SIMCHA FISHER

So here it is, a January Wednesday morning in the middle of ordinary time. My feet are cold, my brain is tired, I’m behind on everything, and all I can think of is all the things I messed up one more time, and how unlikely it is that the future will be different. Doesn’t feel like there’s a wedding party anywhere in the near future, let me tell you. So what’s my plan?

Read the rest at the Register.

Are you going to the March for Life, either in DC or in your state?  If so, are you planning to display graphic photos or videos of aborted babies?

If you are, I’m begging you to reconsider.  Fr. Pavone famously said, “America will not reject abortion until America sees abortion.”  Most pro-lifers understand that many Americans are still tragically ignorant about what abortion really is — what it really does to real babies.  Many of us remember seeing those bloody images for the first time, and can recall being shaken out of a vague, fuzzy support for the pro-life cause into the realization that this is a life-and-death struggle — real life, and real death.

These images have their uses.

But a public place is not the place to use these images — ever, I’m convinced.  These images are like a terrible weapon which should be used with fear and trembling, and only as a last resort.  Why?

There will be children at the march.  Do you let your kids watch gruesome war movies or slasher films?  No?  Well, those movies show actors with fake blood, pretending to be tortured and killed.  Why would you let them see the real thing?  The pro-life cause is about protecting innocent life, and that includes protecting the innocence of young children.  Studies show that violent images stay with us for a lifetime, and damage us.

There will be post-abortive women at the march.  Imagine their courage in being there at all.  Then imagine what it does to them to see, once again, the dark thing that keeps them from sleeping at night — the thing that often keeps them in decades-long cycles of self-loathing and despair.  We don’t ask victims of rape to look at videos of rape in progress.  We don’t ask holocaust victims to look at huge banners showing the piles of emaciated bodies.  As pro-lifers, we must remember that every abortion has two victims:  the child and the mother.  We must never be on the side that hurts mothers.  Never.

Mothers will be there.  Thousands of the women at the March are mothers — mothers who have already given birth, mothers who are pregnant as they march, and mothers who have miscarried, delivered dead babies.  For many of them, the grief over a miscarriage never goes away entirely.  Many women stay away from any public march for fear of being subjected to these images so similar to the thing that caused them so much pain.  Motherhood makes a woman’s heart tender.  The pro-life movement should be a shelter that protects that tenderness — because the world needs it desperately.

Those are real babies.  Christians are almost alone in affirming the dignity of the human person.  Catholics, especially, understand that the human body is mortal, but still worthy of respect.  When we use pictures of real babies as a tactic or a tool, we are in danger of forgetting that these are children with an immortal soul, and who have a name that only their Heavenly Father knows.  They have already been killed.  Let us treat their poor bodies with respect.

Public image matters.  Some people’s only contact with obvious pro-lifers is with people who shout and condemn and terrify.  It’s just basic psychology:  if you want people to listen to you and have sympathy for your cause, don’t come across as a lunatic.  You’re not a lunatic — but to people who don’t already agree with you, you sure look that way.  Yes, your cause is worthy.  No, you’re not helping it.

They sometimes push women into abortion.  Do these images change hearts sometimes?  They sure do.  I’ve heard pro-life activists tell stories of women who saw these horrible images for the first time and decided on the spot that no way could they be any part of that.  They kept their babies.

And I’ve heard pro-life activists tell stories of women who were pregnant, scared, and undecided — and when they were confronted with bloody images, they freaked out and rushed into the clinic as fast as they could, to get away from those maniacs with the signs. Read these comments from Abby Johnson, who remembers how much she and her fellow abortion workers used to love it when protesters showed up with graphic posters.

So, yes, sometimes they save lives.  And sometimes they cause lives to be lost.  We don’t do things just because they work sometimes.

Desensitization is a real danger — even among pro-lifers.  It’s just how humans are made:  see something too often, and you stop really seeing it.  I thank and bless those who work so tirelessly for the pro-life cause, including those who had to spend time up close with the heart-rending remains of babies, rescuing them from dumpsters and photographing them.

But to those who use these images routinely everywhere, indiscriminately, I beg that they to stop and consider that, like policemen or like soldiers, they are human, and are in danger of becoming hardened out of self-preservation. People who have become hardened must never be the public face of the pro-life cause.  If you, as a pro-life activist, see a bloody image and you don’t flinch, then it’s time to take a break — move into a different segment of the ministry, one that emphasizes prayer and reparation.

People see what they want to see.  When the apostles begged the Lord to send the dead to persuade people to repent, He said that if they didn’t listen to the prophets, then they wouldn’t be impressed by the dead coming back to life, either.  Many pro-choicers speak as if everyone knows that pro-lifers use photoshopped images — that the tiny, mutilated feet and hands and heads are a hoax that’s been thoroughly debunked.  It’s a lie, of course.  But people believe it all the same, because they want to (and pro-lifers don’t help their cause by being sloppy about things like identifying gestational age on photos).

*****

These are all arguments against using graphic images indiscriminately, in a public place. Does this mean they should never be used? Absolutely not.  Bloody and shocking images have their place.  Pro-life activists are right when they say abortion depends on silence and darkness, and that truth must be exposed.  Too many people who are pro-choice because they somehow still don’t know what fetuses actually look like, or what happens to them when they are aborted– or because they’ve simply slipped into a comfortable shelter of euphemisms.  These lies, this comfort must be stripped away.

So when should you use graphic images?  When a teenager shrugs and says, “My health teacher says it’s not a person until 25 weeks.”  When someone who works at a clinic says she’s doing a gentle, compassionate work of mercy.  When your boyfriend wants you to get rid of “it” before it becomes a real baby.  When a college girl likens unborn babies to tumors or parasites.  Then you can respond to the actual situation, to the actual person.  Then you can take out the picture and say, “Is this what you’re talking about?” And let the poor, dead child speak for you.

I believe that everyone should see an image of an aborted baby once in their lifetime.  And I believe that, like any traumatic image, it will stay with you.  Once or twice in a lifetime is enough.

Abortion is violent.  Abortion is cruel.  Abortion inflicts trauma and pain.  As pro-lifers, we should have no part in any of that.  Let us save the graphic images for a weapon of last resort.

***
Photo used with kind permission of the photographer, Matthew Lomanno, from his photo documentary of the March for Life 2014.

A version of this post originally ran at the National Catholic Register in 2013.

Last night, we watched one of my favorite movies, Unbreakable (2000). It’s Shyamalan’s best film (with Signs as a close second), with the most on its mind. Like his other movies, it’s nail-bitingly intense, and it does have a twist at the end; but it’s also about how we come to know ourselves. Audaciously, it asks the question, “What does it mean to be a good man?”

This post has no end of spoilers! It’s intended to encourage people to re-watch this movie, which doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.

The entire movie plays with the idea of good vs. evil, and asks us to consider how they really relate to each other. Do they depend on each other for their existence? It shows us a comic book world and tells a comic book story, and teases us with the idea that comic books give us an accurate, black-and-white picture of the world; but ultimately, it tells us that good and evil are not equal and opposite. It tells us that good is true and powerful, while evil is deranged and deluded.

The movie often puts true words into the mouth of evil: As Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) says, “Real life doesn’t fit into little boxes that were drawn for it.” He says this, but he doesn’t act on it. Elijah Price is the perfect modern villain who sees everything, considers everything, and constantly seeks meaning — but he draws all the wrong conclusions. He displays Egyptian pictograms, Christian icons, and prehistoric cave paintings on his walls, alongside the line drawings from comic books from the 40’s) — but he doesn’t make any distinctions between what meaning they may convey. In his world, everything he encounters tells him one thing. He says that the world doesn’t fit into neat boxes, but he certainly behaves as if it does.

But let’s step back for a moment. The first two times we see Elijah Price, it’s in a reflection: first in the mirror of the dressing room where he was born, and then in the TV screen of his childhood apartment. When he opens his first comic book, the camera trickily rotates so that the comic book stays still and the entire world turns around to accommodate it. This is where the skewing begins. Elijah later says that he’s waited his whole life to meet David Dunn (Bruce Willis), because the villain only knows who he is when he meets his exact opposite.

He’s swallowed whole the idea that comic books tell us the truth about the world. He acknowledges that the traits of the hero and villain are exaggerated, but he believes they portray something not only true, but dead serious (refusing, for instance, to squander a comic book work of art on a child in his gallery).

You may think, “Ah, then this is a comic book movie, pitting against each other the equal, opposite, mirror image forces of good and evil.”  And this is certainly what Elijah believes is happening. He tells David:

Your bones don’t break, mine do. That’s clear. Your cells react to bacteria and viruses differently than mine. You don’t get sick, I do. That’s also clear. But for some reason, you and I react the exact same way to water. We swallow it too fast, we choke. We get some in our lungs, we drown. However unreal it may seem, we are connected, you and I. We’re on the same curve, just on opposite ends.

and then later:

Now that we know who you are, I know who I am. I’m not a mistake! It all makes sense! In a comic, you know how you can tell who the arch-villain’s going to be? He’s the exact opposite of the hero.

He believes that he will find meaning in his life — his purpose for being, the proof that he is not a “mistake” — by being the opposite of Dunn. They are both (like the name of his store) “limited editions”: extraordinary people, and they do seem to be mirror images of each other, black and white.

But notice what actually happens in the movie: David’s powers, and his potential goodness, turn out to be objectively real, and efficacious; whereas Elijah’s identity as evil is one he has chosen. He has always been “Mr. Glass,” the name given to him because of his undeniable, innate fragility, but where he goes wrong is to become a mere “glass” reflection, an inversion, of what he encounters. David, on the other hand, is already doing some good, as a security guard, keeping people safe; but he hasn’t come into his own, letting his true greatness out.

It seems, at first, that the movie wants us to see that good needs evil to exist — that we exist only as reflections of each other. And David Dunn does need Elijah to make him become himself, to see his power and his goodness. It was because of the evil catastrophes that Elijah engineered, and the questions Elijah asks, that makes Dunn realize for the first time that he is a “limited edition” who is “unbreakable.”  If it hadn’t been for the train wreck, David would never have come into his own as someone who truly provides security (emblazoned on the uniform that he didn’t even recognize as his superhero suit) in a dangerous world. If it hadn’t been for Elijah’s evil, he would not have known his own power as a hero.

Or would he? Notice that when he comes home after the wreck, he still intends to leave his family for some nebulous new start in New York. Notice that he has not yet escaped what the movie presents as his root trouble, that sadness in the morning — which Elijah correctly identifies as not knowing why you’re here in the world. He is still, as he tells the woman on the train in the very first scene, “alone,” and without identity, because he hasn’t fully chosen to be himself yet.

Who really rescues him from this trap? Not Elijah, but his son (Spencer Treat Clark), who believes with all his heart that his father is good and strong and a hero (and who turns out to be right!). As they walk out of the train station after the wreck, the son puts his parents’ hands together; and his son puts extra weight (“All of it!”) on his barbell, revealing to David what he is capable of. Finally, his son turns up the pressure with a gun, which shows David once and for all that no one can endure the pressure and misery of not knowing who he really is. The adults in the room think that the worst thing that could happen is that David will be shot; but the son only puts the gun down when he’s threatened with the thing which is actually worse: that David will leave, disconnect, deny his family, continue to be let life make choices for him.

What really makes the difference is when David chooses. He has already drifted, as Elijah points out, into the role of protector. Elijah says,

You could have been a tax accountant. You could have owned your own gym. You could have opened a chain of restaurants. You could’ve done of ten thousand things, but in the end, you chose to protect people. You made that decision, and I find that very, very interesting.

But David doesn’t yet choose things consciously, with full knowledge of what he is choosing, until his son forces him to answer the question: Is he great, or is he not? Is he invincible or is he not? Is he a good man, or is he not? He has to choose — and it’s then that he recommits to his family, integrating all the parts of his life, not just his physical strength.

It’s not enough to be the strong man who can see danger and who can save the world from mere ugly “maintenance.” That’s not the whole of who he is supposed to be. Maintenance is the real villain he has to struggle against (in the person of the killer in the orange suit, but also as an existential condition): maintaining things, keeping things as they are, letting them be. He has to choose deliberately as a whole man. He did this once when he chose Audrey (Robin Wright) over football; and he does it again, when he chooses both Audrey and his son, and his role as a hero.

When he quit football so that he could be with Audrey, he thought he had to stop being great for the sake of love; but later, he finds a way to choose both (although I will admit I’m disturbed that he plans to keep his power a secret from her!). He tells her that he knew something was wrong when he had a bad dream and didn’t turn to her for comfort (because she, as a physical therapist, is the one who heals and puts things back on track). She is not a “limited edition,” but he, David, needs her, and her love, and the love of their son, in order to come into who he really is. He needs not only invincibility, but healing. He cannot be who he was meant to be merely by defining himself against killers; he has to also choose love.

Anyway, that’s how I see it!

Please note that you can watch this movie as a tense, thrilling action movie, and enjoy the heck out of it. You don’t have to think about love or redemption or existential identities if you don’t want to. But if you do, you’ll hear this amazing movie telling us that while we can learn to become who we are through our relationship to other people, good does not need evil to be good. Evil is meaningless and insane; and good is powerful and real, but you can’t just let it happen — you have to choose it.

On Saturday, I realized that we could do part of the shopping, get to confession very easily, then finish shopping and get home before dinner.

The horror! There is nothing I resist more than going to confession. As soon as the idea pops into my head, eleven different excuses push their way forward, shouting and complaining. There’s no way! I have raw chicken in the car, and it’ll spoil! It would be inconsiderate to everyone else, because I left the baby at home! Probably Fr. Dan’s back hurts, and the last thing he wants is more people in line! I’m not even sure what time confession is!  I’ve only been a member of this parish for nine years; how am I supposed to know when confession is? And anyway, I haven’t had time to prepare properly! It would be an insult to God to show up and blurt out a few things and skip all the really important stuff. It would be better to wait until I can do a really thorough job of it. Confession is really important, so let’s do it right. Let’s do it some other time.

This panic is so familiar to me, I don’t even listen to it anymore. I just let it play out, and then think, “Are we done now? All right, then let’s go to confession.” And so I went, still pathetically clinging to the idea that maybe, just maybe, it’s at 2:00 after all, and if we show up at 2:30, and we’ll be too late. The church won’t even be there anymore, that’s how late we’ll be. Maybe?

Well, the church was still there, and we were not late. The horror!

I had been struggling with some confusion over a spiritual matter, which had been causing much misery. As I knelt down, my heart bleated out,

Listen, Lord. I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job. I guess you love me. Personally, I think you should make things really clear right now, because, come on. But here is my heart, and I’m trying to open it. If you tell me something I need to hear, I will try to hear it eventually, and I don’t know what else to say. Give me strength or whatever. Okay, thanks. See ya there.

And what do you know? The pastor (JESUS) told me something really clear, and obvious, and helpful, and enlightening, and liberating. It was way more illuminating than I even dared to hope for, and I floated out of the confessional grinning like an idiot. And crying. And grinning, while my nose ran and my heart sang.

That was a good one. I love it when that happens.

But! Even when it’s just regular old confession, where I trot out my stupid old worn out raggy old sins one more time, and the regular old priest just regular old absolves me, no special insight, no grand turning points . . . I still feel the same way.  I still feel like Ebeneezer Scrooge, after he’s repented and is going around making amends: Oh, I don’t deserve to be so happy. But I can’t help it. I just can’t help it!

It hasn’t always been this way. I’ve always had the resistance to going to confession, but it used to be that it didn’t let up, either during or after the actual sacrament. As I was in the confessional, I’d be sick and nervous, feeling like a phony and a liar.  I’d step out and think, “Oh, but wait, I forgot the main point! I don’t think I really explained what was really happening. And what about that thing eleven years ago? Have I ever really confessed that? Should I just get back into line? What is even the point of this, if I’m going to do such a bad job?”

And when I heard about other people floating out in an ecstasy of joy and relief, that further cemented the idea that I was doing it all wrong.

So what has changed?

I finally realized I was putting too much emphasis on myself doing it right. I finally realized that there was no way I could do it right enough to earn absolution. It was never about that. The fact that I’m uncertain and imperfect and sloppy and forgetful and let myself off the hook is kind of the point. It’s why we need confession in the first place. I put myself in that little box, and Jesus squints at me in the dim light and says, “Ohh, boy. Look, I’ll just take care of . . . all of this, okay? I’ll take care of you.”

That’s the point. That’s the whole point. That’s why He died: because there was never any question of us doing anything right. All we have to do is get in there, and He will take care of us.

That’s what it means, that Jesus died for us. We still suffer and we still struggle, we still feel pain and sorrow, guilt and grief. But we don’t have to worry about making sure we do it right. We’re not efficacious. We’re just not. What Jesus wants is for us to open ourselves up to Him and see very clearly that we’re helpless. That’s what He’s waiting for. That’s what He wants, more than He wants an impeccably thorough list of sins. He wants us to think less about ourselves and our failings — even our failings to confess properly! — and more about Him and His unimaginable mercy.

Obviously, we have to make our best effort to fulfill our obligations as well and thoroughly as we can. That’s why the Church tells us what to say and what to do; and yes, we do have to say and do those things. But even as we try our best, we remember that even our very, very best isn’t going to be good enough.

So I just kind of . . . relax into that.

In the confessional, our job is to admit defeat and turn things over to Him. That’s what He wants. And when I do that, I float out of that confessional with the dopey grin on my face, and my nose runs, and my heart sings. Thanks be to God! Oh, thanks be to God.

Last week, I was working on stepping up my game a little bit. I feel a little bit like Andy Sipowicz in season 1 of NYPD Blue, making an effort:

“Please, I understand my situation. I spent a long time being sauced. I need to win back my colleagues’ trust. I’ve got to exhibit a continuous positive approach, even with this dim bulb here.”

[at Liquor store over on James Street]

Guy: “You guys wanna give me a hand?”
Andy: “Yeah, sure.”
Guy: “Gimme.”
Andy: “Our pleasure.”
[later]
Andy: “That was positive, wasn’t it? ‘Our pleasure.'”
Partner: “Fair.”
Andy: “What should I have said? ‘Our pleasure, rooty-toot-toot’?”

Next week: aiming higher than immediately-post-rock bottom-Andy Sipowicz. Meantime, here’s how I did:

SATURDAY
GRILLED HAM AND PEPPER JACK in PITA POCKETS

I forgot how nice grilled pita pockets are — halfway between grilled cheese sandwiches and quesadillas. Perfect for a quick meal on a windy, wet, miserable day. I think we must have had chips or something. I forgot to buy dessert, so I reluctantly brought out the bag of Christmas candy I bought for 50% off in hopes of saving it for the next birthday party. So close!

SUNDAY
CHICKEN ENCHILADAS; GUACAMOLE and CHIPS; BROWNIE ICE CREAM SUNDAES

This meal was the crown jewel of the week, even if only for these magnificent caramelized onions.

[img attachment=”87839″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”food blog sauteed onions” /]

I use Pioneer Woman’s chicken enchilada recipe, where you cook the seasoned chicken in a pan, then take the chicken out and cook the onions in that same pan, then take the onions out and heat the enchilada sauce in that same pan. That is one freaking lucky pan.

[img attachment=”87837″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”food blog chicken enchiladas and guac” /]

The enchiladas didn’t even turn out that great, to be honest, but even not-so-great enchiladas are still homemade enchiladas, and I made 35 of them.

Oh, and Aldi has stopped using artificial coloring in some of its products, including its maraschino cherries. I reckon this is healthier, but those cherries were not very attractive. I thought they may actually have gone off (when I was about five, I got pretty drunk on a fermented strawberry sundae), but I served them to the kids anyway. They didn’t sleep any better than they usually do.

MONDAY
HOT DOGS; PASTA SALAD

I’ve had this jar of chopped Giardiniera on the shelf for a million years, so I finally opened it up and dumped it into a pot of farfalle. I ate as much as I could manage, because someone had to. Gonna throw away the rest today.

I did make my husband some lovely fried eggs before he left for work. I struggled, sorrowing, through many years of not really being sure how to fry an egg properly, until I discovered this method. In case you’re in the same fix, here’s how I do it:

Heat the pan and drop in a TON of butter, like 3 Tbs or more. Then carefully crack the eggs into the pan and fry them on a medium heat, constantly spooning the hot, melted butter over the yolk. This way, the top of the egg gets cooked, but you don’t have to flip the egg over. It gives the top of the eggs an exuberant fluffiness, and the edges get crisp and lacy.

[img attachment=”87835″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”food blog fried eggs” /]

Ain’t they pretty? I’m a good wife, eggwise.

TUESDAY
TUNA SANDWICHES; RAW VEG and ONION DIP

Email to my husband from Tuesday:

WEDNESDAY
HAMBURGERS, CHIPS

I defrosted the hamburger meat.

THURSDAY
ONE PAN HONEY CHICKEN, RED POTATOES, BROCCOLI

Annd I bought broccoli and honey. Irene has been begging and begging for this dish, which I made once and which was so underwhelming that no one else even remembers eating it. I finally made it again, and once again, it tasted fine, and looks nice enough:

[img attachment=”87841″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”food blog chicken broccoli potatoes” /]

I will say that you can put it together really quickly in the morning and throw it in the oven half an hour before dinner, no fuss. I even used frozen broccoli instead of fresh, and it was still good (although the moisture from the broccoli diluted the sauce). I also substituted chicken thighs for chicken breasts, because they were on sale. Breasts would have been better – the crisp, sweet skin is super – but the thighs were acceptable. And I did get Irene off my back for a few weeks!

FRIDAY
ZITI; SALAD; POSSIBLY ROLLS

I’ve also had this Frisée lettuce lurking in the fridge all week, so today’s the day we find out what Frisée lettuce tastes like.

[img attachment=”87840″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”food blog frisee lettuce” /]

I also found this recipe on Facebook from Kimberly’s Country Kitchen:

[img attachment=”87866″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”food blog chicken broccoli potatoes” /]

We’ll see if I can rope one of my teenagers into trying it. They’re not going to look like that picture, though.

Well, how do you fry eggs, if you’re so smart?

In my essay about how to help kids learn to behave during Mass, I said:

The Mass is not a private time. It’s a time to worship God with other people. We feel that kids belong at Mass, both for their benefit and for the benefit of the congregation.  We gradually increase our expectations of our kids until they eventually participate as fully in the Mass as any adult.

A few commenters objected to the idea that Mass is not private time. The most vociferous response was this:

Where did you get  YOUR Catholic education??? The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass most assuredly IS a private time for me to enter into a private union with Christ in the Holy Eucharist.  It is a time for me to “life up my spirit” and my quiet time away from the noise and materialism of the world to enter into that sacred prayer of union.  It IS most assuredly a private time, between God and soul.  That you do not understand this, and view the church as your “community” time, explains your rudeness in allowing your children to disrupt the Holy Mass.

Well, my essay listed seventeen ways to avoid letting your children to disrupt the Holy Mass, so I’m not sure which rudeness he means. Also, I wonder what Ignatius of Antioch, pictured above, would say about the distractions and disruptions that one may be forced to endure when one is trying to spend a little quiet time with God. Grr!

The main point, though, is that the commenter flat out wrong that the Mass is private time and not community time. Here is what the Catechism says (emphasis mine):

Liturgical services are not private functions but are celebrations of the Church which is ‘the sacrament of unity,’ namely, the holy people united and organized under the authority of the bishops. Therefore, liturgical services pertain to the whole Body of the Church. They manifest it, and have effects upon it. But they touch individual members of the Church in different ways, depending on their orders, their role in the liturgical services, and their actual participation in them.”7 For this reason, “rites which are meant to be celebrated in common, with the faithful present and actively participating, should as far as possible be celebrated in that way rather than by an individual and quasi-privately.

So it’s possible to celebrate Mass with only the priest present, and it’s possible to have a “private” Mass (say, for a wedding or funeral), but that is not ideal. The ideal Mass is a Mass that includes the community. Like it or not, the community by definition means people who are not you.

Next time you go to Mass, listen closely for all the expressions of this idea that we please God when we come together with other people to worship Him. This is what the Communion of Saints is all about: we join together with those in Purgatory and Heaven, and with the other faithful here on earth, to worship God. This is how He wants us to do it. With “so great a cloud of witnesses.” Not at our personal, private latitude and longitude, but “from East to West.” Heck, when Jesus taught us to pray, He instructed us to say “our Father,” not “my Father.”

It’s not all about us. We remember this every time we hear a reading or a sermon that doesn’t apply to us, and doesn’t seem tailored to our particular needs or concerns. That’s not a sign that someone is doing the Mass wrong; it’s a sign that this is how God wants us to do it: together with other people. That is what all the apostles did, on Jesus’ command: they went out and started drawing in as many other people as they could. The Prophet Jonah wanted to hog God and His salvation all to Himself, but God took away his sheltering shade and insisted that he go out and be with people. Noisy people. Undeserving people. People who distracted Jonah from spending his lovely, private, sacred communion with God.

Why? Why does He want us to do it this way? Wouldn’t it be better if we could just be with God one-on-one, without anyone to distract us?

I don’t know! Okay? I don’t really know. I do know that only a very select, very holy, very scary few — think holy, scary Moses — were able to see God face to face and survive. I do know that I’m not one of these people.

And I do know that when I turn away from other people, those are the times when I’m also furthest from God. In retrospect, I can see clearly that when I seclude myself, hide from other people, refuse to help them and refuse to ask for help, I am also driving God away, hiding from Him, fearful of Him, resentful, afraid, closed off, bitter, and unwilling to hear the invitations and demands of love. When I am most open to other people, and when I work the hardest to put up with their noise and mess and fuss and otherness — and when I work the hardest to allow them to put up with me — then those are the times when it’s easiest to hear God.

Heck, that was the point of the Incarnation. Right? We’re not alone. We’re not orphans. We’re not down here alone, looking up at a faraway God. We have a Brother, and we have to learn how to live with Him, and all of His other belovedmbrothers and sisters, too.

Weird, right? But that’s how it works. The Communion of Saints is a real thing, and I can’t be a part of it if I’m always trying to figure out who needs to shut up and get away from me.

So, other people. I hate ’em. They drive me crazy. They don’t do right, and I wish they would shape up and stop bothering me, especially when I’m trying to pray.  But other people is where God is. That’s all there is to it. I don’t like it, but I can no longer pretend that it’s any other way. So, bring on the cloud of witnesses! If I want Jesus, it’s a package deal.

I’ve spent enough time among academics to understand that there is a fine, almost invisible line between “coming full circle” and “disappearing up one’s own area of expertise.”

The reason I’m bringing this up (other than that I thought you might enjoy an evil cackle as well) is that Schuman is clearly struggling with something that a lot of Catholics struggle with, too, in a different context.

Read the rest at the Register.

As long as we’re talking about the definitive Catholic way to do every last tiny little thing, let’s talk about Christmas trees, shall we? I’m just about ready to throw ours out the window, but before I do, I thought I’d share how we achieve Peak Liturgical Significance with our tree.

We used to go into the wilds and cut down our own tree, but now we’ve discovered that there is a gas station down the road that sells trees for $25. Since parents are the first educators of children, it is encumbent on us to stand back smirking while our kids do the heavy lifting and stuff the tree into our van.

[img attachment=”87606″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”tree into van” /]

Remember to recall to them that Jesus hefted the harsh and prickly wood of the cross without complaint, and they need to be a lot more edified about this minor lifting job if they expect Santa to bring them anything halfway decent this year.

While the tree is still out on the porch, we perform a heavily symbolic ritual of Throwing Out This Year’s Armchair because we have a Really Small Living Room. This can be viewed as an inverted prefiguring of the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart, because the old chair signifies all the poor choices we’ve made over the past year, and getting rid of it demonstrates that we are now ready to make room in our hearts for the Christ Child, and also ready to have the room smell less like pee

[img attachment=”87596″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”tree old chair” /]

The tree should fit well into the van, but not too well

[img attachment=”87598″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”tree sticking out of van” /]

signifying that we are in the world but not of the world. You can evangelize all the way home this way, and hope that crabby traffic cop is on his lunch break, because you are one ticket away from having your license suspended.

When you get home, find some clippers and remove the top of the tree, because your ceilings are even lower than you remembered. The youngest mobile child in the house can then use the removed tree top to anoint the other children in the house, chanting either “Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo, et mundabor” or “I’m Dark Vader, I’m your fadder!” whichever seems appropriate.

[img attachment=”87600″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”tree benny poking lucy” /]

The other children in the house can engage in a sweet ritual echoing the choirs of angels who sang of the glories of God. If there is no snow on the ground to make snow angels in, you can just make angels in the stuffing that came out of the chair when you were dragging it outside.

[img attachment=”87604″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”tree fluff snowman” /]

All that remains now is to set up the tree and top it with something appropriate, like . . .

[img attachment=”87605″ align=”aligncenter” size=”medium” alt=”tree tom servo” /]

I don’t know, a Tom Servo doll made out of toilet paper tubes and macaroni. This signifies that everyone knows Joel was better than Mike. Nothing against Mike, but come on.

Then you can just sit back and wallow around in your domestic churchiness for a couple of weeks until you notice that there are more needles on the floor than there are on the tree. This is how you know that, no matter what the liturgical calendar says, Christmas is over. Throw the tree out the window and start looking for a new horrible old armchair that someone put on the curb for you.

Amen.

Noisily refusing to have an opinion is in vogue right now, and I can’t wait for it to go out again.

Remember back in November, after the massacre in Paris, when most of Facebook put an overlay of the French flag on their profile pictures? I didn’t do this. I felt awful for the people who had suffered and died; but then I started calculating whether I felt sadder, the same amount of sad, or less sad about France than I did about other massacres going on in the world, and whether I should consider changing my profile picture to commemorate one of those, instead . . .

Then I felt incredibly gross for having those thoughts, and left my profile picture alone.

However, I didn’t go around muttering imprecations against all the French flags, or boldly taking a stand as flag free.

I assumed that my friends had all different reasons for flagifying their pictures. Some people, undoubtedly, were doing it simply out of peer pressure: everyone’s doing it, and therefore I will, too.
Some people were undoubtedly doing it as a form of “virtue signalling” — declaring to the world, “Behold, I possess the correct political and emotional response to this crisis.”
And some undoubtedly just felt sad and bad and mad and wanted to do something, and changing your profile picture is doing something (if not much).

People should be allowed to display grief. We don’t have to join in, but it’s only humane to assume that grief is real, and to respect it as real by not complaining about people grieving in public. At least not right away!

When David Bowie died the other day, a lot of writers (including me) wanted to say something about him. It’s a normal, human thing to do. We loved his music, and it’s fitting to acknowledge his long and influential shadow across several genres of popular culture.

It only took an hour or two before the grief police showed up and began issuing citations for insincere suffering and lemming-like behavior. Several people felt the need, within hours of hearing that a man was dead, to tell the world that they didn’t care that he was dead. One woman explained,

“We’ve been too busy building a family to know who David Bowie is.”

Yes, well, in the time it took her to write that comment, she could have been looking one of her children in the eyes and saying, “I love you.” But she didn’t! And now it’s too late! Thanks a lot, dead David Bowie!

But seriously, what’s going on with all the grief shaming? Why would someone even bother to do it? Even if someone else’s grief really is insincere, who cares? What kind of sense does it make to register indifference?

It’s a good question whether we’re talking about grief, or anything, really. Why bother to say, “Everyone’s watching football today, but I don’t care about football!” or “Everyone’s excited about Star Wars, but not me!”

One reason we do it is that we find it harder and harder to believe that our experience is not The Experience. Social media has the potential to make us more open to each other, but it’s only made things worse, with its secret groups and filters and algorithms. It’s so easy to find people who do agree with us, even about the most minute, inconsequential things, and we’re so constantly encouraged to label ourselves as fans of this, followers of that, and members of the other, that it feels like an affront when we meet someone who doesn’t agree.

The other reason is pernicious hipsteritis: we assume any widely-shared experience must be inferior. I’m too old for this. Aren’t you?  I’m secure in my tastes. I don’t have to disdain something just because it’s popular, and I can have an opinion that’s similar to other people’s opinions, and yet I shall not die. It’s okay to join in the crowd sometimes. It’s also okay not to join in the crowd, and just quietly go about my business.

One more reason is that we’re tired of being jerked around and told what to feel. We want to hear the actual consequential news, and don’t want to be browbeaten into generating a strong emotion about something we’ve only barely heard of.  Okay, fine. But remember that there’s The Media, which is in the business of manipulating our brains, and there’s other, regular old people, whose opinions now get presented alongside the slick, polished, calculated stories generated by Fox or MSNBC. So when we sneer, “He’s dead? Who cares?” we may think that we’re striking back at some heartless media mogul, and retaining some emotional independence, but we’re also striking out at other victims of that same mogul.

It’s rude to make a point of being indifferent about something that other people care about; but being noisily indifferent about someone’s death goes beyond rudeness. When someone dies and people are sad about it, you don’t have to be sad. You don’t have to care at all. It’s our minimal Catholic obligation to pray, “May his soul and the soul of all the faithful departed rest in peace,” but beyond that, you can have no reaction whatsoever.

What you shouldn’t do is be a jerk about it right away. If you don’t care, and never saw the point of the dead person’s career, and think he’s overrated, or want to calculate the odds of him eeking into purgatory, or blame him for your son’s current career as a waxing technician, and you feel like you really must say something, then go ahead . . . later. Not while the body’s still warm.

**
Further reading: Max Lindenman made a similar, subtler point in his admirably shorter post, In Defense of “Sob-Signalling”

RIP, David Bowie. My sons were in tears this morning when they heard the news. Many memorials say he’s returning to his home planet or being beamed back to where he came from. I’ve managed to skip most of the bizzaro showmanship and role playing that Bowie is famous for (I know, that’s like saying I like Italian food except for all the pasta), so all this “he’s an alien! He’s a weirdo! He’s not like the rest of us!” stuff never felt true. Because  . . .

That voice. Alien? No. It sounded like wood weathered to silver by the ocean; it sounded like steel corroded into intricate designs; it sounded like crazed glass that had cracked but not shattered. Pain and anger and weariness and wit — these are not alien or martian or otherworldly. They are human, and so was he.

Oh, how he worked, never coasted.

Eternal rest grant unto him, o Lord. He knew he was dying, and worked hard to earn his audience until the end. No man knows the state of his soul. May his devotion and generosity toward his audience be acceptable to God as a work of charity, and may he be rewarded for the hours of elation and transcendence his music brought to us.