Friday Random

Busy few days ahead, so let’s buckle up. This will be…varied. It might get a little sad, so be forewarned.

• Many new readers this week. Please stick around, and if you’ve a mind to, buy a book or two. Link goes to a partial list since I don’t want to link to Amazon. But you can find them.

• This Sunday is Septuagesima Sunday – time to Pre-Lent. Go here for more and here for my Lent page.

• The Xavier Society for the Blind produces formation and spiritual materials for the visually impaired. For example, these sacramental formation materials.

• This made the rounds yesterday on social media – voice actor Jake Phillips doing Marc Antony’s speech at Julius Caesar’s funeral – as a Southerner. It’s impeccable. Marvelous.

Here’s his YouTube channel.

• Oh, look, another new book in which, I don’t know, one or two of you might be interested.

Sacred Foundations argues that the medieval church was a fundamental force in European state formation. Existing accounts focus on early modern warfare or contracts between the rulers and the ruled. In contrast, this major study shows that the Catholic Church both competed with medieval monarchs and provided critical templates for governing institutions, the rule of law, and parliaments.

The Catholic Church was the most powerful, wealthiest, and best-organized political actor in the Middle Ages. Starting in the eleventh century, the papacy fought for the autonomy of the church, challenging European rulers and then claiming authority over people, territory, and monarchs alike. Anna Grzymała-Busse demonstrates how the church shaped distinct aspects of the European state. Conflicts with the papacy fragmented territorial authority in Europe for centuries to come, propagating urban autonomy and ideas of sovereignty. Thanks to its organizational advantages and human capital, the church also developed the institutional precedents adopted by rulers across Europe—from chanceries and taxation to courts and councils. Church innovations made possible both the rule of law and parliamentary representation.

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• “What Remains”

At its most elemental definition, hope is just a response to fear. We hope good things will happen to us because we are scared of the bad things.

Still, in the years since you started the clinical trial, in the losses we have endured and in the acceptance I have worked toward, my definition of hope has broadened.

Hope, for me, isn’t just about fear. It’s also about understanding and accepting the full scope of what is happening to us and still finding the good in life. It’s in that bible verse from Psalms that I love so much: “Even in laughter the heart may ache and joy may end in grief.” It’s in hearing our daughter giggle as she dances with you and in watching our son score a goal and look into the stands at you as he beats his fist against his chest. It’s in the people who show up and lift us up, the ones who drop off meals and run errands and walk beside us and cry with us and don’t turn away from our pain…

…..

“Oh,” I said, “look how beautiful the sky is.” 

And then, maybe for them, definitely for myself, I added, “The world is still beautiful, even when it’s sad.”

• Last night, I read Rob Delaney’s memoir of his son’s short life, struggle against a brain tumor, and death at two years old: A Heart that Works. Delaney is a comedian, actor and writer, perhaps best known as one of the stars and writers of the very good Catastrophe. Knowing that his son died before season 4 was filmed just might prompt me to return for a rewatch.

It’s a short, intense, raw book.

Most interesting to me was his expression of what grief does to you, especially grief related to unexpected loss, or the kind of loss that is rare in your circle: you feel…different. As he says,

…I had the odd sensation of somehow being older than my parents, or at the very least having seen something that they hadn’t, and it had changed me. I felt like no one, even my parents, who raised me, had anything to offer me that could light my path and show me a way forward. It didn’t feel like I could lean on anyone in a way that would truly, substantively help me. That was a very sad and lonely feeling, and while it wasn’t a correct assessment of my place in the world, it is what it felt like.

I didn’t feel the loneliness, I felt kinship with the rest of humanity in a different way. Ah, I thought…death. How could I ever have dared to think of myself as a member of the human race before I’d experienced this?

Something to ponder – after surgery, after months of chemo and its impact on Henry the tumor starting growing again – especially heartbreaking because it re-emerged just as Henry was growing stronger and was able to do more of what a healthy toddler does. More chemo would devastate his little body and yes, probably kill him. What would his parents do?

Loving him meant we had to let the cancer spread and kill him.

Particularly memorable, though, is Delaney’s highlighting the precious moments of care and beauty in the midst of all the suffering – a common theme with the essay above.

And then his speech to new parents (language alert) – about how parents-to-be worry that they’re unprepared for unforeseen troubles and difficulties in raising a child. Delaney responds – well guess what – the biggest surprise in parenthood is what fantastic wonders of another little person that are revealed to you. (As I said – language alert)

…here’s the deal: you’re ready for all the bad stuff. You’ve been very tired before. You’ve been in pain before. You’ve been worried about money before. You’ve felt like an incapable moron before. So you’ll be fine with the difficult parts! You’re already a pro. What you’re NOT ready for is the wonderful parts. NOTHING can prepare you for how amazing this will be. There is no practice for that. There is no warm-up version. You are about to know joy that will blow your fucking mind apart. Happiness before this? HA HA. Mystery? LOL. Wonder? Fuck off! You are about to see something magical and new that you have no map for! None! This is it. Are you ready for that? Are you? No! No, you’re not!