I commend this paper by David Bradshaw, professor of philosophy at the University of Kentucky. I've started on his book Aristotle East and West, which came so highly recommended and is so pertinent to the work of an "armchair medievalist" that I swallowed the high price tag. I believe this article is a summary of themes presented there.
The paper was pretty well received at Fr. Al Kimel's blog Pontifications, and it's not an Orthodox agitation or anything of that sort. It cleanly lays out some of the major underlying differences in outlook- in phronema or mind- beween Western and Eastern Christianity. Even in simplified form, the abstract thought of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, etc. requires some concentration for TV- and blog-addled brains like my own. If you don't have time or inclination to read it all, skip ahead to around pages 7-9, which gives some quick summaries- Aquinas and Aristotle in one paragraph!- and the kernel of the Greek fathers' views.
The concepts of the divine energies has revolutionized my reading of verses like the one Bradshaw highlights: "To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily." (Colossians 1:28-29). I see now how harmonious they are with early Christian thought, and how Reformed theology, for instance, could go so far off base in wrestling with them, because (divorced as it was from the Cappadocians' and other Greek fathers' check on Augustinianism) it starts with faulty or incomplete understandings of the underlying concepts. Bradshaw's paper should also give insight into Orthodox thinking for those who've ever pondered if the doctrine of "divinization" (theosis), sacraments or icons are idolatrous. Finally, his insights into what it means to know God are thought-provoking, and is there any other topic so important?
For those interested in reading more about the divine energies, this article is also a good one. It gives a thorough word study of dynamis and energeia, two words that appear in the Colossians verses, and in such verses as Philippians 2:13, "...for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." Why, in the eastern church, has there never been the tension between "grace and works" that so thoroughly permeates western theological controversies? These articles should go a long way in explaining.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Coptic missions in Africa
I came across this interesting profile of Coptic Bishop Antonious Markos, who has spent many years doing missions in Ethiopia, Kenya, and the Congo. I think the article highlights the hallmarks of Orthodox mission work- liturgy, monasticism, and service.
Some highlights:
" 'Church is not just about rituals and prayer, it is a way of life, a unique sense of community,' he stresses. Vocational training centres are established alongside the Coptic churches he has founded across Africa. 'I long ago learned to adopt a holistic and humanist approach. When you preach to the dispossessed give them a fishing rod or trap. Teach them to fish. Don't give them fish,' says the Bishop, striding toward his nonagenarian mother who is being helped to her seat by a nurse.
'She likes it here' in the old people's home in the Anba Barsoom Al-Aryan Monastery, Helwan. Spotless and spacious, it combines a school, training centre and hospital. 'We are building similar complexes across Africa,' he tells me. 'We need volunteers and adventurous professionals.'
Wherever he goes in Africa he always appears to be coming home, waving at one parishioner, shooting a big smile at another.
...He has participated in several WCC meetings in which he met many African clergymen from a wide variety of Protestant churches. And to the African clergymen he would invariably claim that the Coptic Orthodox Church is the oldest church in Africa, founded in Alexandria by its first patriarch, Saint Mark...
Today there are three Coptic churches in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 'We respect the indigenous cultural traditions of the people. We accommodate indigenous custom except where it flagrantly contradicts the tenets of the church.'
...There are 12 Coptic churches in South Africa today. One is in the African township of Gugulethu on the outskirts of Cape Town, another in Soweto, the sprawling Johannesburg township and a city in its own right. 'Every people's language is dear to them.' In one South African Coptic Church, the priest is an ethnic Zulu, the liturgy is in Zulu and even the music is not Coptic. 'The parishioners choose fast-paced tunes for their services. I do not object.' The bishop smiles. 'Outward appearances do not really matter. Substance is from within.'
The bishop may be a man of religion but it is difficult to pigeon-hole him. He was the first Egyptian surgeon to practice in Ethiopia. His nickname, 'Doctor Bishop,' opened doors, endearing him to the poor, both confusing and amusing the powers that be. He initially had trouble convincing the Kenyan authorities that, even though he was a monk, he was applying to the Kenyan Ministry of Health for a licence to practice medicine.
Even before his ordination Bishop Antonious Markos was obsessed with working for the Coptic Church, and no more so than in Ethiopia. He left Egypt for Ethiopia in May 1966. His first posting was in Asmara, today the Eritrean capital but then a pretty provincial city. From Asmara he was transferred to Deber Berhan -- The Mountain of Light -- a remote and impoverished outpost. Conditions there were deplorable. The church was too small to accommodate the masses outside every Sunday morning. Sixty children showed up for the first Sunday School. The following Sunday the number jumped to 250 children. In subsequent weeks it multiplied -- 500 to 1,000 to 1,500. Services were in Coptic and not Ge'ez, the ancient liturgical tongue of the Ethiopian Church.
Perched high in the wild range it was wet and bitterly cold. Ethiopian doctors refused to work there, frightened off by rumours of the barbarous nature of the region's inhabitants. Bishop Markos's introduction to the youth of Ethiopia was through the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). Local YMCA leaders asked him to help in first aid training; in return he asked the youths to teach him Amharic. The Tigrinya he had learned in Asmara was incomprehensible in other parts of Ethiopia.
The bishop never had a family of his own but in Ethiopia he adopted the son of a poor Ethiopian priest, educated him and raised him as his own. Also in Ethiopia the bishop founded a welfare association and home for needy students.
...Africans appear to be particularly impressed with the Coptic funeral service. 'Someone once told me that, "you pray for the departed as if he or she was a king or queen".' Prayers for the departed are in the local African languages which is very important. Indeed, many Africans become curious about the Coptic Church after witnessing a funeral service.
The Coptic Church sees itself as the Mother Church in Africa..."
Monday, February 26, 2007
The bad news about soy
Just in time for Lent, a reminder that there is no health-food panacea. I started reading up on such things after noticing some oddities in the fertility chart this month, the details of which I will spare you, but which I suspect are due to the phytoestrogens in soy. Also, I knew that there was something wrong about TVP and all that Tofurky processed junk- just read the process of how TVP is made:
"There's nothing natural about these modern soy protein products. Textured soy protein, for example, is made by forcing defatted soy flour through a machine called an extruder under conditions of such extreme heat and pressure that the very structure of the soy protein is changed. Production differs little from the extrusion technology used to produce starch-based packing materials, fiber-based industrial products, and plastic toy parts, bowls, and plates."
And doesn't it remind you of just those things? I like Trader Joe's canned vegetarian chili every once in awhile, but anything I've made with TVP has been a real ascetic discipline to eat. After much experimentation, Pavel and I take this attitude towards soy- we'll eat it if it's close to its original uses, meaning in Asian dishes usually, but avoid the fake meat types of things. I do like soy milk and yogurt, however, and we eat soy ice cream as a treat.
As the article points out, far from being on the health-nut fringe, soy is actually heavily marketed and subsidized in our country by government and big agribusiness. That's reason enough to be skeptical about its miracle-food hype. Note also the connection to hypothyroidism and infertility, also related to phytoestrogens. Someone in Blogoslavia once mentioned she had sworn off soy because of infertility concerns. Decreased libido is perhaps a benefit for Lenten fasting, of course! Soy baby formula sounds all in all like a horrible idea- what I found surprising is that it's often fed to African-American babies and those on WIC due to lactose tolerance concerns.
An interesting article- I would be interested to hear others' opinions and experiences.
"There's nothing natural about these modern soy protein products. Textured soy protein, for example, is made by forcing defatted soy flour through a machine called an extruder under conditions of such extreme heat and pressure that the very structure of the soy protein is changed. Production differs little from the extrusion technology used to produce starch-based packing materials, fiber-based industrial products, and plastic toy parts, bowls, and plates."
And doesn't it remind you of just those things? I like Trader Joe's canned vegetarian chili every once in awhile, but anything I've made with TVP has been a real ascetic discipline to eat. After much experimentation, Pavel and I take this attitude towards soy- we'll eat it if it's close to its original uses, meaning in Asian dishes usually, but avoid the fake meat types of things. I do like soy milk and yogurt, however, and we eat soy ice cream as a treat.
As the article points out, far from being on the health-nut fringe, soy is actually heavily marketed and subsidized in our country by government and big agribusiness. That's reason enough to be skeptical about its miracle-food hype. Note also the connection to hypothyroidism and infertility, also related to phytoestrogens. Someone in Blogoslavia once mentioned she had sworn off soy because of infertility concerns. Decreased libido is perhaps a benefit for Lenten fasting, of course! Soy baby formula sounds all in all like a horrible idea- what I found surprising is that it's often fed to African-American babies and those on WIC due to lactose tolerance concerns.
An interesting article- I would be interested to hear others' opinions and experiences.
Lent Supper Recipes
I'm always looking for new supper ideas for Lent, so I thought I'd post a couple things we've tried that have turned out well.
BBQ Greens
Fry up one coarsely chopped onion over low-medium heat til soft. Add 2-3 minced cloves of garlic and a large bunch of greens (whatever you like- collard, chard, kale etc.) that have been washed and rough-chopped, a little S&P, and just enough vegetable broth to get things moving. Let the greens steam down and then add a medium can of chickpeas (or whatever beans you've got on the shelf), a little more S&P, and 1 tsp. Cajun seasoning. Cover and let this simmer, stirring occasionally, 7-10 minutes depending on how soft you like your greens. Keep the greens moist but don't add too much liquid. Finally, stir in a medium can of Muir Glen Fire-Roasted Diced Tomatoes or stewed tomatoes, and enough barbecue sauce to thicken and flavor- about 1/3 cup, and a few drops of liquid smoke. Let it all cook together a few minutes and check for seasonings.
We ate this over a Spanish rice mix with cornbread. Pavel gave a big thumbs up; he says this is a dish that a meat-eater can appreciate. Whole Foods sells a Hickory Smoke Tofu that you could also put in it, if you're feeling adventurous.
Split Pea Soup
This is based on the recipe from Split Pea Andersen's, but doctored to suit my hubby's Austro-Hungarian tastes.
1 med. onion, chopped
2 tbsp. oil
1 stalk celery, diced
1 lg. carrot, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp. Hungarian paprika
2 quarts vegetable stock or water
2 1/2 cups split peas, rinsed
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
Heat oil in a soup pot over low-medium heat and add onion, carrot and celery. Cook, stirring occasionally, til onion is soft but not brown. Add garlic and Hungarian paprika and stir another minute. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Boil 20 minutes, then reduce heat and simmer til all ingredients are soft, about one hour. If you like a smooth soup, push through a fine sieve.
I fried up the vegetables in a saute pan, added the garlic and paprika, loosened it all up with some vegetable stock, then threw everything in the crockpot. I don't mind a chunkier soup, so I left it as is, which was plenty soft after 5 hours of cooking. Anyway, who wants to clean up messy sieves?
Pavel is having this for dinner tonight (while I go to the airport to pick up a German exec from work), along with some 9-grain bread from our new bread machine. It would also be good with pumpernickel croutons.
BBQ Greens
Fry up one coarsely chopped onion over low-medium heat til soft. Add 2-3 minced cloves of garlic and a large bunch of greens (whatever you like- collard, chard, kale etc.) that have been washed and rough-chopped, a little S&P, and just enough vegetable broth to get things moving. Let the greens steam down and then add a medium can of chickpeas (or whatever beans you've got on the shelf), a little more S&P, and 1 tsp. Cajun seasoning. Cover and let this simmer, stirring occasionally, 7-10 minutes depending on how soft you like your greens. Keep the greens moist but don't add too much liquid. Finally, stir in a medium can of Muir Glen Fire-Roasted Diced Tomatoes or stewed tomatoes, and enough barbecue sauce to thicken and flavor- about 1/3 cup, and a few drops of liquid smoke. Let it all cook together a few minutes and check for seasonings.
We ate this over a Spanish rice mix with cornbread. Pavel gave a big thumbs up; he says this is a dish that a meat-eater can appreciate. Whole Foods sells a Hickory Smoke Tofu that you could also put in it, if you're feeling adventurous.
Split Pea Soup
This is based on the recipe from Split Pea Andersen's, but doctored to suit my hubby's Austro-Hungarian tastes.
1 med. onion, chopped
2 tbsp. oil
1 stalk celery, diced
1 lg. carrot, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp. Hungarian paprika
2 quarts vegetable stock or water
2 1/2 cups split peas, rinsed
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
Heat oil in a soup pot over low-medium heat and add onion, carrot and celery. Cook, stirring occasionally, til onion is soft but not brown. Add garlic and Hungarian paprika and stir another minute. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Boil 20 minutes, then reduce heat and simmer til all ingredients are soft, about one hour. If you like a smooth soup, push through a fine sieve.
I fried up the vegetables in a saute pan, added the garlic and paprika, loosened it all up with some vegetable stock, then threw everything in the crockpot. I don't mind a chunkier soup, so I left it as is, which was plenty soft after 5 hours of cooking. Anyway, who wants to clean up messy sieves?
Pavel is having this for dinner tonight (while I go to the airport to pick up a German exec from work), along with some 9-grain bread from our new bread machine. It would also be good with pumpernickel croutons.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Wifehood: Nec domina, nec ancilla
In the early Middle Ages there was a saying about the position of a wife: Nec domina, nec ancilla, sed socia. "Not mistress, not servant, but companion" - "socia" having the sense of associate or partner.
In Women in the Days of Cathedrals, Regine Pernoud takes up a theme touched on in Those Terrible Middle Ages, that feudal custom, especially where sublimated by Christian thought, was much kinder to women than either classical or modern society. This isn't the sole theme of her book, but the one that stands out most to me. She chronicles the decline of women's status as Roman law came into favor, in the sixteenth century in France and somewhat earlier in the Germanic countries, and how this decline was then set in stone by the civil codes of the so-called Enlightenment period. How rarely this is talked about! We mostly assume that it was humanism that brought about the idea of an equality of persons, but no one seems to remember that modern feminism addresses problems that modernity created, not problems that were universal or inherent. This amnesia leads to excess and to hubris. If we saw ourselves in modern society as cleaning up our own messes rather than, as is more often the case, forging some brand new way that no one ever thought of before, we would be a little less impressed with ourselves and therefore more cautious in our social engineering.
Such a fact helps underline an opinion of mine, that what we need in modern society is not more egalitarianism, ever more personal freedom and autonomy, but rather to go back to more pre-modern visions. These include godly patriarchy and the communality that shows itself in respect for custom and tradition. Personal freedom is a horrible slavemaster if it isn't put to the service of the greater good. The greater good begins at home.
That's my historical thought of the day as it relates to male/female things. On a personal note, my friend Karen has chided me for not giving more blog updates about how married life is going. :) No news is good news, my friends! We're now married a month, so things are still quite new, the boxes aren't unpacked and we're still working out our routines, but I can say that overall I feel a sense of contentment and fulfillment. I was definitely meant to be a married woman, and this man is a treasure. All the things I loved about Pavel when we were dating- his down to earth, fun-loving nature, his intellect and wisdom, gentleness and steadiness- I appreciate more now that I see them daily and up close.
I also see how marriage and the acts that mark it out- meaning the wedding with all its customs and traditions and (for us) its deep sacramentality, the vulnerability and specialness of sex, the blending of families and combination of households- really do act as unitive forces. In big and small ways, so many bonds were forged through this process. Just to give an example, our families now call each other easily by first names, and know our church friends by name. The fact that a couple at our church hosted our reception made a deep impression on both our (non-Orthodox) families. What was strange and distant has been brought near, now familiar and respected.
Judging by our conversations with people after the wedding, what struck everyone as wonderfully strange was something we already knew. These seemed outwardly to be disparate groups of people: My family, country folk from Back East; Pavel's family, a European-American passel out here in California; and a bunch of Coptic Orthodox ("What are Copts?"). Yet in mentality and heart, they are cut from the same cloth, and it didn't take long for everyone to realize this. A co-worker of mine who often attends society weddings said that it was the wedding with the nicest people she and her partner had ever been to. I think so, too. It's not a bad foundation on which to build a family of our own.
In Women in the Days of Cathedrals, Regine Pernoud takes up a theme touched on in Those Terrible Middle Ages, that feudal custom, especially where sublimated by Christian thought, was much kinder to women than either classical or modern society. This isn't the sole theme of her book, but the one that stands out most to me. She chronicles the decline of women's status as Roman law came into favor, in the sixteenth century in France and somewhat earlier in the Germanic countries, and how this decline was then set in stone by the civil codes of the so-called Enlightenment period. How rarely this is talked about! We mostly assume that it was humanism that brought about the idea of an equality of persons, but no one seems to remember that modern feminism addresses problems that modernity created, not problems that were universal or inherent. This amnesia leads to excess and to hubris. If we saw ourselves in modern society as cleaning up our own messes rather than, as is more often the case, forging some brand new way that no one ever thought of before, we would be a little less impressed with ourselves and therefore more cautious in our social engineering.
Such a fact helps underline an opinion of mine, that what we need in modern society is not more egalitarianism, ever more personal freedom and autonomy, but rather to go back to more pre-modern visions. These include godly patriarchy and the communality that shows itself in respect for custom and tradition. Personal freedom is a horrible slavemaster if it isn't put to the service of the greater good. The greater good begins at home.
That's my historical thought of the day as it relates to male/female things. On a personal note, my friend Karen has chided me for not giving more blog updates about how married life is going. :) No news is good news, my friends! We're now married a month, so things are still quite new, the boxes aren't unpacked and we're still working out our routines, but I can say that overall I feel a sense of contentment and fulfillment. I was definitely meant to be a married woman, and this man is a treasure. All the things I loved about Pavel when we were dating- his down to earth, fun-loving nature, his intellect and wisdom, gentleness and steadiness- I appreciate more now that I see them daily and up close.
I also see how marriage and the acts that mark it out- meaning the wedding with all its customs and traditions and (for us) its deep sacramentality, the vulnerability and specialness of sex, the blending of families and combination of households- really do act as unitive forces. In big and small ways, so many bonds were forged through this process. Just to give an example, our families now call each other easily by first names, and know our church friends by name. The fact that a couple at our church hosted our reception made a deep impression on both our (non-Orthodox) families. What was strange and distant has been brought near, now familiar and respected.
Judging by our conversations with people after the wedding, what struck everyone as wonderfully strange was something we already knew. These seemed outwardly to be disparate groups of people: My family, country folk from Back East; Pavel's family, a European-American passel out here in California; and a bunch of Coptic Orthodox ("What are Copts?"). Yet in mentality and heart, they are cut from the same cloth, and it didn't take long for everyone to realize this. A co-worker of mine who often attends society weddings said that it was the wedding with the nicest people she and her partner had ever been to. I think so, too. It's not a bad foundation on which to build a family of our own.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Loreena McKennitt coming to the Bay Area
Loreena McKennitt will be coming to the Bay Area, playing in Oakland on May 12th and San Rafael on the 13th. This is her tour promoting the new album, "The Ancient Muse." I'm a big fan of Loreena's music, as my regular blog readers know, so I am hoping to make it to one of these shows with my Celtic bells on.
PBS will also be airing a special in March of the concert she did at The Alhambra in Granada, Spain. I had a chance to visit The Alhambra a few years back. It's a mountaintop castle complex from the Middle Ages that's absolutely fantastic. It was built by the Moorish kings and was their last seat in Europe before being ousted by the Christians. This was where Christopher Columbus was commissioned by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Napoleon tried to blow up the main complex, but one of his soldeiers thankfully defied him and defused the explosives in time to save the beautiful architecture. Anyway, all around it should be a good program!
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Plain sense
My current lunchtime reading is Theodore Dalyrmple's Life at the Bottom, a collection of columns about his reflections on the life of the underclass as he observed it as doctor in a Birmingham slum. He writes the kind of things that only a Brit can get away with, with a wry and sometimes acid wit.
This New York Sun interview gives a fair summary of his point of view, which is so powerful because it is not far off from simple common sense, or what would have been recognized as such a few generations ago. Here is an excerpt of the interview:
"What he does think the underclass suffers from is a deep unhappiness caused mainly by 'bad ideas.' As an example, he cites the death of respectability, which he says has been almost completely expunged from white working-class life, though not from some immigrant communities.As a result, old-fashioned workingclass striving disappears, and those lost in the ghetto stay there.
If Mr. Daniels were to finger the culprit for most of society’s ills, it would probably be education — both in the school and in the home. As a psychiatrist, he frequently has to deal with young Muslim women whose fathers force them to leave school at the age of 12, for fear that they will become 'contaminated' by Western ideas. Though he is highly critical of the practice, and describes how the girls are often abused and pushed into arranged marriages, he is not entirely unsympathetic to the fathers’ plight. In his experience, he says, a 17-year-old Muslim girl plucked from school at 12 is effectively much more intelligent and cultured than a white girl who stayed there another five years." [emphasis Gina's]
I am more familiar with the rural forms of these phenomena, but increasingly they are much the same, and have similar roots. Respectability is on its sickbed in the country, too. My mother complains of people she knows who explain their laziness and incompetence away by various medical maladies, who feel entitled to whatever workers' compensation or public assistance they can wrest out of the damned authorities or the damned company (what few hiring companies there are left) by hook or crook, who think nothing of successive bankruptcies spurred on by trips to the local Indian casino. Violent crime is on the rise, too, thanks in part to the brilliance of social engineers who relocate paroled criminals to rural towns because they suppose they'll find less mischief to perpetrate there. As Dalrymple might say, they underestimate the creativity and perseverance of the criminal mind. A look at the sex offender registry, for instance, shows a disproportionate number and many not local. A couple years back, one formerly city-dwelling sex offender was caught playing Peeping Tom at several homes. He probably felt he'd landed in a goldmine, with the many bushes and trees surrounding homes and the relaxed way in which people behave in them (it took me a long time to learn to close drapes before undressing, also a long time to remember to take my housekey with me). He was lucky not to have learned the hard way that rural homes also contain lots of guns.
As Dalrymple says, in the ghetto you learn to be ashamed of having interests, ambition, or of taking too much trouble about your life. I fully agree that this shame has its corollary in the shame perpetrated on us all by the liberal mind patrol. We should be ashamed of having a religion that we actually believe to be true and which should affect our lives, for instance. We should be ashamed to think one way of living better than another, even if the "other" involves things foolish and reprehensible, like sexual perversion or blowing up pizza parlors. There is no coarseness or indecency that can't be justified under self-expression or freedom of choice. If "don't stand out" is the key to survival in the projects, "don't judge" is its far more blase' but still ultimately destructive corollary in the world under the ivory tower's shadow. This is not just the death of respectability, but its execution.
This New York Sun interview gives a fair summary of his point of view, which is so powerful because it is not far off from simple common sense, or what would have been recognized as such a few generations ago. Here is an excerpt of the interview:
"What he does think the underclass suffers from is a deep unhappiness caused mainly by 'bad ideas.' As an example, he cites the death of respectability, which he says has been almost completely expunged from white working-class life, though not from some immigrant communities.As a result, old-fashioned workingclass striving disappears, and those lost in the ghetto stay there.
If Mr. Daniels were to finger the culprit for most of society’s ills, it would probably be education — both in the school and in the home. As a psychiatrist, he frequently has to deal with young Muslim women whose fathers force them to leave school at the age of 12, for fear that they will become 'contaminated' by Western ideas. Though he is highly critical of the practice, and describes how the girls are often abused and pushed into arranged marriages, he is not entirely unsympathetic to the fathers’ plight. In his experience, he says, a 17-year-old Muslim girl plucked from school at 12 is effectively much more intelligent and cultured than a white girl who stayed there another five years." [emphasis Gina's]
I am more familiar with the rural forms of these phenomena, but increasingly they are much the same, and have similar roots. Respectability is on its sickbed in the country, too. My mother complains of people she knows who explain their laziness and incompetence away by various medical maladies, who feel entitled to whatever workers' compensation or public assistance they can wrest out of the damned authorities or the damned company (what few hiring companies there are left) by hook or crook, who think nothing of successive bankruptcies spurred on by trips to the local Indian casino. Violent crime is on the rise, too, thanks in part to the brilliance of social engineers who relocate paroled criminals to rural towns because they suppose they'll find less mischief to perpetrate there. As Dalrymple might say, they underestimate the creativity and perseverance of the criminal mind. A look at the sex offender registry, for instance, shows a disproportionate number and many not local. A couple years back, one formerly city-dwelling sex offender was caught playing Peeping Tom at several homes. He probably felt he'd landed in a goldmine, with the many bushes and trees surrounding homes and the relaxed way in which people behave in them (it took me a long time to learn to close drapes before undressing, also a long time to remember to take my housekey with me). He was lucky not to have learned the hard way that rural homes also contain lots of guns.
As Dalrymple says, in the ghetto you learn to be ashamed of having interests, ambition, or of taking too much trouble about your life. I fully agree that this shame has its corollary in the shame perpetrated on us all by the liberal mind patrol. We should be ashamed of having a religion that we actually believe to be true and which should affect our lives, for instance. We should be ashamed to think one way of living better than another, even if the "other" involves things foolish and reprehensible, like sexual perversion or blowing up pizza parlors. There is no coarseness or indecency that can't be justified under self-expression or freedom of choice. If "don't stand out" is the key to survival in the projects, "don't judge" is its far more blase' but still ultimately destructive corollary in the world under the ivory tower's shadow. This is not just the death of respectability, but its execution.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Habits
First of all, all this Google/Blogger business is extremely annoying. I've been Borg'ed into migrating like everyone else, but here you find my grumble about it. It doesn't help that I suspect Google is from the devil.
Anyway...
This weekend I did something I used to do quite often, which is make homemade pizza complete with homemade yeast dough, tomatoes and garlic for sauce, etc. I had originally planned a more or less packaged version, but was persuaded by one or the other inconvenience into what I should have done anyway- using stuff we have on our shelf to make a much better, fresher pizza. I was telling Pavel that I used to do this all the time but hadn't in years, and couldn't think why. I said "I just got out of the habit, and..." That struck me as the most true. After all, I really don't have any more or less time or kitchen space than I used to, it's just that I had slid into other sorts of habits.
Then on Sunday I went to Whole Foods to get some dinner stuff and stock up on Lenten types of things. Sunday afternoons are the worst time to grocery-shop, and in fact I was thinking that all the times I usually shop- right after work and right after church- are the worst times. Fighting the crowds for parking and in the aisles is exhausting. I thought about how much time and effort you have to spend just on "normal life"- shopping, cooking, laundry. If you try, as I do, not to use all the modern fix-its and convenience things that eat up money and resources, then all the more so.
It occurred to me, however, that human beings are supposed to spend a good deal of our time and energy on survival. It is modern living that has created the illusion that we can be all things. We are great generalists. Every average joe tries to be a little bit of a scholar, a little bit of an athlete, and far too much of a technocrat. It's no wonder that we feel harrassed by food, shelter, and clothing, to say nothing of prayer and worship.
What is more, I don't even really like half the things I spend my time on. No, this entry is not an elaborate argument for getting out of going to the gym. But last night as I whiled away an hour on the computer when I should have been in bed, I thought "I do what I don't want to do and what I want to do I don't do." There should be time to have habits like cooking a simple homemade meal. There is time. I just have to stop reading about the medieval mindset and adopt it a little more.
Anyway...
This weekend I did something I used to do quite often, which is make homemade pizza complete with homemade yeast dough, tomatoes and garlic for sauce, etc. I had originally planned a more or less packaged version, but was persuaded by one or the other inconvenience into what I should have done anyway- using stuff we have on our shelf to make a much better, fresher pizza. I was telling Pavel that I used to do this all the time but hadn't in years, and couldn't think why. I said "I just got out of the habit, and..." That struck me as the most true. After all, I really don't have any more or less time or kitchen space than I used to, it's just that I had slid into other sorts of habits.
Then on Sunday I went to Whole Foods to get some dinner stuff and stock up on Lenten types of things. Sunday afternoons are the worst time to grocery-shop, and in fact I was thinking that all the times I usually shop- right after work and right after church- are the worst times. Fighting the crowds for parking and in the aisles is exhausting. I thought about how much time and effort you have to spend just on "normal life"- shopping, cooking, laundry. If you try, as I do, not to use all the modern fix-its and convenience things that eat up money and resources, then all the more so.
It occurred to me, however, that human beings are supposed to spend a good deal of our time and energy on survival. It is modern living that has created the illusion that we can be all things. We are great generalists. Every average joe tries to be a little bit of a scholar, a little bit of an athlete, and far too much of a technocrat. It's no wonder that we feel harrassed by food, shelter, and clothing, to say nothing of prayer and worship.
What is more, I don't even really like half the things I spend my time on. No, this entry is not an elaborate argument for getting out of going to the gym. But last night as I whiled away an hour on the computer when I should have been in bed, I thought "I do what I don't want to do and what I want to do I don't do." There should be time to have habits like cooking a simple homemade meal. There is time. I just have to stop reading about the medieval mindset and adopt it a little more.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
A baby story
Since we've all had enough of weddings for a while, go read the exciting and funny account of my old friend Maureen's delivery of her and Charles' first baby. Constance Okonkwo, welcome to the world!
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