I am currently reading “Heretics,” which is much more a romp than a trial, though it is still very much an indictment of some of the flawed habits of thought in Chesterton’s time. It seems that even the abundant sunshine of Chesterton’s thought could not fully disinfect our society from them; many of the “heresies” are alive and well today.

Chesterton’s usual tactic is to show that, while these heretics believe they are advancing a startling truth, the startling fact is that they have it all “topsy-turvy”. He notes, for example, that some in his day were taking an aggressive stand against alcohol, because the consequences are dangerous, though they made it a point to say that wine could be used medicinally.

He responds, “The one genuinely dangerous and immoral way of drinking wine is to drink it as a medicine. And for this reason, if a man drinks wine in order to obtain pleasure, he is trying to obtain something exceptional, something he does not expect every hour of the day, something which, unless he is a little insane, he will not try to get every hour of the day. But if a man drinks wine in order to obtain health, he is trying to get something natural; something, that is, that he ought not to be without; something that he may find it difficult to reconcile himself to being without…

“The sound rule in the matter would appear to be like many other sound rules – a paradox. Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable.”

Another passage left me thoroughly entertained. He was dealing with a man named George Moore, whom I do not know, though he apparently was a prideful man. Chesterton said that it is one thing to be humble, which is not only a virtue but a very liberating quality. The humble man, he says, is the one who is truly free to achieve great things. He further distinguishes between vanity, which he lays upon Robert Louis Stevenson, and pride, which is Moore’s stated flaw. Vanity, according to Chesterton, is a social ill – at least the vain person wishes to have the applause of many, while the prideful person only desires the applause of one – himself. (Paraphrased).

He goes on: “We should really be much more interested in Mr. Moore if he were not quite so interested in himself. We feel as though we were being shown through a gallery of really fine pictures, into each of which, by some useless and discordant convention, the artist had represented the same figure in the same attitude. “The Grand Canal with a distant view of Mr. Moore,” “Effect of Mr. Moore though a Scotch Mist,” “Mr. Moore by Firelight,” “Ruins of Mr. Moore by Moonlight,” and so on, seems to be the endless series.”

I hope you enjoy it, too.

I’m afraid I can’t say, well enough, what I’m trying to say. It is ethereal, but of a definite color.

It is a shame that there is no authority to go around declaring the Church to be “the light of the world.” The Church does it as a kind of paradox – what seems a boast is actually a statement of great obligation and, we believe, of divine origin. But this remains as unconvincing to the non-believer as is the circular logic of Evangelicals, who will tell me that the Bible alone is to be trusted because the Bible says so.

I am no authority. (Think about all that that means, for a moment).

Instead, as one person, I give my testament – the Church is the light of the world. Moreover, I echo the words of Peter, when Jesus asks his Apostles whether they will also leave him: “Lord, to whom shall we go?”

I’ve looked. I was almost carried away, in a few instances, by lines of thought that would make me a god, or God, or else promised to unleash me from the bonds of my superstitions so that I might be free to chase every whim and desire. These things I recognize as temptation, and their inventor is no liberator.

Does this seem too sure, too safe a conclusion? Have I not ventured out far enough on the open seas of life and thought to earn the skeptic’s respect?

Tell me, then, what I have to gain. Likewise – here is where you must earn my respect – recognize what I would be losing. This is the piddling arithmetic of the naturalist, who says you only have this life, and there is nothing greater than what your senses can tell you.

Because even if, on the first tally, it would seem that the naturalist’s life is more satisfying – have sex but not children, and you will be happy, for instance – there is still the void. Or, to keep with the mathematical analogy – anything multiplied by zero equals zero.

I answer, rather than zero, infinity. Rather than chance, purpose. Rather than mindlessness, Logos.

If I am only playing with imaginary numbers (you will recall from algebra), at least there is some use to them which purely empirical numbers cannot offer. But I am not, and I step outside of the analogy with the help of mathematics: Why does math work at all?

Why are theoretical physicists, those sleuthing as to the origins of the Universe, far from disdaining the use of numbers and their operations, dependent almost entirely upon them? This has not escaped the attention of some of those physicists, who voice their fear that it might really mean something for math to be so darned useful.

So, a hundred times, I return to the Church. She may have, at times, forgotten that the physical center of the Universe is not the same as the heart of the Universe – but she did not forget that we are the heart of creation. We are the throbbing heart of a seemingly vast and empty cosmos.

And that’s the crux – because, even now, some want us to believe that we are insignificant because the Universe is so vast. That, if we are the only form of advanced life, then we are desperately alone.

The Church has it just the other way around – the grandeur of the cosmos reflects the lavish love of God – so much given, for, physically speaking, less than a speck on a speck, something impossibly small compared with the whole. We are not alone, but singular, and bearing His image.

Who else but God could ever dare to perpetuate such a theory? How would it last beyond the first generation if it did not seem truer that one’s own life?

…to lead you to a longer one:  Link.

This is a blog kept by William M Briggs, a professor of Statistics as Cornell University.  I’m giving a talk on abortion soon, and found his blog while gathering information.  He deals at length with the issue, leaning a particular way, and yet, I think, keeping the even tone of a good moderator.  Sounds like a professor to me.

Would love to hear further thoughts, and the comments on this particular post are quite readable.

I shared some thoughts with my friend Adam Fischer, and realized they’d fit in with TCG.

U2 has a song called “Grace” from their album, All That You Can’t Leave Behind. I was not an instant fan; rather, the song grew on me over time, and now I often sing it to my girls at bedtime.

A line goes, “She travels outside of karma.”  I’ve long loved this one, referring to grace, and thought it a lovely expression for what I believe grace to be.  Grace operates outside of blind justice, and has no interest in giving us, strictly, what we deserve.  Rather, it represents a flow of blessings, the workings of the highest mind, which is subject to nothing while offering goodness to all.

Just today, another line offered unexpected depth.  “What once was hurt, what once was fiction, what left a mark no longer stains.”

The first and last descriptions have always made some sense.  All three, in fact.  Yet the middle one suddenly meant more.

Hopefully this thought is not based on a flawed understanding – from what I have read, there are a number of myths involving a god coming to live among humans, the son of a god dying and rising to life again.  These myths some skeptics have claimed as defeating arguments against Christianity – not only is it myth-like, it’s not even original.  They stole the ideas and applied them to their failed Messiah.

However, as one thinker or another has said, it is clear that most of people who adopted these gods typically recognized such stories as myths, in contrast to actual historical events they might have based their beliefs on.  It was a matter of culture, and even if they offered sacrifices, the practice was more about being a member of the society than anything like faith.  In any case, no one claimed to have been an eyewitness to the stories of origin.

Christianity, in contrast, the bearer of the good news of God’s grace for all, claimed that the life, death, and resurrection of the man-God were historical realities.  While some critics go so far as to claim Jesus never existed, this is a rather extreme view of the situation (and would lead us to doubt the existence of many other historical figures, if not virtually all of them).

And so the story of a god coming to dwell among men, and dying and rising to life again, “once was fiction.”  It may even have represented the hope of whole civilizations, who did not believe it about their gods and yet, perhaps, wished that it would become a reality.

If U2 intended this meaning for that one small line – well, in either case, I am amazed.

Unfortunate that the robbery happened, but that loss yielded to some good neighborliness.

Will County Habitat for Humanity houses robbed, community helps

Good evening.

We’re coming to you live on Chick-Fil-A appreciation day, and there are rumors of .25 mile long lines for chicken sandwiches.

There are a lot of serious things to say on the subject of gay marriage, and gender, and where the momentum of our society lies. Here are two of them, quite seriously intended, and yet spoken in a light tone.

First – seriously, this debate has made ammunition out of chicken sandwiches. Does anyone else feel the need to laugh at themselves? Would a banana cream pie help?

Second, it would be nice to get past the part of the debate where we call each other names. Dan Cathy’s comments, which lit this fire? Not a single anti-gay word. He simply affirmed the primacy of traditional marriage, without any hint of irrational fear of gays, or suggestion that gay people are inherently evil.

Freedom of speech assumes that you will prefer one thing to another, that you will value one thing over another. As even some gay advocates have said, it assumes you will have the right to think and say whatever you like, and not be punished by the government for those thoughts and words.

So, if you felt your pulse quicken or your blood pressure rise over this national showdown, relax. You should have known that there’d be long lines at Chick-Fil-A. There have been long lines every time I’ve been there.

Rather, gird your loins and comport yourself for a robust conversation. We can do better than pecking each other to death.

I’d like to be brief with this one, but I don’t want to simply cast it off into blogland. It’s the kind of thing that comes off as the result of a drug-induced “clarity,” but I’ve restricted myself to caffeine and alcohol, and neither of these have advanced my spirit.

Ok, that’ll do.

One of the real landmarks of my faith came in an empty chapel, when I had plenty of time to think. I was tracing the grains of the wood floor with my eyes, when I moved to reach out and touch the ground. On contact, I realized that I was, albeit remotely, touching something which God had touched. In fact, there was nothing in the room, that I was aware of, which had not been touched by God, down to the subatomic level (or, you know, whatever is sub-subatomic).

This was surely an unoriginal thought, yet I found myself in awe. That very matter, however it may have been transformed since the beginning, came tumbling down from God’s hands to mine.

Evangelicals are doing (have been doing) something right about money.  That is, they’re talking about it to the point that it’s not taboo to ask for it.

It seems to me that every Catholic “ask” I’ve heard has been a high-wire act, with the asker hoping not to offend, hoping not to trip over the wire of anyone’s sensibilities.  That’s too bad.

So, with the encouragement of an Evangelical’s book on money management, Marcy and I have renewed our efforts to be good stewards of our finances.  Right after we buy a new car.  And a helicopter.

In seriousness, I’ve been praying earnestly about it, hoping for patience and self-control, for willingness to continue giving even if I can’t have everything I want.  All generally good practices.

Another good practice is that I can work overtime in order to cut down our debts or increase our savings, both giving us the concrete results that are so satisfying in an endeavor like this.  In roughly that context, I dared to pray that God would, if it is good, make something big happen.  I confessed that I did not know what that could be, and that I have no clear idea how to make it happen, so there should be no mistaking that He is doing it.  I just wanted to see it, to dare to ask for it.  Nevertheless, even if such a thing were not to happen, I would be content with His blessings on our own efforts.

I decided to let that slip somewhere to the middle of my mind:  not to be looking, but to be aware.

We had a carpet cleaner at work that was an absolute nuisance to use.  It had a 20′ hose, and we only used it for spot cleaning.  So, you either had to make two trips to get it to the scene of the grime, or else informally apply for the circus with a balancing act that would make any trained elephant blush.

Consequently, we bought a new one, better suited to our needs, and put the old one for sale on Craigslist for $450.  I had two buyers, and the first one agreed to come all the way from Indiana to check it out.  The other was in the city, but since he was second, I put him on hold.

When the first buyer arrived, he had his son with him – a young man who ended up doing most of the talking.  The older man checked out the machine – his son told me he was very familiar with such models, and said so in a very friendly way.  Satisfied, the older man stood up and said, “I know you’re asking $450-”

Naturally, I saw this coming.  I figured anyone who came to look at it would want to negotiate, and I don’t blame them.  But I did have a buyer on deck, with cash in hand.

“and you know the situation with my job and my family,” he continued.  I did know, because he told me on the phone – he was about to be let go from a cleaning company, where he was the manager.  His goal was to work on his own, and try to earn a living that way.  For that to be successful, he needed equipment.

“Would you take $350?  It would mean a lot for us.”

His voice cracked.  He wasn’t putting me on.

I was quiet for a long moment, and he didn’t try to say anything else.  First, though I expected the negotiation, I was a little disappointed.  This was already a pretty good price.  But I quickly let that go.  Second, this wasn’t my money, and it would be used for an unquestionably good cause.  What right did I have to discount that price?  Well, maybe a pretty good right, based on reasons which will be omitted because they could only be seen as boastful.  Finally, I simply understood that it was the right thing to do, and I had the privilege of being in a position to make it happen.  That’s uncommon, and it shouldn’t be squirreled away for petty reasons.

“Yeah.  Yes, let’s do that.”

They counted out the money for me to see, a nice gesture though I had no doubt it would all be there.  He expressed his thanks several times, holding back tears, and I tried to shed any notion that I was his benefactor.  It was just a good thing to do.  Let’s not have pride muddying the waters, least of all false pride.

It would be a couple hours before I realized what happened, or at least one interpretation of what had happened.  That is, God had answered my prayer, though my bank account did not grow because of it.

There came a time a few years ago when I began to reflect deeply on the reasons a person might have for being pro-choice. Reflexively – instinctively? – I had always believed it was a misunderstanding, maybe a case of callousness which simply needed a proper, heart-rending appeal in order to spark a conversion. If only I could find the right words, the definitive and undeniable perspective which would change everything, then the debate would disappear.

It’s tough to deal with perpetual failure like that. A few years ago, I began to wonder why such an approach was doomed to fail, even with people whom I believed were intelligent and compassionate.

The closest I’ve gotten, by the way, is something like this: Abortion must be the most terrible fate a person can face. In your most vulnerable state, with nerve endings as fresh as they’ll ever be, in the place which is supposed to be the safest in all the world, in come the brutally dispassionate instruments of death. You have committed no crime, been given no defense. You will endure, arguably, the most intense pain possible, and you can’t even scream. Does anyone deserve this? Of all the very serious reasons people give for not wanting a child, can any justify this action?

Plenty of people – some reading this, perhaps – could respond that there are reasons, that it’s not as bad as I’m making it, that I’ve conflated the suffering of the fetus. (Please, don’t come near me with that truly stupid argument that we are only talking about a bunch of cells clumped together).

My breakthrough came when I doubted a quality intrinsic to the question, “How can good people justify abortion?”

In other words, since abortion does not seem justifiable – in that it is tantamount to murder – it must be that good people don’t justify it.

There’s a lot to get angry about there, and before you do, let me pull the pressure valve on one point: There is no one good who opposes abortion, either, except for God. We all, on both sides of this and every debate, are fallen and sinful. That sinfulness is manifest, for some, in a pro-choice stance.

This will not solve the debate, I understand. I’m just trying to understand it. There is a whole other angle, a set of people who does not believe in God who may or may not acknowledge the personhood of the fetus, and yet they defer to the woman and her opportunity to abort. Such people might be as likely to say that we still, as part of the social contract, must protect life at all stages.

Perhaps – and I’m beginning to believe this more and more – a debate is not the proper field for this competition of values and fundamental beliefs.  At least not in an academic sense, which might ultimately produce a consensus among the enlightened which trickles down to common folk.  Rather, since we are talking about real persons who will live or die based on decisions made in a real human mind, according to quite specific circumstances, efforts ought to be focused on those minds, and on amending those circumstances.

If one life can be saved in this way, it must be better than perpetual failure in the grand debate.