Month: December 2008

A mondedream and a mondegreen

SDG here. Both Jimmy and I have posted in the past about mondegreens, so I won't go into the background about why misheard song lyrics and the like are called that (more at Wikipedia)… but I will tell you why I've been thinking about them lately.

Last week, I had a mondedream.

Here's what happened. Last weekend, while browsing in a bookstore, I heard the song "Run-Around" by the band Blues Traveler, a song I've heard many times before. Like many people (as I've since learned), I've never known exactly how the chorus begins — and, not being big into popular music generally, I've never thought much about it before.

I didn't think of it that evening either, although subconsciously I must have been working on it, because that night I dreamed about the song — and, in my dream, thought I was positive I had figured out the ambiguous line in question.

When I woke up, I realized that my guess had to be wrong — but I also realized that that it was actually phonetically persuasive and narratively cogent — more so, in fact, than other mondegreens on the same line I've since found online.

The real line, I have since found out, is:

"But you / Why you wanna give me the runaround?"

However, that "But-a ya-e-ew…" is polysyllablized (I'm sure there's a musicological term for this) in such a way that many people apparently think it is something more complicated. In fact, I didn't know this at the time, but it turns out that one common mondegreen for this line is "Buddy L…" Makes no sense, but that's what people think he's saying.

I like my dreamed-up version better:

"Bloody hell… why you wanna give me the runaround?"

"Bloody hell" sounds a lot like "Buddy L" (and therefore both must sound a lot like the way the line actually comes out) — but my version actually makes sense… and I came up with it in my sleep.

What's more, I keep singing it that way in my head now — even though I now know the real line.

Now that I'm on the subject, I might as well reveal my lifetime classic mondegreen.

Fair warning: This anecdote will ruin several minutes of Handel's Messiah for you. There. You can't say I didn't tell you. (As added protection, I'll white out the words so you have to swipe them with your mouse to read them.)

The Messiah got a lot of play in our house when I was a kid. My mother sang in it at a local church, and she played it especially around Christmastime. My mondegreen concerns the opening of the segment that begins:

"All we like sheep … All we like sheep / Have gone astray…"

In typical Baroque style, those first four words "All we like sheep" are echoed by four antiphonal beats from the strings section: "All we like sheep [bum bum bum bum]."

As a child, I not only misheard the words "All we like sheep," I glossed an antiphonal response onto the four following beats which, in my brain at the time, seemed somehow fitting.

So during "All we like sheep [bum bum bum bum]," what I heard in my head as a kid was (swipe with your mouse at your own risk!):

"Oh, we like sheep! [And sheep like us!]"

People hate me for telling them that, because it ruins the segment. (Sorry people!)

So those are my mondegreens. (I've got others, but I'll save 'em for later.) In the combox, feel free to share yours! I don't mean your favorite common ones, like "There's a bathroom on the right" or "Excuse me while I kiss this guy" (though you can add those too), but song lyrics you yourself misheard or misinterpreted.

In closing, a seasonal favorite (not mine!): "Now bring us some frigging pudding!" (Real line: "Now bring us some figgy pudding," "We Wish You a Merry Christmas")

More on Cardinal Dulles

SDG here with a quick follow up… I didn't want to risk these links getting lost by appending them to the previous post, and anyway, I'd just as soon start a new combox for relevant and appropriate comments relating to Cardinal Dulles that anyone may have to make, if any. (Inappropriate comments will be subject to zero tolerance.)

Decent Films doings, 12/12/2008

SDG here with some Decent Films doings.

I've finally gotten around to posting a piece I wrote a ways back for Our Sunday Visitor, “Hollywood and Religion: Priests, Nuns and the American Silver Screen.”

I've also posted new reviews of the new The Day the Earth Stood Still remake as well as the 1951 original film. The new film is directed by Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose), an Evangelical Christian. Since the original 1951 film is noted for the Christological resonances of the alien ambassador Klaatu, I hoped Derrickson's involvement in the remake was a positive sign that the sequel might pick up on those themes. Unfortunately, the opposite is the case — the new Klaatu is considerably less inspirational than the original.

In other news, recent DVD releases include Horton Hears a Who! and The Dark Knight. (Buy 'em through my Amazon.com links and send a few cents my way!)

Cardinal Dulles has died

Hat tip: AmP as usual.

I had the opportunity to speak to Avery Cardinal Dulles a couple of years ago. In our short conversation he was thoughtful, charitable, informative and intellectually rigorous. In my article on The Nativity Story and Catholic teaching are a couple of very brief theological excerpts from our conversation pertinent to the subject.

His contributions to 20th and early 21st-century Catholic theology are immense. I'm currently reading his book The Assurance of Things Hoped For: A Theology of Christian Faith. Here is how it begins: "The word 'faith' might be described as the Christian word. More than any other religion, Christianity deserves to be called a faith."

Read some articles he wrote for America magazine here. (Feel free to add more links in the combox!)

Read more at Whispers, Ratzinger Fan Club, Wikipedia.

Thoughts on sex and marriage – Part 1

SDG here with some initial thoughts on sex and the marriage debate.

Same-sex "marriage," many urge today, is a matter of civil rights. Two men or two women have the same "right" as a man and a woman to enjoy the legal recognition and privileges that come with civil marriage.

One obvious question raised by this contention is: What is marriage? Why have societies conferred legal recognition and the privileges pertaining thereto to a man and a woman? What is it about this type of relationship that calls for some sort of social recognition? Why is marriage, socio-anthropologically speaking, an essentially universal human institution?

So far, I haven't seen a particularly lucid answer on these questions from advocates of same-sex "marriage." Here is what I take to be some fairly typical thoughts regarding marriage from a non-Catholic friend of mine who advocates same-sex marriage:

"The institution of marriage is always in flux. At times it has been about property, or about forming alliances, or about respectability and appearances (as often is behind when LGBT people enter heterosexual marriages). Currently, I think, society sees it more in terms of companionship, love, mutual attraction, mutual care for one another, and, yes, often procreation."

What is wrong with this accounting? To begin with, it doesn't say what marriage is — only how society "currently" sees it.

For another thing, it doesn't say what business of civil society's it is from whom we seek companionship, love, mutual attraction, mutual care for one another or even procreation.

Thirdly, it doesn't account for the socio-anthropological consistency of marriage as the enduring union of a man and a woman. (Incidentally, marriage is always the union of one man and one woman — even in polygamous societies. Polygamy means multiple marriages, not singular marriage with multiple partners. For instance, Jacob was married to Leah and Jacob was married to Rachel; they were not all three of them married to one another.)

At any rate, I can't see that anything like a sufficient explanation or basis for marriage as a human universal can be found in causes like companionship, love, mutual attraction and mutual care. In fact, it isn't even immediately clear to me that companionship or mutual care have historically been the special provenance of marriage. Husbands and wives as well as the unmarried have always sought these out in larger social contexts, often (not exclusively) men in the context of male society and women in the context of female society. In some societies, husbands and wives haven't particularly looked to one another for companionship at all. And of course mutual attraction neither needs, nor is limited to, marriage — which, again, raises the question why we have marriage, why it takes the shape it does, and what it is for.

Part and parcel with this question of what marriage is is the larger question of what sex is.

You might think that the nature of an activity so universal, not only among humans but throughout the animal kingdom, would seem to be too obvious to require much complicated expounding. On the other hand, we humans are different from other animals, and in our case sex isn't merely about biology or procreation.

However, it is one thing to say that sex isn't merely procreative, and another to say that it need not be in any way about procreation at all, as much modern thought does today. Again, I think my non-Catholic friend is pretty typical in this regard:

"You may not like this phrasing, but we have moved above the biological/procreative aspect of sex. As such we can treat it as something other than procreative … because we are using sex for another purpose that need not include procreation."

What shall we say to this? 

Here is one answer: Eating isn't "limited to" nourishment; we can eat food because it tastes good, for various social reasons, out of habit, for comfort, or perhaps in the context of some ritual, such as a seder or the Eucharist, among other possible reasons. In that sense, one might possibly say that we have "moved above the biological/nutritive aspect of eating."

Even so, it remains the case that that, any time one puts nutritive material in one's mouth and chew it up and swallow it, whatever else one may be doing, one are engaging your body's digestive powers. To interfere with the integrity of that process by bingeing and purging is an abuse of the body and of the act of eating. You can't say "Eating isn't limited to the biological — we have moved above the nutritive — so there's no harm actually excluding the nutritive by bingeing and purging." There is.

Something similar can be said about sex.

It is true that sex isn't limited to procreation; people engage in sex because it is pleasurable or fun, out of physical or emotional passion, to express or renew intimacy, to celebrate their marital union, among other possible reasons. In that sense, one might possibly say that we have "moved above the biological/procreative aspect of sex."

Even so, it remains the case that that any time a man engages in behavior that results in emitting seed, whatever else he may be doing, he is engaging his body's procreative powers. No amount of high-minded (or gnostic-verging) emphasis on other factors can justify bracketing and excluding that aspect.

To put it another way: It is true that sex isn't "limited to" procreation in the sense that it can and should be about other things in addition to procreation — but not in the sense that it can be about these other things rather than procreation, and therefore we can deliberately exclude procreation through contraceptive or homoerotic acts.

In that sense, we have "moved above" the biological/procreative aspect only in the sense that a skyscraper building crew "moves above" the foundation as they proceed to build each floor upon the previous one. Each floor nevertheless builds upon and relies directly upon the foundation. The view from the observation deck may be glorious; the foundation remains foundational. Sex is what it is.

More to come.

An Update

I want to thank everyone who has been praying for my close relative who is in the hospital.

Thing were *very* grim as of yesterday morning, and we are by no means out of the woods yet. There are still some very puzzling and troubling things going on.

However, tonight we got news that provides a ray of hope.

While the primary condition is still mysterious and of unknown origin, it fits in a general category that is treatable and that usually responds very well to treatment.

So . . . there is hope in that regard.

Unfortunately, there are other grave symptoms that are not explained and that may not be fixed by the treatment.

So . . . things may still go in a bad direction.

But the news at the moment is on balance positive, and I wanted to share that, as well as expressing my profound thanks to everyone who has been praying.

Please keep it up!

A *Very* Special Request

I have a request that I'd like to ask of our blog readers.

Someone *very* close to me (not me, but someone *very* close) currently needs prayers.

I don't feel that the person would want me to discuss details in public, but this is a very close family member who is currently in Intensive Care.

It is *very* serious.

Depending on when you read this, cross-time prayers may be appropriate.

Remember, God can do anything.

Also: I'm a convert, so none of my family has the consolations of being Catholic.

*Please* pray.

About Modern Medicine . . .

I'm a big fan of modern medicine.

But I recognize it's limitations and weaknesses, too.

One of those is these: It largely ignores the role of nutrition, and in particular it ignores the role that nutritional supplements can play in preventing and treating various conditions.

Why is that?

One of the reasons is that doctors aren't given a great deal of training in nutrition. Another reason is that drug companies aren't interested in the subject.

Why is that?

Because they make their money off drugs–synthetic substances that they can patent and then charge lots of money for.

I don't begrudge them that. I'm glad that they're developing new drugs, and given the costs of doing that, they need to be able to make their money back and make a profit.

But there is one aspect to this that can be rather insidious.

You see, the human body contains a lot of different natural substances that it needs to run right. Sometimes it needs particular natural substances to repair itself.

But you can't patent these substances, and they are often easily derivable from natural sources that don't require a patentable process to extract them.

That means drug companies can't make money off them. Or, rather, they don't think that they can make the kind of money they'd want in order to invest in producing them.

So what do they do?

Often times they'll sink a lot of research dollars in coming up with a synthetic substance that mimics the function of a natural one or that stimulates production of a natural one in the body–or something along these lines–and this synthetic substance they can patent and make a lot of money off.

If they can sell it to doctors, who (just coincidentally) don't know much about nutrition or nutritional supplementation.

What's bad about that?

Well, for one, it costs patients (directly or via their insurance companies) a lot more money to pay for the synthetic substance when they could just take the original natural one.

For another, the synthetic substance may not work exactly like the natural one. It may, for example, have side effects that the natural one doesn't. (Because, y'know, it's not naturally found in our bodies. Though, N.B., that I'm not arguing that just because something is natural it's automatically harmless or harmless in a particular dose or automatically effective or effective at a particular dose.)

So I don't like this aspect of the situation.

What brought all this to mind?

IT WAS THIS STORY ABOUT A NEW INSOMNIA DRUG.

As a life-long suffer of insomnia (when people ask me "Where did you get your theological background?" I tell them "School of Late Night Studies"), I'm always interested in possible insomnia treatments, so I read the story. And guess what it says?

An insomnia drug that helps the body produce more of the sleep hormone melatonin may improve sleep for jet-lagged travelers and shift workers, researchers reported on Monday.

Maryland-based Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. reported on two studies of its drug tasimelteon, also known as VEC-162, that showed it helped patients sleep longer and more deeply than a placebo.

Okay, great. A drug company has come up with a drug that stimulates melatonin production and, as a result, people taking the drug sleep better than if they take a placebo.

Fine.

But . . . uhhh . . . excuse me. . . . why don't people just take some melatonin?

I mean, melatonin is a natural substance that is widely available. It's in every nutritional supplements store out there.

Why spend lots of money (directly or via your insurance company, which ultimately has to be paid for out of the customers' pockets) to take a drug that stimulates melatonin production when you could just take melatonin itself?

I can imagine reasons.

For example, some natural substances are ones that we can't nutritionally absorb by eating them. Some, for example, need to be taken sublingually so that they go into the bloodstream directly, bypassing the digestive system. And, in fact, there are sublingual melatonin tablets out there. Whether melatonin needs to be taken that way, I don't know, but it's available either way.

So . . . why?

The story notes toward the end:

Melatonin can fight jet lag too but over-the-counter melatonin products are not regulated, they pointed out, and have not been consistently shown to help treat jet lag and other sleep disorders.

Okay, so we are offered two reasons: First, over-the-counter supplements aren't regulated the way drugs are.

That's not a sufficient argument. Lots of things, including food, isn't regulated the way drugs are, and it's a good thing, too. Imagine what would happen to your ability to eat if every single meal you consume had to be prepared under strict, patented processes that had been rigorously scientifically tested for safety. Even the cost of the healthiest food in the world would skyrocket.

Lack of comparable regulations thus isn't a reason on its own. If one wants to argue that something should be avoided if it hasn't been regulated the way drugs are then one needs to show (a) that it needs to be in the same class as drugs and (b) that the regulations on drugs are calibrated correctly.

The second reason was that OTC melatonin products "have not been consistently shown to help treat jet lag and other sleep disorders."

That is a fascinating statement for sooo many reasons.

For instance: "Consistently"? Is that an admission that some studies have shown them to help these conditions, though not all? Just how many studies? What the ratio? How were they done?

And . . . just how many studies have been done on the new melatonin-encouraging drug? One?

Something like a third of all studies turn out to be wrong. Is the stution that we have a bunch, though not all, studies saying melatonin helps sleep disorders but only one saying that the new drug does?

And if the drug company is interested in arguing to Reuters that their drug is preferable to natural melatonin (note that the story says "they pointed out" these arguments), why did they only test it against a placebo instead of melatonin itself?

Interesting questions!

Two From Benedict

Since 1963 there has been a growing debate in Protestant circles regarding the way in which St. Paul's teachings–particularly regarding justification–are to be understood. A significant number of authors, including Kirster Stendahl, E. P. Sanders, James Dunn, and N. T. Wright, have concluded that the standard accounts of Paul's teaching developed since the Reformation are simply wrong, that they read Paul's conflict with first century Judaizers anachronistically against the Reformers' struggle with the Catholic Church and what they perceived Catholic beliefs to be.

Although these authors have their own opinions about the details of what Paul meant, and while each gives different nuances to their understanding of Paul, there are certain commonalities among their thoughts, and this has given rise to the term "the new perspective on Paul" as a way of naming their school. (Though some of them have said, "the new perspectives on Paul" would be more accurate.)

MORE ON THE "NEW PERSPECTIVE."

One of the common themes in new perspective writings is that when Paul says we are not justified by works of the Law he does not have in mind the common Protestant claims that we do not earn our position before God or that we do not have to "do anything" for our salvation or similar conceptions that rely on the concept of "law" as something abstract, philosophical, or universal.

Instead, new perspective authors hold, the Law that Paul has in mind is something concrete and specific: the Mosaic Law or Torah.

Adherence to the Mosaic Law was constituitive of Jewish identity, and by saying that we are not justified by works of the Law what Paul was saying is that we are not justified by obeying the Mosaic Law, by being a faithful Jew.

Instead, we are justified through faith in Christ, through conforming to him rather than to the Mosaic Law.

What would a Catholic make of all this?

He might take it different ways. Through the history of Catholic thought there have been a variety of perspective on Paul (no pun intended), and the Church has not mandated one over the others.

However, it is worth noting that in the Year of St. Paul that Pope Benedict proclaimed, he devoted his weekly catecheses to St. Paul, and just of late he has been talking about Paul's teaching on justification, works, and the Law.

I've been having to sit on this story for a while as I waited for complete English translations of the audiences to start becoming available, but the first relevant one is now out and the second is due this Wednesday.

So let's look at two things that Pope Benedict had to say. First, there's this:

[Paul states:] "we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law" (Rom. 3:28). At this point Luther translated: "justified by faith alone". I shall return to this point at the end of the Catechesis. First, we must explain what is this "Law" from which we are freed and what are those "works of the Law" that do not justify. The opinion that was to recur systematically in history already existed in the community at Corinth. This opinion consisted in thinking that it was a question of moral law and that the Christian freedom thus consisted in the liberation from ethics. Thus in Corinth the term "πάντα μοι έξεστιν" (I can do what I like [NOTE FROM JIMMY: This is a squishy translation; the Greek means "All is lawful/permitted to me"]) was widespread. It is obvious that this interpretation is wrong: Christian freedom is not libertinism; the liberation of which St Paul spoke is not liberation from good works.

So what does the Law from which we are liberated and which does not save mean? For St Paul, as for all his contemporaries, the word "Law" meant the Torah in its totality, that is, the five books of Moses. The Torah, in the Pharisaic interpretation, that which Paul had studied and made his own, was a complex set of conduct codes that ranged from the ethical nucleus to observances of rites and worship and that essentially determined the identity of the just person. In particular, these included circumcision, observances concerning pure food and ritual purity in general, the rules regarding the observance of the Sabbath, etc. codes of conduct that also appear frequently in the debates between Jesus and his contemporaries. All of these observances that express a social, cultural and religious identity had become uniquely important in the time of Hellenistic culture, starting from the third century B.C. This culture which had become the universal culture of that time and was a seemingly rational culture; a polytheistic culture, seemingly tolerant constituted a strong pressure for cultural uniformity and thus threatened the identity of Israel, which was politically constrained to enter into this common identity of the Hellenistic culture. This resulted in the loss of its own identity, hence also the loss of the precious heritage of the faith of the Fathers, of the faith in the one God and in the promises of God.

Against this cultural pressure, which not only threatened the Israelite identity but also the faith in the one God and in his promises, it was necessary to create a wall of distinction, a shield of defence to protect the precious heritage of the faith; this wall consisted precisely in the Judaic observances and prescriptions. Paul, who had learned these observances in their role of defending God's gift, of the inheritance of faith in one God alone, saw this identity threatened by the freedom of the Christians this is why he persecuted them. At the moment of his encounter with the Risen One he understood that with Christ's Resurrection the situation had changed radically. With Christ, the God of Israel, the one true God, became the God of all peoples. The wall as he says in his Letter to the Ephesians between Israel and the Gentiles, was no longer necessary: it is Christ who protects us from polytheism and all of its deviations; it is Christ who unites us with and in the one God; it is Christ who guarantees our true identity within the diversity of cultures. The wall is no longer necessary; our common identity within the diversity of cultures is Christ, and it is he who makes us just. Being just simply means being with Christ and in Christ. And this suffices. Further observances are no longer necessary.

So Pope Benedict's thought on this point appears congruent with that of the new perspective on Paul, at least in its broad outlines.

But the Pope went on to day something else, which may be even more surprising for some.

A few years ago, when I was writing a lot about jutification, I pointed out (and the thought was not original with me but had been developed by other Catholic authors) that, although the common Protestant assertaion that we are jutified "by faith alone" is intrinsically misleading, contrary to the language of Scripture (the only place that the phrase "faith alone" appears in in James 2, where it is rejected), and I don't like it, nevertheless the phrase can be given an orthodox reading if it is understood to be referring to faith formed by charity or fides formata caritate.

That didn't please some on both siders of the confessional aisle, who wanted to see an irreconcilable conflict between Catholics and Protestants on this point such that the phrase "faith alone" could
not be given any meaning acceptable from a Catholic perspective.

Pope Benedict seems to see it differently. Immediately after the above quotation, he states:

For this reason Luther's phrase: "faith alone" is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love. Faith is looking at Christ, entrusting oneself to Christ, being united to Christ, conformed to Christ, to his life. And the form, the life of Christ, is love; hence to believe is to conform to Christ and to enter into his love. So it is that in the Letter to the Galatians in which he primarily developed his teaching on justification St Paul speaks of faith that works through love (cf. Gal 5: 14).

Paul knows that in the twofold love of God and neighbour the whole of the Law is present and carried out. Thus in communion with Christ, in a faith that creates charity, the entire Law is fulfilled. We become just by entering into communion with Christ who is Love. We shall see the same thing in the Gospel next Sunday, the Solemnity of Christ the King. It is the Gospel of the judge whose sole criterion is love. What he asks is only this: Did you visit me when I was sick? When I was in prison? Did you give me food to eat when I was hungry, did you clothe me when I was naked? And thus justice is decided in charity. Thus, at the end of this Gospel we can almost say: love alone, charity alone. But there is no contradiction between this Gospel and St Paul. It is the same vision, according to which communion with Christ, faith in Christ, creates charity. And charity is the fulfilment of communion with Christ. Thus, we are just by being united with him and in no other way.

SOURCE.