Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven
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| Sunny Days in Heaven Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven |
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Friday, May 03, 2002 No millionaires in Heaven In talking about the Kings Mavericks b-ball series about to start, I should have mentioned the international flavor to these two teams. The Sac Bee made up for my oversight this morning with an article about it. Nine players from the two teams - enough to field a fine all star team to compete with anyone, are foreign born; although Shawn Bradley is an American who was born in Germany, raised in Utah. The other players are Tariq Abdul-Wahad from France (who was drafted and played for the Kings a few years ago), Dirk Nowitzki from Germany; Wang Zhizhi (pronounced Wong zhoo zhoo according to announcers I've heard) from China; Eduardo Najera from Mexico; and Steve Nash, born in South Africa but raised in Canada. These are Dallas players. The Kings have Valde Divac and Peja Stojakovic from Yugoslavia (renamed to Serbia and Montenegro recently I believe) and Hedo Turkoglu from Turkey. I've mentioned to some others in passing that the time is fast approaching when the U.S. will no longer dominate the Olympics and other international tourneys in basketball. The players above could certainly give any American team a run for its money. Whether any one nation in Europe can yet field an entire team of all stars will take awhile yet (but is not that far off). I would guess that the U.S has one more relatively easy Olympics ahead and that will be it. The world will have caught up. Basketball is becoming that universal a game. (It's cheap, takes almost no equipment, and is easy to learn - throw ball and hope it falls through the hole.) I must also say as a light colored person (pale man often called white), that it is refreshing to see the game being restocked by pale Europeans who are playing with an intensity, hunger, drive, professionalism, and dignity that I enjoy. (I hate, despise, loathe celebrations and ludicrous dances of triumph, swagger, trash talk, and lack of sportsmanship. Remember the sick preening of American track men in Sydney. It doesn't get much worse and revolting as that.) Plus, there was a little too much racism and resentment in Dennis Rodman saying what many black players thought - that Larry Bird was only given so much praise because he was white. There was also Shaq's comments about "white boys" like Jason Williams (White Chocolate, his nickname). Blacks talking about other men as "boys" and acting as if they were lucky to be good enough for a few of them to play in the "black game" got to be a bit much also. So maybe we'll get a new movie out of this - White Men Can So Jump. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:59 PM | Dispatches from Outland A visit to that site revealed a lovely blog on spiritual discipleship. Something I've been trying to say, but not as well. I was briefly confused, though, thinking that the book being mentioned was the blogger's own. It's not, but one he recommends. From what he says, I heartily concur. Scroll further down to see more insightful comments of his on the same subject. If he keeps this up, I'll have to permalink him. He's added me to his list, for which I am thankful. The saddest thing about faith and attendant religion is not the lack of belief in others, but disappointment in seeing a lack of commitment to practice. I've talked before about so many "activist" Christians concerned about "social justice issues" (as if anybody else with a different perspective than theirs isn't) who can't find time or interest to pray or change themselves before fixing the world. Equally so are catechism thumping Catholics who may attend daily Mass and say the Rosary, join in Novenas, have Masses said for dead relatives and such, but never seem to get any deeper in insight. They cannot be said to be faithless, but they seem to worship the religion more than love and follow Jesus. Anyway, go and read Roy Jacobsen at Dispatches from Outland. Looks like a keeper to me. Furthermore. Summa Contra Mundum has linked to me, but I have a bone to pick with him and Mark Shea. The template they've chosen with its neon green wallpaper is simply too difficult for my eyes to read. Not because of the hideous color, but the font is simply too small for me now even with my Text Size menu on largest. Otherwise, I would wish to read them more often, for they are both interesting and intelligent commentators. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:26 PM | The Most Profound Questions of All (from Brightness Springs) God doesn't know that he is holy. He is as common and low as a fly; as ordinary as a grain of sand. He is one ray of light that lights a leaf, and one snowflake that lands in the ocean. Does God know why he exists? I don't know. What God knows, who can say? But I know this - God doesn't know that he is holy. posted by Mark Butterworth | 1:05 AM | An Explanation of Something Important about the Future A man can live without his memories. What need I to know of sins or of blessings? I know I am; I know you are. I know my wife and child, the names of animals and plants. I can add a sum, measure space, write a line, and make the paper. But I no longer know my former name or life. Heaven is amnesia. All are content. I know you are and that I am. I know the pleasure of music, work, sleep, and food. I know who my children are; who this woman, in all her beauty and modesty, is. All that's good, true, and beautiful - I retain. I am pure. All is pure. Love is a kind of gaze; life no longer alien, anxious, suspect; no one misunderstood. Heaven is a visit to a foreign land where you've forgotten what country was yours; yet, everyone you meet speaks your language, and is as genuine as you are now. When I was three years old and it was New Year's day, I awoke, ate breakfast, talked to my brother, saw my parents, and played the day away. Did I see something cruel, hear something harsh or do something cruel and speak harshly? I don't know. I can't recall a single thing about that day. Am I diminished? Less for it? Not in the least. I am free of pain or pleasure in that day; and yet it was a day of life and not a never was. A day I laughed or cried, or sat alone, was carried and caressed, or absent of fear. Most of my life, events and incidents, are all forgotten. I've no tears for that; no nostalgia for unremembered times. I live now. Memory belongs to grace. What I recall is left to God. Let all my sins decay into nothingness, and all my scars dissolve. Let all unhappiness drift off and sink in lost sands of deep seas. I still remember how to kiss, to smile, to praise, and taste all goodness in each moment. Life is not what we were or will be. Life is what we are. Without Love, we are nothing and exist no more than lost memories. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:56 AM | Thoughts for a Sunny Day (from my book, Contentions) 79 People don't get into heaven by being nice but by allowing themselves to become God. It's simple really. If God is heaven and purity, then we must also be God and pure to occupy the same heaven (reality). 80 People think and teach, "do this so you'll get that." But God teaches, "do nothing and you'll get everything" or "love truth and truth will love you" or "the more you trust in God, the more trust God puts in you". There is nothing of God that he will not trust us with if we become trustworthy. It works with healthy people also. The more trust you put in them, the more they thrive and increase in trustworthiness. A funny thing is that for many, receiving the conviction of a reward in heaven has the effect of ending exploration of God and what he means, just as rewards tend to kill creativity. Nor does God praise us for doing as we ought and can do, but teaches us how to examine our work (and thoughts and feelings) in a way that leads to continual refinements and security. We learn to trust the creative process. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:28 AM | B-Ball and the gods Mark Byron mentions his Pistons and the playoffs fairly regularly so I guess it's time I mention again the Sacramento Kings. They had a tough series with Utah, where the refs let the Jazz pretty much make it a slugfest which the King survived simply because they're better and have more talent. Whether Dallas will let them advance to the Lakers (does anyone doubt the Lakers are the team to beat?) is anyone's guess. Dallas has come into its own much like the Kings have playing basketball as it ought to be played at high tempo and fast action. Dallas is very talented, but seem to lack a true Center whereas the Kings do have Vlade Divac. I'm pulling hard or the Kings, but oh my, this series is gonna be a nail biter. I can't bear that anymore so I now tape the games and watch them if the Kings win and forget about it if the Kings lose. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:20 AM | Thursday, May 02, 2002 Poem for a Sunny Day My Heart Attack I've seen death's shape when it comes on the flesh; a fireball rising in the chest, expanding; a momentary terror - is this it? It is it; the mortal insult, perverse climax of a life, curse of breathing time. God is not there. No appearance nor gesture of grace to say, "I love you, child, do not mind the agony." Never mind the void, there's life enough beyond for God, 'though heaven seems a lie, and hell a joke since all that is pain - is anguished despair. Death sneaks like a thief, then steals in a rush. Only, I am Lazarus and revived to have to die a second time. Restored to ordinary skin, heart, and brain. Not dead enough at first to pass away, but alive enough to save to bear worse scars. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:43 AM | Thought for a Sunny Day (from my book, Contentions) 81 While at my daughter's High School performance of a Broadway musical (editor:I wrote this two years ago), I realized a feeling of inner discomfort. I did not like being a passive part of a live performance. It seemed viscerally wrong. I thought of the Mass, how it is a shared event, and how that is much more satisfying. Theater has often broken the "fourth wall", but it always strikes us as contrived and hollow, whereas the Mass breaks that wall by making God (who has no walls) the focus of the actions of all participants. I have often noticed before that for secular minded people, theater, movies, and music performance serve as communion with entertainers as ministers; but who rather satanicly focus the attention on themselves, their emotionalism, and performance to win the audience's love and adulation. A kind of: "I feed the audience and they respond with love." Witness young people at a rock concert, or middle aged folks at some adult romantic singer's show. The varieties of dionysiac rapture, sensuality, animalism, maudlin sentimentality which approximate pagan ritualism or urbane emotionalism. Classical music concerts serve the same function of trying to provide an aesthetic exaltation and experience of communion with an artist and his audience. Go to any performance where people are avid fans and you will see a worship service going on where people are expecting an emotional payoff and release from cares and responsibility; or where they think that they are getting 'truth' in some form or other from a hero, composer, artist, or storyteller. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:39 AM | Wednesday, May 01, 2002 Cartoon and Comic Book Movies With Spiderman and Star Wars movies coming out soon, I am led to reflect on B flicks and their surprising command of box office hegemony in our culture. When I was a kid, there were far more B movies than now. We had westerns, singing westerns, science fiction, adventure and action films, war movies, Tarzan movies and comic book movies or TV shows like Superman. What these movies all had in common was that they were cheap to make, and looked cheap on screen. But as children, we didn't care at all; credulousness being the hallmark of our immature condition. What the movie lacked in talent, dialogue, and special effects, we made up for with pure suspension of disbelief. But that dramatically changed in the 70's. Before that, though, a sea change was already underway. If I recall correctly (having shown my daughter not too long ago the classic movie ending to end all endings) the original Planet of the Apes came out in 1968. If you watch the scenes on board the spaceship as it first takes off (and Charleton Heston smokes a cigar! before taking his little Rip Van Winkle nap), they are pretty cheesey. Not horrible. Not Plan Nine, but nothing special either, and observe the ape make-up which was highly touted then, but still looked ridiculously stiff and useless - you see that this B movie was a harbinger. It had a big name actor (slightly over the hill, perhaps) with high production quality for its time and a rather silly plot and dialogue. (Get your stinkin' hands off me, you dirty ape!) Following that, Heston did The Omega Man and the classic, Soylent Green. All B movies, but not bad ones with pretty good production values. But Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey came out in 1969. And that changed the face of all science fiction movies to come. It wasn't a B movie, but it dictated that all sci-fi B movies had to look good (except for Roger Corman films, of course). That's where George Lucas came in. He made an unbearably hokey movie with horrible dialogue which made all his actors (except for the real pro, Alec Guiness) look bad. Star Wars. But it looked great! It was still the Perils of Pauline but the railroad trains were fantastic. Then Speilberg and Lucas dreamed up Raiders of the Lost Ark and the rest is history - B movies became boffo. Serious, mature movies suddenly took a back seat in the industry. B movies once signaled the end of an actor's career. Now it meant the start or re-energizing of one. And the infantilization of all culture thus accelerated until all that matters is pop movies, music, art, clothes, comic books, and video games. Blame it all on Kubrick and then Lucas. posted by Mark Butterworth | 3:24 PM | A life is a life is a life is a ... Sigh, Postrel and Instapundit are at it again, this time from a slightly different take as they rail against anti-cloning ads. Postrel insists that cloning is legitimate life saving research and must not be stopped without dire consequences to life as we could know it If ever was the case of the ends justifying the means, that is their basic argument. That and the alarmist, doom saying point of view - WE WILL ALL DIE UNLESS YOU LET US DO THIS! Plus, they want to make out all their fellow citizens who, by and large, oppose cloning as the new flat earthers who will put new Galileos in prison if they don't recant. So, on the one hand, if demcracy stands in the way of their idea of science, then democracy be dam*ed. And if morality stands in the way, then that be dam*ed, too. If common sense is intractable ( a human life is a human life), that too should go the way of the dinosaur. There is nothing they will not say to get what they want. They hope by whining and whining on about LIFE SAVING, COMPASSION, RESEARCH, SCIENCE they will wear mature thinking down and get to stay up as late as they please creating and destroying as many living embryos as they like. What zombies these people are. In fact, why don't we start calling them that? Label them as Zombies for wanting to feast on living human flesh, those who are dead to reality and the sacredness of human life. (Back in the 60's, though, the Zombies led by Rod Argent had a couple of good tunes. She's Not There, Time of the Season.) posted by Mark Butterworth | 1:10 PM | A Pastor by any other name Bryan Preston, the JunkYardBlogger (link on the right), has a fine blog on the differences between Catholic priests (as he sees it) and Baptist ministers in the administration of church and faith. Protestant scandals are generally individual and local since responsibility for behavior is handled by all the members of a church who hire and fire their ministers while maintaining guidelines and extra-local and legal help through affiliation with the Baptist Confession. Anyway, read his explanation. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:13 PM | Oh, to not be Sullied Andrew Sullivan, always looking for a reason to be left off the religious/moral hook about his homosexual behavior thinks he's found it from William Buckley. "Buckley is intellectually honest and personally unimpeachable. His prose can be hard to understand at times (and there's a chance, reading this piece, that he means something different). But he surely makes a good point. The church tells us gay Catholics that it's not our fault we're gay, but we should be completely chaste and without any physical or emotional intimacy, even if, unlike priests, we have no higher vocation to make sense of it all. Got that? A life utterly without real intimacy - as a Christian vocation. In practice, I know of no priests who can tell real, breathing gay men that this is a feasible way to live without going nuts or turning into the kind of twisted neurotic that turns out to be typical of some gay priests. Anyway, thanks, Bill, for at least a modicum of compassion and an attempt to see things from the uniquely difficult position of the gay Catholic. Such honest empathy is a sign of a civilized and decent soul." The problem is that Andrew is again turning religious practice and faith into minimalism (something which the priesthood has perfected, also). A quick perusal of the NT might remind Andy that Jesus was a maximalist when it came to the things of God and doing his will. Although, Jesus does concede that his statement against marrying in this life may be too much for many people to accept. But there is never a suggestion by Jesus, Paul, or others that holiness and celibacy (or sexual continence) are beyond human reach - God's grace etc. makes all things possible accordingly. But Andrew's throwing up his hands in defeat and shrugging his shoulders to say, "Who can expect me to be able to do these things?" is a bit silly. Are you not an adult, after all? Are you not capable of not being led by your genitals? If we can ask young people to not act according to their powerful desires and impulses (and see that many succeed in doing so), are we not to expect mature adults to be able to contain and restrain their libido? I have occasionally told my daughter, when I see her watching movies and TV shows that I think are a bit too sexualized or gory, that those who touch pitch will be defiled. Images and desires placed in the mind are not so easily erased. Better not to have seen vile things than to later want to forget them. The mind and memory is not so forgiving even though God is. So too with Andrew Sullivan - if you touch pitch, it's not so easy to wash off; and trying to pretend that pitch is good for the skin is simply hopeless. Furthermore Fool's Folly (link at right) has more on Sully's blog and her own two cents to add. She got there ahead of me, though. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:05 PM | Just a Stage Mother After All I went with my daughter, Shana, to our community college, Sacramento City, so she could audition for their productions of Shakespeare in the Park staged each summer. The plays this year are Henry V, and Much Ado About Nothing (my daughter's favorite). All actors needed to have a 1.5 minute Shakespeare monologue prepared which Shana had quite ready since one's been in her repertoir for awhile due to her drama class; and she's polished it quite well. We arrived at the school theater to find 35-45 other people, mostly college students, applying. Twice as many women than men, though. The crowd made me realize just how good my daughter's chances for a part were since her performance (despite a cold) would probably be as good as anyone else's, but also because she is lovely with a beautiful figure. Almost all of the women I saw were either thick, chubby, obese, plain, or homely. One or two other young women were attractive, but not quite as much as Shana - and it struck me powerfully in that circumstance how exceedingly important good looks are in the field of public performance. The audience (plus playwrites and directors) wants to see ideal representatives of heroes and heroines - which means beauty. Sure, a great but plain actress could play Helen of Troy, but the audience has to overcome its immediate dismay and disappointment - and why make it hard on an audience? The easy way to win their approval (and $'s) is to cast a great and beautiful actress. Kathy Bates is a fine actress, but so is Nicole Kidman whose beauty I find very alluring. Now, my daughter may do well locally, but what about when she goes to NYC? When beautiful faces and figures are a dime a dozen, then talent and luck are everything. She has the talent, but the luck? That remains to be seen, but she got called back for more auditions for both plays last night. It looks like she'll get a part even if its just as a glorified spear carrier (but she's perfect for Hero in Much Ado). posted by Mark Butterworth | 11:41 AM | Hubba Hubba Hubble Congrats to Bryan Preston, the JunkYardBlogger (link at right) for his work on the new, improved Hubble telescope and the beauties to come. It is a reason to shout Hurrah for the U.S. of A. posted by Mark Butterworth | 1:20 AM | Tuesday, April 30, 2002 "Best Story of Paradise since Dante" Also, go and read this brief story on the Afterlife, The White Wall. Unpublished at this time except for the web page. posted by Mark Butterworth | 3:14 PM | A Note from Emily Latella - Never Mind I have a link up to a page where you can now read my book, Brightness Springs, for FREE! Go HERE! HERE! HERE! posted by Mark Butterworth | 2:40 PM | Thought for a Sunny Day (from my book Contentions) 83 In this life, sexual desire never burns out entirely because it can never be wholly satisfied now. Sexual union always falls short of perfect satisfaction. In heaven, sexual consummation is of such global satisfaction (rather than genital) that the procreative act means an end to desire for much longer periods of time where we become innocent of any need for physical intimacy. Thus, the opposite sex fails to produce sexual tensions in us regardless of the other's beauty. It is more like we feel toward children where we love to admire, pet, fondle, kiss, embrace, and cuddle with them out of affection rather than from any kind of lust. Many so called prophets, gurus, masters who seemed wise, enlightened, or saintly have fallen through failure to reckon with sexual desire and its ever present energy Instead, they abused themselves and abused others - finally rationalizing their incontinence. A great problem with sex in this world is that, although it is somewhat pleasing, it almost always fails to completely satisfy. People keep pursuing it in the hope it will finally complete them or climax in total bliss. The myths of cosmic, romantic lover's bliss is not a false myth. It is real, but impossible to realize in this life except for a moment here or there which is approximate and foreshadows greater glory to come in heaven (which is true of most gracious joys). We never lose adult sexual desire because we are meant to be procreative always, and to share intimate oneness with the opposite (not really opposite but other) gender through a love that can also be known by physical relation along with emotional and spiritual relation. The Godself state (or no-self as some call it) is not unemotional, unaffectionate, unconcerned, or indifferent. It is rather not reactionary, passionate, zealous, hyper, or demanding. Godself is without extremes or need to reward or punish others, nor itself; but it certainly recognizes the utter cosmic and eternal significance of every person and thing. posted by Mark Butterworth | 2:09 PM | Thought for a Sunny Day (from my book Contentions) 85 Another aspect of God and heaven I haven't written about is the fact that God creates reality for his creatures. There are few reasons to assume that there is only one kind of physical universe to experience with certain laws. God could certainly arrange alternate universes with wholly different natural laws, colors, music, and so on, for us to inhabit. How that would square with our current type of flesh or matrix of sensory being, I don't know, but it seems possible (although remote and highly unlikely). I tend to believe that we are simply to live life and have it more abundantly - immortal, awake, ever deepening awareness of God, simplicity that transcends the simplest conceptions of reality. posted by Mark Butterworth | 2:05 PM | Is it Hokie or Hokiepundit? Hokiepundit reveals: Rejected Title for My Paper: Abortion: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Womb Clever, that. posted by Mark Butterworth | 1:08 PM | To sex or not to sex Emily Stimpson (thanks for the link!) at Fool's Folly (link on the right), is going to devote a series of blogs in defense of celibacy and why the American Catholic Church or Rome should not alter its policy. I have no quarrel at all with celibacy and do not consider it a cause for the present scandals, but I sure don't see why it can't be voluntary like the Eastern Orthodox Church. My fear is that the RCC uses celibacy to try to ensure that its clerics are pathologically dependant rather than having divided loyalties which family men would naturally have. All the supposed reasons that the Church imposed celibacy on priests having to do with simony (buying offices, maintaining family control of church offices, embezzling for the family, accepting bribes for their families) no longer apply when we see that Protestant and Orthodox churches have managed to handle those problems without much difficulty. posted by Mark Butterworth | 1:01 PM | Blogger Well, I'm trying to set up another web page at Blogger but it won't let me select a template or get started now that I've tried to start over. Very frustrating. Are these people intelligent at all? Or am I just getting what I paid for? I suppose I just set up two new web pages except I can't access them to see if they will work. Reminds me why I hate computers, software, and think little of those who construct them. They all seem so smart (and nerdy) and clever, yet they can't seem to make anything work according to plan. Pathetic. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:38 PM | How it feels If anyone ever wished to know what it is like to live under a tyranny which one is impotent to affect - become a Roman Catholic. All that's missing is the violence and persecution (you are allowed to leave the country if you like). But if you love your country and remain, you will suffer. And even if you leave, you will still suffer. Catholics aren't very good at practicing their religion, but they sure like being Catholic. It's one of life's weird paradoxes, how so many irreligious people can be so loyal to a religion - which says a lot about the infantilism of much of our faith. For some reason, most Catholics seem to feel that they are bonded to their religion as much as they are to their parents. It's that strong a tie. In some respects that child-likeness is worthy of Jesus himself; yet in other respects, it bespeaks (cool word, that) of idiots who are neither wise as serpents nor gentle as doves, but fools whom the Dishonest Steward takes for a ride every time in his worldly wisdom and lookout for the main chance. But the frustration and wrenching hopelessness of it all - confronting such bare-faced evil and not being able to do a darn thing about it! Day after day like some fellow in Iraq watching bureaucrats do whatever they please in Saddam's name. The Arab Palestinians say they feel this way, too, about the Israeli's who enter their country and lord it over them as they please - but I don't believe it is the same. The Arabs hated the Jews long before Israel existed and loved to kill them when they had no particular power over them prior to 1948. No, it's not about a foreign aggressor or power, but a corruption of your own people that is so intractable as to cause utter despair or the fiercest anger. There is simply no other organization we, as Americans, know of that is immune from reform in some way or shape by the people except for the RCC. Abuse of power and disregard for human life and the well being of others is of such moment to me that I am reduced to quivering fury and thoughts of violence whenever I see the perpetrators of such things - as cardinals back from Rome pretending they did something and will do more; or terrorists finding support from fellow Americans. Eie! It is too much. I've got to stop paying attention to an evil world and all its evil ways. It's not like it will ever improve. Yes, maybe for a little while here or there, people will find a breathing space, a moment of sanity - but basically, the world is insane. posted by Mark Butterworth | 1:05 AM | Monday, April 29, 2002 Free! Free! Free! Having become convinced that offering books and music and such for free will result in good things, I am going to open up an alternative site where my book, Brightness Springs, will be available to be read for free with a link to Amazon if any wish to buy it. I'd have the web site up by now except that I can't access blogger yet. So stay tuned. If Blogger can't do it right, though, I'll have to find another way to create another web page. I'll keep you posted. posted by Mark Butterworth | 10:46 PM | The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena (rendered in blank verse) The Prologue The soul, lifted by great, yearning desire for honor of God and saving of souls, begins alone, a space of time, in good: the study of herself to better learn God's grace toward her. For knowledge precedes love. Attaining love, then strives to follow Truth. Truth only comes from constant, humble prayer: therefrom receiving taste and brilliant light as founded on self-knowing and of God. For searching, humble prayer unites with God the soul to follow footsteps of Christ Crucified. Thus by desire and affection, union of love, makes her another Him. It is effective love which blends Him into her. One handmaid of the Lord, when lifted up in prayer with winged thought was shown by God the love He bears His servants, that He said: Open your eye of intellect and gaze in Me that you observe the beauty of My human creature. Look at those I've clothed in nuptial garments, white with love, adorned in many virtues joined to Me. If you should ask Me who these are, I'd say they are another Me as much as they have lost their wills for Mine, conformed and grown to Mine." Thus, loving God, the soul unites with Him. That soul, to be of use in all good ways, desired knowledge to follow Truth aright and manfully, made four requests of Him: the first was for herself; the second, for the Church reformed; the third, a general prayer for peace from Christians who rebel against and persecute the Holy Church; and fourth, she asked that Providence provide for all, and one she cared about - a certain case. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:49 PM | Unlimited Ugliness - Everyday, All Day Judge Bork has an OpEd at WSJ here on the recent SCOTUS ruling about virtual child porn and free speech issues. The First Amendment which was meant to guarantee free political and religious speech has been grossly distorted to allow any kind of speech including unlimited vulgarity. Bork briefly illustrates how this has happened. posted by Mark Butterworth | 11:55 AM | Clear Thinking Good blogs today at Minute Particulars (link on the right); especially the one on confessional prose. He compares Augustine and Sullivan in their style and find Andy sorely lacking. I must agree. I have had some experience with celibacy both when single and later in life; and while when young, I was more a case of needing to marry rather than burn, I lacked faith and truth to help guide me, being purely at the mercy of my own desires and fears. Even then, I can't say I found that loneliness I felt to be as neurotic and nervous as Sullivan seems to have. I have some confidence that with guidance and faith I could have weathered those years without great difficulty. I think many people do. posted by Mark Butterworth | 11:33 AM | Sunday, April 28, 2002 One Purge Coming Up! I have to take issue with good fellow Mark Byron and his take on Purgatory. (Must you do it? Yes, I durst do it. I durst.) Mark quotes another, "Purgatory enables us fully to come to terms with reality. Richard Purtill has suggested that the period between our death and resurrection will be a time of “reading” our lives like a book. The entire book would be present to us and we could reread past sections, skip ahead, and so on. All of this reading would be done in what he calls “Godlight.” That is, it would be a matter of coming to see our lives as God sees them. This would involve, for instance, seeing the full force of how our sins affected others. “The only adequate purgatory might be to suffer what you made others suffer—not just an equivalent pain, but that pain, seeing yourself as the tormentor you were to them. Only then could you adequately reject and repent the evil.” The other side of the coin is that we “would see with love even those who have hurt us, because God saw them with love.” And adds himself: "That session at the Judgement Seat need not be a lifetime of correction to match a lifetime of sin. Our lifetime exam will be there to review, and all the red-marks explained. At this point, God can freely speak spirit-to-spirit, so that I’m envisioning the process as a quick but deep debriefing. Rather than a long process of shedding a sinful nature, the purging process could also be a quick process of reviewing the exam of life and dropping our excess baggage and running full-tilt for our Daddy, seeing His goodness unfiltered for the first time. While our temporal minds can’t truly grasp what this process will be like, my thought is that it will take “hours” rather than “years” and be more akin to checking-in than a quarantine." I have often heard a New Age notion of "life review" after one dies. It's like watching a movie of your life except that you get to experience how other people felt about whatever you did to or for them, good or bad. To feel as others feel - empthy - is indeed a good thing and would cause a deal of pain to discover yourself as a cause of suffering to others, but my own experience and that of others I have studied leads me to believe that we should not imagine things about Heaven which are not true for Earth. The simplest notion is, a la Occam's Razor, likely to be the best. Thus, I prefer to suggest that the process of sanctification or purgation cannot be any different in Heaven than it is on Earth. That is, that death is no shortcut to goodness or holiness. One cannot live with the hope of avoiding painful introspection by waiting until later when God will simply wipe away all our tears as if they never were in a mere second which causes us no discomfort. We should trust that we have everything with us or in us now to know ourselves and suffer what healing we require of our fallen nature. Think of Heaven as being just like Life now, but only more so. That is, all which is natural to us as God meant us to be is present to us always, but that in Heaven all that is presently out of joint will not be. So that we are indeed in the world as it is now, but not of it. Whereas, in Heaven we shall be both in and of the world. posted by Mark Butterworth | 10:57 PM | Rotten Fish Head Thanks to JunkYardBlog for his interest and comments and also to Rod Dreher at NRO for this blog: Despite denials from the chancery, the Boston Herald is sticking by its Friday story quoting an unnamed Catholic Church official saying the plan is for the Vatican to get Cardinal Law out of Boston before he has to face the indignity of a deposition in the Shanley civil suit. You know what I think? That the story is true, and that it was leaked by some high-ranking priest who knew he and others would be left to face the peasants with pitchforks who would storm the chancery walls (so to speak) if the Vatican turned the cardinal into a fugitive from justice. You know what else I think? That unless some cooler American heads talk the Pope out of that disastrous course of action, it's going to happen. What convinced me of this was a passage I ran across today from "Man of the Century," Jonathan Kwitny's appreciative 1997 biography of John Paul. On pages 460-463, Kwitny discusses the role of Archbishop Paul Marcinkus in the Vatican Bank scandal, which broke early in JP's papacy. Marcinkus, who worked in the Vatican, was pushed by Paul VI to get the Vatican Bank involved profit-making. Marcinkus engaged in some extremely dark financial doings, which became public under John Paul, and was an international scandal. Kwitny reports that John Paul stonewalled Italian investigators, refusing to hand over Marcinkus for criminal indictment, and signing off on patently false public explanations of what had really taken place in the dirty affair. Behind the scenes, JP forced the Vatican Bank out of the kind of schemes that got it into such trouble -- but, writes Kwitny, "Even more important to him, though, was that the public never find out what wrongs had already occurred. He said he wanted 'the entire truth ... brought to light' and would 'cooperate' with authorities. Yet he publicly endorsed a new statement the Vatican issued that week, merely repeating the lies of the previous statement. A report [Vatican Secretary of State Agostino Cardinal] Casaroli had requested from several prominent Catholic banking experts was hushed up. That so unhypocritical a man as John Paul could utter such blatant deceits proves that for him, the image of the Church took extraordinary precedence." Sort of proves my point about the hierarchy and this pope. Now I understand exactly the feeling of those Hebrew prophets who likened Israel to a beautiful women who kept turning whore. So many (including myself) have seen and continue to see the RCC as a great, beautiful Bride of Christ - such majesty, sublimity, depth, art, and richness in our worship history - and yet, such whoredom and debauchery, such unbearable deceits. Many are starting to talk apologetically as in my newspaper today, calculating what percentage of priests are involved and guessing it to be less than .5%; trying to present the rest of the priesthood as innocent of crime. I don't care if it was only one priest who hurt children and young people. It was the actions of the entire hierarchy that I object to - not one rotten apple, but a host of men who covered up and hid the evil doers and allowed them to continue to harm people. (Also, this present scandal doesn't begin to touch upon a much more frequent crime - embezzlement of funds and financial malfeasance. We have no real idea of how much money is being quietly siphoned from the Sunday collections among other funds. But tales I have heard about my own parish pastors over the last 50 years from people who had knowledge or powerful inklings, and what I have seen myself, shows that another huge scandal is simply waiting to be exposed. I doubt it will be, though. This is where secrecy and unaccountability is truly effective since, the money is most often stolen before it's ever counted and thus never really existed as church property. The funny thing is that the bishops are far more effective at prosecuting thieves and embezzlers when they catch them. The money they care about. Children and young people's innocence don't matter much to them.) posted by Mark Butterworth | 9:30 PM | |
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