A New Creation

At the turn of the seventeenth century Caravaggio was the buzz of the Roman art world. Among his most famous paintings is The Calling of St Matthew which depicts the moment when Jesus chose Matthew (his Hebrew name was Levi) to join His Apostles. It's a painting that's always fascinated me.

Matthew, a tax collector, sits at a table in his counting house along with his foppish friends. Like a schoolboy who doesn't know the answer to the question posed by his teacher, Matthew's gaze is directed towards the coins stacked in front of him on the table, studiously avoiding eye contact with Jesus. Our Lord stands on the right side of the painting, a wedge of light from an open window passes over His shoulder, falling upon the reluctant Matthew. The most striking thing about Jesus though (and I must admit that I had to have this pointed out to me, it's not something I noticed on my own) is his right hand which He has extended towards Matthew. His index finger is pointed directly towards Matthew, his wrist slightly bent, the remaining three fingers and his thumb curled loosely towards His palm. It is the same positioning of the hand used by Michelangelo to depict God's reach towards man in the Creation of Adam painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Caravaggio must have copied this on purpose from Michelangelo's masterpiece to show that Matthew is not merely being called to the discipleship of an itinerant preacher, he's being called to be a new creation. He knows this and he fears that call. After all, Matthew is the one among those whom Jesus calls who stands to lose the most. Unlike Adam, Matthew doesn't reach back towards God, his hands remain on the table, fondling his coins.

As a tax collector, St Matthew made a pretty good living. Tax collectors were notorious for their corruption, "cooking the books", as it were, charging taxpayers too much, turning in too little to the government and pocketing the profits. He must have enjoyed the favor of some patron among the Roman administration since such appointments were not handed out to indigenous people without such influence. Further, Matthew's circle of friends would have been limited to other tax collectors since the Jews would not associate with employees of the hated Roman regime, and Romans would look down on natives of their colonized regions as second rate persons at best. But, Our Lord must have seen something in this tax collector. Somewhere within Matthew, Jesus recognized something worthy of extending this call. In the end, though, Matthew accepts the call.

We hear the same call that Matthew heard. Christ calls us to be new creations, but like Matthew, we balk. There's a lot of baggage we haul around with us, so many things we'll have to change. We'll find times when being created anew conflicts with our accumulation of material goods. We fear the effect becoming a new creation will have on our lifestyles, our jobs, our daily life. We are afraid of what our friends will say. We, too, hesitate to reach back towards God. We're content to quietly accept the call, to play lip service to it, but living the call is another issue.

We eagerly await a new heaven and a new earth. We long for a world which acknowledges the dignity of all men before God. We desire a world without evil, sickness, and death, but God doesn't seem to plan to do it in one fell swoop. He's calling us one at a time to become His agents in this world. He reaches towards us to effect the repair of the breach between us, and it's up to us to reach back by living our beliefs in this world, like Matthew did in becoming one of the Twelve, in becoming the first to record the words and deeds of Christ to communicate them to others.

Til next time, all the best. Joe

If You Think the Beginning Was Something...

The homily at our Christmas Midnight Mass was delivered by a deacon, Peter Marshall (pardon any misspelling here) who will be ordained to the priesthood this spring. I don't know if it was Deacon Peter's first homily, but it was the first time I had ever heard him preach, and it was an awesome experience. His subject was "If you think the beginning was something...", and it really set me to thinking...

Deacon Peter used the examples we are familiar with from our own lives to illustrate that those exciting first moments pale in comparison to that which lies in store for us at the end of significant stages in our lives. That the first day of college pales in comparison to the promise of graduation; that the wedding belies the trials and tribulations that await the couple over the course of their marriage; that the arrival of a newborn shrinks as the responsibility and the promise of what is to come from that new life dawns on the parents.

So then does the Nativity of Christ, despite its touching tenderness, despite being pregnant with promise, despite the message of love it sends mean very little if we detach from it the glory of the Passion and the Resurrection of Christ. Now please, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that the Nativity is not important. Certainly it is quite necessary to the plot of salvation history. If Jesus had not become Man, then his death and resurrection could not have occurred. And there are many other important lessons to be gleaned from this season.

I don't know why my mind does this, I suspect it's a touch of Attention Deficit Disorder, but suddenly the thought of Al Jolson popped into my head while I was turning Deacon Peter's words over in my head. In 1927, in the classic and history making movie The Jazz Singer, Al Jolson spoke the first words heard in a major motion picture, "Wait a minute! Wait a minute! You ain't hard nothing yet!" Audiences went wild. Look where cinema has gone today from that humble start.

I can easily imagine the Bambino, God become Man, or perhaps the young Jesus with the rabbis and scribes in the Temple as His parents found Him with these words upon His lips, "Wait a minute! Wait a minute! You ain't heard nothing yet!", then adding "If you think the beginning is something..."

Until next time, all the best. Joe

Follow Me!

Hey, here's an idea. If you like Top Meadow so much that you really can't live without it, why not become a follower of my blog and be notified of updates. Just click on the words "Follow this blog" on the left margin and I'll be added to your reading list. As always, feel free to comment.

Until next time, all the best. Joe

Chesterton on the Nativity

"A mass of legend and literature, which increases and will never end, has repeated and rung the changes on that single paradox; that the hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle. Upon this paradox, we might almost say upon this jest, all the literature of our faith is founded. It is at least like a jest in this, that it is something which the scientific critic cannot see. He laboriously explains the difficulty which we have always defiantly and almost derisively exaggerated; and mildly condemns as improbable something that we have almost madly exalted as incredible; as something that would be much too good to be true, except that it is true. When that contrast between the cosmic creation and the little local infancy has been repeated, reiterated, underlined, emphasised, exulted in, sung, shouted, roared, not to say howled, in a hundred thousand hymns, carols, rhymes, rituals, pictures, poems, and popular sermons, it may be suggested that we hardly need a higher critic to draw our attention to something a little odd about it...It is no more inevitable to connect God with an infant than to connect gravitation with a kitten."

This paragraph form the chapter "The God in the Cave" begins Chesterton's reflection of the Nativity of Christ in his Masterpiece The Everlasting Man. If you have never read it, you should. Then, you should read it again.

I had never really given it much thought before I read Chesterton, but the bit about the hands of God being too small to reach the cattle just floors me. That God entrusted Himself as man to the care of the created, that He deliberately became vulnerable to all those things which threaten and endanger a child is really a concept that I have a hard time getting my head around. Other religions had myths regarding the birth of gods; other mythologies even had the idea that a god could become a man, but none had a God-Child born of a human mother and dependent on her as all babes do. As Chesterton expounds further on "When a well-known critic says, for instance, that Christ being born in a rocky cavern is like Mithras having sprung alive out of a rock, it sounds like a parody upon comparative religion. There is such a thing as the point of a story, even if it is a story in the sense of a lie. And the notion of a hero appearing, like Pallas from the brain of Zeus, mature and without a mother, is obviously the very opposite of the idea of a god being born like an ordinary baby and entirely dependent on a mother. Whichever ideal we might prefer, we should surely see that they are contrary ideals."

Wow! Just wow!

Merry Christmas and God bless you all!

Until next time, all the best. Joe

The Roots of Christianity II

In a narrow strip of the ancient Near East, bordered roughly by the hills of Judea on the west and the Jordan River on the east, there dwelt a xenophobic and odd people. They claimed descent from a single man named Abram, or Abraham, originally from the city of Ur in Mesopotamia, where his father was an idol maker. Apparently Abraham was a young man prone to thought for, according to the oral traditions of his descendants, one day while his father napped he conducted and experiment. He crept into his father's workshop and smashed all the idols except the biggest. He laid the hammer by the large idol. When his father returned to work after his rest, Abraham blamed the carnage on the surviving idol. His father admonished Abraham not be foolish, and punished him for the mayhem. This confirmed a suspicion which he had long harbored that no one, not even those who stood the most to profit from their purported powers, really believed in the power of these gods. Yet Abraham felt, as all men do at one point or another, that the world and its wonders called for a deity. Shortly after this, at the tender age of seventy-five, Abraham packed up his family and left Ur, and the rest, as they say, is history.


That history, the history of the nation eventually called Israel and its attendant religion, known as Judaism (the two can never really be separated) is a story of triumph and tragedy, it is a story of apostasy and repentance. I don't intend to recount the saga of Israel here. Most people are at least vaguely familiar with the tale, and accounts of it are readily available in the Hebrew Scriptures.

In my last essay, I surmised that monotheism had been the original theological state of mankind. Here I will put forth the premise that Abraham rediscovered that theology. How this idea entered into Abraham's mind, I have no idea. Perhaps there were tales surviving to his day recounting such a belief. Perhaps he had some sort of epiphany. In any event, it seems that the idea of one deity, of one God, was not a commonly held belief in his day. This God then deigns to establish a covenant, or relationship, with Abraham and his descendants.

His descendants would cling to this monotheistic ideal for the better part of two thousand years, imperfectly, sometimes straying into apostasy, but always the faithful remnant remained, always returning to their devotion to the "God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob". For two thousand years, they prepared the way for, and eagerly awaited that which all religions, at their base, hoped for, the reconciliation of man and God. The law of God, handed down to the people through Moses, set the Jews apart from their contemporaries. The Jews were not xenophobic. They were set apart by God to prevent their corruption. The plan of God was to present the world with its savior through the Jews. Their task was to maintain the purity of Man as best they could, to foster a culture capable of nurturing a Man become God. Their prophets foretold that event; their teachings foretold His; their sacrifices foreshadowed the sacrifice that God would make out His love for His Creation.

And so it happened that, in the fullness of time, God saved His people. Next time, I think, perhaps we'll examine Judaism realized. Until then, all the best. Joe

Why We Should Share the Gospel: An Atheist Perspective

I know I promised something else in this post, but this floored me. Penn Jillette, the talkative half of the illusionist duo Penn and Teller, hits the nail on the head about why Christians should prostelytize.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JHS8adO3hM

"Preach the Gospel and when necessary, use words." St Francis of Assissi

Thanks to The Anchoress and New Advent for finding this one.

The Roots of Christianity

One of the recent topics of discussion lately, and I must say a perennially popular one, on the forums at my favorite atheist website has been the "pagan" origins of Christianity. I thought it highly appropriate that this subject should emerge once more at this particular season of the year since Advent is our waiting for the arrival of the Messiah, the arrival which is, or course, one of the foundational events of our faith.

The poster at the website to which I refer wrote a long list of concepts which Christianity supposedly stole from paganism, many are repetitive, so I have taken liberties by condensing this list somewhat. Among the noticed similarities are these, the "god" concept itself; Satan; souls; heaven and hell; sin; redemption; an incarnated Divine Savior; miracles; Resurrection; ascension; baptism; Eucharist; the fulfillment of prophecy. I do not intend to address these issues case by case, but rather, in Chestertonian fashion, to address the idea of similarities springing from a common source.

I would, like my hero Chesterton, note that perhaps these similarities spring from the dim recesses of a collective human memory. I contend that monotheism is the original theological condition of man, that as societies coalesced to form larger groups, as families became clans, as clans became tribes, as tribes became nations pantheons were formed as the single gods of merging groups of people were adopted by the larger groups as a form of compromise.

But always, some element of a dimly recalled cataclysm remained, that which we know as the Fall of Man. Man has always realized that there is something inherently wrong with himself. That something about his nature is not as it should be. As Chesterton says, "...there is something in the whole tone of the time suggesting that men had accepted a lower level, and still were half conscious that it was a lower level...These men were conscious of the Fall if they were conscious of nothing else...Those who have fallen may remember the fall, even when they have forgotten the height."

Certainly, I have not proven my contention that monotheism was the original condition of man. But I submit that it is indeed a far simpler explanation than the spontaneous generation of numerous pantheons coming into existence. One is much simpler than many. A common, and dimly recalled experience would also explain the commonalities found among the religions of the world's far-flung cultures. The knowledge that man had once offended a deity led to the codification of laws. The knowledge that man was meant for immortality led to the burial traditions whereby a man's belonging were interred with him in the grave. The knowledge that man had initiated the rift between himself and his deity led to the tradition of a sacrificing priesthood. The knowledge that this rift existed cried out for the deliverance of man by a Redeemer. Upon such dim knowledge, upon these dim recollections of a promise did Man begin the construction of the great pantheons of old.

But on the fringe of the world, in the murky backwater of the flourishing civilizations hugging the rim of the Mediterranean Sea, one culture, one nation, one civilization clung tenaciously to the belief in one God. In my next post, we'll look at this odd monotheistic culture and the beliefs to which it held so fiercely.

Until then, all the best. Joe

The War Against the Church: Attacks on the Family

It is difficult to deny, and I have encountered few who try to deny, that the family is the first school which we, as humans, attend. It is in the family that we recieve our first lessons in matters of human interaction. It is in the family that we learn those qualities most essential to forming social bonds. The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls the family "the original cell of social life" and stresses that "Authority, stability, and a life of relationships within the family constitute the foundations for freedom, security, and fraternity within society." Let's take a look at the attacks on the family under those headings outlined by the Catechism, that is Authority, Stability and Relationships.

Authority



We see from the above citation from the Catechism that the Church realizes that authority is not a impediment to freedom, but is, on the contrary, the cornerstone of freedom.

It is in the home that our children first encounter authority in the person of their parents. Now, like it or not, we will spend our entire lives in submission to authority of some form. We have bosses at work, government in our interaction with others. Submission to authority is part and parcel of living in community.

But the culture in which we live seeks to undermine that authority. It seeks to impose its values on our children; it strives to drown out our values in cultural "noise" that shouts down those lessons we struggle to inculcate our children with. We see it in the teaching of so-called "diversity" and "tolerance" in our schools. We see it in the messages of the glorification of violence as a means of achieving goals portrayed in popular entertainment. We see it in the blatant sexualization of our youth by music and fashion.

It is the role of parents and not the state to be the primary educators of children. It the responsibility of the family and not the culture to be the primary formers of the minds of our youth.

Stability

Stability means consistency. It means consistency in the values we live, consistency in the thoughts we express, consistency in the influences we allow to exert influence upon us. We sacrifice so much of this consistency in the name of progress. We tire under the endless assaults of the culture. We succumb to the overwhelming flood of ideas that, although they run counter to what we believe, we submit to because it's easier.

But with stability comes security, the knowledge that there is a place where we can know we are safe. Where the things we believe are safe, where our values have meaning, where what we accomplish, or fail to accomplish will be viewed consistently. The family should be a place of shelter, a place of consistency, a place where we can shelter and seek rest and safety among those we love.

A Life of Relationships

In the modern world, especially in the vaunted western culture, the large family is viewed as an anomaly. Sexuality has been uncoupled from procreation and the propagation of the species. The West has become a self centered society where humans are judged by their wealth and their belongings. Materialism, in the sense of the accumulation of "stuff", has become the enemy of the family, encouraging, as it does the vast dedication of resources to accumulate things. It is financially more and more difficult to "keep up with the Joneses". Smaller families have more resources per person to spend on accumulation.

Already, though, we see the results of this amongst European society, where reproduction rates have fallen below the rate of replacement. In Europe, fewer taxpayers support more elderly via tottering social entitlement programs. Parents without children, children without siblings, find themselves approaching old age without family members to care for them, not just in a physical and financial sense, but in the sense of having companionship.

Community loses its meaning when one finds oneself alone. Loneliness breeds despair. It's hard to find joy when one's alone.

Sorry it took so long to post this. I also apologize if my thoughts seem incomplete, I was in a bit of a hurry to get something posted here. I hope you understand that these attacks are not just attacks against the Church. These attacks ate against the fundamental dignity of the human person. They are attacks on joy and hope. It is aggression against the love we are compelled to share with one another. We have determined that our own happiness demands that we eat our young. It doesn't have to be so. But there is a voice that can be heard shouting encouragement to her warriors in the midst of the battle, a voice encouraging us to maintain the struggle not just for her, but for the sake of all men. It is the voice of the embattled Church and her words of those of her beloved spouse, words which have rung down the centuries on the field of every struggle in which she has engaged in His name, "Be not afraid."

Til next time, all the best. Joe

Catholic Politicians Recieving Money from Pro-abortion Groups

Deal Hudson at Inside Catholic has initiated a petition to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops to address the issue of Catholic pols recieving campaign contributions from pro-abortion groups. Read about it at http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5053&Itemid=48 .

A link is provided from the article to sign the petition.

The War Against the Church: Attacks on the Priesthood

The Catholic Church teaches many precepts which run counter to the flow of current culture. So it should come as no surprise that she is the target of numerous attacks from that culture in attempts to silence her, or at the very least muzzle her, in those areas where her teachings conflict with the views of the culture. As we saw in my first post, attacks against the Church generally follow three traditional avenues of approach, those against the Truth, those against the priesthood, and those against the family. It is the second of the three, the priesthood, on which I wish to focus here.

The Catholic Church was established by Jesus Christ for the salvation of sinners through the use of the Seven Sacraments, of which five, Reconciliation (the forgiveness of sins), the Eucharist (the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass), Confirmation, Holy Orders (ordination to the priesthood), and the Sacrament of the Sick can only be confected or administered by those ordained members of the priesthood acting in persona Christi (that is, as the person of Christ). Furthermore, Our Lord established the Church as a hierarchy, with a chain of authority running from the laity, through the priests acting as pastors, through the bishops in union with the senior bishop, the Pope, who in turn is the successor of St Peter, whom Christ first appointed to head His Church.

It is no mere coincidence that the enemies of the Church have focused on the priesthood since it is the priest who acts, in the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "in the person of Christ the Head..."'...in the name of the whole Church". As a cleric himself, Luther knew it when he set Europe on the course for that shipwreck of Christendom known as the "Reformation". Calvin knew it, as did Cromwell when he goaded Henry VIII into open warfare against the Church. The Cecil's followed suit in the pressure they applied on Elizabeth I. There's a reason that priests figure so prominently among the martyrs of the Reformation in England. There's a reason that an entire block was reserved for priests by the German National Socialist regime at the concentration camp at Dachau.

Today's attack, though less bloody, is every bit as vicious. The first, I suppose, is the notion that women should be ordained to the priesthood. The doctrine that the priesthood is reserved to men is not an issue of fairness; it is an issue revolving around the will of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. It must be remembered that the priest, acting, as I've pointed out already, acts in persona Christi. For whatever reason, Our Lord chose to be incarnated as a male. If the priest fills the role of Christ sacramentally, then, like in a stage presentation, that role must match the gender of the one portrayed. Imagine (although it's probably been done) a staging of Hamlet or King Lear with a woman taking the lead role. Christ Himself, when instituting the priesthood, conferred Holy Orders only on the Apostles, all of whom were men. I'm very sorry, ladies, that it is not otherwise.

Much more dangerous to the notion of the priesthood is the overblown sex scandal. I do not deny that there have been priests who have abused their position by committing hideous acts against children. Nor do I deny that the cases of the abusers were, most of the time, grossly mishandled by the hierarchy. That said, I contend, first of all, that the sex scandal in which the priesthood is embroiled is a "homosex" scandal; it is not a result of of the vow of celibacy, it is the diabolical result of a perverted sexuality. Second, one should know that the number of priests accused, not convicted, just accused of such acts amounts to less than 2% of all men ordained since 1950. In fact, rates of sexual abuse by lay (pardon the pun) teachers in secular school system causes the Catholic sex scandal pale in comparison. Your child is statistically safer in the company of a Catholic priest than in the company of their high school coach.

We are often tempted to forget that our priests are, despite the extraordinary graces bestowed upon them through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, still men. That they are indeed mortal, they are as prone to temptation and to sin as we, the laity are.

We forget that 98% of the men who have taken upon themselves the burden of the priesthood have carried out their duties and fulfilled their vows faithfully, many going so far as to give their lives in the service of the Gospel. To judge a class of men by the acts of the few errants among them is an act of prejudice just as certainly as judging a man by his sexual orientation, or the color of his skin, or his religious beliefs (or lack thereof) is prejudice. Perhaps the best course is to consider our priests as God made them and as we encounter them, that is, one at a time.

Til next time, all the best. Joe

The President-elect's Reply to My Concerns on FOCA

Shortly after Mr Obama's Presidential election victory, I emailed him to forward my congratulations and express my concerns regarding the Freedom of Choice Act. I recently recieved this reply:

"Dear Joseph Henzler,

Thank you for contacting us with questions regarding the policy agenda of President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden. They have listened to the hopes, concerns and ideas of people across our country and developed innovative approaches to challenge the status quo in Washington and bring about the change America needs.

The incoming Obama-Biden administration has a comprehensive and detailed policy agenda. Among many important domestic and foreign policy objectives, the priorities of the new Administration include: reviving the economy; provide affordable, accessible health care to all; strengthening our public education and social security systems; defining a clear path to energy independence and tackling climate change; ending the war in Iraq responsibly and finishing our mission in Afghanistan; and working with our allies to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.To learn details about the Obama-Biden policy agenda and share your ideas, please click here:http://www.change.gov/agenda/

We appreciate the outpouring of interest in the new administration and hope you will stay involved.

Sincerely,The Obama-Biden Transition Project"

My reply:

"Dear Mr Obama and Team,

Thanks so much for your recent reply to my email outlining my opposition to the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), but I failed to see in your email where my concerrns about this legislation was addressed. Perhaps it was blanketed by the statement about "provide affordable, accessible health care to all". I'm not sure that it is, but would like clarification on this point.

If such is the case, I would like to point out that abortion has and extremely deleterious effect on the development of the unborn child, not to mention recent research indicating long term mental and physical health risks faced by women who undergo abortions.

Further, in keeping with your statement that the determination as to when life begins is above your pay grade, it would seem to me that the most prudent course of action for the man about to assume the office of the highest law enforcement officer of the land would be to err on the side of caution by assuming that life begins at conception.

Thank you for attention in this matter. I eagerly await your response.

Sincerely,
Joseph O Henzler"

I encourage others to drop Mr Obama's team a respectful note on this matter. He asked us to do so. I'm sure he'll be delighted.

I'll keep you posted on any replies I recieve. Til next time, all the best. Joe

The War against the Church: Attacks on the Truth

Last night, before bed, I was watching Father George Rutler's series Christ in the City on EWTN (it's part of my weekly line up of shows and I highly recommend it for any thinking Catholic). Father mentioned that all attacks on the Church take three traditional forms; attacks against the truth, attacks against the priesthood, and attacks against the family. I thought I'd take time to look at each of these assaults as evidenced in the modern world. I'll begin with truth.

Truth, according to Thomas Aquinas, is that which conforms to reality. The philosophers of the Enlightenment had a hard time attacking that definition of truth, so they went for the secondary part of the definition and decided instead to attack reality, reasoning that if there was no objective reality, there was nothing with which to conform, ergo, there could be no objective truth. Rather than acknowledge that which our experience dictates, that is that "existence precedes essence", they stood existence on its head and postulated that we cannot know the thing itself, we can only know the thing by our idea of it. This is what Descartes had in mind when he famously stated "I think, therefore I am."

Today, such notions are still alive and well, regardless of how counterintuitive they seem to be. Carried on predominantly in the field of physics, primarily in quantum mechanics, the idea that nothing can be known with certainty is all the rage. Certainly, if such is true for the physical world, if there are no scientific truths, if there are no absoute truths in nature, how can there possibly be any metaphysical truths? Indeed how can there be such a thing as metaphysics at all?

The idea that gets left behind here is that quantum mechanics, the point at which these folks claim that reality gets fuzzy, is far removed from that which Aquinas identified as proper knowledge of things, that is direct knowledge by virtue of experience, sensorial knowledge. To attain knowledge of the subatomic world we must rely on instruments which are themselves another layer of theory between us and that which we wish to know. The data we acquire through such instruments is interpreted through the tool of mathematics. Now, mathematics is a wonderful predictive tool; it is an incredibly accurate method of modelling that which we cannot observe directly, but it must be remembered that it is exactly that, a model. It is not the thing itself, nor does it provide us with proper knowledge of the thing observed. As an example, consider a graph on which we establish the horizontal axis as time, and the vertical axis as distance. We then plot the progress of a persom walking at a set rate from a given point. We can use the graph to predict where that person will be at a future point in time. We can witness where they were at a given time in the past, but we have not witnessed motion, we have only modelled it. Mathematics can be used to accurately describe reality, but it is not reality itself.

In a similar vein, there are those who deny the existence of morla and ethical truths. Such persons claim that morals are a matter pf personal well being and that the best we can hope to do is associate with those who have similar world views. There are those who contend that we ought not impose our moral views on others. We "ought not say ought not." This is the contradiction upon which this case rests. Any rule is an imposition except the rule that we have no right to tell others what to do.

For a deeper appreciation of the subject of how science can lead one astray from an adequate understanding of reality, I highly recommend Dr Anthony Rizzi's book The Science Before Science: A Guide to Thinking in the 21st Century.

In my next post, we'll look at attacks on the priesthood. Until then, all the best. Joe

Cigars and Conversation

My recent foray into the subject of silence set me to thinking about the dying pastime of conversation. It occurred to me that with the loss of silence, we are losing our time to think our own thoughts. We are forced to succumb the that spawn of the information age, the sound bite. We take in our information from the sound bite, we think in sound bites, hence we express ourselves in sound bites. Our ability to think whole thoughts, to follow matters through to their logical end, is impeded with the result that sharing our thoughts with others through thoughtful, reasoned and civil discourse is rapidly disappearing.


It's quite beyond me that I failed to mention in my introduction my affinity for tobacco products. I'm a craven nicotine addict. I know that it's quite an admission to make given the modern attitude towards tobacco, but I'm unrepentant, even proud of the fact, that I so enjoy smoking the leaf. Cigarettes are my main poison of choice, but my true love, my passion, my raison d'etre is cigars. Without discussing brand names, I'll tell you that my favorite cigars tend to be Honduran made. My preference runs towards the maduro cigars, those with a dark tobacco wrapper, rich and oily, with a leathery texture and a bit of spice and pepper to the smoke.

My daily cigar is the high point of my day, so much the better when I have a friend to share a smoke with. Now, there are certain rules that must be followed in the smoking of a cigar, rules that amount nearly to a ritual. Most of the rules support the notion that cigar time is, when alone, a time of thought and contemplation; when smoked in the company of others, it is a time of companionship and conversation. No interlopers are permitted. This includes electronic interlopers. No TV, no radio (perhaps instrumental music), no dishes.

During this timeout from the day I either take time to think without the distractions of the world, or to engage others in conversation sans those same distractions. The cigar is really just an excuse to do so. It's really more of a time to bond with friends, to exchange ideas, to develop thoughts.

I don't advocate cigars for everybody, but I do advocate some means of taking time out to think, to converse, to exchange ideas in a civil manner. The involvement of a common interest, in my case, cigars, simply facilitates this timeout.

Try it. Take some time out with a friend, undistracted by the world. I think you'll be glad you did.

Til next time, all the best. Joe