Pulling no punches

I've just discovered Frederica Mathewes-Green, former Episcopalian now Orthodox, former pro-choice now pro-life, author and speaker. This quotation is from "Personhood of the Unborn", broadcast on NPR's All Things Considered January 21, 1998.

When we question whether someone is a person, it is because we want to kill him. We do this with our enemies in wartime, or with anyone we would like to enslave or exploit. Before we can feel comfortable treating others this way, we have to expel them from the human community.

Science and religion: memorize this concept

The world of science lives fairly comfortably with paradox. We know that light is a wave, and also that light is a particle. The discoveries made in the infinitely small world of particle physics indicate randomness and chance, and I do not find it any more difficult to live with the paradox of a universe of randomness and chance and a universe of pattern and purpose than I do with light as a wave and light as a particle. Living with contradiction is nothing new to the human being.

By Madeline L'Engle (1918-2007), who died today, although her website hasn't mentioned it yet.

HT to Rod Dreher who links to the New Republic blog The Plank.

I LOVE this concept! Of course there is mental tension when thinking about science. Everybody who takes a physics class, even at an introductory level, runs across the mind-bender questions like "Astronaut Bob is flying away from Astronaut Adam at 80% of the speed of light. They fire at each other. Who dies first?" But does the atheist say that the unseeable but reasonable supposition that light is a wave and a particle means that scientists are deluded folk with magic invisible particles helping them see?

God rest her soul. Even on the day of her death, she was teaching me.

Cripples for dinner?

With Blessed Teresa of Calcutta in mind, today's Gospel is deceptively easy in the beginning and surprisingly hard at the finish:

On a sabbath Jesus went to dine
at the home of one of the leading Pharisees,
and the people there were observing him carefully.

He told a parable to those who had been invited,
noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table.
“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet,
do not recline at table in the place of honor.
A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him,
and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say,
‘Give your place to this man,’
and then you would proceed with embarrassment
to take the lowest place.
Rather, when you are invited,
go and take the lowest place
so that when the host comes to you he may say,
‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’
Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table.
For every one who exalts himself will be humbled,
but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Then he said to the host who invited him,
“When you hold a lunch or a dinner,
do not invite your friends or your brothers
or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors,
in case they may invite you back and you have repayment.
Rather, when you hold a banquet,
invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;
blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.
For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

As I attain rank (mostly by virtue of seniority) in my profession, I have the worry of teaching others their jobs but I also have the privilege of sending them to do stuff to make my work life easier. I can actually get away with sending people to pick up my work from the printer, or make copies, or run and get me a reference document, or do icky little research or organization tasks to save me time. I've gotten awfully used to it, and don't quail as much as I used to; no explanations or apologies, just "go get me....please."

So I have the new occasion for sin of feeling pretty darn nice when I do a little running for a staffer when they're busy.

As my mother and aunts and uncles age, I and my cousins do a lot of door-holding and food-getting and ride-giving and "while I'm here, why don't I take out your garbage and change the light bulb and run stuff to the attic." They get first crack at the shrimp and the champagne and, after the little ones, even the piece of cake with the rose on it. It's very natural, because their age and infirmities, and our debt of life to them, makes it obvious and even kind of an honor (we won't have them forever).

So I go up high at work, and go down low in the family. In my self-conceit, I am tempted to think they balance. I know that's not for me to say, that I efface myself enough everywhere. Shoot.

About that second part, inviting the lame, the crippled, the poor: I can't even get a model of that in my mind. Be nice to the irritating woman who comes to an event at church that I volunteer for? Okay. Listen to the frighteningly immoral activities engaged in over the weekend by one of our more mistaken admin staff and seize upon the parts I can praise? Probably. But I think I'm totally blind to opportunity to give without ANY chance of return, not even of self-satisfaction. Someone explain it to me please.

What is Teresa teaching us?

Time magazine's recent (excellent) piece on Mother Teresa's dryness and "dark night" experiences during most of her spiritual walk has made quite a stir. And I have indeed been stirred by the realization that her faithfulness, love and service stemmed completely from grace, not even assisted by those moments of joy and spiritual consolation that most of us think we need in order to keep our spiritual lives on track.

The uber-predictable Christopher Hitchens, who has made a lucrative profession as an Atheist, has a slightly different perspective.

So, which is the more striking: that the faithful should bravely confront the fact that one of their heroines all but lost her own faith, or that the Church should have gone on deploying, as an icon of favorable publicity, a confused old lady who it knew had for all practical purposes ceased to believe?

Well, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Mr. Hitchens seems to believe that everyone is on the lookout for the Main Chance and is ready to leverage all for personal advantage. Ergo, I believe, his rather energetic and hysterical responses over the years to Mother Teresa as the epitome of all things Christian. More fool, he.

But another sort of reaction takes me more by surprise. TSO wrote a lovely post in response to the Time article. In a headstrong moment, he sent it to a local Baptist minister with whom he has swapped ideas in the past. The minister's response is, um, puzzling.

I am absolutely astonished at the "spin" people are putting on this!!! I simply can't believe what I'm reading. To live a life devoid of peace, joy, faith - is nothing to be admired. Her works, absolutely - but the life described in her writings is the polar opposite of the entire New Testament.

I am blown away by the rationalization I am reading from people simply trying to defend the undefendable.

As I said - I am truly astounded. And I honestly, sincerely mean that.

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!

I find this stupefying. "Rationalization"? "Undefendable?" Is he saying she was in a state of sin and separation from God? That it's evidence that she wasn't really a Christian? What on earth would he suggest that she do? Go out and manufacture some better feelings? Drown her sorrows in whiskey and be less honest with her confessor? Learn to like Gilmore Girls to take her mind off her troubles?

It makes me want to throw things.

Where is this man coming from? Help me, please. I don't want to sin against this guy.

Affable evangelism

Call to mind someone you might think of when the word "evangelist" is mentioned. Clean cut? Lots of jargon? Trying to convince you of something, is he? Perhaps he's wearing a conservative shirt and tie -- maybe even penny loafers. Do you feel comfortable? Would you like to look him up for lunch? If not, what a missed opportunity for the Holy Spirit.

I heard about a different approach the other day. A friend of my daughter went on an organized mission trip with a church group, I believe. They were in a poor area of a Latin American country; they had brought lots of beans and other food to distribute and a boatload of Bibles.

But this young man got a bit impatient with his friends' foot-dragging as they got everything organized and programmed. So, he went down to the place where the men of the village appeared to gather, the local bar. He was warmly greeted when he walked in and offered a drink, but he explained in his halting Spanish that he only had $1. A shout went up - no problem! - and soon, equipped with a beer, he was swapping stories of his home town and hearing about their families, their chickens, and their difficulties finding work.

He left to get some money and convince his friends that he had stumbled onto an opportunity. So, better bankrolled this time, he returned and bought a round of beer to good cheer. Soon, one of his friends walked in with a load of the beans they had brought. Could anybody use some beans? Hey, sure, everybody could, and wasn't it great that the visitors had turned up with all that extra food. The fun continued.

Soon another friend came in with his arms full. Could anybody use a Bible? Huzzah, sure, that's great. Thanks, come on and sit down, what will you have? You guys read the Bible? Yeah, I've wondered about that too, but the really important stuff like our good Lord is all there plain as day. Yes, even though it's mostly women in the churches, manly men are stronger when they are living like God wants them to. Want help getting those beans home? Sure, we're staying for a week. I'll get you back tomorrow for that dart game.

* * * * *

My daughter tells me that this fellow "was a guy before he was a Christian." Maybe that's the secret.