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September 25, 2006
Here, I'll Even Loan You a Starter
"But not all is quiet. . .
There, six syllables. Cut off the but, and you've got five, only 25 or 26 more to go!
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:51 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Step Right Up, Don't Be Afraid
So, you say you're not a poet.
You say you don't know nothing about versifying no poem.
No print, No poem, NO PROBLEM!
If you can count, you can add to the linked verse. Yep, a mere 31 syllables about what is happening around you right now. A moment away from Dancing with the Wife Swap Next Door Neighbors Survivor: East OskKosh, 24 Found (or is it 24 Lost?) CSI: Milledgeville or whatever other pressingly urgent event is impinging on your conscience. Set them aside for a moment and take a stab at it. You'll be glad you did.
Homeschool moms, send your kids. Ideal for you, old, elderly shut-ins and ingenues, Nascar Fans, and just mean old curmudgeons.
Let's make a poem together. All you have to lose is about 30 seconds and 31 syllables. Even James would be impressed with the curb on the tongue!
So step right up. That's it, just spin the magic syllable wheel and churn out the next link in our poem.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Spiritual Reading--The Hammer
I picked up Fr. Raphael Simon's Hammer and Fire again last night and it hit me right between the eyes--this is one of those books that it would be easier to blank out what you would prefer not to read again rather than to highlight and comment on all the good points that are being made.
from Hammer and Fire
Fr. Raphael Simon O.C.S.O.All are invited to union with God. This invitation is applied to the individual whenever he or she reads of hears it, or feels within the attraction of Holy Spirit. Day laborer, machinist, unlettered and learned, children, the aged, single and married persons are all called to holiness. The Father created the universe and keeps it in existence for this purpose, that all may have the opportunity to be united to Himself.
The entire Universe as personal invitation to enjoy the companionship of God. The stars in their courses, the waters in the ocean, and all the created myriad of living things praise Him in their being and call to Him from where they are. More, they call us to Him, constant reminders of His benevolence and kindness, His mercy and grace.
A little later:
from "Hammer: Reading the Scripture"Half the battle of life--the spiritual life--consists in persevering in spiritual reading. We are constantly subjected to impressions from the world through what we see, hear and read. We are continuously influenced too by our temperament and imagination, which tend to make our thoughts subjective and misleading. We need daily contact with a source of divine truth, and this we have through spiritual reading. Through it we enter into an atmosphere of truth and reality in which the proper perspective on values is maintained and this affects our judgments, desires, decisions, and conduct.
Without spiritual reading, prayer becomes empty and unfruitful, for spiritual reading supplies matter for our prayer. It reawakens memories and recollections, deepens true impressions, corrects errors, and extends our vision. While we continue to do daily spiritual reading, the relish for it increase; but when we let it drop out of our daily life it becomes distasteful, and only be repeated efforts do we recover its enjoyment.
The hammer, then, is spiritual reading. And the reading of spiritual books is a matter not too many are versed in. Most, it seems, attempt spiritual reading in the same way they read a novel or a biography--to get to the point. What does this author have to say to me that I can take away and make a better life? Come on, get to the point.
But often the point of spiritual reading is not to get to the point. That is, spiritual reading, properly conducted teaches patience and rewards consistency in small amounts. While it is laudable to "read the Bible in a year" every year, it is not necessarily salutary. It isn't as though this exercise is a kind of spiritual aerobics that makes us fitter for battle on the spiritual plane. Reading the Bible in a year helps us only inasmuch as we internalize what the Bible has to say. Therefore the wisdom of the church that sets up a three-year Sunday lectionary just to get us through the Gospels.
In spiritual reading, it is not quantity so much as it is quality. I am not a daily devotional person--I've discovered that because even the very best of daily devotionals leaves me rather cold and disconnected. However, a book, read daily, that has a different kind of continuity, helps immeasurably. Taking up The Ascent of Mount Carmel or The Dark Night of the Soul and reading it one paragraph at a time gives me much to reflect on and, God willing, eventually to pray about.
I can read the entire Gospel of Mark in about an hour. However, how much better to spend that hour with a single verse if it should speak to me.
Spiritual reading takes time--usually a lot of time. Consider reading St. Thomas Aquinas as spiritual reading. Say one took the Summa as one's text. It would seem to me that one would not finish even one article in a session. Properly conducted and properly focused and considering the Summa as a prayer text, you might actually read through the question itself and think through the implications of it and reflect on what scripture has to say about it. In an hour you would only begin to pierce the shell of the question.
Now, the Summa may not be everyone's cup of tea, nor might it be the best text for many for reflection and spiritual reading--but it is a text for some, and that is the second aspect of spiritual reading--each person must choose to listen to God as God has seen fit to speak to that person. So for some the Summa would not make good fodder for prayer. Personally, I find many non-Catholic sources rich material for reflection. I feel particularly drawn to certain Quaker and Shaker writers. George Fox, William Penn, and John Woolman have stocked my spiritual reading for years, as have countless Catholic writers--the Carmeliets, Merton, Day, de Mello, St. Catherine of Siena, Julian of Norwich, Richard Rolle, Walter HIlton, The Cloud of Unknowing, The Imitation of Christ, and so on. But in the past I have made the mistake I charge many with. I've read these books as though I needed to get to some point in them, that with swift reading I would find the point and move on. Such reading is a grave mistake in the conduct of spiritual reading.
And this is one reason why it is a discipline any literate person can conduct, no matter how unappealing he or she may find reading. You don't have to read much and reading isn't really the point. The faculties used in reading are employed, but the point is one must also engage the faculties more commonly used in listening. The reading should be conducted in much the same way as the reading from Mass--one should hear, deep down inside, all that is said in the course of the reading. The reading then is a conversation with an author and ultimately and conversation past the author to the Author of all. That is, the good spiritual writer, following the example of the Blessed Mother, directs our attention to God, Father, Son, and Spirit. He does not occupy us with himself, but rather conducts us and introduces us to the Lord of All in such a way as we can begin to speak without uncomfortable pauses and uncertainties. This takes time and a willingness to read as though listening. We must hear what is being said and talk to God about what we hear.
(Note: The book is available through Zaccheus Press, and if it follows true to form, it may be distributed by Ignatius Press as well. Beautiful, well made, and nicely put together--the book will reward careful reading. It would seem to be the kind of book that would make, for a certain kind of person, a very rewarding spiritual reading experience.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
An Invitation to Versify
The haiku below serves as the blog invitation to linked-verse:
Fall fell in one night
cold crept in, painting the sky,
summer's cessation
To help in the project, use the comments box to complete the haiku above by adding two seven syllable lines to form a tanka and then adding a haiku (5-7-5) for the next contributor to complete. I'll leave this open for a couple of days to give us a chance to generate some responses. The theme is autumn wherever you happen to be--which may mean spring for those of you down-under.
I'll take one or two of the ones that appeal to me and continue. But if there are other entries and other people would like to continue them at their own blogs, I am open to that as well. The object here is not high literature, but an enjoyable exercise that everyone can engage in and begin to discovery the intricacies and beauties that are Poetry first hand. So please contribute!
Posted by Steven Riddle at 12:03 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Linked Verse
I'm closing the linked verse post below as I compile the three main threads I've identified thematically--the melancholy, the joyous, and the avant garde. I've decided to use everything I've received if I can work the pieces correctly and we'll use that as the basis for our next linkages. Thanks to everyone who has participated so far.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 1:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 26, 2006
A Taste of Heaven
from Hammer and Fire
Fr. Raphael Simon, OCSOAs human beings we are a composite of body and soul. Our heats will be captivated by the sweetness of the society of Jesus and Mary, our eyes by the loveliness of their countenances, our ears by their voices. In their company we will be at home at last.
There will be the joy of the companionship of the saints, including relatives, friends, and intercessors.
No one will be lost in this multitude, no one unknown, no one neglected. Each will be, as it were, the center of attraction of all, of all-embracing love and amiable companionship, without trace of discord.
In heaven's ballroom there are no wallflowers,
no last-chosen left standing
for long hours
as the teams are formed.
In heaven's throne room, every child is
an only child with the full
attention of every person in the room.
God loves each as though
each one were His only child.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 11:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 27, 2006
On the Virtues of Monotasking
It has become a commonplace in busy lives and in the business place that multitasking is a positive good. The ability to juggle the phone, the computer, a conversation at your desk and preparing for the next meeting is no longer something merely admirable. It is often required to get a job.
But there are daily reminders of the danger of multitasking. There are repeated warnings that conversing on cell phones while driving is becoming a cause of accidents that exceeds intoxication as a cause. Burnt dinners, iron-seared clothing, even missing children can all be attributed to the plague of multitasking that afflicts American society.
There is another ill, far more serious than most of those listed above, that stems from multitasking--wan and sere prayer lives, etiolated communication with the source of love and light.
Prayer demands presence, complete presence. It is very easy, too often, to pray while eating breakfast or while send the children off to school. Now, these events do require prayer, as do all things; however, if this is the only prayer time one has, one's communications with God will be necessarily foreshortened, straightened, and indistinct.
How many of us take the time to, in the words of this mornings petitions, "With single-minded devotion we dedicate the beginnings of this day to honor of your resurrection?" Single-minded devotion? Is it even possible in this day and age to be single minded? I don't refer here to the distraction that come when one sets oneself aside for prayer--they will come and there is, in the course of prayer, much to help the pray-er move on. I refer more to those who "don't have time for prayer." Or for whom prayer is a secondary , hasty background consideration. It is easy enough to console oneself with the thought that "work is prayer," and properly done, that is true. However, prayer is also prayer, and the old adage is often an excuse for not making the time to pursue intimate prayer.
Perhaps you have had the experience of being invited out by a friend or a cherished family member only to have the cell-phone ring (sometimes many times) and call away your friend. The experience is frustrating and painful. Your conversation is fragmentary and goes in leaps and bounds from one subject to another as truncated by the cell-phone calls. And even though the friend apologizes each time he or she answers, there's something a little insincere in it--no one really needs to be so connected that they are in reality disconnected from all. This is the model for many lives of prayer. We sit down to the luncheon table and start to talk. The cell-phone rings rather than glancing at the number and noting it for a return call, we pick up the phone and start talking. Sometimes we never return to the One whom we've invited to dine with us. Sometimes we come back after a while, forgetting where we were and what we were doing.
Prayer throughout the work of the day is a good thing--that isn't what I refer to. What I refer to is the fact that we "have no time for prayer." When we sit down to pray, we immediately rise to some other task that could easily wait twenty minutes. Prayer has no priority in our busy-busy lives.
And intimate prayer requires monotasking. Anything else is like making love while watching Jay Leno--hardly flattering to either one's partner or to Jay. Prayer is the intimate intrusion that we must allow to grow in God's love and to become like Christ. It requires everything we are to be focused for a while on God. And there should be sufficient time to really talk to God and hear what He has to say to us. To begin with 20-30 minutes. As time goes on, greater amounts of time.
I haven't done it yet, but I've considered asking any person who tells me that there isn't time for this kind of prayer in their lives, "How much television do you watch? How much time do you spend knitting, crocheting, reading books, playing sports, playing cards, drinking beer (outside of dinner), gardening, . . ?" You get the point. There is always time for prayer if it is a priority. There never will be time so long as it is a secondary consideration.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:18 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
September 28, 2006
The Devil's Advocate
First, and possibly the best, in a line of the pre-Andrew Greeley popularizations of the Catholic Faith, The Devil's Advocate reveals the affliction that pervades may of them. Morris West, the author, studied for the priesthood and had some fairly pronounced disagreements with Catholic teaching that surface in odd spots here and there in the novel. These were neither so pervasive nor so dramatic as to make the novel unreadable, but they were pronounced and often caused be to set the book aside for a time until I could return and get to the real "meat" of the story. Most of the objectionable material occurs in the first half of the book, and most people reading quickly won't even notice it, so it shouldn't detract from the very fine second half of the novel.
The story in outline is: A priest dying of stomach cancer is given the assignment of going to a remote Italian village to investigate the qualities of a person whose cause has been proposed to the Vatican. He resists but finally agrees to do so. The majority of the novel is the exploration of who the priest's life intersects with and is transformed by the life of the Giacomo Nerone, the person whose cause was proposed.
There are any number of implausible elements in the story, including the about face the priest makes upon visiting the orange orchard of the Archbishop who asked for the Devil's Advocate to come. Setting aside the melodramatic as a convention of the time, there are other more serious problems.
What I found most disturbing was the almost leering prurience with which West examined the life of the homosexual painter whose dilemma precipitates some of the action of the second half of the novel. This became, unfortunately, the mainstay of most "popular" Catholic novels. What book by Greeley can you pick up that doesn't have a lurid cover and an almost equally lurid story inside. West needed to make the case of his painter Nicholas Black, suitable to frame Black's eventually denouement, but, in my opinion, he went way overboard in the discussion.
Also bothersome were some simple word misusages. Twice he describes the Contessa as "bridling pleasantly." Bridling is confined to negative emotion--usually anger. It simply isn't possible to bridle with pleasure, although it is possible to take pleasure in your bridling.
Finally, the constant little jabs at this, that, or the other aspect of the Chruch and its teachings that West didn't particularly care for became wearisome and worrisome. I wondered if, by the time I got to the end, the Church was going to canonize some profligate philanderer. In point of fact, as we come to know Giacomo, this recedes rapidly into a non-issue.
However the resolution of Nicholas Black's story, and several other melodramatic elements simply didn't ring true in the way of, say, Graham Greene or Evelyn Waugh. The story was written for best-sellerdom and probably made it. Black's "hath not a Jew eyes" speech was frankly over-written and over-wrought.
All of which made me a little disappointed (initially) that this was selected by Loyola for inclusion in their series. The quality of the writing, the story, and the picture of the Catholic faith is not up to the quality presented in other entries in the series. However, one thought that occurred to me is that the point of inclusion is that there really is a very good story in overall amongst the mandatory best-seller debris, and that this book would serve as encouragement to other young Catholic writers that the world can be engaged and taught about the faith in a way that will appeal and encourage those who would never touch a book by Graham Greene. It is strong evidence that we need not and should not confine ourselves to a ghetto of "Catholic fiction" in order to preserve the integrity of our work--that the best work and the most lasting work can and should appeal to a wider audience than those already converted and that truths of the faith can be taught and conveyed even to the most resistant if formulated in a way that goes down smoothly. My conclusions, ultimately, was that this is a very fitting contribution to the Loyola series, while not being one of the better works included in the line-up. That is, that the purpose it serves is extremely valuable--encouragement and nurturing those whose gifts run in this way cannot be overvalued.
I cannot speculate on how many might have become more friendly to or more interested in the Catholic faith as a result of this work. Nor can I guess how many Catholics found something worthy to read in this novel.
While I have some strong reservations about the overall quality, I do recommend the book as a light, swift read--not likely to repay lingering study or examination, but certainly an entertainment that does no harm and much good. While it took me a monumental effort and Julie D's enthusiastic recommendation to finally get through it, I will freely admit that it was ultimately worthwhile. The book will not linger in memory, but neither will it render any harm. I will come back time and time again to the agonized priests of Greene and Endo, in memory and in fact; but I don't think I'll be visiting Msgr. Meredith in the future. Nevertheless, a good beach book for those of us still visiting the beaches. (Me, me, me, me!!!)
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:19 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Playing Catch-Up
Those of you favoring moribund images of autumn are WAYYYYY behind. Get moving, add to your linked verse!
Posted by Steven Riddle at 11:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A Baptist on the Pope's Message
I haven't commented, nor will I; however The Western Confucian found a neat little link that offers a very satisfying interpretation of what the Pope said. As well, Tom, at Disputations provides his usual, moderate, thoughtful insights into the whole turmoil. If I were said to have a side in the matter, he has convincingly outlined it.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 2:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Meet Tiktaalik
Tiktaalik the Great, protoamphibian, source of consternation to those who think they understand evolutionary theory. At least it has an unpronounceable name so it can easily be dismissed. Be sure to check out the Inuktitut compatible site. I think we can recommend to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature that all future discoveries and descriptions be made available in both English and Inuktitut.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 2:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 29, 2006
L'enfant Sauvage
I firs saw this film some years ago as a field trip from French class. It was shown subtitled, but I remember being amazed how much of the French I could understand. And it struck me once again as surprising.
Samuel had wanted to see this film when he saw it at the library, and as there is no harm in it and it is one of the two Truffaut films I know I like, we brought it home. Samuel loved it. He learned two or three words of french and was thrilled. For one, he learn "L'enfant sauvage" and thinks that is much cooler than wild child and asked that he be called "L'enfant sauvage" rather than wild child from now on. (Of course he hasn't heard the Troggs yet, so there's a chance he'll change his mind.) Sam also learned the words for milk and water, two words they try to teach Victor in the course of the film.
The story is based on a supposedly true story of a child captured in the Averoyne woods in 1798. He had been abandoned early in his childhood. His parents had attempted to kill him but failed and the child is thought to have fended for himself from the age of 3 to the age of 10 or 12 when he was captured. The story centers around the efforts of a scientist to help this child rejoin civilization (if that is how one refers to France in 1798).
Filmed in black and white, the boy in the film gives an absolutely believable and remarkable performance as the child brought in from the wood. Truffaut himself (I think) plays the Doctor who is is helper and attempts to bring not just a veneer of civilization but a sense of a moral being into one raised wild. It has the odd misunderstanding of the enlightenment about the nature of humanity, but the film is still solid, if not beautiful.
For those with wild children, this film may have some appeal. For those who have experienced one or more l'enfants sauvages you'll already know what it's about. Think the terrible twos about ten years later. For those becoming acquainted with or reacquainted with French, it's a good film to see.
Overall, recommended--a good story, a good film, and relatively short--about 85 minutes.
(Oh, and for those of you too polite to ask--no, it's never too early to infect your children with the "watching-obscure-foreign-films" virus. In fact as we were looking at the films, Samuel asked "What does foe rain mean?" "Films produced in other countries." "Do they speak English?" "Well, if their from England, Australia, or South Africa they might." "Let's get one where they don't. Let's get one in Japanese." But he settled on L'enfant Sauvage.)
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Copyrights and Copywrongs
from the Descriptive Hype for said book
"Peer-to-peer networks have existed as long as gossip and word-of-mouth advertising--but with the rise of electronic communication, they are suddenly coming into their own. and they are drawing the outlines of a battle for information that will determine much of the culture and politics of our century, from file-sharing websites like Gnutella to private edits of Star Wars to the neo-Nazi concept of 'leaderless resistance.' On one side, trying to maintain control of information--and profits--are legislators, judges, cabinet officers, entertainment conglomerates, and multinational corporations. On the other side, trying to liberate information, are educators, computer programmers, civil libertarians, artists, consumers, and dissidents under all sorts of regimes. Vaidhyanathan draws upon examples ranging from ancient religions to open-source software to show how this battle will be one of the defining fault lines of twenty-first-century civilization. His radical and original explanation of the future of information is a warning shot that will mobilize anarchists and controllers alike."
Posted by Steven Riddle at 5:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
All About Bacterial Names
In case you were distraught over not knowing for sure: Approved Lists of Bacterial Names.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 5:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Samuel's Précis of L'enfant Sauvage
This summary is paraphrased around the edges, but the jist of it is correct.
"There was this boy living in the wild. They caught him. They brang him to socialness. Then they teached him French."
Yep. That just about covers it, especially the "brang him to socialness" part. That's my boy, can't you see the similarities?
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:11 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack