Lately I have this feeling that I liken to being inside an egg. I am inside this egg and what I do with my life paints the inside of the shell and everywhere I look things aren’t so bad, since I’ve colored every bit of space in the shell. Yet there is a feeling deep in my lizard hindbrain that this shell is so much less than I think it is; a suspicion that it is nothing more than a shell and that if I broke it my world would open wide. But I’m not strong enough or focused enough to break it at the right spot.

Ash Wednesday kind of snuck up on my this year. I hadn’t given much thought to what I’m going to do to improve myself this Lent. I think that this year I will try to be less of a smartass for these forty days, and going forward. Additionally, I won’t purchase any extraneous merchandise for myself [CDs, DVDs, etc. UNLESS I get a new job]. Beer is not included as extraneous merchandise.

So let it be written. So let it be done.

I’ve been making my way through Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical Deus Caritas Est again. Essentially it offers clarification and direction on the uses of αγαπη, or spiritual love, or charity, in Christian practice. There is much of worth in this encyclical, but also some deliberately missed opportunities and some implications that make me uneasy. Encyclicals may or may not be subject to the rule of papal infallability, it basically depends on both the content of the letter and whether or not the pontiff decides to invoke his power. Often they are merely reiterations of present Church doctrine and offer focus an encouragement for leaders or lay persons regarding a present matter of importance.

Deus Caritas Est is addressed to all Christians [the word Catholic does not appear until over halfway through the encyclical] and takes the form of an exhortation to charitable acts and also navigates its way through separation of church and state, Marxism, and misuse of charity for other ends. Based on the tone of the piece, I do not think that Pope Benedict is invoking his infallibility, nor does the content stray from doctrine enough to warrant its use. Now on to the excerpts of the content that I found most interesting.

In a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even a duty of hatred and violence, this message is both timely and significant. For this reason, I wish in my first Encyclical to speak of the love which God lavishes upon us and which we in turn must share with others. That, in essence, is what the two main parts of this Letter are about, and they are profoundly interconnected.

…

Let us note straight away that the Greek Old Testament uses the word eros only twice, while the New Testament does not use it at all: of the three Greek words for love, eros, philia (the love of friendship) and agape, New Testament writers prefer the last, which occurs rather infrequently in Greek usage.

The focus of this encyclical is on agape, because the writings in the bible focus on agape. Benedict is addressing the confusion that modern translations have, using the word “love” which is often too broad for the necessary context. He then goes off on a rather long tangent about erotic love and its proper manifestations, and how it differs from charitable love. I was therefore expecting an important statement of purpose on the Church’s stance regarding eros. Instead, through the repetitions of “love between a man and woman in marriage” we find the Church’s stance essentially unchanged. However, I found all of that discussion to be irrelevant once I realized that the second half of the encyclical was focusing solely on agape. Why not just say “I’m here to talk about agape not eros” and be done with it? Instead there is this convulted reasoning that claims agape is necessary for eros to reach its ultimate expression. No offense to the Supreme Pontiff, but he sounds like a celibate curmudgeon who is treating erotic fire-blood love as a purely philosophical and semantic object while claiming

Christianity of the past is often criticized as having been opposed to the body; and it is quite true that tendencies of this sort have always existed. Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive.

And

Should he aspire to be pure spirit and to reject the flesh as pertaining to his animal nature alone, then spirit and body would both lose their dignity. On the other hand, should he deny the spirit and consider matter, the body, as the only reality, he would likewise lose his greatness.

seems a bit out of place considering that Catholic vocations require rejection of flesh and animal nature in the pursuit of spiritual matters.

The mechanism of the equation of eros and agape is applicable to the second portion of the encyclical, and is essentially what I wrote about a few weeks ago: Our perspective should be that our bodies are a loan from God and should not be used in a way that he would disapprove of. But enough of this.

The second portion of the encyclical offers practicable direction for exercising charitable love, some meat to go with the metaphysics. By highlighting the Church’s historical precedents of charitable action [dating from the establishment of diaconal office [Acts 6: 1-6]]. There is much good advice here, but also a statement that governments should subsidize the Church’s charitable activities and at the same time not interfere with aims of the activities.

The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person—every person—needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need. The Church is one of those living forces: she is alive with the love enkindled by the Spirit of Christ. This love does not simply offer people material help, but refreshment and care for their souls, something which often is even more necessary than material support. In the end, the claim that just social structures would make works of charity superfluous masks a materialist conception of man: the mistaken notion that man can live “by bread alone� (Mt 4:4; cf. Dt 8:3)—a conviction that demeans man and ultimately disregards all that is specifically human.

While I agree that the State cannot supply “loving personal concern”, I think that any “State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces” is tacitly revoking its own sovereignty in favor of theocratic control. DANGER! DANGER!

But ultimately, the message of charity and its practice on an individual level, is something that any person with the slightest bit of agape can agree with.

Part of Marxist strategy is the theory of impoverishment: in a situation of unjust power, it is claimed, anyone who engages in charitable initiatives is actually serving that unjust system, making it appear at least to some extent tolerable. This in turn slows down a potential revolution and thus blocks the struggle for a better world. Seen in this way, charity is rejected and attacked as a means of preserving the status quo. What we have here, though, is really an inhuman philosophy. People of the present are sacrificed to the moloch of the future—a future whose effective realization is at best doubtful. One does not make the world more human by refusing to act humanely here and now.

“One does not make the world more human by refusing to act humanely here and now.”

This is the fundamental point of the whole encyclical. And a bit later Benedict uses this same point to castigate those who would misuse charity.

Charity, furthermore, cannot be used as a means of engaging in what is nowadays considered proselytism. Love is free; it is not practised as a way of achieving other ends.[30] But this does not mean that charitable activity must somehow leave God and Christ aside. For it is always concerned with the whole man. Often the deepest cause of suffering is the very absence of God. Those who practise charity in the Church’s name will never seek to impose the Church’s faith upon others. They realize that a pure and generous love is the best witness to the God in whom we believe and by whom we are driven to love. A Christian knows when it is time to speak of God and when it is better to say nothing and to let love alone speak. He knows that God is love (cf. 1 Jn 4:8) and that God’s presence is felt at the very time when the only thing we do is to love. He knows—to return to the questions raised earlier—that disdain for love is disdain for God and man alike; it is an attempt to do without God. Consequently, the best defence of God and man consists precisely in love. It is the responsibility of the Church’s charitable organizations to reinforce this awareness in their members, so that by their activity—as well as their words, their silence, their example—they may be credible witnesses to Christ.

“Love is free; it is not practised as a way of achieving other ends.”

This is the fundamental point of the whole encyclical, and again a very strong argument against those who believe that salvation can be found through belief alone. Faith without works is ultimately no faith at all, because if “ó θεòς αγάπη εστίν” [God is love/charity] [1 John 4:16] and one does not practice charity, God is not present.

While Pope Benedict’s papacy is expected to be quite politically and morally conservative, and there are indications of that conservatism in this encyclical, the expression of agape remains a radical, practicable, tangible and powerful way of expressing that

Love is the light—and in the end, the only light—that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working. Love is possible, and we are able to practise it because we are created in the image of God. To experience love and in this way to cause the light of God to enter into the world—this is the invitation I would like to extend with the present Encyclical.

I don’t like Saint Paul, and I never really have, but today’s second reading from his letter to the Corinthians [1 Cor 6:13c-15a, 17-20] and Fr.’s homily gave me a new angle of looking at the Church’s teachings regarding our bodies. Most of the time the only things I hear about the Church’s teaching regarding the body are criticisms of the restrictiveness of the requirements; if we think of our bodies as loans from God, not actually ours, but allowed for our use, then these things start to make sense not as restrictions but as guides to the proper appreciation of our being. There really is only one thing to keep in mind: each and every way in which we use our body should glorify the guy who is letting us use it in the first place. That leaves plenty of leeway for enjoyment of our bodies. The church doesn’t really restrict the things we can eat or drink, but when those acts become more important than treating our bodies with dignity, they cease to be for the glory of God, and you get gluttony as the result. Seen from this angle, the context of rigorous religious prohibitions against abortion and sex-for-pleasure makes more sense. One results in the destruction of a body created by God and the other is a bastardization of an act intended for procreation; neither show the respectful use of a body that’s on loan from the man upstairs.

Similarly, not using our physical abilities for charitable actions or even small acts of selflessness are misuses of the intended purposes of the body. And you see, I’m so used to thinking of what we’re not supposed to do with our bodies that I’ve gotten away from the most important point. We are supposed to enjoy our bodies at every moment that we have one, but we’re supposed to enjoy them gratefully, not selfishly.

Now whether all of this is an acceptably understood interpretation of God’s will is still up for debate [and the basis for my dislike of the Church's dependence on Paul's epistles]. But if we assume that it is, this path is still a damn hard thing to do. Our animal nature exerts purely selfish demands [but the experience of having an animal nature is what should be appreciated] and social nature puts other demands and other temptations that can easily teach people to hate their bodies or the things their bodies do, or things done to their bodies. It is such a tough path to follow that it might not be much of a surprise that it is easier to focus on spiritual and intellectual relations and leave the body out of it altogether.

This is the the wrong time of year for this post, but I thought about it anyway so stop judging me already!

Sin [or immoral or unethical behavior or the opposite of Right Action or whatever you want to call it] is subtle. You can do something that isn’t sinful, but if done with that kind of evil intent, would probably still qualify. [These thoughts mayn't be canonical, I dunno.] So if there is an orchard of apple trees and you sneak in and grab a couple to eat and sneak out and eat them, with the idea that if you get caught you’ll get in trouble [even if the lady who owns to orchard really doesn't mind if people come take her apples] then you’re sinning.

Sinful thoughts are hard to avoid, but as long as they don’t inspire internal revelry or external action, then they aren’t really sin. But one can also do no harm although they intend to do so and I would consider that a sin. There is also doing something with evil intent that has a positive [though unintended] resolution. The unintended part is crucial because otherwise you fall into the “a wrong doesn’t make a right” situation. The easiest example of evil intent with unexpected positive resolution that comes to mind is at the end of The Return of the King, when Gollum’s lust for the ring results in its destruction. I think that’s probably still a sin, because it appears my definition of sinfulness is predicated on what my momma taught me, willful disobedience is always a personal feeling of selfishness. What about not knowing you are doing wrong, but do wrong? I think that only becomes a sin when the ignorance is rectified and behavior is not changed, nor restitution sought. I think that covers it.

I’ve written about this before and I’ll write about it again I’m sure but since it is so mind-bending I’m going to write about it now. The problem is that I can’t ever explain it to anysort of satisfaction because the state of mind you have to be in is so strange. I’ve done a bit of glossary on Zen Buddhism and I’ve got Zen Mind; Beginner’s Mind, on my reading list. Although I haven’t read it, I think Beginner’s Mind is a good concept to use in my own context.

So I’m laying in bed, just got done reading about Buddhist breathing exercises, so I’m listening to myself breathe. Not thinking about it, or controlling it, just observing it. This is a hard thing to start consciously and thankfully I managed to do it unconsciously and then realized what I was doing. So I started thinking about how friggin complex the simple, automatic and taken for granted act of breathing is. The diaphragm changes the air pressure in our lungs which causes exhalation and inhalation. Alveoli in the lungs help transfer carbon dioxide and oxygen between the bloodstream and the lungs and then the little blue RBCs get all red with their load of oxygen and truck around my body delivering it to various things. And I never think about it. It just happens, taken for granted.

Then I zoomed out just a tad. I’m in this huge galaxy that is just one of a huge number of other galaxies that all do their things with gravity and light in volumes and distances so huge that only a concerted effort will let you comprehend them. And I take all that for granted as well.

But the taken-for-grantedness is one step too far. I only got to that after proceeding through a stage of joyous wonder which is my version of Beginner’s Mind. Since I was a child I’ve told myself I wasn’t going to lose my sense of wonder and so far I have succeeded. All of these things and innumerable threads of others are all happening in concert and I’m a part of it. The wonder comes from not taking things for granted, and until that wonder comes when you regard a certain thing, you are taking it for granted. The obvious next response to this is gratitude for being a part of it. My gratitude is directed into my faith, but even if someone doesn’t have a faith, this sense of gratitude is still legitimate and should be present, I hope.

My version of Beginner’s Mind is also humbling, because wonder and gratitude have humility as a prerequisite. I’m being this specific so that the state of mind I am talking about can be identified and separated from other ones. The mind is cunning, and memory and taking things for granted are two ways it uses to assure us of our own power and importance. By taking things for granted and using memories to tell stories about our past we keep our egos healthy.

I’m not saying that one should live in either state all the time. I’m saying the opposite. Everyone should be able to engage and act and focus on a specific point in the world and take things for granted in order to accomplish whatever needs done. This would be the enthalpic drive, our God-like abilities yearning for use. But we should also be able to put ourselves in universal context, realize our relative insignificance, cast even that aside and just sit in observational wonder at existence.

There is a necessary tension between these two things, and when their use is out of balance [if someone has forgotten wonder, for instance] then the other side gets twisted by its own weight. Strive for Balance.

Here endeth the lesson. I hope I learned something.

A Case of Conscience by James Blish is, on the surface, a novel about a crisis of faith when a priest is confronted with a perfectly moral and ethical alien society that has no sense of faith, or doubt or even guile. But James Blish is one of the most intelligent science fiction authors I’ve ever read, so the novel is also much more than that. Blish was an atheist for most of his writing career, or as Greg Bear mentions in the introduction to the version I read, an “apparent agnostic”. Since he has written a Hugo-winning masterwork of religious science fiction, I’m leaning toward the agnosticism angle myself.

I’ve had little to no contact with the Society of Jesus, despite my lifetime immersed in Roman Catholicism. But from all I’ve heard and read, the Jesuits seem like my kind of Catholics, not afraid to wrestle with thorny problems of faith. Blish’s Father Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez is not exception in A Case of Conscience. The book opens with the padre working his way through a labyrinthine moral dilemma in Finnegan’s Wake, and we then find out he’s doing this in his spare time, since he is actually a xenobiologist on Lithia, an alien world 50 light years from Earth. So Fr. Ramon is a man who has no trouble reconciling science and faith, since he places faith as a higher order of magnitude in his world. The crisis of faith comes to him subtly. His role on this planet is to determine its viability for human colonization. The padre doesn’t do this through a purely scientific criterion. First and foremost he feels that it is necessary to determine the sentient alien species state of grace. They are called Snakes and their society has no deviants, no taboos, no restrictions of any kind, and runs like a precision instrument. As I mentioned before, their complete lack of philosophical and moral thoughts creeps Fr. Ramon out. When he finds out how the Lithians reproduce and raise their young, he falls close to the heresy of Manicheaism which is something along the lines of believing that Satan has creative power; or more broadly, in a dualistic universe. In my understanding, this is considered heresy because Satan is defined by absence and opposition, he refuses to be anything that God is, and therefore cannot be creative, he can only spin illusion, or somesuch. Needless to say, it is explained sufficiently in the book.

He comes back to Earth with a gift from the Lithians, one of their children. As Egtverchi grows up he becomes quite frightening, reminiscent of Ivan Karamazov, but even more nihilistic and dangerous. I think Blish intended this marooned being to be as close to Satan incarnate as he could get. The reader gets hit with a big old guilt-hammer here since we know that the only reason Egtvertchi thinks in the way he does, is because of the mistakes his caretakers made in raising him. I guess that makes his claims of ultimate free agency all the more frightening. Once a genetically predisposed rational materialist gets a bit of philosophy, look out! Not even the existentialists took their idea of freedom in such a selfish light.

I read this book in an evening, it is about 250 pages, and very interesting. Blish is a lot like C.S. Lewis, I think. A very intelligent man working his way through his own crisis of faith, his own case of conscience, for personal reasons. I get the sense that Blish was wrestling with these issues merely because they are always going to be there to be wrestled with and since he isn’t bound to either of the dual sides he picks, he can make each of them equally potent. He’d've made a good Jesuit.

A tangentially related link: a few thousand science fiction magazine covers.
If you’d like more science as your religion instead of religion as your science, I recommend James Blish’s Cities in Flight

Fractals are inherently natural; and nature loves to repeat patterns. This really isn’t a surprise, because everyone knows that there is alot of symmetry [which is a bit different than patterning, yes] in natural objects. It’s like in π where the Golden Ratio [a sort of fractal] can be found everywhere. For years one of my doodling habits has been, unknowingly, an echo of the Golden Ratio. I draw a right triangle and then section it off by drawing a line perpendicular to the hypotenuse from the right angle of the triangle. The result is two more right triangles, which I then do the same thing to. Smaller and smaller and smaller. Another way of describing fractals uses the example of a coastline, if you’re measuring the length of a coastline, the closer you get the longer the coastline becomes. A finite area bounded by an infinite line.

Asymptotes come to mind here as well, and the old saw about a frog jumping halfway to the pond with each jump. He’ll never reach the pond, mathematically speaking, because he only halves the distance remaining with each jump. This is why I can never know anything, despite the fact that I’ve learned so very much in almost 25 years, I’m still only halfway to wherever there is. This might be a very good explanation for why we can’t ever really know God or reach perfection on our own, but I’m way off track at this point.

Branches were the impetus to write this post. So many things branch, and branch the same way, that it gives me the good willies. When I truly realized that there has to be a reason behind the similarity between rivers and tributaries, the branches of a tree, our veins, capillaries and arteries it was one of those minor mindblowing things that only really occur to me when I see something ubiquitous and mundane as if for the first time. The sphere is another reoccuring pattern, from subatomic particles up to planets- rain is spherical, or would be without the work of gravity. This makes me think that size does not matter. Another thought I had the other day, atoms are mostly empty space. The universe is mostly empty space. Science has this idea of dark matter, and they think it must fill the “empty space” of the universe. I wonder if anyone has thought to look in the empty space of atoms.

Chris Coyne has made a mathematical programming language [redundant, I know] that can create beautiful pictures, including some with branches.

This post from a while back, and more specifically, the first blockquote in the post, have hopped up to the forefront somewhat again lately here. Yes.

Thesis: Anger stems from dissatisfaction caused by our mortal imperfections.
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Several of my friends and acquaintances have received the following in their respective mailboxes. I only wish I could get one sent to my address as well. Beware, past the jump is an example of what can happen to religion when it becomes infected by The Stupid™. Actually, it is a scam, which should be obvious to anyone who looks at the damn thing. Except for people infected with The Stupid™.
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A concept in one of the works of C. S. Lewis popped into my head the other day while I was running around Tremont. It boils down to the idea that there are no bad emotions, just poor applications. I’ll reproduce it for you past the jump.
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It is that time of year again. Today is Mardi Gras and tomorrow Lent begins. Today is traditionally the last gasp of partying before dour penitence takes hold for a month or so. Of course, Mardi Gras was likely coopted from even older pagan celebrations of Carnival but there is still some debate. The Wikipedia, as always, has a good article.
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Advent is the time in the church calendar when we are supposed to look ahead, in expectation, in hope for redemption. Today at church, the priest, whose homilies are very lulling, gave me a bit of food for thought about hope. He described hope as a center from which two possible bastard [he didn't say bastard, but it is the right word to use] versions may arise. Despair on one end, and presumption on the other.
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Sometimes I wonder if God came on down to earth just to shut us whiny humans up. I sort of see the whole faith relationship thing as a struggle between my desire to be as capable and autonomous as possible with my necessary recognition that at times I’ve got to ask for help. But it seems like the Israelites and the Jews were tougher folks to please in the Bible.
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My busted headlight thankfully doesn’t require a new plastic shield. I do need to figure out how to remove it so I can glue a chunk back on, but last night I replaced the broken bulb, thanks to Lo-Lo. I’ve been assuming that Halogen meant a Hg-vapor light. For years I have thought this. I hate the mercury vapor headlamps on cars, they blind me. So when I bought a new bulb last night I was appalled that there were only Halogen bulbs. Thankfully they were still tungsten filaments.
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Mardi Gras is over and now that Lent begins it is time to repent for all the crass, vulgar, indulgent and legion other sinful things that I have done since last Lent. I wonder if forty days is long enough. More than the long stretch of Ordinary Time during the summer, more even than Advent and, masochistic as it sounds, I like Lent. It is a time for sackcloth and ashes, recognizing mortality and attempts to whittle away at imperfection. Since I tend to spend most of the year in a state similar to this, Lent is a natural favorite. So, I am supposed to sacrifice something for the forty days and I am supposed to strive to improve something. This is supposed to make me a better person, and what it boils down to is discipline. If I have the grit to hold on to what I am working on and the gumption to deny myself some sort of pleasure then I should end up stronger. [possibly more annoying to people, but that is there problem].

This Lent I am giving up sweetmeats, candies, pastries [not muffins though] and most importantly, chocolate. If I want something sweet, fruit will do. I am going to improve my patience [especially while driving], which has been in relative short supply since my time in NYC] and to admit when I am wrong, or ignorant on some topic. [this will be hard because I never know what I am talking about].

So I’m walking around today with a smudge mark on my head. Someone told me I look like I’ve been punched. I’m also fasting. No meat. I had a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast and will have macaroni and cheese for dinner. I might put some tuna and some veggies into the macaroni as well. Even though Fish on Fridays [and Ash Wednesday] was initially started to feed poor fishermen, I feel that it is useful still. Now it is another sacrifice that is a reminder of the sacrifice that Lent culminates in.

Many of the people bitching about The Passion of the Christ, which opens today, complain that it is violent or anti-Semitic or historically inaccurate or blah blah blah. Well, it is supposed to be violent, it is about the arrest, torture and crucifixion of a person. As for anti-Semitism, there might be subtleties that I am unaware of [not having seen the film] but people who complain that it makes the Jews seem responsible for killing Jesus are fools. Jews and Romans or Romans and Jews if you don’t like the order of the billing, were there. The type of people that killed Jesus isn’t the point, that people killed Jesus is the point. The fact that it opens on Ash Wednesday, when the Church enters a time of repentence and recognition of mortality [Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return] is no coincidence. Humans suffer and die. Jesus, a human, suffered and died. Other humans did this to him. I was taught that Jesus went through the torture and indignity and crucifixion willingly, for humanity. I really have no desire to see The Passion of the Christ, I have not seen any Mel Gibson interviews [since I don't have cable] but I think the point of his film is to make us aware just how much was sacrificed. I don’t talk about religion often because it makes me sounds like a fanatic instead of just a lunatic. If you are still with me I am surprised.

I don’t often feel the need to say this, but Mass was great today. A soloist was in from Chicago and she sang both Ave Maria and Panis Angelicus. It was quite the treat to have both of those sung at the same Mass, and sung well. The homily was pretty interesting too, Fr. Rocca chose to speak about dissatisfaction as the byproduct of original sin.

This made me think a bit. If you read the story of Adam and Eve as fact instead of myth then it is possible to reach some interesting conclusions within the paradigm. But first, when I refer to the creation stories, and much of Genesis as myth, I am not attacking the veracity or importance of the verses, but instead speaking about them as the product of a divine inspiration through imperfect hands, or from an anthropological perspective as seminal texts that hold the basic values of a cultural system.

Thus, to get back what I concluded from the homily- in the Adam and Eve as fact paradigm - people are always desirous of dissatisfied because we are inherently imperfect in body and soul, but we strive for perfection.
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The Religion and Literature talk I went to regarding C.S. Lewis’ Planetary Theme in the Chronicles of Narnia was quite good. Each book in the chronicles has a subtext filled with the oeuvre of a particular medieval planet. Apparently such cosmology was central to Lewis throughout his life. I’m having dinner with the speaker and my Tolkien prof late this evening, I hope the conversation will be good.

No one in my poetry class had anything to say about my latest. apparently it was too weird. the teacher went on this long rant about how it was a metaphor for literary history and the creative process. I guess that was sorta floating around in my head, especially since she does not want us to use archaic diction, that has been hassling me all semester. whatever.