Travel Plans

Planning the summer vacation. Had to get my map out.

Got to get ourselves back to the Garden....

Proof, once again, that I am reading all the wrong stuff:*

A few years ago, when I was visiting the Dominicans in the Czech Republic, I spent the night in a small town called Snojmo near the Austrian border. There was the usual meeting with the Dominican Family. There were lots of young families with their noisy offspring, and we feasted on delicious sausages and drank slivovitz. Then we had an open discussion, and the first question was from a young woman who asked how she could transmit the Church’s moral teaching to her children, who seemed to be just as resistant as children in Western Europe. I did not know how to answer the question and so I passed it to my companion for that trip, a moral theologian called Wojcieh Giertych, professor at the Angelicum University in Rome.

He went to the blackboard and drew a small square in a corner. “In that square are the commandments. Is that what morally is about?” And everyone cried “Of course.” “No,” he said “God is not much interested in commandments.” Then he drew a square which covered all the rest of the board and said, “That is freedom. That is what interests God. Your task is to teach your children to be free. That is the teaching of the Gospels, and of St Thomas Aquinas.” (pp. 29-30)

*I have been entertaining myself re-reading the entire Sherlock Holmes stories. And by "right stuff" I mean both the book and the blog linked to. I, too, was young once, and thoughtful....

Plus ca change....

This Matt Taibbi article is getting attention because it purportedly rips the lid off of Wall Street scandals and goes to the heart of what ails our economy.

While this book is more worthy of our attention, as it discusses the "invisible poor" in America at the height of the "boom" in the American economy. I'm listening to the author talk about places in America labelled "food deserts" because there is no food available within 100 miles, except from gas stations selling "junk food." Imagine such a term being a part of the vocabulary of people who care for the poor in this country, and try to help them. Imagine such a word applying to this "land of plenty."

As the author points out, we used to expect to be wealthier than we already are, and lived and spent into that expectation. Thus did the economy grow, but thus, too, were bubbles created. There are strong indications this continuous growth not only cannot continue, but has come to an end.

But the expectation hasn't; yet. And the problem is not the perennial one of market manipulators; it is that the poor will always be with us. The question is: will we always ignore them?

Happy Forth of Jooly!

*Be kind to your web-footed friends.
For a duck may be somebody's mother!
Be kind to your friends in the swamp!
Where the weather is very, very damp!
Now, you may think that this is the end...

WELL IT IS!


*Tune: Stars and Stripes Forever, 3rd movement, if you're wondering. I have a soft spot in my heart for Mitch Miller, what can I say?

Huh. Well....

Is it me, of have conservative politicians suddenly decided it really is all about them, and this decision is leading to self-destruction?

The similarities between Sarah Palin's resignation announcement and Mark Sanford's statement are eerie. And it isn't lost on me that both of them assure us they are taking these actions in the name of, if not on behalf of, God. Or at least because they are so certain this is what God wants. I want to discuss, a bit later, Locke's "Letter Concerning Toleration," and this is an almost perfect chance to do that.

But the weirdness has to sink in, or slink away, or something. This is just really, really, odd. Not exactly unexpected, if you understand that excessive self-regard usually leads to self-destructive acts (destruction of reputation, if nothing else); but as to what it all means...well, that requires some reflection on Locke and Kierkegaard and the bewilderment of current events.

Friday document dump, indeed.

*picture courtesy of watertiger

Humility is hard

I understand that: humility is hard. And it looks nothing like this:

So in the aftermath of this failure I want to not only apologize, but to commit to growing personally and spiritually. Immediately after all this unfolded last week I had thought I would resign - as I believe in the military model of leadership and when trust of any form is broken one lays down the sword. A long list of close friends have suggested otherwise - that for God to really work in my life I shouldn’t be getting off so lightly. While it would be personally easier to exit stage left, their point has been that my larger sin was the sin of pride. They contended that in many instances I may well have held the right position on limited government, spending or taxes - but that if my spirit wasn't right in the presentation of those ideas to people in the General Assembly, or elsewhere, I could elicit the response that I had at many times indeed gotten from other state leaders.

Their belief was that if I walked in with a real spirit of humility then this last legislative term could well be our most productive one - and that outside this term, I would ultimately be a better person and of more service in whatever doors God opened next in life if I stuck around to learn lessons rather than running and hiding down at the farm.

Because the whole point of humility is that it's NOT about you. The whole point of humility, just like the whole point of identifying pride as a sin, is to remove yourself from the center of the world, and recognize the importance of others. But in Mark Sanford's case, the humble thing to do is to treat the Governor's office like a hair shirt, and his continued political career as penance.

Thomas More this guy ain't. Worse than that, he doesn't even understand why he's not approaching sainthood with such a public display of sacrifice. A sacrifice that isn't a sacrifice at all, of course, because what he's offering on the public altar is his wife, his children, his marriage, any possible sense of shame or culpability, everything except his ego, his libido, or his pride.

I suppose this is what comes from having a spiritual adviser who makes his living as a court reporter and whose spiritual advice seems to consist of telling you God wants you to do whatever it is you're doing. Funny thing is, Jesus spoke directly to the question of adultery once, in very clear language:

As you know, we once were told, 'You are not to commit adultery.' But I tell you: Those who leer at a woman and desire her have already committed adultery with her in their hearts." (Matthew 5:27-28, SV)

I suppose you could read that as: "So go ahead and get her in bed!," but I don't think that's what Jesus meant.

What he meant, of course, is that it isn't all about you, and that your actions begin in your thoughts. That's a very constrictive view of responsibility, but then humility restricts what we can do, too. And Governor Sanford is having none of it:

They have also made the point that a good part of life is about scripts - that the idea of redemption isn't something that Marshall, Landon, Bolton and Blake should just read about, it's something they should see. Accordingly, they suggested that there was a very different life script that would be lived and learned by our boys, and thousands like them, if this story simply ended with scandal and then the end of office - versus a fall from grace and then renewal and rebuilding and growth in its aftermath.

Yeah, this is all about teaching his kids. Sure it is.

What's really astounding here is to listen to this man preach on the sin of pride while displaying such conviction as to his own self-importance. He wasn't handed his head by the SC Legislature and Supreme Court (the former overrode 10 of his vetoes, the latter forced him to take the stimulus money he said he wouldn't take) because he was wrong; he was rebuffed because he wasn't in the right spirit to carry God's message to a government that desperately needed King David to save it from the grip of evil, a grip he knows because Cubby Culbertson told him it wasn't Mark's fault he had to go to Argentina or New York or outside South Carolina to sleep with his mistress. So now he has to bring his hard-earned humility to South Carolina, as a purified vessel of God's will. It takes a humble man to realize how important he is, and how important it is to God that he stay and do what God wants, because it just happens to be what Mark Sanford wants! And that's the lesson he wants to pass on to his children: God wants what Mark Sanford wants.

And that's what real humility is all about. Recognizing that you and God are totally sympatico.

That's how they say it in Argentina, right?

Where your treasure is

This is the photo provided by the San Diego Sheriff's office touting their helicopter. I can't honestly tell if these deputies are meant to be the three guys from "Ghostbusters," or the thin green line that stands between San Diego and anarchy. But the militarism of the image is a bit disturbing.

I've written before about this; about the creeping militarization of American society, about how we only have a civilization because we have a military, or militarized police. It's a Hobbseian view of government that would make Hobbes think twice. What's worse, of course, is that helicopter and 8 squad cars were used to subdue a Democratic fundraiser that was already breaking up when sheriff's deputies arrived and proceeded to pepper spray anyone within reach. What intrigues me about it, though, is this persistent idea that what we really have to fear are the people who will do us physical harm.

I live on the north side of I-10 in Houston. The south side, across from me, is some of the most expensive and exclusive real estate in the city (apart from River Oaks). There is a grocery store on the freeway, on the south side. The freeway access is important, not only to shoppers, but to any would be thieves in the parking lot looking for a snatch and grab on a purse, and a quick getaway. But because the store is on the south side, on the edge of the expensive real estate, it is considered "safe."

There is a new grocery store, near me, on the north side, equally accessible to the freeway, and much nicer than the store on the south side. Within a week of its opening, though, an e-mail made the rounds describing a frightening purse snatching incident, on top of which another victim (as the writer of the e-mail is describing her ordeal to another shopper in the parking lot) runs up to declare her car has been broken into, and the thieves escaped on...yes, the freeway. Shortly thereafter closed circuit TV cameras went up conspicuously in the parking lot (none in the lot on the south side of the freeway), and uniformed security officers stand at the doors, looking like police (and sometimes they are off-duty police) and riding around on a kind of Segway, to be sure the shoppers are safe. (Again, no such security measures deemed necessary at the south side store.) What's the difference between these stores? Location, location, location. On the north side of the freeway we are all poor, or dopers, drug runners, and cutthroats. At least according to those on the south side. Oh, and we're all shades of brown, too, since we can't afford the exclusive environs on the south side of the freeway. That part is true; we do have a lot of Asians, Hispanics, and Blacks on this side of the dividing line. Is it any wonder the freeway through this part of town was just widened to 26 lanes? It's a powerful symbol of demarcation.

Why am I telling you this?

Because police and the military are needed to keep us safe from those who would harm us. And yet, yesterday, Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison. Go to TPM and listen to what was said about him. He was very much a criminal, very much a danger to society. Bernie Madoff is white, Jewish, respected, and at no time presented a threat of violence to anyone. Yet he did more harm to more people than anyone in my neighborhood, or in the city of Houston, has ever done. Why didn't the police and the military protect us from him? Aren't the greatest threats to our way of life "those people" who dream only of taking what we have by force of arms? Surely the people we trust and willingly hand our property to are not as dangerous as the people we fear and constantly worry about protecting our property from.

And what was it Jesus said about this?

Don't acquire possessions here on earth, where moth or insect eats away and where robbers break in and steal. Instead, gather your nest egg in heaven, where neither moth nor insect eats away and where no robbers break in or steal. As you know, what you treasure is your heart's true measure. (Matthew 6:19-21, SV)

Yeah, but he didn't really mean that. After all, the biggest church buildings in Houston are all on the south side of the freeway; or downtown, or inside the Beltway, where the high-rent districts are. So he couldn't have been serious about that. Besides, the helicopter riding Ghostbusters will protect us from what scares us most.

I ain't afraid o' no ghost....

Candy is hard! It's hard!

Been working all day for an event at a local bookstore selling this tonight at a book signing.

The power of celebrity is truly appalling.