Moving with compassion

Readings: Deut 30:10-14; Ps 69:14.17.30-31.33-34.37; Col 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37

"Go and do likewise" (Luke 10:37). This is how Jesus, of whom it can be said the Good Samaritan is an allegory, makes visible the invisible God. In turn, it is how Christians, by the Holy Spirit's power, make Jesus visible. A few verses beyond the end of our reading from the Letter to the Colossians, the inspired author makes it clear how God chooses "to make known the riches of the glory of this mystery... is Christ in you..." (Col 1:27). Lest you think my use of ellipses truncates what the verse says, after "is Christ in you" comes these words: "the hope for glory," which brings the verse and the sentence to a close.

What is "the hope for glory"? "Christ in you."

Too often the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith are disconnected. To make any sense at all, they must always be kept together. Maintaining this tension is a task for Christian theology. As the "preeminent" one, Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, the "concrete universal." The very one for, through, and in whom all things exist is the same one who dialogues with the scholar of the Law.

Had he been content to let things be, this scholar would've passed at least the academic portion of the test with flying colors. But by needing "to justify himself," he posed another question. This other question is simply a different way of asking "Who can I exclude from my care?" Jesus, in his answer, made the scholar aware that it was not enough to give the correct answer.

Who is my neighbor? My neighbor is the person I encounter who needs my help. Pope Francis speaks often of a "culture of indifference." In Evangelii Gaudium, which is the charter of the Franciscan papacy, the Holy Father noted:

To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us (sec. 54)

It's easy to love (or hate) humanity. Humanity, however, is an abstraction. In truth, while you might be more or less favorably disposed toward an abstraction, you can't love it.

You can only love a person, someone you meet, someone with whom you cross paths. Now, as in Jesus' day, you don't know from day to day or even from hour to hour whose life might intersect with yours at a specific time and in a given place. In our fast-paced society, we cross paths with so many people, way more than in ancient Galilee, even the "big city" of ancient Jerusalem. This is a challenge. We often operate on sensory overload.

So, the real and very troubling question becomes: When you see someone in need, do you pass by on the other side of the street or, worse yet, do you just indifferently step over them? Or, like the Samaritan, are you moved with compassion?

Being compassionately disposed toward another certainly requires discernment. It would be impossible for you to meet all the needs of even one person, let alone the needs of everyone you meet who moves you to compassion. What matters is that you don't avert your eyes, ignoring not what you see but who you see.

Our first reading from Deuteronomy insists that to truly observe the Law you must first have a change of heart, a conversion. External adherence to a set of rules has never been enough, even before Jesus came along. This reading urges us to look inside ourselves. At the end of the day, to know what the Law requires you don't need a spectacular revelation or disclosure. No, it is "already in your mouths and in your hearts." This is the point Jesus makes to the scholar after undoubtedly expanding his definition of neighbor. Hence, all that is left is "to carry it out."

C.S. Lewis starts Mere Christianity with a section entitled "The Law of Human Nature." In this section he writes about something that goes some distance toward explaining just how the command of God is already on our lips and in our hearts:

I am only trying to call attention to a fact... that this year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people. There may be all sorts of excuses for us. That time you were so unfair to the children was when you were very tired. That slightly shady business about the money— the one you have almost forgotten —came when you were very hard up. And what you promised to do for old So-and-so and have never done — well, you never would have promised if you had known how frightfully busy you were going to be. And as for your behaviour to your wife (or husband) or sister (or brother) if I knew how irritating they could be, I would not wonder at it — and who the dickens am I, anyway? I am just the same.

That is to say, I do not succeed in keeping the Law of Nature very well, and the moment anyone tells me I am not keeping it, there starts up in my mind a string of excuses as long as your arm. The question at the moment is not whether they are good excuses. The point is that they are one more proof of how deeply, whether we like it or not, we believe in the Law of Nature. If we do not believe in decent behaviour, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently? The truth is, we believe in decency so much—we feel the Rule or Law pressing on us so— that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility

One point I am trying to make here, which, I am convinced is something Jesus saw quite clearly, is that, like the priest and Levite, who were perhaps going up to Jerusalem from Jericho when they passed the half-dead man, religious observance is often used as an excuse for not doing that which should be done. Another point, I suppose, is this truth is as evident in our failure as it is when we manage to do "like" the Good Samaritan.

To summarize, the essence of being a Christian is to make yourself a neighbor. Coming as it does from the same root as the English word for "vicinity," the Spanish word for neighbor, vecino, means someone in proximity to you. Hence, your neighbors are not just the people who live next door or across the street. Most of us don't stay home all day. Quite literally then, our vecinos change over the course of most days. Recognizing this, we should always move with compassion.

"One of these mornings, you're goin' to rise up singin'"

Some habits are easy to break. Writing, for example, is one such habit. After a very light June, I've started July quite aggressively. Nonetheless, it's Friday again, the Fourteenth Friday in Ordinary Time. I was delighted that Easter seemed to linger this year. It doesn't seem to me that Easter is really over until Corpus Christi is concluded.

I suppose, if there's anything worth clinging onto it certainly must be the resurrection. But the words of the risen Jesus to Mary Magdalene- "Stop holding on to me" (John 20:17)- spring to mind. The point, I think, especially in, through, and by his resurrection, which made possible his unleashing of the Holy Spirit, is our risen Lord inexorably calls us ever forward. As I was reminded by reading the excellent biography of Ignatius of Loyola, this is something the founder of the Society of Jesus understood very well in his own life.

Anyway, looking back on my Fourth of July post, I realize that I made a pretty hard-and-fast distinction between eudaimonia and hedonia. Another book I recently finished was Arthur Brooks' From Strength to Strength. A few days after my last post, I ran across a passage in Brooks' book that reminded me living a happy life requires both eudaimonia and hedonia. The former is about finding satisfaction by living a purpose-filled life, whereas the latter is about doing what feels good.

Living by the philosophy "If it feels good do it" is not a formula for true happiness, as any recovering hedonist can tell you. But life would kind of suck if you never deliberately did anything that felt good. As Brooks observes: "Hedonia without eudaimonia devolves into empty pleasure; eudaimonia without hedonia can become dry." He goes on to note: "At the nexus of enjoyable and meaningful is interesting." This nexus is sometimes called in media res. Literally meaning, "in the middle of things," it's where the truth is often said to be found.

In a polarized time and society such as ours, we lose track of this. Losing track of this often means that people who naturally temperate experience centrifugal force, pulling them from a balanced position towards one pole or another. We've probably all seen the post/meme/tweet "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." Lately, my internal response is- "If you're always outraged, you're paying way too much attention."

Rather than making a distinction between hedonia and eudaimonia, it's probably important to distinguish between hedonia and hedonism as well as between eudaimonia and eudaimonism. This touches what I wrote about spirit and flesh, too. A point I hoped make in that post was that Paul is in no way rejecting the body outright. He's taking aim at hedonism. As Saint Ignatius of Loyola learned the hard way, Christianity isn't all about ascesis. Self-denial of even things at times, perhaps for specfic reasons, can be useful but not as a state-of-life for most Christians. I am still not eating meat today.

I think a good example of the balance between eudaimonia and hedonia can be found in a dialogue I heard on more than one occasion. It involved the late Archbishop George Niederauer and young Catholics from my diocese. The question went something like this: "Is it true the Church teaches we have to go to Mass on Sunday? Isn't it just as good to go skiing, hiking, hang out with my friends, etc.?" His first answer was usually, "As I see it, I get to go to Mass on Sunday." He would follow up by saying something along these lines: "Going to Mass doesn't prevent you from doing any of those other good things. In my experience, it makes doing those things all the more enjoyable."

Our Friday traditio is the late, great Ella Fitzgerald singing that classic Summertime. This, too, strikes me as a nice balance, even if it leans a bit toward hedonia, something that always makes people like me a little uneasy but in a good way.

What does it mean to be free and independent?

Independence Day is a celebration of collective, that is, national independence. It is not a celebration of some imagined individual independence. As John Donne noted long ago, "No Man Is an Island." Human beings are unavoidably interdependent. Even a person of "independent means," a phrase that usually refers to someone ho has plenty of money and not having to work (anymore) to earn it, is dependent on others. What else is the money for except to pay others for their wants and needs? This, of course, is predicated on the idea that others provide what is needed and wanted.

4 July is the day people in the United States of America celebrate the issuance of our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. The British colonies declared independence from the rule of King George III due to the insistence of colonial leaders that taxation without representation was oppressive. They felt independence was necessary for the "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" of people in the colonies.

"Happiness," as set forth in the Declaration of Independence, is more akin to Aristotle's concept of eudaimonia than it is to contemporary notions of happiness, which rather tend toward the hedonistic.

Hedonism is perhaps the highest form of individualism. According to the hedonist, the greatest good is one's own pleasure. Hence, everything, including other people, become but means used to achieve selfish ends.

Living in a time of extreme polarization so extreme that it might well spell the end of our constitutional republic, it seems to me that people on the polar extremes have something fundamental in common. What they have in common isn't just individualism but what I can only describe as hyper-individualism.

Those on what counts as the far left in this country seek an ever more atomistic kind of individualism, one that seeks to make extreme forms human subjectivity somehow objective- like squaring a circle. While those on the far right, which is not to be mistaken for conservatism, operating according to the principle that might makes right, try to assert individual freedoms that "free" the individual from concerns about the common good. To explain it graphically, rather than conceiving these ideological poles being on a linear spectrum, they bend around and connect. By contrast, genuine socialism and genuine conservatism, in their shared concern for the common good, have a similar tangent.

Despite its weaknesses, such as its legitimation of slavery and the reduction of the humanity of slaves to that of 3/5ths of a person (this remains the United States' original sin), to name just one defect, our constitution was set forth "in order to form a more perfect union." Attempting to enhance our union, we have amended our constitution numerous times. Many of these amendments are the result of battles hardwon from the Civil War, to Women's Suffrage, to the campaign for Civil Rights.

Working together to form an ever more perfect union is just another way of saying we should constantly seek the common good. In turn, what the common good seeks is to create the conditions for human flourishing. Especially for Christians, responsible citizenship is about seeking the common good and not necessarily one's own narrow interests. In fact, truly seeking the common good may well require you to sacrifice for the good, the flourishing, of someone else.

On a Christian understanding, freedom is not essentially freedom from, it is freedom for. I can think of no better explanation of this than one Saint Paul gives in his Letter to the Galatians: "For you were called for freedom, brothers [and sisters]. But do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh; rather, serve one another through love" (Galatians 5:13- for more on this passage see Paul's take on the opposition between "spirit" & "flesh"). Freedom for service to others. What a concept!

I realize these are high and lofty concepts. Especially now, I think we need to revisit these ideals, seek to put them into practice, and inculcate them in others. As Christians, we should do this in the recognition that in the flow of time nations rise and fall. The United States is not an exception to this. As to claims of the U.S. being a Christian country, it very much comes down to praxis. In other words, depends on how much we're truly committed to the common good.

Formally, the United States, as opposed to Great Britain, the country we declared ourselves independent from, deliberately established no religion. This is not to say that our country was conceived with any hostility toward religion. But our founders were, for the most part, quite hostile to the idea of established religion.

For another important dimension to a Christian approach to the Fourth of July, I refer you to "America’s True Freedom Is Getting to Sing About God, Not Country."

Abortion post Roe: One deacon's take

With apologies to both my readers, I readily admit to posting this here instead of on another platform (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, etc.) because relatively few people read my blog or, I suspect, any blog these days. That is not a complaint. It is a statement of fact. I am okay with it. As I've shared before, I figured out pretty quickly during my early days of blogging that it was something I do as much for my own benefit as for anyone else's. The phrase I employ to describe this is that blogging is "a vehicle of growth" for me.

Another advantage of blogging, but a major reason why most blog posts aren't much read (the primary factor is that posts, including mine, aren't particularly well-written), is that blogging is typically long-form. This stands in contrast to the "hot take" tweets and Facebook memes posted by people who think by employing these they've solved late modernity's/late capitalism's most complex problems by some smart alecky statement. One of the worst abuses perpetrated by this degraded form of public engagement is that it creates caricatures of the opposition, even ones that may apply to some, and lumps everyone who disagrees into a single position.

While it is simple for the minority of people who inhabit the polar extremes of the ideological spectrum, the same people who tend to dominate social media- the people who specialize in providing content for doom scrolling and who love nothing more than posting the outrages o' the day- abortion remains somewhat complex for most people.

The reason for the complexity is the perceived need to balance the well-being of women with that of unborn children. The matter becomes infinitely more simple when one lets one side go slack and focuses on one or the other. By insisting both/and, you accept the inherent complexity therein implied.

In terms of the evolution of the anti-abortion movement, I think a recent article in The New Yorker, "We’re Not Going Back to the Time Before Roe. We’re Going Somewhere Worse," gets it quite right when it comes to the demographics of the anti-abortion movement:

Half a century ago, the anti-abortion movement was dominated by progressive, antiwar, pro-welfare Catholics. Today, the movement is conservative, evangelical, and absolutely single-minded, populated overwhelmingly by people who, although they may embrace foster care, adoption, and various forms of private ministry, show no interest in pushing for public, structural support for human life once it’s left the womb

This is disheartening in the extreme.

Given the above, it is still a mistake to think that there aren't still a lot of people, though far from the majority, who carry on in the original, more socially conscientious, mode when it comes to opposing abortion. In fact, I will lay my cards on the table and identify as one of those people.

This brings me to what I found to be a very meaningful blog post by Father Robert Hart, an Anglican priest, on The Continuum- "A Strange Fundamentalism." I have to say, as I get older, I appreciate it when somebody does the hard work for me. If you find the length of the post daunting, skip forward to the "Postscript" (I also urge you to read his section entitled "Science and Superstition").

The first thing I want to note is that we can't act like that which many argue can be aborted (tongue-in-cheek) is of no moral significance. This is, in effect, to simply let go of one side of what we should seek to hold in tension. Acknowledging the moral significance of the fetus/unborn child only gives us a common place from which to start. It doesn't commit anyone to a political position.

Like the common recognition in years past, even by the NRA, that firearms are deadly and need to be regulated, there was a time when such a common recognition was the case when it comes to abortion. Any argument, as Trump times have clearly shown, can only happen when there is a shared basis of agreement. Only then can we address the point of contention. This loops back to the tactics of the minority who inhabit the poles of our political spectrum.

Second, I could not agree more with Hart's assertion, to which I reference the observation from The New Yorker article, that due to its radicalization, the anti-abortion movement, which, by my reckoning, began in the mid-to-late 80s, has "actually lost ground in recent years," despite the empirical evidence largely supporting the claims of those opposed to abortion.

Third, Hart's observation that politically, due largely to the tactics of politicians, we lump causes together. This is a purely ideological move with disastrous consequences. This is where the whole issue of rights is short-circuited as they pertain to abortion.

Fourth, I've long argued that what ails us more than anything presently is our increasing collective inability to make important and sometimes very fine distinctions. It is the obliteration of important distinctions that "hot takes" and memes aim at. For the pro-life cause, the result of this is people who oppose abortion and who also oppose any and all social policies that make having children easier for women, like universal access to healthcare, etc. The same policies that, when in effect, have proven to significantly reduce abortions. In the recognition that it is impossible to stop abortion, especially when it remains legal and protected in a lot of states, it might be more effective to address demand, which is what the anti-abortion movement did at the height of its effectiveness and before it was swamped by radicals, than trying to eliminate supply.

As a fellow minister, which is to say a servant of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I can only add a hearty "Amen" to Fr Hart's insistence

Whatever happens in the legal realm, our most important focus must be on preaching the Gospel, and “teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you (Matthew 28:20).” Laws made by legislatures come and go. Power structures do not endure. Congresses and Presidencies flip back and forth between party majorities. Probably, even the Supreme Court will flip between parties more and more in the future. It is unlikely that advances made in those venues will have anything even remotely resembling permanence. Roe vs. Wade has been overturned; but this does not place barriers between state lines. The battle we must win is the battle for persuasion, to change hearts and minds. This requires the truth, and it requires credibility.

There is something to the antipolitics of a genuine Christianity. This antipolitics is not a call for disengagement. It is a call for engagement while being wholly cognizant of the transitory nature of political power. We believe, live, and teach the Gospel irrespective of whatever political regime we happen to live under. In my view, the credible example of the Early Church remains our best touchstone.

It goes without saying (but I'll write it anyway), that presently opposition to abortion lacks credibility. The overturning of Roe, which is not the catastrophe some think it is nor the victory others crow about, may well be the nadir of pro-life credibility when it comes to abortion in the United States. Whenever Christians stand in opposition to something, we must ask ourselves, What comes after "No"?

I imagine many who worked and prayed for the day Roe would be overturned have begun to realize that it isn't quite the victory they imagined. At the risk of being overly self-refrential, I have long been critical of reducing what it means to be pro-life to opposing abortion. I see opposition to abortion as a necessary but insufficient component of being truly pro-life. Beyond that, I have been highly critical of reducing opposition to abortion to the overturning of Roe for the reasons that are now very apparent.

As always, I offer my views for whatever they're worth. As my Integrity Notes indicate, I opine for nothing or no one apart from myself.

Journeying with Jesus

Readings: Isa 66:10-14c; Ps 66:1-7.16.20; Gal 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-12.17-20

I love this long season of Ordinary Time because we read through the Gospel for any particular year in a semi-continuous way. I especially like this time during Year C of the Sunday lectionary, when we read the Gospel According to Saint Luke. The long section of Luke's Gospel we read over the summer and into the fall is about Jesus' journey to Jerusalem.

This "Travel Narrative" is the heart, the center, and the core of Luke's Gospel. It begins in Luke 9:51 and extends to Luke 18:14. This Travel Narrative, wherein Jesus goes from his native Galilee to Jerusalem, makes up 351 of the 1,151 verses that constitute Luke's Gospel. In other words, his Journey to Jerusalem is just a little shy of one-third of this Gospel (30.4%). Jesus' journey is in accord with the overarching idea of Luke-Acts, which is to show that Jesus came not only for Jews and those who kept the Law but for Gentiles and sinners too.

For those inclined to story-telling, keep in mind that for the next several months, we're in the midst of the Greatest Story Ever Told, the story of Jesus' life and ministry. We spend a lot of time on his birth, his passion, and death often to the neglect of his life and ministry. While I think stories can be and often are useful for making homiletical points, we run the risk of telling stories at the expense of understanding the Story, in which are participants.

Last week, the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, the beginning of our Gospel reading was Luke 9:51. In English, this verse is two clauses of an even longer sentence: "When the days for his being taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem" (Luke 9:51). In all the Synoptic Gospels (i.e., Matthew, Mark, and Luke), Jesus only goes to Jerusalem once. To follow Jesus is to follow him through passion and crucifixion, which is the only path to resurrection.

Christian discipleship is not only intentional, it requires determination, commitment, and deep trust. The theological name for deep trust is hope, which we often dismiss as mere wishing.

The above observations are borne out by our Gospel this week. Jesus sends out seventy-two of his followers as advance parties to the places he intends to visit en route to Jerusalem. He tells them up-front that he is sending them "like lambs among wolves" (Luke 10:3). They are to proclaim- "the kingdom of God is at hand" (Luke 10:9). As the advance party for Jesus, proclaiming the imminence of God's kingdom is just another way of saying, "Jesus is coming!" How is that, you might ask? Well, as autobaselia, Jesus is the kingdom of God in person.

Wherever Jesus is, God's reign is established. Hence, whenever and wherever we make him present, which is what we are to do as members of his true body, there is God's kingdom.

In our second reading from Paul's Letter to the Galatians, the apostle reiterates that our response to Jesus' call to discipleship is to journey with him to Jerusalem. The man from Tarsus, no doubt referring to his own travails, notes that he bears "the marks of Jesus" on his body." Just as the Risen Lord still bears the wounds of his crucifixion, I have no doubt that our scars, our wounds, especially those received from the vulnerability of our love, are most dear to him. It bears noting that he does not inflict these scars. Heaven forbid! He heals them and transforms them into something beautiful.

Isaiah's post-exilic hymn to Jerusalem is, even for us Christians, a beautiful hymn: Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad because of her, all you who love her. One thing that links our readings from Isaiah, Galatians, and Luke together is the pattern of hope being realized through suffering and/or hardship. This is nothing other than the dying and rising that is the essence of Christian life.

So, over these next several months, let us resolutely determine to journey together with Jesus to Jerusalem in and through the liturgy.

If you're looking for something to help you on this journey, the late Eugene LaVerdiere's Dining in the Kingdom of God: The Origins of the Eucharist According to Luke remains a great companion for reading Luke's Gospel.

Paul's take on the opposition between "spirit" & "flesh"

I meant to post this sooner, but, well... I was not motivated to do so until today. In our second reading last Sunday, the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time of Year C of the Sunday lectionary (a mouthful, I know!), which was from the fifth chapter of Saint Paul's Letter to the Galatians, we heard about the opposition between "Spirit" and "flesh."

In Galatians 5:17, we hear/read: "For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other..." In the original Greek, "Spirit" is pneuma. The reason "Spirit" in this passage is capitalized is because the Greek word is taken to be referring to the Holy Spirit.

It is the word for "flesh" in Galatians 5:13-18 that needs to be explained. In Koine Greek, the word for "body" is soma. This is not the word Paul uses in this passage. Hence, he is not making a dichotomy between "Spirit," or even "spirit," and matter. Frankly, this would've been inconceivable to him as well as those to whom he wrote. The word he uses for "flesh" is sarx.

In Paul's view, which was shaped as much by Greek philosophy as by Hebrew theology, the important distinction is between things that last and things that don't last, between what is real and what is transitory. He seeks to distinguish between the eternal and ephemeral. What is of the flesh is ephemeral- here today, gone tomorrow. What is of spirit, especially of the "Spirit," lasts forever.

Paul's anthropology, that is, his view of the human person, is ideally holistic, harmonious. As such, it isn't wholly unrelated to the body. Living according to the flesh, as Paul notes several verses on (see Galatians 5:19-21), means something like seeking to satisfy every urge and impulse. Let's face it, as Americans, we live in a pretty hedonistic milieu, a situation that tells us wanting something is what makes it good.

In Philippians, he writes about those who "conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ." Of them he says, "Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their 'shame.' Their minds are occupied with earthly things." (see Philippians 3:18-19). We've practically lost all sense of the necessity of acesis.

His exhortation to the Galatians in this passage is to eschew the ephemeral and seek the eternal. Eschewing the ephemeral and seeking the eternal is not only why Christ set us free, it is the essence of freedom!

From a Christian view, the essence of freedom is not freedom from. It is freedom for. In all circumstances, as Paul not only teaches in his writings but bears witness to in his life, you are free to follow the Spirit.

The fruits of the Spirit, which, he points out a few verses further on, are "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23). These are the ways that one fulfills the Law, which, as the apostle notes in verse 14 of the same chapter, "is fulfilled in one statement, namely, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" (Galatians 5:14). What provocation!

Because living according to the Spirit is determined internally (and then lived outwardly) there is not nor can there ever be any law that constrains your freedom, especially the Spirit-empowered freedom you have from Christ. If you want to read about what this means "in-real-life," I urge you read Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan's book: Five Loaves and Two Fish: Meditations on the Eucharist.

"Riding with Mary protecting immaculate love"

It's July, the seventh month of the year. How crazy is that? In June I more or less took a breather from blogging. Oddly enough, I remain doggedly committed to this ever-morphing medium. I am also currently taking a break from all social media. Instead of engaging on social media, I have been reading, listening, walking, praying, and resting.

One of the best things I've listened to recently was an interview with John Doe. Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot spoke with John for their Sound Opinions podcast. While Doe has an impressive and surprisingly long acting resume, he's best known as the bassist and driving force behind one of the best, most enigmatic punk bands- X. Doe was interviewed on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the release of X's third studio album: Under the Big Black Sun.

Under the Big Black Sun, which I have been listening to this week, remains a truly great record. A longtime friend, who is a professor of Philosophy, and a musician himself, insists that X was and remains (in 2020 they released their album Alphabetland) a very "Catholic" band. I saw X live on 2 August 2018 with another good friend who alerted me to this podcast.

In addition to Under the Big Black Sun, I've also been listening to Bach's Mass in B Minor. It is sublime in every aspect. At least to me, there is not now nor has there ever been any incongruence in my listening habits.

I've also been reading more (I always read- it's like breathing). I am finishing up a fascinating and well-written biography of Saint Ignatius of Loyola- Ignatius of Loyola: The Pilgrim Saint, by the Basque priest José Ignacio Tellechea Idígoras, translated from Spanish by Cornelius M. Buckley, S.J. I am also finishing Barbara Walter's How Civil Wars Start: and How to Stop Them. This book is a good companion to the Congressional Hearings on 6 January 2021. In a different vein, I am also reading Arthur Brooks' From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.

Once I finish these I am going to re-read Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World and read Amanda Ripley's High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out.

Thinking of reading in the summertime, I am reminded of how unencumbered I was during summers growing up. It was during summers that I received a good deal of my education. I am more autodidactic than is probably good for me. This "education" consisted of simply reading a lot of books. During the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school, I read 1984, Farenheit 451, and A Brave New World successively. This was 1982, the same year Under the Big Black Sun was released. The experience of reading those three books one after the other changed my life as much as any experience I've ever had. It was the beginning of my awareness.

Towards the end of my sophomore year, for English class, I read Orwell's short story A Hanging. Reading that was the effective cause of my opposition to the death penalty. Because this happened at a low ebb of my religious belief, while my opposition to the death penalty is certainly part of my religion, my opposition to it did have not its genesis in that.

In many ways, Orwell, most of whose works I've read (many I have re-read), remains something of my political lodestar. Another book I plan to read this summer is John Sutherland's Orwell's Nose: A Pathological Biography, which I acquired a few years ago from the University of Chicago Press, during their annual blowout sale.

If you haven't read it, I encourage you to read Jonathan Haidt's article for The Atlantic, "Why the Past 10 of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid." In an amazing chapter of her book, Walter demonstrates how our stupidity is exploited by and through social media. At end of his piece, Haidt makes some public policy proposals worth considering.

Since Easter, I've been working to ensure that July is what I've taken to calling a slack month. This means I have no commitments outside of my normal ones. I am learning to protect time, which is a way of protecting myself.

Unsurprisingly, our first song for the relaunched Friday traditio is from Under the Big Back Sun: "Riding With Mary."