It began when I noticed a nest being constructed between a downspout and an eave.
Soon, the robins had laid their eggs, and just a couple of weeks ago, they hatched.
We watched them the best we could – we of course didn’t want to disturb them, but even if we did, the parents were vigilant guards, perching on nearby branches and wires whenever we came near, squawking repeatedly and even swooping down towards us if it all became too much.
A week and a half ago, we checked on the babies on Sunday evening, and saw their little heads.
Monday morning:
Carnage:
What made it even sadder was that the parents were still around, perched, chirping, squawking and swooping. You have to wonder – what did they “think” – if anything?
I thought that was the end of it. I left the nest on the ground for the moment, intending to take it up later. Before I could do anything with it, the yard guys came and just put it back up atop the downspout.
Nice, I thought. But why?
The next day, I noticed that the parents were flying around with grass in their beaks – they were rebuilding the nest.
And now, a few days later – look at that.
They’re trying again. I had no idea that would happen.We will probably be in Japan by the time they hatch – but depending on when that is (they say 12-14 days) – we might be back for part of the infancy, although my daughter will certainly be here and can keep us posted.
I just hope the hawk has moved on to other parts of the neighborhood….
(And guys, you know we’re going to JAPAN soon, right? I’ll be posting a ton from there, I’m sure – so if you’re interested, follow!)
(UPDATE, 6/7 11:00 PM – We are leaving for Japan in less than two weeks and I just received notice that because of a new Japanese law related to homesharing, my AirBnB reservation is…sketchy. More later, but let’s just say that AirBnB is handling this well, and….it will all be okay. It will all be okay….)
Blog version:
My 13-year old and I spent Thursday night and Friday morning at Auburn University. We didn’t need to be there Thursday night, but if we hadn’t gone down then – we would have had to rise at 5 or so in order to arrive on time for his event. So I used some points and we just stayed in the area.
The reason? The Alabama State Music Teacher’s annual convention and workshops. In the world of student musicians, as with everything else these days, competition is a part of life, and my son did well enough in the state level of competition to be invited to play in a master class with pianist and music educator Fred Karpoff.
(Now, the big win would have been coming out on top of the scores and qualifying to play in a recital at the convention. He was a little disappointed that he didn’t qualify for that, but it might have been for the best, considering the rest of the weekend’s obligations. Or not. Because knowing the mess the rest of the weekend was – we’d have been better off just playing and listening to music all weekend. Or would we have? You just never know, because you learn something valuable everywhere. That’s not just a platitude. Okay, it might be a platitude, but it’s not just a platitude. Because it’s true.)
It was a good experience, and we’re grateful to M’s teacher for helping him hone his playing to this point.
Now that I think about it, I understand why I didn’t just sit myself down and churn out a post about this on Sunday night or Monday morning. I am still not quite sure what to say about it. Well, I know what I want to say about it, but I am not sure if I should or not.
What was it? The National History Bee. M had competed last year with his school and qualified for nationals, and we went. This year, he competed as a homeschooler, qualified for nationals at the regional competition, and so..we went. I held off registering until about two weeks before the competition because I didn’t know how the piano thing was going to work out – that is, if he “won” there and had a chance to perform at the recital, yeah, buddy – you’re doing that.
And honestly, having been through the national competition last year, I was indifferent to whether he went this year. Competing in the regionals was fine – it was here in Birmingham in February, I think, and preparing for it gave shape to his homeschool history work. As in I could say, “Go study for the history bee” and call it a day.
But he wanted to do it, and when the way cleared, he asked if we could go ahead and register. Sure.
I really don’t want to rehash the whole weekend, and it was no more than 24 hours out of my life, and we did get to see my daughter who’d doing an internship in Atlanta this summer, so that’s all fine and good.
But – wow.
What a mess this was.
I mean – a total, absolute train wreck. Even my daughter, who has done her share of debate tournaments, athletic events, theater events, sorority events and everything else a very active young person might do said, “I’ve been to some disorganized events – but nothing like this.”
Whatever the outfit is that puts this on is nowhere near as established as those that sponsor the National Spelling Bee or the National Geographic (duh) Bee. I am not even sure who they are or what they’re about, really.
The structure was: Qualifying rounds plus a scantron exam on Friday, the total score of which would determine the top 256 who would then start off Saturday morning, and then to the Quarterfinals and so on.
My son did the written exam first and by the time he got to his first buzzer round, they were already running 45 minutes behind. The rounds were scattered in rooms around the hotel, with no notice on doors as to which round was happening. The qualifying results were supposed to be posted between 7-8 on Friday night. They didn’t go up (online) until 10:30. Then a new, adjusted version went up at 6:30 am Saturday, with some significant changes. My son had qualified to move on, but by the Saturday morning count – which no one knew was coming – he’d dropped about twenty places. Still qualified, but not everyone had that same experience. Some kids went to bed Friday night thinking they’d qualified, then woke up Saturday finding that they’d been dropped beyond the cutoff. Other kids had the opposite experience – they went to bed thinking they’d not qualified, revised rankings bumped them up – but they had no idea.
The Saturday morning qualifying round that my son was a part of was….one hour late in starting. Because they couldn’t locate the correct list of what kids were supposed to be in that room. Finally, a frazzled judge came in and said, “Screw it! We’ll just do it anyway – tell me your names.”
So yeah. It was pretty bad. I feel terrible for people who came from a distance and spent money to get there for this fairly miserable experience. My main inconvenience was that I hadn’t made hotel reservations for Friday not – reasoning that if my son didn’t qualify for the Saturday rounds, we could just go home.
There was no running tally during the competition, but having sat in on all the buzzer rounds, I felt pretty confident he’d qualified – especially considering that in most of the rounds, about a third of the kids got zero points, consistently, and M always got at least one – 256 was about the top 2/3 of competitors, I figured we were safe.
But I wasn’t sure, so I thought – well, if we find out between 7-8, that’s fine. With the time zone change, even if we leave Atlanta at 8, that’s like leaving at 7 our time, and we’re home by 9. No problem.
So we sat in the hotel lobby and waited for those rankings. And waited. And waited. Until finally, about 9pm, I gave up, said – we’re staying no matter what happens – and got a room.
But really – if I’d been one of those other families, coming from New York or Minnesota or California – and endured this? I would have no mind left, having given event staff so many pieces of it at that point.
This stuff is not my cup of tea anyway, of course. Competition can be helpful in pushing us forward in anything. I’m not saying it’s not. But there’s a definite academic competition subculture, immersion in which does little to encourage authentic learning or wisdom. My son does enjoy the competition, though – not enough to give much of his day over to studying, that’s true, and certainly not to Master Lord of History Trivia Level – but if it spurs him on to do a bit of extra reading, that’s fine.
But take this as a warning. If you ever hear about this competition and contemplate having your school participate – think twice. Really. Maybe even think three times. This was jaw-droppingly inept. I can’t and won’t ascribe any motivations to anyone. All I know was what we and hundreds of others experienced – and it was unprofessional and honestly, an injustice to participants.
We arrived back home early Saturday afternoon, having processed The Defeat (he missed getting to the quarterfinals by one question, but honestly – we were glad to be out of there), rested a bit, and then with brother (who’d stayed home by himself because he’s a Working Man) headed downtown to watch the filming of scenes from a movie called Live. It stars Aaron Eckhart, whom my sons know as Harvey Dent from some Batman movie but I know from Neil Labute movies. I enjoy watching movies being filmed – for short periods of time, since there is a lot of waiting…- it’s just interesting to see all the moving parts.
“When a man only got his letters in the morning he was pretty safe from surprises for the rest of the day; but with the telegraph he has no remission from anxiety and is on the tenter-hooks all day long.” —Philadelphia Medical Times, 1883
Remember last week when I told you about our lovely Nature Moments with Baby Birds? So sweet! So picturesque! So…nature-y!
Oh, well:
It happened at some point Sunday night or very early Monday morning. We saw them Sunday night, and then when I went out the next morning – all I saw was the nest on the ground and a scattering of feathers – and a couple legs (which were gone by the time I took this photo the next day). I’m assuming it was hawks. So yes – very nature-y. Serious, blunt force nature.
Here’s the odd thing, though.
The parents stuck around. It was pretty sad when I discovered the carnage on Monday morning – both parents were flying around, landing on the branches and cables nearby, squawking and chirping loudly – warning me, calling the babies, wondering where the heck did they go?
The next day – they were still there.
Also the next day, our yard guys came and for some reason, they set the nest (which I’d left on the patio, intending to take in later) back up on the drain pipe.
Wednesday when I went out to catch some rays – the parents were still there. And what were they doing? Flying back and forth with grass and twigs to the nest.
Coming to you from Alabama, yes, but not Birmingham. It’s Auburn for us tonight, with an early morning obligation/opportunity tomorrow and then on to somewhere else for the afternoon and perhaps the next day as well. No more details until we see how it all works out – I’m sadly superstitious in that way – but if you want some sense of what’s happening, check out Instagram, particularly Instagram Stories. I tend to post things there.
The big news of late has been the tragic Ireland abortion referendum – which, in the end, is a referendum on the state of Catholicism as well. As disturbing as the referendum itself was, just as disturbing to me was the reaction of the supporters. Cheering and celebrating? Not unexpected, but certainly disgusting. There is a lot of insightful reading out there about the referendum, but two I’ll point out here are:
Ireland has become a different place, not a more tolerant, open and respectful place, but a place with a heart closed to the ones who will die because they are not deemed human enough to be protected.
And a heart closed to the thousands of women who wish they lived in a society that cared enough to tackle the profound injustices such as poverty that force women to choose abortion, rather than proposing the ending of a life instead.
I knew we were in trouble months ago when a prominent journalist said she absolutely accepted the unborn was a baby, but that she felt a woman’s right to choose trumped that fact.
I waited for the outcry. Someone had just said that a baby must die to facilitate an adult’s choice. There was none. I felt an indescribable chill.
The next generation is our hope, not some kind of choice.
Any movement that urges breaking the bond of intergenerational solidarity for ideological reasons, all while abandoning women to the coldness of individual choice, undermines all that is central to our humanity.
Nor did two-thirds of voters seem to understand the concept of equality, instead making ableist arguments. “How could a foetus be the equal of a fully grown woman?” ran the banal, unimaginative and clichéd argument.
They are not equal in cognitive ability, in power or in strength. Neither is a newborn baby or a three-year-old. The helplessness and defencelessness of new humans are designed to instil in us a passion to protect them from harm because they are equal to adults only in their common possession of humanity and their right to life.
In the wake of the Irish referendum abolishing their constitutional protection of unborn children, some of have attempted to roll out the old: “Oh, don’t worry. Banning abortion doesn’t reduce abortions, it just makes people go elsewhere to get them.”
This “banning something doesn’t reduce it” argument is deployed by various people for various causes: Banning abortion doesn’t reduce abortion. Banning drugs doesn’t reduce drug use. Banning guns doesn’t reduce the number of guns available. Banning gambling doesn’t reduce gambling.
All of these are false. Making something illegal of course makes that thing less common. Honestly, if we believed that making something illegal had no effect on whether or not people did it, why would we make anything illegal? Why would we ban things like homicide and burglary if we thought that illegality had no effect on whether people do something.
I have such a long list of articles and links about matters digital and technological. Such a long list. Some related to the impact of all of this on our brains, many taking on assumptions about tech and education, and a growing number about Big Tech and information control. I keep going back to mid-century dystopian fiction, from Farenheit 451 to 1984 and then I ponder McCluhan, and I try to sort it out.
One of the minor points I ponder is the relationship of information tech to churches and evangelization. I have never been one to suggest that a Really True Evangelizing Disciple-Making Parish/Diocese must be All In with the Tech – is your parish on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/MySpace ?
The far more important question, to me is – have you reached out to every single parish in your parish boundaries? Does everyone know about everything you offer? Is your parish aware of every homebound person living in its boundaries, is every household aware that the corporal and spiritual works of mercy and worship of God are happening in your parish?
Sure, I guess you can let them know about it through Facebook, right? But why not, you know, go knock on their doors instead? Be an actual living – IRL – presence in the life of the neighborhood?
Yeah, do both. Great! For sure have a decent parish webpage with MASS TIMES FRONT AND CENTER WITHOUT HAVING TO DOWNLOAD A PDF TO FIND THEM FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE. But person-to-person comes first.
And do you know what? these tech entities are not your friend.
I fully realize that a major reason the Bee (and my webcomic, for that matter) was able to blow up like it did was because of social media — Facebook in particular. This is just how it goes when you make things for the internet: you create, you post to social media, you hope people like it and it spreads. But the power that Facebook held over me as a content creator began to make me very uneasy.
True crime fascinates me, and this is a comparison that often comes to mind: to become a successful content creator you have to use Facebook, and using Facebook, especially if you’re a Christian and/or a conservative, is sort of like going to a mafia loan shark for $10,000. They’re happy to give it to you, just like Facebook will gladly give you the opportunity for your content to go viral on their massive platform. But then, if it does, they own you. You have to conform to their rules and their worldview, and jump through every hoop they put in front of you, if you want to remain a successful content creator. It’s just like a loan from a local mob guy: sure, now you’ve got $10,000 in your hand, but you’re going to pay a high price in return. You’re going to have to alter whatever needs to be altered — even your worldview — to accommodate Facebook. If you miss a payment or step out of line, you’re going to get a beating. And if they ever decide you’re too much trouble, they’ll just shoot you. Facebook has the power to kill publishers, and they do, not only based on publishing techniques, but based on worldview. Just think about that.
This takes us into the bigger and scarier picture, which is that Facebook and Google have a practical duopoly on information. The web is where everyone gets information about everything, and they literally control what information the world sees. I could write a million words on this topic, but I won’t. I cover it regularly on CDR, and the CDR Manifesto speaks on it. Suffice it to say, my worldview combined with my job description gives me a unique vantage point from which to view the current state of things. As a follower of Christ, I am primarily concerned with glorifying God, loving my neighbor, and spreading the gospel. I’ve thought about this deeply and carefully, and I think the centralization of the internet is one of the greatest threats to the spread of the gospel, and the well-being of mankind, that we face today. Maybe the single biggest threat. It is tyranny over information. It’s a handful of people who are hostile to the Christian message and the plight of the individual deciding what’s good and bad, true and false. It’s never been seen before on this scale. I am no conspiracy theorist; never have been. From where I sit, this danger is as clear as day.
All of this is to say nothing about the long-term ramifications of the massive collection of personal data, or the incalculable intrapersonal effects social media is having on us.
If you only come here on Fridays, please check out my post from earlier in the week on the letters of St. Marie de l’Incarnation to her son, whom she left with relatives at the age of eleven, so she could join the Ursulines. The Cruelest of all Mothers.
Several years ago (six), when we were still in the bungalow, some robins built a nest on the ledge right outside my window. It was glorious to be able to watch the babies hatch and then grow – and then hop and fly away. The blog posts about that – Robin Watch – are all under this category.
Something similar has happened this year. It’s a different house, but robins have managed to find a space to build a nest – squeezed in between a rain spout and roof eaves. Fortunately (for us) it’s on a side of the house close enough to the ground that I can set up a step ladder and we can peak. My older son is tall enough to be able to see without assistance, but I can only spy with my phone camera – I can just hold it up there while the parents are away hunting worms, and take a quick snap. I think the photo on the left must have been just a day or so after they hatched and the second just three days later. We’ll see if they’re even still around when we get back.
Other than Writing Things (look for me in Living Faith on Monday, by the way) – a music-heavy week around here. The big state competition is Friday – and may even be over as you read this. So there’s been a lot of practicing, especially of the Kabalevsky concerto movement that he is playing with his teacher.
I’ll have more to say after it’s over. I’m superstitious that way.
It’s not that I’m any kind of stage or Tiger Mom as far as this business goes. It’s simply this: He’s been working on these four pieces for almost a year. He’s performed them in various settings (including retirement homes and a temporary residence for cancer patients as part of the requirements for being in the Honors Ensemble). I don’t give a flip whether or not he “wins” – I simply don’t want him to walk into this, bearing the fruit of a year’s worth of hard work, and then blunder in a way that throws him off and then throws off the piece – the consequence being that in this particular setting, the fruit of his work won’t be evident.
The work is bearing fruit in other ways, to be sure. He’s just begun taking jazz piano, which is coming fairly easily to him – but only because of the kind of work he’s been doing in classical piano for three years. Same with rock – his friend down the street takes rock guitar lessons, and they’ve invited M to play with the band for the recital – and he can pull it off with not much time because of Beethoven and Kabalevsky.
But still….dozens, if not hundreds of hours on this Kabalevsky, in particular….it sure would be nice….
So there’s that. Stress levels have also been heightened this week because of
AP Physics exam
The end of the 2nd year of law school
Ready for the school year to be over. Oh, and you know how parents of older children always say to parents of younger kids: You’ll look back to the years of no sleep and potty training and think…that was easy.
There’s a reason. It’s true. Cleaning up a puddle of urine on three hours of sleep is nothing compared to the stress of giving counsel to young adults worried about the course of the rest of their lives and their relationships and then watching them drive away in 2-ton death machines.
And then there’s son #2 who has his own news – a writer of many stories and a few novels, all unpublished, he has decided to go the e-book route, and going about it in a very methodical way. He’s publishing short collections of stories over the next few months, and then releasing a novel in the fall.
Founded in 1997 by Catholic scholars at the University of Chicago, the Lumen Christi Institute brings together thoughtful Catholics and others interested in the Catholic tradition and makes available to them the wisdom of the Catholic spiritual, intellectual, and cultural heritage.
…the time of year in which spring starts really spring, and the outdoor events and festivals start popping…
…and we can’t go to any of them because of Activities.
And we don’t even do that much. No spring sports – it’s just that with piano-related events and serving Mass and my older son’s work – we get kind of stuck on the weekends. Not that the youngest and I can’t go on our own – and we do – but still, it’s not the same. And I walk around in a continual state of low-grade irritation because of it.
Well, after this weekend, things should wind down. The last major piano thing will happen on a Friday, then the older kids’ exams begin and end..and then…freedom!
Well, “worse” in terms of “academics” – but the reason is music: three lessons of three different types, plus extra practice with the teacher for that Friday event. If he were in regular school, he couldn’t do this – which is why we’re loading up on it now and trying to lay solid groundwork before he returns in the fall.
For some reason, in that Monday post, I neglected to talk about the one jaunt we were able to squeeze in between serving and something else on Saturday, which was a festival at St. Symeon Orthodox Church, located just down the road from us. We’ve lived here for five years, and it’s been interesting to watch it grow, as they’ve gone from meeting in a multipurpose building to constructing their church. The parish is part of the Orthodox Church in America (in its origins, associated with the Russian Orthodox, but now separate and rather oriented towards converts, and any more than that I will not venture because while there is nothing more confusing in contemporary Christianity than the Anglican communion, the Orthodox come mighty close.)
Anyway, they had a festival last Saturday, which means that we finally had a chance to see the interior of the church – it’s absolutely lovely.
Is this some fictional, dystopian, totalitarian nightmare? Sadly and shamefully, no. It is the reality of the modern-day United Kingdom — a nightmare from which the parents of toddler Alfie Evans cannot awaken.
Little Alfie Evans has recently passed away, but the struggle over his treatment provoked a worldwide conflict over parental rights, how to care properly for the seriously disabled, and the appropriate role of the state in such intimate and vexed matters. What it revealed is that the law of the UK is in desperate need of revision to make room for the profoundly disabled and their loved ones who wish to care for them, despite the judgment of others that such lives of radical dependence and frailty are not worth living.
Margaret Thatcher famously said, “There’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families.” That was always a rather anemic view of social life, but the way the Alfie Evans case played out, one wonders if she may have overstated the case. Are there just individuals and their interests – and the state employing experts to instruct the former in regard to the latter?
Catholics know better, or we ought to. Pope Francis grasped what was at stake in the Alfie Evans case – meeting Alfie’s father, Tom, and tweeting his steadfast support. Statements from the bishops of England and Wales were mostly of the pastoral-by-way-of-not-taking-sides; in other words, flaccid and perfunctory. Some Catholics – British writer and papal biographer, Austen Ivereigh, for example – were indignant, insisting that protests against the abrogation of parental rights were somehow evidence of libertarian contagion coming from the American Church.
“The contention,” wrote Pope Leo XIII in Rerum novarum, “that the civil government should at its option intrude into and exercise intimate control over the family and the household is a great and pernicious error.” Pope Leo, it should be noted, was neither American nor libertarian.
When the ministers of the law, purporting to act in the interest of an individual, isolate that individual from the bonds of family, which are the very foundation of human society and which the law exists primarily to protect, they do violence to the individual, to the family, and to society. Again, Pope Leo put it well, “If the citizens, if the families on entering into association and fellowship, were to experience hindrance in a commonwealth instead of help, and were to find their rights attacked instead of being upheld, society would rightly be an object of detestation rather than of desire.”
Alfie Evans was treated – not as a person in full, the son of a father and mother – but as a naked individual whose dignity consists in his “interests,” and who was subject to the ministrations of impersonal forces of the state. The state made itself an object of detestation.
This coming Sunday is, well, a Sunday – so that means Sunday takes precedence over any saints’ days – but since it is April 29, and that’s St. Catherine of Siena’s day – here’s a link to a section from Praying with the Pivotal Players on St. Catherine – reprinted last year in Aleteia: Catherine of Siena – Drunk on the Blood of Christ.
At the end of his life, stripped naked, scourged at the pillar, parched with thirst, he was so poor on the wood of the cross that neither the earth nor the wood could give him a place to lay his head. He had nowhere to rest it except on his own shoulder. And drunk as he was with love, he made a bath for you of his blood when this Lamb’s body was broke open and bled from every part … He was sold to ransom you with his blood. By choosing death for himself he gave you life. (Dialogue)
Blood. Some of us are wary of the sight of it or even repulsed, but in Catherine’s landscape, there is no turning away. The biological truth that blood is life and the transcendent truth that the blood of Christ is eternal life are deeply embedded in her spirituality. We see these truths in the Dialogue, in passages like the one above, and even in her correspondence.
For in her letters, Catherine usually begins by immediately setting the context of the message that is about to come: Catherine, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, write to you in his precious blood….
The salutation is followed by a brief statement of her purpose, which, by virtue of Catherine’s initial positioning of her words in the context of the life-giving blood of Jesus, bear special weight and authority: in his precious blood…desiring to see you a true servant….desiring to see you obedient daughters…desiring to see you burning and consumed in his blazing love…desiring to see you clothed in true and perfect humility….
In both the Dialogue and her letters, Catherine takes this fundamental truth about salvation – that it comes to us through the death, that is, the blood of Christ – and works with it in vivid, startling ways.
My youngest son and I went to a local production of Children of Eden for two reasons – someone we know was involved, and we had free tickets. The person we know did a spectacular job – and it was a huge job, and we’re very proud – but geez louise the theology is appalling and the show itself – musically and dramatically – is mediocre. I’d never seen it, and hardly knew anything about it except that it was about Genesis and is by the Godspell guy. Here’s a history of the show from Wikipedia – and it’s sort of interesting – it had a very short, poorly received run in the West End and, aside from local productions, that’s it. After seeing it, I understand why.
And what’s so bad about the theology? Well, think – Phillip Pullman belting 80’s show tunes – and you’ve nailed it.
I mean – when the show climaxes with Noah telling his son to take Adam’s spear, made from the wood of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil – and to go out, replant it, and share the fruit with their descendants – you’ve got a mess on your hands.
Probably the worst of all of the late 20th century “Hey Kids, Let’s Put on a Bible Show!” creations. Well and enthusiastically performed though. So there’s that.
These new prayer books will help bring together in prayer and worship Catholics of different nationalities. They offer a reliable translation of the Mass and some common prayers and devotions, in the familiar CTS pocket-size format, with the English text always set out on the facing pages. Prepared with the help of chaplains serving immigrant communities, these inexpensive booklets are principally designed to help newcomers to the United Kingdom. Catholics travelling to other countries will also find them useful travelling companions.
Nice! But wouldn’t it also be great if we could pray together in a single language that is a concrete expression of our unity?
Yes, that would be truly awesome. Can someone make that happen maybe?
People come into this building to be healed, cheered up, but above all they would have thought about this in kind of medicinal terms. That you’re sweetened by the Virgin Mary. My thought is this. Was the curving Ogee arch and the beautiful, slightly fleshy, consistency of the architecture here, in a way a metaphor, or a communicative vehicle, for the idea of femininity? What they were doing at Ely was producing an architecture that in itself would have made people subliminally aware of the Virgin Mary as a kind of physical presence, as something which we love, which we’re drawn to.
The second thing was colour. This building was like a hothouse of colour. What we see now is like a bleached remnant of something that was altogether more exotic. And finally stained glass. So, much more striking. We might not have liked it, but we would undoubtedly have been impressed by it.
Iconoclasm literally is the destruction of images. Basically, the censorship off anything that is a representation. This building was absolutely packed with sculpture. A lot of that is gone, simply torn away. In the 16th and 17th centuries, when the English Reformation occurred, a long-drawn out and violent process, a very divisive process, the deliberate targeting of the central symbols of Catholicism was important. And certainly in this part of England, which was really the birthplace of the Protestant Reformation, there was a violent sentiment against all the things that had, two centuries before been extremely loved, respected and regarded. And the cult of the Virgin Mary, was swept away. The theory is always that by getting rid of the concrete expression of something, by erasing it, you disempower the idea and you disempower the perpetuation of the idea. It’s a way of erasing memory.
So when I speak about the art and architecture here being persuasive, being sweetening, you have to understand that to a Protestant reformer, all these little what they would call ‘puppets’ these statues all around the room, all the little stories, would be deeply interesting, but also repulsive and dangerous. And, as a result of that, what I call ‘hammer-happy iconoclasts’ went for this building with a kind of enthusiasm. All the statues were pulled down in the upper parts of the wall, all the stained glass just smashed out, and all the delicate little stories of the Virgin Mary, all of her little miracles, whacked off with hammers. All heads went, some of them are unrecognisable, and the colour was scrubbed off, and the whole thing, it was an effort to kind of cancel it, to destroy its power.
It is now over seven hundred years since the Italian Gothic sculptor Giovanni Pisano set chisel to stone. Though long regarded as his masterpiece, the Pisa Pulpit fell out of favour in the 20th century.
The rise of photography had given a new generation of historians outside of Italy access to the work, but photos failed to convey the pulpit’s complexity. Basing their opinions on two-dimensional reproductions, critics thought the carvings to be distorted and the narrative scenes grossly cluttered.
Art Historian Jules Lubbock examines a plaster cast of the pulpit in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collections and argues that it was the critics who were ill-judged. As an inscription on the pulpit implores: ‘You who marvel, judge by the correct law!’
–7–
As you may recall, our Bishop Emeritus David Foley passed away last week. I didn’t make to any of the actual rituals – I was going to go to Vespers on Sunday evening, but I got a phone call and by the time I was done, it was too late. The funeral Mass itself was ticketed (our Cathedral is small), so I didn’t even consider that – but I knew they were going to process with the body from the church around the block to the courtyard where the episcopal burial plot is located, so I thought we would dash downtown for that (it’s a ten minute drive). I kept an eye on the progress of the funeral on EWTN (you can watch the recording here) and as Communion drew to a close, we got ourselves out the door and into the car. Now – the word had always been that the procession was of course, contingent on weather – and it’s been rainy here lately. But that morning had been clear, and at the moment we left, it still was. We parked and walked to the street where they Knights of Columbus were standing at the ready, waiting. Still clear. Around the corner come the servers, followed by the first set of priests – looking okay – but then…..sprinkles. Then more. Still more – and then a minute later, le deluge. It just poured down on all those priests and bishops in their vestments. You can see it on the video – starting around the 1 hour fifty minute mark.
Some you might have seen my earlier post about our Bishop Emeritus David Foley, who passed away Tuesday evening. Go there to read a bit of a personal reminiscence. I’ll add a summary of a story told by our music director, who posted that a few months ago, he encountered Bishop Foley at the Cathedral, stocking up on his oils because he was headed to a prison to say Mass and celebrate some confirmations. At the age of 88.
No adventures this week to speak of. It’s been about music lessons (X3), a teenager looking at a car, mom losing sleep over the prospect of this teenager buying this car, and waiting for the weather to finally warm up in a permanent, serious way. Friday is often an adventure day, but won’t be this week because, well, there’s that patio door that is finally going to get replaced – an errant stone flung from a weedeater was the culprit – several weeks ago, and it took this long to get the door and get the guy to come take care of it. But finally, I can get the plywood and tarp out of my living room. (And yes, it was that way while we were in Mexico – obviously super secure plywood and tarp, right?)
Speaking of the Cathedral – which we were, just a minute ago –
My youngest takes organ lessons at the Cathedral, and during his lesson this week, a class of some sort – they looked to be either high school seniors or younger college students – filed in, sat, listened to a short presentation, and then scattered about the church, sitting with handouts, looking and writing.
I never did find out where they were from or what their class was about, but just remember that the next time someone tries to tell you that there’s a conflict or dichotomy between taking care to construct beautiful and substantive churches and a “simple” – implication – better – faith.
A beautiful church building is a witness to Christ in the midst of the city surrounding it.
I will always, always remember St. Anselm because he was the first Christian philosopher/theologian I encountered in a serious way.
As a Catholic high school student in the 70’s, of course we met no such personages – only the likes of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Man of La Mancha.
(That was a project senior year – do a visual project matching up the lyrics of “Impossible Dream” with the Beatitudes. JLS had been Sophomore year. It was a text in the class. It was also the year my religion teacher remarked on my report card, “Amy is a good student, but she spends class time sitting in the back of the room reading novels.” )
Anyway, upon entering the University of Tennessee, I claimed a major of Honors History and a minor of religious studies. (Instapundit’s dad, Dr. Charles Reynolds, was one of my professors). One of the classes was in medieval church history, and yup, we plunged into Anselm, and I was introduced to thinking about the one of whom no greater can be thought, although more of the focus was on his atonement theory. So Anselm and his tight logic always makes me sit up and take notice.
I like the way it begins. Anselm shares some good advice:
Come now, insignificant man, leave behind for a time your preoccupations; seclude yourself for a while from your disquieting thoughts. Turn aside now from heavy cares, and set aside your wearisome tasks. Make time for God, and rest a while in Him. Enter into the inner chamber of your mind; shut out everything except God and what is of aid to you in seeking Him; after closing the chamber door, seek Him out.
I’ll have more to say after it’s over. I’m superstitious that way.
of the message that is about to come: Catherine, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, write to you in his precious blood….
