Torture? Wrong isn't it?

I intended to read Geoff's article on torture and find some point in it with which I disagree and then post. However, I found no such point so my post has now become boring and possibly lacking in esse. Yet, I wonder, what points for disagreement did other Christendom grads find? Isn't torture always wrong? I vaguely remember hearing some arguments or other, but they never really changed my high school opinion, which I thought was the Catechism's teaching on torture.

On closer examination, maybe I'm not so sure about Geoff's definition of torture as opposed to the Catechism definition. It narrows it down too much, and plus, I think the right word is torture when you pummel someone senseless out of hatred. I don't know. Obviously I am confused, because I started out by saying I completely agree with Geoff's article and now I disagree with the central point of it. Maybe someone has some comments to help me out!

Lord Peter and Bertie Wooster

I stumbled across an article today that quite unnerved me. It posits:

"To wit: Would Lord Peter Wimsey have been chummy with Bertie Wooster? Or as Mrs Maine put it, would, "Lord Peter Wimsey -- who was apt to launch into Woosterian dialogue to disarm his suspects...have considered Bertie an insufferable ass [or would he] have actually liked him"?..........
My first clue came when I was reading Murder Must Advertise. Early in the book, two of the typists at the advertising agency where Wimsey has gone undercover as a copy writer are discussing the new man and one of them describes him as looking exactly like Bertie Wooster!And I solved it midway through the book when the same two typists bump into Wimsey out of disguise on the street.How, I asked myself, wishing I had a Bunter or a Jeeves to shimmer in with an evening refresher so I could bounce my idea off of him, How did Wimsey know that he could pass himself off as his own lookalike cousin to people who knew him as one or the other?The answer came to me in a flash of insight.He knew he could do it because he had been doing it all along.Lord Peter is Bertie!Wimsey is Wooster and Wooster is Wimsey!"

I say, could it be true? It always seemed unlikely to me that there would be two butlers of Bunter and Jeeves's caliber in the world. Also, it would explain why Bertie avoids the altar like the plague. I could see Lord Peter reveling in such a role.

Footnote: The article is here: http://lancemannion.typepad.com/lance_mannion/2004/10/the_codes_of_th.html,

The Catholic View on Torture

Howdy, folks. I figure this might be a good start, if discussions need to be started. I've had some Christendom grads thoroughly disagree with me on the subject of torture after this article got published. www.centerforajustsociety.com Any thoughts on the subject?

A new basis for friendship

I will not notice the effects of graduation only in a graduated way. I lose half of my friends this year, but I don't leave until next. I guess the experience will not be quite as jarring that way.

Anyway, I think it a crime if we all didn't keep up in some meaningful way. I don't want Christendom to be some cruel twist of fate which puts us all together, as us form attachments, and then violently separates us all. Granted, we need to find a new basis for continued friendship since we no longer have Christendom has an everyday common experience. It will now be only a common memory. However, a new basis can be found, and I think that it would need to be based on the high standards of intellectual goals we all pursued in common for so long.

If we limit ourselves to fluff talk, we will not keep up in a substantial way, but if we constantly discuss issues, we just might.

by the way

(Sorry if my last post was sort of a downer.) If people want to keep using this blog as a way to stay in touch after graduation, I would be more than happy to maintain it and blog myself. Otherwise, I will probably just let it go the way of the do-do bird. :)

No one posts here anymore

Sad...but understandable. We are all moving on, sort of. Can you feel the ties to Christendom life, to your friends, sort of wavering? Well, I have been away for a bit so that is probably why I feel a sort of disconnection. I know it needn't be that way--to a point. That is, I could do a better job of keeping in touch with people, especially my closest friends. However, there is a way in which our relationship has objectively changed. It is a long-distance relationship now. I am a friend that one talks to on the phone or writes a letter to, not a friend one sees and communicates with in person. It is an objective lessening of friendship, which I think is rightly lamented. That is what gives you that pang of, whatever it is, bittersweet-ness about graduation. You know you will have to move on and it is good that you will do so. At the same time, you will miss your friends...

Back again

Sylvia,

I suppose since theses are over I should get back on this. Classes here are going well, especially the Inklings. We just finished C.S. Lewis' "That Hideous Strength," and we're starting TLotR next week. That Hideous Strength is a very interesting book--full of Christian insight, paradox, and social commentary. The character of Jane is one of Lewis' best, and is the most convincing and honest portrayal of a feminist I've ever read.

We're also reading David Hume for Enlightenment. That man is evil.

I will try to post sometime when I have more to say. Please update us on how you are doing. We miss you terribly.

Back at it

Hi everyone,
I am back at work now. Although I don't have a full-time job yet, I have begun some contracting work for my dad. It is always slow to start up again, after a long absence from programming, but I am confident I will accomplish something soon. I'm all dressed up today in my "new" business suit, which I bought from a thrift store for 20 dollars; but you can't tell. My dad took me along with him to Houston today, so I am working in the same building, on the same floor I worked over the summer. The difference is that this time I am in an office with a window. It's weird to be back. It seems it is for real this time (as opposed to other times? I don't know). One thing stays the same: I still look forward eagerly, with zeal and longing . . . for lunch! God bless you all.

Sylvia

History and English

At first glance, History and English seem two studies diametrically opposed. One studies reality, and the other is fiction. Nevertheless, the two are intimately connected and interdependent.

Tolkien wrote much on the issue of subcreation. Man is made in the image of God, he said, and one of the ways he imitates God is in his ability to create things, be it art or stories or other things. This is why Tolkien wrote the Silmarillion and the Lord of the Rings; his creation was a prayer to honor the Lord, the Creator of all.

Visual art's relationship with the created material order parallels literature's relation to history. Both visual art and literature are meant to reflect reality through a lense, which is the perception of the artist or author, in order to accentuate different facets of God's creation and cause man to wonder at His beauty.

Good literature draws its power and nobility from history, just as a painting reflects the material world. History is God's fiction, and when man creates stories he subcreates based on God's stories.

We often think of history as a memorization of dates and dry facts, totally opposed to imagination and creativity. Yet, in reality it is the source of our ideas of drama, adventure, romance, suspense, and happy endings.

We're all characters from the mind of God.

Priests

Isn't it odd to think of a priest listening to modern music? Or watching sports on TV? Or telling bawdy jokes? In other words, isn't it odd to think of a priest being just like you? Probably a good idea would be to take your idea of what a priest's lifestyle should be--ascetical, filled with prayer, spiritual reading, uplifting conversation, utter devotion to God--and realize this would actually fulfill your desires. Priests, after all, are just as busy as the rest of us. They do not live the contemplative, but the active life. Yet, they must make time for prayer and must order their lives toward seeing God in order to fulfill the duties of their vocation. The same goes for all of us!

Love

It seems to me that love must be placed firmly in the present. One of the most dangerous ideas is that your love will increase in the future. This does not equal a 'firm purpose of amendment,' for even that begins in the present--I will change now. If your love does not have that character of unselfishness, disinterestedness, pure giving and devotion, resolve this minute to make it so. We cannot afford to procrastinate our lives, which after all are only a gift. Nothing will come along to solve all our problems; this can never be, for the very problems and struggles we face form part of the gift of our lives. The only answer to anything bad, anything that hurts or stings, anything that shocks or buffets, is to love.

Blog not dead, just working on thesis

Most, if not all, the members of this blog have now begun a new adventure: writing a senior thesis. This venture will take a long time for some, but for others (like me) it will be a lot of fun and will end soon after fall break. Right now, I have a cold and I don't want to do anything. That is probably why I am posting this. It is a mixed blessing to get sick on a Friday night. The positive aspect of it is that, ideally, you can rest up and recover by the time classes start again on Monday. The negative aspect is that you don't, you spend a lot of time wasting time and feeling sorry for yourself, you don't study or do your homework as well, you can't sing in choir, and you feel antisocial because you imagine that the ickiness you feel translates into a similar ickiness in outward appearance, causing an insurmountable insecurity when talking to anyone but one's closest and most sympathetic friends. Another positive aspect that I forgot to mention, however, is that by enduring illness without complaint and with a cheerful disposition one can grow in virtue and imitate Christ. I think I tend to forget about this positive aspect of being sick when I get sick myself, and if someone else is sick I certainly don't remind them of it. "Offer it up" is pithy, but hardly consoling, right? Still, life goes on, some people are sick all the time and I'm just going to be this way for a week or so (I hope). Ciao!

Sylvia

A day at work

"Man is preoccupied with freedom yet laden with handicaps. The breadth of his activity and experience is narrowed by the limitations of his relatively weak, sluggish body.


The horse, by virtue of his awesome physical gifts, freed the jockey from himself.

When a horse and jockey flew over the track together, there were moments in which the man's mind wedded itself to the animal's body to form something greater than the sum of both parts.

The horse partook of the jockey's cunning; the jockey partook of he horse's supreme power. For the jockey, the saddle was a place of unaparalleled exhiliaration, of transcendence.

On the ground, the jockey was fettered and muted, moving in slow motion, the world a sensory vacuum after the tenfold high of racing speed.

In the saddle, emancipated from their bodies, all reisnmen sailed eight feet over the world, emphatically free, emphatically alive. They were Hemingway's bullfighters, living 'all the way up.'"

-Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit: An American Legend

St. Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr

Today is the feast day of the great St. Maximilian Kolbe. A biography records: "On 28 May 1941 he was transferred to Auschwitz and branded as prisoner 16670. He was assigned to a special work group staffed by priests and supervised by especially vicious and abusive guards. His calm dedication to the faith brought him the worst jobs available, and more beatings than anyone else. At one point he was beaten, lashed, and left for dead. The prisoners managed to smuggle him into the camp hospital where he spent his recovery time hearing confessions. When he returned to the camp, Maximilian ministered to other prisoners, including conducting Mass and delivering communion using smuggled bread and wine.
"In July 1941 there was an escape from the camp. Camp protocol, designed to make the prisoners guard each other, required that ten men be slaughtered in retribution for each escaped prisoner. Francis Gajowniczek, a married man with young children was chosen to die for the escape. Maximilian volunteered to take his place, and died as he had always wished - in service."

My love for St. Maximilian has increased after visiting Auchwitz last year. The inhumanity of concentration camps has been described by many survivors, yet this man was able to act in a superhuman and heroic fashion amidst extreme hate, ugliness, and death. After he and the 9 other men were locked in the starvation bunker, the guards, so used to hearing screams and cursing heard instead prayers and singing. St. Maximilian, Knight of the Immaculate, was also full of grace. His life should remind us that Our Lady will give us power to overcome the strongest powers of evil, if we only allow her to work in us. St. Maximlian Kolbe, pray for us!

The room where he died.

Courage, my sons, Don't you see that we are leaving on a mission? They pay our fare in the bargain. What a piece of good luck! The thing to do now is to pray well in order to win as many souls as possible. Let us, then, tell the Blessed Virgin that we are content, and that she can do with us anything she wishes.

-Saint Maximilian Kolbe

No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hecatombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?

-Saint Maximilian Kolbe in the last issue of the Knight

CD's

Gaelic Storm has a new album out, and it's great! It is almost, if not as good as their last "How Are We Gettin' Home?" There are songs about gypsies, beer, sea journies, Johnny Tarr, and other eccentrics (Kevin Kelly!), plus some good traditional reels. And, as usual, their clever lyrics are hilarious. The only dissapointment was they did not insert their comments about their songs in the CD jacket. For me, that was one of the highlights of past albums. ("Gainful employment is for the birds!") Also, in the past they have put in a synopsis of the story for the Irish-language songs, so you know the song is about the high-spirited goat or the Irish boy who fell in love with a redhead andattempted to woo her with poetry such as "I prefer her to cows", but this time around, "De Luain, de Mairt" is left to our imaginations. Nevertheless, it's a great album. I hope I get to see Gaelic Storm live one day--I've heard they're good in concert.


The other CD I added to my collection is "Breathe: The Relaxing Harp," which features the talent of Yolanda Kondonassis. I have never heard of her before. She put together a nice collection of Debussy, Vivaldi, Chopin, Bach, and Ravel, to name a few. Chopin via the harp is very different. Despite the really freaky interior design on the front cover it is a lovely album.

Cool Quotes

I don't usually pass on sayings or "words of wisdom," but I think these people really had something to contribute to society. Their words are definitely worth considering. Plus, they are just great quotes.

______________________

"Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar."

--Edward R. Murrow

" The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason. "

--G. K. Chesterton

"A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride. "

--C. S. Lewis

"If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one."

--Mother Teresa

"The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and independence, lies in the fact that people close their hearts and become selfish. "

--Pope John Paul II

"The devil's name is dullness."

--Robert E. Lee

Catholic Radio

Do any of you listen to Relevant Radio? Its a growing Catholic talk radio station that I find quite exceptional. Although we don't have any local channels carrying it in FR, I listen to it online live at www.relevantradio.com. (Bishop Sheen on 10-11 and Fr. Coropi 11-12!)

Fathers and Sons

If there is one thing that completely baffles me, it is the relationship between fathers and their sons. I cannot wrap my mind around why it is that sometimes they just do not get along. However, I will attempt to gain more understanding on this subject by reviewing the case. In my limited experience of the workings of the father-son relationship, I have gleaned a few facts about it. One, fathers expect a lot from their sons. Somehow, all that is wrapped up in being a man, all that it took the fathers themselves years to learn and digest, should immediately begin to take root when a son reaches pre-adolescence. As Aristotle puts it, "Men have a natural desire to leave behind an image of themselves." Unfortunately, too often I think the father imagines he is a much better example than he really is and therefore his expectation of his son's excellence becomes even more unreasonable. I don't say that to judge, but simply to point out that children pick up the bad habits of their parents twice as fast as they pick up the good ones. This is all the more true in sons, who really do idolize their fathers as masculine role models, to an extent that I think even they do not realize. This leads me to my second observation, that sons cannot bear to disappoint their fathers. A young boy's reaction to the expressed disapproval of his father is usually to cry, but as the boy grows older he no longer feels he has this recourse. Therefore, his frustration at his perceived inability to please his father vents itself in fits of temper and defiance. Should the son be honest with himself about why he feels the way he does about his father? Sure he should, and he should also keep in mind St. Paul's injunction in Colossians 3 to "obey your parents in all things;" in trying to please his father, a son's true aim should be pleasing God. In rebuking his son, a father should take even more to heart St. Paul's words, "Fathers, provoke not your children to indignation, lest they be discouraged." Parents have the responsiblity to encourage their children in virtue, and they must take into account the impact their words or actions have on their children. After all, they are adults, whereas the children are just children. However, the third thing is that it is extremely difficult for men to express affection for each other, and when applied to the father-son dynamic already discussed, this may prove the solution to the strained situation that results from both parties' natural pride (as a side point, Dr. Phil has said that one of the key facets of the male character is pride--and though I will not attempt to argue that men are prouder than women, it certainly does solve a lot of things to consider that most men do struggle to keep their opinion of themselves very much afloat). Fathers simply must tell their sons that they are proud of them, that they have done a good job, that their efforts have been noticed, that they love them ultimately, or else they are failing in their job as parents. I know that the confidence I have in the world stems in no large part from my dad having given me these words of encouragement, and it pains me that he has such trouble doing the same for my younger brother. I can try to see why, but I still find it unfair. My mom cannot make up for this lack on my dad's part, because it just isn't the same to have a mother's esteem and affection. Although equally necessary, there is always a sense that mom loves you just because she is mom and it is her office to love, whereas with dad it is more because you have proven yourself. This too is a delighful illusion, because a good father's love is as unconditional as a good mother's. On the other side of the coin, sons should also make an effort to tell their dads that they are sorry for their failings, that they look up to them and need their help, that they love them as well. I don't know how this may be done, to be honest, but from my womanly perspective I can't see how a relationship between any two people can thrive without at least occasional words of love, in some form or another. So to conclude, life is hard. Life is hard for boys and men, and it is also hard for women who must perpetually resist the impulse to tell them what to do (which is exactly what I have done here). If there is anything men cannot stand, it is to receive commands from a woman, so always phrase it as a request or suggestion. That one came out of nowhere. Ok, and with that, my "deep" thoughts have come to an end. :)

_~Sylvia

Ode to Christendom Drinkers

After having lightly partaken of my own particular favorite, I thought I would add an ode to Christendom drinkers. It ain't good, and it ain't metered, so don't even look fer it. I also can't seem to reconcile Belloc's "think it no sin to drink 'til they spin" with the teaching of the Catholic Church. But it does seem to be a pervasive belief at Christendom.

Here be to ye all, ye swillers of booze,
Who swiftly run empty yer liquor container
And run off yer mouth however ye choose
Ye one-hundred-proof ad-hoc entertainer.

Ye think 'cause yer Catholic that ye can be drunk
And it's part of the Faith that ye stumble about
Because of yer quaffing yer grades have all sunk
And ye've proven yerself a damnable lout.

But ye've got yer comrades, aye, s'long as they last
For drunkards ain't known to remain solid friends
They poison their brains wi' a tip o' the glass
And head toward their deaths as the drunkard's path tends.

So lift up a glass and give toast to the sot!
They've all drunk up deep and are all feeling well
They choose being sloshed as their portion and lot
And sing all the glories of living in hell.

Odes to Wine

Happy Transfiguration! Due to the family reunion (of the Italian side), I consumed a large quantity of that congenial beverage (to quote Amelia Peabody) we call wine, and also not a little beer. So, a few odes to wine and beer, all by Hilaire Belloc.


Drinking Song, On the Excellence of Burgundy Wine

My jolly fat host with your face all a-grin,
Come, open the door to us, let us come in.
A score of stout fellows who think it no sin
If they toast till they're hoarse, and drink till they spin,
Hoofed it amain
Rain or no rain,
To crack your old jokes, and your bottle to drain.

Such a warmth in the belly that nectar begets
As soon as his guts with its humour he wets,
The miser his gold, and the student his debts,
And the beggar his rags and his hunger forgets.
For there's never a wine
Like this tipple of thine
From the great hill of Nuits to the River of Rhine.

Outside you may hear the great gusts as they go
By Foy, by Duerne, and the hills of Lerraulx,
But the rain he may rain, and the wind he may blow,
If the Devil's above there's good liquor below.
So it abound,
Pass it around,
Burgundy's Burgundy all the year round.

Catholic Sun, The

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!


The Pelagian Drinking Song

Pelagius lived at Kardanoel
And taught a doctrine there
How, whether you went to heaven or to hell
It was your own affair.
It had nothing to do with the Church, my boy,
But was your own affair.

No, he didn't believeIn Adam and Eve
He put no faith therein!
His doubts began
With the Fall of Man
And he laughed at Original Sin.
With my row-ti-tow
Ti-oodly-ow
He laughed at original sin.

Then came the bishop of old Auxerre
Germanus was his name
He tore great handfuls out of his hair
And he called Pelagius shame.
And with his stout Episcopal staff
So thoroughly whacked and banged
The heretics all, both short and tall --
They rather had been hanged.

Oh he whacked them hard, and he banged them long
Upon each and all occasions
Till they bellowed in chorus, loud and strong
Their orthodox persuasions.
With my row-ti-tow
Ti-oodly-ow
Their orthodox persuasions.

Now the faith is old and the Devil bold
Exceedingly bold indeed.
And the masses of doubt that are floating about
Would smother a mortal creed.
But we that sit in a sturdy youth
And still can drink strong ale
Let us put it away to infallible truth
That always shall prevail.

And thank the LordFor the temporal sword
And howling heretics too.
And all good things
Our Christendom bringsBut especially barley brew!
With my row-ti-tow
Ti-oodly-ow
Especially barley brew!