Saturday, July 27, 2024

Two Days Late - and a Reid Clerihew

 

So after making a point of saying I would be posting, and resurrecting the notion that I am "Thursday," I failed to post on Thursday. 

Fortunately, "E" filled that gap. It was good to see someone else posting here.

I plead busyness and forgetfulness.

I've been writing and editing the newsletter for a local pro-life pregnancy center, which I have to get to the President of the center by next week for approval, and then off to the printer the following week.

But still, I should have posted something. That's where the forgetfulness comes in.

Anyway, here's a topical clerihew I did scribble this week:

Joy Reid
was fined for driving at excessive speed.
She was dismayed when the Black traffic court judge didn't agree
that speed limits are a tool of white supremacy.


Thursday, July 25, 2024

The Importance of Being is the Flipside of the Importance of Doing Nothing

 "It's because artists do not practise, patrons do not patronize, crowds do not assemble to worship reverently the great work of Doing Nothing, that the world has lost its philosophy and even failed to invent a new religion." G.K. Chesterton

Here's a great piece that appeared at Forbes recently: The Importance of Doing Nothing. It points out a truth that many of the best thinkers over the past 100 years have pointed out, often in exasperation at our busy-obsessed culture: Doing nothing is itself productive, for the simple reason that it's not productive.

It's a paradox, yes, but a paradox recognized by (just off the top of my head) Chesterton, Nock, and Pieper.


Excerpts from the article:


But working harder is not necessarily working smarter. In fact slacking off and setting aside regular periods of 'doing nothing' may be the best thing we can do to induce states of mind that nurture our imagination and improve our mental health . . .

doing nothing has never really been acceptable. We associate it with irresponsibility, wasting our life. Most of us feel guilty if we don't have something to do. On the other hand we get a buzz when we feel really busy. Distraction-inducing behaviours like constantly checking email stimulate the brain to shoot dopamine into the bloodstream giving us a rush that can make stopping so much harder. . . .

Our frenetic activities in cyberspace ”“ a world of multitasking and hyperactivity ”“ help us to delude ourselves that we are productive. The reality is that social media is very reactive but not very original. It contracts creativity and can impact mental health. If we don't know how to calibrate the balance between action and reflection we may become a casualty of psychological burnout. . . .

Here's a column I wrote for The Register about the importance of doing nothing: Take It Easy. Also: A book review for Gilbert Magazine about Joseph Pieper's classic, Leisure, the Basis of Culture.

Thursday, July 18, 2024

The Flying Inn and Walt Whitman


Every yer I set various reading goals. One of my goals this year was to read a G.K. Chesterton novel I had not read before.

I met that goal yesterday by finishing The Flying Inn.

The book is typical Chesterton fiction, a mixture of fancy and fantasy with a social subtext. In the case of this book, he is celebrating the victory of the common man and common pleasures over government control and elitist hypocrisy.

Oh, and he is also celebrating rum and cheese.

As I read the book and its praise of the common man, I thought of some recent comments I'd seen about Chesterton and Walt Whitman. Indeed, I had seen some suggestions that Chesterton praised Whitman.

On the surface Chesterton would seem to have little in common with Whitman. Indeed, Whitman's religious and lifestyle would appear to be in conflict with Chesterton's. But they shared a common love of the common man and common things, and a celebration of life.

This particularly hit home in the section on Crooke's shop where a plasterer, a clock mender, a clerk, and assorted others came in seeking a drink. Common men seeking a common thing. And I thought of Whitman's "I Hear America Singing" with its mechanics, carpenter, mason, and more all singing their strong melodious songs. And, of course, Chesterton's book is full of songs.

This Chesterton/Whitman connection - and their differences - are explored in an interesting 2017 article by Scott Hubbard in Transpositions, "The Orthodoxy Of Leaves Of Grass: The Imaginative Visions Of G.K. Chesterton And Walt Whitman In Dialogue."


The article begins: 

"Walt Whitman is not likely to appear on anyone’s list of great Christian poets. And with reason. From the first publication of Leaves of Grass in 1855, to his death in 1892, the good gray poet had cosied with Emersonian Neoplatonism, drafted plans for ‘The Great Construction of the New Bible’ and even accorded the figure of Satan a place within the Holy Quaternity of God. He is large and contains multitudes, but Chalcedonian orthodoxy is not one of them. The problem is that Whitman’s personal heterodoxies may keep his name from appearing on any list of great poets written by a Christian. However, one Christian who in his own lifetime offered hearty dissent to this rule was none other than renowned essayist G.K. Chesterton.

When Chesterton compiled his 1905 essay series Heretics to expose the philosophical inadequacies of the literati of the past half-century, not only did he spare Whitman from his critical scythe, but the American poet received accolade as a type of noble pagan. Indeed, for a pre-conversion Chesterton, Whitman was ’one of the greatest men of the nineteenth century’. And while this is certainly a tendentious claim from England’s Catholic Colossus, it is not one that his later work shows any trace of recanting. In fact, the English apologist and the American bard had imaginative visions that greatly overlap in scope and focus. ..."

The essay is well worth a read - as was The Flying Inn.

  

Tuesday, July 16, 2024

The Man Who IS Thursday

 

There used to be a team of writers contributing to this blog. I was not one of the original team members, but I was invited in 2006 to join them. Each of us was supposed tor try to contribute something on an assigned day. My day was Thursday. I liked that: I was The Man Who Was Thursday.

I have to admit that I was not always consistent about posting on Thursdays, but I did contribute regularly.

Over the years as blogs became less popular various team members gradually stopped contributing. I continued to post, but not as regularly as I had been. Indeed, since 2014 I have been the only person contributing to this blog. And for a while I only posted a couple of times a year

In 2021 I considered quitting too. But then I decided to continue the blog, and to contribute more. I did so, though I have not been as regular as I should have been. Last year I only posted 28 times. This is just the 10th post for this year.

Me culpa.

Two weeks ago my pastor approached me after daily Mass (I am a daily Mass attendee). He explained that the woman who lectored every Thursday was facing health issues, and asked me to become the Thursday lector in her place. I agreed.

So I'm back to being Thursday!

I will continue to post here, and I will try to be more regular. I might even try to post on some Thursdays.

But, of course, I am posting this on a Tuesday.

Typical.


Monday, July 01, 2024

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy IS Catholic!



On social media some folks have been engaging in a debate over whether The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is Christian/Catholic. Some argue that is is just a fantasy and set in a pagan world. 

But Tolkien himself  said it is Catholic. In a letter to Father Robert Murray, SJ, he wrote: The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like 'religion', to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism."

Yes, the world is "pagan" one, but it is seen through a theological lens. Tolkien included such theological elements as: The battle between good and evil, the victory of humility over pride, and the activity of grace (such as seen in Frodo's pity toward Gollum. It includes such themes as death and immortality, mercy and pity, resurrection, salvation, repentance, self-sacrifice, free will, justice, fellowship, authority and healing.

Frodo's struggle with the ring and it's malevolent influence reminds one of the line from The Lord's Prayer: "And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

Tolkien also noted, "Of course God is in The Lord of the Rings. The period was pre-Christian, but it was a monotheistic world." And the God of Middle Earth, he said, is our God. "The book is about the world that God created – the actual world of this planet."  

(I recently added a copy Tolkien's Faith: A Spiritual Biography by Holly Ordway to my "to-be-read" shelf!)