Requiem for things past

When I was growing up in the old mill town of Manchester, NH, three things were hugely important: French Canadian heritage, the rules and regalia of the Church, and the trappings of American patriotism.

What is left when the pillars of your childhood give way?

When it came to my heritage, the stakes were high. Many of us grew up in households that still spoke French, at least once in a while. Until I was school-age, I spoke to my mom and Memere (who lived with us) -- and my little brother! -- in French. English was for Dad, who had only a half share in our affections. Half of my school day until the 5th grade was conducted entirely in French. And no cheating: the nuns never translated for kids whose parents were laggards about transmitting the language. Sunday Mass, after we switched from Latin around 1964, was said in the vernacular, which Monseigneur Verrette, our pastor and long-time foe of assimilation, decided was French, not English. Even the old ladies in my neighborhood -- the ones that would give you nickels and Lifesavers for toting their grocery bags up the stairs -- were exclusively French speakers.

As far as religious and cultural life went, St. Georges Catholic Church was the only game in town. Or at any rate on my block. Mass, of course, was a Sunday obligation. I became an altar boy in second grade, a bit earlier than most boys. I learned quickly and eagerly when to bring the cruets of wine and water to the priest to mix into the chalice, where it would become the Blood of Christ. I could expertly hold a golden paten under a communicant's chin (to capture any stray, fallen crumbs of the communion wafer) without grazing their Adam's apple. I could scrape out the wax from the used votive candles from the racks in front of saints' statues and replace them with fresh candles. I could arrange the tall blue and white votive candles in front of the elaborate marble of the Assumption of the Virgin to make and "A" and "M" -- the letters of Ave Maria. I knew exactly the moment to ring the bells at the Consecration. I professed into the sanctuary like a serious soldier of Christ. In later years, I could expertly incense the priest and the assembly (except for that one time I dropped the censer and burnt a half-dollar-sized hole in the pastor's brand new scarlet sanctuary carpet.

And let's not forget patriotism. As a Cub Scouts, I learned to march -- forward march, about face and the rest -- so I could march with my pack in perfect file during Manchester's Memorial Day and Thanksgiving parades. This was before the day when 8 and 9 years old Cubs just walked down the street in an ragged, boyish disorder. We marched like the WWII soldiers who were our parents. I learned how to fold and American flag from my Dad, who with me and my brother would take down Old Glory at sunset during the summer. We celebrated Memorial Day with visits to the graves of our deceased relatives; the Fourth with sparklers and cookouts, and Thanksgiving with feasts of turkey, potatoes, pies and eggnog. In high school band, we learned to play the Star Spangled Banner so that our football games would not go unbaptized in patriotic fervor.

The amount of brain power that I have devoted to these activities is vast, and largely irreclaimable. Unlike with my iPhone, I don't have the option of deleting certain unused apps (say iFrench) to make room to load more useful ones, like the names of people I work with. The Quebecois French "module" in my brain is a permanent feature. I could let it rust, and mostly have, but that free any disk space. It's like a derelict house on the block that no one goes in anymore, but that no one knocks down for a new park or mini mall.

Likewise, the Church knowledge I gained sometimes seems like an archaic throwback to a lost time. The subjects that matter to me, to which I've give long thought over decades, are of little interest to all but a small group of church people. And even then! What's the use of knowing a slew of Bible stories when no one reads the Bible? Takes the fun out of it when you have to explain who Adam and Eve were, and that The Fall was not the season between summer and winter. It's not like I am some brilliant theologian, but I'd like the opportunity to banter about the virgin birth with someone who knows (or cares) about the difference between Mary and the Magi.

And as for patriotism, I have come a long way since I uncritically heard stories about cherry trees and happy autumn dinners and rail splitters. The Vietnam War was a great divider between those who gloried in America's long string of military victories and the namby-pamby losers and whiners who lost a war against peasants. For me, the American flag is still a sacred symbol, but my veneration has been tempered by its use as as weapon against foreign civilians and an excuse to torture our enemies. I don't even flinch, necessarily, when someone decides to set it on fire to protest some ill or other. It's a cloth that can be replaced, unlike the republic it stands for.

What does any of this mean? Well, the world changes. There is no guarantee that the totems of the past will have any significance to the next generation. Our store of memories, skills and values might not have value 10, 20 or 30 years after they have been painfully collected. We're hardly the first human beings who found that their youthful education meant precious little when they become adults. Consider colonial candle makers, or immigrants coming to America after fleeing Cossacks or drug dealers. Or ladies who made their own clothes. Or scholars who devoted years to studying ancient texts that command no community of believers.

I can't underestimate the sadness and frustration of seeing some of my most cherished memories go up in a puff of smoke. Today, I have stopped assuming that a coworkers with French surname has any clue that "Comment ca va?" means "how's it going?" and gives the satisfying reply, "Pas pire" (no worse). And apart from the sacrilegious custom of planting a statue of Saint Joseph in the lawn to speed the sale of a house, I no longer play the trivia game of "name that saint" when eyeing stained glass windows in a church. And let's not speak of today's cadre of semi-fascist "patriots" who make the hard-won nationalism of my parents seem tepid. My folks and their generation endured a world war and sacrificed food and durable goods for the cause. Today's patriots spend a buck on a car magnet or bumper sticker and practically count themselves among the Founding Fathers.

This must be a foretaste of the loneliness of old age, when all of ones friends and loved ones die off. When you can't communicate with the world that has changed other than to lapse into nostalgia or rail against old foes. Eye-roll territory, I know, having spend my share of time patiently listening to my elders' stories of past glories. I really don't want to end up like that, telling various and sundry of the Great Importance of the 1960s.

But it would sure help if I could clear some of these cobwebs!

What do you do when the Bible sounds nuts? Context, my child, look for the context.

Our liturgy prep groups was grappling with the readings for February 1, which include this section of Paul's letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 7:32-35):

Brothers and sisters:
I should like you to be free of anxieties.
An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord,
how he may please the Lord.
But a married man is anxious about the things of the world,
how he may please his wife, and he is divided.
An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord,
so that she may be holy in both body and spirit.
A married woman, on the other hand,
is anxious about the things of the world,
how she may please her husband.
I am telling you this for your own benefit,
not to impose a restraint upon you,
but for the sake of propriety
and adherence to the Lord without distraction.

Sounds very nice, but then we started discussing it. What unmarried man or woman is not anxious about the things of the world? There might have been a time when a child or teenager could be oblivious to the world of work and politics. But don't the unmarried have worries of their own? Like, will they find a worthy spouse? Will they be loved? Will they have children? Will they see their grandchildren? Will they be able to support their family? Will wars, theft and oppression rob them of their livelihoods?

Seems like a shipload of worry to me.

And do the unmarried really spend all their time thinking about the Lord? Unless they grew up in a very devout family, or in a very conservative part of the country, it's a rare young person who spends much time thinking seriously about God and religion. Mostly, they seems to think about homework, girls (or boys), their place in the adolescent pecking order, their looks, cars, dates and the like.

So where might Paul be coming from? Is he that out of touch with the way human beings operate?

Maybe.

One possibility is that Paul,writing in the mid 50s, is speaking from the perspective of a small Christian apocalyptic community that was expecting Jesus to return at any moment. And with Jesus, a massive catastrophe that would shake the foundations of the world, when, as Acts said,  "The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and splendid day of the Lord, and it shall be that everyone shall be saved who calls on the name of the Lord." If this is your mindset, you're likely to be extremely anxious about being ready for the Lord's return, and furthermore, to be among the saved. Presumably, you would pray a lot, watch your behavior constantly and maybe have huge anxieties about being worthy of Christ. Your emotional life would be consumed with worry about yourself and about others who were not of the faith. You would be obsessed with getting people to join your community -- the saving ark that would rise above the coming flood waters of catastrophe.

Naturally, marriage would divide that monomania. You would have to devote some of your energies toward your spouse and your household. You would have to attend to your relationship, your in-laws, your place in society, new expectations about dress, your children, providing for your family -- never mind the Lord! Your prayer life would suffer, your church relationships would have to be prioritized. You would probably suffer fear about whether you;d still be among the saved, and crushing guilt about your inability to be work to bring others aboard.

As bad as it is to be unmarried as the End Times approached, Paul is trying to be realistic in the context of an extremely unrealistic mindset. He gently warns his community not to deepen their anxieties with marriage. But he is no fool. He realizes that human beings, even in the face of disaster, fall in love and feel other obligations to marry. He does not make his recommendation into an obligation.

How far we are from the worries of the early Church! Today, it's hard to gin up true worry about Christ's return. No Christian I know has put off plans to build homes, get married, send kids to college or save for retirement because of their belief in the imminent return of Christ. On Sundays, for sure, we recite creeds that claim he will return to judge the living and the dead. But once out of the pews, our minds often snap back to the world of work, sports, kids and entertainment. I'm not complaining, frankly. To live in a state of constant terror is not my idea of a good time. And it is probably counterproductive, from  a Christian perspective, to be in fright about the future when there is so much good that can be done in the present

Paul advised the Christians of his era to find ways to lessen their anxieties. Maybe 2000 years later, with the return of Christ a sure but uncertain event, might he not advise us to live holy, peaceful lives --  and leave the timing of the Parousia to the Almighty?

The rabbit and the damage done

Pope Francis is all over the news again. In his latest foray, he commented on the responsibility of parents to manage the number of children they produce:

Telling the story of a woman he met in a parish in Rome several months ago who had given birth to seven children via cesarean section and was pregnant with an eighth, Francis asked: 'Does she want to leave the seven orphans?'

'This is to tempt God,' he said, adding later: 'That is an irresponsibility.' Catholics, the pope said, should speak of 'responsible parenthood.'

'God gives you methods to be responsible,' he continued. 'Some think that — excuse the word — that in order to be good Catholics we have to be like rabbits. No.' "

Whoa! A pope talking about the responsibility of parents to manage their reproductive systems! But he did so without relaxing the means by which Catholics can licitly space births. As late as last March, he claimed that Humanae Vitae, the 1968 encyclical that condemned all forms of artificial birth control, was "prophetic." Yet he seemed to be backing away from the absolutist cliff that has so attracted his predecessors:

“The issue is not changing the doctrine, but going deeper and making sure that pastoral action takes into account that which is possible for people to do."

It's hard to know what to make of this mishmash of mixed signals. Parents need to be responsible (new). They must use God's methods of BC (old).  We must account for what is possible (pastoral).

Brain freeze!

At the very least, Pope Francis is backing Catholics away from the position that parents are sinners when they want to limit the size of their families. And, given that most Catholics in Western countries have somewhat fewer than 10 kids these days, that makes for lots of sinners! That, like several other issues in the arsenal of conservative Catholics, has been used to justify judgements on which of the faithful were faithful enough. Francis wants us to consider human beings as just that, and to abandon the finger-pointing and exclusionary habit of the self-righteous.

Can Francis pull off this balancing act? Is there really a position that allows rule-idolizing Catholics to be faithful to Church teaching AND non-judgmental to those who can't follow the rules? I personally don't think there's enough room on that high-wire platform. But by introducing the idea that parents can licitly have a voice in managing their family size (as opposed to allowing "God" to determine their rate of procreation) he may begin to swing the conversation around a bit. By having the Church consider what is possible for real and ordinary people to do, he may have subverted the absolutist, near-impossible and silly idea that couples must focus their energies on the calendar, the quality of mucus and fluctuations in body temperature. And maybe that leaves more energy that can be expended on joy, love, partnership and the quality of their relationships.

A Pope too far

With the Charlie Hebdo murders still grabbing the headlines, Pope Francis talked about the issues of religious violence and the limits of free speech in  a flying press conference on his way to the Philippines:

"One cannot offend, make war, kill in the name of one’s own religion -- that is, in the name of God," Francis said. "To kill in the name of God is an aberration."

But then the pope began to outline what he sees as important limits on free expression. Francis began by joking that if someone were to swear against his mother, "a punch awaits him."

Continuing more seriously, the pope said: "One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people’s faith, one cannot make fun of faith."

"There is a limit," he said. "Every religion has its dignity."

Overall, this was a wonderful message. It drew a stark line against those who use religion to kill or debase others. But I was very troubled by the pope's "joke" about punching out someone who insulted his mother. Isn't that the same logic that inspired terrorists to lash out at Charlie Hebdo's cartoonists, who had insulted their religious father?

I know Francis was not suggesting that violence is OK in response to insults. But I would have been happier if he had suggested other remedies, especially those found in the gospel: dialog, praying for your enemies and turning the other cheek. OK, so this was an off-the-cuff remark from a pontiff known for shooting from the lip. But still, with the threat of violence and counter-violence so high, this was a missed opportunity at best, and playing into humanity's vilest instincts at worst.

When it comes to speech, the pope is struggling with the same prioritize we all are. IN a pluralistic society, one where censorship is scorned and the rights of the individual are raised to heights unimaginable in the ancient world, we are faced with contradictory feelings. One the one hand, we believe that citizens should be able to express and publish any opinion they wish. On the other hand, we want to live free of constant harassment for our lifestyles and opinions. In other eras, the government and church decided what kinds of expression were permitted. Stray too far against crown or altar, and you would find yourself in a dark and deadly place. Today, our governments (for the most part) allow us to say what we will. You don't have to go too far on the Internet to find some utterly vile talk about President Obama, or Muslims or gun-banning liberals. That's worked well, mostly, and has resulted in discomfort and irritation, but in surprisingly little violence. Where government sanctions were once used to rein in loose talkers, the mass of citizens self-polices to keep crazy talk from becoming crazy actions.

The aberrations are telling.

A deranged shooter in Connecticut guns down 26 schoolchildren and teachers. A lone nut in Norway massacres kids at a camp. A mentally ill shooter in Arizona fires a bullet into a Senator's brain and kills several others. As much as I oppose the obscene scale of the sale of guns in this country, the fact seems to be that, while we kill ourselves in suicides and accidents, guns have not yet been used in large scale attacks against political targets. No riots. Yet. No revolutions. Yet. Somehow, the  rage of the masses has been kept in check. The threat of imprisonment is a factor, no doubt. But also, there is the sanction of family members and society at large to consider. Cliven Bundy Can rant and threaten federal officers with guns. But his archaic, racist rants made him a laughing stock among most Americans. Rather than becoming a leader of an anti-government movement, he became distasteful enough to most people to relegate to the trash heap of history.

While I agree with the pope that people should voluntarily refrain from disparage the religions of others, I think he needs to consider that most people are capable of policing their own actions, if not their own tongues. He needs to encourage those who disagree with the opinions of others to nurture the ability to dialogue with the peacefully, or just to ignore them. Charlie Hebdo, or all of its current popularity (5 million copies of its latest issue were snapped up) has a normal readership of only 60,000. In modern societies, we need to learn to tolerate even the most irritating and hateful speech. Paraphrasing Voltaire, "I will defend to the death your right to publish Charlie Hebdo, but I don't have to buy it."

Suis-je Charlie?

This is true: the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo were courageous journalists whose daring to poke fun at Jewish, Muslim and Christian leaders was a radical expression of free speech.

This is true: The cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo were a bunch of careless juvenile provocateurs whose offensive work was at least partially responsible for bringing about their own deaths.

This is true: the vast majority of Muslims live peacefully in Western societies and share the larger culture's values of multiculturalism and democracy.

This is true: Islam impels certain believers to acts of brutality in the name of protecting the sacredness of their religious leaders and documents.

Like most people, I was shocked at the attack against the satirists at Charlie Hebdo. That's even when I find a lot of their work to be childish, pointless mockery, rather than incisive critical commentary. But the idea that any person with non-mainstream ideas could be targeted simply for having such ideas hit pretty close for me. I am a writer, and some of my opinions fall outside the normal channels of my religious faith. Not that I am afraid of being shot by masked terrorists. But the idea that our world still offers the opportunity to violently suppress writers and thinkers gives me the chills.

The irony of the Charlie Hebdo massacre is that the periodical was not all that popular in France. To be able to mobilize up to 2 million people for a march in support of their rights is extraordinary when their readership was only about 50,000. But the marchers are right. In a secular society that values free expression, gunning down any writer is tantamount to holding a gun to every writer's head. Expect to see significant self-censorship in the wake of Charlie Hebdo. Maybe not immediately, since everyone wants to be seen holding the bloody flag. But when the funerals are complete, the placards recycled and the speeches folder and tucked away, many writers may wonder whether it is worth putting their lives and families at risk just to beard the latest lion.

As I read the many attacks on religion in the hot periodicals, I have to admire the Charlie Hebdo writers. They were provocative and offensive in a place where violence was a proven choice of their enemies. After all, Charlie's offices had been burned two years ago after the magazine printed offensive cartoons about the Prophet Mohamed. American contributors to Salon and other magazines, which gleefully and repeatedly proclaim the idiocy of religion, face no such threats. Judging from the yawping vitriol in their comments sections, these writers enjoy notoriety and a large measure of public support from those who have no time  for priests, dogmas and spiritual obligations. But I wonder how brave the writers would be if fundamentalists were really dangerous, rather than ignorant blowhards who move their lips when they read?

Charlie Hebdo's cartoonists were vile, sophomoric and stubbornly provocative. But they were brave souls who defended the flanks of a freedom we should all hold dear -- the absolute freedom to express even the most obnoxious of opinions. And the freedom to push back against the pieties of the self-righteous who seek to sway the consciences of the masses.

Lucky ducks; unlucky ducks

Just days after AirAsia Flight QZ8501 went down in Malaysia, apparently killing all 162 passengers and crew aboard, we started seeing stories about a few families who had missed the flight. One family did not get the phone calls and emails that Air Asia left them, telling them that the flight would leave 2 hours early. Another family's dad got hepatitis, so the whole family skipped the flight.

When the flight went down, these folks naturally thought themselves to have been spared by cosmic forces. 

It was no stroke of luck but an act of God that her father caught hepatitis, said Inge Goreti Ferdiningsih, because it made her family cancel their tickets on the AirAsia flight a day before it took off. "We are extremely grateful, and God is really great," she said. "I believe that God is saving and protecting us, and this is truly a miracle."

from CNN. 

 

If it were my family, I would probably say the same thing. And who's to say I would be wrong? A universe with an all-powerful deity can surely bend the laws of nature and happenstance if he wills, right? He can give those hepatitis germs a green light to infect old dad, hoping that the rest of the family will take the hint and stay behind.

 

But what of the vast majority of families who lost loved ones? Were they insufficiently worthy of God's attention? Did they not merit a saving disease? Or did the Lord give them a nudge of their own, which they chose to ignore? Did they therefore get what they deserved, the lousy sinners? Or were their deaths required to fulfill God's mighty and noble plan?

 

Depending on your beliefs about God's control over the universe, you may come up with different answers. If you (like many Christians) believe that God is completely in charge of every event n the cosmos -- or as Jesus said in Matthew 10:29-31, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.^{" --} then you'll have to react as though every saved life, and every doomed one, was God's doing.

 

On the other hand, if you believe that events happen for no particular reason -- as Jesus said in Luke 13:4, "Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them--do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?" -- then you will feel less of a need to drag God into the messy affairs of nature and mechanical failure. That's a great stance for atheists, who don't believe in a moral behind every air crash or earthquake.

 

But that stance, which is the one I lean toward, is a little harder to square with belief in God. It suggests a God who is really not in control of the universe, but who stands by for some reason, allowing the laws of physics, chemistry and chance to hold sway.And that raises a host of difficult questions. Does God stand by because he wants us to deal with things on our own -- the way a parent teaching a kid to ride a bike would tolerate falls and scrapes to teach the kid to ride without help? Or does he stand by because, though he might want to save, he does not have the actual ability to do it? That option flies in the face of lots of theology about God being all-powerful and desiring to save. As Psalm 69 puts it (apropos of the latest disaster): "Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul.  I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me."

 

Or perhaps God is only present in the aftermath, healing hearts and soothing spirits, leading the grieving from death toward life. Seems like too little, too late.

 

I don't think I could fault a believer from picking any of these options. But the possibility that even a loving God might be unwilling or unable to intervene in our affairs should prompt us to act in his stead. By tuning our hearts and our technology toward saving our neighbors from avoidable tragedy. By developing systems that prevent fallible human minds from missing critical safety steps. By ensuring the proper oversight that keeps the lazy or the greedy or the just plain exhausted from stinting on the safety measures that save lives.

 

One thing is sure: if we leave our work for God to do, it will not get done. Like a parent of a teenager, he will not pick up our dirty socks for us, but he will leave it to us to wallow in our self-created filth. For those who lose loved ones in hurricanes, fires, plagues or plane crashes, this is a very tough love. But how else to guide us to love our neighbor than to put the onus completely on us? God has given us his direction: love your neighbor as ourselves. It's up to us to make that a reality.