bearing blog

bearing blog


bear – ing n 1  the manner in which one comports oneself;  2  the act, power, or time of bringing forth offspring or fruit; 3 a machine part in which another part turns [a journal ~];  4  pl comprehension of one’s position, environment, or situation;   5  the act of moving while supporting the weight of something [the ~ of the cross].

  • Praestet fides supplementum/Sensuum defectui.

    I've been humming Tantum Ergo all weekend, ever since the choir sang Tantum Ergo at Benediction on Friday night, up in the church after the fish fry and before the Stations.  Since I started learning Latin several years ago, it's one of the few Latin hymns that I've bothered to puzzle out with a dictionary and grammar, and I'm very fond of it. 

    Tantum ergo sacramentum

    veneremur cernui;

    et antiquum documentum

    novo cedat ritui;

    praestet fides supplementum 

    Sensuum defectui.

     

    The last bit is often translated (so that it will scan), "For the failing of the senses, faith must serve to compensate," but even with my cruddy Latin-English dictionary I can catch glimpses of a more precise meaning:  praestare (the "to serve" in the translation) means as a transitive verb "to become surety for, to be responsible for" and has connotations of excellence in its intransitive form; defectus -us is "a failing, disappearing, especially a failing of light, eclipse."  

    So it's maybe something more like: just in the measure that our senses fail, let faith fill up the gap between what we have and what we need.  

    + + +

    Elizabeth Scalia, on Twitter, linked to a page that featured an devious optical illusion:

    Colors

    I've seen illusions like this before, and am familiar with the explanations for them, but I never cease to marvel at them.  In this case, the "blue" and "green" spirals are exactly the same color.  

    You could, perhaps, just trust me.

    Or…

    You can go over to the page and read there the explanation and see the evidence.  You will be easily convinced.   You'll know that there isn't a blue spiral and a green spiral; there are only spirals of a single bluish-green color.  

    And then you can come back here, where I have left off the explanation and the proof, and contemplate the image again.  "I now know that the blue and the green spirals are the same color," you can tell yourself.  

    You will not see it any different.  You will see the blue color and the green color.  To go on believing the colors are the same color, you will have to defy your eyes.  You will do it anyway, because you remember that some time ago (it was only a moment; but what if you come back to this page in a year, or five years?) you were satisfactorily convinced.

    The process by which you carry your conviction from the past, where reason led you to a certain conclusion, into the present, where senses contradict your reasoned certitude — that process goes by the name "faith."

    + + +

    You know, there are many things in the study of the natural world, or sometimes in mathematics, which go against intuition.  Our experience takes shape in a world of friction, gravity, and air resistance; when for the first time one sees the feather and the stone strike the floor of the vacuum chamber, it's a shock.  After you file out of the demonstration lab, All objects accelerate at the same rate in a gravitational field becomes an article of faith, because how often do we put feathers and stones in vacuum chambers in daily life?  Days go by, years, in which all falling feathers waft gently downwards and all stones drop like stones.   

    But we know better, only because of a determination:  to "remember not to forget" that the whole picture is more complicated than it looks at first glance.

    + + +

    "In the story, the frog was really a prince, wasn't he?"

    "Yes," said Cecilia, "rather a good sort of prince.  He fetched the princess's ball out of the fountain when she dropped it in."

    "And if she touched him, he felt like a frog?  And if she looked at him he looked like a frog.  And if she heard him, it was a frog's croak she heard?  That's three senses — sight, hearing, and touch, and none of them could have told her he was really a prince, could they?  And if she had smelt or tasted him (which I'm sure she didn't!) those two senses wouldn't have told her any more, would they?"

    "What are senses, exactly?" said Michael.

    "The five ways you have of finding out about things," said St. Patrick, "…If you think of it, you will see that those are the only ways we have of knowing anything about the world around us."

    Cecilia and Michael both thought about it solemnly for a moment and then admitted that those were the only ways you could know about things.

    "…I'll tell you something about them that not everybody knows.  None of them will tell you what a thing is, only what it looks like, sounds like, feels like, and so on.  And as a rule you know quite well what it is by means of those things.  But it is quite easy to make a mistake now and then."

    –from St. Patrick's Summer:  A Children's Adventure Catechism by Marigold Hunt

    —

    |

    1 comment on Praestet fides supplementum/Sensuum defectui.

  • “What is the Eucharist?”

    I figured I might as well share some of what I have been writing over at Electingthepope.net, Dorian Speed's big conclave-Q-and-A project.  

    Last week I managed to snag the question "What is the Eucharist?"  I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer the question, but I had a definite idea how I wanted to go about answering it for Dorian's audience.

    Come to think of it, Dorian hasn't actually told me who the audience is, except that it has to include non-Catholics, sixth-graders, and journalists. 

    Here's what I wrote.  

    + + +

    Last Supper by Juan de Juanes, c. 1560

    In Catholic practice and belief, the Eucharist — also called “Holy Communion” — is the highest form of worship, and has been from the earliest time of the Church to today.   Lumen Gentium, a document of Vatican II, calls it the “fount and apex of the Christian life.”  The “Liturgy of the Eucharist” takes up the latter half of every Catholic Mass throughout the world.

    So what is it?  Why is it so important?

    Let’s begin with Scripture, with one of the best-attested  and earliest-written passages in the New Testament.

    + + +

    St. Paul, leader of the first generation of Christians, says in the First Letter to the Corinthians:

    …I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, 

    that the Lord Jesus,

    on the night he was handed over,
    took bread,

    and, after he had given thanks,

    broke it and said,

    “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

    In the same way also the cup, after supper,

    saying,

    “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

    For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

    The story is also told in three of the four Gospels.  Likely the earliest is St. Mark’s account:

    While they were eating,

    he took bread,

    said the blessing,

    broke it, and gave it to them, and said,

    “Take it; this is my body.”  

    Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them,

    and they all drank from it.  

    He said to them,

    “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many…”

    The “direct quotes” of Jesus Christ in these Bible passages are taken literally by Catholics, though we do not claim to understand exactly how it all works.

    Here is what we do understand.  At the Last Supper (“on the night he was handed over,”) Jesus took the unleavened Passover bread and told his friends “This is my body.”   He took the Passover wine, in a chalice, and said to them “This is my blood,” and/or “This is the new covenant in my blood,” before giving it to them to share.

    We take this man, who healed the sick and raised the dead with a word, at his word:

    • When he gave to them to eat that stuff that looked and tasted like bread, it was — really was — his Body.
    • When he handed them the chalice, redolent with wine’s fragrance, the contents of that cup were — really were — his Blood.

    We hear this man, who made Peter to walk to him on the water with a command, and trust that we can obey his command:

    • If he tells the Church, “Do this in remembrance of me,” then the Church can and must “do this.”  
    Pope Benedict XVI elevates the host

    And so the Church has, and does.  In the Liturgy of the Eucharist, a priest (acting in the place of Christ, as we understand Christ was asking his apostles to do) takes bread, blesses it, and quotes Jesus’s words “This is My Body.” He takes wine, blesses it, and quotes Jesus’s words that declare it is His Blood.  We believe that by commanding this, Jesus has made it — somehow — so it can be so, and is.

    We believe that in every Eucharist the Church does what Jesus was doing — or rather, that Jesus does it, through the actions of the priest who does as Jesus commands.  From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 1410):

    It is Christ himself, the eternal high priest of the New Covenant who, acting through the ministry of the priests, offers the Eucharistic sacrifice. And it is the same Christ, really present under the species of bread and wine, who is the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice. 

    Each Eucharist isn’t a repeating of the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, nor is it a new sacrifice every time.  Rather, it’s one and the same “Holy Sacrifice,” because (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1330)

    it makes present the one sacrifice of Christ the Savior and includes the Church’s offering.

    Our “offering” is ourselves, as well as the material gifts we’ve brought with us to help support the Church, and the bread and wine that our support helps provide; we offer all that as part of the Eucharistic liturgy at Mass.

    Jesus was anticipating the cross when he instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper; we are memorializing it when we participate in the Eucharist at Mass.  From the Catechism, paragraph 1323:

    This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet ‘in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.’”

    + + +

    “The Eucharist,” also called “The Blessed Sacrament,” is that blessed stuff.  It appears to the senses exactly like simple unleavened bread and like wine in a cup, not very different from its appearance before the Eucharistic blessing.  But we don’t call it “bread” and “wine” anymore, unless we’re careless with our language, because we believe that on a level that’s more real than things we can touch and see, it’s not bread and wine any longer.

    (If in writing and speaking we want to refer to the stuff-that-looks-like-bread-but-isn’t, you may hear us call it the “Host.”  If we have to refer to the stuff-that-looks-like-wine-but-isn’t, we call it the “Precious Blood” or else we may say “the chalice” or “the cup.”)

    When we receive Communion, we receive the Eucharist:  we are given some of the Host or some of the Precious Blood or both (depending on local practice and circumstances), and we consume it, believing that in doing so we are — really — eating and drinking the Body and Blood of the Lord, for the simple reason that He commanded us to.

    traditional "solar" monstrance

    + + +

    The Eucharist is usually reserved after Mass, in the form of leftover blessed Hosts, in a special closed container in the Church called a tabernacle.  Between Masses, it is fitting to pray and reflect before the tabernacle, and to direct our prayers to the Lord, because we believe He is really there.   At some times, a blessed Host is placed in a special display stand, called a “monstrance” (from a Latin word meaning “to show”) which allows it to be seen and adored by the faithful:  this practice is called Eucharistic Adoration.

    + + +

    To read more about the Eucharist, see the article “The Sacrament of the Eucharist,” part of a section in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that explains the celebration of the seven sacraments.

    + + +

    Would you have added anything?

    —

    |

    No comments on “What is the Eucharist?”

  • Accepting apology.

    I take my three-year-old to a birth-through-age-five, music-and-movement class that meets once a week in my neighborhood.  Our family's been doing the classes since my first was a toddler and my second a newborn, so — nearly ten years!   

    In those years we've seen many other families come and go.  A mother arrives with a toddler and a newborn; and a year or two later the older one disappears into the school system; and a year or two later the family is done with music class.  But we're still going.  I usually have one or two of the older ones with me, too; they stay in the anteroom and work on math or read books while I'm in the studio with the 3yo and the other children, singing and waving scarves.

    + + +

    This quarter the class is fuller than usual — due to a combination of babies being born during the course of the session, and a computer glitch that accidentally allowed too many families to sign up.  And it can get boisterous in there.   The instructor is very easygoing about the children getting up and moving around the room, as long as they're not running with claves, and I'm pretty used to that.  It is a music-and-movement class, after all.  

    Today, however, in the middle of a song, a frustrated mother from across the room got up, walked over to me, and said:  "Can you please keep your son from running around the room?  All the other children are following him!"  (Including, I assume, her own two-year-old daughter.)

    I was caught off guard because it's pretty usual for the children to be running around the room — but I immediately saw three things:  (1) She was new, (2) there are more children than usual and so running around might actually be a problem in this particular class, (3) I was sitting right next to the instructor — and I knew that I could trust the instructor to talk to us separately if there was a problem.  So I apologized to her, and then I grabbed my 3yo as he trotted by and pulled him into my lap for a Tickle of Redirection.

    While I had him in my lap I whispered to him, "See that mommy over there?  She got worried because you were running around the room and her little girl wanted to do what you are doing.  It's okay to run, but can you help her forgive us?  Can you go apologize to her?"

    I admit that part of me, feeling stung, wanted to show off my good-mothering skills.  As I've written before, the disciplinarian in me is pretty smug about having mastered the art of teaching kids to apologize.

    "Okay, mama," he said, and a song or two later he danced over and said — not actually to the correct mommy, but I think perhaps she heard him anyway — "I'm sorry I was running, will you forgive me?"

    + + +

    Part of me was a little indignant about this whole thing because it isn't, after all, against the rules for the small children to run and dance around the room in this class.  (Just as I was leaving the studio I caught sight of the instructor starting a conversation with the worrying mother, but I didn't stick around to eavesdrop.)  And I started to be indignant on behalf of my three-year-old.  Maybe I shouldn't have sent him to apologize.  Why should he feel ashamed or bad just because she didn't like the way he was playing?

    And then I realized that he did not give any sign whatsoever of having felt ashamed or bad.  He had danced right over there, eagerly, and recited the words he has learned.

    Apologies in our household are so common, so routine, and so ritualized that for most of us they don't have any connotation of humiliation.*  

    I don't punish kids by making them apologize.  

    I tell them that we do it to help the other person forgive them, and it doesn't matter whose fault something was or whether the other person was wrong; the point is to smooth the way to forgiveness, something we always should desire from anyone who is unhappy with our behavior — justified or not.

    It was a nice reminder, seeing my three-year-old cheerfully dancing around the room afterwards, free, and I felt my own indignation at "having been made to apologize" evaporating as I contemplated him.

    I think there'd be a lot fewer "fake apologies" and "apology-non-apologies" in the world if we all understood that there's nothing inherently humiliating or false about apologies — if we understood that the point of apology is nothing more than a desire for forgiveness — for the sake of someone else who needs to forgive — put into words and actions.  It's not necessarily or only a way of saying "I was wrong and I need your forgiveness."  It can also be a way of saying "You need to forgive me, and I want what's good for you."

    + + +

    *I do have one child, age nine,  who finds it hard to summon the words "I'm sorry," even with a script.  He turns a little red and smiles nervously.  I think it's more performance anxiety than anything.  I find I need to take a little more care with him, so that he doesn't interpret the act of apologizing as a humiliating punishment — but I still think that the practice is good for him, and that the repetition will make it easier eventually.

    —

    |

    1 comment on Accepting apology.

  • Imitation in the face of the little things.

    It is shocking to me that someone I was joking around with in January will not see the end of March. It is a bracing reality: when I find myself wringing my hands about — I don’t know, the kids’ failure to put their laundry away or my students’ failure to prepare for an exam, I have to pull myself up short. Is my husband expected to die in the next few days? Time to shut my mouth and offer up my little (teeny, minuscule, absurdly small) sufferings for their family.

    I’ve been carrying The Imitation of Christ around in my bag for Lent. Yesterday I came upon a passage that made me think again about those small crosses — the ones that we still can choose to bear or not to bear, if we are comfortable, healthy and generally at peace.

    They don’t seem like much, compared to what some have, but they are what we have.

    From Chapter 20 of Book 3, some words about “trivial” sufferings and “slight” temptations.

    Lord, I will acknowledge my sin before you and confess my instability. Often some trivial thing depresses me, leaving me dull and slow to do good works. I resolve to stand firm; but at the slightest temptation, I am set back.

    Sometimes from a mere trifle a grievous temptation arises; and just when I feel sure and think I have the upper hand, suddenly I am almost overcome by the least thing.

    …But this is what disturbs me … that I am so prone to fall and so weak in resisting my passions… And [even when] I do not give in to them altogether, yet their assaults are troublesome to me, so that I am wearied by the daily conflict.

    Thomas á Kempis adds to this prayer an acknowledgement that the conflict helps us see our infirmities more clearly, and a prayer for God’s strength in resisting these “trifles.”

    Note : He does not say, “God, forgive me because I ought to be able to resist them all by myself.”

    The chapter goes on to speak of what sounds like much less trifling, much more terrible sufferings:

    …And what kind of life this is, where troubles and miseries are never wanting and everywhere there lurk snares and enemies! For as soon as one temptation or trouble goes away, another comes; and while the first struggle is still on, many others suddenly rise up unexpectedly.

    How, then, can this life be loved, which is so full of bitterness and subject to so many trials? How can it even be called life, since it brings forth so many deaths and spiritual plagues? Yet it is loved and many seek all their pleasure in it…

    …A little pleasure dominates the minds of the worldly.

    But especially today, it isn’t hard to figure out why a little pleasure dominates our minds… Few of us suffer constant “miseries” anymore. We can go weeks, months, years, with hardly a serious suffering to glance at.

    (Although they can rise up and throttle us sometimes, seemingly out of the blue.)

    Maybe what we need are smaller words for smaller sufferings. Then the passage might go something like this:

    Often some petty thing depresses me, leaving me dull and slow to do all the things I should be doing.

    Sometimes I get an awfully strong craving to have something that isn’t even very good… and just when I think I have successfully put the craving out of my mind, I totally lose it. And even when I DO resist, it makes me crabby because it’s so hard.

    And you know what? It never stops. There is always some little thing that annoys me or irritates me, no matter where I am, and I am always ready to snap at some person, or lash out in anger, or even hurt myself by giving in to something I said I wouldn’t do.

    That is, as the book says, life.

    We moderns, I think, see no contradiction or surprise in that such troubles coexist with pleasures. It seems to make no sense to Thomas á Kempis, but it makes sense to us — the reason we run after pleasures is in part to deaden us against the annoying, no-fun parts. Heck, the pleasures wouldn’t even be so bad, except that we end up using them in that way — as an escape from people and things that bug us, irritate us, get on our nerves, give us sinking feelings in the pits of our stomachs, or make us flush with humiliation.

    Skipping back to chapter 12 of the same book:

    DISCIPLE: O my Lord, God, I can see that patience is very necessary for me, for this life is full of many disturbing things. No matter how I may plan my life so as to have peace, life cannot be without struggle and sorrow.

    CHRIST: …This is true. It is not My will that you look for peace without temptations or difficulties; on the contrary, you must believe that you have found peace when you have been tried by… adversity…Try to bear the evils of this life patiently…

    …Do you think that worldly persons suffer little or nothing? You will find this is not so, even among the most privileged.

    I think Thomas has let his hand show a bit: he is writing to an audience who thinks they suffer a LOT. This is kind of a giveaway that maybe I do not have the right disposition to be reading this book.

    Can’t disagree with it, though. Here is a report from the too-worldly, aware-of-my-vast-privilege point of view: Yeah, I still complain a lot. Isn’t that what I started out writing about? That we still get led astray by things that bug us even when we really have nothing terrible going on?

    But perhaps you will say that others have many pleasures and follow their own will so much that they count their adversities as small.

    There is a faint, troubling implication here: beware if you count your adversities as small. It could be because you find so much comfort in God. But it could also be because you “follow your own will so much.”

    The more you withdraw from creature comforts, the sweeter and more lasting will be the comfort you find in Me. But in the beginning you will not attain to these without struggle and labor; for your old habits will stand in the way, but better ones will overcome them…

    Our ancient enemy, the devil, will tempt you and hinder you, if he can, but devout prayer will drive him away; and by useful employment, his way will be blocked and he will not dare to come near you.

    I am pretty sure I have heard this prescription — which amounts to “Ora et labora” — before.

    Most of the advice in The Imitation, it seems, amounts to “Learn patience.” I wonder if this is, really, all that it takes — at least, in the imitation of Christ. And it makes me wonder: If we are so blind to our little crosses that it doesn’t seem worth the trouble to carry them, how privileged can we really be?

     

    —

    |

    No comments on Imitation in the face of the little things.

  • Brief request.

    Frequent commenter Jamie of Light and Momentary is begging your prayers:  here, here, and here.

    My husband has three sisters. The middle sister … and her husband agreed to be our children's guardians in the event of disaster…. Now they have one little girl who will be 2 in July and another who turned 1 earlier this month.

    Her husband was just diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. It's stage IV…

    She is asking for prayers:

    • first, for miraculous healing; 
    • second, for strength (both physical and emotional); 
    • third, for a peaceful transition as they ease their younger daughter out of their bed and into a crib.

     …Initially they told him he might have a year, but it is looking more like a matter of days until the end. 


    The third intention, in its everyday disguise, almost undid me.  Please offer what you can.

    —

    |

    1 comment on Brief request.

  • Where have I been?

    Where have I been, you ask? I’ve been spending my blogging energy on Dorian Speed’s co-blogging project, the Q&A site Electingthepope.net . (Dorian frequently comments here and also blogs at Scrutinies.)

    I know, I already mentioned this. Well, I’m just trying to explain my absence.

    It’s been pretty fun, actually. All the bloggers in the stable started out making the questions ourselves, and then questions started to come in from the public. The questions start out being labeled “Up for Grabs” and then, well, we can grab them. For me, it feels like a mix of two experiences:

    • “Oo! I want that question! Let me snag it before anyone else does!”
    • “Hm — That one’s been sitting there for a while. Must be that no one else wants it. Well, I’ll take a stab at it.”

    In a recent local news article, Dorian described her writers (here we all are) as “lay experts.” I thought that was funny. “Extremely nerdy Catholics” probably wouldn’t have played very well, I guess.

    So far, I have had the most fun researching and writing the answer to a question that was originally phrased something along the lines of “Doesn’t it look hypocritical that Cardinal Mahony is coming? Can’t the other cardinals keep him out of the conclave?” That turned out to be very interesting as it forced me to dig into canon law as well as the election rules. I guess you could say that it would be hypocritical for the electors to refuse to follow the rules, under which all the cardinals — no matter their public reputations — are required to participate in the election on pain of holy obedience.

    (No, I don’t know if that means that Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Scotland, former archbishop of Edinburgh who announced he’s not coming, is being disobedient. For all we know he got a dispensation from the former Holy Father along with his resignation from the archbishopric. Pesky thing about matters of conscience is that they’re so often invisible to those whose business it isn’t.)

    The other day I noticed that “What is the Eucharist?” was up for grabs. I thought for sure someone would pick it up, and initially thought that one was too big a job for me, but then the next morning I woke up knowing exactly how I was going to write it for a wide, potentially non-Catholic audience. It was still up for grabs so I grabbed it. I told Dorian she has to get another blogger to vet it before publishing, but I hope to see it up soon.

    Ok, off to First Saturday Mass. See you later.

    —

    |

    1 comment on Where have I been?

  • Electing the pope. Dot net.

    Since we're coming up on the papal conclave — the See will be vacant as of 8 pm this Friday — I thought I'd point you to a project started by blogger, sometime commenter, and web designer Dorian Speed (of Convolare Design).

    Electingthepope.net is a question-and-answer site about the papal election:

    Electingthepope.net is a collaborative effort among Catholic writers, bloggers, educators, and catechists. We’ve come together to answer the basic questions that many people have asked about Pope Benedict XVI’s unexpected resignation and the upcoming papal election. Our aim is to provide well-researched, clear answers to questions about these topics and to share other reliable sources of information with our readers….

    This site is designed to provide accurate answers to basic questions about Catholic beliefs and practices and isn’t focused on speculation about the results of the conclave or theological discussion. We want this to be a resource for students, teachers, and journalists. ElectingthePope.net is an independent project not affiliated with any Catholic diocese or institution.

    Dorian asked me to be part of the site, along with some great other bloggers who may be familiar to you, so I've been having fun combing through the questions and looking for interesting challenges.  

    The main result, so far, is that I've become very familiar with Universi Dominici Gregis.  

    Several of my posts are awaiting SEO checks and things, but I have a few of them up.  So far the longest one has been an answer to the submitted question, "Will it not appear hypocritical if Cardinal Mahony participates in the conclave?  Is there nothing the other cardinals can do to prevent him from participating?"

    (Short answer:  (a) The only person who can stop him, under the rules, is Pope Benedict XVI, and he only has until 8 PM Friday. (b) Following rules is generally thought to be a good idea when it comes to elections.)

    (Just as an aside — you think you are facing a long to-do list this Monday morning?  Wonder what the Holy Father's looks like.  Got to get all of this done by Friday 8 PM.)

    —

    |

    1 comment on Electing the pope. Dot net.

  • Translations.

    MrsDarwin is reminiscing about having translated Sartre’s Huis Clos (No Exit) in college for a theater production, and I am sharing her distaste for English translations of it.

    From her first post:

    One thing I noticed quickly was that of the small number of translations I could find, none of them made use of Sartre’s own phrasing, so essential in creating from the very first lines the ennui of Hell and the cyclical feel of the plot.

    Garcin, il entre et regard autour de lui. — Alors voila.

    Le Garçon. — Voila.

    Garcin. — C’est comme ça…

    Le Garçon. — C’est comme ça.

    Stuart Gilbert’s translation starts off:

    Garcin [enters, accompanied by the Room-Valet, and glances around him]: Hm! So here we are?

    Valet: Yes, Mr. Garcin.

    Garcin: And this is what it looks like?

    Valet: Yes.

    You don’t have to know French to see that Gilbert is padding here.

     

    Even though I read French pretty well, I sometimes would rather read a work in English translation just so I don’t have to work too hard to understand it. Not so with Huis Clos. Maybe it is just because the French isn’t very difficult, but I have always found it easier to read in the original — I encountered it first in the original, and all the English translations bug me because they aren’t the play I remember.

    MrsDarwin posts a sample of her own translation here. I much prefer it to the one she was working from.

    Here is a little Sartre-translation story of my own:

    In high school, fourth-year French, we read Sartre’s Les Jeux Sont Faits, a novel with themes of powerlessness to change past choices. My teacher (really, a great teacher, one of my best) told us off-hand that the title meant something like “The Game is Up” or “The Jig is Up,” but she didn’t spend much time on it.

    I remember being displeased with that rough translation. I knew from the context, roughly, what the title meant (along the lines of “There’s no going back now”). I also recognized that neither “The Game is Up” or “The Jig is Up” really captured that meaning perfectly — those have connotations of guilty discovery, which is technically a theme in the book but is a minor theme, not really worthy of the title. It bugged me.

    This is before Wikipedia and Google, you understand.

    Some years later I was watching Casablanca, some scene in the casino; extras, gamblers, placed bets in the background, and the real action was happening between the movie stars in the foreground. I would have to watch it again to find the specific scene. Suddenly my ears pricked up, because in the background the French-speaking roulette croupier was announcing that the time for placing bets was over: “Les jeux sont faits, les jeux sont faits.”

    I yelped, “So that’s what that means!” confusing my companion. That is exactly what the title means. There is no going back now; we will only watch as the ball falls into place, and the table will be divided into winners and losers.

    Idioms are fun, but you have to be able to recognize them. Googling the phrase now, I discover that the novel’s title has been rendered most often as The Chips Are Down. I don’t frequent Las Vegas often enough to know what roulette croupiers say there to stop people from betting as the wheel’s turning begins to slow.

     

    —

    |

    No comments on Translations.

  • Starting over and accepting where you are.

    I have a routine for each day of the week, but sometimes I say "Oh, screw this" and blow it all off for a few hours.

    I am not one of those magazine people who says "Plans?  Schedule?  What-EV" and instead of doing math or hauling everyone to music lessons or folding all the laundry, spontaneously curls up on the couch with a lapful of children and reads stories all morning, or goes to the park and plays tag, or bakes charmingly unkempt cookies, smiling knowingly as she checks herself in the mirror and removes a dab of frosting from her cheek.

    I'm more apt to throw out the schedule so I can work on some intense project I've been putting off, not so much because the project needs to be done, or needs to be done by me, but because I miss concentrating intently on something that requires concentration.

    It's all about me.  It's about the pleasure I get from that kind of work.  

    I get to say to the children, "Go away.  I'm working."

    + + +

    But after it's over I usually have a sort of bad taste in my mouth, because I don't have the same things to show for my morning that I would have had if I had stuck to the plan.  

    We have lunch.  I make the kids help me clean up.  I put on a pot of coffee.  I breathe a sigh of relief.  Sanity has been restored to my environment:

    Photo-23

    … here too, at the desk…

    Photo on 2-22-13 at 1.29 PM

    … ahh.

     

    + + +

    I would be a better parent and teacher if I didn't need quiet, tidiness, and silence for some scrap of time in the middle of the day.   Undoubtedly. 

    But I would be a worse parent and teacher if I didn't recognize that need and make it happen.

    + + +

    We have lunch around 12:30, finish cleaning up around 1:15, and I try to start up again around 2.  A lot of homeschoolers manage to be done by two, but not us.  It isn't that I'm not a morning person.  I am a morning person.  

    That's exactly why I hate to spend my morning homeschooling the kids.

    + + + 

    Anyway — I feel a lot better at two o'clock, starting from the freshly-tidied first floor.  If I get the chance to tidy before bed — so that I come downstairs to a similar scene, first thing in the morning — so much the better.  When all that distracting clutter is cleared away, I can blog, or write letters, or plan — I feel like I can get so much done before the coffee pot is empty.

    I try, but it doesn't always happen.  Instead of sweeping up, I sit and have a beer with my husband after the kids go to bed.  Or I read a bedtime story.  Or I try to get the three-year-old to go to sleep first, and I fall asleep next to him.

    None of these things are bad, of course.  One choice is not better or worse than the other.   They all have their merits.  

    So hard, sometimes, to be serene about choices.   I want all the benefits of all the possible things I could do with my time.  I hate letting go of any of them.  I always long for the things that were incompatible with the choice I made.

    I can see why meaningless, circular affirmations like "It is what it is" are popular.  What they really mean is a sort of "Oh, well" — a refusal to be bothered by the way things turned out.  It all comes down to acceptance —

    — a strange word that I've blogged about before —

    — a word that has many different meanings, depending on its object, all of which come down to "receiving willingly or agreeably."

    My time is a gift; I've chosen to use it a certain way; I've received a certain set of circumstances as a direct result of my choices — so I've received circumstances I've chosen; I acknowledge a truth, that I can't have the might-have-beens.

    + + +

    Here's the deal.  I had a jumbly sort of morning because we left the kitchen in disarray before going to bed last night.  

    (Don't tell me that I don't have to let kitchen disarray jumble my morning.  It's what happens.)

    We left the kitchen in disarray because we stayed up late, chatting over doppelbock, after the kids had gone to bed.  Even the little one had fallen asleep, nursing, in my lap.

    We stayed up late because we started late, and we started late because I spent almost two hours that evening going to the gym.  I went because I wanted to say that I made it to the gym three times this week, instead of the two times that's been far more common lately.   And because skiing last week hurt my legs more than it did when I was exercising more.  And because Mark offered to deal with dishes and bedtime snack so I could go.  I went for that long because I wanted to feel the ache that comes from swimming a mile in forty-five minutes.  

    I chose all those good things instead of a distraction-free morning, and I need to be thankful for them — accept them graciously — rather than complain.

    + + +

    And now that I've finished my afternoon coffee — and taken time to think clear thoughts — it's time for me to get up and call the kids for math.  I think I'm ready now.  Are you?

    —

    |

    5 comments on Starting over and accepting where you are.

  • More crosses for the comfortable.

    A couple of days ago I quoted some material from The Imitation of Christ, Bk. 2, Ch. 12, “On the Royal Road of the Cross,” and used it to consider what “taking up one’s cross” might mean when one is healthy, happy, relatively wealthy, and secure.

    Whatever suffering must be borne is the cross.

    Even if it’s very small.

    The small crosses can be the hardest to bear correctly, because we can brush them off so easily without thinking… and when we do, they — since they must be borne — land on someone else….

    If we imagine that we don’t have any “real” crosses, and wonder why we’ve been so lucky as to do without them — disabilities, bereavements, chronic pains — we can fail to take up the cross we’ve been sent.

    • Does your body feel bad or painful in any way, or are you sick or injured? If you can’t make the suffering go away entirely, that can be the cross — whether you know why you’re sick, or whether you don’t.
    • Is there any kind of “tribulation of spirit in your soul” — any sort of interior turbulence, depression, grouchiness, fear, or any other discomfort, whether from an identifiable cause or whether it seems to come from nowhere? If you can’t quite shake it even after reasonable effort — trying to gain perspective, count your blessings, cheer yourself up, take your meds — that can be the cross.
    • Do you lack spiritual consolation? Does your prayer seem to do nothing? Does your meditation yield no fruits? That, too, can be the cross.
    • Do your kids drive you crazy? Do your parents bug you? Does your spouse annoy you? Is your co-worker chewing his gum too loudly in the next cubicle? Is anybody anywhere getting on your nerves? That, too, can be the cross.
    • Finally, don’t you get on your own nerves sometimes? Don’t you ever say to yourself, “Self, you’re an idiot?”

    …If it must be borne by somebody, it’s the Cross.

    Because I was interrupted, I ended that meditation abruptly, and I am kind of unsatisfied with it — especially with the bit about shrugging off your cross and making someone else bear it. I am worried that I implied that you cannot simultaneously bear your cross and allow someone else to help you bear it.

    Also, I want to highlight a couple of other crosses that commonly afflict the comfortable.

    To do this, I want to turn away from the Imitation’s chapter and look at, instead, another via crucis: the fourteen Stations. As a refresher, here is the traditional set, likely to be the one depicted in your parish church:

    1. Jesus is condemned to death
    2. Jesus carries His cross
    3. Jesus falls the first time
    4. Jesus meets His mother
    5. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry the cross
    6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
    7. Jesus falls the second time
    8. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
    9. Jesus falls the third time
    10. Jesus is stripped of his garments
    11. Crucifixion: Jesus is nailed to the cross
    12. Jesus dies on the cross
    13. Jesus is taken down from the cross (Deposition or Lamentation)
    14. Jesus is laid in the tomb.

    Only a handful of these refer to Jesus actually bearing the cross alone — number 2, when He’s “made to carry” it, and then the three falls at stations 3, 7, and 9. Let’s take a look at some of the other stations.

    In the first station, “Jesus is condemned to death.” This station could be taken as the anticipation of a coming cross — and fearful anticipation itself is a significant cross. I remember a bit from The Screwtape Letters about this, about failing to recognize that fear of the possibilities, and not the possibilities themselves, are the cross:

    We want [your patient] to be in the maximum uncertainty, so that his mind will be filled with contradictory images of the future, every one of which arouses hope or fear. There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human’s mind against the Enemy…

    Your patient will, of course, have picked up the notion that he must submit with patience to the Enemy’s will…. It is your business to see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross, but only of the things he is afraid of. Let him regard them as his crosses; let him forget that, since they are incompatible, they cannot all happen to him…

    The fourth station is a mysterious encounter: “Jesus meets his mother.” Our theology teaches us that Mary is permitted, through the merits of her Son, to participate somehow in the Redemption; at the very least, by her initial fiat, but also that the fiat is bigger than just that moment. So this moment is her cross too, and it is a kind of cross that we can also share: accompanying a loved one on their way of the cross. It is surely a cross to watch someone we love struggle with a burden that we cannot take away, or may even have helped to bring about.

    The fifth station is strange, too: it is a bearing-of-the-cross that is not fully bearing it, because Simon the Cyrenian is helping. Jesus said, “Take up your cross” — but here he allows another man to take up Jesus’s own cross. I love this station because through it, Jesus gives us permission, so to speak, to allow others to help us bear our crosses, and in fact this allowing is a way to bear a cross — the cross of relinquishing a cross to someone else — and that can be hard, a different kind of suffering, because so many of us hate to admit that we cannot bear it alone, or are unwilling to “be a burden” to someone else. But if we are not to regard the people around us only as potential burdens, we also must not regard ourselves as only potential burdens — even when we are at our most burdensome.

    (You know the notion that we should unite our burdens to the cross of Christ? Simon went about his days doing his duties and suffering whatever troubles came to him, all the days before and all the days after — but on Good Friday Simon’s duty and burden became, for a time, literally united to the cross of Christ — they were one and the same. Something to meditate on.)

    The traditional sixth station may be apocryphal, and is certainly not explicit in the Gospels, but I am comfortable with the notion that the Church has given it to us for a reason. Veronica snatches her veil from her hair, and wipes Jesus’s face. She would have been left bareheaded, and indeed a true icon of Christ would have been left on her veil, written in sweat, tears, vomit, drool, snot, blood. This is a human connection, and a humiliating one — the cross of accepting intimate bodily care. In Veronica I see the sickbed nurse, the midwife or doula, the elder-care provider — the mother, the spouse, the grown daughter or son — I think of people who held my hair while I vomited, who’ve cleaned up the bathroom after I was violently ill. It is hard not to be able to take care of yourself and have to entrust your personal care to others. You may wish they will forget that they have seen that side of you — but you will leave your mark on them.

    I am going to stop here and leave the remainder of the stations as an exercise for the reader. Leave your ideas in the combox.

    —

    |

    1 comment on More crosses for the comfortable.

  • If you are looking for spiritual reading during Lent…

    …may I suggest you try Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales?

    I blogged about it at great length a couple of years ago, and I still think it is wonderful — astonishingly modern, given when it was written. I particularly recommend the “Everyman’s Library” edition that is translated by Father Michael Day. You should look for a translation with a contemporary and conversational tone, because the advice is contemporary and conversational — avoid a translation that sounds stilted and archaic. If you cannot wait, you can find it online, but believe me, it is worth it to get a contemporary and friendly-sounding translation. St. Francis really deserves it — he needs to sound as contemporary to us as he would have sounded to the people he spoke with in person.

    I recommend, too, either reading the whole thing swiftly (without following any of the advice) to get an overview of the “program” before turning back to digest it more slowly; or else, following the chapters somewhat out of order. There is a clear structure to the book, but a sort of rearrangement of the chapters rings better to the modern ear that is used to self-help books.

    Here’s my suggestion:

    • First, see my post on the overall structure of the book.
    • Then, if you like, bookmark my chapter by chapter blog series on it.
    • Read part 1, chapters 1 through 3. (One short chapter a day is fine if you want to spread it out.)
    • You can skip part 1, chapter 4, unless you are considering getting a spiritual director.
    • Read part 1, chapters 5-7. These are more introductory remarks.
    • Stop before going on to part 1, chapter 8. Beginning there, you will prepare for a novena of sorts — nine days, ten meditations. Before reading and especially before trying to follow the advice, I recommend turning ahead to part 2 and going carefully through chapters 1 through 8 in that chapter, taking notes and marking pages. Part 2, chapters 1-8, is a primer on how to pray and meditate, and it will be extremely useful to have read it before beginning the program of prayer that is described in the rest of part 1.
    • Now you’re going to embark on what I call “St. Francis’s Three-Step Program For Getting Rid of Mortal Sin And Attachment To It.”
    • Step one is to attain perfect contrition. Do this by reading part 1, chapter 8, and then use the ten meditations that follow as a nine-day novena: one meditation per day on the first eight days, and then on the ninth day do the ninth and tenth meditations. While you are doing this, refer to the chapters you have already from part 2 (that is, chapters 1-8 of part 2) if you need to be reminded of St. Francis’s method of prayer and meditation.
    • Step two is to prepare for, and make, a good confession: a general confession, if possible. (You might want to make an appointment if you think it will be a quite thorough general confession). Prepare for the confession a couple of days ahead with these readings: Part 1, chapter 19; then part 2, chapter 19; then part 1, chapters 20 and 21. (Again, if you are making a thorough general confession, it may be wise to write out the results of your examination of conscience so you can refer to it in the confessional.). Bookmark part 2, chapter 19 for reference in future confessions. Write out a solemn resolution as described in part 1, chapter 20, and bring the resolution with you into the confessional. Make a good confession, accusing yourself directly, simply, and specifically as directed in part 1, chapter 19, and part 2, chapter 19.
    • Step three: While still in the confessional, making your Act of Contrition — in the part where you resolve to amend your life — refer specifically to that solemn resolution that you wrote out and brought with you. Then, as directed in part 1, chapter 21, receive absolution and then go immediately to an appropriate place of prayer in the church. There, sign and date the resolution, then carry out the penance prescribed for you by the priest in the confessional.
    • Finish reading part 1.
    • Read the rest of part 2, one bit at a time, and trying to apply his advice in one chapter before moving on to the next: baby steps. These chapters are about everyday prayer and reception of the sacraments. After reading his advice about morning prayer in chapter 10, for example, you might compose a short morning prayer after his method (or choose a traditional formula); write it out; keep it by your bedside; and attempt to pray it for at least a few days before moving on to try the advice about evening prayer in chapter 11. When you get to the chapters about Communion, you might bookmark them and return to them regularly prior to receiving Communion for a while.
    • Now you are going to choose just one or two virtues to work on developing in yourself. To discern which virtue you need to work on, first carefully reread part 1, chapters 22-24; then Part 3, chapters 1 and 2.
    • Then, quickly and without trying to follow any of the advice in the chapters, read the remaining chapters in part 3 to get an overview of possible virtues that you could choose. I recommend reading the chapters in this order:
    • First, a quick reread of chapters 1 and 2, along with 37, 23, and 24. All these deal with how to discern which virtues to focus on, and how to practice the virtues prudently, not to excess.
    • Then, the chapters on practicing virtue in everyday life, in this order, taking it in chunks. Again, you are trying to discern which virtue you need to focus on, so don’t follow the advice yet, just take it in and consider it. While reading Chapter 3 consider whether you need patience most. While reading chapters 4-7, consider whether you need to strengthen virtue when others are finding fault with you. While reading chapters 8-9, consider whether you need to develop these virtues that help you when faced with faults and frailties in yourself and others. Read chapters 10, 11, and — note this — 35, then consider whether you need to develop these virtues concerned with the performance of your duties. Skip to chapters 14-16 and consider whether you need to develop virtues that help you in times of material riches or material poverty. Read chapters 17-22 and consider the role of virtue in your friendships. Return to chapters 12 and 13, then read chapters 38-41, and consider the role of virtues in sexual matters. Finally, read the following chapters that give advice in dealings with society: chapter 25 on dressing attractively, chapters 26-30 on speaking honestly and respectfully, chapters 31-34 on having fun and recreation, and chapter 36 on fairness and reasonableness.
    • Choose a virtue, return to the relevant chapter or chapters from part 3, and follow the advice relevant to that virtue alone while continuing to practice the skills taught in part 2 about prayer, meditation, and the sacraments. Do this for as long as it seems to be helping you to develop the virtue and grow in devotion. Give it a little bit of time if you seem to hit a plateau. But when you hit a plateau that seems permanent move on to part 4.
    • Part 4 is the “troubleshooting guide” to the devout life. Read it through once quickly, without following any advice, before deciding how to proceed. It might be that you will find one or two chapters somewhere in it that specifically address a problem that you are specifically having, and you can go straight to them and begin following the instructions therein. Or you might decide to go back to the beginning of part 4 and slowly advance through it chapter by chapter, applying the advice in each chapter before moving on to the next, and continuing to try to follow the advice in the chosen chapters of part 3 (not ALL of part 3! Just the ones focused on your specifically chosen virtue!) and the general advice about prayer, meditation, and the sacraments from the chapters of part 2.

    I don’t include Part 5 in my bulleted list above, because all of Part 5 is an “annual review.” You won’t need to read it until approximately one year after the date of your signed resolution, or any time you want a “refresher” in the devout life. Or, if you have already gone through the method of the Introduction to the Devout Life, part 5 would make a good study for a spiritual retreat — or for your Lenten renewal.

     

    —

    |

    No comments on If you are looking for spiritual reading during Lent…

  • Vacation fast.

    An odd thing happened to us this year: we accidentally scheduled our roughly-yearly family winter vacation to coincide with the start of Lent.

    Technically, there’s nothing wrong with this, but it does feel a little bit weird. I am blogging this on Fat Tuesday evening from a charming but wobbly little breakfast table in the kitchen of a ski-vacation condominium that is literally larger than my house, with more yard.

    (This is one of the side benefits of deliberately living in a smaller-footprint home: camper cabins, vacation condos, even hotel rooms sometimes feel decadently luxurious.)

    On the other side of the great room my three oldest children are playing cards with my husband’s parents, who joined us in Montana for a week in the mountains. Mark booked the condo “the same week as last year,” remembering the perfect snow conditions and empty trails, and forgetting that Easter is a moveable feast and consequently that Ash Wednesday is a moveable fast. I don’t know that we would have done it differently anyway; we have little flexibility in travel plans sometimes, now that business travel has stepped up so much for him, and since we planned to coordinate with the grandparents’ schedule too.

    I think it worked out, though. Mark and I are the only ones of an age that binds us to the fasting obligation, so nobody else is affected. I can’t possibly do any vigorous skiing and touring — neither of which are necessary duties — and still keep a meaningful fast. Therefore I must fast from those activities, too, but I don’t want to put a damper on the rest of the family. I volunteered to stay in the condo and take care of our 3-year-old, freeing everybody else to do something less toddler-friendly.

    Unlike me, Mark can manage outdoor activities and fasting — his body appears to be perfectly happy to switch over to burning itself for fuel any time he feels like going on a climbing tour, living on the occasional bolus of chocolate-espresso flavored energy gel. So tomorrow, the rest of the family will all drive down to Yellowstone for a snow-coach tour, and I will cocoon with my littlest guy.

    I am a little bummed that we won’t manage to get to a service with the distribution of ashes, but I have my breviary; I will deal.

    I learned over the past few Lents, after my weight loss and after reconfiguring my eating habits, that the “one full meal and two smaller meals that don’t add up to a full meal” formula messes with my head too much. (And it’s kind of a made-up guideline anyway; that formula doesn’t appear in canon law.) It messes with my head because I usually eat that way: my breakfast, lunch and snacks generally add up to less than my dinner. So I switched to having just the one meal in late afternoon, and the rest of the day I sip vegetable broth and hot, milky coffee as needed. As far as I can tell, the law of fasting allows for one meal, and it allows for liquids of any kind, and that is enough to keep my blood sugar to a level where I can, at least, care for my children.

    (But not where I can go on a snow-coach tour with my children in Yellowstone National Park.)

    So I am going to stay back with one child, and make a pot of soup to feed the family when they return tomorrow evening, but I will probably have mine in the afternoon. And I am going to start a pot of vegetable stock in the morning, to simmer reassuringly all day. And I am going to set an alarm, and pray the Hours, and read stories to the little one who stays with me, and ponder the welcome absurdity of ski-in/ski-out penitence with a hot tub and concierge service, and enjoy some solitude. The boom of the avalanche control teams setting off explosions on the ridge will have to stand in for bells, but I see no reason why I cannot make a sort of retreat anyway.

    And if it’s possible here, it’s possible anywhere.

    My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit. A humble and contrite heart you will not spurn.

    Rend your hearts, not your garments.

    Wherever we are — even in the lap of luxury, in the midst of riches beyond the reach of most human beings, in the comfortable stability of good health and good friendships and good marriage and good family — wherever we are, we can still crave change within, and we can begin it from the very center. Sometimes it makes sense to transform from the outside in: to wear the ashes, and hope that they soak into the soul. Other times, we have to transform from the inside out: to look like nothing has changed, smooth and clear and implacable as ever, accepting a burden that no one else can see; but still to be changed interiorly, a scrap of flesh born, liberated, from the heart of the stone.

     

    —

    |

    4 comments on Vacation fast.

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Categories

…more to come later