the Shroud of Turin out and about...

     The Shroud of Turin, which usually lives in seclusion on the Isle of Man, over the weekend made a rare public appearance, apparently at the request of the Roman Catholic Church. Said a spokesperson for the Shroud, 'The Shroud, as you know, is a private relic, but this cause is so important, so pressing, that the Shroud made an exception at the request of the Pope himself.'
     This most famous of relics rarely ventures into the spotlight, eschewing fame for the simpler pleasures of family and friends, so crowds of fans responded with surprise and delight as they caught a glimpse of their beloved icon. No word yet on whether the Shroud will tour Europe, or perhaps even North America. 

'allow me to retort'...

     Love wins, therefore Hell exists. QED.

habemus papam?

     The whole world groans to find itself crypto-Papist. 
     Seems all are enthralled by Pope Francis. I'm not. He seems nothing more or less than a perfectly serviceable Pope. 
     I'm not holding my breath over indulgences.

a poser...

     I read that there 'is a purely natural happiness proportionate to human nature', but riddle me this, in what does human nature consist? Just what would a purely natural happiness sound like?

Geoffrey Hill, briefly considered...

     The early poetry of Geoffrey Hill finds its telos in the later. It's inexorable, and makes perfect sense. Whether the later poetry is any good or not, well, that's a whole other wicket. There's so little of the former, and so much of the later - perhaps that's a parallax of a sort. 

zero-sum...

     I see an essay in the latest Nova et Vetera entitled 'Lectio Divina in a Secular Age.' Seems secular and lay attitudes have 'invaded the cloister'. This is true. It is also hilarious. Lest we forget, during the Reformation, the attitudes and practices of the cloister invaded the secular and lay world all around. My how times have changed.

how long before the ecusa takes up the cause?

     Seems there are some Unitarians who want to give the holy handed blessing to my favorite dorm fantasy: 

'But within the ranks of the UUA over the past few years, there has been some quiet unrest concerning a small but activist group that vociferously supports polyamory. That is to say “the practice of loving and relating intimately to more than one other person at a time,” according to a mission statement by Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness (UUPA). The UUPA “encourages spiritual wholeness regarding polyamory,” including the right of polyamorous people to have their unions blessed by a minister.'

Others in the ranks want 'em to stifle on tactical grounds - this does, after all, hurt the push toward so-called 'marriage equality'. 
     Am I the only one who finds this hilarious?

from a couple of days ago...

I love Columbus in the Springtime
I love Columbus in the Fall
I love Columbus in the Winter when it's Springtime
I love Columbus in the Summer when it's all
the seasons rolled together til the Fall...

'a fascination of what's difficult'...

     It's time I reckoned with the work of one Geoffrey Hill. I have avoided his later poetry in particular, and remain skeptical about it. We'll see how it goes. After all, I love Paul Celan, Rene Char, and Emily Dickinson, so my guess is there is something I have missed in Hill's bitter and rough poems. 

tv! tv!

     For some reason, I allowed myself to be sucked into the void that is The West Wing. Over the past three days, I have, among other things, watched all of the first two seasons. There is some witty writing, yes, and it can be funny as hell from time to time. It is, however, so heavy-handed, so sentimental, that it is in the end pernicious. It could be one of the most depraved and dangerous series I’ve ever seen. 

     Allow me to focus on only one arc within the two seasons I have witnessed. Turns out that the President has a certain type of MS. He was diagnosed seven years before we catch up with him at the start of the series. Only a handful of people know about his condition, which is slowly revealed over several episodes in these two seasons. When it is disclosed that he lied about it for several years, especially while on the campaign for the presidency, his entire administration, and legacy, is threatened with shipwreck. 

     Here’s where we have a problem. Before I get to that, let’s look at what’s good about this. First, it is a plausible story. Second, it is pretty well written, and the acting is good. The problem, dear reader, is this. At no point are we, the viewers, ever encouraged to consider that this paragon of Presidents, this PhD in economics with a Nobel Prize, should resign and accept the disgrace due his actions. He has, for several years, perpetrated a conspiracy, all so he can attain and hold the office of the President. He, and his people, are convinced that they are somehow different, and while we see a few of these staffers react with shock and anger upon hearing the news, they fall in line and help save this man they have pledged to serve.
     This is all given to us in the most cloying way. We are meant to identify with this President, feel the emotional trauma he and his must endure as they finally reveal it to the public. Reveal it they do, in a carefully staged manner, after taking a poll to gauge how the public might react to such news. While all this is happening, the reality of their deception is made clearer by scenes with the White House Counsel, who insists that both the President and the First Lady grapple with at least the deep and broad legal morass they have created for themselves. Such realism as this one character offers, however, is undercut by the viewer's carefully cultivated loyalty to the central characters, a loyalty that is driven by ideological as well as emotional investments. So, again, as the seriousness of the crisis becomes more and more apparent; as the senior staff takes to meeting in the basement to plot strategy; as the press is manipulated; we never hear that most basic question: should not the President resign?
     Consider - in the story they’ve written, this man has committed fraud on a massive scale. His wife, a distinguished physician and now also the First Lady, has colluded with him in this fraud, and in the doing has violated several provisions in the code of ethics that orders her profession to the common good. They have taken care with the secret, restricting knowledge of the man’s condition to a small circle of people necessary to care for him and advance his interests. We are shown that they have never coerced anyone or asked them to lie, but it is also understood that this man commands such personal loyalty that there is almost no chance that anyone ever would reveal his secret. So, he and his wife have cast a veil of secrecy over the existence of a disease so grave that it could, though it need not, threaten the very sanity of the man who would be President. He is special, you see; the country needs him. Were he to reveal his condition, it’s likely that, fair or unfair, he would lose. He wants to be President, he needs to be President, and all those around him believe in him. This carries into the point in the story where the secret is revealed to all, and the Administration closes ranks to protect Their Man (and themselves).
     That this would all be grounds for impeachment and then an indictment is mentioned from time to time, but, at least in what I’ve seen so far, it is never fully explored. Instead, we have the emotional and ideological identification with this Powerful Man, who is at the center of a constellation of truly interesting characters we come to care for, and in that fog of sentiment and pandering we are subtly and not so subtly by turns moved to hope that the President not only survives this crisis but thrives in office. Once I left the glow of my computer screen and looked out the window onto the still turning world, I shook off this fog and started to think once again. A President that lied so egregiously, all so he could attain that office, would offend me morally, for such a President would ill-deserve the office. The fraud itself would render all his moral and political power moot. I would hope to see him speedily impeached and convicted and thus removed from office. I’m also certain that we could find him a minimum security prison somewhere with excellent medical facilities.
      So, the series seems to my ear to be a propaganda piece for the Magic Presidency. In it, the President is all powerful, except when stymied by idiot congressmen who refuse to bend to his will, or those legal and moral niceties that might impede his path to glory. Sure he lied, committed several felonies and colluded in fraud in fact, but we can forgive him because he is a brilliant reformer, a compassionate man of principle, and a lover of all things Constitutional. The West Wing is dangerous and depraved, it seems to me, because it is really a story about the Cult of the President, wrapped in a soap opera about a group of quirky eternal university students.  

fun with words...

     When used to describe a work of theology, or pretty much anything, the following words are without any significance beyond branding: provocative, controversial, radical, inclusive, equality...feel free to add your own.

a weather report...

     Outside it snows and snows.
     It's so still, and the snow is heavy and wet, and it's bright the way it always is at night while it snows and snows.

     More transient beauty. God is very good.

they are always with us...

     From I Am Amazed (Against the Origenists), by one Shenoute of Atripe, the section entitled, 'On the Incarnation and the Eucharist':

     'But now some say that the bread and cup are not the body and blood of Christ, but are merely a type. I have grown weary of saying this. Woe is me! I have become disturbed on account of this ungodliness!'

     Quite so. 'I have grown weary of saying this,' how I understand.
     
     'If the Lord himself says, "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood will live forever," and moreover, "This is my body and this is my blood," how great will be the woe to these people when they say that is is not his body and his blood, and how great will be the woe to those who accept their words!'

     No matter. People have their opinions. They feel somehow entitled to those opinions, and love to share them. They will make no assertions as to truth, mind you, but how they love their opinions.

     The word of the day is isomorphic.
   

Rob Bell is here to help God...

     Rob Bell speaks of 'giving back to the make the world the kind of place God always dreamed it could be.' Poor God, dreaming a wonderful dream, only to watch it become a Dream Deferred because some of us are so mean. God is like a kid with cancer who wants more than anything to meet his favorite baseball player, only to be told no over and over again. Poor poor God. Let's all pitch in to make God's wonderful dream come true. The first thing you can do, of course, is buy Rob Bell's book. 

how about some Luther?

     In lieu of anything of my own, I give you something from Luther's sermons on John 6:

     'He speaks openly, clearly, and plainly of this, so that no one may think that he says it in a dark or hidden way or is using a figure of speech: "I am the bread," a food which has come from heaven. "Whoever eats of me, shall live." Here no one can deny that he is talking about himself, since he says this about himself, that is, about his person. Therefore one is to grasp and take hold of the person of Christ with certainty, and not go wandering on other paths. But people are most offended by this, that he says "I". Whoever overcomes this offense, has triumphed, for this is the real art and the highest wisdom of faith, if one can only consider and regard this person Christ as God, as his food and bread of eternal life, yes, as his comfort, redeemer, and savior, for whatever he is, that you obtain with him. This article makes you a Christian, so that you are called "Christian" from Christ, and you receive your Christian title from him.'

nothing to see here...

     I found myself today.
     I'd been lost you see. Weird, I know.
     Well, there I was, walking down Broad Street in the March snow, mumbling to myself. 
     'Goethe,' I seemed to say, 'Goethe and Shakespeare. Where's Hamann, where? Tell Kafka I'm sorry, Celan's gone missing. Poor Tom's a cold...'
     That last may have been a trick of the ears.
     Well, there was nothing to be done. Had to give me a ride home. I'm still sleeping off whatever happened Out There.
   

some people should stop talking right now...

     While I'm sure it comes as a shock to many, especially here in the US, the cardinals did not elect an Episcopalian. 
     Folks can stop hyperventilating any time now. Last time I checked, one of the qualifications for the Papacy is that one must actually BE a Catholic.
     I know, it's so annoying when reality gets in the way.

fun with names...

     Bernard of Clairvaux, Julian of Norwich, Hildegard von Bingen, Tomas d'Aquino, John duns Scotus, Cyril of Alexandria, Ephrem of Syria...on and on it goes.
     Lessee, I was raised in Dunedin, Florida. That makes me one Thomas of Dunedin, or Tomas dùn Eden.  (Tomas from the fortress of Eden, if memory serves). So there.

not to change the subject or anything...

     Wondering about the vocation of 'lay theologian'. There have been more than a few in the history of the Church; there are more than a few about the place right now. Since it appears to be one of my callings, it seems meet and right to spend some time reflecting on it. So, over the next few weeks that's what I plan to do. I cannot, of course, devote all my time to this - there are other callings to contend with, all packed into the same transient time. 

Rand Paul's filibuster...

     Here is the text of an email I sent to senators from Ohio about Rand Paul's filibuster:

I have listened for the last several hours to the articulate, logical, and courageous filibuster speech by Senator Rand Paul. Behind all the complexity of argument concerning the use of drones at home and abroad, the laws of war, and the absurdity of combat unlimited in both geographic scope and temporal extension, there is a more fundamental issue. Rand is calling our attention to the inherent limits on executive power as laid out in the Constitution. 

For too long we have allowed presidents and their administrations to determine the very rules which will govern their policies and actions in matters of war. This is, in turn, part of a larger pattern of allowing the same in every area of our national life. This contradicts a basic principle of the constitutional order. One needn't be a strict contructionist in these matters to see that our overarching structure of law not only *allows* oversight of the Executive by the Legislative, but even *mandates* that oversight. This is what gives Senator Paul’s actions today such force and meaning.

For this reason I urge you to support publicly Senator Paul's initiative here to force the current administration to yield to congressional authority and bow to the rule of law. Whatever particular agreements or disagreements we may have with any of his particular assertions, I hope we can all agree that further unraveling our legal framework will only erode liberty even further, and jeopardize the very security and prosperity our overreaching president claims to defend.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,

Thomas Hall

i dreamed a dream...

     Chesterton sits by the river Styx trying desperately to write a perfect sonnet about modular curves and Fermat's Last Theorem. When he has completed the task, he will be allowed to drink from Lethe. He will then immediately forget that he ever pretended to know anything, and thus will be fit to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

beauty that will not last...

An extravagance of snow. In a day or two, it will mostly be gone. I love this transient beauty.

sequester blues...

     Our representatives and senators are not out of touch with the rest of America. They are the rest of America. In my part of Ohio, the reps et al are here all the time, listening to people, tracking polls. They are if anything too much in sync with us.
     They are pulled and pushed by intractably divided constituencies who want balanced everything without taxes and without touching favored programs. In the absence of an incentive to compromise, they'll do nothing and try to shift the blame.
     Thus we have an absurd situation in which no one can yield a bit over a marginal tax increase for taxable income over $250k, and where it is political suicide to touch Social Security, Medicare, Defense, even though everyone knows they are unmanageable.
     The 'Sequester' is therefore the only political option left to most of them. It's idiotic, yes, but that's because in these matters we've all become idiots. So, as always, this is on all of us. Welcome to representative government.