subject (God) does not guarantee it will enter into his heart (which, for Pascal, is the center of the whole person).

The trick, he says, is to begin to act, to behave as if God existed. Or as if a moral life would make you happy. Or as if material things were unimportant. It is only in acting--in putting on a mask, so to speak--that the heart engages in truth. Reason cannot be certain of truth, especially in the post-modern world, until the heart is certain of truth. And for the heart to be certain, the man must bend his will and his life to certainty.

So, for the unbeliever who seeks God, Pascal suggests going into a church (a church housing the Eucharist) and kneeling. Go to a liturgy and say the prayers. The whole person--in the body's prayerful motions, the heart's desire, the mind's rest--becomes convicted of God's existence and his own wretchedness. In surrendering to the attractive face of the Redeemer, the heart begins to move to peace and certainty and love, and soon joy follows.

A good reminder for Advent. Our wretchedness. God's revelation in Christ. Joy.