Kandahar, home of Apple and Ebay?

Blogger somehow has the idea that I live in Silicon Valley, Afghanistan (see profile line above). Ha! The lines one could spin about that one. Best joke gets a virtual cookie.

Prayers for the burn & for the build

Prayers and thoughts to all those fleeing the fires of Southern California. We are especially watching things for my brother- and sister-in-law, who live in Carlsbad. The fires are now very close to Carlsbad and some areas there are being evacuated. BIL & SIL are on vacation- not sure if that's a blessing or curse at this point- the roads are so jammed that travel is difficult, and it's hard even for them to get good information because things are changing so quickly. They heard about the fire when a neighbor called them to ask what things he should pack up from their house! But they are holding and hopeful now that winds appear to be dying down today.

If you have a moment and some spare jingle, please go to Red Cross and give something. A lot of the homeowners there are insured, have families taking care of them, etc., but their dishwashers and maids may not. In any case, a cup of cold water to someone in need is appropriate no matter who you are.

I'm reminded of the devastating fires in Greece not long ago, which hit farmers and their animals especially hard. You can read updates at IOCC. Some of the stories there are hard to read.

***

And now, some better news. Ground was broken this week for our church's new building. We've been in a temporary building since as long as I've been here. The new building will be a traditional Coptic church- you, dear reader, have as much an idea of what that's like as I do! I'll be interested to see the results. The church has set up a blog for updates on the progress. If you are so inclined, please pray blessing on the work.


The "before" picture




Architect's drawing of the planned finished church

Ivan Kramskoi

As I've mentioned before here, I like portraits, especially those of women. Since traveling in Moscow in 1992 and seeing it in person, I've had a portrait in my mind that I couldn't shake, but wasn't able to track down again. I found it today, browsing through Russian portraits. It is Portrait of an Unknown Woman:


Seeing it again, I like it less than when I first saw it. I hadn't remembered the woman as looking so, well, nasty. The story surrounding the painting is interesting, though. According to this site, the painting was very controversial when it was first shown in 1883, because it was assumed the woman's brazen look marked her as a "woman of ill repute." The article goes on to say, "In time, her quiet strength and forthright gaze was embraced by the Russian people as representing their own strength."

I find now that I prefer Kramskoi's portrait of his daughter Sophie:


Kramskoi seems to be an interesting figure. The article says that he was Russia's most influential portrait painter. This painting, Christ in the Wilderness, he claims to have painted without sketches from a vision he had:

Bibliomania

You have probably heard of Project Gutenberg, but there is a lesser known and yet still wonderful source for e-books called Bibliomania. I find the html format easier to read than plain text, and the site is rather cheerful-looking besides being useful.

Apparently back in the heyday of dotcoms, it was a for-profit website, but nowadays is maintained as a labor of love by former employees. So you won't find new titles, but the classics and some study materials are here. I wouldn't ever choose to read an e-book over a real paper book, but being stuck at a desk, I often have lulls in the day where they're handy. It makes being put on hold less tedious.

I went to this site often while I was living overseas with scant access to English-language books, especially while studying for the English Literature GRE. I have this memory of sitting at my desk in Istanbul, weeping over D.H. Lawrence. It's not an unpleasant memory.

Tannhäuser

Today I read that G.K. Chesterton considers this a story that captures the medieval soul well. I'll retell the story for you and you can decide for yourself.

Tannhäuser, so it was sung, is a minstrel knight who in his wandering stumbles on the court of the goddess Venus, hidden under a mountain. Enchanted by her delights, he dwells there for one year, but in the end begins to regret his dissolute life. Calling out to the Virgin Mary for aid, he manages to break free of the mountain's hold and resolves to make a pilgrimage of repentance to Rome.

In Rome, Tannhäuser comes before the Pope and confesses his sins, asking if it is possible for such a man to be forgiven. The Pope tells him that it were no more possible for him to receive God's mercy than for the papal staff to green and blossom. Crushed by this reply, Tannhäuser flees. Three days later the Pope's staff begins to sprout leaf and blossom. Servants are sent after the knight, but it is too late. He has returned to Venus' mountain and is never seen again.

ACL Reconstruction: 4 Months

Recovery 4 months- I had no idea I'd still be struggling along at this point. This is definitely a long-term recovery process.

Things are going well, though a few weeks back I had a scare when I seemed to have some instability and then the knee throbbed and swelled up for about a week. I don't know what the swelling was- could be some of the cartilage fissures the doc said I have acting up- but I realize now that what felt like instability was some popping and cracking that I'm told is normal during ACL recovery. The doc OK'ed me, said the graft feels stable, so I'm back on track. I still get the cracking sensation occasionally, like when you crack your knuckles. At the end of the day or after a lot of walking, I need ice, but I can sit at a desk much more comfortably.

I try to walk a bit every day, do some stationary bike, and lots of leg lifts. Just before my scare I had gone back to some Pilates, but have backed off that. I'm as lumpy and unfit as I've been in years. The leg lifts are key- have to get lots of strength in the fore quad muscles- that helps with the walking and with everyday standing. Standing is still the hardest thing. Checkout lines, yuck!

I am still in the Donjoy brace at all times except for sleeping. I took it off for sleeping last weekend for the first time. The first night felt weird, the leg felt vulnerable, but since then I've learned to love the freedom of curling up without straps and plastic. It's hard to think I'll still be wearing it until February (two more months and I can take it off inside the home). I'm looking forward to not scaring small children anymore.

Abortion's true root

In the comments section of this post at The Ochlophobist, commenter Maxim strikes a nail in the ever colder heart of our culture's "selfish compassion":

The main thing to be considered about abortion is how much it is the product of an intense selfishness, not necessarily on the part of the one having the abortion, but on the part of the society which wills the death of one of the victims, because it's pain is invisible, in order to put away from themselves the pain that is visible. God knows there is evil enough in the world, and anguish which proceeds from it. The root of the situation is (1. We resist awareness of evil. (2. Consequently, we refuse to be co-sufferers in the anguish of those caught in an evil situation; therefore, the lives lost in abortion are sacrifices to our own emotional comfort. I suppose one day execution will be our solution to the problem of homelessness; that would certainly proceed from the same logic. What could possibly be more selfish, more evil, or more contemptible than that?

This could be said of much that passes for medical "ethics" these days, as well.

Flooding in Ireland

Received this via email from Father Deacon Raphael.


FLOODING IN IRELAND - JUNE 2007


If this doesn't tug at your heart strings nothing will.

We've all seen the faces of those ravaged by the floods of Sri Lanka and New Orleans...

This award-winning photograph, snapped by Irish Times Seamus O'Malley captures the horror and suffering caused by the recent flooding in County Kerry.

Keep these people in your thoughts and prayers...

The debt of interchanging neighbourhood

Medieval rood screen from Monks Risborough, Bucks(source)

My two other posts on Eamon Duffy's book Stripping the Altars have focused on the negative, the impact on the layperson's daily life and devotion of Reformation upheaval. The other side of this absorbing book is the depiction of the richness, warmth and idiosyncrasies of late medieval piety. I was especially struck by this passage regarding the saints:

"The saints honoured by all this expenditure were first and foremost perceived as friends and helpers. According to the Golden Legend, in venerating the saints we pay 'the debt of interchanging neighbourhood.' As the saints rejoice in Heaven over us when we repent, so it is right that we 'make feast of them in earth' and in doing so we procure our own honour, 'for when we worship our brethren we worship ourselves, for charity maketh all to be common.' Julian of Norwich wrote of St. John of Beverley, that 'oure lorde shewed hym full hyly in comfort of us for homeleynesse, and brought to my mynde how he is a kynd neyghbour and of our knowyng.' This neighbourliness and homeliness, singled out by Emile Male as the most distinctive feature of late medieval French representations of the saints, is very much a feature of English devotion too. The saints that gazed out from the screens and tabernacles of late medieval England were often emphatically 'kynd neyghbours, and of our knowyng,' country people themselves..."

This identification with saints endured the Reformation, albeit in changed form. Duffy quotes Thomas More saying that "I believe this devotion so planted by God's own hand in the hearts of the whole church, that is to wit, not the clergy only, but the whole congregation of Christian people, that if the spirituality were of the mind to leave it, yet would not the temporality suffer it." He was right, for though the Reformers smashed the icons and rood screens and banned feast days, they treasured, read and re-read and recited Foxe's Book of Martyrs, a book that has indelibly imprinted perceptions of church history down to this day. Only recently I read an evangelical critic of theologian/philosopher Francis Beckwith's conversion to Catholicism invoking the "blood of Protestant martyrs" to Beckwith's supposed shame.

Duffy's description of "the debt of interchanging neighbourhood" accords very well with my own explanation, when asked about the veneration of saints, that the practice springs foremost from and is rooted in love. The quote from the Golden Legend also illustrates linguistic shifts that have confused polemicists on the subject, who charge the "worship" of saints to be idolatrous. The quote here makes it plain that the word has a fuller meaning than the worship paid to God (albeit that the two are related). Consider the root of the word. Worship is worth-ship, acknowledging someone's worthiness, and their value to you. The root word in Old English has connotations of bending towards something and being shaped to it. We give love to the saints, but we also want to be shaped by imitation of them, and indeed the very acts of veneration- bowing, kissing, pausing in silence, asking help- shape our character.

Modern folk bow to no one, thanks to the pressures of egalitarianism. It is considered at best quaint and at worst offensive to pay respect to elders or women, even those close to us. Even God is brought down to our level, it being thought more loving to treat Him as a "dude" than as a Lord. It is high fashion to speak about the apostles and the fathers of the church as though they were just one of the guys, singling out their faults and foibles. In discussions with Emergent people, the idea of "hierarchy" is anathema to them. On the other hand I think we could learn a lot by recovering the gestures of giving worth-ship that our ancestors practiced. In order to do so, we first have to re-learn respect for them and the integrity of their faith, a project for which Duffy's book is great aid.