Flos Carmeli

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October 7, 2007

Catholics for Ron Paul

Here.

On Mr. Paul, I have no coherent opinion--I offer this for those who are less than well-acquainted with this dark horse presidential candidate. Some things sound good, but others sound benighted. One would have to see how they played out and I'm not sure I'm willing to take the risk. But then, I don't suspect I'll get the chance--in which case his name makes as good a write-in as NOTA.

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October 8, 2007

The pre-Blessed Spirits

One of the truly wonderful things about Purgatorio is that Dante over and over again affirms that these souls who arrive on the shore of the island of Purgatory are already blessed. They arrive and proceed through at their own pace, a pace determined by their lives on Earth.

Among those moving very slowly on the shores of the island we meet Manfred:

from Purgatorio
Dante, tr. John Ciardi

My flesh had been twice hacked, and each wound mortal
when, tearfully, I yielded up my soul
to HIm whose pardon gladly waits for all.

Horrible were my sins, but infinite
is the abiding Goodness which hold out
its open arms to all who tun to It. . . .

No man may be so cursed by priest or pope
but what the Eternal Love may still return
while any thread of green lives on in hope.

Those who die contumacious, it is true,
though they repent their feud with Holy Church,
must wait outside here on the bank, as we do,

for thirty times as long as they refused
to be obedient, though by good prayers
in their behalf, that time may be reduced.

I quote this passage for several reasons. One is to give a sense of Dante's vision. Ciardi notes that there seems to be no real significance to 30 as opposed to say 50 or 100. In fact, except that it probably doesn't work in Italian 33 might be more apropos.

Another reason is that reading this one gets the sense of a need for real notes. What's this about twice hacked, what actually went on. In a section I didn't quote there is a mention of him being transported with "tapers quenched" after his death. Good notes are essential to any real understanding of these works. Either that or a fairly thorough understanding of the history of all the kingdom that made up Italy at the time of Dante--an expertise almost none of us command.

Finally I quoted it because it contains a line that I have borne in memory since the eighth or ninth grade when we were called upon to read Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men. There is either in an epigraph or in a chapter proper, a quotation which, in the book, is a reference to the office set-up of Willie Stark, but which is reflected clearly here

Mentre che la speranza ha fior del verde

which is translated in that book As long as hope still has its bit of green. Here is is translated "while any thread of green lives on in hope."

For whatever reason, that line has stuck with me, and I scoured Dante several times looking for it. And this morning, it just popped out at me as I was reading. God's sheer grace and goodness and perhaps a message for meant for this day.

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No Rash Promises

Shall I make today about how much Kingsolver I may post.

As I have said continually--there is unquestionably a strong agenda behind this book, but Kingsolver writes with such aplomb, humor, grace, and to some extent, even humility that one is invited in, not scolded (although some passages particularly in the sidebars can take on that tone.) For all who would approach it, I simply give the warning. I am not a partisan of much of the agenda, but I find it very easy to overlook amidst the glories of some of the story.

from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Barbara Kingsolver

The steer that had contributed itself to the meatballs on our plates had missed the sign-up.* Everything else on the table was also a local product: the peas we'd just shelled, the salad picked ten minutes earlier, the strawberries from their daughter. I asked Elsie how much food the needed from outside the community. "Flour and sugar," she said, and then thought a bit. "Sometimes we'll buy pretzels, for a splurge."

It crossed my mind that the world's most efficient psychological evaluation would have just the one question: Define splurge. I wondered how many more years I'd have to stay off Belgian chocolate before I could attain Elsie's self-possession. I still wanted the moon, really--and I wanted it growing in my backyard.

When a narrative is peppered with such delightful personal asides, it is easier to take the main stream of the argument seriously--because one can see that the author does not take herself over-seriously. No dour, frowning, scolding, finger-shaking here--just story--how I did it, how you could do it, and why.

*The sign-up referred to is something that initially I had difficulty believing until my sister-in-law told my wife. It appears that the USDA for reasons known only to the bureaucracy has ordained in its wisdom that every chicken, cow, pig, duck, whatever found any any farm anywhere in the United States shall be fitted with an ID number and a GPS tag to be entered into the federal database of livestock. We've lived for centuries without knowing the whereabouts of every animal in the world, I wonder what emergency has ordained that we must know now. Refer back to Mark Twain--Ms. Kingsolver's farmer certainly does.

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Other Reading

In addition to the two that you hear much about here I have the following three on my stack and alternating:

Envious Casca Georgette Heyer--one of her mysteries, and while I'm not sure of its substance as a mystery, it is utterly delightful as a character study of some really unlikable people who Georgette teaches you to like--at a distance.

Come Be My Light Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. More from this later--tomorrow perhaps. Humility, patience, obedience--we don't begin to know the meanings of the words. And reading this book only scratches the surface of a real Saint. Obviously, I await the solemn declaration of the Church, not leaping ahead to conclusions, but one cannot help what one thinks in the matter--I am so blessed just to read about her. All of you should be as well--get this book and read it, enjoy it, learn to live by it. There is much here to instruct anyone who is serious about following God.

The New Woman Jon Hassler--a Staggerford Novel. Think Jan Karon, take away some of the saccharine, make it Catholic and cold, and you've got Jon Hassler's Minnesota--a land vaguely similar to the Lake Woebegone of Garrison Keillor, but with a distinctively Catholic bent. This is the book our small book group decided would be next on the list. (Even though all of us were also reading or rereading Ralph Nader's magnificent The Seventeen Traditions--another highly recommended read.

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Tomato-anon

Too amusing to let pass, too lovely to leave alone.

from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Barbara Kingsolver

Like our friend David who meditates on Creation while cultivating, I fell luck to do work that lets me listen to distant thunder and watch a next of baby chickadees fledge from their hole in the fencepost into the cucumber patch. Even the smallest backyard garden offers emotional rewards in the domain of the little miracle. As a hobby, this one could be considered bird-watching with benefits.

Every gardener I know is a junkie for the experience of being out there in the mud and fresh green growth? Why? An astute therapist might diagnose us as codependent and sign us up to Tomato-Anon meetings. We love our gardens so much it hurts. . . ."

And what is more delightful is that she goes on to this point to say exactly how it hurts, and it isn't emotional--it is physical. And here we take a lesson in love--love isn't a feeling, it is an act of will. In the garden, it is the act of will that causes us to pull weeds when we'd rather just sit down somewhere. In the world, it is the act of will that sends us to the soup kitchens, or merely to the CCD classroom, when for all the world we'd rather be reading our newspaper or doing . . . anything.

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October 9, 2007

Rules of Engagement

This is in response to something that I thought both sad and exemplary of poor form for a Christian critic.

There are only a few very good reason for conducting public criticism of an author's work. Most important of these is to inform the public about a work that is either exemplary of Christian and literary value or utterly detrimental to a person in a profound spiritual way. Another important reason for literary criticism is to allow a reader to better understand a work. A third is to express an opinion or recommendation on a work by an established author to give the reader some indication of its worthiness for taking up an extended period of time. For private critique you may add the betterment of the author to complete the task of a writer--instruction and correction. This last is NEVER a legitimate purpose of public criticism. Such work should be conducted privately ONLY and ONLY at the request of the individual. Following Updike's rule for criticism, even if one doesn't care for a work, the exposition of it should set forth all of its best points even as one's own opinion of its merits is made manifest. But once again, this is ONLY for those well-established in the field.

Another reason NOT to pursue criticism is to show how much one knows. Or, by far the worse crime, to attempt to profit from making others look bad--either by the work of criticism itself, or by making one's own work stand out from that of the riff-raff that is not worthy to stand nearby. It is very unappealing to watch a person show off their intellectual prowess at the expense of another. If this is the way to success, it were better not to succeed.

Young writers, writers just starting out, are prone to a great many errors and a tremendous arrogance regarding the work of others. When this arrogance expresses itself in launching full tilt at T.S. Eliot, William Butler Yeats, and William Wordsworth, it can be at once amusing, and a marvelous example, as one ages of youthful folly--the literary equivalent of those pictures most mothers have of naked babies on sheepskin rugs. The folly is the author's entirely and as Yeats, Eliot, and Wordsworth are unlikely to suffer any real harm at the hands of one so arrogant as to take them on, only the author is likely to suffer any consequences.

However, when an author takes on contemporaries, and particularly contemporaries who are just beginning to emerge into the writing world, there is only one conclusion one can draw from extensive negative public criticism. That is, of course, that the critic intends to profit from this by making his or her own work look good. This is absolutely unacceptable. One becomes the John McEnroe or Bobby Fisher of the literary world. One takes what one is not entitled to and profits thereby--the very definition of theft. By calumny and hurtful speech one is set in a better light--either with respect to one's own literary writing, or by the sparkle of one's wit and intellect. It is simply better to keep one's mouth shut and continue to produce one's own good work rather than seek to profit by the destruction of another.

So, the bottom line, one should not try to excuse the literary equivalent of chewing with the mouth open, by noting that it could improve the world for literature. Arnold wasn't able to accomplish this goal, Eliot didn't do it, Wilson didn't do it. How likely is it that some 20-something literary ingenue is likely to do so? And more importantly, who really gains thereby?

No, if the strong need to help make the world a better and safer place for literary endeavors manifests itself express it in one of two ways: write those better literary works and leave the "lesser lights" alone in their gloom; or offer to share insights with the author of the works in question--then do so privately. Public display of aggressive intellect is no more appealing than PDoA. The only poor light it casts is on its perpetrator.

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At Home (or in Vegas) with Dante

from Purgatorio
Dante, tr. John Ciardi

The loser, when a game of dice is done,
remains behind reviewing every roll
sadly, and sadly wiser, and alone.

The crowd leaves with the winner: one behind
tugs at him, one ahead, one at his side--
all calling their long loyalty to his mind.

Not stopping, he hands out a coin or two
and those he has rewarded let him be.
So he fights off the crowd and pushes through.

Such was I then, turning my face now here,
now there, among that rout and promising
on every hand, till I at last fought clear. . . .

When I had won my way free of that press
of shades whose one prayer was that others pray
and so advance them toward their blessedness. . .

What Dante is promising is to remember those who approach him to those who love them back home and to remind all to pray for the poor souls in purgatory whose progress toward heaven is sped by the prayers of those in a state of grace. As we approach the days in which we recall the Saints and all the dead, Purgatorio is perfect reading--a reminder always to bear in mind those who suffer now for eventual glory. And a reminder to us to cut our suffering hereafter short by living a life that has as its goal an ever nearer approach to God in the life of this world.

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Bewteen Truth and . . .

from Puragatorio
Dante, tr. John Ciardi

[Virgil speaking to Dante]

But save all questions of such consequence
till you meet her who will become your lamp
between the Truth and mere intelligence.

How many aspire to the Truth by means of human reason alone. And I don't refer to the scholastics or their followers but the benighted Dawkinses and Hitchenses of the world who claiming liberation from the hoary old ties that bind, bind us in new and more severe chains, because within these we could easily be cast into the Hell of our own making. Human intelligence is faulty and frankly, in my experience, often not much interested in the Truth so much as in making a display of itself for others to admire.

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October 10, 2007

Angels Among Us

I am going to say that Samuel is and has been an Angel. Not a particularly well-behaved, cute, or cherubic child, but an Angel. And most recently he was an Angel to us yesterday and I only began to have it dawn on me today.

Linda has been very, very hurt by a friend of some duration. Hurt in a way that may make the friendship beyond repair. She was confiding this to me at length as we were driving to Sam's dance class and I was supporting her fully in her resolve when, from the back seat come, "Didn't Jesus say to bless those who persecute you and to forgive them."

In typical adult fashion I explained that while we are called to forgive, we aren't called to stick around and be abused some more. That there was a difference between forgiveness and being a glutton for punishment. He responded, "I guess so." But the tone suggested that he didn't buy the argument.

And I realized this morning, that I shouldn't buy it either. That forgiveness demanded of us, particularly in the case of long-term friends, demands that we keep at it, that we seek out love and offer love. We shouldn't stand for abuse, but that means not total withdrawal, but rather a measured response.

On the other hand, I'm not going to be the one to tell Linda. Right now, she just needs support in her feelings. She's got a good heart and she'll come around in time.

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The New Woman

Okay. To start: Get it, read it, enjoy it!

Now the reasons:

Jon Hassler creates very real places. Take Jan Karon. Yank out a lot of the over-sentimental nonsense. Put in some hard-headed characters in need of some real redemption and work. Move it from the South to Minnesota. Make the main characters Catholic and show faith in real action and you have Jon Hassler's town of Staggerford.

Enter Agatha--main character for a good many of the Staggerford novels--now 87 and moving into an assisted living facility because of a mid-winter pipe-breaking trauma in her own house. Moving in and moving out. Living and loving and accessory to kidnapping, and you name it.

The novel reintroduces the reader (or introduces the reader) to the town of Staggerford and its many inhabitants--most of them not terribly eccentric or odd or notable for their tics and traits. Agatha, ex-principal of St. Isidore's Catholic School, unmarried and mentor to most, if not all of the town. John Beezer, the man who become attracted to the first person who says a kind word to him in new and unplesant circumstances. Lillian, Big Edna, Little Edna, and the entire panoply of those who gather in the support group started for her great-nephew who doesn't attend.

Warm and real and filled with gentle satire, real faith, real people, real incident, real sin, real repentance, real redemption, and real lack of redemption. Not everything works out to the good. Not everything works out for perfect happiness all around. Not everything is laced about with charm and beauty. Disinterments, disappointments, disillusionments, and unfortunately no disbarments.

Read it, and enjoy the simple prose and the real feeling of a small and simple town--complicated in its simple network of relationships and understandings. Jon Hassler has created a real place. Less visited perhaps than some better known, but equally worthy of our attention.

Get it! Read it! I'm certain you'll enjoy it.

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Roosters

from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Barbara Kingsolver

In summer a young rooster's fancy turns to . . . how can I say this delicately? The most ham-fisted attempts at courtship I've ever had to watch. ( And yes, I'm including high school.) As predicted, half of Lily's chick crop was growing up to be male. This was dawning on everyone as the boys began to venture into mating experiments, climbing aboard the ladies sometimes backwards or perfectly sideways. The young hens shrugged them off and went on looking for bugs in the grass. But the three older hens, mature birds we'd had around awhile, did not suffer fools gladly. Emmy, an elderly Jersey Giant, behaved as any sensible grandmother would if a teenager approached her looking for action: she bit him on the head and chased him into a boxwood bush.

Ah, the ever-sensitive, ever-refined, ever-genteel male of the species.

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October 11, 2007

On a Very Pleasant Note

It is very satisfying to see someone as talented, capable, and interesting as Doris Lessing has actually attracted the Swedish Academy's attention. I guess I should note as well--how highly unusual.

I've always admired the contours of Ms. Lessing's fiction even when I haven't particularly cared for the story or the idea. A fine and interesting writer at all times.

Brava, Ms. Lessing, and well done academy (for a change).

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October 12, 2007

Very Cool-Must Have PT for All

Yep. That's right The Periodic Table as you've almost never seen it before. Take a look--photographs of elemental vanadium! In-depth exposes of the noble gases. Far more than you ever wanted to know about Yttrium and Cesium!

Pay close attention to the Kelvin slider for loads of fun with gaseous silver! ('long about 2440 K)

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I Hate to Ask this Question. . .

but what the heck does global warming have to do with peace?

Every year the committee goes further out of its mind in following its insane and paranoid vision of world politics.

If they ever had one shred of validlity (for example when they nominated Mother Teresa of Calcutta) this undermines it all. Anyone less deserving than Al Gore of such a prize would be hard to imagine. I'm surprised it wasn't awarded posthumously to Saddam Hussein.

Such a blatant and obvious attempt to influence the American Political scene should be soundly repudiated by any person thinking properly.

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