The Latest Stuff

Just an update on what’s been going on.

First of all, April was lousy. No major tragedies, mind you; just of a lot of little grinding unpleasantnesses, including the joy and pleasure of getting a tooth crowned for the first time.

Some people find that they feel pretty good the day after getting a tooth crowned. Other people might find that the pain lasts for couple of months. I am not the former, alas, but also not the latter (and there was great rejoicing). And you know how toothaches seem to move around in your jaw, so that it’s not always clear which tooth is actually the culprit? I was more or less convinced for a week or so that I’d be getting a second crown immediately after the first one. This now seems not to be the case (and there was great rejoicing).

All of my hopes for Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis’ book Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word. I’ve been getting up early every day to spend time in study ever since Easter Tuesday (including Saturdays and Sundays!), and I’m regularly astonished by the blindingly obvious things he pulls out of each line of the text—blindingly obvious after you’ve seen them—that I had never noticed before. I’m keeping notes of my reflections; some of them may appear here in the future. (As some kind of indication of the depth of Erasmo’s writing…50 days after Easter, I’m not quite to the end of the third chapter of Matthew’s gospel.)

Finally, I’m still working George’s Saga, my RPG, in which George, a naive but promising young man of low birth and high destiny, encounters such characters as the grim Sir Fred, Hogworth the peasant, Cyneros the dark wizard, Magister Mayhem, and Princess Floribunda. The game is becoming increasingly goofy. When George applies to Magister Mayhem for quest, he is told:

Magister Mayhem looks at you sourly. “Another adventurer,” he says.
“Just what I needed. Well, at least the Sewers have been restocked.”

He harrumphs a bit more, and then says, “OK, let’s take it from the top.

“The town of Floobham is in desperate straits. I’ve not had breakfast,
and everyone knows that I get nasty when I’m hungry. So you just go
down to the sewers, and see if you can find me a Tasty Egg Maguffin
in one of the chests. Bring it back to me, and I’ll see what else I
can think of.”

He doesn’t look enthused at the prospect. As you turn to go, he adds,
“I’m sure a naive but promising young man like you will have no trouble
finding the entrance to the sewers. You can, heh, keep anything else
you find down there.”

Later, George travels the short distance to Floob Castle, where Princess Floribunda is in dire straits. George goes speedily, eager for a quest that doesn’t involve sewers.

It seems that one of her father’s guests has unleashed cosmic evil within the castle. The princess could resolve the problem easily, she says, had she her magic ring…but she dropped it, and it fell down a grating, and, well, it’s in the palace sewers:

Sewers. More dirty, stinking, filthy, rat-infested sewers. Just what you
needed. You take a deep breath, out here where the air is clear.

“Very good, your Highness. So how do I get into the sewers?”

“Well, that’s the problem,” she says, still staring at the grating.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to go through the palace.”

She turns to look at you.

“Good luck,” she says. “You’ll need it.”

A Primer on Philosophy and Education

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of reading a pre-release review copy of Sam Rocha’s new book, A Primer on Philosophy and Education. The book is not (nor does it pretend to be) a general introduction to Western philosophy; rather, it’s an introduction to philosophical thinking, especially as it applies to education—and here Rocha has a bit of fun.

Rocha is a philosopher of education, and from that and the title of the book one might think that this is a book about schools, teachers, and chalkboards. On the contrary: Rocha refers to all of that as “schooling”; by education he means “learning”, or more precisely, the ability to learn for one’s self, and to go on doing so all one’s life. But that precise meaning only emerges in the course of book. (Whoops! Spoilers. Sorry, Sam.)

The day I read this I was at home sick with a cold, and so it’s a fairly strong statement to say that I enjoyed it and that it held my attention. That said, I find I can’t judge the book fairly, as I’m really not a member of Rocha’s intended audience: his students, and others at a similar level. I don’t claim to be a philosopher of any stripe, but I’ve been delving into it long enough that at least I’m no longer a beginner (perhaps I’m a philosophomore). Whether I’d have found this book helpful when I was beginning that journey, I don’t know. But it all made sense to me, and as I say I enjoyed it.

Compulsive Criticism

Recently I read something on-line that gave me pause. A blogger I’ve been following for many years now had this to say:

We were talking about the habit of being critical—discussing a person we both knew who was caustically critical (and often entertainingly insulting) about everything. She said she didn’t quite approve of that attitude, because it was so safe.

I was surprised by that word, and asked her what she meant, and she said—more or less—that hating or criticizing everything was safe because it meant you don’t have to take a stand. Liking something means you are opening yourself up; if nothing is good enough for you it’s another way of saying you’re superior to everything. Very smug, very snug. Being insulting and critical, admittedly a position of attack when face-to-face, is psychologically actually a position of retreat.

This did not appear on a Catholic blog, nor a political blog; it appeared on a Photography blog, and the thing being criticized was, oddly, the new Chevy Corvette. But the blogger, Michael Johnson, could have gone one step further: he could have pointed out that this attitude is spiritually and morally corrosive. And that’s something we in the Catholic blogosphere need to remember. There’s much in our culture to criticize—but we must never let it become a knee-jerk reaction, lest we fail to see the good in your rush to condemn the bad.

In short, we mustn’t emulate Prof. Quincy Adams Wagstaff:

The Can-Opener

When I was in college, I got a degree in Economics, much to my lasting surprise. Here is the deepest, truest thing I learned about economics in four years of study—not the only thing, but the essential point, not to be forgotten.

Once an engineer, a physicist, and an economist were stranded on a desert island with only a cigarette lighter and a can of tuna fish. The engineer quickly gathered driftwood and built a fire, but the can of tuna fish presented a problem. They sat around the fire and discussed strategies for opening it as they got hungrier and hungrier.

The engineer said, “I know! There are some sharp rocks over there. I’ll go grab one, and bash at the can until it breaks open.”

The physicist said, “No, no, no, you’re working too hard. Just put the can in the fire. The heat will make the contents expand, and eventually the can will burst open.”

The economist just chuckled and shook his head, and said, “You’re both working too hard. First, you assume a can-opener!”

Those who might contest this can go look at Exhibit A, in which a finanical analyst discusses the problem of trusting financial models with shaky foundations.

On Having a Sense of Proportion

We really need to regain a sense of proportion.

On September 11th, I wrote a post comparing terrorists with vicious blog commenters: two groups trying to shut down their opponents without truly engaging with them. In order to make it clear that I was comparing the two but not equating them, I used the metaphor of the lightning and the lightning bug: there’s a similarity, but also a categorical difference. It’s obvious to me that these two things are not morally equivalent, and I would hope to all of my readers…and yet, I knew that if I didn’t make it obvious that I thought that, people would think that I was equating them.

The next day, on the pretext of a horrible little movie that virtually no one in the United States was even aware of, mobs attacked our embassies in two countries. I see today that it’s spread to Tunisia. And our public officials had the gall to apologize about the movie.

Now, I don’t believe for a moment that the movie was anything more than a pretext, though it might have helped the instigators whip up a mob. But even if it were the entire cause of the violence, it’s still the lightning bug.

Me, I’m deeply offended when an “artist” puts a crucifix, and image of my crucified Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom was made all that was made, is dunked in a beaker of urine and photographed. The appropriate response is prayer for the “artist”, and thanksgiving for the blessing of being reviled for Christ’s sake.

Folks, it’s unreasonable to call down the lightning in response to the lightning bug. It doesn’t matter how offensive the movie is. The lightning bug does not merit the lightning.

And it’s vile and cowardly to pretend that it does.

9/11/01

It’s Tuesday. It was a Tuesday, eleven years ago, that I came downstairs for breakfast, in a hurry to get to work, and found my wife watching the news on TV. “Will, a plane hit one of the World Trade Center buildings.”

I didn’t get it. I thought it was a small plane, an accident, I wondered how a small plane had gotten into that airspace to begin with. It took a while for Jane to make it clear that the plane was a 747, and it was a while longer before I realized that it wasn’t an accident.

I think that the penny dropped as we watched the second plane hit the second tower. And then, as we watched and listened, the first tower collapsed.

It wasn’t an accident; it was a terrorist act, an attempt to scare us and break our wills, to break our country. It was deeply, deeply wrong.

So the lightning; now for the lightning bug.

In recent weeks (a phrase I could have written with equal justice at any time in the last ten years) I’ve seen scorn, bile, foul language, and vitriol in on-line forums and comment boxes. Much of it is directed at shutting down voices the commenter doesn’t like, not by reasoned argument, but by shouting and fear. It’s an attempt to scare the speaker, to break his will, to take him out of the dialog.

This isn’t the lightning; it’s only the lightning bug. It doesn’t kill people. Purveyors of combox hatred aren’t mass murderers. Still, the lightning bug does resemble the lightning in its own small way. And it, also, is deeply wrong.

On Why I Oppose Same Sex Marriage

This post continues a series of reflections that I began here.

Note to anyone who comes to this page looking for a fight: please read the post carefully. If you’re a supporter of same-sex marriage, you probably won’t like my reasons for opposing it. But please take the time to discover what they are, and what my notion of “opposition” is before you start cussing me out.

Previously I’ve written of my responsibility to others as a Christian, and in particular that I must not lie to them. I’ve written of my rejection of coercion in most spiritual and moral matters (including this one). I’ve written on the moral necessity of knowing and loving what is good. I’ve talked about the many benefits, both physical and spiritual, of communal living, and particularly of married and family life. And I’ve talked about what I call “foundational sin“, sin that lies at the center of your self-image and is consequently the hardest to repent of.

And here’s where we come to the nub.

It should come as no surprise, given that I profess to believe what the Catholic Church teaches, that I think that certain specific acts are morally wrong. These include having sex with another person outside of traditional, heterosexual marriage.

A same-sex couple who seek out a same-sex marriage are presumably planning to have sex of some sort together. And by getting married, the couple have embedded this sin of sex outside of traditional marriage at the heart of their lives, where it will be difficult if not impossible to repent of. It’s hard enough to root out a foundational sin in your life when it’s just you. When rooting out that sin would involve the betrayal of a loved partner, it’s much harder.

Please note what I’m not saying.

I’m not saying that gays and lesbians are abominations. God loves us all.

I’m not saying that gays and lesbians are more sinful than straight people. It should be clear from what I’ve said that I regard cohabitation of straight people and re-marriage after divorce to be equally problematic, and there are six other deadly sins to think about.

I’m not saying that same-sex attraction is sinful. Me, I’ve got many attractions to things that I ought not do. So does everybody.

I’m not saying that devoting your life to the good of your loved ones is wrong; in fact, I’ve said the opposite.

But for me to vote in favor of the legalization of same-sex marriage would be to say, “Go ahead; build your lives on this sin. It’s OK. It will do you no harm.” Or worse, it would be say, “Yeah, I think it will hurt you, but I don’t care.”

I cannot coerce anyone to open their lives to God’s grace. It doesn’t work, and attempting to do so is deeply sinful. But I mustn’t lie to them either. I mustn’t pretend that it doesn’t matter.

On Knowing What Is Right

It struck me this morning how deep down practical the Golden Rule is as a guide to knowing right from wrong. We know it in its familiar form from the Bible:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

But it’s a commonplace in many cultures, even if often stated in its negative form:

Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you.

Now, I’ve usually thought about the Golden Rule in terms of my duties toward others. But turn it around; and for this the negative form is more useful. What things shouldn’t others do to me?

I might not have a problem with stealing; but I don’t want others stealing from me.

I might not have a problem with sleeping around; but I don’t want others to sleep with my wife.

I might not have a problem killing people who are inconvenient to me; but I certainly don’t want anyone killing me.

It’s easy to rationalize the things I want to do. (For the record: the three things listed above are not among them.) But I’m always pretty certain about when I’ve been ill-used.

It’s commonplace these days to talk about how social mores very from culture to culture; it’s less common to point out, as C.S. Lewis does in The Abolition of Man, how much they are the same from culture to culture. But in fact, they are—in terms of one’s responsibilities to real people. The culture determines just who is considered to be a real person: a member of my family, a member of my ethnicity, a fellow citizen of my country. This can mask the moral similarity. But when you look at what other people are allowed to do to me, well…things look a lot simpler.

On Sacramental Marriage

This post continues a series of reflections that I began here.

In the last post in this series, I described four kinds of marriage: natural marriage, civil marriage, sacramental marriage, and “neo-marriage,” and said that I’d have more to say about sacramental marriage in another post. This is that post.

The first thing to point out is that these four kinds of marriage aren’t mutually exclusive. Both civil and sacramental marriage build on natural marriage, to begin with. A civil marriage need not be a sacramental marriage, and a sacramental marriage need not be a civil marriage (though in this country, at least, they mostly are). Being “sacramental” is an additional layer added to natural marriage by Jesus Christ. And that means we need to talk about what a sacrament is.

Here’s the deal. As Christians, God asks a lot of us. Becoming holy is no easy thing, and we can’t do it on our own. So He gives us help, in the form of grace. And because we are not simply spiritual beings, but are naturally body-and-soul together, Jesus gave us the sacraments: physical actions by which He promises to give us spiritual graces, provided that the relevant conditions are made. Thus, baptism, a pouring of water combined with particular words, cleanses us of Original Sin and makes us co-heirs with Christ.

(Note: I am not a theologian; I am a software engineer. If I screw this up, somebody please gently let me know, so I can fix it.)

There are three things that are required for a valid sacrament:

• The valid form
• The valid matter
• The proper intent

The form is the ritual involved. In baptizing someone, you must baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The matter is the water, and, I imagine, the person being baptized. And the proper intent is the intent to baptize the person. In the Eucharist, the form is the Mass, the matter is the gifts of bread and wine, and the intent is the intent that the Holy Spirit should come upon the gifts and make them the Body and Blood of Christ.

If any of these three requirements are not met, there’s no sacrament. For example, a priest can say the Eucharistic prayers all day long, but if he’s simply intending to memorize them rather than “confect the sacrament”, then there is no sacrament.

So let’s look at marriage. The form is the wedding vows the couple make to each other before witnesses. The intent is the intent to be truly married in Christian matrimony, forsaking all others, until death do them part. The matter, well, the matter is the couple themselves; and there’s a reason we use the phrase “consummating the marriage.”

Catholics, of course, are required to get married in the Church. This involves pre-marital counseling (to make sure the couple have the right intent) and a Catholic wedding service (to make sure the form is correct). The consummation can usually safely be left to the couple themselves. Now, the requirement to be married in the Church is, as I understand it, a matter of canon law rather than Church doctrine; and indeed, the Church assumes that Christians married in other denominations are also sacramentally married….assuming the intent is right.

This, by the way, is what it means for a marriage to be annulled: a Church tribunal looks into it and determines that the conditions for a valid sacramental marriage were not met, e.g., because one of the two were previously married, or because one or both did not truly intend Christian matrimony.

Being a sacrament, marriage confers grace on the couple: grace that will strengthen them and (if used properly) allow them to grow in holiness together. And as I’ve indicated above, the proper action of the sacrament isn’t simply the vow the two make to each other; it’s also the consummation, the act of sex itself, by which the two of them become one flesh.

Now, if you think about, how cool is that? Here’s a sacrament the couple can enjoy over and over again, without help from anyone else, in the privacy of their own home, and be truly blessed by God each time. It’s not only good, it’s good for them!

There’s more to sacramental marriage than that, of course. There’s a whole vast theology, some of which I’m slightly familiar with, and which I really don’t feel qualified to to describe at more than the simplest possible level. For example, marriage is an image of the faithful, self-sacrificing and fruitful love of God for his people; and it is this that is behind the Church’s prohibitions on divorce, contraception, and sex outside of marriage.

I don’t propose to defend the Church’s teachings here; I’m more concerned with their consequences. And the chief point I want to make is that sacramental marriage is pretty darn cool, being the intersection of the love of a man and woman for each other with the love of God for them both, yielding significant spiritual benefits for the couple.

Four Kinds of Marriage

This post continues a series of reflections that I began here.

Before I get started, I’d like to remind those who came in late that I’m not pushing a political agenda here. I’m trying to work out some thoughts about marriage in general, and on same-sex marriage in particular, in the light of the Church’s teaching. I’m not trying to prove that the Church’s teaching is true, and I’m more concerned with figuring out how to treat others well than I am in trying to coerce others into behaving the way I think they should. Thus, comments on how evil my political agenda is will be deleted. ‘Nuff said.

Several of the commenters on this post raised the issue of marriage as a civil institution vs. marriage as a religious institution, and suggested that while one might have religious reasons for the position that marriage is necessarily heterosexual, there’s no reason why civil marriage need be similarly bound. It was also suggested that the state “provides marriage” to its citizens: that marriage is essentially a civil institution, e.g., an institution governed by the state.

That last proposition, however, is clearly nonsense. People have been marrying and giving in marriage for all of recorded history, whether the people involved lived in something we would recognize as a state or not. Let’s call this natural marriage. It is not essentially religious, and it is not essentially civil. It is, quite simply, human. Getting married and raising a family is what human beings do. Natural marriage does not depend on the state; on the contrary, the state is built upon the foundation of natural marriage.

With the state came civil marriage. Marriage creates families, and families accumulate property and squabble with other families, and the state naturally gets involved in these things. Thus, civil marriage is marriage as recognized by the state. Note that I do not say “regulated” or “controlled”. Marriage is prior to the state, and many traditional restrictions on marriage, such as incest laws, are of ancient origin. It might be truer to say that civil marriage is the way the state handles the pre-existing institution of marriage.

With Christianity came sacramental marriage. Civil marriage was already well established by the time Christianity came along, but sacramental marriage does not build on it; rather, civil and sacramental marriage are like two shoots from the same root of natural marriage. I’ll have more to say about sacramental marriage in a later post; here I’ll simply note that the notion that marriage is between a man and a woman long pre-dates any form of Christian marriage. Even the Greeks, among whom sex with boys and sexual relationships between older men with younger men were not uncommon, kept them quite apart from marriage.

And that brings us to what I’ll call neo-marriage, for lack of a better term. Neo-marriage is solely about the two people involved, and only for as long as they want to remain involved. It is disconnected from sacramental marriage, at least as practised by the Catholic Church, because it is not sacramental, and is not expected to be permanent; it is detached from natural marriage because it is more about the couple than about the resulting family. Its foundation, to the extent that it has one apart from the couple themselves, lies in civil marriage, but its roots are not deep.

Same-sex marriage, as such, is an extension of neo-marriage to gay and lesbian couples. Since it can’t be based on natural marriage, it has to get its legitimacy from civil marriage. Which explains the comments I’ve been getting.