Aaargh!!!!

Aargh!!!!!

What kind of ceremony? Reception? Bishop Frade surely realizes that the reception of a priest not laicized licenses that priest in the Episcopal Church. See this helpful guide to procedures in the Diocese of New York.

Is this a good idea? Yes, I know Archbishop Cranmer married while under a vow of celibacy.

Note: toni2701 points out that Fr. Cutie was received as a layman. Episcopal canon law apparently puts additional hurdles to the primitive church in this respect, though frankly the primitive church really never contemplated these kinds of transfers. See Article VIII of the Constitution and Canon III.10.3. But I find it interesting that the Diocese of New York does not mention reception until Step 22.

Um, Ordination Vows...

I was reading a story this morning from the Miami Herald, in which the Archdiocese of Miami's young, attractive head of radio programming (a priest) has been revealed to be violating his ordination vow of celibacy. On one hand, I think the celibacy requirement for priests in the Latin Rite arises from reasons other than eunuchhood in anticipation for the eschaton and may displease God thereby. On the other hand, Roman Catholic priests take a solemn vow to be celibate and if they stray, all catholic Christians should encourage and support them to repent and return to the Lord for breaking the vow. Apparently, Episcopal bishops think otherwise:

On Wednesday, the Episcopal Church, which allows married priests, offered Cutié another option.

''He is welcome in our church,'' Bishop Leo Frade of the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida said in an interview. Frade said the church has young priests who date and about five former Catholic priests. ''For us, a single guy on the beach with his girlfriend is no problem. Episcopalians look at this and scratch their heads.'' Experts say violating the celibacy vow doesn't necessarily end a priest's career.

When we have a supposedly conservative Episcopal bishop taking someone else's ordination vows so lightly, we have a serious problem.

Edited to reflect we confused Bishop Frade with some other bishop.

Notes on the Holy Saturday Liturgy

Oh, most neglected Office of Holy Saturday! Weird break between Good Friday and Easter Vigil, when we've all tired of prayer...

OK. Forgive my humor. I understand completely why Holy Saturday pretty much has been neglected (at least in the West) through most of Christian history. The clergy need a break. The sanctuary needs to prepared for joy. Sweet-smelling flowers need to be placed. The organist needs to practice. The choir needs to practice. Everyone needs to get ready. Panic ensues. Wouldn't it be nice if there were a brief 20 minute lay-led liturgy to get us settled into these preparations and ground us once more in the work of the Lord? So I include these suggestions for modifications of the Holy Saturday liturgy as it is written in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. > Note also we're not the only ones who experience Holy Saturday fatigue . (And the Orthodox liturgy is so awesome.)

First, while the Ambrosian Missal has a special liturgy of the Word for this reason, I see good reason to put the Holy Saturday liturgy into the Daily Office framework, just make it a little different. Imagine that the living and created world is without the Word who animates all being. In the unseen realm of Sheol, things are happening, but in ordinary creation, things have become topsy-turvy. And thus the Opening Sentence should be:

"If I say, 'Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me turn to night', darkness is not dark to thee, O Lord; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to thee are both alike."

Three years ago, I was asked to say Morning Prayer on Holy Saturday. I thought, "What should the Opening Sentence be?" And this came to me. Then a few months later, I noticed this was one of the Opening Sentences for Evening Prayer!

Invitatory Psalm? I recommend this be out of the ordinary, too. At Evening Prayer in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the office begins with the priest saying Psalm 104 before the closed doors of the tabernacle. In this tradition, Psalm 104 is the Adamic hymn of thanksgiving to God (probably after the expulsion from the Garden). It is a hymn of joy in the wonders of God's creation and their benefits for us. As an Evening Invitatory Psalm, its use again reinforces the topsy-turvy nature of this day. As the Adamic song of thanksgiving, it might have been a likely greeting when Adam imprisoned in Sheol saw the Lord among the dead. (If Athanasius is correct, Jesus and Adam would have looked very much alike I presume or might have seen each other in Eden.)

The Psalter. The BCP says 130. I prefer 139, which proclaims the presence of the Lord in the grave.

The readings. I use two: The OT is Job 14:1-14 in the BCP. I think verse 15 completes the thought, "You would summon me, and I would answer: you would long to see the creature you have made." The NT suggested by the BCP is 1 Peter 4:1-8. I don't agree. I find this part of 1 Peter a little too much about uplifting ourselves above our non-Christian fellow creatures. The ancient Epistle for the day is 1 Peter 3:17-22. I didn't know this but chose to read it today because of how much I dislike the beginning of chapter 4. One of the interesting parts of 3:17-22 is the connection of the symbolism of Baptism to the flood and to Jesus' oblation on the cross, which I find appropriately edifying in anticipation of Easter Vigil. But this passage is also meaningful in that it talks about those to whom Jesus preached. We often think of the Harrowing of Hell in terms of the liberation of Adam and Eve and the prophets (though some of them entered Paradise in the body). Peter writes of the wicked and disobedient who were drowned in the flood being evangelized by Christ. This is a beautiful reversal of Jewish tradition, for it says in the Mishnah , possible in the tractate on Pesach, "the generation of the Flood and the generation of the Wilderness have no portion in the world to come." Yet we hear that Jesus came especially to the dead to give these a portion in the world to come.

The Prayers:
Never know what to do. Possibly, "In the midst of life, we are in death (p. 484)" to replace the versicles and the responses. Its use is suggested by the BCP.

Holy Saturday needs a hymn. I sang Pange Lingua , because I hadn't yet. The Orthodox apparently sing, "All mortal flesh keep silence" especially on this day. Sounds good to me.

So those are my thoughts.

I also had a weird Good Friday thought. Mark 15:37 says of Jesus, "ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς ἀφεὶς φωνὴν μεγάλην ἐξέπνευσεν." That is, "And then Jesus with a great cry sent forth his spirit". Great cry and sent forth his spirit are a chiasmus: "sent cry great spirit." So Mark means the sending forth of the spirit and the "great cry" to be intimately connected. I didn't think of this until I was reading a Latin anthem at Tenebrae last night, but Psalm 104:30 is ,"ἐξαποστελεῖς τὸ πνεῦμά σου καὶ κτισθήσονται καὶ ἀνακαινιεῖς τὸ πρόσωπον τῆς γῆς" in the Septuagint. "You send forth your spirit and they are created and so you renew the life of the world." It's effectively the same Greek, except that the ἐξ has jumped from send to spirit. I don't know enough Greek to know if putting the preposition on the noun in this case is unusual or significant, but it does suggest that Mark's Gospel puts the Word on the Cross, "sending forth his spirit with a cry," just like God in creation.

One last note: Athanasius and whomever he was quoting in his treatise on the Psalms insist Psalm 66 is about the Resurrection. as if it were obvious. I don't see it. Can anyone help me?

Thoughts for the Day

One

"But if any honest Christian wants to know why He suffered death on the cross and not in some other way, we answer thus: in no other way was it expedient for us, indeed the Lord offered for our sakes the one death that was supremely good. He had come to bear the curse that lay on us; and how could He "become a curse" otherwise than by accepting the accursed death? And that death is the cross, for it is written "Cursed is every one that hangeth on tree." Again, the death of the Lord is the ransom of all, and by it "the middle wall of partition" is broken down and the call of the Gentiles comes about. How could He have called us if He had not been crucified, for it is only on the cross that a man dies with arms outstretched? Here, again, we see the fitness of His death and of those outstretched arms: it was that He might draw His ancient people with the one and the Gentiles with the other, and join both together in Himself. Even so, He foretold the manner of His redeeming death, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Myself." --Athanasius, On the Incarnation

"The compelling similarities between the manners in which the scientific community generates and evaluates theories and the Christian community receives doctrines point to two fundamental theoretical issues which make the notion of 'heresy' an inevitability:

"The underdetermination of theory by evidence ... The dynamics of the reception of theory

... Once more, this model demands a book-length study, which is currently being pursued."


-- Alister McGrath, The Science of God

Founded on Jesus Christ?

For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. I Corinthians 3:11

It's happening again. An Episcopal diocese has elected a bishop and stormclouds are swirling around the result. Is it a sign of growing maturity that the bishop's sexual orientation isn't the issue? I think not.

For information on the dispute, see Episcopal Cafe's current round-up .

Part of the dispute stems from the organizational framework of the Diocese since the mid 1980s, which emphasizes a concept called "Mutual Ministry." You'll note that I have intentionally linked to the Diocese's description of this framework. In theory, I like the idea of mutual ministry. Recently (while taking a break while writing draft chapters of my thesis...or published articles), I read Three Minute Theologian's online version of his book, Killing George Herbert . It's a tour de force on how defective present models of Anglican ministry are and finds considerable insight in reform from Bonhoeffer, Rowan Williams, and others. But the key problem of the book that most parishes are still somewhere in the leftmost two models of ministry described in the pyramid plots on the Northern Michigan page. Northern Michigan's aging and shrinking population has been forced toward a model of ministry that may have benefits for the wider church. The details can vary, however. Rather than calling this model uncatholic etc., let's use this dispute as an opportunity to learn from N. Michigan. Maybe, some sort of FAQ could be provided to Standing Committees. Does it concern me that the election was non-competitive? Of course. The Holy Spirit should be free to work in such cases, viz Pope Fabian. But the circumstances aren't yet clear.

Part of the dispute involves the Zen Buddhist practice of the Bishop-elect, Kevin Thew Forrester. In light of pagan and Muslim syncretism by Episcopal priests in recent years, we should ask whether the Buddhist principles Forrester embraces contradict Christian principles, as is quite clear in the former two cases, which imply worship of the asheroth /erotoliturgical expression and denial of Jesus' divine equality with the Father in each case respectively. In both of these cases, it's fairly clear that the foundation upon which these priests were building was not Jesus Christ, God of Israel and human being, crucified, died, and risen. I don't have enough the facts of the case to judge.

The final part of the dispute involves accusations of some of the exact liturgical abuses that go on in my parish most of the time, often to my vexation. There is a part of me that would like to Forrester's alleged total disregard for the authorized worship of the Church severely punished, considering he has been elected to an office of oversight in this matter. I feel especially tempted, knowing how these kinds of changes forced down a parish's throat can have serious consequences for the faith of the faithful. But I also know that some of these changes really can be healing for some people. I think it's more important for us to talk about why liturgical abuses go on and what effect they have and what processes liturgical change be implemented than punishing the abusive. Often the problem is one of ignorance rather than malice. Liturgical abusers need counseling, not punishment.

Keeping Your Lent on the Right Side of the Law

My officemate, a sometime Methodist, asked me what I was doing for Ash Wednesday. I mentioned that I had begun Lent with the Commination this morning, a sixteenth century thing, though I had used the seventeenth century version. I explain that its name derives from the Latin for threatening, so it involves a lot of threatening.

"[Caelius]", she says, "You're going to have to explain that."

"What do you mean?"

"You're not doing anything illegal, are you?"

Having determined what she meant, I responded, "Oh, no, it's entirely legal to threaten yourself."

The Monastery would like to wish you all a Holy Lent.

Abortion Is a Christological, Not a Patriarchal Issue

Amanda Marcotte briefly troubled my morning with this excerpt from a piece she wrote further quoted on Pandagon this morning.

The national conversation over abortion feels like war because it isn’t about abortion per se. It’s the most important battle in the struggle over the existence of the patriarchy. The dictionary defines patriarchy as, “a form of social organization in which the father is the supreme authority in the family, clan, or tribe and descent is reckoned in the male line, with the children belonging to the father’s clan or tribe.” This explains why abortion matters more than anything else--if we believe that “life” begins at conception, then the father gets all the credit for making children, and this in turn justifies male authority over women and official “ownership” of children. If we believe that “life” begins at some other point in fetal development, then the credit for new people goes to women, and patriarchal justifications dry up.

Could it be this baldly simple? Because if Christian motivation against abortion rests on these grounds, they seem ridiculous. Why deny women credit for the production of children?

In truth, Marcotte's words forced me to look back at Tertullian's De Anima , perhaps the most fundamental inspiration for the Roman Catholic Church's teaching that life begins at conception, where I encountered at Chapter 27:

Indeed (if I run the risk of offending modesty even, in my desire to prove the truth), I cannot help asking, whether we do not, in that very heat of extreme gratification when the generative fluid is ejected, feel that somewhat of our soul has gone from us? And do we not experience a faintness and prostration along with a dimness of sight? This, then, must be the soul-producing seed, which arises at once from the out-drip of the soul, just as that fluid is the body-producing seed which proceeds from the drainage of the flesh. Most true are the examples of the first creation. Adam's flesh was formed of clay. Now what is clay bug an excellent moisture, whence should spring the generating fluid? From the breath of God first came the soul. But what else is the breath of God than the vapour of the spirit, whence should spring that which we breathe out through the generative fluid? Forasmuch, therefore, as these two different and separate substances, the clay and the breath, combined at the first creation in forming the individual man, they then both amalgamated and mixed their proper seminal rudiments in one, and ever afterwards communicated to the human race the normal mode of its propagation, so that even now the two substances, although diverse from each other, flow forth simultaneously in a united channel; and finding their way together into their appointed seed-plot, they fertilize with their combined vigour the human fruit out of their respective natures. And inherent in this human product is his own seed, according to the process which has been ordained for every creature endowed with the functions of generation. Accordingly from the one (primeval) man comes the entire outflow and redundance of men's souls-nature proving herself true to the commandment of God, "Be fruitful, and multiply."

Thus, while Tertullian maintains through this work as I do that the act of breathing and ensoulment are simultaneous, ensoulment for him derives from the hot flush of our fathers' orgasms in direct line from Adam. Indeed, Tertullian argues with a logic not too dissimilar than that which Marcotte intuits from Christians today.

This is heresy. For what follows such logic but the anathemas of St. Gregory Nazianzen:

If anyone should assert that Christ passed through the Virgin as through a channel but was not fashioned in her, divinely because without the help of man and humanly because by the law of conception--he, too is godless."

But while Tertullian's view is incorrect in this light, since it is necessary that Christ's humanity in both body and soul be contributed by her in unity with the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, the exact mechanisms are not anything that late antiquity really was able to say much about, considering that the standard medical understanding of generation qua Tertullian is Aristotelian or Hippocratic with all sorts of assertions about hot and cold, dry and wet and a fairly male-centered view of the whole business. If Christianity had its first great philosophical stirrings post Watson and Crick, the cooperation (synergy) between the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit might have been easier to deal with or not.

And while I would like to believe that the burden of Anglican moral theology favors implantation in the uterine wall as the point of ensoulment and the convenience of holding also that this is perfectly synergistic in that the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary could breathe as one into the implanted Christ, the Pope is likely never to agree with me.

But from these kinds of issues, we see why abortion was of such great importance to the early Christians. Given the significance of unborn children in the birth narratives and thinking about the mechanics of how a child could grow in the womb as God and man, the eyes of faith only could be enlightened with the need to see a child as human at a very early stage of development beyond all contemporary knowledge and the need that children be preserved at that stage, since they, too, must be in the image of God. But these are the eyes of faith. Those outside the faith really only can see so far as Tertullian writes:

"Now, in such a question as this, no one can be so useful a teacher, judge, or witness, as the sex itself which is so intimately concerned. Give us your testimony, then, ye mothers, whether yet pregnant, or after delivery (let barren women and men keep silence),-the truth of your own nature is in question, the reality of your own suffering is the point to be decided. (Tell us, then, ) whether you feel in the embryo within you any vital force other than your own, with which your bowels tremble, your sides shake, your entire womb throbs, and the burden which oppresses you constantly changes its position? Are these movements a joy to you, and a positive removal of anxiety, as making you confident that your infant both possesses vitality and enjoys it? Or, should his restlessness cease, your first fear would be for him; and he would be aware of it within you, since he is disturbed at the novel sound; and you would crave for injurious diet, or would even loathe your food-all on his account; and then you and he, (in the closeness of your sympathy, ) would share together your common ailments-so far that with your contusions and bruises would he actually become marked,-whilst within you, and even on the selfsame parts of the body, taking to himself thus peremptorily the injuries of his mother!

.

Only so far and after so long of gestation does the law of nature permit a mother really to feel a life within her. But some of us forget this. We forget that pregnancy begins as a biological disturbance more than as a clear interaction, so we can't imagine why a woman
doesn't feel guilty about an early term abortion , because if we took the extreme position that she was a murderer, it would be very strange. She is the embryo's most intimate acquaintance, yet only knows it from chemistry and remote sensing. But she just may not see. It is often a belief in God who made both the visible and invisible things that can make us see the unseen things in the very depths of our nature.

But at the level of quickening, abortion is a human rights issue, for beyond the Bible-beating and the ultrasounds (or if they ever pass away) always will lie a kick, a beating, and a leaping in the womb: a life growing toward the atmosphere. It is impossible for me to contemplate who has the right to terminate an indubitable human life. And, yes, it's so much easier to fight for this life than the life of the addict, the homeless, the stateless, and the criminal. But it is hard to fight for one of these lives without fighting for them all.

Envelopes and Offices

1. So last year, the pledge envelopes were being distributed. But apparently, my pledge envelopes vanished down a rabbit hole. Oh well. But I was promised that new ones would be printed and sent to me. Last week, I received notice that I had a new envelope number to write on my checks and thanked me for "Going Green." Well, fine. I love doing things for the environment, even if involuntarily, but couldn't I have kept my beloved envelope number?

2. Derek and Christopher and Chris Tessone and Father John-Julian are discussing Office Reform. Let me add my two cents. I officiate publicly at three liturgies per year:

1. Morning Prayer at the Young Adult Retreat
2. Compline on Good Friday Night
3. Morning Prayer on Holy Saturday

I just received the Young Adult Retreat, informing me that Morning Prayer will be Rite One. Given consultation, I probably would have gone with Rite II, since I do like to use these occasions to popularize the Office. My standard routine is daily Morning Prayer at dear Josh Thomas's place with the General Thanksgiving and the Prayer of St. John Chrysostom added (sometimes with the original closing). This is the kind of Office I would promote to people my age. Sure, Josh's Canticle choices are informed by the 1979 BCP but he almost always keeps the NT Canticle steady as Magna et Mirabilia , which I think is wonderful and he keeps the OT Canticle in a rota (Saturdays are Benedicite Omnia Opera . The key is that Josh recognizes that the parochial office has a limited impact and tries to make prayer as accessible as possible, retaining almost all of the necessary and salutary elements. Look at his traffic feed sometimes. He's reaching the world with the way he presents the 1979 Office.

But if you want Rite One, I'll do it with the Confession, Benedicite Omnia Opera and Te Deum Laudamus , because that's how I roll.

Media Notes

I just saw the new movie directed by Darren Aronofsky, The Wrestler , starring Mickey Rourke. If I had to summarize the aesthetic of this movie, I would describe Marisa Tomei's character giving Mickey Rourke a lap dance as he documents the wounds of a long and successful career in professional wrestling. Tomei then says, "He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed." She notes she's quoting Passion of the Christ not Isaiah 53, but she gets the point. Randy "the Ram", nee Robin Ramsinski is a sacrificial victim of a sort, bearing the griefs of a world that can't bear forgiveness and the burden of unconditional love. The movie also has political undertones, pitting the heroic Dodge Ram-driving Ram against an African-American named Bob who wrestles as the Ayatollah, carrying Iranian flag as his cheap prop. In these less immediately Iranophobic times, Bob is a car dealer in Phoenix, but in the ring, the assaults on his body and his expressions of disdain for the American hero still stir up primitive and orgiastic emotions in a crowd whose ancestors loved bull-baiting and public executions. The Wrestler is a reminder that the ritualized violence of the past remains a very present part of modern life, whose only enemy is compassion for the Other and the villain. I also think Aronofsky gets a real kick that his title character's signature move is the Rambam.

NBC is desperately trying to hype its new show, Kings about a "modern monarchy." Here's the web site. Yes, it's true. Hollywood has so run out of ideas that they're updating I Samuel. Who has the rights to that anyway?

Two Words: Rhinestone Chasuble

And the sermon described forthcoming appearances of the preacher on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

But we sang St. Patrick's Breastplate at the Recessional, so I guess it was a good Sunday.

About That Incident in Tess of the D'Urbervilles

bls mentions in her post today the incident in Chapter XIV of Tess of the D'Urbervilles depicted in a BBC adaptation of the Thomas Hardy novel being shown on PBS last Sunday and this coming Sunday, in which Tess baptizes her dying baby Sorrow privately according to the form given in the Prayer Book, because her father has locked the house against the parson.

I'm afraid as far as I can tell that even in the era during which the novel is set, the parson was in the wrong to deny Sorrow burial in consecrated ground. Hardy unfortunately glosses over the parson's exact justification for his actions and the BBC production tries to fill in with a little hemming and hawing to imply that Tess could not be a lawful minister of Baptism, perhaps because she is a woman. The early 17th century canons of the Church of England do discourage private baptism, perhaps less for the theological grounds we would cite today (the importance of the local Christian community showing visible support for the incorporation of the child into the Body) than as a form of repression upon non-conformity. However, the ancient Patristic precedents support Tess. Some of these even allow baptism in the proper form of words by pagans and heretics to be valid Reading them more restrictively as the Roman Catholics do to exclude those baptizing in the correct form of words with heterodox beliefs concerning their meaning, Tess still would be empowered to baptize in extremis as was clearly the case. Renton and Robertson's Encyclopedia of the Laws of England quotes Bingham's Scholastical History of Baptism , "[The Church of England] forbids laymen or women by its laws to baptize: but if it be done in due form, she does not wholly disannul or order it to be repeated as entirely null and void." These authors also quote ecclesiastical law reports from as early as 1809 in support of this position, even allowing baptism by Dissenting ministers to be valid.

Hardy's account of the incident doesn't really give much insight into the priest's motivations, noting only that he was new to the parish and so not acquainted with the devout and reasonably well educated Tess (for a rural working class woman) or her unfortunate circumstances. His attitude may be punitive and malicious, treating Tess as a "loose woman" who locked him out of her house in the cold night while he was trying to do his duty and now expects him to believe she baptized the child according to the Prayer Book rite (which Hardy actually says she did). His attitude may stem from simple ignorance and the obligation to enforce his misunderstanding of canon law. After all, Tess does get him to admit "sinner to saint" that Sorrow is properly baptized. This rather misty business suggests that Hardy finds his Anglican clergymen easier to portray one dimensionally, whereby they may be more easily pilloried. But I think it's fair to say that situations like this easily could arise in a world where a poor rural woman could not be expected to have recourse to a canonist or even any kind of second opinion.

It's not a situation that could arise in TEC today, where emergency baptism is a little more clearly explicated in the Prayer Book and the funerary offices of the Church are more freely offered in recognition of the deep theological truth that even non-Christian human souls and bodies have kinship with the Triune God and are worthy of being put to rest with dignity and good order. But I suppose such things still depend on who the priest is.

New Year, New Blather

Or the same old...

Item the First: The Postulant designates me a Superior Scribbler. I thank him but realize that all memes of this type generally die here.

Item the Second: I had a month of blog silence there. It's been a rather hectic couple of months, involving three transcontinental round-trips (well, come next week) and one intercity train journey. In that time, I've attended three services of Lessons and Carols, all somewhat different. I've also been to two conferences and presented two talks and two posters. I've seen the Wren Chapel at William and Mary, where services are far more rubrically proper than I've seen in a long time. Reflecting on this busy time, I realize that I must have been having a lot of fun, but it was intensely exhausting.

Item the Third: In the new year, I have a thesis to write. Being single and childless, this is easier for me than others we know. But I'm also going to try to learn to drive and get a job during the same period. So will there be long periods of blog silence in the new year? As events warrant.

Item the Fourth: The anonymized title of my thesis is Flying Particles of Nanophase Iron Oxides and the Boreal Spring and Summer Weather of a Cold, Desert Planet. Take that, Google.

Item the Fifth: James Howard Kunstler's predictions for the new year include multiple families living in suburban housing, farming organic gardens. Some of these families will become a new servant class to replace our broken service economy. In addition, the Federal Government, who is the ultimate source of compensation in my current future, will become gradually insolvent. Living in a state with thousands of vacant units of suburban housing, a potential water shortage that will pit the needs of the nation's fruit basket and my thirsty metropolitan area, bonds that cannot be floated, and a treasury that will be insolvent before the lions of March come calling, I say that Kunstler's future is looking plausible indeed.

Item the Sixth: I am currently reading Don DeLillo's Underworld , which might be called an American Foucault's Pendulum thematically, but proves quite convincingly why Europeans don't respect our authors come Nobel time. I should write about this more later.

Item the Seventh: I disagree somewhat with bls about Slumdog Millionaire but only because I suspect my cinematic standards have been warped by the subpar offerings of the last year. But I disagree with any claims that it is the "best movie ever." It will be Oscar-competitive, but it has its faults, especially in how it presumes knowledge of the complex religious politics of Mumbai and the surrounding state, which is important for understanding the early scenes. In other news, did you know that Sony Pictures is making Bollywood movies now? I hope they show some of them in the United States.

Happy New Year!

This and Every New Year: God Is Our Salvation

My mother often likes to note that the decision to celebrate Christmas in this time of year is really a celebration of the birthday of Mithras or Sol Invictus. Mom is in part right. There's no Biblical warrant for Joseph and a pregnant Mary riding a donkey through a December blizzard to Bethlehem or any other like clue as to the season. For one thing, the Earth's climate was driven by sunnier weather than usual during a period still called by climatologists, the Roman Maximum. And snow is rare enough in the Levant or the similar climate of coastal California, though it does happen as Los Angeles residents learned this year. Sorry, Miss Rosetti, your snow likely was not real but merely a metaphor for our world frozen in sin.

If I had to guess, the Roman census in Judea and Galilee probably was conveniently scheduled between major Jewish holidays and pilgrim feasts and avoided a season of major agricultural activity. So February or early March looks more promising if Hanukkah really was a pilgrim feast. But the Bible does not say, so it really doesn't matter.

What does matter is when we choose to celebrate it. And disagreeing with my mother, I suspect Christmas is celebrated on December 25 to place Jesus' circumcision on the eighth day from this event: 1 January, the beginning of the Roman civil year. In Rome, this day would be filled with omen-casting and inauguration of magistrates in rituals varying from the reasonably ordinary to the very, very strange. (HBO's Rome shows one ritual meant to give a sacrosanct character to a tribune. It's quite bloody.)

The Church originally celebrated 1 January as the Feast of the Circumcision, the first opportunity in Jesus' life to fulfill outward submission to the Law, and in which Joseph redeemed Jesus as his firstborn with a small sum given to charity or the local priests, depending on the exact custom. This act commemorated the redemption of the firstborn Israelites from the Angel of Death in Egypt as the circumcision recalled the circumcision of Israel from Egypt signified by the plagues. But it's all rather funny, because Joseph and Mary know that this child is God's son. That the Son of God is being incorporated into Israel. That Joseph is redeeming God from God on God's behalf. That in the submission of this child to the rituals of the Law, messianic prophecy is coming towards fulfillment and the reason of the Law ("the way of your statutes") is breaking down.

And since this day requires an unusual "redemption," they name the child Yeshua, a common enough name, held first in lore by the most obedient child of the Generation of the Wilderness, who took the mantle of Moses after his death and smote Canaan with the sword, purifying the land from the abominations of the nations. The child'
s parents might have hoped that this child, too, might be Israel's liberation from Roman oppression. But instead this child's name was not Yeshua Yisroel but Yeshua Tebel, God saves the entire world, Jew and Gentile alike. God saves. God redeems. And on New Year's Day, it signifies to us that God redeems all time, all struggle, all challenge, all change, and all things old we would like to bring with us into the new.

Today, I was reading a columnist who noted that the Roman Catholics, like the Episcopalians, no longer call 1 January the Feast of the Circumcision. The Episcopalians call it the Feast of the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which retains some of the original significance of the day. The Roman Catholics now call it the Solemnity of Mary. Charity forbids further comment.

A blessed Christmas and New Year from all of us at the Monastery, knowing that the only certainty of a new year is the continuing gift of God's salvation.

Picking Olives Tomorrow

My great-grandfather Josephus was an Italian peasant. When he came to this country, he spent his leisure time growing grapes, making wine, and then consuming it. Back in Italy, I'm sure he had olive trees because I get this deep atavistic pleasure from harvesting them. For the last couple of years, my institution has decided to harvest as many olives as they can from the trees that grow around the campus and make olive oil. So early tomorrow morning, I will be enjoying myself with a little arboriculture. Unlike the solar plants being installed around campus, the effort seems a bit of a stunt. For one thing, the olive oil made last year tastes horrible, like turpentine, just not as poisonous. It apparently won last place in a taste test competition of forty producers in Ionia. It, however, might be useful for other purposes. But it makes a point. Many of us (not me) spend our days trying to figure out sustainable and less carbon-intensive ways of powering the future. Our now less neglected olive trees are a reminder that there are older, but successful approaches to the problem lying dormant all around us. Like the foods that feed our bodies, our external energy use may be healthiest for us with a little locally adapted diversification.

The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways

Earlier today, I was electioneering against California's Proposition 8 in these parts. One of the people with whom I was electioneering asked me why I was doing this, so I told her the story of a man I knew in my childhood, a vestryman of my church and an attorney, who had nursed his partner as he died of AIDS while dealing with HIV infection himself. His union taught me that same sex partners could be "married" in the same way that my parents could be and such unions should be entitled to the same or similar rights. Just now, I was curious about where this man was now. After all, I had seen him in a video promoting a fundraiser for AIDS services back in high school. So I googled him and found that he had re-married in this state. And he's still working hard against AIDS both in himself and in the rest of the world.

So thank you, Mr. Milan, for being an inspiration for so many, I hope it brings you joy.

Contradictions in the Life of a Climate Scientist

I am a regular reader of Pandagon, mainly in order to remind myself that I am out of place with the American center left as presently constituted. And also because I find many of the opinions expressed there wrong but well-considered. Today, I found myself amused by this blog . Maybe it's just the title, since I generally have dated by bus and train and find it rather romantic, just not practical for ladies' footwear as presently constituted. But also because it really forced some of the commentariat to think about a less mobile world and the potential impact it could have on the general cosmopolitanism of our society.

It also made me think about my own love life, which sometimes involves pining after someone with whom I would have to have a long distance relationship (often abbreviated LDR in the Pandagon piece). The commentariat is right about one thing. LDRs have a definite connection with graduate school. In the sciences, it is especially bad. American anti-intellectualism is particularly pronounced toward the sciences (even among other intellectuals), and so scientists have a great deal of trouble finding someone who understands their passion and depth of purpose and are willing to build a common life with that considerable distraction always fighting toward the center of that relationship. To some extent, the onus falls on the scientist to set limits for themselves in order to care for the needs of their beloved as well as their own. I've heard plenty of divorce stories about older colleagues that make me think that science (and scientific discovery) can become an addiction and a rather obvious threat to relationships. But it's still helpful for a scientist's partner to either be a scientist or be a more flexible person with their own work of deep creativity and passion. And I'm happy to say I've seen some wonderful marriages of this type of long standing.

But often those kind of people find themselves in graduate school or similar situations, and not always in the same place. An LDR is so tempting in that neither of you have much time and so can block out a few phone calls etc. a week and see each other twice a year. On the other hand, many of my graduate school friends are pretty much set against LDRs. I'm not quite sure why, perhaps sex drive issues are involved. But maybe it's more generally incarnational than carnal. That your limited spare time is best spent being with someone than trying to compensate for being apart.

Of course, I also worry about climate/resources implications as in the Slate article referred to in the Pandagon piece. I have a friend at another school who was flying every month cross-country to see his girlfriend. The friend in question probably would have a deeper understanding of the latest IPCC Report than Al Gore, but he recognizes that in a society with distorted priorities and infrastructure, human relationships trump carbon emissions.

I understand the feeling. I try to limit both my business and personal travel. But my extended family on the East Coast likes to see me, and I've been only doing so about once per year. Friends are getting married. The only thing you can do is to try support less carbon-intensive transportation options. This year I will be using Amtrak Ionia to travel to a conference in Byzantion. (I even may get some colleagues to join me.) It doesn't quite make me feel better the three transcontinental round-trips I will be making in the next two months, but I know that those trips are not made frivolously. In all three cases, it is important for me to present for people, both in my family and in my field. If I lived in China, I gladly would ride from Lanzhou to Beijing by rail for the same necessity. If I lived in India, I'd say the same for Delhi to Madras. But I live in America...

There's one particular comment from Alara Rogers on the Pandagon piece that I think is worth reading. Small communities do tend to be insular societies, especially when isolated from cultural cues from the larger society (good or bad, q.v. Rwandan genocide) and there is a potential for excess, resentment of the alien, family rivalries and jealousies, and all manner of other evils. And so in the process of localizing our stuff while keeping our data global (sorry, Derek, I love your phrasing), it will be important to plan for human mobility, not the in and out mobility of the international businessman or global gatherings like Lambeth Conferences but room for mobility that still allows an American priest to spend a year in Southern Africa (and vice versa, especially vice versa). A prioritization of travel for purposes of experience, cultural exchange, and incarnation rather than goods and simple information. The best thing about this is that such travel needs only to be safe and reliable, not fast, permitting travel as a less energy-intensive pleasant experience and time of potential social interaction instead of an energy-intensive unpleasantness necessary to get from point A to point B. But will there be fewer LDRs? You betcha.

Good Theology Is Simply A Matter of Changing Pronouns When We Have Evolved To Do So

Or at least that's what they believe in Laodicea .

I am sorely tempted to write on a third viewpoint in reply and mail it to the Bishop. The hubris... It burns...

In Case You've Ever Wondered What I Do For A Living

No, I Don't Write Science News Items for British Tabloids.

Politics

bls has been concerned lately about what the purpose of blogging could be if one has no opinions. I understand the feeling. And then I thought about it and realized I have a lot of opinions but I'm not sure they matter very much.

In both the earthly and heavenly city, the city has an analogy with a human. In the case of the earthly city, we go round about with who among us is what part. In antiquity, the elite were said to be the head of the society and so consumed by the mouth and let the lower classes be the hands to work to feed them. In modern times, the same analogy holds in practice, but the hands and feet now are permitted to send nerve impulses to the brain on occasion and serious doses of neurotransmitters every six years. In the heavenly city, whose only described building is the sanctuary, the analogy is between the city and the God made man, Jesus Christ, who has resurrected the temple of his Body that the whole creation be at peace therein.

Some concern with the heavenly city has seemed appropriate lately. Recall the Collect for Proper 20:

Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things which are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

It helped to think on this this week. The Collect dates from the uneasiness during the era of the barbarian invasions of the 5th century AD. But as Will Durand reminds us, the invasions from without only have the power when we are corrupt within. The good person is neither buoyed up by joy nor brought down by misfortune saith Augustine. But I find it hard to cultivate ataxia, so how can it be for a Wall Street trader?

So given this analogy between the city and the human being, I wonder what is the point of the occasional nerve impulses to our legislators and seratonin shots to them in the voting booth. Why not simply externalize each and every listing of the state to the organs to which our constitution has externalized that function (ignoring our rights of suffrage and petition). If I feel myself as a scientist to be a communal externality of our individual curiosities, why not let the politicians be a similar communal externality of our individual deliberative functions?

The answer, of course, is that this brain is on drugs, in particular Special K (Street). And like a human being, the state has the potential to act extremely stupidly when intoxicated and panicked. Indeed, all of us acting extremely stupidly is infinitely more dangerously than one of us acting extremely stupidly.

I think I might have looked at this bailout plan a bit differently if I hadn't just read North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, a Victorian novel of Non-Conformity, mutiny, romance, early industrial capitalism, and labor agitation. It's amazing how much globalization shapes a novel written in 1855. But that's the idea. England had advantages in the early Industrial Revolution, but now it faces competition from a growing United States with better soil, cheaper food, easier access to raw materials, and more favorable conditions for immigration. In other words, the United States was the developing country capable of undercutting English textile manufacturers in the world market in a world of much more expensive transportation. Gaskell took a lot of flack from her husband's mill owner parishioners, but she portrays mid 19th century capitalists in a sympathetic light. What's interesting is how Gaskell notices how comfortable the industrial working class is relative to the rural working class. They have furniture, reasonably comfortable lodging, and generally are better fed. Many of them even have substantial savings, completely unthinkable from the rural poor, who seem dependent on the trickle down of ecclesiastical charity. But they are more prone to illness, working in dangerous and unhealthy conditions, and often live just as marginally.

The amazing thing about this novel is that it represents a middle period in the relation between the capitalist manager and the working class man and woman of production. In the early stage, industrial capitalism began in the context of the artisanal workshop emerging from the collective and conservative force of the medieval guild. In this middle stage, the worker has been demoted from a potential master but still remains in intimate contact with the manager whose capital is embodied by the factory, who lives next to the factory, and runs the operations of the factory himself. The increasing globalization of capital (as opposed to the globalization of the market, which is distinct) has eliminated these kinds of relations. If someone in some other city or country manages your factory and "funds" own the capital, the social controls that allow labor and management to have a mutual interest fall away. The capitalism seen in Gaskell is attractive because it is mutualistic. Modern capitalism is feared because of the instances in which it is parasitic.

Many would ask why is it important that capitalism be mutualistic. That's often inefficient. Well, capitalism in a democratic world is only justifiable on two grounds: one is in its aesthetic. In its purest form, capitalism is the self-sufficient and self-defensible person using his or her excess to do or make things that others find "useful" and will gladly provide their excess to obtain. Its eventual end, however, lies in the perpetual excrescence of human existence beyond sufficiency. The pure capitalist exchange requires a weighing of desire, not a weighing of need. The choice of sale or starvation makes a transactional party unfree. Most critiques of capitalism are of its impure form. But in a world of self-defensible and self-sufficient people with desires in proportion to their resource base, capitalism is a beautiful thing and fine director of human curiosity and innovation.
The other value of capitalism lies in its purity hopefully being its aim. In a world of uncertainty and scarcity, capitalism brings technology and a global marketplace, allowing a sort of half-sufficiency, in which the market hopefully compensates for the limitations of our individual economic lives.

Unfortunately, since its inception, capitalism has been perverted by force. The earliest industrial workers were those driven off by enclosure, which took land in which the peasantry had interest through the mixture of their labor with the ground and the aristocracy had interest through their defense of that ground and announced that the capital in that ground would belong to the sword alone. So all of this is to say that I understand the beauty and benefits of libertarianism, especially for Christians, in that there are certain aspects of ancient Israel that seem anarchocapitalist. Unfortunately, we are fallen people who pervert all things with force. And so I lean to the social democratic approach of supporting a variety of strategies to use the force of popular sovereignty and scientific curiosity to encourage local sufficiency and various checks on the activity of capital to ensure that property rights not easily apportioned in a flawed capitalist system become reserved to the people.

Mainly, I take the American approach pioneered by Chief Justice Roger Taney, "While the rights of private property are sacredly guarded, we must not forget that the community also have rights, and that the happiness and well-being of every citizen depends on their faithful preservation." In Taney's case, he was merely arguing that the government could modify exclusive monopolies in the public detriment. I feel free to extend this to any government interference with enterprise tending to the good of the public at large, but generally restricted to "public goods." Public health care management, public utilities, and public transit generally work for me. In World War II, the United States Government had nearly communistic control of factories. They ensured they paid well, though, and directed the excess salary into buying into the war debt. Considering the way defense contractors work now, why can't we have wartime control of those industries all the time? Well, maybe not.

The key is that the left generally likes to repeat the mistake of Marx, which insists that capitalism and private property are so deeply flawed as to be worthy of destruction. Yet private property at least is rather basic to humankind. We are social and political animals but do much better than ants on our own. Adam and Eve chose their downfalls on an individual basis after all.
I think it's much better to think of capitalism as something beautiful and flawed, like a lover with a substance abuse problem. If our love is true, we neither enable them, nor cast them away. We try to get them help when they fall down, but we do let them hit bottom. Both the right and the left like drag us toward class warfare. Bernie Sanders of Vermont wants to tax $500,000 income individuals and $1,000,000 income couples with a special surtax for ten years to help pay for the bailout. California has a similar surtax. I find these kinds of measures punitive, because it only measures economic activity in terms of income, and it equally punishes and rewards the best and the worst of a capitalist economy. Unfortunately, it would be nearly impossible to implement my perfect tax system (based on ecological economics). Instead, I favor progressive tax rates similar to the 1960s and spending and debt reservice in fixed proportions of GDP, possibly delineated in broad categories. I wish I could do things to bring back the middle phase of capitalism and the conscientious class unity possible between "master and man." But I think the energy issue will take care of that soon enough.

So in the end, I remain opposed to a bailout of the financial system at this stage. Let the toxic debt crash upon the relevant ears and let those unaffected climb to the top of the financial heap. The government seems like it can find buyers for the distressed. And if not, the government should buy them at lower prices in the coming year. I don't imagine it's going to be easy. Bond issues will slow. Credit will be tighter. 20% down payments generally may be required. But this crisis is a crisis of lust and overreaching. Easier credit and lower taxes encouraged irresponsibility of both government and people. In some, it led to desperation. As credit tightens, certain goods will return to reasonable prices. Other goods will seem necessary. From what I can tell, lending to industrial expansion continues apace. If you are willing to change your ways, a new structure of the American economy is coming. But as this economy develops, we are going need a little bit of cash to pay down government debt and create a less energy-intensive infrastructure. And some of that money should go into restructuring housing. I'd like to see the government offering benefits to mortgaged properties that are insulated, put to agricultural use, or divided into multiple family dwellings.

So I have opinions. And if you read carefully enough, you may realize that I am in favor of one drug addict letting another drug addict potentially overdose in order to allow another drug addict to go into treatment, which is often the consequence of analogies in this vale of tears.

So what about our presidential candidates? I'm at least voting for one of them, though I have to admit they're increasingly ridiculous. Just listening to them talk about Russia tonight made me want to scream. No consideration of Russia's strategic position at all. Instead, anyone who opposes people we support hates freedom. No mention of how we're going to be pointing missiles at them from Poland and want all their neighbors to join their military alliance. And I really want someone to ask why we're defending borders drawn by Joseph Stalin.

Things Anglicans Like: Iberian Fortified Wines

One usually does not associate Episcopalians with temperance. As the old joke goes, "Whenever two or three are gathered together, there is a fifth." And while there is something to be said for the divine favor that smiles on "wine that gladdens the heart of man," our fallen natures and imperfect bodies lead us to excess and genuine illness and addiction. Many of our last generation of priests were alcoholics. Many of our present generation are the children of alcoholics.

But when Anglicans aren't dealing with addiction and broken family systems, they probably need a drink, and not just a beer, despite Mother England's reputation as a land of beers and ciders. If we're talking Anglican booze, we're talking Iberian fortified wines: port, Madeira, and sherry. I don't know who first thought to mix brandy with red wine, but the English clearly loved it. And let's not forget the white version: the sack that Shakespeare writes about. Just the other day, I was buying a bottle of port as a gift for a non-Anglican Kiwi friend when I see my Anglo-Baptist Rector just behind me in line. He asks in his Cotton Kingdom accent, "Have a night of drinking ahead of you?" Not a bad guess, just a wrong one. After all, I'm a cradle Episcopalian. I've been a member of one parish where we'll serve sherry to you after Eucharist every Sunday of the year. And let's not forget how many parishes we'll do so at Eucharist as well. All during college, the Chaplain consecrated tawny port. I was fairly vexed he never mixed it with water, but don't most other catholic churches insist on "pure, fermented juice of the grape—good and wholesome," including the Church of England? Does wine mixed with grape distillate count?