Aztecs, Maya and Lucha Libre

 

Today, we took Monday’s lessons inside to a cooler place – the really superb National Museum of Anthropology.

 

 

The museum is located, along with many other sites, in the massive Chapultepec Park, Mexico City’s Central Park, but with more museums, a bigger zoo and…vendors. Dozens and dozens, lining the paths to both the zoo and the museum (and perhaps further – we didn’t venture beyond that area). This week is school holiday week in Mexico, so the park was thronged with families, and I’m guessing that the vendor scene is a feature of weekends and holidays – it was amazing. It was standard stuff, with not a lot of variety: candy stalls, taco stalls, toy stalls, spicy snack stalls, and face painting and temporary tattoos. The vendor yelling was impressive and constant.

So, not really like Central Park after all. One of the boys said as much: “This is sort of like Central Park, but different…”  Teachable Moment Mom asks why. They look at me. I say, “Because people in New York City don’t have kids. Mexicans still do….”

First, let me backtrack. The day began with an actual breakfast. I am not a breakfast person, but I know from experience that with travel, you never know when your next meal is going to be possible, so it’s best to fuel up if and when you can. I went out before the boys woke up, and walked around scoping out possibilities. Turns out there were two busy breakfast places right next to our apartment. I took photos of the menus outside, and returned to translate. I thought this would save time and possible disasters. It was very good, and per usual, very cheap. One kid had pancakes (came with scrambled eggs, sausages – more like hot dogs – refried beans and that tortilla salad I need to figure out), the other had mollette – which is basically toast (in this case half a sub-shaped roll) slathered with beans and cheese and a few other things – along with scrambled eggs, those hot-dog type sausages and that salad. I had an omelette with ham and cheese..with beans and that salad. What is it?! Included were drinks – the juice of the day which seemed to be mostly strawberry, coffee and tea, as well as a little dish of jello placed in front of us before we ordered. Price: 120 Pesos, or about $6.50.

I’m telling you…..I now understand why American retirees flock to this part of the world and why money transfer from Mexicans working in the US is so important. Those dollars go a long way.

Then we walked to the park (about two blocks from the apartment). Encountered the throngs of families out for the day, as well as the vendors starting to hawk their wares. Made our way to the museum  – admission , 70 pesos, about $3. It’s a stunning museum – world class, and, not surprisingly, the finest collection of MesoAmerican artifacts we’ve ever seen.

 

 

The first floor is organized around a plaza, chronologically covering the history of MesoAmerica, beginning with the earliest migrations  – we skipped that room and went straight to the pre-Classic/Teotihuacan room. The most impressive was, not surprisingly, the Aztec (or Mexica) room – I feel as if I finally have a good sense of the Aztecs.

A couple of notes on the museum:

First, the main placard in every room was in both Spanish and English, but the signage on individual pieces was in Spanish only. If I had known about that, I might have searched online for some sort of guide before coming.

Secondly, while some interests in the United States might shy away from addressing the issue of human sacrifice, or downplay or even outright deny it, the Mexicans themselves don’t. The descriptions didn’t hesitate to say, “This has a cavity for collecting blood of human sacrifices” and so on.

It was fairly overwhelming and even Maya Guy was experiencing Museum Fatigue, so we skipped the second floor which is dedicated, I think, to the traditional and living crafts of indigenous peoples.

A charming scene: A man with two children about eight and ten years old, had employed a guide – an older, fellow, huge, with a big beard and a voice to match. They were Spanish-speaking, but the dynamic was still clear and quite wonderful – the children were absolutely engaged, asking all sorts of questions about each artifact, which the guide patiently – and loudly – answered.

 

I had not intended to go to the zoo but it didn’t seem as if it were that far away on foot, we were done earlier at the museum than I’d expected, so why not?

Eh. We shouldn’t have wasted our time. The zoo is free, and it shows. It seems as if the animals are mostly in the deer family – antelopes of one sort or another – and given the fact that it was mid-afternoon, of course, most of the animals were sleeping. Including this tapir, which is not dead.

We spent about 45 minutes walking through – that was enough. We then headed up to Chapultepec Castle – you can read about it here. Short version: it was built in the 18^th century for the Spanish Viceroy, then used as a military academy. It was the site of an important battle during the Mexican-American War in which the very famous and deeply revered Niños Héroes gave their lives – one leaping from the roof wrapped in the Mexican flag in order to prevent the US forces from claiming it. (modern historians say that there’s probably a lot of mythology that’s grown up around this incident, if it ever actually occurred.)   The castle is the only one in the Western Hemisphere actually ever inhabited by a real monarch – Maximilian I for those few years before he was shot.

It wasn’t fascinating, but it was a good walk up, and a good thing to experience as a part of the history of Mexico and one more thread in the very complicated weave of Mexican identity.

 

 

(Photos is of a ceiling mural depicting the boy leaping from the roof. View is from the hill, looking down Reforma towards the center. Our apartment is just on the other side of the skyscraper with the colored staircases on the right.)

We then walked to a grocery story about half a mile away – the only one even near our apartment. It was a Superama, where the search was on for 1) Pomade – Hair Guy is fully aware of the Mexican male’s mastery of his hair and was confident that if he was going to find quality hair product anywhere, this was the place  and 2) That precious commodity which is contraband in the US:  Kinder Eggs. Both were acquired.

Fun feature, seen in this photo: “Dog parking.”

(Most interesting to me – why is it in English?)

Then we ubered back to the apartment – it would have been a mile walk, but we’d been walking all day, we needed to save time, and it was maybe two bucks.

Back for a bit of a rest, then about six, we went back out and got AMAZING tacos and the first truck we saw around the corner – bistek, pollo and el pastor. I don’t need to eat anything else while I’m here. You can just feed me those one dollar tacos loaded with quality meat, that stringy cheese and nopales and I’d be good.

Then grab an uber to….ARENA MEXICO!

Yup, we did Lucha Libre.

Nacho Libre has been playing on a loop in our house for months, with probably 50% of the conversation being made up of quotes (You are the be-est. It’s all political. I don’t believe in God – I believe in science.).

So of course when I saw that Lucha Libre happens, not only on the weekends, but on Tuesday night, I put it forward, and of course they wanted to go.

I only have twenty minutes before I need to get them up for the day (Our Lady of Guadalupe, here we come!) so I’m going to make this as fast as I can – first a rant and instructions on how to do Lucha Libre.

In prepping, I read so many blog posts and discussion board posts that said essentially: Lucha Libre is great fun but OOOOOOH be careful! It’s in a dangerous part of town, there’s scalpers and scam artists and you probably want to go with a tour, and not venture to accomplish on your own.

Balderdash. Stupid. Ridiculous.

Here’s what we did: We got an Uber, rode the mile to the Arena Mexico, got out, stood at the box office in a line that was to my eyes and ears, about 75% non-Mexican tourists, got our tickets (140 pesos apiece – about $7), walked around the block looking at the vendors, went to the gate where we were lightly searched (women by female security gaurds), then escorted to our seats. Watched the show, left two hours later – hopped in one of the many waiting taxis outside, and rode home.

Honestly, so much that’s out there about going to Lucha Libre makes it sound like you’re taking your life into your own hands and venturing to an underground cockfighting match. If you are arriving at this blog post wondering, in fear, “Can I do this without a guide or tour?” Of course you can. And you won’t be alone. It’s a very, very popular tourist thing to do – Joseph recognized a group that had been right ahead of us climbing the Pyramid of the Sun yesterday at Teotihuacan.

One more note about process: Sometimes when venturing into entertainment events in other countries, we might indeed get confused – what do I do? Where do I sit? No worries about that here. After you are searched, your ticket is scanned by one man. Then you take two steps, and another man tears your ticket in half. Then you take two more steps and another man – and usher – grabs your tickets and takes you to your seat (you tip him a minimum of 5 pesos a seat – it’s how they make their money). You are immediately approached by vendors who bring you whatever – there seems to be one guy who is assigned to take care of a certain section, and then there are other roving vendors constantly coming by – drinks, popcorn, tacos and then, in weird collection – one big tray containing nachos, fruit cups and…ramen cups.

(One more suggestion – because of the constant presence of food and drink vendors, try to avoid an aisle seat. They’re just doing their job, true, but in doing so, they’ve got to block your view.)

 

 

 

It’s…fake professional wrestling. That’s it. But with masks (mostly – there were a few who didn’t have masks). There were, I think…six rounds of wrestling. Five of them were tag team and one was just between two. The wrestlers: Mephisto, Inquisidor, Terrible and the like. It was insanely fake. I don’t get the appeal, but the appeal is, indeed strong, and wow were people getting into it. The group in front of us was a middle aged married couple who both looked as if they could be on university faculties, and I’m thinking a child and spouse – a thirty-ish woman and man – the man was full-on hipster with beard and man-bun and everything and he was ALL IN, intensely watching, yelling, booing and cheering, as were the screaming young women behind us.

I wouldn’t take time to go again, but I’m very glad we did (as were the boys – they had a good time and were amazed at the spectacle, the comedy – for it is funny – and the crowd.) The whole day was simply fantastic people watching and a great immersion into Mexico City life…

For some video from Lucha Libre, go to Instagram. We’ll be at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe for part of today, so follow me on Instagram Stories for that. 

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Blessed Miguel Pro – November 23

I don’t know why Blessed Miguel Pro isn’t more known, studied and celebrated among North American Catholics.  But I did my part in the Loyola Kids Book of Saints under, “Saints are people who create.”

Enter a caption

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

This week’s takes are mostly about listening and watching. Things will get interesting over the next few days, but probably mostly on Instagram – so head over there to keep up.

— 2 —

In Our Time has sadly gone into its summer break, but it ended on a very high note with an excellent program on bird migration. What I particularly enjoyed about it was Melvyn Bragg’s infectious awestruck attitude about the whole business, which mirrors mine – How do they know?  – and the fact that he just couldn’t get over it, which is the proper attitude in the face of mystery. Secondly, the scientists on the program were all refreshingly honest about the answers to Melvyn’s questions, which most of the time involved a lot of we’re not sure and maybe and…we just don’t know. 

So much of the media’s reporting on science is couched in almost religious and certainly ideological certainty – a certainty which many, if not most scientists themselves would reject. I always enjoy the scholars on In Our Time, who are willing to admit what they don’t know and engage in respectful disagreement about what they think they might have a handle on.

— 3 —

Also this week, I listened to In Our Time broadcasts on the poet John Clare, of whom I am ashamed to say I had never heard, and Hannah Arendt. 

The program on Clare was interesting because, well, it was all new to me, but also because of the material presented about Clare’s relationship with publishing. He was a farmer, and while we might think, “poor lower class poet rejected by the smart set,” in fact the truth was the opposite – ever since Burns, the search had been on for the next Big Country Poet, and it was thought for while that Clare might be the one. And then he ended up in insane asylums for two decades, sadly, probably because of manic depression.

The program on Hannah Arendt set her work in helpful context, with a great deal of discussion about how she was misunderstood by critics. In brief, the “banality of evil” is not an invitation to diminish evil, but an explanation of how evil can become just another job to do.

— 4 —

And then I discovered a new BBC podcast program!

It’s called Science Stories and while the format is different than In Our Time, the general attitude and approach are the same, emphasizing the importance of  context as we seek to understand past scientific endeavors, which is something I appreciate so much, and is so refreshing, surrounded as we are in our media sea of context-free accusations, assertions, presumptions and fabrications.

And guess what? Religion is quite often part of the context – and might even be a paradigmatic framework for the context – and that is okay. 

On a science program!

So, for example, a program on Robert Grosseteste, 13th century Bishop of Lincoln and teacher, famously, of Roger Bacon. Grosseteste was, as many learned men of the time were, a polymath, but this particular episode of Science Stories focused on what the presenter termed his proto-“Big Bang” theory rooted in his observations of light and informed by his Genesis-shaped faith. It’s only 28 minutes and well worth your time. A taste:

Scientist: The story I was told when I was growing up was before 1600, all was darkness and…theology and dogmatism…and then suddenly Newton, Galileo, Kepler, who-hoa – all is light and Enlightenment and we get back on track with science. And you know, that’s never rung true because science doesn’t work like that – we all make little steps and we all, as Newton said, stand on the shoulders of giants. I think in Grosseteste, we’ve come across one of the giants on which the early modern scientists stood…..

….Presenter: And the motivation, certainly, for people like Grosseteste was ultimately a religious one, a theological one.

Scientist: Yes, it’s very clear that he would have been mystified by the question, “Can you reconcile your science with your religion?”  – he would have looked at you very askance and said, “What do you mean? That’s why I’m doing this science!”

.

— 5 —

The episode on “The Anglo Saxon Remedy that kills MRSA”  was also fascinating, involving researchers who are exploring these 1100-year old books of remedies with the aim of not only figuring out the origins of these remedies but also their effectiveness.

As in the previous program, spirituality is given due credit and respect as are techniques and approaches we might want to initially wave off as nothing more than superstition – for example, chanting a rhyme or prayer in association with the application of the remedy. As the researchers pointed out, it was not mere superstition at work here – in a world without clocks, this would be a way of keeping time as you applied the compress or shook the mixture.

— 6 —

My older son has been working a lot at night, so we haven’t been doing a lot of movies – two we have watched over the past week have been The Seven Samurai and Twelve Angry Men.  We spread out The Seven Samurai over two nights, although I think we could have done it all in one, in retrospect. It’s quite absorbing and didn’t feel at all like an almost 4-hour movie (as opposed to the Heston Ben-Hur which felt every minute of it to me during last year’s rewatch after 40 years, probably –  #confessyourunpopularopinion)

They really liked The Seven Samurai, and so I see more Kurosawa in our future, whenever we can manage another evening, which won’t be for a while, it looks like, what with travel and work. Probably The Hidden Forest, which inspired Star Wars, would make the most sense, although I’m more interested in Stray Dog. We won’t do Rashomon. 

Twelve Angry Men is, of course, much shorter – having begun as a television drama – and quite an efficient and compelling way to introduce a good discussion of appearance, reality, truth and integrity. There’s one simplistic psychological-torment-motivation subplot that was annoying and overwrought, but then that is par for the late-50’s course.

Oh, and one night after work, the 16-year old pulled Doctor Strangelove off the shelf and took it in his room to watch it. Speaking of context, what I offered him afterwards was that early 60’s context of nuclear terror which led the young parents of a two-year old, living in Texas in the fall of 1962, to formulate a plan about what they’d do if the bombs dropped – a plan that involved an overdose of sleeping pills, as they calmly reminisced a few decades later. The grown daughter was startled, to say the least, but the fact that her quite traditional parents had felt driven to concoct such a plan showed how frightened people really were at the time. They weren’t building bomb shelters just for the fun of it.

Speaking of mid-century psychological-torment-subplots..

Kidding!

— 7 —

Okay! Let’s have a saint!

Today is the feast of Kateri Tekakwitha. She’s in The Loyola Kids Book of Saints – a couple of pages of which are available online. 

 

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

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Ave Verum Corpus

We are home today, back in Birmingham, the boys asleep this morning – the younger one able to sleep past 7 for the first time in a couple of weeks. Nothing much on tap this week, finally.

Yesterday at this time, we were in Charleston. We went to Mass at the Cathedral, where the music was beautiful – done, as Cathedral music should be (and as we experience here) as a model for the rest of the diocese, embodying the mind of the Church on matters liturgical.

There’s a short post up on Instagram with a bit I recorded. I don’t like how huge videos post on WordPress, and I can’t figure out how to resize them, so you’ll just have to go there.

What I particularly appreciated was the lack of accompaniment. Yes, there was organ for hymns, but the chanting was a capella, as this non-musician thinks it should be. I appreciate the organ, but especially with the propers and parts of the Mass, and especially when the congregation sings as well, there is something quite moving about the sound of nothing but human voices filling a church with chanted prayer. I like hearing the other human voices. When the organ’s going at anything less than a minimal level during chant, it’s all I hear – my own voice and the organ – and that’s not an experience of community. It’s almost more of a battle, in the end.

Anyway, go here for a snippet of Ave Verum Corpus. 

The homilist had good things to say, but….(you knew this was coming)…

..he didn’t preach from the ambo. He strode down to floor level, right in front of the first pews, and paced back and forth there. I get it. I suppose. The desire to be closer? To us? I guess? But guess what…

No one could see you.

We were pretty close to the front – five or six pews back. He wasn’t that far away from us. The sound system is good, so he could be heard very well, but all we could see was a glimpse of him once in a while as he paced over to our side.

Now, you’re saying..hey…you’re an advocate of ad orientem and less clerical personality on offer during liturgical prayer. What’s this annoyance at not being able to see the homilist’s head during his homily?

Well, here’s how it functioned: very weirdly, the homilist’s posture, which was intended to make him more accessible, but actually made him more invisible, worked to elevate his person because yes, we normally do look at a homilist while he is preaching – that is our normal stance, so we’re having to strain and move around and make an effort to do something that is usually, in the course of liturgy, something we don’t even think about – which then allows us to focus on what’s being said, instead of the peculiarities and particularities of the one saying it.

This is convoluted, and really, all I’m saying is – there’s a reason the ambo (or pulpit) is elevated. It’s not a bad reason, either. And changing that up takes attention away from content. It’s distracting.

And it’s just something to think about that may or may not be related, but is also a Life Lesson: When we do something with the mindset, I want to make sure people know that I’m ______________ or I want people to know that I feel _______________ about them or I don’t want people to think that I think _____________…the consequent choices we make often unwittingly end up  reflecting that overriding concern, blinding us to what others really need from us, and shining the spotlight even more brightly on ourselves….

 

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St. Anthony of Padua

Today is his feastday! Well, memorial, since we are all more cognizant of these rankings now…

Here is a link to some of his homilies. It’s pdf. 

Then, a General Audience from Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, from 2011:

It is only the prayerful soul that can progress in spiritual life: this is the privileged object of St Anthony’s preaching. He is thoroughly familiar with the shortcomings of human nature, with our tendency to lapse into sin, which is why he continuously urges us to fight the inclination to avidity, pride and impurity; instead of practising the virtues of poverty and generosity, of humility and obedience, of chastity and of purity. At the beginning of the 13th century, in the context of the rebirth of the city and the flourishing of trade, the number of people who were insensitive to the needs of the poor increased. This is why on various occasions Anthony invites the faithful to think of the true riches, those of the heart, which make people good and merciful and permit them to lay up treasure in Heaven. “O rich people”, he urged them, “befriend… the poor, welcome them into your homes: it will subsequently be they who receive you in the eternal tabernacles in which is the beauty of peace, the confidence of security and the opulent tranquillity of eternal satiety” (ibid., p. 29).

Is not this, dear friends, perhaps a very important teaching today too, when the financial crisis and serious economic inequalities impoverish many people and create conditions of poverty? In my Encyclical Caritas in Veritate I recall: “The economy needs ethics in order to function correctly not any ethics whatsoever, but an ethics which is people-centred” (n. 45).

Anthony, in the school of Francis, always put Christ at the centre of his life and thinking, of his action and of his preaching. This is another characteristic feature of Franciscan theology: Christocentrism. Franciscan theology willingly contemplates and invites others to contemplate the mysteries of the Lord’s humanity, the man Jesus, and in a special way the mystery of the Nativity: God who made himself a Child and gave himself into our hands, a mystery that gives rise to sentiments of love and gratitude for divine goodness.

Not only the Nativity, a central point of Christ’s love for humanity, but also the vision of the Crucified One inspired in Anthony thoughts of gratitude to God and esteem for the dignity of the human person, so that all believers and non-believers might find in the Crucified One and in his image a life-enriching meaning. St Anthony writes: “Christ who is your life is hanging before you, so that you may look at the Cross as in a mirror. There you will be able to know how mortal were your wounds, that no medicine other than the Blood of the Son of God could heal. If you look closely, you will be able to realize how great your human dignity and your value are…. Nowhere other than looking at himself in the mirror of the Cross can man better understand how much he is worth” (Sermones Dominicales et Festivi III, pp. 213-214).

In meditating on these words we are better able to understand the importance of the image of the Crucified One for our culture, for our humanity that is born from the Christian faith. Precisely by looking at the Crucified One we see, as St Anthony says, how great are the dignity and worth of the human being. At no other point can we understand how much the human person is worth, precisely because God makes us so important, considers us so important that, in his opinion, we are worthy of his suffering; thus all human dignity appears in the mirror of the Crucified One and our gazing upon him is ever a source of acknowledgement of human dignity.

Dear friends, may Anthony of Padua, so widely venerated by the faithful, intercede for the whole Church and especially for those who are dedicated to preaching; let us pray the Lord that he will help us learn a little of this art from St Anthony. May preachers, drawing inspiration from his example, be effective in their communication by taking pains to combine solid and sound doctrine with sincere and fervent devotion. In this Year for Priests, let us pray that priests and deacons will carry out with concern this ministry of the proclamation of the word of God, making it timely for the faithful, especially through liturgical homilies. May they effectively present the eternal beauty of Christ, just as Anthony recommended: “If you preach Jesus, he will melt hardened hearts; if you invoke him he will soften harsh temptations; if you think of him he will enlighten your mind; if you read of him he will satifsfy your intellect” (Sermones Dominicales et Festivi III, p. 59).

Secondly, for children, an excerpt from my Loyola Kids’ Book of Saints:

Then one day something happened that was almost as strange as the ship wandering off course. There was a large meeting of Franciscans and Dominicans, but oddly enough, the plans for who would give the sermon at the meeting fell through. There were plenty of fine preachers present, but none of them were prepared.

Those in charge of the meeting went down the line of friars. “Would you care to give the sermon, Brother? No? What about you, Father? No? Well, what about you, Fr. Anthony—is that your name?”

Slowly, Anthony rose, and just as slowly, he began to speak. The other friars sat up to listen. There was something very special about Anthony. He didn’t use complicated language, but his holiness and love for God shone through his words. He was one of the best preachers they had ever heard!

From that point on, Anthony’s quiet life in the hospital kitchen was over. For the rest of his life, he traveled around Italy and France, preaching sermons in churches and town squares to people who came from miles around.

His listeners heard Anthony speak about how important it is for us to live every day in God’s presence. As a result of his words, hundreds of people changed their lives and bad habits, bringing Jesus back into their hearts.

Next, some photos of the huge Basilica of St. Anthony in Padua from our trip in 2012.

(No photos were allowed inside)

Also, Padova was the site of one of the most awful moments of my life – that time I left my kids on the train….

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Rogationtide and Rigidity

Yes, this coming Thursday is and remains Ascension Thursday, American Latin Rite bishops notwithstanding.

(If you still want to get your Ascension Thursday on…try the Ordinariate or Eastern Catholic Churches – the latter’s cycle is tracking with the Latin Rite this year, so they will be celebrating Ascension on Thursday)

One of my favorite places on the internet is the blog (and Twitter feed) of Eleanor Parker, “A Clerk at Oxford.”  She’s an English medievalist who is constantly sharing fascinating nuggets related to her field. Here’s a post on Rogationtide – three days before Ascension Thursday:

In medieval England, Rogationtide – the three days preceding Ascension Day – was a period of fasting, prayer and processions around the countryside, invoking God’s blessing on the land and the crops of the future harvest.

She has a substantial citation from a 10th century Rogationtide homily, and explains:

The image of the sun comes from St Augustine (Ælfric says he will explain the Trinity swa swa se wisa Augustinus be ðære Halgan Þrynnysse trahtnode), but there’s an implicit relevance to the Rogationtide context: Ælfric talks about how the fruitfulness of the earth, the course of the year and the seasons illustrate the gap between divine knowledge and human perception, and of course that’s precisely the gap Rogationtide seeks to bridge by asking for God’s blessing on the earth. The nature of the sun is a good topic for a summer sermon, since if you are engaged in praying for a good harvest, the sun’s light and heat which make the crops grow are like God’s favour made visible. (Perhaps it was a sunny May day when Ælfric wrote this homily, and he imagined the congregation looking up at “the sun which shines above us”.) And if Rogation processions actively take God’s presence out into the world, consecrating the area beyond the church walls as sacred space, Ælfric’s emphasis on the omnipresence of God – permeating further even than the light of the sun – is a reminder to his congregation that by processing they are in a way participating in this spreading of God’s presence. Rogationtide processions follow the boundaries of the parish, reinforcing territorial markers, and encircling fields, woods, orchards, as blessed and sanctified space; but Ælfric tells us that God’s presence has no boundaries, for him ne wiðstent nan ðing, naðer ne stænen weall ne bryden wah; ‘nothing withstands him, neither stone walls nor broad barriers’.

It is quite a different approach from so much of what we see and hear today, isn’t it?

Old and Busted: Theological concepts and their Spirit-guided formation as Church doctrines are expressions of truth,  gateways to deeper understanding, and, as we look around us with an open mind, we recognize how the Stuff of Life, both external and internal, reflects this Truth.  Basically: Doctrine, in its limited way, reflects what is Real.

New Hotness:  Theological concepts and doctrines are the product of human effort that obscure truth and are obstacles to what is Real.  #Rigid

But guess what? When we listen to the stories of conversion, both classic and modern, the common thread we so often see is this:

A person has lived his or her life and, here and there, bumped up against the Gospel. He has been mildly interested, repelled, attracted – or a combination of all these and more.

But at some point, he realizes something: these teachings that may have seemed like curious or irritating words and phrases actually express a truth that he has experienced in his life. 

The doctrines and the reality of life match. 

The doctrines explain life. Finally, it all makes sense. 

Maybe not so old and busted.

There is still deep mystery – and as the homily Parker quotes indicates, this is not news. Humility demands that we understand the limits of human language and thinking in the light of the Divine.

This is not “rigidity.” It is an exciting, humble journey based on trust that when Jesus said he was the Way, the Truth and the Life…he meant it.

 

 

 

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

When it comes to instant video social media-type stuff, I toyed with Snapchat a bit last year. I started mostly because my daughter wanted me to join so she could share Snaps with me, and then we went to Italy for three weeks, and I thought it would be an efficient way of getting and sharing video.

But I didn’t really like it that much, and when Instagram unveiled a similar feature – Instagram Stories – I tried it out and found I liked it much better. The most important difference to me between the two was that Instagram makes it very, very easy to share on Instagram Stories after the moment – with Snapchat, you can load up saved images and videos, but it’s a hassle and it doesn’t have the same look as the in-the-moment Snaps.

And so what Snapchat wants you to do is engage with the app in the moment – and I don’t want to do that. I want to take a quick photo or snip of video, save it for later uploading, and then focus on the moment of what’s happening in front of me. I didn’t want to have to be stopping and saying, “Wait, let me upload this to Snapchat.”  I prefer to just take my photos, and later, when the event is over, upload.

All of that is by way of introduction to a few words about who I am actually still following on Snapchat (besides my daughter) – it’s down to two:

Everest No Filter

and David Lebovitz.

David Lebovitz is an American Paris-based food writer – he wrote the book on homemade ice cream and has other excellent books, and his website is invaluable.  He uses Snapchat very well, and I really enjoy it – I don’t get into social media very much at all, but I do look forward to David’s daily forays through Paris (although he’s been in the US for a few weeks now – that’s interesting too) and his work in the kitchen.  He uses the medium very, very well.

I started following Everest No Filter last year – it’s the Snapchat account of Adrian Ballinger and Cory Richards. Ballinger is a climber, and while Richards obviously climbs as well, he’s also known as a photographer.  They started Everest No Filter last year as an account for people to follow them as they attempted to scale Everest (duh) with no supplemental oxygen.  Last year, Richards made it, but Ballinger didn’t – although not by much.

It’s Everest climbing season again, and so they are back. I have no plans to climb Mount Everest, nor do I have any other extreme sporting goals, but I am just hooked on the Everest No Filter Snapchat – it’s fascinating to learn about the work and effort that goes into a climb like this, and the two are very honest about the challenges. It is always thought-provoking to me to learn about people going through a great deal of effort to accomplish a goal and to wonder, for myself…what is worth that? 

If you don’t have and don’t want to bother with Snapchat, you can see a lot of the #EverestNoFilter stuff at their YouTube channel – they also periodically do Facebook Live events, too. The Everest No Filter website, with links to all their social media, is here. 

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Not Mount Everest:

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That’s Ruffner Mountain, about fifteen minutes from our house. It was part of last weekend’s adventures.

Car show was just at the park on the other side of the hill from our house. We walked there. 

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This week’s aural adventures centered around The North – the North of England, that is.

I discovered that last fall, Melvyn Bragg (of In Our Time) had presented a series of programs on the North of England – they are just excellent.  

A few highlights:

The Glories of the North concerns the “Northumbrian Renaissance” – the flourishing of intellectual, artistic and spiritual life of the early medieval period, centered on three things: The Ruthwell Cross, the Lindesfarne Gospels, and the Venerable Bede. It was quite moving, really.

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Northern Inventions and the Birth of the Industrial Revolution is self-explanatory, of course, but expresses a train of thought that Bragg has often elucidated on In Our Time and something that I – the product of a long line of humanities-type people on both sides – have only recently come to appreciate, especially as the fruit of homeschooling – the creativity and genius of those engaged in science and industry and, quite honestly (and he deals with this) the snobbery of elites who downplay these achievements – England’s greatest contribution to world history, as Bragg would say it – completely undervalued by elites.

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The Radical North offers a quick look (all the programs are about half an hour) on the reforming movements that came out of the North. What I appreciated about this program is the due credit given to religion – in this case, Unitarianism, Quakerism and Methodism.  In particular, the role of Methodism in the development of trade unionism and sensitivity to workers’ rights, a role which one scholar on the program quite forthrightly said was vital and had been unfairly downplayed by Marxist-leaning historians since the 60’s (Beginning with E.P. Thompson, whose Making of the English Working Class was the first non-textbook college text I ever had. I had knocked off my history major freshman requirements in the summer, so I was able to take an upper-level history course the winter of my freshman year – it was a junior-level course on the Industrial Revolution, and oh, I felt so special, in there with the older students and no more schoolbooks, but instead the thick, important feeling Thompson in hand.

He even took us on a field trip to a textile mill that was, somehow, still operating somewhere in East Tennessee. )

So Thompson – you dissed the religionists, but the sight of that cover still gives me a frisson of excitement that even I was welcome in a world of intellectual engagement with Important Things.

It was worth doing.

So yes. Take a listen to The Matter of the North.  It’s worth your time. 

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Perhaps you saw it earlier in the week...and perhaps you didn’t. So here it is, the cover of my next book, coming out in August (they say):

Secondly, since May is Mary’s month, it’s a good time to read a free book about her, originally published by Word Among Us, now out of print and available in a pdf version here.

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

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