Month: January 2009

Jim Akin, Sr., RIP

Dad
I’d like to thank Tim J for letting people know about the recent passing of my father. 

This is obviously a difficult time, but I have a great deal of peace about the situation. God allowed me to do what I needed to do to care for my father’s spiritual and physical needs, and that is a source of enormous consolation, and for which I am enormously greatful to Our Lord.

I’ll be flying to Texas for the funeral, but I wanted to say thank you to all who have kept my father and my family in their thoughts and prayers–not just at this time but for the last couple of months, because my father is the close relative to whom I referred when I asked for prayers about a family situation back in December.

Thank you all!

As you can probably guess, that’s my dad in the picture on the left. As you may also be able to guess, that’s me he’s holding.

If I recognize the background correctly, this picture was taken on the family ranch in Deep East Texas, where I’ll be heading, and just a couple of miles from where Dad will be buried next to Mom.

But the picture is of other times–other ages.

Happy times. 

Let’s treasure them always.

Next . . . a post on something completely different (by whoever of the three co-bloggers wants to post it!).

Prayers for Jimmy and His Family

A number of you may be already aware, but in case you didn't know, Jimmy's father passed away Sunday. I expect he is more occupied with family and travel arrangements than blogging right now, so I wanted to ask you all for prayers on his behalf.

He wrote in a personal e-mail;

…I have the comfort that I was able to visit him shortly
before Christmas and I was able to speak to him by phone the day he
died (he was not detectably conscious, but who knows what people in
this situation can perceive).

I also have the very great comfort that he received the anointing of
the sick and last rites the day he died.

My sister, brother, and sister-in-law were with him when he passed. It
was a peaceful death, and he was surrounded by people who love him.

Will Paint for Food (or possibly beer)

(from my blog Old World Swine)

Coaster
 

Well,
life is full of surprises, ain't it? Remember a while ago, when I was
asking readers to send in their impressions of the local and personal
effects of the recession and the stock market crash? I made my own
observation at the time that I was seeing very little evidence of it,
as yet, aside from lower gas prices. Then I did make note that some
local stores would be closing (a Starbucks, Circuit City, Linens &
Things).

Now the evidence I asked about has come up and kicked me in the aft end… as of Friday I was given the official two week notice that my job is being cut. My last check will arrive in a month.

It
was a surprise, but not a deep shock. I had been aware for some time
that the amount of work they had for me to do was steadily declining.
When I started in my position, I was kept busier than a grasshopper
kicking the seeds out of a watermelon, but in recent months I had not
only begun to somewhat, shall we say, stretch the projects I
had, but had actually started to create my own projects (which has
never been in my job description). I began to create a library of stock
illustrations that (based on my experience) I thought might be useful
in the future. As this library expanded and went largely unused,
though, it began to feel very futile. I was sitting at my desk, drawing
a check and drawing (literally) whatever I thought made sense… food,
mostly. Our company had used a lot of food art in their packaging.

I had the odd hot-potato-we-must-have-this-by-Tuesday
job to break the monotony, but it began to feel like my own company was
sort of holding me on a retainer for those increasingly rare instances
when I was actually needed. I began to get frustrated and a bit
depressed, which is a horrible position for a Christian.

The
Christian should always be eager to go wherever God leads and do
whatever is needed without complaint and with sincere gratitude.
Constant thankfulness should be the default position for any
follower of Jesus. Life is just too variously and mind-bogglingly
wonderful – too "lopsidedly benevolent", as I have put it before – to
allow oneself to mope because this or that aspect of it isn't meeting
one's expectations.

So, when I began to get frustrated and
depressed at my job, I knew something was deeply wrong. I was also
feeling a more insistent desire to move ahead with my fine art, and the
day job (with its two-hour daily commute) seemed to suck the life and
energy (and creativity) out of me. But I have a family to support, and
as long as I could keep the job, I figured that was where God wanted me
to be.

So, it looks like I'll have a lot more time to devote to
the fine art and to Catholic (and other) illustration. I'll be putting
up some illustration and cartoons from time to time, as well as my
painting. There are new avenues open to me, now, in terms of getting my
art out there in front of people. As it turns out, instead of painting
this past weekend, I spent the time getting my Etsy store up and
running. Etsy is a cool, fairly new outlet for handmade goods and art,
and I've been meaning to get my online store – er, gallery – started for some time. I may even have time to begin that series of the Mysteries of the Rosary I have been wanting to do.

So, check it out. Tell your friends!
(Thats www.oldworldswine.etsy.com)

The Esty site will most likely be where I direct people from my Daily Painting blog
from now on, though I have had some early success with E-bay and may
continue to use it. I don't know. You would think I might have more
time to blog here at OWS, now, but that's not likely. I'm going to have
to hit the ground running if I want to maintain any kind of steady
income in all this, and so I'll be treating the fine art as a full-time
job (and possibly more). I'm grateful, though, that I'll be able to
make it to daily Mass.

Your prayers would be most
appreciated. At the moment I'm kind of excited at the possibilities,
and am looking at it as an adventure… Wheee! another big dip on the
roller coaster of life… but it is easy to talk that way when the
checks are still coming. We have been through some lean times before,
and the romance of such a position fades quickly. The sense of
adventure turns into a rather permanent knot in the stomach.

As Chesterton has said (and I have often quoted before);

Our society is so abnormal that the normal man never dreams of
having the normal occupation of looking after his own property. When he
chooses a trade, he chooses one of the ten thousand trades that involve
looking after other people's property.

I have to say that, as a Distributist, I do look forward to looking after my own property.

Yet More SSPX Rumors

Last week I covered a story concerning a rumored document on apparitions and I pointed out that the rumor was poorly sourced, that there wasn't the kind of multi-source rumor groundswell that one would want before concluding that a Vatican rumor was likely true.

And, sure enough, within a few days there were indications leaking out of the CDF that the rumor was not true.

Now, it may be true or not. Time will tell. But right now things don't look promising for that rumor in the short run.

This is completely different than the situation regarding a different rumor.

Specifically: The rumor is that Pope Benedict has signed a document "removing" the excommunication that applies to the four Lefebvrist bishops (and possibly to the late Archbishop Lefebvre and his late collaborator, Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer).

The rumor is also that this document will be released very soon, possibly as soon as Friday or this weekend.

Unlike the previous rumor, this rumor presently seems very well sourced, with apparent confirmation from multiple avenues, including respected Vatican-watchers, so it's much weightier, as far as Vatican rumors go.

It also fits in with the known desire of B16 to reconcile the SSPX and the fact that they have long insisted on this step as part of a reconciliation program.

If the fundamental rumor–that there is such a document–is true then (whenever it is released), I'll be very interested to see who it applies to (just the four living bishops, the other two also, anybody else), what reasons will be given for the removal of the excommunication, what canonical category this action will be placed in, and what the response of the SSPX will be.

One thing that is unlikely to happen immediately, if such a document comes out, is a simultaneous full reconciliation of the SSPX with the Church and a regularization of its status as a priestly fraternity.

That's going to take more time.

But if the news is true then it means that Pope Benedict has concluded that this is a worthwhile step toward the hoped-for reconciliation of the SSPX.

MORE FROM RORATE-CAELI.

2009 . . . The Year We Make Contact (Sorta . . . Maybe . . . We’ll See)

Methane-mars
The picture on the left is the planet Mars–not as it usually looks (dirty red), but as a false color image to show the presence of something very interesting on the red planet.

Or rather, something very interesting above the surface of the red planet.

The red and yellow patches represent zones of the martian atmosphere in which there is an strong presence of methane.

Why is that significant?

Methane is a compound that is released by life.

And a few other things, such as mud volcanoes. (MUD VOLCANOES! WOO-HOO!)

But there are no known mud volanoes, or active volcanoes of any sort, on Mars.

So that raises the possibility that this stuff is caused by life. Specifically: By underground microbes.

In fact, we see a phenomenon a lot like this on earth. Here on terra firma there are various places where large pockets of underground microbes that produce large plumes of methane in our atmosphere. (Which is one reason why the pluming effect seen above is significant; the stuff isn't even spread throughout the martian atmosphere. Something down on the surface–or below–is generating it.)

In fact, there's one such place not too far up the coast from me in Santa Barbara.

The pattern is also cyclical, with the methane plumes appearing in the martian spring and summer . . . just when the planet is getting warmer and life might be more active . . . and disappearing in the martian fall and winter.

So there are some NASA scientists who are really stoked and talking publicly about this as a possible sign of life.

And it's not the first we've had. In the 1990s there was that meteorite from Mars that showed (debatable) fossils of microorganisms, and back in the 1970s one of the Viking probe tests for life gave a positive result (though other tests didn't).

So . . . who knows? In the photo above you may be looking at the atmospheric signature of life on Mars . . . or not. There are geochemical processes that could produce the same thing.

We'd need to do more tests to know.

I'd love to know the answer on this, but even if there is life, I'd like to know the answer to another question: Where did it come from?

Even if Mars has life, it may not be native to Mars. It may have come from . . . Earth.

As Martian meteorites (there's more than one!) illustrate, matter can pass from one planet to another in the solar system, and here on Earth we have microorganisms that are extremophiles–able to live in very inhospitable environments.

These could be carried to other planets due to impact events that blow chunks of Earth rock into space, or (for all I know) they could be high in the Earth's atmosphere and get carried to other worlds by the solar wind (and Mars is definitely downwind from Earth).

So far as I can tell, we may find extremophile organisms from Earth all over the solar system–living ones where they find a suitable niche and the dead remains of them elsewhere.

So, I've still got questions: (1) Is there really life on Mars? and (2) If there is, where did it come from? Earth? Mars? Or somewhere else?

Thursday NASA had a presser on all this, but they don't have embeddable on-demand video of it on their web site at this point (stupid government agency!) and nobody has yet posted it to YouTube, but

HERE'S A GOOD LIVE-BLOGGING SUMMARY OF IT.

MORE FROM SCIENCE MAGAZINE.

MORE FROM THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE.

New Apparitions Document?

For the last week or so, I've been following a story that has started to gain traction in the English-language press and blogosphere.

The gist of the story is this: A new document is going to be released from the Holy See governing the way in which Marian and other apparitions (or private revelation in general) is handled. This will be an updating of the guidelines privately circulated to bishops since the 1970s.

The document is reported to be a vademecum (a brief guide, not an exhaustive tome), and it's being presented as something that will create a "crack down" or a "gag order" on visionaries.

There are several reasons to be cautious about this story.

First, even assuming the basic facts of the story are true, it's being represented with an anti-apparition spin that the Holy See would not approve.

The Holy See has always been receptive to genuine apparitions, which are gifts of God's grace. As St. Paul said, we should not despise prophecies, but test everything and hold fast to that which is good. The Holy See in no way would want to send the signal that it wants to "crack down" on legitimate visionaries or put a "gag" on them.

It may well want to discourage false reports of apparitions, and it might institute disciplinary norms requiring greater circumspection on the part of those reporting apparitions (as was the case before the 1960s, when there was a liberalization of the procedures visionaries were obliged to follow in making their reported revelations public). However, the language of "crack downs" and "gag orders" and similar idioms is not the Holy See's intent.

Second, and equally fundamentally, there is a problem with the sourcing on this story.

Basically, the only source on this at present is an Italian website called Petrus.

Petrus would appear to have a source that has at least read a draft or heard a summary of the vademecum, perhaps in the CDF, but who knows?

The problem is that the Italian press is often filled with rumors about that Vatican that turn out to be completely untrue or grossly distorted. There is a lot of gossip in Rome, as there is in every city, and a lot of it isn't reliable.

Reports of a new vademecum on apparitions, especially one to be made public, must therefore be treated with caution, especially when there is such slender sourcing on the claims.

It may well be that there is a new vademecum or other document on the subject. It may be in a draft stage or a final stage. It may possibly include provisions like those described in the Petrus article. It may even be made public in the future.

But we don't know any of that at this point, and people should be cautious in how they handle the subject.

MORE FROM JOHN ALLEN.

EARLY REPORTING ON THE STORY.

TRANSLATION OF ORIGINAL PETRUS PIECE.

ORIGINAL PETRUS PIECE.

And the Final Cylon Is . . .

Mystery-person_3The final ten episodes of Battlestar Galactica start airing this Friday, and the producers plan to answer a bunch of questions, some of which have been around since the beginning of the show and some of which were only recently introduced: What happened to Earth? What are the Virtual "Head" beings (e.g., Head Six, Head Baltar) that only some people see? Can Human and Cylon live together? Who lives and who dies? And, of course, who is the final Cylon?

I'm going to tell you.

Or at least I'm going to tell you who I think it is.

I've made a significant number of BSG predictions before and gotten more than my share right, so I'm going to put my cards on the table here and tell you who I think the clues point to.

If I can shift from a cards metaphor to a dice metaphor, sometimes you have to roll the hard six, so here goes.

Continued below the fold for those who don't want to read this speculation.

Continue reading “And the Final Cylon Is . . .”

R.I.P. Richard John Neuhaus

Notice at First Things.

Ratzinger Fan Club has an archive of his works (HT: Phat Catholic Apologetics).

And First Things reposts an essay on death by Fr. Neuhaus.

Over at Arts & Faith my friend Nick Alexander writes:

When I first converted to Catholicism, my old Episcopal priest (in NYC) told me I had to have lunch with this Catholic priest, a good friend of his. He would set it up.

It was Fr. Richard Neuhaus. He was very gracious, and we had a very interesting conversation about the nature of conversion, and what we had discovered in Catholicism (he, too, was a convert from Lutheranism, but he was committed to ecumenical thought throughout his life).

I had witnessed him preside over the liturgy once or twice soon after, and was very impressed at his oratory skills, even as his erudite writing became a little bit more easier to understand to the mixed congregation on East 14th Street.

He had done great things for all of Christendom. His help in writing the Evangelicals and Catholics Together statement; his First Things journal; his wit… he was nuanced, logical, and strongly orthodox.

I will miss him dearly.

More later, maybe.

Appreciating Beauty vs. Concupiscence

A reader writes:

This is regarding “looking at girls”.I am very clear that obviously pornography is a grave matter.

I also am clear that deliberately engaging in lustful thoughts, lustful desires, or trying to arouse yourself (outside marriage) with full knowledge and full consent is also mortal sin.  Of course thoughts without these aspects are either venial or not a sin.

What I still struggle with is the question of “deliberately looking at an attractive or shapely girl”.  And liking to do so.

I had understood that one could deliberately look at an attractive girl and admire her beauty -even the beauty of her form- and that the non-sexual pleasure one finds in seeing her beauty and shape was not sinful to consent to and one could just ignore any “reactions of concupiscence” that happen.

Of course one must take care ..and know yourself …as well as at times use custody of the eyes –particularly if she is very immodestly dressed.

Also that one could even look at a work of art that is nude etc (that is not lustfully done –that shows the dignity of the person) and admire the form and beauty and ignore any “reactions of concupiscence”.

Is this treating a girl as an object? Am I wrong in doing this? Is it sinful?

In this context, treating someone “as an object” mean improperly treating a person as an instrument of sexual gratification and thus not properly recognizing the dignity of the person.

There are also other ways one can (non-sexually) “object”-ify a person, e.g., treating a spouse as merely a means of getting certain tasks done (breadwinning, household management, whatever).

In general, treating someone merely as a means to an end and not respecting the fundamental dignity of the person results in the objectification of that person. Sexual objectification is just one species in a larger genus.

But you know what doesn’t belong to this genus?

Recognizing a person’s good points.

If someone is beautiful or handsome or smart or prudent or a good breadwinner or a good household manager or a good square dance caller or has any other good points, it’s fine to recognize and appreciate those facts.

If they are manifest, it would even be contrary to reason not to do so.

So recognizing and appreciating the beauty of the human form–in general or in a specific case–is not a sin.

At least you couldn’t guess it from the statues and paintings that the folks at the Vatican have all over the place. They sure seem to be on board with this idea.

I mean, just look at the Sistine Chapel!

Just look at the Last Judgment!

And this is where they elect popes!

So it seems to me that one is on pretty safe ground saying that it’s okay and not-automatically-objectifying if you recognize and appreciate physical beauty or any other good attribute that a person has.

It becomes objectifying if you reduce the person’s worth to just their good or useful qualities.

Of course, in the area of appreciating physical beauty–especially of the opposite sex–we have to be careful.

It’s one thing to be looking at a marble statue of a nude woman.

It’s another to be looking at a color photograph of a nude woman.

It’s another yet to be looking at a real live nude woman.

These represent different levels of moral risk, and the greater the peril, the more stringent efforts must be taken to avoid it or escape from it.

Because people are different and subject to different levels of temptation, they will have to determine based on their own self-knowledge and personal history what situations are too dangerous for them to allow themselves to be in.

For some–particularly males at a particular stage of life–even looking at artistic representations of nudes may be too much.

As normal in risk management–which is what avoiding temptation is, since it’s not possible to completely eliminate the risk of temptation (given the mind’s ability to produce temptation on its own)–one must avoid two extremes: under-estimating the risk that a situation poses and over-estimating it.

For most people the laxist approach is the greater danger, which is why Jesus told us to seek the narrow path.

For other people, particularly those subject to scrupulous tendencies, the rigorist approach is a danger.

Neither approach is what we are called to.

What one must do is evaluate the risk a particular course of action poses for one and act accordingly.

In some cases temptation will arise despite one’s efforts. That’s the nature of risk. As long as the risk isn’t zero–and it never is in this life–sometimes temptation will arise.

The thing to do when that happens is relax, ignore the temptation, and move on to something else.

The “relax” part is important, because if one allows oneself to become anxious about temptation then it only reinforces the temptation.

Temptation is deprived of its power if you refuse to get anxious about it and simply move on.

Because I’m not the reader, I can’t say precisely what courses of action are too risky in his case, but I can say that it’s not sinful to simply recognize and appreciate beauty. (As opposed to dwelling on or studiously contemplating the details of a particular person’s physical form, which is going to increase risk.)

I can say that it is not sinful to be exposed to any and all levels of non-zero risk. (Zero risk of temptation is impossible in this life.)

And I can say that if he tries to instantly avert his eyes from every single pretty girl he sees then he will foster an anxiety about temptation that will actually feed the temptation he is seeking to minimize.

The better thing to do is avoid situations that are known to be dangerous (i.e., that pose a significant risk of significant temptation) and to otherwise relax and move on when temptation does appear.