Striking at Cultural Roots

Before there was Dick Cheney, there was this guy.

With the current turmoil in Greece, I found the following Kissinger quote (1994) to be of interest.

"The Greek people are a difficult if not impossible people to tame, and for this reason we must strike deep into their cultural roots. Perhaps then we can force them to conform. I mean, of course, to strike at their language, their religion, their cultural and historical reserves, so that we can neutralize their ability to develop, to distinguish themselves, or to prevail; thereby removing them as an obstacle to our strategically vital plans in the Balkans, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East."

Spooky.

A h/t to Liturgical Energies for this quote.

Life Without Television

Our television set died last weekend. Oddly enough, its demise occurred unnoticed and unlamented, in the midst of a crowded house. One minute there was the overture from Doctor Zhivago on Turner Classic Movies and then next time we checked, just a horizontal white line, a faint buzzing and the odor of burned electronics. How such a death could go unnoticed requires some explanation, as there were 12 of us in the house at the time--myself and wife, our son, and an assortment of 9 in laws. Our den is in a separate room off a hallway, so that one would have to go to that room to watch television, and more importantly, the noise from same does not intrude into the rest of the house. After the meal, my wife and her family remained in the kitchen, engaging in one of their favorite past times--nostalgia. From their telling, the golden age of our little community apparently occurred during their youth, and they never tire of revisiting their schooldays. While I have a passion for history, at some point in my life I realized that I have absolutely no appetite for sentimental nostalgia. And as I now know these stories better than they do, my son and I quietly slipped off to the front of the house where there are books and armchairs. It was during this period--our eyes averted--that our television gasped its last.

Faced with a dead television on our hands, I suddenly realized, as I approach the shady side of middle age, that I have never actually purchased one. My parents bought me a set when I left for college, I think. It sat on one of those metal rolling stands. This set got me through college, bachelorhood and well into early marriage. At some point, my in laws decided we needed a better television and presented us with a new set for Christmas. My sister-in-law was incredulous that we did not have a VCR player, so one of those ended up under the tree, as well. Thus endowed, the wife and I sprung for an old-Englishy-looking console to house our new technology. As we lost the remote within the first year of ownership, we continued to change channels and volume the old-fashioned way--by pushing the buttons. I suppose these buttons were not meant to be pushed, for they all fell out after about 10 years or so. We discovered that you could stick a pencil in the hole where the button used to be and that this would work just fine. During the Christmas of 2000, my nephew brought Fiance' No. 1 down from Virginia, on a meet-the-family visit (Sadly, neither she nor her successors have been able to transition from fiance to Mrs.) I think he was a bit embarrassed by his eccentric uncle and aunt who changed the channels on their television with a No. 2 pencil. So, that Christmas Eve they went into the city and returned with new television set, the now lately-departed.

In theory, my wife is much more of a television person than I am. In actual practice, however, I am more culpable. She enjoys relaxing on the sofa in front of the television before bedtime. She also enjoys watching the Hallmark Channel, Lifetime Channel, or that perverse channel that seemingly shows Grey's Anatomy 24 damn hours a day. None of these channels were meant to be watched by men, so I usually return to the study and my books. My wife watches one of these channels before she falls asleep--which is 10 minutes at best. (She is the same way on airplanes, being sound asleep before we can even taxi to take-off position.) So all told, she logs slightly over an hour a week with the television.

My television time is mainly in the mornings. I enjoy watching Joe, Mika and Willie go at it on MSNBC's Morning Joe. I catch snippets of this show, while sitting in my wife's grandmother's rocker, all the while balancing a newspaper, coffee, oatmeal and toast. During the 2008 election, I watched far too much talking-heads on MSNBC, but since then my enthusiasm for this sort of thing as fallen off markedly, now confined basically to Joe and Mika. I follow the Glenn Close mini-series, Damages, on FX. I am also a sucker for Masterpiece Theater on Sunday nights, though their historical adaptations are increasingly rare. So, in a week's time, I probably spend more time in front of the televisional box than my wife does.

Our interests converge when it comes to classic movies. We spent the night of "Superbowl Sunday" watching one of my all-time favorites, The Pink Panther, on TCM. If we watch anything together at all it is usually along these lines--that sort of thing, and of course Diners, Drive-inns and Dives on the Cooking Channel.

I have been interested to see how our schedules have changed these last few days by the absence of the box. There's clearly more conversation and more reading by each of us. The first night we were both in bed early, she reading Pat Conroy and me reading Boris Akunin. Last night, I seemingly had endless time. After my prayers, I read an entire book. I could get used to this schedule.

I suppose I will eventually have to replace the television. There is a satellite dish on our roof and a monthly payment for same. In time, my wife will probably insist upon it. Me....I am holding-out for someone to buy us another one.

Good Reading

Some favorite readings, of late:


The powers and principalities are no longer represented by uncouth tyrants like Stalin and Adolph, Mao and cannibals like Pol Pot and Idiot Amin: they are sophisticated patrons of the modern arts, faceless combines and congeries, publically held and traded, destroyers, like Shiva, of nation states and family farms, sponsors, like the old Caesars, of celebrity prostitution. And besides, we Older Sons know that the jihad is the new Assyria – a historical moment that calls not for the Arms of Cheney so much as for repentance, justice for the poor and creation, salvation for the fetus and embryo, the old and alien.

This plucked from the midst of Fr. Jonathan's latest, here.




It is difficult to say whether birth doles out to us an equal need for friendship. It most certainly does not dole out an equal capacity for it. Coleridge had both, and the need sometimes crushed the capacity. Dr. Johnson had the capacity. Jonathan and David apparently did. Horatio, never passion’s slave, proved he had it when he said, “you will lose this wager, my Lord,” and for it a sweet Prince held him in his heart of hearts. All of these and all the great friends that song and story bequeath to us knew well what another in that noble lineage understood: “No mind was so good that it did not need another mind to counter and equal it, and to save it from conceit and blindness and bigotry and folly”—so Charles Williams, again from The Place of the Lion.

On Friendship, by Jason Peters, here.




In so many areas of life today, it is obvious that our problems derive from our incapacity for self-governance, in the formal discipline of self.

What we need today is not a generation that is “spiritual, not religious.” I would argue that what is needed is the studied capacity to be “religious, not spiritual.” Let’s make that the new buzz.

Patrick Deneen, here.

To listen to talk radio, to watch TV pundits, to read a newspaper's online message board, is to realize that we are a people estranged from critical thinking, divorced from logic, alienated from even objective truth. We admit no ideas that do not confirm us, hear no voices that do not echo us, sift out all information that does not validate what we wish to believe.

I submit that any people thus handicapped sow the seeds of their own decline; they respond to the world as they wish it were rather to the world as it is.

Leonard Pitts, here.

Georgian Monastery Tour

The Fifth Annual 2010 Georgian Monastery Tour is now taking applications (details, here.) I have never been a real "tour person," and I generally still hold to my reservations about them--but this undertaking is the shining exception. I highly recommend the monastery tour led by my friends Luarsab Togonidze and John Ananda Graham. Those who have had the great fortune to visit Georgia are invariably changed by the experience. In one sense, my own life can be divided into 2 parts--before I visited Georgia, and then everything afterwards. We are all suffering through some very tough economic times. But Georgia remains one of the best travel bargains around, and this tour is simply the best of the best, in my book. I'd better stop now--I'm starting to gush.

On Forgiveness Sunday and Great Lent

It may not be appropriate to express a preference for a favorite service of the church year. Even so, for me it must be Forgiveness Vespers, from which I have just returned home. And while I am in great need of all the services of the church, by the time this one comes around, believe me, I really need it.

I recommend Aaron Taylor's recent article on Great Lent published here in the Guardian, no less. Congratulations, Aaron.

I also recommend Fr. John Parker's homily, here, in Glory to God.

Also from Glory to God, Fr. Stephen on the Great Fast.

Forgive me, my brothers.

Ruth's House

This picture was drawn 100 year ago this month, by a 13-year old girl named Ruth. This depicted her home, which she drew and colored in her mother's autograph album. Ruth was my grandmother.

I never knew my grandmothers. One died in 1934 and the other in 1947. The two women could not have been more dissimilar. My paternal grandmother comes across as an almost sainted figure in the family saga: a light-hearted, joyous and compassionate Christian; musically accomplished, a woman who sang in the kitchen; who was first in the community with food for the sick. She and my granddad made a good team--her practicality and management being a needful brake on his pride and enthusiasm for risk. The Depression caught up with them, and they lost the farm and everything they owned, quickly followed by her sudden, tragic, far-too-early death. The children were soon out on their own, supporting their dad, infant brother and each other. Growing up in the egalitarian Hill Country of central Texas, it was only then that my dad realized that they were actually poor, for the quality of their lives had been anything but. Never did they see themselves as victims, or pitiable. This was my grandmother Lillie's legacy to her children.

But that is not the story I am telling. My other grandmother, Ruth, was another matter altogether. She grew up poor, and never saw herself as anything else. Her dad was the illegitimate youngest child of a 40-ish widow whose husband had died in the Civil War 4 earlier. With no known father, he was orphaned young and raised up among older half-siblings. The only thing my mother ever heard about him was that he was a "hard man," and that he had been "brought up hard." He married a local girl from down on the Lavaca River, whose circumstances were somewhat better by comparison. But it made no difference, the dye was set, so to speak. She bore him 12 children and buried 5, as they moved around the state, seeking greener pastures. By 1908, they inexplicably found themselves in East Texas, far from their previous homes and connections. Here they settled-in and sharecropped for a large landowner who owned a gin, store and some 900 acres of good cotton land.

I have an old picture from about 1912, with the whole family lined up on the front porch of this sharecropper's house. In fact, I remember the house--somewhat falling down--from my own youth. At that time, Ruth was about 15 or so, and there was already something a little disturbing and not quite right about the set of her jaw, as if she has already locked herself in against a world that she believed was set against her. The family had a deserved reputation for stubbornness and hard-headedness. But with my grandmother and her 2 sisters, it went somewhat farther. I knew my great-aunts. Between the 3, they ran the gamut from simply eccentric to wildly eccentric to crazy-mean eccentric. My dad never talked about his mother-in-law, but once let it slip that she was, in his words, a "hellcat." None of the stories passed down about her had any of that Norman Rockwallish grandmotherly sentimentality. One cousin remembered that she could be nice as you please one minute, and cuss you like a sailor the next.

Her father died in 1914, and within a few months, Ruth had run off with their landlord's grandson, she being 17 and he 16. She clashed with her mother-in-law from the beginning. the fact that her husband's grandfather was well-fixed was of no bearing, as there were about 30 grandchildren altogether. So, they set up house-keeping and sharecropped in the community, as she had done all her life. Perhaps things could have worked out--there are faded pictures of my mother in a white Sunday dress, wearing black buckle shores and holding a doll. But even these family pictures reveal part of the story. There were never any of those hard-backed family portrait-type pictures that nearly every family of that era--no matter how poor--insisted on having. A cheap Kodak was my grandmother's one extravagance. If there were to be any pictures taken, she took them with this.

Children came quickly--six while they were still in their twenties. And things never came together. Both of these grandparents were hard workers, but poor managers. They were simply never able to get ahead. And with the Depression, they were barely able to feed and clothe their children. I think the only way they survived at all was due to my great-grandfather's death and my great-grandmother's quick remarriage, which allowed my grandparents to move into his parents' house on the old home place.

But this in itself, does not explain what happened to the family. Lots of people were poor. My grandfather was a good, but weak man. Ruth was of a domineering nature and mercurial temperament. And as she got older, her eccentricities became more pronounced. After the arrival of the youngest 2 children, it was almost as if the oldest 4 were largely forgotten. The older children, particularly my mother and her older sister, suffered considerable abuse, while the youngest two were petted. I have long attributed it to mental instability on my grandmother's part. My mother rarely mentioned her, and would certainly oppose thinking of her in that way--but really, that is the most charitable face one can put on it.

Basically, all three of the daughters ran away from home--my mother being the only one with any respectability attached to it. My dad had come for her and was waiting in the yard. Ruth followed her out to the car, scolding her that "if she left with that man, not to ever come back." Of course she left with him. He was her ticket out.

Ruth never warmed up to my dad. About 15 years ago, I heard an anecdote which offered insight into both their characters. I had carried my mother to the funeral of a cousin. We were in the cemetery, and my mother--already very weak--was resting by leaning against her great-aunt's tombstone. While she was regaining her strength before walking back to our car, another cousin told me the story about Ruth. It was in 1937, and she was over at his parents' house, cussing-out my dad up one side and down the other. My dad and mom had moved back to East Texas, and my dad was jobless, with no prospects. Ruth had made him a cotton sack, so he could pick cotton. When she gave it to him, he looked at her and said, "No. I don't know what I am going to do, but I do know I am not going to do that." My dad realized that whatever the future held for him, it did not involve picking cotton. Convinced that my dad thought himself too good for picking cotton, my grandmother was still fuming when she visited my cousin's house. She noted with biting sarcasm, "I don't know what John is going to do. We already have a Governor and a President." My dad made his way quickly in the world, and in a few years time had built Ruth and my grandfather a new house. And during her long, lingering illness, they moved in and cared for her. Despite this, she never came around to liking my dad. And while my mother was caring for her night and day, Ruth talked on to visitors about her youngest daughter, the "pretty one."

But that is all water under the bridge, as she died so long ago. Except that it isn't. Ruth's way lives on, in varying degrees, in her progeny. The exception was my mom's next youngest brother--a thoughtful, studious and gentle man who died at age 31. On a superficial level, my mother's life was, I suppose, relatively "normal." And yet, she could be subject to the same extremities of temperament, the same paranoia, the same violent and suspicious nature that plagued her mother. The less said about the rest of the bunch, the better. My dad and mom supported all these siblings, in one way or the other, for the rest of their lives--and not a few of the next generation, as well. That was not resented on our part, but nothing good really came from it. It is a sad train wreck of a family, generation after generation.

From my earliest memories, I recall my parents having to deal with this alcoholic aunt or uncle, or to get a cousin out of another jam. It was always something. And as I came to better understand the family dynamics, I know I tended to blame it all on Ruth. And I realize I have been harsh in my estimation of her. Life can be hard, and hers was harder than most. But it is this picture that gnaws at me. There was a time in her life when Ruth had a vision of a happy home--a home with blue curtains in the window, and yellow and red flowers in the yard. What happened? The better question is--What happens to us all?

Fun with Junk Mail

Ace Orthobloggers Aaron and Owen on their way to the Climacus Conference put me in mind of this conference just across the river (well, actually it didn't, but it makes for a nice segue.) Even though I have been full-bore Orthodox for some 5 years now, I remain on a number of mailing lists from the old days in the Church of Christ. Some of the mail--such as the promotion for the "9th-Annual Stone-Campbell Journal Conference"--is interesting to glance over, just to see what is going on in that world.




To explain what "Stone-Campbell" means, exactly, would risk losing the audience long before the punch line. Suffice to say that this is a conference for academic types, primarily from the independent Christian Churches, with a smattering of unity-minded Church of Christ academes, and the rare historically-minded Disciples of Christ scholar--all heirs to the 19th-century Restoration Movement led by Messrs. Stone and Campbell.



Other than the Disciples, these are conservative folks, and their churches have not exactly been at the forefront of religious trends in this country. And I mean that as a compliment. But a quick glance at the seminar topics reveal that they are doing their best to catch up. Most mainstream American Protestants were at this point a generation ago, so it is really a bit pitiful to see these latter-day Restorationists struggling to be so relevant, so inclusive and, of course, missional.



The seminar topics reveal much more than they realize about these churches' prospects. A sampling, below, with a few comments:

God, our Mother: Rediscovering the Maternal Divine in Prayer

[This one would be laugh-out loud funny, if it weren't so sad.]


Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman: A Case Study in Inclusiveness

Approaching New Religious Movements in a Missiological Spirit

The Latter-Day Saints Doctrine of General Salvation & the Restoration Movement Doctrine of Original Grace: Theological Conflicts and Connections

[Commonality with the Mormons?]

Rethinking Jesus' Death: Mark's Narrative in Mediterranean Context



Elaboration-Likelihood Model Applied to Preaching

[huh?]


Receiving the Message: The Reading Culture among Early Christians

[Seldom do you see the ramifications of sola scriptura laid-out quite so literally.]


A Theological Essay on New Testament Eschatology and the Contours of Christian Discipleship



Soulless Spirituality? Non-reductive Physicalism and its Substance-dualist Discontents

[I repeat, huh?]


From Table to Altar: Why the Early Church Moved from Supper to "Snack"

[This offensive title from THE contemporary Church of Christ scholar.]


Is Missional a Restoration/Stone-Campbell Paradigm?

[The better question would be, who would care?]



Toward a Stone-Campbell Theology of Religion: Interacting with the Proximate Other



The Historical Markedness of the Resurrection of Jesus: Its Value of an Evangelical Theology of Religions



Actually, there are two seminars that might be interesting:



Mad Honey Poisoning in Revelation 10



and

Divine Energies and Theosis



[What possibly could a Restorationist have to say about that!]



A hundred years from--if there is a hundred years from now--these churches will make for an interesting historical footnote.

On Wasting Time

I have always been interested in the concept of time--not concerned about it, mind you, just intrigued by the very idea. And I am the first to admit, that the subject is far too deep and too close to God, for any one of us--myself in particular--to really wrap our brains around.

I have never known how to respond to people of a certain age who speak of the fleetingness of time, of "time slipping away," or wistfully wondering "where the time has gone," as if it were a commodity of which they suddenly find themselves in short supply. I have never felt that way in the least. If anything, time moves slowly for me. The days of my youth, adolescence and early adulthood already seem several lifetimes ago to me. The length of each day is about right, as is the night. Perhaps the only time I consider the swiftness of time is every Sunday night when I administer my pug's weekly eye-drop treatment. Each time, it seems as though I had just done so.

From this vantage point, my adaptation to an Orthodox understanding of time has been one of the easier transitions. I am supremely unqualified to pontificate on the timelessness of the Church, whether it be from a simple historical consideration--the visible and tangible connectedness of the Church in time--or the rhythm of time as lived out in the Church's cycle of feasts and fasts, or the eternal "now" of the Faith, or the Eighth Day, or the timelessness of our worship amidst the "vast cloud of witnesses." I just know my being at ease with time somehow fits in the Orthodox scheme of things, and I will leave it to others to explain.

But someone who does know how to speak on the subject is Jonathan David Price in Front Porch Republic , where he has interesting things to say about the proper and needful waste of time, found here.

...we have more time now than ever before. One would think that since modern men...have more time, they would think less of it. In fact, quite the opposite is true. The same applies to health and money. We are healthier and wealthier than ever, and these facts have neither calmed our fears nor added peace to our souls. Actually, we seem more anxious than ever about how we spend our time.

This newly-won time, occurring on weekends, evenings, and during paid vacations, is called “free time,” and it is a byproduct of industrialization....The majority waste their free time without a second thought....But there is another group...that busies itself with doing and getting and self-betterment. This cadre of overachievers...is terrible at wasting time. And even worse at wasting it well. The problem is that they consider leisure to be a waste of time as well.

Since the value of work is set so high, it is unlikely that this group of go-getters would soon perceive leisure as a good use of time....If leisure is the basis of culture, as Joseph Pieper argues, and if we have before us a group of time-conscious (future) leaders that considers leisure a waste of time, then to save the culture of our civilization we should first teach them to waste time. And then how to waste it profoundly.

Knowing what should be changed takes reflection, as does knowing what could be changed, and how. Acting without knowledge can do great harm. Thus, sometimes it may even be better not to act. There is no virtue in action per se....Now imagine the legion of petty peccadilloes and mistakes that each of us makes, and with the best intentions, since we cannot do good without also risking harm. We should thus be more cautious about trying to do good, more thoughtful.

That’s the rub. In our age, there is a covert moral position on the side of action. The belief that I am responsible not to waste time is tied up with the belief that my work can always be beneficial to myself or those around me or those who are affected, so long as my intentions are good and I try hard enough....The limits of human actions are not recognized. Human nature is skewed. Personal inadequacy is ignored. The call to know the world, to know the self, to have as much knowledge and wisdom as possible before acting—the classical fruits of leisure—fall on ears made deaf by self-help podcasts and on minds rendered inaccessible to formation by self-esteem.

Time is not as valuable as it seems, and it is less scarce than ever....And there is no telling what kind of trouble one may cause with good intentions and plentiful time. We do not own time. Thinking time is ours is hubris on the order of Prometheus—he stole fire from the Gods, and we took time. Since possession is nine tenths of the law, we now think that it is ours.

Civilization can be defined as that which a people cannot live without, as what have become necessities of life. Our culture is changing so that it values only material things or what helps you get material things. As the intellectual and spiritual are removed from the realm of what is necessary, we are losing our civilization by atrophy.

Philosophy, theology, poetry, ethics, the natural sciences, foreign languages, music, worship, novels, the civilizations of Greece and Rome, art, mathematics, cosmology, political theory, if all these are considered wastes of time for non-professionals, then by Jove I urge you to waste time. Waste it with panache. Waste years if necessary. These are bound up with what makes and sustains culture, and are part and parcel of active leisure. I know that already some of you are wasting time well. But in our age of transparency, I would encourage you to come out of the closet—or out from behind the bookshelf, as it were—as a time-waster. Join up with others and waste it like there is no tomorrow. Because if you don’t waste it well, there may not be a tomorrow, at least not one you would recognize.

A well-stated call to inaction, indeed. I am going to get started right now.






















Poussin, A Dance to the Music of Time

Eadgyth of Wessex

This is the sort of thing I enjoy reading. Archeologists have discovered what they believe to be the remains of Anglo-Saxon princess Eadgyth (pronounced Edith.) Married to the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I, she died in her thirties, in 946 AD. Her remains were discovered in a lead box in a tomb in Madgeburg Cathedral. If verified, hers will be the oldest identifiable remains of any British royal. She was particularly devoted to St. Oswald, and introduced the veneration of that saint to Germany. Wanting to know a little more about her than just the Wikipedia entry, I pulled down my copy of Sir Charles Oman's A History of England Before the Norman Conquest, and for even more detail, The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume III. Eadgyth was the granddaughter of Alfred the Great himself (which reminds me that I need to retrieve my copy of Chesterton's The Ballad of the White Horse from my son.) Her siblings were Aethelstan, Aelfweard, Edwin, Edmund, Eadred and Eadgifu. Eadgyth was the great-aunt of Edward the Martyr, and the great-great aunt of Edward the Confessor. Otto's stock continued to rise, even after her death. He learned to read, and his new-found interest in literary and liturgical affairs sparked the Ottonian revival of book-illumination in Germany. Years later, Otto married his son by his second wife to the Byzantine princess, Theophano, niece of Emperor John Tzimices. It was she who introduced the German court to forks, daily baths and other practices of a Byzantine nature. Fascinating stuff.

Aunt Mary

Today is my Aunt Mary's birthday, her 85th I believe. A couple of weekends back, I drove up to Fort Worth and took her to lunch. She is still much the same as always--older, to be sure, with details of past relationships and events starting to get jumbled in her mind. But she remains a great (though largely deaf) conversationalist, pleasantly outspoken, and still just a bit larger than life.

She and my uncle had what might be called a classic love story. My Uncle Bill was much on his own from the time he was 15. My grandmother's death and the bust-up of their home threw him into the world earlier than most. He stayed with first one relative, then another, and at one point, even hobo-ed a freight train out to California. He joined the Merchant Marines, which turned out to be his salvation. By the time the war began, he was a thorough-going Navy man. And this became his career and his ticket out of Depression-era Texas. The year 1946 found him stationed temporarily in the Northeast. He and a buddy were on a train, somewhere in the Boston-New York corridor, when he first caught sight of Mary--a towering, leggy, buxom brunette--making her way down the aisle. The rest, as they say, is history.

Their backgrounds could hardly be more dissimilar. He came out of the hardscrabble Texas Hill Country. Mary Agnes Lewandowski grew up over her father's bakery in a Polish Catholic neighborhood of Buffalo, New York. Due to my uncle being at sea so much of the time, they were not able to marry until September 1947. Bill and Mary lived all over--stationed in New Orleans, Virginia Beach, Key West, Honolulu, Guam, Corpus Christi, among other locales, before retiring to Texas. She recently told me that she enjoying living in every single location. I asked Mary why this was so. She simply said that she made her mind up to, which, if you think about it, is not a bad approach to life. I have come to realize that my dashing uncle was her ticket out as well.

Visiting with her reminded me of one of my favorite anecdotes. Soon after their honeymoon, Bill brought Mary home to Texas to meet some of the family. There is the classic staged photo of her standing in a cotton field, with a cotton sack over her shoulder, holding a cotton boll and grinning, as if to say "what the hell do I do with this?"

But the story I am telling involved her introduction to Bill's grandmother. Nannie stood no higher than 4' 10" and never weighed over 90 lbs, with her most defining characteristic being her large piercing eyes. A young widow, she never remarried and raised 3 daughters alone. The inside family joke was that the daughters petted on their mother and clucked around her as if she was some delicate hothouse flower that would wither upon touch. She did nothing to discourage this attention, while the truth of the matter was that she was as tough as leather.

At that time, Nannie lived with the youngest daughter, my great-aunt Frank. All the way out to their farm, Bill coached Mary on what not to do, the main thing being not to light up a cigarette in front of Nannie, who was shocked by such behavior in women. My great-grandmother was herself a steady user of snuff, but of course, that was not at all sinful.

Uncle Bill forgot one thing. He had been away for 10 to 12 years, and had seen a good bit of the world in the intervening years, giving him a broad view of things, you might say. He had forgotten just how narrowly things could be viewed back home, particularly religious matters. Nannie was staunchly Church of Christ, of the old-fashioned variety. Southerners will know exactly what that implies. A restorationist movement that in its youth proclaimed Not the only Christians, but Christians only, had by Nannie's time come to believe that they were the only Christians. And few were more convinced of this than she. I remember my dad mimicing her inflection in saying THE Church, when speaking of the Church of Christ. Maybe she thought her Baptist son-in-law might somehow slip past Heaven's gate, but I know she entertained no such notions when it came to her lapsed Presbyterian son-in-law (my granddad). And as for Catholics, well, for someone of Nannie's worldview, they were simply beyond the pale.

Having forgotten all this, my uncle proudly ushered in his new Yankee bride into Aunt Frank's old rock house on the hill. The young couple brought along their wedding album to show, unintentionally ensuring that the visit would not end well. After pleasantries were exchanged, Nannie sat down in her rocker to view the wedding pictures. As she leafed through the album, her eyes grew even larger than normal. Finally, she turned to my uncle and inquired, "Billy, what church is this that y'all got married in?" My uncle, still unaware of his peril, readily piped up, "St. Bartholomew's Catholic Church." Nannie didn't say a word, but slammed the album shut and never looked at another picture. Upon witnessing this, Aunt Mary thought to herself, "Oh, what the hell," as she rustled through her purse for a cigarette and light.

She and Bill had one month shy of 50 years together. And while they had their normal amount of bickering, I always knew he was crazy about her. Only in recent years have I realized how crazy she was for him. Mary always said the most outrageous things, and got away with it. She still does. Here's to you, Aunt Mary.

Crazy Time in Texas (or: Everything You Need to Know about our 2010 Gubernatorial Election)

It is Crazy Time in Texas (again.) Of course, I am referring to primary season in general, and our gubernatorial election in particular. Under the Texas Constitution, we have one of the weakest, least powerful and most ceremonial of governorships in the nation (a fact that should have received more play back in the late summer and early fall of 2000.) But you would never know it from the intensity in which the office is being pursued.

Incumbent Governor Rick Perry and incumbent senior Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison are locked in a fierce battle to the bottom, each claiming to be more reactionary-than-thou. How low can they go? Apparently, pretty low, as seen here. The good news is that this happens only once every four years. The bad news is that one of these candidates will be elected governor.

Despite Hutchison's high approval ratings, it is Governor Rick's race to lose. From an historical perspective, it is more embarrassing than anything, that perhaps the most inconsequential governor in Texas history is poised to become the longest-serving occupant of that office. The kicker in the equation, however, is a third Republican candidate, Debra Medina. She has no chance of actually winning the primary. But, as the current darling on the Tea-bagger circuit, she could seriously cut into Perry's secessionist/black helicopter constituency. Conceivably, this could swing the primary Hutchison's way, or force a run-off.


While the GOP primary is where the real action is, the Democrats are feeling their oats this year as well. My candidate, Kinky Friedman, opted out of the race a few weeks back, choosing instead to run for Agriculture Commissioner. His quixotic 2006 campaign gave birth to the two best campaign slogans ever: Kinky Friedman: Why the Hell, Not? and How Hard Can it Be? The wife, son and I visited with him at a book-signing in early December, while he was still mulling-over which race to enter (picture of son and Friedman at left.) His bumper stickers already reflected that indecision--they simply read Kinky. [It is an article of faith with me not to plaster bumper-stickers on my vehicle. I may have to make an exception with this one.]

Of course the big-name in the Democratic primary is former Houston mayor Bill White. He has a solid record of achievement in office--a thoughtful, articulate, well-spoken, squeaky-clean policy wonk, who has never resorted to demagoguery. This means, of course, that he has no chance of ever being Governor of Texas.



The big money in the Democratic primary, however, is with this guy, gazillionaire Farouk Shami, a native of Palestine. He arrived in the U.S. in 1965, and in short order made a fortune in women's hair-care products. As would be expected here in Texas, there are "concerns" about his religious affiliation. A campaign aide told the Austin American-Statesman that he was a Quaker, though his family insists Shami is a Muslim, "though not especially devout."

I understand their confusion. I get Quakers and Muslims confused all the time.

Shami maintains that "he felt a religious tug to run for office, though it's hard to put a label on his faith," and that he was "not a member of any specific religious tradition." He prays and meditates every morning and has a "strong personal relationship with God." A spokeswoman explains that while "he doesn't regularly attend services," that he is a "spiritual person." The article can be found, here.

Shami may be the sleeper in the race, for this immigrant seems to be the most quintessentially 21st-century American of any of the candidates. Think about it.

He has a name like Farouk Shami, but claims "no specific religious tradition."

He prays and meditates every morning, but is not "especially devout."

He has a "strong personal relationship with God," but "doesn't regularly attend services."

Shami is a "spiritual person," but it is "hard to put a label on his faith."

And God talks to him, just like He does to Sarah Palin, though in an Islamo-Quakerish sort of way.


The fact that this year's race is not particularly out-of-the-ordinary for Texas may give some insight into my occasional need to get away.

Haiti

Lord have mercy. Horrific is the only word to describe conditions in Haiti after their massive earthquake.

Fr. Jonathan Tobias has good thoughts in "What Orthodox Christians do about the Earthquake in Port au Prince," here. His advice? Pray for mercy, repeatedly, profligately. Give. Repeatedly. Profligately. Do not try to figure out how your gifts will make a difference. Now is not a good time to be an accountant.

One easy way to contribute is texting 90999 on your phone, then typing in the word, Haiti. This will automatically donate $10 to the Red Cross effort there.

The International Orthodox Christian Charities site is here.

Mercy Ships, an organization based in my area, has a long track record of providing real emergency assistance and humanitarian aid. Their site, here.

The Cretan Runner

I have just finished two excellent books by Greek authors: The Boundless Garden, by Alexandros Papadiamandis and The Cretan Runner, by George Psychoundakis, at left. The Boundless Garden came highly recommended, and it did not disappoint. I definitely will be commenting about it in the months to come. But The Cretan Runner came as a surprise. I bought it only because of Patrick Leigh Fermor's Introduction (and I would discourage buying the new edition if it does not contain that section.) Generally, I am not terribly interested in wartime memoirs.

This, however, is an amazing book. And George Psychoundakis was a remarkable man. In 1941, he was a 21-year old Cretan shepherd, whose village of Asi Gonia was remote even by the standards of Crete in that day. Theirs was among the poorest of the families, living in an earthen-floored one-room hut, all looking to George for their very survival. As the Nazis over-ran Crete, Psychoundakis joined the partisans who retreated into the mountains. Here they joined forces with a scattering of British soldiers and spys stranded on the island to form one of the most remarkable resistance movements of the war. And it was in this context that Psychoundakis became the lifelong friend of Patrick Leigh Fermor.

By our standards, we would have called him uneducated. He had, at best 2-3 years of occasional schooling. And yet, this young shepherd could recite--completely from memory--an epic poem of his creation that took 2 hours in the telling. And this is not a book about Psychoundakis, but one written by him. He was unjustly and falsely imprisoned by the Greek government after the war. Before this mistake could be rectified, he spent a number of months in prison. During his imprisonment, he wrote this account in 5 notebooks. A few years after the war, Fermor returned to Crete and found Psychoundakis, who entrusted him with the manuscripts. Fermor immediately realized the extraordinary work he held in his hands, and worked tirelessly for its publication. With few and minimal revisions, the book was published in 1955, largely as Psychoundakis penned it in prison. In later years, he translated the Illiad and the Odyssey into the Cretan dialect.

Fermor describes his first meeting with Psychoundakis:

He wore a black Cretan shirt, his clothing was in tatters and his patched boots-the semi-detached sole of one of which was secured to its upper with a thick strand of wire--were coming to bits on his feet. When he took off his fringed headkerchief to untwist one of his messages, his forehead was shade by a raven-black shock. A small, carefully tended moustache ran along his upper lip. He was small in stature and as fine-boned as an Indian, looking little older than sixteen, though he was actually twenty-one. He was lithe and agile and full of nervous energy. His eyes were large and ark, and his face, in repose, thoughtful and stamped by a rather melancholy expression which vanished at once in frequent fits of helpless and infectious laughter that almost anything seemed to provoke.

When my answers were written and safely stowed by George in their various caches, we lay about talking under the bushes till it grew dark, drinking from a small calabash of raki which Elpida had brought with her from the house, and cracking almonds with a stone. It was plain that George was enraptured with the excitement of our secret life, in spite of the appalling trudges that kept him for ever on the move in those merciless mountains. When the moon rose he got up and threw a last swig of raki down his throat with the words 'Another drop of petrol for the engine'', and loped towards the gap in the bushes with the furtiveness of a stage Mohican or Groucho Marx. He turned round when he was on all fours at the exit, rolled his eyes, raised a forefinger portentously, whispered 'The Intelligence Service!' and scuttle d through like a rabbit. A few minutes later we could see his small figure a mile away moving across the next moonlit fold of the foothills of the White Mountains, bound for another fifty-mile journey.

Psychoundakis's tale is told so earnestly, guilelessly and simply that one sometimes looses sight of the real horror of their situation. The Germans were led to believe that the Cretans would welcome them, and when the exact opposite turned out to be the case, the Nazis turned on them with savage fury, killing entire villages in retribution for partisan activity. But the natives were on their home turf, and effective German control never extended far outside the major towns. Psychoundakis recounts many tales of eluding German patrols, hiding out in caves and monasteries that they knew so well. On one trek, they disguised an Englishman as an old peasant woman, permitting them to walk alongside the Nazi soldiers looking for the very same man. Another escapade resulted in the capture of a German general.

Early in the account, he describes the torching of a German airplane by 3 village teenagers. In time, their names became known and the Nazis threatened to wipe-out their village unless they turned themselves in. The older two eventually did and were sentenced to death, and the youngest (age 16) was captured and put in prison. Psychoundakis describes their execution:

So, after a few days, in a street in Archontiki and under the eyes of all the inhabitants, these two martyrs to freedom and death-deriders stood before the firing squad--naked, hungry, barefoot and in chains. Their last moment was approaching. Their bonds were removed and their executioners, with rifles levelled at their bare breasts, were waiting for the word 'Fire!' The leader of the German party read out the sentence and asked if they had any last words to say. Daskalakis asked for a glass of water which they gave him, and the question was repeated to Vernadakis, who said: 'A glass of wine and permission to sing a matinada.' [this being a Cretan 15-syllable rhyming couplet, usually with a sting in it.] Saying which, naked, barefoot and utterly exhausted as he was from thirst and hunger (for, during their confinement in Ayia jail they had been given neither food nor water, he mustered all the strength of his soul--and what greater strength is there?--and took to his heels. Straight away the firing squad began shooting after him as he ran. But neither the rifle bullets not the bursts from the sub-machine-guns could touch him. He ran like lightening from lane to lane until he was out of the village. Then, as it was difficult to run further without being see, he climbed up into an olive tree and stayed there until night fell. When it was quite dark, he climbed gently down and, slipping through the sentries, fled far away. Later he escaped to the Middle East when he volunteered for the Air Force.

While they were chasing Vernadakis through the village, Daskalakis remained motionless in his place although he too had a chance of taking to his heels and escaping. 'Run for it!' several onlookers shouted, but he refused, saying the Germans would avenge themselves on his kinsmen. It would be better for him to die, he said. In a few moments the Germans were back again, and they opened fire on Daskalakis with fury. He fell at once,l quite transformed and unrecognisable from the bursts of the German machine-guns.

Finally, the character of Psychoundakis himself comes through in this account:

Alas, when I got back to my village, a great disaster awaited me. During the night, unknown people had come and stolen all the sheep my father possessed, about sixty of them. I ran from one village to another trying to find them, but all in vain. The sheep had vanished forever. I was miserable, for sixty sheep meant salvation to a family, especially in those years. What was I to do now? Should I, too, take to stealing, as the custom is in those villages? No. It didn't even pass through my head. Kill the people who had stolen them? Nor that, either. Take them to court? That too was impossible....So I left God to punish them, which He did after His fashion and in His own time. I resumed my peaceful way of life as before.

This, my friends, is what they call a good read.

Buzkashi

Many now question our purpose in Afghanistan. Perhaps we are fighting, in part, to protect this sort of thing.

The Afghan national sport is called "Buzkashi." The humorless Taliban banned it during their reign, but it has come back with a vengeance following the U.S. invasion, and is now more popular than ever. Friday is buzkashi day in Afghanistan.

The term literally means "goat grabbing." And that is exactly what it is. The game resembles polo, though played with a decapitated goat carcass.The goal is to snatch the goat carcass from whoever has it, race around a flag at the far end of the field, and then race back and drop the carcass in a chalk circle. And most anything goes between each end of the field. The ensuing melee has been charitably described as "lightly-regulated."

American anthropologist G. Whitney Azoy finds buzkashi a suitable metaphor for Afghan life: brutal, chaotic, a continual fight for control (in this case, of a dead goat)...[where] leaders are men who can seize control by means foul and fair and then fight off their rivals. The buzkashi rider does the same.

Haji Abdul Rashid, head of the government-sponsored Buzkashi Federation simply notes that the game reminds Afghans of their warrior culture...and the goat symbolizes their vanquished foe. He states bluntly, Buzkashi is Afghanistan.

Rashid is thinking big. He wants to see buzkashi organized in leagues, with televised matches supported by corporate sponsorship. And yes, he is dreaming of the day when buzkashi is an Olympic event.

I pay no more mind to the Olympic Games than I do any sporting event. But, in the highly improbable event that Rashid's feverish fantasy were to somehow become reality...well, I would probably watch.

Woo-hoo!

If I have added correctly, then this is my 500th post on this blog. I suppose it is a little self-conscious calling attention to the fact…but then, worrying about that is like locking the barn door after the horses have escaped. Exactly what aspect of maintaining a blog is not self-conscious?

I suppose I should write something especially profound for my 500th post. But as is often the case, the well of profundity is running a bit dry these days. The other impulse is just to post something...anything...to get past this meaningless milestone and get on to business as usual. My inclination is to go with this second option.

That said, I think it appropriate to comment briefly about blogging. I have always been one to keep journals, to make notes of interesting passages I read, to cut-out and save magazine and newspaper articles, etc. This behavior has not stopped just because I now maintain a blog, but continues apace (and these files and papers will one day no doubt fuel a nice bonfire prior to the estate sale.) For me, blogging is simply another avenue to indulge my borderline compulsive habit.

Blogging also tempers, somewhat, a tendency to afflict my opinions on family, friends, neighbors and passers-by (although I still reserve the right to unload on the in-laws during holiday get-togethers.) One of my wife’s cousins once remarked to her, “Well, you know how weird he is.” Considering the world-view from which that comment emanated, I could not have been more highly complimented. But I recognize having a contrary view on most things can be tiresome to others, and that blogging provides a safe outlet for the expression of same, whether it be current events (dismal), politics (it was W's fault), American religiosity (growing sillier by the day), culture (irredeemable), or my favorite--books and travel.

I began this blog on 5 November 2005, and started keeping records of visits in March 2007, when I added the Stat-Counter application. The name John, which I use on this blog, was not the name I was given at birth. Back in 2004, one of the watchdogs of the Church of Christ I left (in the first week in 2005) had been monitoring my comments on several online sites—and keeping a log. For this reason, I wanted to maintain a bit of anonymity, and was consequently reluctant to use my real name. On 19 November 2005, I was received into the Holy Orthodox Church as John, with my patron saint being St. John of Rila. I like the name, thought it a good one to use on the blog, and still do. So, I am sticking with that. For those who might want to know, my real name is not hard to ascertain.

This blog has obviously paralleled my life as an Orthodox Christian. From the beginning, however, I determined to not make this an overtly “Orthodox blog.” The primary reason for that decision was, and remains, that I am simply not qualified. Orthodoxy, as it is absorbed, gives one a differing perspective on most everything. My blogging observations are certainly tinged with that. And I feel free to link to various articles touching on various aspects of the Orthodox Church--the plight of Orthodox believers in the Middle East being a particular interest--but I never really tackle doctrine or "issues" head-on. Nor do I intend to. There is no shortage of those who will, and I defer to their wisdom.

In over 4 years of blogging, I have grown not at all tired of it. There’s a great line from Waugh’s Unconditional Surrender, in which the butler shows a guest into the Crouchback drawing room to wait. He advises, "You'll find plenty to interest you here...that is, if you're interested in things." That’s just it--I remain “interested in things,” and have no desire to retire the blog.

There's no way to say what follows without coming off as overly sappy and sentimental. That is to say that the best part of blogging and this blog is, well…you. Those of you who respond to my posts from time to time treat me gently and indulge my idosyncracies. Comments are generally kind and considerate, intelligent--or at least clever, which often gets you further anyway. It has been my great privilege to meet a few of you in person, and given enough time, I hope to increase that number. So, I just say "thanks," and that I look forward to hearing from you.

Best,

John

Twenty Years Later

I wanted to post this picture 12 days ago, on the 20th anniversary of Ceausescu's fall. Saving newspaper and magazine articles is a lifelong habit--and I do have a filing system in place. On my third foray through my folders, I found the clipping right where it should have been. This is my favorite picture from that period, capturing the exuberance, the rush of excitement and hope of a subjugated populace as their yoke was suddenly, amazingly being lifted.

Those were exciting times for all of us. And now, 20 years later, I suppose it is time to engage in some retrospection and take stock of subsequent developments. That brings me to this recent article in the Los Angeles Times by Michael Meyer, who witnessed the Romanian Revolution firsthand (and who, I might add, is the author of The Year that Changed the World.)

Meyer begins his account with the hasty funeral of Jacob Stetincu:

A light snow came down in Bucharest, covering the mounds next to freshly dug graves, open and gaping in long straight rows. "Here are the fallen," intoned a solemn priest as four men placed a wooden coffin before him on a wobbly trestle. Jacob Stetincu, shot by a sniper, lay wrapped in a thin cotton sheet, wearing a worn blue beret, snowflakes catching in his grayed mustache. After a hurried sacrament, the men nailed his coffin shut, carried him to the nearest grave -- his widow struggling to keep up -- and shoveled in the heavy earth. The priest, working in shifts with a dozen of his brethren, was already shaking holy water on the next victim of Nicolae Ceausescu's brutal reign.

Meyer contends that while the fall of the Eastern Bloc Communist regimes was indeed a victory for "our" side, he suggests that we have learned the wrong lessons from the event, or as he quotes Niebuhr, the "mis-memory" of history.

Yet it was a dangerous triumph, chiefly because we claimed it for our own and scarcely bothered to fully understand how this great change came to pass. We told ourselves stick-figure parables of defiance and good-versus-evil triumph, summed up in Ronald Reagan's clarion call: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

From the vantage point of 20 years, we should be wiser. The reality is that "our" victory in the Cold War was not what we thought it was, nor did it happen the way we think it did. Most painfully, the myths we spun about it have hurt the world and ourselves.

Meyer identifies four areas where he contends we have misread the real history of the fall of European Communism. I particularly agree with his third point:

A third myth is the most dangerous: the idea of the United States as emancipator, a liberator of repressed peoples. This crusading brand of American triumphalism has become gospel over the past two decades in certain foreign policy circles, especially among neoconservatives. For them, the revolutions of 1989 became the foundation of a post-Cold War worldview. All totalitarian regimes are hollow at the core, they suggest, and will crumble with a shove from the outside. If the inspiration for this was the Berlin Wall, coming down as Reagan "ordered," the operational model was the mass protests in Romania leading to the violent overthrow of the Ceausescu regime.

"Once the wicked witch was dead," as Francis Fukuyama put it, "the Munchkins would rise up and start singing joyously about their liberation." It is a straight line from this fantasy of 1989 to the misadventure in Iraq, and beyond.

This admonition is especially timely in light of those who ill-advisedly advocate an aggressive involvement with the Iranian dissent movement, for example.

The United States contributed uniquely to the end of the Cold War, from the reconstruction of Europe and containment to capitalist economics. But others "won" it, on their own (and our) behalf. Among them were the likes of Jacob Stetincu, all but forgotten in his grave.

Drunk on pride and power, we Americans have tried to rewrite history. Having got it so wrong, it's time to figure out how, and why, and move on.

(A h/t to Milton for the Meyer link.)

Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit

A few selections from Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit: The Lives & Counsels of Contemporary Elders of Greece.


In the hour in which we are tempted we must be patient and pray. Temptation is a clever craftsman. He is able to make small things loom large. Temptation disquiets, saddens, and creates external battles. He knows many arts. He brings man to doubt. For this reason we have many shipwrecks. When we are beset by temptations, that's when the grace of God comes. When one undergoes temptation, he recognizes his weakness, is humbled and attracts the grace of God. Don't let the winds of temptation affect you. They can't do you any harm.

Elder Amphilochios


I am not afraid of death. Not, of course, because of my works, but because I believe in God's mercy.

Elder Epiphanios


Whatever we don't give to God for Him to use, the other will use. For this reason our Lord gave us the commandment to love with all our heart and soul, so that the evil one won't be able to find a place of rest within us.

Elder Joseph


No sacrifice is more fragrant in the sight of God than purity of body, which is realized through blood and great struggles.

We mustn't despair when we struggle and continuously see nothing but the slightest progress. We all do nearly nothing, some a little more, some a little less. When Christ sees our little effort He gives us an analogous token and so our nearly nothing becomes valuable and we can see a little progress. For this reason we mustn't despair, but hope in God.

My brother, don't ask for anything in prayer except for repentance. Repentance will bring you humility, humility will bring you the grace of God, and God will uphold you in His grace and will give you whatever you need for your own salvation, as well as whatever is needed, should the case arise, for you to help another soul in need.

Elder Paisios


Life without Christ is not life. That's the way it is....If you don't see Christ in everything you do, you are without Christ.

It's possible for people to come to the point of despair and see before them the living reality of chaos and say, "We're falling into chaos! Everyone get back, get back, go back, we've been deceived," and thus return to the path which leads them to God, and for our Orthodox Faith to shine. God works in mysterious ways and doesn't want to influence man's freedom. He arranges things so that slowly, slowly, man goes where he is supposed to.

I am not afraid of hell and I do not think about Paradise. I only ask God to have mercy on the entire world as well as on me.

You mustn't wage your Christian struggle with sermons and arguments, but with true secret love. When we argue, others react. When we love people, they are moved and we win them over. When we love we think that we offer something to others, but in reality we are the first to benefit.

What can politicians do for you? They are confused by their psychical passions. When a person is unable to help himself, how can he help others?

Elder Porphyrious


Never be jealous of wealth. Always live modestly and humbly, without egotism. egotism is a terrible sin. When you hear someone being accused, even though it may be true, never add more accusations, but always say something positive and be sorry for the person. take care to always love the poor, the elderly, the orphans, the sick. Spend time with poor people and with those who others humble. Earn your living with the honest sweat of your brow. Don't forget to give alms. this is the path you must tread. Always think of what good thing you will do. These are the things that make up the life of a Christian.

Don't be sad, for we will all depart from here. We are passing travelers. We came here to show our works and to leave.

Elder George

On Beauty

I have generally thought well of the work of Roger Scruton, though I have not followed him since the days when I subscribed to The New Criterion. His current association with the neocon American Enterprise Institute is troubling, and certainly raises my suspicions. I do recommend, however, his recent article, The High Cost of Ignoring Beauty, in which he writes of the importance of architecture to the well-being of any culture. A few excerpts:

That question might prompt us to revise the assumption that beauty is subjective. Aesthetic judgements may look subjective when you are wandering in the aesthetic desert of Waco or Las Vegas. In the old cities of Europe, however, you discover what happens when people are guided by a shared tradition which not only makes aesthetic judgement central, but also lays down standards that govern what everybody does....Maybe we see beauty as subjective only because we have given the wrong place to aesthetic judgement in our lives—seeing it as a way of affirming ourselves, instead of a way of denying ourselves.

When it comes to beauty, our view of its status is radically affected by whether we see it as a form of self-expression, or as a form of self-denial. If we see it in this second way, then the assumption that it is merely subjective begins to fall away. Instead beauty begins to take on another character, as one of the instruments in our consensus-building strategies, one of the values through which we construct and belong to a shared and mutually consoling world. In short, it is part of building a home.

No greater aesthetic catastrophe has struck our cities—European just as much as American—than the modernist idea that a building should stand out from its surroundings, to become a declaration of its own originality. As much as the home, cities depend upon good manners; and good manners require the modest accommodation to neighbors rather than the arrogant assertion of apartness.

A street in which people live, work, and worship renews itself as life renews itself; it has eyes to watch over it, and shared forms of life to fill it. Nothing is more important than defending the street against expressways and throughways, against block development, and against zoning provisions that forbid genuine settlement.

How do we get out of the mess?...there must be planning, but it should be envisaged negatively, as a system of side-constraints, rather than positively, as a way of “taking charge” of what happens and where.

And here, it seems to me, is where beauty matters and how. Over time, people establish styles, patterns, and vocabularies which perform, in the building of cities, the same function as good manners between neighbors. A “neighbor,” according to the Anglo-Saxon etymology, is one who “builds nearby.” The buildings that go up in our neighborhood matter to us in just the way that our neighbors matter. They demand our attention, and shape our lives. They can overwhelm us or soothe us; they can be an alien presence or a home. And the function of aesthetic values in the practice of architecture is to ensure that the primary requirement of every building is served—namely, that it should be a fitting member of a community of neighbors. Buildings need to fit in, to stand appropriately side by side; they are subject to the rule of good manners just as much as people are. This is the real reason for the importance of tradition in architecture—that it conveys the kind of practical knowledge that is required by neighborliness.

Traditional architecture concentrates on the generality of form, on details that embody the tacit knowledge of how to live with a building and adapt to it. Hence traditional architecture in turn adapts to us. It fits to our uses, and shelters whatever we do. Hence it survives—in the way that Georgetown and Old Town Alexandria have survived, though hampered, alas, by zoning laws. Modernist architecture cannot change its use, and architects assume that their buildings will have a life span of 20 years. Building with that thought in mind you are not building a settlement, still less a neighborhood. You are constructing an extremely expensive and ecologically destructive tent. The environmental impact of its demolition is enormous, and the energy that goes into building it must be spent again on demolishing it and yet again on replacing it.

People need beauty. They need the sense of being at home in their world, and being in communication with other souls. In so many areas of modern life—in pop music, in television and cinema, in language and literature—beauty is being displaced by raucous and attention-grabbing clichés. We are being torn out of ourselves by the loud and insolent gestures of people who want to seize our attention but to give nothing in return for it. Although this is not the place to argue the point it should perhaps be said that this loss of beauty, and contempt for the pursuit of it, is one step on the way to a new form of human life, in which taking replaces giving, and vague lusts replace real loves.

"If Jesus were alive today"

Occasionally, I may be guilty of constructing Evangelical straw men, from which I wax sarcastic about the excesses and inanities of American pop-religiosity. Not that this takes any great skill, mind you, given the surfeat of material with which to work. In this season of resolutions, perhaps I should resolve to do better in the coming year. Or not.


But this article--Metro Churches Turn to Technology to Spread the Word--truly troubled me, as I found it sillier and even more offensive than most. (Owen by way of Aaron has previously noted the article.) This story is a familiar one by now. To those who turn a critical eye towards the state of religion in America, many of these evangelical churches became unmoored long ago, and are now far at sea. This newspaper account differs little from countless others I have read in recent years documenting evangelical trendiness....except for one line.


Journalist Malena Lott posits: "If Jesus were alive today, would he Twitter? Have a Facebook profile? Flickr account? Post proof of his miracles on YouTube?" I once heard Zbigniew Brzezinski--not one to suffer even good-natured fools gladly--characterize a question put to him by Joe Scarborough as "stunningly superficial." Ms. Lott's inquiry is worthy of the same treatment. Indeed, it is so light and fluffy that the words are in danger of floating off the page.

The entire line of thought is so patently absurd that I completely missed the real significance of the passage. Ms. Lott begins with If Jesus were alive today. Think about it. I do understand what she is trying to say, namely "If Jesus were physically walking the earth today, etc." But that is not what she said.

Such sloppiness can be excused, perhaps, from a journalist. But then, the person to which the question was addressed--the "online community pastor at LifeChurch.tv"--used the exact same wording in his response. He replied: If Jesus were alive, I don’t think he’d have to use social media...His followers all have mobile phones. They’d be spreading his message for him.


I found it absolutely stunning for a purported Christian pastor to say "if" Jesus were alive today. Everything else in the story is secondary when compared to this unintended statement of faith. That is the whole point of the empty tomb, is it not? This is no quibble over semantics. One cannot equivocate on such matters. The whole point of our Faith is that Jesus Christ is alive, and and the only life we have as Christians is when we lose our lives in His.

Such statements should be expected, I suppose, in churches where The Word has become words on a page, where the Living Christ has became the author of useful moralistic teachings, where cheap sentimentality and"assurance" have replaced any sense of asceticism. I do not see this trend abating at all. It will become increasingly difficult, however, to characterize adherents as anything discernibly Christian.