Smaller Manhattans

The Sword of February

2012-02-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

"Hey it's February. I notice there's more daylight now when y'all get dropped off, why is that? The days are getting longer? Yes, the Sun is up more. It'll be Spring soon, and the days...lengthen [on the board]. English-speakers once called this time of the year the "lengthen season." Now watch the Magic Finger (I erase letters in lengthen so it says len-t-en); what does the Church call this season? Umm...Lent? Yes, why? Because the days lengthen! Yes, so Lent is short for...Lenten, yes, which is short for...lengthen! Yes. Y'all are too smart. Sometimes we say Lent, sometimes we say Lenten season. ¿Quién aquí habla Español? Me! Honorary son, what's Spanish for Lent? Cuaresma [on the board]. How many days is Lent, Cuaresma? Forty. How do you know? Because cuaresma is like the word for forty. Which is? Cuarenta [on the board]. Yes; y'all can see how Spanish tells us Lent is 40 days long. Class, what's up with 40; why not 38 days, or 43 days? Because Jesus was in the desert for 40 days! Yes, and the Israelites...were in the desert for 40 years! Yes, good. Forty is an important number in the Bible; there are more 40s in the Bible than we have time for. Now, if you're in the desert like Jesus or the Israelites, are you having fun? I don't think so. Right, being in the desert involves discomfort, suffering.

In most cases the number 40 signifies a time of penance and preparation. So what are we preparing for during Lent? Easter! Yes. What word does Easter have in it? Umm....east? Yes, and where does the sun rise? In the East. Yes. Like Lent, the word Easter also refers to Springtime. It's an old pagan word, but now we use it for a Christian holy day...we baptized it so it's a Christian word now. You can't baptize a word! You're right, I don't mean it literally. But the Church can give old pagan things a new Christian significance.

So...is Lent a fun time? No you're supposed to give stuff up. Yes, such as? Candy! TV! Fighting with my sister! Saying mean stuff! Yes, we deny ourselves those things in imitation of Jesus. What's something the Church wants us to not eat during Lent? Meat! Yes, let's look at meat for a minute.

When Adam & Eve were in Eden, could bad stuff happen? No! How about the animals in Eden: would a lion eat a lamb? No! Right again...and what was was the only stuff that could be eaten in Eden? They didn't need to eat! Well, that's a good guess; listen to this bit from Genesis & try again: "God said, Behold, I have given you every plant-yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for meat." Plants! They could only eat plants and apples 'n' stuff. Yes, but how about the animals? Listen again: "And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for meat." Animals had to eat plants too? Yes. There was no eating each other in Eden; just good things could happen: 24/7 pizza buffet, no going to bed early, beer for the grownups....anyway, life was perfect just being with God in Eden. But then Adam & Eve ate the apple and were thrown out of Eden.

Many generations later there was a guy with a boat. Noah! Yes, tell it. He put all the animals in the Ark and after the flood they all got back out and were ok. Yes..how long did it rain? 40 days! Yes, smarties! And after the Flood, God told Noah, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth." That's nice, that's also what God told...Adam and Eve! Yes. But then God says, "The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the air, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be meat for you; and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything." Sounds awful doesn't it? All the animals will be in fear of Noah. Why? Because Noah can eat them now? Yes, he and his descendants can now kill and eat animals. Why's that ok? Because they haven't planted any food yet? Well, maybe. Tell me this: why is it that there are any animals at all, that they all didn't drown? Because Noah put them in the Ark! Yes, they didn't do anything themselves, it was all Noah's work. So if not for Noah, they'd all be...dead! Yes. So the animals owe Noah...what do they owe him? Their lives? Yes, so God is acknowledging that since the animals and all their descendants owe Noah their lives, God won't forbid people from killing and eating them. Now just because God no longer forbids eating animals, does that mean he approves of it? No. Right. So apparently God tolerates some things after the Fall that would never have been acceptable in the Garden; which is hardly the same as saying they are good, or blessed. God didn't say, "Kill and eat a bunch of animals, Noah and I'll bless you extra!" But sin has made the world a mean and scary place.

¿Quién aquí habla Español? Who speaks Spanish? Me! OK m'ija, digame, cómo se llama "carne" en Inglés? Meat! Yes, C-A-R-N-E means meat, flesh. How about 'voracious,' do y'all know that word? No...no...no. No worries, sometimes 6th graders surprise me. How about 'devour'? To eat real fast? Yes, like a possum? No, like a lion! Yes, like a predator. If we put the Latin roots of carne and devour together we get carnivorous; anyone know that word? Yes, it means to eat meat! Yes, ever since Noah we've been carnivores, like lions. Animals are afraid of us, even the predators.

So tell me: is it better to be in Eden or in the world of sin? Eden! Yes, where nobody would kill or eat animals; and so they weren't afraid of people. Well, during Lent, the Church encourages us to think about living as though we were in Eden, at least as far as animals are concerned. I like eating meat, but I admit that if I have a hamburger, someone killed a cow. In fact my eldest son has been a vegetarian for years because of this, and he's perfectly healthy eating veggies. I admire that, even if I don't follow his example. Yes? What are you giving up? Well, I don't know yet; usually we do extra things during Lent instead of giving things up: go to Vespers and Stations of the Cross; go to confession, that sort of thing. But I tell you what, we gave up watching TV for Lent more than 15 years ago, and still don't watch it. Really? Yep. You won't watch the Super Bowl? Nope. Look, I thought I was gonna die the first week or so without TV, but we got used to it, and we like the house being quiet. What about your kids? They're fine with it too- and we can watch DVDs if we want to. I think part of the point of giving something up is that you find out you don't really need it or want it as much as you thought.

Hey, besides Lent, what else happens in February? No guesses? Let me ask the girls in particular: daughters, what special day comes in February? Valentine's day! Yes, Saint Valentine's feast day on the 14th. It's Catholic. You boys ever heard of Valentine's Day! Yes. Isn't it exciting? No. Uh-huh; you'll change that tune soon enough. No we won't! Uh-huh. So what happens on Valentine's? People get candy and cards and stuff. Yes, it's very romantic, right boys? Boys...?

Speaking of Valentine's Day, tell me about those fat winged babies [I draw] on the cards. Aren't they angels? Sort of. How about the one with the arrows? He's Cupid! Yes who is a...Roman god! Yes, make-believe, of course. You might say he's been baptized into Valentine's Day. The proper word for those flying chubbies is "putti." Pooty!? Ha, pooty! Not pooty: put-ti, it's Italian. But no American wants to think, "hey, look at the pooty all over that Valentine's day card." So we use another word....anyone know it? No? That's ok.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Who knows what a cherub is? They’re the little baby Valentine angels! Yes, you got it, they’re cuddly and silly. But a real cherub is not cuddly and silly. Somebody tell me about Adam & Eve after the apple. God made them leave Eden! Yes. Genesis says, “He drove out the man; and at the east of the Garden of Eden he placed the cherub[im], with a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.” What language do you suppose "cherub" is if I’m reading from Genesis? Umm…Hebrew? Yes, genius! In Hebrew it’s spelled like this [on the board]: K-E-R-U-B, kerub. Kerub means “near one,” an angel who is close to God. When the President goes out in public there are usually some tough guys who stay near him all the time, why’s that? They keep people from bothering him. Yes, what do you call those guys? Bodyguards? Yes. The kerubs, the cherubim, are like God’s bodyguards, and they are as serious as cancer. On Valentine's Day I'm my wife's Kerub-with-a-K. Don' make me git my flamin' sword out! Keep away! Hey, did y'all know we have two kerubs in our church? We do? Where? Mmm, I’m not telling tonight, but we’ll find out later this year.

In the meantime keep your eyes open in church. If you find 'em on your own, tell us.

Pitchers 9, Res Ipsa 11: Prior Knowledge

2012-01-30T10:15:00.002-05:00

You feed 'em!

Partial board from the Jan 25, 2012 class. Lesson plan runs from Feeding the Multitudes to the Bread of Life Discourse, to Simon's name-change to Peter.

Now that Jesus is busy-busy with his ministry, the Gospels run thick and fast with references to the Old Testament. Loaves'n'Fishes is introduced by an edited version of 2Kings 4:42-44:

"42 A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley, and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Elisha said, "Give to the men, that they may eat." 43 But his servant said, "How am I to set this before a hundred men?" So he repeated, "Give them to the men, that they may eat, for thus says the LORD, 'They shall eat and have some left.'" 44 So he set it before them. And they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the LORD."

We also look at Matt 19:13-15 for reasons that become apparent as we get into the Loaves story:

"Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people; 14 but Jesus said, "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven." 15 And he laid his hands on them and went away."

During Peter-gets-the-Keys, the kids barely recalled Isaiah 22, which we acted out a couple of months ago:

"I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, 21 and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your girdle on him, and will commit your authority to his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. 22 And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open."

Past classes needed little-to-no reminding about Isaiah 22, but this year I almost had to give them the answer, which is anathema to me. Anyway, they finally remembered the key business, but with such coaxing! But the 8 kids who came were tired; and they were guessing like monkeys, which means answering first, then thinking.

On the whole it was still a good class.

Snips & Snails & Kunarion Tales

2012-01-27T09:10:00.000-05:00

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough

During the Jan. 18 class on Jesus' intercessory miracles (Cana, Jairus' daughter, the Centurion's servant, etc.), a student asked about the miracle where Jesus calls a woman a dog. I gave an off-the-cuff answer I wasn't satisfied with, said I'd come back next week with something better.

Here's the story from Matt 15: 21-28:

"And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon." 23 But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, "Send her away, for she is crying after us." 24 He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." 26 And he answered, "It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." 27 She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." 28* Then Jesus answered her, "O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire." And her daughter was healed instantly."

Because she's a pagan Canaanite it's no surprise that she's indirectly compared to a dog. And not in a nice, faithful Fido way, but like this: "Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you." But as we'll see, sometimes a dog is not a dog.

Here's how it worked in class:

"Hey, daughter, remember last week you asked about the woman that Jesus called a dog. That's a great story I've never covered in class before, but let's look at it now before we get into the lesson plan.

Here we go: "And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon." The story starts with Jesus getting out of Judea for a while because he had been aggravating the scribes and Pharisees. Sidon is also where Elijah fled to after he aggravated King Ahab. You may remember he stayed in Zarephath. Tell me about it. He made food for the woman! Yes, her flour and oil didn't run out; why? Cause she was nice to him! Yes; God favored her with miracles because of her charity, even though she was a...pagan! Yes. And remember Jesus aggravated people at the synagogue in Nazareth when he reminded them about Elijah working miracles for the pagan widow in Zarephath instead of helping Chosen People during the drought.

"And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon." 23 But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, "Send her away, for she is crying after us." They don't want a pagan woman hanging around. But Jesus says, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Who are these lost sheep? Jews! Yes. But is Jesus telling her he won't help? No. Right. He's just saying that helping her isn't his job. At the wedding in Cana what did Mary tell Jesus? They have no wine. Yes, and Jesus said...why is that my problem? Yes, and...my time has not yet come. Yes, good. Is Jesus saying he won't help? No. Right. He's not being mean or uncooperative in either case...I think he's just giving people a chance to show their faith more clearly for the benefit of the people around them.

"But [the Canaanite woman] came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." Is she giving up? No! Right. But Jesus said "It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." Who are the children? Well...people's kids? Umm, that's not a bad guess; the children are God's sons and daughters...his family...the Jews! Yes. And the dogs? Pagans! Yes, like...the woman! Yes. If we say "throw it to the dogs" or "work like a dog" or "live like a dog" is it good? No it's bad. Yes, we don't mean a happy family dog, a pet. We mean a rough dog, one that has a hard life. As Jesus said on another occasion: "Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you." Yikes! So Jesus says the kids get the bread, not "the dogs."

Do y'all know what swine are? Pigs? Yes, just checking. Pigs and dogs were unclean, like pagans.

The word dog shows up 41 times in the English Bible; pretty often. And what language was the New Testament written in? Greek! Yes. The Greek word for dog is kuon [on the board] (κυων). Almost every time an English Bible says dog, the Greeks say kuon. But when Jesus says "It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs," the Greek word is kunarion [on the board] (κυναριον). Now in English if we want to call a dog [otb], we'd say, "here, dog." But if it were a little dog, we'd say...here, doggie! Yes, doggie [otb]. To add an -ie or a -y does what to an English word? It makes it little! Yes. Well in Greek, -arion does the same thing. So if kuon means...dog, yes, then kunarion means...doggie! Yes. Can it mean puppy? Yes, puppy is ok too. We might also say lapdog. What's that? A little dog that sits on your lap? Yes. Hey somebody dígame, cómo se llama "dog" en español? Perro [otb]. Yes. Some Spanish Bibles say perrillo [otb] in this story, what that mean? Puppy! Yes. the -illo suffix means...little! Yes.

So what Jesus says to the woman is, "It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the doggies, the pups." I think the apostles expected Jesus to refer to the woman as a kuon, a dog. That was a common way for Jews to describe pagans. But instead, Jesus says "doggie," which is kind of affectionate; how you'd call a pet. Maybe he was smiling a tiny bit as he spoke. Jesus is showing the apostles that even though he was sent to the Jews, he can include "all peoples" in his work, as Isaiah used to say.

Now, has Jesus rejected the woman this time? I don't think so. Right. The woman now says, "even the doggies eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." What's she mean? That she just wants a little bit of help? Yes. She's not a greedy dog, but a harmless little...puppy! Yes, who's happy to have what the children leave behind. She knows "the Master" will give them more food than they can eat. And how many times has she asked Jesus for a little help? Umm...three times! So...it's a contract! Good thinking; in this case it's not so much a contract as it is her firm demonstration of faith. How many times do you think she's willing to ask Jesus to heal her daughter? As many times as it takes! Yes, but three times is enough. And Jesus says, "O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire." And her daughter was healed instantly. I bet the apostles were thinking, "Wow, this is like when Elijah fled to Sidon and brought the pagan widow's dead son back to life."

Tell me: did the Canaanite woman's daughter have faith? We don't know. Jairus' daughter? Don't know! Centurion's servant? Don't know! Paralyzed man? Don't know! The wedding party at Cana? Don't know! Right. Jesus did those people a favor because other people of faith asked for them. What's that called? Intercession! Yes. And remind me who intercedes when a baby is baptized? The parents! And does Jesus do the parents a favor? Yes! Right!

Y'all are smart children!

For those who must know: Greek kuon κυων is related to the Latin canis via the Indo-European stem kwon. And a quick tour of other Bibles show the "dogs" to be cagnolini (Italian), cachorrinhos (Portuguese), petits chiens (French), små hunder (Norwegian), andщенята (Ukranian): not dogs, but doggies.

Pitchers 8, Res Ipsa 10: Tebow & Tassels

2012-01-20T23:29:00.000-05:00

...and zap! Jesus' power flowed through his body to his cloak to the tassel to the woman...

Edited recap of the January 18, 2012 class.

This bit by Joyce Donahue motivated me to work Tebowing into Wednesday Night Sunday School: "Hey I gotta question for y'all. Don't answer, just raise your hand: who knows how to Tebow...y'all come up here. Nobody else knows? That's OK. You two, when I count to three, do it...1, 2, 3, TEBOW!" And the two sporting boys execute perfect, simultaneous Tebows, rivaling the Master.

"None of y'all know what this is? Oh yeah, that's the football player who prays all the time! Right, they're praying. If you're gonna pray for just a few seconds it's simpler to get down and up on one knee instead of two. When do we do that in a Catholic Church? When do we Tebow? No...I mean when do we go down on one knee instead of two. Genuflecting! Umm, yes, that's what we call it. But when do you do it? When you're about to sit down. Yes. Have any of y'all been to a church that isn't Catholic? Me...me too. OK, do y'all genuflect in those churches? No. Anybody know why not? 'Cause they don't have a tabernacle! Yes, genius, like so...altar...tabernacle.

Hey, what's a tavern? A bar! Yes, a place to have a beer, but it comes from this word, taberna, which means house in Latin. Our word tabernacle comes from the Latin word tabernaculum, which means little house. So...tell me something. It's Jesus' house! Yes, so when Jesus is in his house...we genuflect. Yes. Tell me a day that we don't genuflect. Christmas! No! Easter! No! Stop guessing like monkeys! Good Friday! Yes, why? Cause Jesus isn't in his house. So where is he? On the cross. Yes. Usually on Good Friday we kneel to venerate the crucifix. It's a bit more intense than a genuflection. By the way, what's that mean: to genuflect? Bow down! Close...pray! Also close...if something is flexible it can...bend! Yes, so if -flect- means bend, then...it means bend your knee! Yes. Genua is Latin for...knee! Yes. The G-N is related to the K-N from before there was English or Latin; "-kn-" and "-gn-" sounds are very close to each other. Yes? Why don't we say the k? Well, we stopped saying those k's centuries ago, but we used to say them. Germans still do, they say "k'nee." That sounds weird. Yes, but it sounds normal to Germans. Historically speaking, people were genuflecting long before Jesus was born...why? For an emperor! Yes, or...a king! Yes, people genuflected before people who had authority over them. We still do that when Jesus is in his little house."

The lesson plan includes discussing and acting out miracles, many of them intercessory. Some people, including the pagan Centurion (who commands how many men? 100! Yes!) and the pagan Canaanite woman, are ok with miracles-at-a-distance. But Jairus wants Jesus to come to his house, the Paralytic's friends dropped him through the roof onto Jesus' head, and the Woman with the Hemorrhage tries to grab Jesus. Maybe they lack the faith of the pagan Roman; but then again, maybe they intuit something important about Jesus' body. "Yes? What's intuit? To know something or figure it out without knowing exactly why."

"OK, let's draw...the Gingerbread Man! Uh-huh, which shows we are a...body'n'soul! Yes. Now over here to the left let's draw...another Gingerbread Man! Yes, but this one is Jesus...here's a J. Jesus also has a...body'n'soul. Yes. He's like us in that he's both stuff'n'spirit; 'cause our bodies are just...stuff! Yes, like...dirt! Yes.

Now tell me what this is...a soul...yes. But let's say spirit in this case. And this is...another spirit! Yes. So? So what? Well, what's odd about these spirits? They don't have bodies. Yes. So? They're angels! Ooh, great guess honorary son, but no. They're God! Genius, yes, but what flavors? God the Father and the Holy Spirit! Yes. Do y'all get that? No? Explain it, please. Jesus has a body but they don't. Yes, and those three persons make...the Trinity. Yes, exactly so, one God, three Persons.

Now before Jesus, which Person could you have a relationship with? The Father? Yes (arrow). How? By praying & stuff. Yes, spirit-to-spirit. And how does it work with the Holy Spirit? Umm, spirits, too? Yes. But I thought the Holy Spirit was a dove. That's a good question. The Holy Spirit may appear as a dove but isn't one. Like angels: did Gabriel appear to Mary? Yes. Are angels made with bodies? No. Right.

Now tell me about people having an encounter with Jesus instead of the Father or Holy Spirit. It would be with both parts. Yes...stuff''n'spirit. Because the people and Jesus all were stuff''n'spirit, they wanted to have not just a spiritual encounter, but..a physical encounter! (two arrows) Yes, genius! So they naturally wanted Jesus to touch them, or their friends, or their children. They wanted the whole deal. Yes? But the soldier didn't. Yes. Partly because he was a commander and used to knowing things would be done if he said so. But he still went to talk to Jesus. He saw him and heard him and smelled him even if he didn't grab a hold of him. Eww, gross! Hey now, people don't necessarily stink. Y'all know I'm married; am I married to my wife just soul-to-soul? No, both parts! Yes. Well, when I go home tonight she'll be sitting at her desk, and I'll come hug her and smell her neck. If she were out of town I couldn't do that. I'd miss the physical encounter with her and how nice she smells. So people would want to have that full encounter with Jesus...just like I want to have with my wife.

But after Jesus went to Heaven he still left us with ways to have a physical encounter with him through stuff; what are those ways? Sacraments? Yes, genius! Tell us the stuff. Water? Yes in...baptism. Yes, more stuff please. Bread & wine? Yes. How about confession? Is the priest the stuff? Yes, good. So we are spirit'n'stuff; Jesus is also...spirit'n'stuff; yes, and Sacraments are...spirit'n'stuff. Yes, all similar but not exactly the same. We'll learn more about this stuff business later this year."

Class finished with a discussion of Jairus' daughter and the Woman with a Hemorrhage. You may notice that in answering a question on the fly, I conflated the Samaritan woman with the Canaanite woman. I'll sort that out next week.

Greenville Ephrathah 2

2012-01-15T22:27:00.000-05:00

Putatively unrelated data which nonetheless incrementally reveal little Ephrathah's veiled future:

From St. Mary's January 15 Sunday bulletin:

"Father Jon Chalmers is a priest of the Episcopal Church (the main American branch of the Anglican Communion), and for the past two years he has been on the staff at Christ Church here in Greenville. On Sunday 22 January 2012 during the 11 am Mass, Jon Chalmers will be received into full communion with the Catholic Church and confirmed by Bishop Guglielmone, and the following week he will begin his formation for priestly ordination in the Catholic Church in Houston, Texas — the seat of the new Ordinariate. In the coming months, if sufficient numbers of Anglicans desire to be joined to the Ordinariate here in Greenville, Jon will be responsible for their pastoral care, and after his ordination as a Catholic priest, he will celebrate the Anglican Use liturgy as well as be available to assist local Roman Rite parishes."

(It's likely that St. Mary's Parish would host any local Anglican congregation until it gets its own facility, as happened with St. Rafka's Maronite Catholic congregation.)

From Our Lady of the Rosary Parish:

Fr. Longenecker's 12 Days of Christmas

And: "Join EWTN personalities and authors Joanna Bogle, Joseph Pearce, and Fr. Dwight Longenecker on Saturday, January 21 from 8:30am-3:30pm at OLR Church for "A Day Conference on English Catholicism Then & Now."

From the diocesan newspaper:

"Father Christopher Smith, who is studying at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, will become the administrator of Prince of Peace Church...effective Dec. 15." Fr. Smith, a product of both St. Mary's and Our Lady of the Rosary, has returned to Ephrathah. I should mention that My Mother the English Teacher taught young Chris Smith everything he knows except for what he learned at the seminary. And Pamplona. And Rome.

This article reacquaints us with the diocese's 10 seminarians. Two of them, like Father Smith, are Sons of Ephrathah.

And yet: Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Dog Miracles

2012-01-14T14:35:00.000-05:00

Remind me please, who's this? A king! Yeah, which one? Herod! Try again. David! No, good guess. Solomon! Yes...who's this queen...she was taking a bath- Bathsheba! Yes- Solomon's wife? No, his Mom! Yes, this sort of queen is called...she's his mom...Queen Mother! Yes. Who's this? The guy who wanted something!

The Jan 11, 2012 class ran from Jesus completing 40 days in the desert through the Healing of the Paralytic. A few points:

1. I attended a Rick Santorum event last weekend. I described what his advance team did to prepare the way for him, and compared their work to John the Baptist's. Like John, once Santorum arrived, the advance team faded into the background. This leads into John 1:35 "The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples; 36 and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus." John is letting go of his followers and directing them to Jesus.

Then from John 3: "Jesus and his disciples went into the land of Judea; there he remained with them and baptized. 23 John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there; and people came and were baptized." John continues to baptize, and Jesus baptizes in the company of his disciples.

"25 Now a discussion arose between John's disciples and a Jew over purifying. 26 And they came to John, and said to him, "Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness, here he is, baptizing, and all are going to him." Why is John ok with his ministry winding down?

"27 John answered, "I am not the Christ/ Anointed/ Mashiah, but I have been sent before him." I get three volunteers up to the front, and we act this next bit out as I read, "29 He who has the bride is the bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice; therefore this joy of mine is now full." Once the best man has given the groom the ring, he's done, and all attention goes to the wedding couple. The best man is ok with that.

"30 He must increase, but I must decrease." Remember, the daylight decreases after John's birthday on June 24; and daylight increases after Jesus' birthday on December 25. Are those really their birthdays? I think so; if not, they are very close. Calendars aren't perfect. But I believe God coordinated their birthdays with the natural cycle of the Sun. You know: we say Jesus is the Light of the World, like...the Sun! Yes.

A mere two paragraphs later in John 4: "Now when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples, he left Judea and departed again to Galilee." A big deal in our class, this passage shows that Jesus has already stopped baptizing. He has handed that authority over to his disciples. That is, Jesus is starting to set up his Church. If you want Christ's baptism, you get it through his intermediaries.

2. The kids explain the top picture and the idea of intercession, which leads into the Wedding at Cana. They can tell the whole story and I just have to direct the discussion and read only a couple of lines from John 2. I add a J(esus) & M(ary) over Solomon and Bathsheba. The kids explain how both Mary and Bathsheba interceded; but like all intercessors they didn't demand, they just asked. We connect the abundance of wine to the abundance of Peter's catch after he meets Jesus.

Then I read, "Every man serves the good wine first; and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept the good wine until now," and the kids figure out the wine had alcohol in it (In the Bible Belt this datum matters).

And, "This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him." Oh well, even a dog could taste and see that water went in and wine came out. People will always believe what they see with their own two eyes (well, most of the time). People love visible miracles...they don't require much faith.

3. Between John the Baptist making a fuss over him, and this wine miracle, people are getting fired-up about Jesus. He visits the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4), and reads from Isaiah; then: "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." The men puff up with pride at the local boy made good: "And all spoke well of him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth; and they said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" Good times a-comin' for the Sons of Abraham! But I read this bit: "I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land; and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian." The kids remind me that both the widow and Naaman were pagans who did God's will. Jesus means that being a Son of Abraham is no guarantee of receiving God's blessings: in fact, sometimes the whole lot of Chosen People are left out. Maybe everyone in the synagogue should get busy repenting and doing good works as John the Baptist told the know-it-alls at the Jordan.

Then, "When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and put him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong. But passing through the midst of them he went away." Jesus has barely started his ministry and his own people find him so aggravating that one minute everybody loves Jesus, and the next minute they are ready to kill him. As he said, "no prophet is acceptable in his own country." Just like Elijah, Jeremiah, and Isaiah, he says things people don't want to hear. It's a dangerous habit.

4. With five volunteers we act out the Healing of the Paralytic. This story is thematically very dense, but one thread that's emphasized is that the Paralytic's friends intercede for his healing. Also, Jesus pairs a dog miracle, one that even a dog can perceive (Imagine if the paralytic had a dog all these years...he'd freak out when his master started walking around.) with an invisible miracle, forgiving sin. If the crowd sees Jesus do A, can they take on faith he also did B? Apparently so.

Class ends two minutes late. If the kids are engaged in the material they won't look at the clock.

Some observations:

Reading aloud is done in short bits, and each bit is always followed by questions and discussion.

Old info illuminates new info. Secular info illuminates religious info.

Old Testament bits such as Zarephath and Naaman have to be taught earlier so the kids can figure out the point of what Jesus is saying when he refers to them now.

Physical variety: reading, questions, answers, discussion, acting, drawing.

No dead time.

P.S. Here's a terrific post by a priest on Catechesis.

Pitchers 7, Res Ipsa 9: John da Baptis'

2012-01-10T16:48:00.000-05:00

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

John was clothed with camel's hair, had a leather girdle around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey.

Drawing from Jan 4, 2012 class; comments limited to what's on the board.

1. Most of our New Testament classes are about the Gospels, but I treat them collectively, not separately. I mention to the kids that Matthew, Mark and Luke's Gospels have a common point of view (syn-optic); and John's is different.

2. Sorting out the conceptions and births of John the Baptist and Jesus.

3. After Jesus' birth, a "messenger of the Lord" tells Joseph to flee to Egypt. A quick map shows the Med, Jerusalem, the Tigris & Euphrates, the Nile, and the city founded by that Greek guy...Alexander! Jesus and his family may have lived among Alexandria's large Jewish community.

4. The round calendar leads into discussion of art handouts depicting the Annunciation and the Platytera. This is a basic Platytera with two ~~houseflies~~ seraphim in attendance.

5. Explaining the Greek abbreviation for Mother of God.

6. The calendar leads to a quick review of John the Baptist's conception and later presentation at the Temple.

7. John the Baptist's ministry. Upper right shows John baptizing Jesus while the Holy Spirit hovers, and the Father riffs on Isaiah: the Trinity.

8. John tells the Pharisees and Levites who come to quiz him, "Bear fruit that befits repentance, and do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." That is, being one of the Chosen People isn't enough; each believer must also bear good fruit, which means...doing good stuff! Yes, as the Bible would say, doing good works."

9. A couple of the Spanish-speakers explain a Quinceañera; I extend that concept to young women who are debutantes. I compare these coming-out events to Jesus' debut at the Jordan river: he will now be a much-talked-about public figure for the next three years.

Audio from the Flight to Egypt to John at the Jordan.

Fine Art 6: More Spacious than a Tea Party

2012-01-07T11:12:00.000-05:00

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

The January 4 class included a review of the Hail Mary prayer via the Annunciation, the Visitation, and the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. We had already treated the Annunciation and Visitation in the December 14 class, but without a couple of instructive artworks. [The class calendar is deliberately scheduled to finish the Old Testament in time to coordinate Mary Stuff with the Church feasts of Dec 8, Dec 25, and Jan 1.]

First I showed the kids this miniature of the Isenheim Altarpiece, explained how big it really is (about 9' x 16') how the panels work, etc. My sister got this for me as a Christmas gift when she was in Colmar, France last summer. Which was way before my wife told me a few weeks ago that the Annunciation I liked so much but couldn't name was the Isenheim Annunciation. More than coincidence?

We then focused on the Annuciation panel, which isn't visible in the photo above, using this color handout:

Our discussion was very close to what I anticipated in an earlier post. The kids recalled Gabriel's greeting to Mary, and saw that it was directly quoted in the Hail Mary. The kids then recounted the Visitation, and recognized Elizabeth's greeting in next bit of the prayer.

I then asked the kids to guess the Catholic significance of January 1. None could, but that was OK. I told them it was the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. To add dimension to this feastday, we reviewed a handout of this ikon:

The common name for this ikon type is Platytera, Πλατυτέρα, meaning more ample, broader. That's short for "more ample than heaven." It means that Mary, by containing the Creator of the Universe in her womb, was figuratively larger than infinity. Or as an old Greek hymn puts it, "He whom the entire universe could not contain was contained within your womb, O Theotokos (God-birther).” It's a terrific teaching tool that illustrates an aspect of Jesus' humility, and that Mary was the mother of not only Jesus' human nature, but of his entire person, comprising both his human and divine natures. That is, Mary is the Mother of God- just as the Hail Mary says. [Plat is related to English flat, German platt, and French platte, as in the Platte (broad) River] That literal womb makes this a very unusual Platytera, which was completed in January 2011 by the ikonographer Tom Athanasios Clark in the apse of St. George's Orthodox Church in Shreveport, La.

Most Platyteras look like this one:

Which is fine as far as it goes...whose lap is Jesus sitting on- his babysitter's? Just kidding, but sitting on a lap isn't what I'd call compelling visual testimony to the intimate prenatal relationship between God the Son and his momma. By the way, the Greek is Πλατυτέρα των Ουρανών, Platytera ton Ouranon, Wider than Heaven.

Or they're like this one:

This Platytera's better because it's a bit more expressive (although in an abstract sense) of Jesus being physically inside Mary. But neither of these is as effective as that cutaway pink uterus in the first example. The kids get that one right away: Mary's tummy, her womb.

We may as well learn some more Greek while we're at it: those letters in the above ikon are M-R and Th-U. The squiggies above the letters mean those are abbreviations. They're short for Μητηρ Θεού/ Mitir Theou/ Mother of God. I always wonder: if you're going to spend a couple thousand hours or so on a mosaic, why cut corners with abbreviations?

To finish our Marian train of thought, I bring out a chair that my kids sat on when they were practically toddlers- a chair like one of these...

...and demonstrate how Mary was more spacious than a tea party.

Revolutionary Beverage

2011-12-28T00:06:00.000-05:00

The lately-affianced Miff Dandridge fhews the moft Taftie Parte of her Dowrie

(Aprill, 1750)

A couple of years ago I read this bit in the WSJ:

"As the first first lady, Mrs. Washington served Cherry Bounce in the president’s house. Abigail Adams would write to her sister about “Mrs. W’s publick day” party on New Year’s Day, 1790: The two delicacies of the season were “a kind of cake in fashion upon this day call’d New Year’s Cooky. This & Cherry Bounce.”

The article was about Cherry Bounce. I read bits to Janet who also thought it sounded way cool, so we saved that section of the paper until this year. Like Martha Washington, we're hosting a New Year's Day party, and the featured beverage will be homemade Cherry Bounce per Martha's recipe.

Janet bought (or had) the ingredients, along with some big preserving jars. First thing was to apportion the cherries sans stems into the jars along with sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon. Ideally the whole process takes 3 months. We didn't have 3 months, so we wrapped the filled jars in an electric blanket. Within a few days they were all fermenting away. Tonight we turned the blanket off and moved the jars into the kitchen.

They smell good. Very powerful and...elemental. Each jar had started off packed to the top with cherries, but now each one was about 2/3 full of warm, aromatic, fermenting juice. At this point we ran each jar's contents though the blender at low speed to break up the cherries without (we hope) grinding up the pits. This seemed to work pretty well.

Then we added cognac. The proportion is about 1 part (quart) cognac to 2 parts (pounds) cherry. Because the jars were at or below the 2/3 level, it was easy to top them off with 1/3 cognac. Total liquid is about 4 gallons.

We resealed them, and won't open them again 'til New Years when we'll strain the chilled contents into a punch bowl. Looks like an auspicious beginning to the new year.

Murmuring Grumblers

2011-12-23T10:52:00.000-05:00

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

We are not grumbling

When we cover Exodus, I emphasize to the kids how the Israelites whine to Moses about anything that isn't to their liking. For example in Numbers 11, they are tired of eating manna: "the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick. But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes." Waaah!

They complain so much that Moses tells God, "I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me. And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favour in thy sight; and let me not see my wretchedness." That's right, just kill me now. (Priests probably never have such sentiments; modern flocks are much more docile.)

"Whine" is my word; it's more fun than complain, gripe or grumble. But Exodus in the KJV uses none of those words: it says "murmur," or more clearly, "murmur against." I'm not fond of using murmur in the sense of grumbling: to me, murmur is to speak quietly in love, the very opposite of grumbling. Too bad for me. Murmur is a Romance (not that kind of romance) word which English gets from Latin through French; in St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate, the word for Israelite grumbling is murmurare. Oh well, I lose this one.

Murmur is probably imitative of some natural rhythmic sound, mur-mur-mur... a creek? Likewise, babble imitates the ba-ba-bla-bla of babies or foreigners, and descends from Greek barbaros through Latin babbulus. And the coo-cooing of doves is expressed in Greek by the verb gogguzo / γογγύζω, which means- murmur. In both Old (LXX) and New Testaments, gogguzo is the Greek word for grumble, murmur. A Greek noun for murmur ismourmourisma/ μουρμούρισμα, but it doesn't show up in the Bible. Still nice to know. Now I wonder where the Romans got murmurare from...I can't imagine.

The murmur business matters in class because I use murmuring to connect two scenes: the Israelites' desert murmurings against Moses right before the manna bread miracle; and the murmurings against Jesus when he hints at a future bread miracle. That is, Exodus doesn't speak about symbolic "bread from heaven," and neither does Jesus. In both instances the people murmur their obstinacy.

Exodus 16: "And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness: And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you."

Exodus 16 in the KJV says murmur eight times, including this packed sentence: "And Moses said...the LORD heareth your murmurings which ye murmur against him: your murmurings are not against us, but against the LORD."

Then in John 6: "Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'/ "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst./ The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven." They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered them, "Do not murmur among yourselves./ For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed."/ Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, "Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?"

In Exodus, people murmur; God provides miracle water. People murmur; God provides miracle bread. People murmur; God provides miracle flesh. In John, people want another bread miracle; instead of working a miracle, Jesus makes an odd prophecy about bread. They murmur about that; Jesus says to stop murmuring, and expands the prophecy to bread and flesh. People murmur some more; people argue; people leave.

Remember, the Old Testament was translated into Greek about 200 years before the first Gospels were written. Writers of the New Testament would surely know how a given Greek word was (or wasn't) used in the O.T. before using it (or not) in the New. So John's author says gogguzo / γογγύζω / murmur when people get cranky as Jesus prophesies his own bread/ flesh miracle through the manna miracle, which also followed "murmuring."

But the writer didn't have to say murmur. He could've used other Greek N.T. verbs such as mempsimoiros / μεμψίμοιρος / complain (Jude 1:16: "These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts..."), but didn't. He used the one word that makes a clear connection to the critical Old Testament antecedents. In fact, he takes every opportunity to say murmur, as though he were trying to make the connection as obvious as possible.

In class, murmur just doesn't register with 6th graders, so I say grumble, which is an accepted translation of goggyzo.The thing is, to say grumble is to take a step away from goggyzo's literal, imitative murmuring sound of doves' goo-goo. My consolation is that there are only 5 other people on the planet besides me who are interested, only 2 of them care, and none of them are in 6th grade Wednesday Sunday School. So grumble it is.

But it's worth checking a few translations, isn't it. Hello...isn't it? Sure it is.

The Douay-Rheims and the King James say murmur in both Exodus and John, and everywhere else; but never say grumble at all, even to translate synonymous Greek verbs, which I will not list here. You're welcome. In this instance the D-R and KJV are utterly consistent and simple. Ditto Jerome's Vulgate: unsurprisingly it always uses murmurare. The RSV says murmur in both passages, but may say grumble elsewhere. I can live with that; to an extent, it tends to make the use of murmur more distinctive. Good ol' RSV. The NIV, which I usually object to, says grumble all the time and never says murmur. Weirdly enough, for once I prefer the NIV's translation for the kids- and probably for most adults. Stranger yet, the NAB, which is the Bishops' Official Catholic Bible, says the Israelites grumbled in the desert, and the Jews murmured in Galilee. As my mother-in-law says: oh dear. To me that obscures a connection that's pretty clear in Greek, and in every other translation I've looked at. And not just a connection, but a Catholic connection. Why wouldn't the approved Catholic Bible be all over this?

Dunno....everybody else is whether they intend to be or not.

Fine Art 5, Res Ipsa 8, Pitchers 6: Christmas unParty

2011-12-19T09:10:00.000-05:00

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

This bit comes from the last class of the year. The kids knew we would not have a party, but 11 of 12 came anyway. Every year I tell the kids that they are too old to have a party when there is serious learning to be done, and they always seem to respond positively to that. There were brownies, pizza, and sugarfizz, so they were more rambunctious and less focused than usual; but we still had class.

1. To kick off our Nativity lesson we started with this wordless handout:

I wanted to use this in the 2010 class, but forgot to ask for copies of the picture. I got a couple of the girls to play the parts, but the picture would've been better. This year's discussion digresses due to good questions, which is fine. It's a rare class in which we cover every single thing, but that's because I agree with Joe Paprocki: overplan your lessons.

There's also a great backstory to this artwork.

2. Next we cover the Visitation:

Right before baby John leaps in the womb, I hold my two rubber fetuses on Mary & Elizabeth's tummies. At the right moment, fetus John goes nuts.

3. Next is the Nativity through the Holy Innocents. I read Isaiah's Nativity prophecies one at a time, and the kids tell me what to draw based on each one.

2011 Nativity

2010 Nativity

BTW, when I listen to my class recordings (or anything else) and want to keep my eyes entertained while I listen, I often play Bubble Town. Straight-up is OK, but I think the Ball version is better.

Fine Art Handout 4: Isenheim Annunciation

2011-12-16T10:55:00.000-05:00

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

Tanja Cilia's image-laden post on the Annuciation got me thinking about my favorite Annunciation (ok, one of my favorites), the one that's part of the Isenheim Altarpiece by Mattias Grünewald:

I couldn't remember the artist; I get Annunciations confused all the time. Fortunately, My Wife the Art History Professor could listen to my vague description and say, "No, that's not Van Eyck. I think you want the left-hand panel of the second configuration of Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece." Umm...yes! "I'll send you a link to a good jpeg." OK, thanks! (Thank ya Jesus for my wife.)

I have to digress already. Recently in class we were discussing Gabriel's visit to Zechariah, and learned that the Greek word angel/ ἄγγελος simply means messenger, as does the Hebrew word malak/ מלאך (whence the name Malachi). For example in Numbers, when "Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom," the messengers are malachim. To distinguish a winged messenger from the run-of-the-mill sort, the Hebrew Old Testament will say messenger of the LORD, יהוה מלאך, malak YHWH, as in "the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham"; or messenger of God, מלאך אלהים, malak Elohim, as in "the angel of God called to Hagar." In the Greek New Testament (and Greek Septuagint O.T.) we read ἄγγελος κύριος, aggelos kyrios, angel of the Lord (you know, kyrios as in Kyrie eleison).

The kids must understand that angel just means messenger. Then when we get to words such as evangelist and evangelium, they'll know that angels don't have anything to do with those words.

To further digress, when LORD is all caps it refers to YHWH. By using LORD in English we avoid pronouncing or writing God's name.

So we were sorting out messenger/ angel, and one of the kids says, "What about Mercury? I dunno- what about him? Well, he's a messenger. Yeah, a mythological messenger, so? He has wings, too. Yeah he does... I bet he was called an angel too! Was that your point? Yes. Genius at work, yes, he's a winged messenger, an angel like Gabriel. Except that Mercury...isn't...real! Yes."

In Tanja's article she points out that as in Grünewald's painting, Gabriel may carry a staff to indicate he's a messenger. Like so:

Oops, that's Mercury. Huh...wings...staff...even his staff has wings...he'd make a mighty robust Gabriel.

And there are other 6th-grade-understandable symbols in this Annuciation:

Above the green ~~curtain~~ temple veil hovers an ethereal dove, ready to overshadow the New Ark with God's creative energy. Yes, what? That looks like a church not a temple. Well, were there any churches when Mary was a young woman? No. OK then. The ~~curtains~~ temple veils themselves are pulled back to reveal what Ark? The Ark of the New Covenant? Yes, who is...Mary! Yes. And do y'all see the Old Covenant Ark? Is it that box? Yes, I think so. Now tell me about Mary's book. It's the Bible. Yes...or at least the Old Testament, which would reasonably rest on the...Old Ark? Yes. When Mary was alive was there a New Testament? No! Why not? All the stuff hadn't happened yet! Yes! Y'all are so smart.

Say Mary, whatcha reading? Why, Ah'm perusin' this li'l ol' book a Isaiah as pawt a my mohnin' devowtions. Well, that's a long book. Oh, Ah'm jus' readin' Chaptuh sehvun, vuhse fowtteen in the Vuhl-gait: "...ecce virgo concipiet, et pariet filium, et vocabitur nomen ejus Emmanuel." Yeah, that is Latin in the painting...Mary, can you translate? Awl-riyte, "...behowld, a vuhgin will conceive an' beah a sun; an' his nayme shall be cawled Ehmmanuwell." Umm, Mary do you realize that any second now that prophecy..."

Annunciations often show Mary reading Isaiah 7:14, the very prophecy she's about to fulfill. But none of these symbols is the one that makes Grünewald's Annunciation a favorite. It's the one in the upper left hand corner...up there...oops, I accidentally cropped it off from that top image. Here you go:

"Who is that old fork-bearded turban'd guy with another book? A book painted in....Hebrew. Why is he hovering up there in the corner? No guesses? Whose prophecy was Mary reading? Umm...Isaiah's? So? That's Isaiah? Yes, that's Isaiah, and he's reading in his own Old Testament the same 7:14 passage as Mary, but in Hebrew. Isaiah can't read Latin like Mary can...or something. Apparently God's let him out of Sheol long enough to see his prophecy be fulfilled."

Kids love to learn by figuring out pictures like this one. In this case, through our discussions of the Old Testament they already know bits about the temple, the veil, the Ark, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Isaiah, and his prophecies. Prior to this year, they learned the Annuciation story, Gabriel, the Hail Mary, etc. Those accumulations allow them to analyze an Annunciation pretty much on their own with minimal guidance on my part.

Greenville Ephrathah

2011-12-14T11:58:00.000-05:00

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

I moved to Greenville, SC from alluvial Houma, Louisiana in 1965 when I was 8 years old. Greenville was a hilly Baptist textile town, with disturbingly orange dirt. The local college was fenced-in Bob Jones University, the very Buckle of the Bible Belt. There were only two Catholic churches: St. Mary's downtown, and Holy Rosary (now Our Lady of the Rosary) near the closed Donaldson Air Force Base. Virtually all the Catholics were Yankees, and their faith and accents made them stranger than Martians to the locals. I remember my own culture shock: how can you have a parade without people on the floats throwing necklaces and candy to everybody? Do you just stand there and look at it?

But the Catholic minority has been putting down roots in the hard Piedmont clay for a few generations now. And like a transplanted grapevine, the Church has been shaped by the bracing Fundamentalist/ Evangelical terroir (I just wanted to say "terroir") of the Upstate. Among other distinctives, local Catholicism tends toward Scriptural literacy, an evangelistic readiness to explain the faith, and an appreciation for the Bible-believers' assumption that religion matters- and not just privately, but publicly.

In the last decade or so, this Upstate Catholicism has acquired...what, a momentum? a gravity? that continues to develop. I'm not gonna name names, but my wife and I think of all the people we know who weren't Catholic, and are now; people who were already Catholic, and decided to move here; and people who aren't Catholic, but are being drawn into the Catholic orbit. My parish has about 40 people in RCIA who'll enter the Church on Easter Vigil. And we wonder at this confluence. Is just by accident? Is it for some purpose? And it isn't just one church, but a coalescence that extends across parishes, and even rites. Nor is it primarily driven by the pastors. They play a critical leadership role, but the laity are self-motivating.

Our house nickname for this phenomenon is Greenville-Ephrathah, by which we mean that little nowhere Upstate South Carolina may be unknowingly preparing for an as-yet-unspecified role in some mysterious process. I'm uncomfortable thinking about it too explicitly- maybe it's supposed to be an inchoate (I just wanted to say "inchoate") je ne sais quoi (uh-huh) for the time being, and patience is required. It's scary, but in a good way. I've even been reluctant to make a peep about it here, but in the last year the energy has palpably increased.

Thus far there's been no reason for anything but optimism. But I'm reminded of the Catholic novel Morte d'Urban, in which great promise is ultimately dissipated. And if this swell of faith is indeed real and part of a larger plan, then Satan is sure to try to derail it. So my motivation for blabbing this on the net is that if something bad does happen here (I have no idea what, except it wouldn't be the usual), nobody should be discouraged, no-one should lose heart. If bad comes, it doesn't have to be the end; rather, through renewed faith & works it'll turn out to have been just an obstacle that was overcome.

And meanwhile, it's an interesting time to be Catholic in the Upstate.

But thou, O Greenville Ephrathah, though thou be little among the thousands of America, yet out of thee shall...shall what? what?

Le Mot Juste 2

2011-12-12T20:30:00.000-05:00

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

Can you read this? Me neither!

My Wife the Energizer Bunny put on a Post-Vespers Christmas dinner party last night. I would post the menu but don't want to hear wailing & gnashing of teeth in the darkness. Anyway, late in the evening (not that late) I was talking with a couple of former Protestant clergymen* about how the Bible becomes mo' betta when viewed through a Catholic lens. Because it's Advent, we were discussing how examples of overshadowing in the Old Testament (O.T.) provide a more comprehensive view of Mary when they're understood simultaneously with Luke's line, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." As in Luke's case, the word "overshadow" is explicitly used in verses such as this detail of the Ark of the Covenant: "The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be." The Hebrew word translated as overshadow is sakhakh (סכך), which is more often translated as cover. Deciding whether to say cover or overshadow in English can depend on the Greek words used in the Septuagint translation.

By the way, in Greek will overshadow is episkiazo (ἐπισκιάζω). Epi means over, and skiazo is, umm...I forgot. Anyway, skiazo and shadow share a common Indo-European root, and over a few millennia differ only a bit more than skirt and shirt, or shin and skin differ over a few centuries. And in the Vulgate, to overshadow is obumbrare. The Latin stem for shadow, umbra, is also found in umbrella, and sombrero.

Besides sakhakh, there are other Hebrew words that indicate the concepts of covering/ protecting/ selecting/ possessing/ separating/ dedicating, but they aren't necessarily translated by overshadow. For example, in the book of Ruth, Ruth tells Boaz, "I am Ruth, your maidservant; spread your skirt over your maidservant, for you are next of kin." (Thus Boaz would show intent to marry Ruth). Likewise, in 1Kings, Elijah "passed by [Elisha] and cast his mantle upon him," showing his selection and protection of Elisha, his intended successor. Ruth is an endearing story, but I've never used it in Catechism class because there is not enough time to treat every interesting thing in the Bible. We do act out the Elisha bit and refer to it later on at the Annunciation.

Kids like things to be clear and simple (kind of like adults now that I think about it). So in class when I read "the power of the Most High will overshadow you" from Luke, I like to review supporting verses which also use the word overshadow. A Greek translation of the Bible will say to overshadow or to shadow in more verses than I can use in 6th grade, but English isn't too reliable in this respect. Different English Bibles will use the word overshadow in different verses, and only a few times; although I expect that they all use it with regard to the Annunciation and the Transfiguration. Otherwise it's hit and miss in English. So if I read a verse in class from my NAB in English which doesn't say "overshadow" (but Greek does), I say "overshadow" to keep it consistent for the kids.

Up until this year the word overshadow comes up in these cases:

The Ark overshadowed by the cherub's wings.

The Ark overshadowed by the Glory Cloud, God's Presence.

Psalm 91: "He will overshadow you with his shoulders: and under his wings you shall trust," which dovetails well with the overshadowing cherubs' wings.

Mary overshadowed by the Holy Spirit.

The Transfiguration: "He was still speaking, when lo, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him."

And the concept expressed by overshadowing is treated in an Elijah-covers-Elisha skit. And maybe someday (time permitting) we'll do the Ruth bit, too.

That's plenty of overshadowing for 6th grade. But last night after the party I was rechecking instances of epi-skazein/ over-shadow, and noticed this:

"...they even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and pallets, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them." To which you say, "Close, but no banana- that's not quite the same as overshadowing." You're right, it's not. But that verse in Greek reads: ὥστε καὶ εἰς τὰς πλατείας ἐκφέρειν τοὺς ἀσθενεῖς καὶ τιθέναι ἐπὶ κλιναρίων καὶ κραβάττων, ἵνα ἐρχομένου Πέτρου κἂν ἡ σκιὰ ἐπισκιάσει τινὶ αὐτῶν. I can't read all that either, but look at this bit: σκιὰ ἐπι-σκιάσει. That's skia epi-skiasei, [the] shadow [might] over-shadow. So when Luke wrote Acts, he was careful to say overshadow, just as he did in his Gospel....could it possibly matter? Since 1999 I've been connecting this bit of Acts to sacraments (God's power may flow through physical media), but have never connected it to overshadowing until now. I have to assume that recent translators decided "shadow....overshadow" was too clunky for readers of the word-rich English language. Well, I disagree: without the right words, one can't make the right connections.

Now I'm curious about which Bibles do say shadow-overshadow:

Latin Vulgate? Yes: "Petro saltim umbra illius obumbraret quemquam eorum."

Martin Luther's Bibel? Yes: "sein Schatten ihrer etliche überschattete."

Douai-Rheims? Yes: "his shadow at the least might overshadow any of them."

KJV? Yes: "the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them."

Revised Standard Version- Catholic Edition? No: "his shadow might fall on some of them." Ya done me wrong, RSV-CE!

Catholic NAB? No: "his shadow might fall on one or another of them."

NIV? No: "Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by."

If St. Luke were alive today he'd be rolling over in his grave.
Traduttore, traditore.

* One of the former Protestant clergy posts here on the same conversation.

Res Ipsa Loquitur 7

2011-12-10T17:00:00.000-05:00

Excerpt from the December 7, 2011 class, mostly a review of the Old Testament in about 10 minutes.

Once we get past Solomon, the rest of the O.T. is summarized as the oppressed Jews praying for a Messiah, and the prophets who anticipate that Messiah.

Usually 10 or 11 kids are in class (roll is 12), but only 6 kids came this Wednesday, so the volume of participation is about half of normal. They still held up their end pretty well.

This post is linked to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

Pitchers 5: Sinless Stuff

2011-12-08T23:10:00.000-05:00

Part of the board during our 12/7/11 Immaculate Conception discussion, a subtopic in the lesson on the first chapter of Luke

1. The Holy Spirit overshadows Mary, Ark of the New Covenant, as the Shekhinah overshadowed the Ark of the Old Covenant. That dot in Mary's womb is newly-conceived Jesus, made from one of Mary's eggs and the divine overshadowing.

2. The dot grows into a more recognizable baby. This life-size Jesus in the womb shows his complete physical connection to, and dependence on, his mom. Jesus gets all his oxygen and food from Mary's body. If Mary was a sinner, how would that sinful stuff stay out of Jesus? How could a sinful Ark be a suitable home for a sinless person?

3. Mary even as a little girl already has in her the egg that will become Jesus. Would it make sense for Jesus to be conceived using a sinner's egg? How could Jesus be made of sinful stuff? Would God want to get the sin out of the egg before it was used to make Jesus? Wouldn't it be more straightforward to have Mary be saved from sin when she was conceived in her mom? That way Mary's tummy would be a pure place for Jesus to grow, and her egg would be a source of sinless stuff for Jesus' body to grow from.

4. Who perfectly atoned for our sins? Jesus. Yes. And the Church teaches that Mary was spared from Original Sin by Jesus' atonement before she was born. But Mary was born first! Yeah, so? So how could Jesus die for her sins? He would be too late! Well, look at this:

Twist & turn Highway 178 perceived from the road itself, versus from a hot-air balloon

Remember, God stands outside of time. Time is something He created, so he doesn't see things one after the other like we do. It's like Highway 178 from Pickens to Rosman- it may take 20 minutes to experience the road in your car. But daughter, if you were up above the road in this balloon, how long would you need to see the whole road? I could see it all at once! Yes. You'd need no time at all. God sees everything all at once, too. So for God to let Jesus' atonement work "ahead of time" for Mary would be no big deal.

This post is linked to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

Prophecy Potpourri

2011-12-02T21:26:00.002-05:00

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

The temple, where Isaiah scolded the Sons of Abraham; where Jeremiah scolded the Sons of Abraham; where Jesus scolded the Sons of Abraham by quoting Isaiah and Jeremiah.

The November 23 class covered the majority of Isaiah's prophecies, excluding all the ones which relate directly to Christmas: they'll be covered in the Dec. 14 class. On the 30th, we quickly reviewed some of them, and launched into prophecies by Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Micah and Zechariah. Ideally we'd have gotten through Malachi. But Malachi is the end of the New Testament, so in some ways it's good to begin the next class with Malachi, do a review of the Old Testament, and then jump into the New.

Because there are so many prophecies, and time is tight, we only cover the ones that I think are most understandable by the kids; and/or are explicitly referred to in the New Testament or the Mass; and/or directly apply to Jesus. Each one is permanently highlighted in my Bible and temporarily sticky-tabbed so I can quickly go from one to the next.

In each case, I give a bit of background to the prophet, where he and the Jews were in that point in history, read the passage, and then ask the class how the verses will be fulfilled. The following verses overlap both classes. For brevity, a single verse here typically represents the wider passage which I would actually be reading. Likewise, the kids' answers are usually not as pithy as what I show here. Nevertheless, the kids do their own thinking.

Isaiah 6:

"I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory."

The Mass quotes the seraphim.

"Then flew one of the seraphim to me, having in his hand a burning coal which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth, and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin purged."

This passage anticipates the understanding of Purgatory as a cleansing of sin through fire.

"8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here I am!"

Isaiah responds to God using Samuel's words.

Isaiah 11:

"1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots."

The future Messiah will be a descendant of David, who was messia'd, anointed, by Samuel.

"he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked."

But the Messiah won't be tough guy like David.

Isaiah 22:

"In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, 21 and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your girdle on him, and will commit your authority to his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. 22 And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open."

Jesus will likewise give keys to Peter. This section of Isaiah 22 is acted out, it's more than just asking questions.

Isaiah 24:

"6 On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines..."

God won't limit his blessings to just the Chosen People.

Isaiah 40:

"3 A voice cries: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain."

Israel would be happy to get another David-type Messiah...but Isaiah says prepare the way for God. Later on, John the Baptist will quote Isaiah at the Jordan river.

Isaiah 42:

"1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, with whom I am pleased; I have put my Spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations. 2 He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street..."

At Jesus' baptism at the Jordan, God will quote Isaiah. And if this is a Messiah prophecy, why is he such a wallflower?

Isaiah 52:

"13 Behold, my servant shall prosper, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. 14 As many were astonished at him-- his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance..."

"Marred...like damaged, beat up? Yes, how does this apply to Jesus? The soldiers beat him up? Yes, and? Whipped him? Yes, and? They stuck the crown of thorns on him? Yes, good."

Isaiah 53:

"5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed."

The soldiers whipped Jesus which made blood stripes on him.

"he poured out his soul to death....yet he bore the sin of many"

Jesus died for our sins.

Isaiah 56:

"To the [foreigners] who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, 5 I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters."

God will adopt people who aren't Jews to be his children.

"...these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples."

People who love God can come to the temple just like Chosen People; and later on Jesus talks about the House of Prayer.

"I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered."

God will love more than just the Chosen People. What does the Bible call those other people? Pagans? Close, but no...Gentiles? Yes, good.

Isaiah 57:

"Are you not children of transgression...who slay your children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?"

Some Jews would still sacrifice their children to baby-eating false gods.

Jeremiah 7:

"Stand in the gate of the LORD's house, and proclaim there this word"

Jeremiah stands at the temple, as Isaiah did, and as Jesus will do.

"...if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, 7 then I will remain with you in this place..."

If the Jews don't stop ignoring God, he won't dwell among them in the temple.

"Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, 'We are delivered!'--only to go on doing all these abominations?"

You can't expect God to ignore your sins.

"1 Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of thieves in your eyes?..."

In the New Testament, Jesus quotes Jeremiah at the temple.

"12 Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel...therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh."

God abandoned Shiloh and never dwelled there again. Would he quit living in the temple if Israel kept on sinning?

"And they have built the high place of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire..."

More baby-killing kind of like today, when most baby-killing is by abortion.

Jeremiah 31:

"Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah"

Jesus talks about a New Covenant at the Last Supper, and we hear those words at Mass, too.

"I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts"

A law written on your heart is better because it's based on love.

Ezekiel 36:

"I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your impurities, and from all your idols I will cleanse you."

Sprinkling water is how Levitical priests would purify lepers; it's also like baptism, and when Naaman immersed himself in the Jordan to get clean of his leprosy. Sometimes there's immersion, sometimes sprinkling.

Daniel 7:

Wasn't Daniel put in the lion's den, but he didn't get eaten? Yes, that's him. Here's part of a prophetic vision Daniel had:

13 I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a Son of Man..."

Jesus would refer to himself as the Son of Man. [the kids didn't know this at all, I had to just tell them.] And at the Ascension he went up in clouds. And at the Second Coming he'll come down on clouds.

Micah 5:

"But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days."

David was born there! And Jesus will be born in Bethlehem too!

Zechariah 9:

"9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass."

"So in the Bible, what's an ass? A donkey! Yes, so how does Jesus fulfill this prophecy? He came into town on a donkey! Yes, what town? Jerusalem! Yes, and the people thought he was...the Messiah! Yes, like who? David! Yes."

Classtime ran out at this point. Next week we'll finish the Old Testament with a look at Malachi, and review the whole New Testament in 15 minutes or so. Then we'll jump into the New with a discussion of the Immaculate Conception, which will be the day after class.

Déjà Joué

2011-11-30T20:52:00.000-05:00

Yes- almost déjà vu.

I've been playing wargames since I was 11 years old. Just in case you aren't up on what a wargame is, it's this sort of thing. Let's agree that they are, like opera, an acquired taste. Anyway, in this weekend's edition of the Wall Street Journal, there was a review of a novel, The Third Reich, in which the wargame The Third Reich (I own a copy) plays a critical role. This game came out when I graduated from highschool in 1974.

It's oddly affirming to see it mentioned in the WSJ of all places, after so many years.

Res Ipsa Loquitur 6

2011-11-26T20:18:00.002-05:00

9 minutes from the November 16 class. Review of earlier Old Testament material connects to future New Testament material, as described in Plus de Review 2.

Notice that from :30 to :54 my bouncer decides to separate a couple of mischievites, and the kids are rearranged on the fly with very little disruption to the lesson flow.

Sorry about the rough edit.

Cornucopia

2011-11-24T17:50:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving Dinner, courtesy of My Wife the Energizer Bunny

Plus de Review 2

2011-11-19T21:42:00.000-05:00

This article is also posted at Amazing Catechists

Review is a form of repetition. And review, like repetition, should be used introduce new concepts which relate to the items being reviewed. That is, review is not just for reteaching old stuff....as shown from these bits of review from the November 16 class:

"Y'all remind me please, who did God tell to get out of town last week? Elijah! Yes, why? 'Cause he told the King there would be a drought. Yes. And if God tells you to leave town on short notice during a drought, what would you soon be needing? Water! Yes, and...food! Yes. "So he went and did according to the word of the LORD; he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith that is east of the Jordan. 6 And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank from the brook." (1Kings17)

Someone else remind me what the Israelites needed while they were in the desert. Water! Yes, and...food! Yes...how'd they get those things? Moses hit the rock with his stick and water came out. Yes, and? They had manna. Yes, which was...fried chicken? Well, wasn't it bread? Yes, sort of. God had said he'd rain down bread on them, and what "rained down" was manna. What other food did God provide? No guesses? Remember when the Israelites complained to Moses about being hungry they said, "in the land of Egypt...we sat by the fleshpots and ate bread to the full." So what did they want besides bread? Umm...flesh? Yes, but in modern English what would we say? Meat! Yes. Somebody decirme, cómo se llama "meat" en Español; how do you say "meat" in Spanish? Carne! Yes. And how do you say "flesh" in Spanish? Ummm...I think that's carne, too. Yes. In English we have two words for that idea. One Bible will say "meat" when another says "flesh". Spanish doesn't have that problem, it's always carne, like in carnivorous. But I think it's better if English Bibles say "flesh" as we'll see in a minute. But first, y'all remind me what flesh God gave the Israelites. Ravens! Close, another bird. Quail! Yes, quail flesh, quail meat.

So God gave the Israelites bread and...flesh! Yes, and He gave Elijah...bread and flesh! Yes, the same. When the Bible says things the same way on different occasions, you should understand that they are related. For example, did the Israelites walk on wet mud when they crossed the Red Sea? No, dry ground! Yes, and Elijah crossed the Jordan on...dry ground! Yes.

By the way, when God provides people bread and flesh like that, what's it called? A miracle? Yes, a miracle. And speaking of bread and flesh miracles, can anyone tell me a Jesus bread and flesh miracle? When he made the loaves and fishes? Mmm, good guess, but fish don't count as meat, as flesh. Another guess? No? Sometimes 6th-graders get this. OK, later on we'll cover Jesus' bread and flesh miracle. When we get to it, remember these other ones. Yes, what? What's the miracle? Nuh-uh, if y'all can't guess, I'm not telling. Just pay attention when it comes up later on.

New review topic: what's this? A stick. Gosh, really? Think some more. Moses' stick! Yes. Tell us about it. He hit the rock and water came out. Yes, and? He parted the water! Yes, so the Israelites could cross on...dry ground! Yes.

And what's this? Your coat. C'mon, y'all don't play dumb. It's Elijah's coat! Yes, his cloak. So tell it. They hit the water with it and it parted. Yes...what water? The Jordan River. Yes. And Elijah and Elisha crossed...on dry ground! Yes.

And this is...Elijah's bone! Close...Elisha's bone! Yes, somebody tell it please. They threw the dead man on his bones and he came back to life. Right. Yes? That's a chicken bone. Yes, use your imagination. If you don't have any imagination you can't be in this class. What do all three of these things have in common: the stick, the cloak, and the bone? They're all stuff? Yes, genius, they're all stuff! Yes. And would any of those miracles have worked without this stuff being involved? No! Right. God's power went through His creation, His stuff. What are we made of [I draw the Gingerbread Man]? A body'n'soul! Yes, and our bodies are made of...stuff! Yes. Our bodies are stuff. Now when people experience God through miracles like the ones that go with the stick, cloak, and bone, pieces of stuff, is it through the soul or the body? The body? Yes, they're just physical miracles. Dogs don't have eternal souls, but even a dog could have crossed over the Red Sea on dry ground or eaten a quail. But if we were just souls without bodies, that sort of miracle wouldn't mean much to us.

Body'n'Soul, aka The Gingerbread Man

Remind me again, we're a...body'n'soul. Yes. So if we want to have a complete miraculous experience of God we'd want to have it with which parts? Well, both parts? Yes. But these Old Testament miracles just affect people's... bodies? Yes. But Jesus left us with some miracles that let us experience God body and soul. Can y'all think of one? No guesses? What's the water miracle we do in church? Ummm...baptism? Right...yes, what? Is baptism a miracle? Well...tell me what happens. You pour the water and the sins are gone. Yes. Washing away sins with water is pretty miraculous, isn't it? I guess so, but baptism's a sacrament, not a miracle. That's a good point, but maybe Baptism is both a sacrament and a miracle, and we're just so used to it that we don't notice. We can't see the miraculous part of a sacrament, but it's still there. By the way, if there's no water is it ok if the priest just pretends to pour water? No! Right, the miracle won't work without the stuff. We are spirit'n'stuff, so the sacraments are...spirit'n'stuff too! Yes.

When we get to Jesus in a couple of weeks we'll see him work some physical miracles, but also some that are physical and spiritual. I want y'all to be able to tell them apart, so keep an eye out for that."

*************************************************************

The above review took about 10 minutes. Probably half of the time we were applying new ideas to the old material in preparation for Jesus and the New Testament.

Res Ipsa Loquitur 5

2011-11-12T22:24:00.001-05:00

The audio of the November 9 class whose whiteboard is discussed at Pitchers 4:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Pitchers 4

2011-11-10T10:35:00.000-05:00

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

Partial board from the November 9 class. As usual, comments are limited to what's on the board, and don't include everything that was covered.

1. Picking up from last week, Elijah flees Samaria for the safety of pagan Sidon. He stays with the widow in Zarephath, a key story which Jesus will refer to in Luke's gospel. (1Kings 16-17)

2. A reminder that Sidon is a pagan country which worships the baby-eating false god Baal.

3. Elijah returns to Samaria, and has a showdown with 450 priests of Baal. Elijah wins. The people haul the priests down to a creek, where Elijah slits their throats. The creek runs red with their blood. Samaria returns to worship of the LORD, and the drought ends. (1Kings 18)

4. God tells old Elijah to anoint Elisha as his successor. He puts his cloak over Elisha's shoulders, which indicates Elisha selection, and also a sense of being protected, being a protege. (1Kings 19:19+) This idea of protection by covering is related to the Glory Cloud overshadowing the Meeting Tent & Tabernacle (erased). This idea will later be extended to Mary and the Holy Spirit, and the Epiclesis at Mass.

5. Elijah journeys again across the Jordan. On the way, Elisha affirms 3 times he will not abandon Elijah. They cross the Jordan on "dry ground" after Elijah strikes the water with his cloak. The kids tell me that Elijah didn't die, but was taken up in a whirlwind. This reminds them of the other guy who didn't die...Enoch, and also Mary. Elisha picks up the left-behind cloak, strikes the Jordan, and recrosses on "dry ground." (2Kings 2)

Volunteers and I act out all of the Elijah & Elisha bits. If we can act things out, I usually won't draw.

6. I briefly read a couple of Elisha's miracles which remind the kids of both Elijah's miracles and Jesus' miracles. Then I start drawing as I read and tell the story Naaman and his miracle cure in the Jordan. (2Kings 5) That's a picture of Naaman in his horse-drawn chariot coming to Elisha's house. After Naaman is cured, he takes a wagonload of earth back to Syria so that he may properly worship the LORD. I note that the Bible says Naaman "plunged" into the Jordan. Next week I'll introduce the Greek word baptize, and review ritual sprinkling.

7. Elisha dies and is buried. Years later, a dead man comes back to life by being thrown on Elisha's bones (2Kings 13: 20+). I use my chicken bone for acting this out, and we discuss saints and relics for a couple of minutes before class lets out.

Go to Res Ipsa Loquitur 5 for the audio of this class.

Pitchers 3

2011-11-05T12:04:00.001-04:00

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

Partial board from the November 2 class, from David's adultery up to Elijah in Zarephath. From left to right:

1. Review of Levitical sacrifice reminds kids of the necessity of both forgiveness and atonement. I read bits of 2Sam11 as the kids learn the story of David & Bathsheba. David later confesses his sins (violating 3 commandments which the kids figure out) to Nathan . I tell the kids that Nathan is Hebrew for gift. Remembering that -el- in a Bible name means God, they then figure out that Nathan-i-el means Gift of God. (BTW, Netan-yahu means Gift of YHWH.) Through Nathan, God forgives David [forgiveness is checked off]. But God takes David and Bathsheba's baby as atonement [atonement is checked off].

Old Testament examples of forgiveness and atonement are emphasized in class. Later on we'll compare them to Christ's perfect atonement.

Coincidentally, Tuesday's Dear Abby involved a reference to David and Bathsheba. Next week I'll read that article to start class, and get the kids to explain the relevance of D & B to the situation.

2. The kids tell me that later on David and Bathsheba have another child named Solomon; they also tell me he was famous for his wisdom. I say a bit about the difference between knowledge and wisdom, and then the kids tell the story of the two women and the baby. I draw a baby with women's faces to each side, and adjust their expressions as the story is discussed [this picture was erased]. The key lesson is that the mother loved the baby more than herself, while the other woman loved herself more than the baby.

3. Following a comparison of Solomon's Temple with the Meeting Tent [I have a handout: they're too complicated to draw] I draw a king, and to his right a queen. The kids tell me that's Solomon, and then figure out that the Queen is his mom Bathsheba, not one of his wives. I read (1Kings2) and tell the story of Adonijah seeking Bathsheba's intercession with her son. Based on that story, the kids extend the king/ queen mother concept to Jesus and Mary. They then tell me the story of Cana, and see the intercessory parallel between Bathsheba and Mary.

4. After Solomon dies, Israel is split into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. The kids make fun of my banana map of Samaria and Judea, and recall the parable of the Good Samaritan. I briefly explain the problems Samaria has due to its separation from Jerusalem and the Temple. Now the king becomes Ahab, king of Samaria, and his queen is Jezebel, a woman from pagan Sidon. Along with Jezebel, Ahab worships the baby-eating false god Baal.

5. I introduce Elijah to the class and write his name, but then replace the J with a Y: ELIYAH. I write YHWH next to ELIYAH, and with some help, the kids see that El-i-jah means [my] God is YHWH. I read a bit from 1Kings17 as Elijah speaks for God. Elijah tells Ahab there will be drought as long as there is Baal-worship in Samaria. Then Elijah follows God's command to flee to pagan Sidon, lest Ahab use his head as a bowling ball.

Class over!

The Catechist's Psalm

2011-11-02T11:01:00.000-04:00

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

In case you catechists didn't know, yes there is a Psalm just for you. Maybe not the whole thing (it's way long), but at least the first part: "Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth! 2 I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, 3 things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us. 4 We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders which he has wrought. 5 He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children; 6 that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, 7 so that they should set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments."

But Psalm 78's not for just catechists: it's for the catechized as well. As I tell my class:

"Y'all see how this Psalm describes myjob...which is... to teach. Yes. And what’s your job?Our job? Yes. To learn? Yes, but more, listen again and tell me: “he commanded ourfathers to teach to their children; 6 that the next generation might know them,the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children…” Well? Wehave to learn so we can tell our kids! Yes. You don’t learn about God justfor yourselves, but for the children you'll have and teach. When you become parents, teaching your kids about God will be one of your responsibilities.

I don't want y'all to just drop your kids off at Sunday School and think you're done. You'll have to teach your children well. Do y'all get that?

Get what?

Never mind.

Plus des Pitchers

2011-10-29T21:24:00.002-04:00

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

Behold the board at the end of the 10/26 class. As usual, much of it was erased and then refilled. This photo corresponds to the lesson plan as it runs from settling down in Canaan through the anointing of David. I'm not going to discuss everything we covered, just what is on the board.

1. The Ark of the Covenant. Some review of last week's class. The Glory Cloud/ Shekhinah is introduced, which settles on/ overshadows/ dwells in the Ark and Meeting Tent. At the far left a sketch of Moses atop Sinai under the Glory Cloud/ Shekhinah has been erased. Tent drawing to left illustrates how the Glory Cloud overshadowed the Tent during the 40 years in the desert, and moved away when it was time to pull up stakes. Overshadowing implies protection. (future connections to Elijah & Elisha, the Holy Spirit & Mary.)

2. Review of atonement, forgiveness, and Levitical sacrifice is followed by the question, "Could good Israelites who had their sins forgiven & atoned for by the sacrificial system go to Heaven?" If not, then where did they go? (future connection: Jesus descended into "Hell.")

3. The ritual mixing of cleansing water and atoning blood is introduced (Lev 14): "This shall be the law of the leper for the day of his cleansing. He shall be brought to the priest; 3 and the priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall make an examination. Then, if the leprous disease is healed in the leper, 4 the priest shall command them to take for him who is to be cleansed two living clean birds and cedarwood and scarlet stuff and hyssop; 5 and the priest shall command them to kill one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running water. 6 He shall take the living bird with the cedarwood and the scarlet stuff and the hyssop, and dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water; 7 and he shall sprinkle it seven times upon him who is to be cleansed of leprosy..." (future connections to the Crucifixion and Baptism)

4. The Israelites settle down in Canaan. God dwells in the Meeting Tent at Shiloh. I add Eli sitting on his stool to the left while his corrupt sons profane the Dwelling.

5. Review of Samson introduces the word Nazirite, someone who is dedicated and separated to fully serve God. (future connection to John the Baptist, priests and nuns) Samuel's story follows Samson's, including Samuel being called by God 3 times and responding in the affirmative 3 times, which makes an oral contract. (future connections to Elijah & Elisha, Jesus & Peter)

6. Connecting the past to the present. A reminder that the Israelites still fight with their neighbors over the Promised Land.

7. Israel's enemies worshiped an assortment of baby-eating false gods, yet they were also afraid of the God of Israel: "Israel went out to battle against the Philistines....Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who slew about four thousand men on the field of battle. 3 And when the troops came to the camp, the elders of Israel said, "Why has the LORD put us to rout today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the LORD here from Shiloh, that he may come among us and save us from the power of our enemies....the Philistines were afraid; for they said, "A god has come into the camp." And they said, "Woe to us! For nothing like this has happened before. 8 Woe to us! Who can deliver us from the power of these mighty gods? These are the gods who smote the Egyptians with every sort of plague in the wilderness." (1Sam 4)

Sinful Israel is defeated, Eli & sons die. The Ark is captured, but due to plagues including my favorite plague, hemorrhoids, the Ark is returned to Israel. But the LORD never dwells again in Shiloh, which remains desolate. (future connections to Jeremiah, the Temple, and Jesus)

8. Confronted with the prospect of being misgoverned by Samuel's no-good sons, Israel insists on a king after Samuel. Samuel picks Saul, who as we see from the picture is tall and handsome.

9. Saul has his problems; God sends Samuel out to secretly anoint a new king: David. We act out the anointing process. The kids learn the common meaning of Messiah, Christos, and Anointed One. Some etymologically related words are discussed, especially chrism and msha, the Egyptian word for crocodile, whose oil was used to anoint Pharaoh. (lots of connections to all this)

10. The Gingerbread Man represents the unity of Body and Soul. This had to do with the hypocritical behavior of Eli & Sons. I usually draw him when the issue of Faith and Works comes up. The arrow from the body back to the soul indicates that one's works reflect one's inward disposition; so if your works oppose your faith, then you probably don't really believe. (connects to constant theme of Faith & Works)

Catechists, never forget the words of St. Francis of Assisi, Petter of Squirrels: "Preach the Gospel at all times; when necessary, draw pictures."

Deutsche Romanische Kirchen

2011-10-26T10:04:00.000-04:00

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

I like church architecture. While I admire the technical daring and spectacle of Gothic architecture, I prefer Romanesque churches. And among the churches built in the Romanesque manner, I like the German ones best.

One of German Romanesque's strong points is its design flexibility: that is, its visual vocabulary and structural system allow each church to be very different from the others while recognizably belonging to the same family. If Gothic churches tend to all be sisters, the German Romanesque family would include aunts and nieces. The German churches may have a front main entry, side main entries, or main entries at both ends along with altars at both ends. There may any number of towers in an assortment of shapes and sizes. Within the vocabulary almost anything goes. And if they don't compare well against Gothic's glamor, they more than compensate by their charm and individuality.

A very few of my favorites:

Maria Laach Abbey, so small it needs 2 photos.

Limburg

Bamberg

Speyer (the town is named after the spires)

Tournai, Belgium (it's not in Germany)

Late in the last century our architectural office (Greene & Associates) designed a 2400-seat Baptist church. For assorted reasons the project borrowed heavily from German Romanesque sources, including the above examples. A few drawings follow.

East Elevation

Ground Floor Plan

South Elevation

A recent photo of the church taken by local photographer Jerry Spain

We do a lot of churches, but rarely have a budget and a client that allows for this kind of project.

Go Negative

2011-10-24T09:34:00.000-04:00

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

A useful tactic to get kids to think in the classroom is to do what I call going negative. I learned this way of thinking about a problem when I was a teenager, especially when trying to figure out faith. Going negative isn't new: Sherlock Holmes fans may remember how he took the same approach in asking why the dog didn't bark. So instead of asking why Jesus did x, or why the Church teaches y, I was constantly wondering, "why didn't Jesus do a" or "why doesn't the Church say b." Pondering (sometimes for years) the a,b & c that weren't said or done often shed light on the superiority (not just the option) of x, y & z.

I churned for decades over the fundamental problem of why God required the whole Jesus project instead of simply declaring us forgiven. God is omnipotent, after all. I suppose this is no problem for billions of Christians, but I had to grind through dozens of negative propositions to arrive at an understanding of Salvation History that meant something to me. I knew all my life that "Jesus had to die for our sins," but that was just a fact, like heliocentricity. I was in my late 20s before I finally understood Jesus' sacrifice in a way that mattered. Oddly enough, years of "but why not...but why not...but why not..." eventually illuminated a childhood experience with a broken window which was full of "but why nots." Once I sorted out the broken window, faith fell into place. I don't think I'd've ever acquired a motivating faith without having reflected on the "why nots."

In Catechism class the kids will sometimes make no real progress in answering a positive question, such as "why did Moses hit the rock with his staff?" They will readily say, "God told him to;" but reader, that ain't progress- that's parroting. If I say, "Yes, but why did God tell him to?" I typically get, "because the people were thirsty" which is just another bit of fluff. My temptation is to give them an answer, but they can often make progress through negative questions, such as:

Why wasn't it enough for Moses to just pray for water?
Why didn't God make water flow from the rock without the stick business?
Why didn't God just make the people's thirst go away?
Why didn't God put a lake ahead of them that they'd run into?
Why couldn't Moses go by himself to hit the rock?

Once a couple of kids give thoughtful answers to negative questions they never heard before, we can move forward again. Within the first month of class, the kids get used to going negative when their thinking stalls. They learn to perk up each time the negative questions start, and are stimulated by the oblique thinking that negative questions engender.

Typical negative questions I might ask:

Why didn't Jesus heal the paralyzed man as soon as he was plopped down in front of him?
Why didn't the paralyzed man's friends stay home and pray for his healing?
Why didn't the Prodigal Son's father interrupt his confession?
Why wouldn't the Pharisees accept that Jesus had healed the blind man?
Why didn't John the Baptist get married?
Why wouldn't Elisha come out and speak directly to Naaman?
Why didn't the little boy bring his bread and fish directly to Jesus?
Why didn't Jesus and the apostles eat any lamb at the Last Supper?
Why weren't Jesus' wounds healed up after his Resurrection?
Why didn't the stewards tell Jesus they had run out of wine?
Why didn't God take more than one rib from Adam?
Why didn't God take a toe instead of a rib?
At Mass why don't the people put the bread and wine on the altar?

I'd give you the answers- but you'll learn better if you work them out on your own.

Pitchers

2011-10-22T09:51:00.000-04:00

I draw all the time in class. This is a relatively tidy board, so it makes a good example of how the drawing flows along with the lesson plan. Last night class started with some closing discussion of the Golden Calf, and finished with Samson collapsing the roof.

Here's the board at the end of the 10/19 class; some stuff has been erased to make room for new stuff. It's not a very big board, so sometimes a entire board's content has to be erased to make space for another round of picture-drawing. I'm going to comment mostly about what's in this picture, not the stuff that was erased.

1. The Golden Calf prodded final discussion of idol-worship, with blue squiggles showing the drunken Israelites misbehaving. The kids knew that nobody nowadays would worship a calf statue, and suggested other types of idols that people put ahead of God. Money was first, which led to other possessions, and ultimately to the idea of self-worship. This led to discussing how babies only think of themselves, and that life is a process of becoming more other-oriented and less self-oriented. During that conversation I drew a squalling baby (erased) to the upper left of the Calf, and the man on the upper right. That was to illustrate the growth of each person from baby to adult. I explained to the class that when I was 30 and single, I had made idols out of cars; being so self-oriented I was essentially a 30-year-old baby.

2. At this point we were discussing this handout from left to right:

Once we got into the Holy of Holies, I drew the Ark of the Covenant while reading parts of Exodus 25:

"They shall make an ark of acacia wood; two cubits and a half shall be its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. 11 And you shall overlay it with pure gold... 12 And you shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them on its four feet, two rings on the one side of it, and two rings on the other side of it. 13 You shall make poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold. 14 And you shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, to carry the ark by them. (I don't tell the kids what the poles are for. I make them tell me)...16 And you shall put into the ark the testimony which I shall give you. (The kids help decide what goes into the Ark, and as each item is named, I draw it in.) 17 Then you shall make a mercy seat of pure gold; two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth. 18 And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. 19 Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end; of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. 20 The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be."

The squiggly red line indicates that God's presence descends from Heaven to hover over the mercy seat. To give a rough sense of scale I draw a high priest in a special outfit.

1a. Now we discussed different types of Levitical sacrifice. To introduce the topic, I read and acted out Moses' (pre-Levitical) sacrifice in Exodus 24:

"[Moses] rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the LORD. 6 And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. 7 Then he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, "All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient." 8* And Moses took the blood and threw it upon the people, and said, "Behold the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words." We re-imagined the Golden Calf sketch as Moses' sacrifice as I added in the blood and the basin.

3. Here we were discussing the story of Manoah and his wife, from Judges 13. This picture illustrates the moment that the sacrifice and the angel ascend to heaven, which will figure prominently in our Eucharistic Prayer class in the Spring:

"So Manoah took the kid with the cereal offering, and offered it upon the rock to the LORD, to him who works wonders. 20 And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar while Manoah and his wife looked on; and they fell on their faces to the ground."

Through discussion, the kids figure out that Manoah isn't making an atonement sacrifice for sins, but a thanksgiving sacrifice for his wife's pregnancy. Next week we'll review this a bit, connect it to thanksgiving sacrifices by Abel, Melchizedek, and Moses, and introduce the Greek word Eucharisteo.

4. God had told Manoah's wife, "Behold, you are barren and have no children; but you shall conceive and bear a son. 4 Therefore beware, and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, 5 for lo, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from birth." The kids figured out what "no razor shall come upon his head" implies, and then named the long-haired man that was Manoah's son: Samson. The kids can tell the Samson story, so I don't need to draw. But I do list the the things that make Samson dedicated and separated. Next week I'll explain what a Nazirite is, and connect that term to the concept of dedication & separation, which will repeatedly come up during the rest of the year.

American Heroes

2011-10-20T10:10:00.002-04:00

It's American Hero Day at Smaller Manhattans.

Yulia Tymoshenko/ Юлія Тимошенко, former prime minister of Ukraine/ Украина (see, Cyrillic isn't so tough) recently co-wrote an interesting opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. You don't have to read it. Actually I was more struck by the article's title than the content: Letter from a Kiev Jail, which is where Tymoshenko is these days. Of course the title borrows from Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail, written in 1963. So this got me thinking again about King's letter, which I read for the first time about 35 years ago.

King and his memorial in Washington, DC are in the news, and I've been hearing snatches of King's "I Have a Dream" speech on the radio, and quotes in print. "I Have a Dream" is inspiring- no wonder it gets such attention. But I find the Letter to be much more compelling: when I think of King, I think Birmingham, not DC. In fact, the pith of the Dream comes from the Letter. Part of what makes the Letter better is that, unlike the lovely Dream speech which is a sermon being preached to the choir (which is not a criticism), King wrote his letter to a group of clergymen who did not share his "urgency of now."¹ So it's direct, thorough, and not very charming; but no less eloquent than the Dream speech.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail takes about 20 minutes to read. If you haven't read it before, you may be surprised by its sweep and depth, and the people who influenced King's thinking. Reading it again today reminds me that like the prophets of antiquity, people may still be chosen by God to accomplish a single great and necessary thing.

If you aren't inclined to read the whole letter right now, that's ok. Here is a critical paragraph from the middle:

"We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you go forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience."

And here is that same paragraph paraphrased in the Dream speech:

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."²

American Hero

I love "Somewhere over the Rainbow." It's a perfect song, especially with the prologue ³ that didn't make it into the Wizard of Oz. In 2001 it was voted the best song of the 20th century, and I agree that it is. I don't know if there's been a similar vote for prose, but I can't think of any more significant than this letter, written by one of my heroes.

Speaking of heroes, here's another one. Even though he isn't mentioned in King's Letter or Dream, the influence is there. Here's a bit from one of his speeches:

"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelly to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival."

Yeah, that's ummm...William Wilberforce? Mr. Bleeding Kansas, John Brown? Harriet Beecher Stowe? Nope. That's the escaped slave, orator, author, agitator and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Douglass' words don't roll off the tongue as easily as King's but he was speaking in a more formal age.

You may recall how rudely the prophet Jeremiah scolded the Temple personnel 2,600 years ago:

"Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, 'We are delivered!'--only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, says the LORD. Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. And now, because you have done all these things, says the LORD, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my sight, as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of Ephraim."

You can hear all of Jeremiah's righteous anger and indignation in Douglass. I imagine that Douglass was also well aware of Jeremiah even as he spoke on that 4th of July.

American Hero

The older I get, the more I'm grateful that these two men dedicated their lives to cleansing my dear country, America, of this great sin. Thank y'all both. I know you can hear me.

1. I love King's phrase "the urgency of now." And I like to hear it in two songs by Smashing Pumpkins: Tonight, Tonight; and 1979.

2. It always pays to look at the wider context of any Bible quote; King surely expected his Bible-literate listeners to do so. That bit is from Amos 5: "I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them, and the peace offerings of your fatted beasts I will not look upon. 23 Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. 24 But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. 25 "Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? 26 You shall take up Sakkuth your king, and Kaiwan your star-god, your images, which you made for yourselves; 27 therefore I will take you into exile beyond Damascus," says the LORD, whose name is the God of hosts."

Years later, when Jeremiah laid into the Temple staff, he may have been thinking of Amos a tiny bit.

3. When all the world is a hopeless jumble
And the raindrops tumble all around
Heaven opens a magic lane
When all the clouds darken up the skyway
There's a rainbow highway to be found
Leading from your window pane
To a place behind the sun
Just a step beyond the rain

Somewhere over the rainbow....

Right Answer Wrong Question

2011-10-17T15:01:00.000-04:00

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

In Wednesday Sunday School I try to keep the class at a low boil all the time so the kids stay energized. There's usually an urgency to getting fast answers to questions, and often a child will belt out a wrong answer that's an excellent answer to a question I haven't asked. When possible, I will shortly follow a wrong answer with a new question that affirms that wrong answer, like so:

"Somebody remind me what happened fifty days after Easter...the Ascension! No, that's a good answer, though. C'mon, fifty days after Easter...umm, Pentecost! Yes."

And we discuss whatever was in the lesson plan about Pentecost. Then:

"Hey, speaking of stuff after Easter, what happened after forty days? Jesus went to Heaven! Yes, which is called? The Ascension! Yes!"

Another example:

"Who told the Israelites that God would let bad stuff happen to the Temple just like Shiloh? Isaiah! No, guess again. Samuel? Nope; this prophet also said to stop worshiping baby-eating false gods. Jeremiah! Yes! And who heard God call him three times? Samuel? There ya go. And who said a virgin would have a baby? Isaiah. Yes."

I don't have any empirical evidence (I don't even have quizzes) but I almost can see the open circuits closing when the kids connect an old wrong answer to a new right question.

Classroom Management

2011-10-13T22:39:00.000-04:00

This post links to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

In Wednesday Sunday School I rarely need to admonish a child. Last week two boys were distracting each other. I walk over to where they are engaged in footplay, wait for 'em to notice me. They look up. I put on a quizzical expression and ask, "Are y'all flirting?"

End of problem.

Next week my Faithful Bouncer will separate them.

Fightin' Feti

2011-09-29T19:08:00.000-04:00

This post has been linked to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

Last night we started with the miraculous conception & birth of Isaac, and stopped as Moses returned to Egypt. In between we covered yet another in a series of miraculous conceptions, that of Jacob & Esau. These conceptions are not as miraculous as Jesus' conception; nevertheless, when a heretofore barren marriage becomes fruitful due to divine intervention, it's a miracle.

Here's the Bible lead-in to the story:

And Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife, because she was barren; and the LORD granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. 22 The children struggled together within her; and she said, "If it is thus, why do I live?" (Genesis 25)

I like to dramatize that Jacob and Esau don't get along even before they were born. I take two rubber fetuses out of my prop bag.

"Hey, who're these babies? Who are the two boys that Isaac and Rebekah had? Umm, Jacob and Esau? That's right, and they already don't get along. Look, I'm Rebekah, here they are in my womb, fighting [I bang them into each other in front of my stomach like Punch & Judy puppets, accompanied by grunting sounds]. "There ain't enough room in this womb for the two of us! Then you get out! No, you get out!" And Rebekah is groaning, "Oww, y'all settle down in there!" That's weird! What's weird? Those things. What things? Those babies, they're weird looking. Oh yeah? I think they're cute [I give 'em a kiss], they look like my kids when they were growing in my wife...would you like to kiss them? No! Hey now, don't get squeamish on me, this is what you looked like when you were a couple of months old and still in your momma....and I bet she loved you even if you thought you were weird-looking." This provides an intro to spend a couple of minutes on the unborn: they're already people, even if they're weird-looking; even when they were just a dot of a fertilized egg, they were people; everyone looks like this at some point; it's normal.

After the kids have settled back down we return to the story; but not until they are ok with the idea that these squirmy little goobers are already human beings. It's just the first of many appearances that the rubber feti will make during the catechetical year as part of an ongoing pro-life theme.

Fine Art Handout 3: Chagall

2011-09-26T18:14:00.000-04:00

When I used to teach RCIA and adult ed, I never worried much about engaging people's imaginations. But it's a requirement for teaching kids, so I am always on the lookout for anything beyond the classroom that can help me do that: scenes from movies such as Prince of Egypt; excerpts from stories such as A Christmas Carol; newspaper articles; sticks, bones, and rags; and especially fine art. I've posted recently about my preference for art that isn't aimed specifically at kids, but rather art that is the best the world has to offer.

Marriage and children are big topics in Wednesday Sunday School. I give the Bible and the Church every opportunity to teach this valuable life template:

Get married; stay married; have children.

But as often as marriage comes up in my class, I've never seen anything on the subject that really grabbed my imagination. At least not until this weekend, when I surfed into yet another piece of art that will work perfectly: Marc Chagall's Wedding from 1910.

Sweet, isn't it? Little angels, pretty flowers, an affecting and childlike innocence. We won't discuss any of that in class unless the kids bring it up. See, that's looking at the painting as an illustration of marriage; that's ok, but Chagall isn't illustrating marriage, he's painting a portrait of marriage. Whose marriage? My modest amount of research didn't provide an answer. That suits me just fine: I can proceed with my own opinion. I think it's Chagall and his wife Bella, whom he met in 1909. What a pretty thing she was:

They were engaged in 1910, but not married until 1915: her prosperous parents weren't keen on Chagall until he showed he could earn a proper living as an artist. But didn't he paint this Wedding in 1910? Yes: he painted the wedding he longed for, created a portrait of his marriage ahead of time. Does that bride look like Bella, and the man Chagall? I say yes. We may discuss Marc and Bella a bit in class, just to broaden the kids' horizons, but they aren't the point of the portrait either. So what is Chagall's point? Let's see.

Right off, I don't believe this is primarily a painting of Marc Chagall and Bella Rosenfeld: rather, Chagall has made a wedding portrait of Adam and Eve, using himself and Bella as models. Why does he do this? Because he sees his longing to be attached to Bella through the lens of Adam's longing for, and attachment to, Eve. But why would Chagall necessarily think of Genesis when he thought of marriage? Because when little Moishe Segal was growing up in Vitebsk, Russia, he attended Jewish grade school.

Let's look at key bits of Genesis Chapter 2: "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him."...but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh...Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed."

Cling is a critical word. The verb to cling/ to cleave in Hebrew is dabak, דָּבַק. Yes, it means to cling, to adhere, to stay with. But it also means to pursue, to overtake. I like that.

See how Adam holds Eve: he is tender, but forceful: even her arms are caught in his urgent embrace. The couple is not side by side; not arm in arm; not hugging each other. No. He holds, holds onto her, not vice versa. And though she's caught in his arms, he's not elated or victorious: he's profoundly relieved. At last, at last, bone of his bone, he presses Eve close to his left side, where his heart beats. And he doesn't look at her, but bends a bit to inhale her scent. I don't know how to artfully express that, but I well know its drug-like effect.

Eve is nonplussed by Adam's intensity; surprised even. But to find your rib among a multitude- well, that's the achievement of a lifetime. And once you have it back, never let her go, as the song says.

Oh yeah, the point. Chagall's point is that this is what he expects his marriage to be. Not so much because he uniquely loves Bella (although he does), but because every marriage should be like the first one. I'm especially moved because he's portrayed my wedding & marriage as much as his own, or Adam's. Isn't it amazing that in 1910 he understood marriage well enough to say so much about it while yet remaining unmarried himself? Well, yes; but through the winsome Genesis account of how God gave Adam his mate, even the unmarried Chagall knew that a man shouldn't be alone; a man misses his rib and wants that one-and-only missing rib to be pressed once again against his heart; that his wife is bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh; and that he is impatient to leave his family and cling to her. And of course that they'd be naked, and not ashamed, and make some babies, but the kids don't need a picture of that.

We already cover all of this in class; but we never had the right image until now.

Catholic Time

2011-09-19T17:30:00.000-04:00

A couple of days ago I posted about making quick handouts for my Catechism class. One of them included this image of St. Michael's Church (Michaeliskirche) in Hildesheim (Hilda's Home, a Saxon goddess), Germany:

I was tempted then to say something about the pattern of the snow in the shaded foreground, but it wasn't relevant to the subject of catechetical handouts. But I'll say something about it today since it points to something important about Catholicism.

Germany sits higher on Earth's globe than America does(excepting Alaska). Hildesheim lies at the 52nd parallel, further north than Winnipeg, Manitoba. So at the winter solstice, the sun doesn't get very high, and even at noon will cast long shadows. Looking at the shadow in the foreground, you can see that beyond the shadow there's almost no snow. This is a typical northern pattern, where the snow on the North side of a building will pretty much stay in shade for the season. But for that to happen, the building's sides have to align with the compass. For example, assume a square plan. The building's sides have to face north, south, east & west to give the north side this much shade. If the building were rotated 45d so its walls faced NE, SE, SW and NW the sun would be able to hit even the two north sides at some point during most winter days, which would diminish the snow.

So I was looking at the snow and thinking that the building behind the photographer lay on an east-west axis. And because the edge of the shadow is parallel to the church, then the church lies on an east-west axis as well. Of course this makes sense: Catholic churches are traditionally "oriented" to face the rising sun. And if the east-west orientation is correct, the shadow of the leftmost tower tells us it's a bit before noon, on a day near December 21.

Idly curious about just how well-aligned the church was to true East, I had a look on Google Earth:

That's odd: the church is oriented a bit North of true East. Maybe it was oriented to align with where the sun would rise on St. Michael's feastday...that'd be September 29. The answer is no, because after the Sept 21 Equinox, the sun will rise and set in the South; look at Hildesheim's solar chart for Sept 29:

The yellow line shows the sun rising about 3 degrees South of 90 East, not North. But wait a sec, Europe used the less-accurate Julian calendar when construction of St. Michael's began in AD 1001. When the Church replaced the Julian calendar with the Gregorian in 1582, there was a 10-day error between the sun and the calendar. In 1001, there was a 6-day error. To get the proper solar chart for Sep 29, 1001, we have to subtract 6 days, which gives us Sept 23. But that date still has the sun rise a couple of degrees south of East.

Huh...suppose instead of using the saint's feastday, we go with Sept 21, the Equinox? Maybe the builders fully intended to lay the church out at 90 degrees East by measuring at dawn on September 21. Yes, but we already know that wouldn't get them true East; but maybe they didn't know. If we subtract 6 days to correct the Julian error, we have Hildesheim's chart for Sept 15:

That's more like it. The sun rises about 4.5 degrees North of East, and sets about 4.5 degrees North of West. By the way, the sunset & sunrise are figured from the top edge of the sun. The software also accounts for where Hildesheim lies within its time zone: you can see how the yellow 12 representing clock noon doesn't quite match the sun's noon, which is always 180d South. But no-one knows at what instant after the sun broke the local horizon on Sept 21, AD 1001 (Julian calendar) the authorities might have marked the church's axis. And the sun itself is over half a degree wide, so anything between a 4 and 5 degree northward skew on the church's alignment would be extremely accurate.

I inserted the above enlarged image into an Autocad drawing and measured the angle of skew: despite the fuzziness, I get 4 degrees. How about that.

So what does this have to do with Catholicism? Well, consider that in Genesis God saw that all he created was good. And that even after the Fall, God used his physical creation to show his promise to Noah (the Rainbow); to show the Israelites when to break camp (the Shekhinah); and to show the Magi where Jesus was born (the star). So the Catholic Church still stays in touch with God through his creation, and vice versa. We have churches "oriented" to the East, or a saint's feastday dawn; a holiday whose date is calculated each year based on the movement of the Moon and the Sun (Easter); and another which was probably originally observed on the Winter Solstice (Christmas). Given the intimate relationship the Church maintains with God through the physical world, it's no surprise that it was she who recognized the 1-day-per-128-years error in the Julian calendar, and had the knowledge and the authority to fix it.

Maybe Not the Most Underappreciated

2011-09-18T22:21:00.000-04:00

This post has been linked to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

It's beauty contest time at The Crescat...is this the most underappreciated Catholic blog? Vote here if you agree.

Or not.

Fine Art Handout 2: Hildesheim

2011-09-17T14:55:00.000-04:00

This post has been linked to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

In last Wednesday's class we started with about 5 minutes' review of Genesis, up through Chapter 2, verse 24: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." In that prior class I deliberately left off the last verse of Chapter 2, "And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed," because I wanted to use it in the next class to link the new material to the just-reviewed material. Planning-wise, I like to treat Genesis 2's innocent nakedness in the same class that we read, "Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons."

So the new material began with explaining that sinless Adam and Eve were no more embarrassed or ashamed of their nakedness than a baby would be. Then we covered Adam & Eve & Sin, reading, discussing, and acting from the beginning of Gen 3: "Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the LORD God had made," to "He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life." To illustrate Adam & Eve's shame and guilt-dodging, I described an old bronze bas-relief I'd learned about in Art History back in 1977:

"I love Adam & Eve after they disobey God. God says, "Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" and they start whining about like I would: "The man said, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." Adam means: you gave me this woman, and she gave me the fruit so what was I supposed to do? It ain't my fault! "Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent beguiled me, and I ate." That is, it ain't my fault either, the Devil made me do it! So is that right? No, it's their fault! Yes, but didn't the serpent bring the whole mess up? Yes, but they could've said no. Right, because they had...free will! Yes. Couldn't God have forced Adam & Eve to be good? Yes, but it wouldn't have counted. Right. God doesn't force anyone to love Him. Would I want to force my kids to love me? No. Right. So tell me, Adam and Eve should have obeyed God because...he's smarter than them? Yes, but I'm looking for a more wonderful reason...'cause He loves them? Yes, but not so much because He loves them, but...because they love God! Yes, genius! The best obedience comes from love. But Adam and Eve loved themselves more than they loved God. That's a problem all their children struggle with, too.

"Hey, this reminds me of a great picture of this whole forbidden-fruit business, I have to show y'all [I draw and act out]. God's like this, jabbing his finger at Adam & Eve: man, y'all are so bad and I Am Angry! And then Adam's all scrunched over like he needs to pee, covering his crotch with a leaf in one hand like so, and pointing at Eve with the other hand, nooo, it's her fault! And Eve's covering up and scrunched down too, pointing at the serpent: it's his fault! Anyway, I just love all the finger-pointing business. Yes? Where's the real picture? It's on the door of a church in Europe, I forgot what church though. Well, I want to see it! Me too! OK, I'll try to find it on the Net."

Today I pulled out my old Art History textbook and started turning pages in the Renaissance chapters: if it was a bronze bas-relief that'd likely mean it was in 15th-16th century Italy somewhere, but not Ghiberti's doors in Florence. No luck. So I described the image to My Wife the Art History Professor...she ponders for 5 seconds. Then: "Have you tried St. Michael's at Hildesheim?" No! And I love St. Michael's anyway! Yes! There it is...I was off by about 500 years.

This newly-made handout will be part of the review of our last class:

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St. Michael's Church inHildesheim, Germany

God, Adam, Eve, the Tree,and the Serpent on the original doors of the church.

Whose fault was it thatAdam and Eve ate the fruit?

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Isn't that a terrific teaching tool? And St. Michael's is so lovely with its six towers. I show the church just in case any of the kids ever find themselves near Hildesheim, they can tootle over and have a look.

P.S. The handout was quite the success. Some of the kids thought it was so funny that on their own initiative they got up in the front of class to act out the above scene. One might say that hilarity ensued.

Fine Art Handout 1: Ravenna

2011-09-16T17:24:00.000-04:00

This post has been linked to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

Regular readers may remember I was in Ravenna, Italy this summer, where I saw some mosaics I wanted to use in this year's catechism class. Images help children learn, but I like to use fine art rather than something specifically pitched at 11-year-olds. The kids can learn from a "grownup" mosaic as well as they can a cartoon; and fine art is simply a richer experience, spiritually, culturally, aesthetically, you name it.

Next week we'll be covering Genesis from Cain & Abel through the Sacrifice of Isaac. I've made up a 1-page handout for the class showing the mosaics, and a bit of scriptural narration to go with the images.

Here it is:

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Genesis 4: "Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering..."

Genesis 14: "And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High."

Genesis 18: "Abraham looked, and behold, three men stood in front of him... Then he took curds, and milk, and the calf, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

Genesis 22: "Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. 10 Then Abraham put forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here am I." He said, "Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me."

These two mosaics flank the altar in San Vitale church in Ravenna, Italy

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This is typical of my handouts: one page with big images so the kids can discuss the details, and leftover space filled with supporting verses. Fast and easy. It doesn't mean much without class discussion, but that's deliberate: time & effort go into the lesson plan, not the handout. The handout isn't intended to replace live learning, but to support it. And I want the kids to evangelize their parents. I tell them to show the handout to their parents and explain to them what they learned. All of them don't do that, but some of them do (I get feedback).

As usual there'll be some step-by-step Bible reading, questions, answers, picking out relevant information from the mosaics and relating it to the following themes:

Abel: shepherd, innocent victim, altar, red cloak, sacrificing a lamb, resentment; Abel is a type of Christ.

Melchizedek: a priest outranking Abraham, bread and wine, what a priest's job is, Melchizedek is a type of Christ.

Abel & Melchizedek: God finds both of their offerings acceptable, unlike Cain's.

Abraham and the 3 visitors (the Hospitality of Abraham): Married love wants to create children; 3 visitors foreshadow the Trinity; a miraculous (but not immaculate) conception; Isaac means Laughter.

Abraham & Isaac: sacrifice of only son; pagan sacrifice of firstborn; faith & works; a substitute sacrifice (lamb/ ram); Isaac prefigures Christ.

All of the above can be taught without pictures; but pictures make the learning so much more effective. Depending on how the discussion goes, I may say a few things about how these Genesis stories connect to Jesus and/ or the Mass. If I don't, they'll be reviewed on the fly when we cover the Gospels and the Mass later on.

Res Ipsa Loquitur 4

2011-09-13T09:30:00.000-04:00

Here are the audio files to the first of two Isaiah classes. This one is recounted in the post The Christmas Prophet. The written account is a condensation of this class, and classes from prior years covering the same material, so the audio and the post vary a bit in content & flow.

Isaiah part 1

Isaiah part 2

For more live classes, click on the Res Ipsa Loquitur label at lower right.

Catechist Tool

2011-09-12T17:38:00.000-04:00

I bought a digital recorder last year (not that specific one). It's been much more useful than I had imagined; I should've bought one sooner. If you're a catechist you want one too, even if you don't know it yet.

In 2010 I was using an all-new, no-textbook-in-class curriculum which I had developed during the summer. I decided to record all the classes so I could compare each lesson plan to the reality in the classroom. Within a day or so after a given class, I'd listen to the recording, and mark on the lesson plan what needed review, what I'd missed, etc. (For example, in last Wednesday's class, I forgot to introduce myself, and didn't discuss the inspiration of the Bible, even though both were in the lesson plan. Next week I'll take care of those items before beginning the new lesson.)

At year's end I had an mp3 file of each class, and moved the whole year onto an external drive. Every class is about 50mb; less than a mb/minute.

But there are other benefits which I wasn't aware of when I bought the thing:

1. If there's any "my child says the teacher said thus & so" heartburn, I have a record of what I said, and what the kids said. Heh. By the way, the sensitivity of the microphone and the quality of the sound are shockingly good.

2. Before this year's class I listened to last year's class; a terrific head start.

3. The recorder can do basic editing of the files. It's easy to split a 55 minute class into topical chunks, trim the getting settled/ roll-calling minutes from the beginning, and chatting from the end.

4. It names each new file with the date all by itself.

And the best thing about recording your classes:

5. To listen to yourself teach is a great way to refine your skills.

One problem I do have is that I forget to take the recorder with me after class. I tell the kids when class starts to remind me to pick it up and turn it off when class ends.

Catechesis Basics: The Lesson Plan

2011-09-10T19:26:00.001-04:00

In case anyone in their first year of catechesis has stumbled in here, I posted an article a couple of years ago on how I write a lesson plan.

Motivation

2011-09-09T10:50:00.003-04:00

Wednesday was the first Catechism class of the year. When classes ended last spring, as usual I had the pleasant sense of a burden lifted. That first free week always seems like a little vacation. But after a month, I start to miss the stimulation of teaching. Then as September approaches I think of the impending year of catechesis more as a duty than a satisfaction, and grow wistful about summer's free Wednesdays.

This Wednesday evening the mood was here we go again: same bag of books, props, and notes; same lesson plan (new last year); same classroom; same bisected evening. But then class started and it was the best: better grasp of the content; bright, unspoiled kids; lots of thinking and learning and laughing. Within five minutes I was completely re-motivated.

Going home I thought again about being motivated, and what motivates me in particular.

In July I read the obituary of a friend I had in middle school. He and I both attended our parish school, cut up on the bus together. I still belong to that same parish, and hadn't seen him in decades (I bump into other fellow former students and their siblings from time to time), so I was naturally curious about how his life had gone. Per the obit, he'd gotten married, had kids and a grandchild, still lived in town. The visitation and funeral were being held at a local non-Catholic church. So even though he'd gone at least through 9th grade in Catholic schools, he fell away from the Church in his adulthood. Of course he didn't fall away from Christianity, but from Catholicism. I have no idea why; maybe he married outside of the church. Or like many Bible-Belt former Catholics, maybe he was unable to respond effectively to a Bible-based critique of the faith. By respond I don't mean argue, but as St. Peter so winsomely put it, "Always be prepared to make a defense* to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence." St. Peter not only gets it right on "gentleness and reverence," but also on "calls you to account." There are lots of serious Christians here, thank the Lord, and Catholics can expect to be "called to account" (not necessarily in a bad way). I don't want my kids to be unprepared for that; rather, I want them to anticipate it (not necessarily in a bad way). And in particular, I don't want them to leave the Church because they couldn't explain their faith to themselves, much less a stranger. That's my negative motivation to be a catechist: I'm personally worn out from seeing decades of poorly-catechized Catholics abandon what they really don't understand.

6th-graders shouldn't be trained to be little apologists. But in order to hold fast to the faith and evangelize here, Catholics must have a working knowledge of the Bible and Catholicism as an integrated whole. And the process of acquiring that knowledge can begin when they are young. That's my positive motivation: to teach the children a cadre, a framework of faith in which both Bible and Catholicism are inseparable.

So this year will be like last year, but better: 25 classes of learning the Catholic faith by going straight through the Bible from Genesis to Revelations, followed by 3 classes on the Mass.

* ἀπολογία, apologia: an explanation, a verbal defense.

Deus ex Caelis

2011-09-06T10:00:00.005-04:00

My Fabulous Wife and I watch crime shows on Roku. We regularly hit pause to discuss new clues, spy something that may be a clue, and refine or propose new hypotheses. We try to figure stuff out before the detectives/ cops/ lawyers do.

Last night we watched a murder mystery in which the victim was one of a group of academics at a college campus, who were held there by the cops until they sussed out who the killer was. We were keeping up with the plot, adjusting our theories, when out of the blue in the final scene a cop reveals a critical datum. The killer, whom we never suspected, was a martial-arts expert. The cop had looked him up (and the others, I suppose) in the school library's copy of Who's Who.

So I was way unhappy with this clunky solution. I whined to The Beautiful One, "I can't stand to watch a mystery and have the writers pull this Deus ex Machina (DeM) crap." DeM isn't always a bad thing, but the phrase usually carries a negative connotation. In this case it was definitely bad. Anyway, that got me thinking about the whole Deus ex Machina history, dating back to Greek actors playing gods, and being hoisted onto the stage with little cranes. And I thought out loud, "Hey, the most memorable DeM I can think of is at the end of Lord of the Flies (LotF) when the naval officer saves Ralph." I Googled around on Deus Machina Lord Flies, and confirmed that the officer is widely understood to be a Deus ex Machina. But in the case of LotF, I believe the author, William Golding, wasn't simply resorting DeM as a cheap fix, but carefully using plot devices to make puns on the very term Deus ex Machina in its literal sense of a god plopping into the scene to fix things.

[I assume y'all have all read Lord of the Flies (1954) in school. If not, here's a way-brief synopsis: the Cold War has turned hot, and a group of English boys are being flown to a place of relative safety. The plane is shot down, and the boys are thus left to their own devices on an island (the TV series Lost was partly inspired by LotF). The boys try to be responsible and civilized, but in short order become a mob of little murdering savages. There are thousands of words on the net discussing LotF, its symbolism, its themes; I'm confining this post to Golding's literal use of Deus ex Machina.]

Midway through the book, the boys have become about half-savage. Following an air battle, a pilot parachutes onto the island. The pilot and his parachute drive the plot for a while, which I'm not concerned about here. What I like is that the pilot is a literal Deus ex Machina, that is, he descends God-like from his machine (American note: other countries colloquially have used the word machine in lieu of airplane or automobile), out of the blue (so to speak) into the boys' world. This is very much unlike my detective movie, in which there was a DeM in an abstract sense, but not a literal sense. Indeed, the pilot would be better described as a Deus ex Caelis, a God out of the Sky. The parachutist isn't just a plot device, but a pun on the original idea of Deus ex Machina. If he had landed intact, the story could have ended right there: a responsible adult restores order, drama over. But he floated down dead, foreshadowing the arrival of another literal DeM.

By the last chapter, all the boys but one (Ralph) are weaponized killers, and they are hunting Ralph down. The boys set the island on fire to flush him out. Chased onto the beach, Ralph is saved by the abrupt arrival of a naval officer whose machine/ship drew near, having seen the fire. Chastised by this bigger, stronger Deus ex Machina, the killers revert to their prior status of little boys.

I see Golding carefully creating this second literal, recognizable, Deus ex Machina partly as an amusement. But he also makes a point about the wider world. By using Dei ex Machina, Greek playwrights acknowledged humans' inability to manage their own affairs. The audience of a play sees an imaginary problem resolved by an imaginary god; but within the play itself, real human problems are being resolved by a real god. In other words, in the story a real Deus comes down out of the sky without need of a Machina.

Golding is drawing a literal Deus ex Machina parallel: in a Greek play the DeM is a literal, fictional device that represents a real god, without whom a problem is insolvable. In Lord of the Flies, there is also, oddly enough, a literal, fictional DeM who also represents a real god. Not so much in terms of the fictional story; the naval officer is clearly not a god (although he's commonly understood to represent God). But as the story is an allegory of humans beings in general, making a mess of everything since Eden, the officer, as a literal Deus ex Machina, points directly to the real Deus, who of course isn't just an actor on a pole.

Until Deus really does come down out of the sky (with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man) the mess will continue. So in Lord of the Flies, the Deus ex Machina isn't a cop-out: it's the point.

illustration by Houston Trueblood

Book Review

2011-09-01T11:41:00.005-04:00

Fellow catechist Lisa Mladinich has written a new how-to booklet, Be an Amazing Catechist: Sacramental Preparation. If that sounds familiar, it may be because I link all of my catechetical posts to Lisa's Amazing Catechists website.

I have not reviewed a book before, but given my particular interest in, you know, catechesis, I'm inclined to go through Sacramental Preparation a section at a time, hitting a few points, and see how each compares to what goes on in my classroom. By the way, I think the content would apply just as well in the homeschool classroom. Not that I have ever homeschooled.

That's the cover: is your class like that? Fired-up, attentive kids? Lisa's classes are, and if you follow her instructions, your class can be, too.

Let's start with the introduction, God's Living Grace.

I like the opening line: This small booklet is a guide for teaching the Seven Sacraments accurately and vibrantly, so that both you and the children will come to a more complete appreciation for their purpose, beauty, and power to transform lives. Number one, vibrant is good: kids won't learn a thing if they're in a stupor. Teacher is vibrant/ kids learn. Number two, the teacher learns too. Three, if the sacraments can transform lives, then catechesis can transform lives as well (although not in the same way). No point in aiming low, is there? You say: NO!

Chapter 1: Here I Am Lord! (btw, that's from 1Sam 3)

This bit reminds us that a catechist, like Samuel, is called by God to a particular task. And like Samuel, catechists can't be casual about their vocation. That's right: vocation. Like marriage and parenthood and all that. Serious, substantial business. Lisa writes that if you do take it seriously, God will support you, just as he supported Samuel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. You're in famous company; you should feel ennobled. I do.

Chapter 2: God's Faithful Love

Handing down the faith isn't just serious business, but joyous business as well. What? In the classroom you aren't feeling the joy? Lisa tells the reader that the catechist stands at the living tip of a long shoot going back to Jesus & the apostles, who may be reasonably regarded as the first Christian catechists. The future depends on how well that tip hands on a living faith to the kids. Still no joy? It may take some time, and the support of the Holy Spirit. No kidding: my #1 catechist prayer is Holy Spirit don't let me screw this up.

Chapter 3: Heroes in the Classroom

The title photo is a kid in a homemade Superman outfit. Don't think for a second that the kids are the heroes: that's a kid imitating the heroes the catechist has got him fired-up about. Great points in this chapter:

Mention those "quiet heroes" who care for the sick (I use Mother Teresa, Fr. Damien, St. Clare). You know, small-scale heroes.

Introduce the kids to Bible heroes and Saints: I like to discuss the tough-guy saints: Isaac Jogues, Max Kolbe, Joan of Arc. (Yes, Joan is a tough-guy saint). Lisa doesn't give you a list of saints: you're supposed to teach the ones that matter to you. Don't have any? Then go find some, and not just Peter and Francis.

Saints are sinners: not as in 'sin,' but as in SIN. Like St. Augustine...ewww. Hey, Jesus doesn't demand perfection. Thank the Lord...so to speak.

You are the face of the Church to a lot of your charges: oh, man, how many kids in my class actually go to Mass? Don't ask. So be aware that you may be it as far as religion goes in their lives. That's not bad: it's an opportunity. God put you in front of the class for a reason.

Chapter 4: Holy, Holy, Holy (from Rev 4; known in Greek as the Trisagion, the triple holy. Also like Hagia Sophia, Holy Wisdom)

Teach the kids to be reverent...among other ways by treating God and His stuff with reverence yourself. Lisa suggests a lot of good things I, ummm, don't do in my class, such as praying a decade of the rosary; actually going into church; praying before the Tabernacle; simply learning to be reverent in church. Ehhh...ummm...on the other hand, she also recommends using religious art in class regularly, to which I can offer an emphatic ditto.

Chapter 5: Lesson Planning Basics

I am a fervid believer in the Lesson Planning Gospel. Lisa doesn't tell you how to make a lesson plan (that would be a whole 'nother book), but rather covers some stuff that you (or at least I) may not have considered, such as:

A quick and useful rule for gauging attention spans. No I'm not going to give it away for free. Buy the book.

Learning styles. Uh-huh...I agree with the three she describes and how to adapt to them. What three? La-la-la, I can't hear you!

Taking risks: I support this 100%. How else will you learn what works? Hey, that reminds me of a famous saying I like in Italian better than English: chi non risica, non rosica (nothing ventured [risked], nothing gained). It's true even in catechism class. And when stuff bombs, just channel Pee-Wee, say "I meant to do that," and change the subject.

Be crafts conscious. Uh-oh: I am not only crafts un-conscious, I am crafts-comatose. But hey, Lisa's advice and examples extend way down to a younger crowd where I can see it'd be indispensable. OK, I allowed crafts once; it was terrific, I must confess.

Give the children your best: Pray for them, dress nicely, and smile! All catechetical gospel. I always wear a coat & tie (if not a suit & tie) to class. Early on a child will always ask why. I say it's a way to show that I respect them. Oooh...it makes a difference.

Chapter 6: IGNITE. That's an acronym. Letters I really like:

I for Investigate, as in investigate the Catechism and the Bible. Totally valuable advice. It does take time to do it, but I bet God took up a lot of Peter's time, too. And catechists can still live with their spouses, which is a better deal than Peter got.

The other I for Illustrate: Not just drawing on the board which I do, but telling stories with vigor, and other stuff such as...just get the book.

T for Trust: ya can't do it all; leave something for the Holy Spirit to do so He can keep His job.

Chapter 7: First Reconciliation

Like most sacraments, Confession is given depth by comparing it to everyday circumstances when we screw up, have to apologize and make amends. Lisa offers ways to to get these points across in class.

Chapter 8: Be Not Afraid! (Matt 28, John 6...)

This chapter isn't about drownproofing per John 6, but about putting the kids at ease for First Confession. I've never had to teach kids this young, but the advice is practical and doable.

Chapter 9: First Holy Communion

15 (as in fifteen) pointers here. I might have thought of five of them. Per First Confession, I teach kids who have already had their First Communion. Regardless, my favorite here is to tell miracle stories (especially food miracles such as Feeding the Multitudes) and act them out. Did Jesus teach by telling stories? Why, yes he did! Did he tell them while firmly grasping a lectern? I doubt it.

Lisa also adds a block of points about the physical reception of the Eucharist.

Chapter 10: Confirmation

My excuse this time is that my 6th-graders are too young for Confirmation, so I never have to cover that sacrament in any detail either. Here Lisa is concerned with dealing with teens, which is definitely different from teaching the 11 and 12 year olds I'm used to. Lisa reminds the reader that vivid storytelling connected to Catholic concepts is always a winner no matter what the age of the audience.

And this is worth remembering: the teacher is not the kids' friend.

Chapter 11: Rote, Rote, Rote Your Boat

Aaack! Memorization! I don't make my kids memorize anything! But Lisa outlines 9 sets of Catholic terms or concepts that students should know by the time they are confirmed. Let's see...Gifts of the Holy Spirit...aren't there 7 of them? Yes! That's a relief. What are they? Ehhh...let me look at this list.

Chapter 12: Go Team

Lisa discusses reinforcing the teens' Catholic identity, which is a critical part of the kids acquiring a Catholic worldview. The first of 7 points is the Life & Dignity of the Human Person, which even 6th-graders can begin to understand.

Chapter 13: Parents & Progress

Uh-oh. Lots of useful ways to keep parents engaged in the children's catechesis. I'm a slug where parent stuff is concerned; although per Lisa's last bit, I do recognize that I may be the face of the Church to the parents as well as the kids.

Chapter 14: Help Wanted

This editorial reminds the catechist of the importance of his work, points out that the catechist should always grow in faith and knowledge, and emphasizes how much the Church needs committed catechists.

Chapter 15: The Holy Last Word

On this last page, Lisa offers some final words of prayer and encouragement.

The verdict: 30 pages of pithy catechetical advice, including many how-to's; a good tool especially for those looking to invigorate a textbook-based curriculum.

Here's the order page.

And the order page for Lisa's first book.

Not the Usual

2011-08-30T22:04:00.001-04:00

I bet he get lots of appreciation

News for my readership (both of you):

My double-secret blog (that's this one) has been nominated in the Best Underappreciated Blog category of the 2011 CANNONBALL CATHOLIC BLOG AWARDS.

Of course I'll post about it again as the deadline approaches.

Shebna Shrugged

2011-08-26T18:07:00.005-04:00

Y'all are already way, way familiar with these two bits:

Isaiah 22:

20 In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, 21 and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your girdle on him, and will commit your authority to his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. 22 And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.

Matthew 16:

18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

We act out the Isaiah 22 bit in class. A weak point last year was that the kids didn't grasp why King Hezekiah doesn't just hand the key to Eliakim. I put my keys on Eliakim's shoulder because that's what it says; but it seems odd. Nobody put keys on someone else's shoulder.

So this year when we cover Isaiah 22, and Eliakim still has my keys on his shoulder, I expect discussion to continue something like this:

"Eliakim, why didn't I just hand you my keys like a regular person? No idea...that's ok. Anybody? Cause he's shorter than you! Oh my, you are the clever one, but no. Listen to this bit of prophecy from Isaiah Chapter 9 and see if you can figure it out.

6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

Who's this prophecy about? Jesus? Yes, why? Because he's the Prince of Peace? Yes, good. Why will the government be upon his shoulder? 'Cause he's the Prince? Well, yes, but why is it on his shoulder? No guesses...ok, look, when I carry my keys I can do it like so (I take the keys from Eliakim's shoulder and hold them between two fingers). Can I carry my 20-lb. grandson like keys? No, he's too heavy. Right, I carry him more like this (I pretend to carry him slung in the crook of my arm). Now if I'm a fireman carrying another grown man out of a burning building, can I tote him like my grandson? No he's too big! So what do I do? You have to put him over your shoulders! Yes. When someone carries something on his shoulders, what do you know? That he's carrying a lot of weight! Yes, if you're carrying all you can bear, the load is on your shoulders. OK Eliakim, I'm going to put my keys back on your shoulder...how do those little keys feel now? Heavy! Yes, that responsibility is a great burden. C'mon, show us how heavy all that responsibility is...that's it. But isn't it also a great honor to be trusted with the king's keys? Yes. OK class, tell me: who bears responsibility for Hezekiah's kingdom? Hezekiah! No...Eliakim! Yes, Eliakim...how do you know? He got the keys! Yes, and why are they on his shoulder...because keys are heavy? No, 'cause the kingdom is heavy! Yes...is it literally heavy? No...but to do it is hard. Yes, as we said before it's a heavy responsibility."

Later on when we get to Matthew 16, we'll cover this:

"Y'all remember a couple of months ago when I gave Eliakim my keys? Yes. Did I just hand them over? No, you put them on his shoulder. Because...they're heavy! No...think first, then speak. Because he's responsible for everything. Yes. So when Jesus says he's giving his keys to Peter, is that going to be fun for Peter- to have that power? No, it will be hard. Yes, but it's also a great honor...an honor which carries a heavy responsibility, but also great authority. In fact, back when Eliakim got the keys, Isaiah also said, "...he will become a throne of honor to his father's house." That sounds pleasant, doesn't it? Having a throne, having authority, being the bossman: hey servant, fetch me a pizza. And then Isaiah says, "And they will hang on him the whole weight of his father's house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons." Yes? What's a flagon? It's a kind of pitcher. So how did Eliakim and Peter probably feel about bearing the weight of the keys? Honored? Yes, and...scared? Yes, and...worried? Yes. Would you want them? No. Why? I would be afraid I'd mess up. Yes. But maybe you or Peter would get some help...from...Jesus? Yes. Or the Holy Spirit. The Church knows that even though Peter and his successors, who are...popes...yes, are sinners, God helps them not to teach anything about Himself that isn't true."

An aside on lesson plans:

Most of this post is about working the shoulder material into the catchetical year in order to add something I noticed was lacking last time. But part of is about deciding where to add the new material. In this case, I'm planning to use Isaiah 9 in addition to most of Isaiah 22 to discuss Eliakim's key. Then when we get to Peter's keys in Matthew, I'll go back to Isaiah 22 for the bit about the weighty honor. Because the class runs through the Bible chronologically, my default position is to just cover stuff in order. But sometimes for the sake of future review it's better to save some early bits for later. In other words, suppose part of an October O.T. lesson has bits A, B, C & D; and I'll want to review them in February during an N.T. class. Sometimes it's better to teach A, B & D, but not C. Then in February, new learning about C will be tied to the review of A, B & D. The C bit will then be a bridge between the O.T. material and the N.T. material.

Finally, because I still have last year's lesson plan outline, it's easy to see how and where this new information should be included.

Too Flat a Pyramid

2011-08-23T11:38:00.004-04:00

I think the Beatles are underrated. That's not the subject of this post, but I say it in the interest of full disclosure. I was 6 years old when Please Please Me came out, and even a first-grader knew he'd never heard anything like that before. I got the 45 for my next birthday; but I can date my childhood by Beatle songs better than birthdays.

(I should mention my wife saw the Beatles live at Olympia Stadium in Detroit in 1964. Yes, she is older than me.)

A few years ago I read Can't Buy Me Love, a Beatles bio that came out in 2007. Of particular interest were the bits on Hamburg, before they had made it big, but were preparing to make it big. Hamburg photos taken of them by Astrid Kircherr are my favorite Beatle images. Some examples:

Kids: George was 17 when they first went to Hamburg. Seventeen.

The book filled in a lot of detail about the Beatles in Hamburg, which had been treated in a 1994 movie called Backbeat. I liked the movie more than Paul and George did.

This summer, on our July Adriatic cruise, one of the shows featured a tribute band called the Backbeat Beatles. After the second song I told Janet they sounded more like the Beatles than the Beatles. They even talked like they were from Liverpool. Anyway, after the show, instead of taking it easy, the band changed clothes and headed up to the piano bar, where Janet and I are if we aren't in the jazz bar. For over an hour they sang songs they hadn't done in the show, with "Paul" on the piano. Just terrific. Then afterward they sat around with us and a few others 'til 2am talking about the Beatles, Liverpool, music, kids, travel, politics. They were all from Liverpool, had been raised on Beatles music; I'm guessing they were all late 30s-early 40s. At least one wife was with them. "Paul" seemed kind of familiar...turned out he played George in Backbeat, and later arranged to use the Backbeat name for the tribute band.

So I asked one of them (let's say it was "John") if they ever play Beatles songs their own way, or do they have to do them straight all the time? John said they perform them like the Beatles: audiences tend to think of Beatles music as kind of preserved, and not to be done except as how the Beatles did it. But when they practice, or do sound checks, they'll do their own thing. I asked if he'd ever listened to any Beatles covers on YouTube: one reason I like YouTube so much is that it shows thousands of people doing their own versions of well-known songs. I already know how the original artists did a song; when I listen to a cover, I want to hear what that individual brings to the music. I elaborated a bit, saying that I expect Beatles music will endure beyond their lifetimes: people two generations removed from the 60s cover their songs on YouTube, and make no pretense of doing the songs like the Beatles did; each person does them his or her way. I like that. It keeps the music from being embalmed. Plus unlike in the Beatles' day, no music industry executive or radio dj with a playlist can decide what music will or won't be available for me to hear. The bureaucratic-managerial pyramid had been bypassed, or at least flattened way down, thus allowing listeners to buy whatever 99-cent songs they like by anyone who made their music available on the net.

But John said he didn't think that flattened pyramid was such a good idea. Oh...why not? Well, he asked, what really great bands can you think of? I rattled off a dozen. Yes, he said, but name some from the last 15 years or so, since the mp3 format became popular. Ehhh....Smashing Pumpkins maybe...no...I give up! John said right, there aren't any great new bands these days in part because the music industry can't perform the winnowing process as it used to do. New music is being made available faster than anyone can keep up with; and it's virtually impossible for a new talent to get any traction before they're washed over by even newer music. A band like U2 is still a big deal because they were huge before the mp3 era, and aren't likely to ever have any real competition. And John wasn't confident that those old great bands would have had the same success today: partly because the modern listener's attention is too diffuse due to the proliferation of inexpensive downloads, and sites such as YouTube; and the weakness of the music business model in which the promoters risk their paychecks and resources on correctly distinguishing great talent from good talent.

I hadn't thought of that. I'm not persuaded, either. But still, I've always assumed that flattening the pyramid was a good thing, and it hadn't occurred to me that it might not always be true.

P.S.

A couple of Beatles covers I like; your mileage may vary:

Norwegian Wood

Here Comes the Sun

Bible Culture

2011-08-20T21:28:00.001-04:00

I listen to a good bit of white spiritual music, via cd/YouTube/mp3, and especially on local KJV-only old-time-religion radio. My favorite station features a medley of preaching, Bible reading, quiet advertising, singing by assorted amateur children and adult choirs in the broadcast area, and professionally-recorded music. I should add that once a day all the obituaries in the local paper are graciously and unhurriedly read; someday I expect that same gentle voice will read mine.

I'm Catholic. The station's worldview and mine are not in perfect accord, but that keeps me on my toes. It's what one might call a left-handed blessing: I don't know where I'd be as a Catholic without the challenge of living in the Bible Belt. Regardless, the thing I most appreciate about the programming is how the culture of church and Bible extends into the day-to-day social world of the listenership. In other words, the programming is pitched at people for whom the Bible isn't just part of Church- it's part of Culture. Most of the songs are not hymns- they're just songs with a Christian context. And not just a Christian context (Jesus loves me/ I love Jesus), but a Bible context (I'm a sinner who is washed in the blood of Jesus). That streaming of the Bible out of Sunday worship into the rest of the week is something American Catholics would do well to emulate. An example of what I like in this "Bible-believing" culture is a song about Lazarus. You know the story about Jesus raising Lazarus. It doesn't hurt to read it again:

John 11 (edited):

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. So the sisters sent to [Jesus], saying, "Lord, he whom you love is ill." Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary sat in the house. Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ...Then Mary, when she came where Jesus was and saw him, fell at his feet, saying to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled; Jesus wept. Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb; it was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone." So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. I knew that thou hearest me always, but I have said this on account of the people standing by, that they may believe that thou didst send me." When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out." The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth... ."

Here's the story again, retold as poetry:

There were a little family/ Who lived in Bethany.
Two sisters and the brother/ Composed the family.
While they were living so happy/ So good, pure and kind,
Their brother was afflicted/ And by disease confined.
When Jesus heard the tidings/ Far in a distant land,
So quickly did he hasten/ To see the holy land.

When Martha saw him coming/ She met him on the way,
And told him of her brother/ Who’d died and passed away.
When Mary saw him coming/ She ran and met him too.
Fell at his feet a-weeping/ Rehearsed their tale of woe.

When Jesus saw her weeping/ He fell a-weeping, too,
And wept until they showed him/ Where Lazarus lay entombed.
He rolled away the stone/ Looked into the grave,
And prayed to his heavenly father/ His loving friend to raise.
He rolled back the cover/ Looked into the gloomy mound,
And as the breath was given/ He walked upon the ground.

If we would only but love Jesus/ And do his blessed will,
Like these two loving sisters/ He’d always treat us well,
And at death he would redeem us/ And carry us to the sky,
And there we’d live forever/ Where pleasure never dies.

You can see how well the story is understood, and is retold in the composer's own voice; yet it remains remarkably close to its Bible source.

And the poem set to music, recorded in 1960: The Little Family (1:42, very short)

The song implies a culture which reads, likes, is conversant with, is familiar with, is at ease with the Bible. That's what I'd like Catholics to have: that same familiarity and comfort level. To not just respect the Bible, but to like it.

(That's Ollie Gilbert at the top: she's the singer)

Tissot & Rockwell

2011-08-09T09:52:00.001-04:00

James Tissot (1836-1902) was a French painter known for a series of paintings on the life of Christ, and an uncompleted series treating stories from the Old Testament. In pursuit of historical accuracy, he made assorted trips to the Middle East. Tissot researched its architecture, clothing and other details which are evident in his work.

I like to use his paintings in Wednesday Sunday School, and can usually recognize a Tissot. This is a personal favorite:

Sarai Is Taken to Pharaoh's Palace

Pharaoh: "Hey baby, you're lookin' good...can I get you a beer? That putz you're traveling with says you're his sister... izzat right? Sarai...what sorta name is that? Cat got your tongue? You no speaka Egyptian? Hey, look at me when I'm talking to you."

***********************************************************************************

New topic: this afternoon I was surfing around and found a Prodigal Son that I wasn't familiar with:

I use Rembrandt's Prodigal Son in class, and am familiar with others, including Tissot's, but never saw this one before today. Based on the buildings and the clothes, I'd say the parable is set in a Dutch/ Flemish medieval context, which was a typical way that Dutch/ Flemish medieval artists would paint Bible stories. After chasing several Dutch/ Flemish dead ends, I accidentally learned that this painting was done in 1862 by...Tissot!? (he painted more than one Prodigal Son). I'm not sure what moved him to paint the story this way (I suppose he admired Northern Renaissance artists), but Tissot shows all the expected details. There are steep Flemish roofs; a stepped gable; flying buttresses on a Gothic church. Faithful Fido. The Jewish family's father is well-dressed, and the women wear their wimples. Leaning on the half-painted green wooden porch, the elder son, who couldn't be happier to see his brother, is a bit less finely-clad than his father.

But looking at Tissot's painting reminded me of a 1945 painting that wasn't a Prodigal Son, but rather its thematic opposite, the Responsible Son. A painting in which a son, having also suffered much, returns from "his journey into a far country" not having shirked responsibility, but having borne it. Whose family and dog "receive him safe and sound," and are uniformly happy to greet him from a half-painted green wooden porch.

Was Rockwell influenced by Tissot? I don't know beyond my own opinion. Born and bred in New York City, Rockwell would've had ample opportunity to see scores of Tissot's paintings in local collections. But you may wonder, if Rockwell was influenced in this case, then why is his composition vertical rather than horizontal?

Because his format was fixed:

Let us eat and make merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.

The Safety Corner

2011-08-07T20:00:00.005-04:00

I have been living in my city since 1965. Like most kids my age, I rode a bike all over the place through highschool, and then through 4 years of college. Never had a problem sharing the road with cars.

A popular Saturday spot in my teen years was a little bridge in a downtown park. Among the many unremarkable corners I rode around to get there is one that in the last year or so has received numerous ummm, safety enhancements.

First, as part of an ongoing local practice of giving bikes their own separate lanes, separate bike lanes were added going straight & turning right.

And a picture of a bike was painted on the lane going straight just to make it clear that's not a lane for motorcycles or Smart cars or runners or people with strollers. And a straight-ahead arrow was painted too, in case a cyclist wanted to turn right into the car lane (I think); as the Australians soldiers said in the trenches of 1918: too late, chum!

To further separate bike & vehicular traffic, a curb was added, which has the side effect of pinching the turn for cars.

And a sign was added to indicate that bikes bear right, and vehicles keep left, although the vehicle side seems to conflict a bit with the bike and arrow painted on the ground which are going straight. It may be best not to pay too much attention to the sign's arrows.

Then a set of three pickets (is three pickets enough- I'm thinking seven) and reflectors were added to physically separate the vehicles and bikes that go straight without turning right. I think. If my aging joints get too crabby about the high-impact of running, and I start riding a bike again, I'll have to be careful here not to impale myself three times. And if I ran around this corner I suppose I'd use the bike lane. I'm not sure. Maybe runners need their own lanes too; no runner wants to be hit by cars or bikes. I should mention that I run without a helmet- in case that's relevant.

I've read the local paper every day for 25 years, never seen a word about this corner being a danger for anyone (which isn't exhaustive research). Which isn't to say that nobody on a bike was ever injured here, although the local papers seem to be vigilant in reporting car vs. bike accidents. But as a once and future bike-rider around this very corner, I think it may have been safer when it was dangerous. If that's what it was in the first place.

The Safety Corner

Vremya & Avrupa

2011-08-02T11:07:00.014-04:00

After our visit to Ravenna, the ship stopped next in Bari. I didn't know a thing about Bari before planning our day there, but we were both pleasantly surprised. Among the places we visited was Bari Cathedral, also known as San Sabino, whose relics rest there. The current church was constructed on the site of the prior cathedral, and consecrated in 1292. Walking around in San Sabino, it's obvious that many bits of the older church were re-used, which emphasize how old Bari is compared to cities in the US.

Among San Sabino's visual treats are the remnants of frescoes which used to be much more comprehensive:

This fragment was particularly striking:

That looks like a child held by its mom on the left; I don't know who they are. To the right, I suppose that's Jesus being nursed by Mary. But what's interesting isn't so much those images, but the areas around them. My first impression looking at this fresco was that it had been vandalized. See all the diagonal white scratches in the outlined areas below:

But looking more closely you can see that the scratches aren't from abuse: such scoring enables a new fresco to be applied over an old one without sliding off. That is, the nursing Jesus fresco is newer, and lies on top of an older fresco. Part of what impresses is simply how many centuries of human effort have left their mark here: prior cathedrals built on the same site, possibly dating back to the 400s; the cathedral built in the 11th century and destroyed in the 13th; the present cathedral built using bits of the ruined church; and then assorted encrustations over the next thousand years or so, including frescoes atop frescoes, and later architectural features (some of which were removed in the last century to restore the church to a more original state). But also remarkable is how casually old stuff was cast aside, covered up, reused, or demolished without much ado. Time in Europe is so much older, more pervasive, more substantial than time in the New World. For example, when the Mississippi River last changed its course from the Atchafalaya Basin to its present route past New Orleans, there was probably already a cathedral church in Bari. And a cathedral is likely to be there still when the Mississippi returns to the Atchafalaya.

During the rest of the day in Bari I was percolating on the glacial pace of human time in Europe; and how to express a movement that may run more slowly than the Mississippi changes its course. Usually English has the right words; sometimes it doesn't. And the words that best told me what I grasped at in Bari were Vremya...and Avrupa. Vremya, время, is the Russian word for 'time'. Avrupa is how the Turks say Europe. To say Time and Europe with regard to Bari's cathedral sounds too sleek, too glib, to express the scale of time that lies there, millennium upon millennium with such lack of fuss. Vremya & Avrupa suggest more primal concepts. They speak to the difference between my time-world, and a place which was civilized long before there were minutes and seconds.

Think of it as Catholic Time.

It's Your Turn to Marry Zsa-Zsa

2011-07-28T23:19:00.024-04:00

There's a joke I remember from Letterman years ago, from the Top Ten Consequences of Growing Old. One of them was "Sooner or later it's your turn to marry Zsa-Zsa." At my house it's constantly modified to suit the occasion, as in "Sooner or later it's your turn get a colonoscopy," or "Sooner or later it's your turn to visit Venice." Which reminds me that thematically, Venice and Zsa-Zsa have a lot in common.

I've been to Venice enough times since the '80s to be comfortable getting around, finding restrooms, eating relatively inexpensively, etc. Someone who cruises asked recently at a forum about how to see Venice when the cruise ship will be there for a single day, 7 a.m. to say, midnight. As we had just the week before departed Voyager of the Seas early in the morning to spend a long day in Venice, courtesy of My Wife the Travel Agent, I was able to give a timely answer which may be useful when it's your turn to marry Zsa-Zsa.

This itinerary starts on a cruiseship, but if you aren't on a cruise, that's ok: just ignore the parts about getting from the ship to Piazzale Roma. If you come from Marco Polo airport via taxi or bus, you'll be dropped off in Ple. Roma anyway. If you arrive by train, I'll cover that too.

Starting at a cruiseship in the morning:

Eat breakfast on the ship. Bring a hat (or umbrella if the sun really bugs you) and a map you've already gotten familiar with. The places I refer to can all be found on any map of Venice.

Walk out of the cruiseship terminal (there may be a free shuttle). Once you are out of the cruise terminal, head for the PeopleMover station, a new elevated monorail. Buy two 1€ tickets (one for the return trip) from a ticket machine (cash) and take the PeopleMover to Piazzale Roma (public restrooms at P. Roma near where the image below says "Your Taxi stands here").

At Piazzale Roma, walk left out of the PeopleMover exit for a couple hundred yards to the ticket booths for the the vaporetti (water buses). You have to go past assorted bus ticket windows and down some gentle stairs to get to the water where the vaporetti booths are.

Buy a 24 (12 hr pass might not last long enough) hour pass (they take creditcards; let your card companies know when & where you'll be traveling. I don't like to have any cash out in Ple. Roma.) Walk a few more steps to the vaporetto stops, find the red-circle-2 symbol on one of the floating waiting rooms, activate your pass cards (watch other people do this) and get on vaporetto #2 to Piazza San Marco. #2 runs in a circle both clockwise & counterclockwise; you take the clockwise route to start. See map:

You might copy this #2 route-map and take it to Venice. The regular vaporetti route map shows all the lines and is less easy to read...like so:

For this day in Venice you will only take the #2 vaporetto. It saves a lot of heartburn, hits the hotspots, and you won't have time to see everything along the #2 route anyway, much less the other lines.

We like to sit on the open-air seats at the back of the vaporetti; you might give it a try.

The whole process of getting from the ship to actually sitting on the #2 vaporetto can be stressful; just relax and know you have plenty of time.

Remember, you can just take the #2 all day and not worry about the other lines. Per the #2 map you'll get on at P. Roma. If you came on the train, it's a bit simpler. You'll walk straight out of the station and (almost) fall into the Grand Canal. Buy your pass at the ticket booth on the water, and get on the #2. This stop is called Ferrovia (iron-way, railway). From the #2 map you see it's the stop right after Ple. Roma, going clockwise. The clockwise route will take you down the Grand Canal to Piazza San Marco, where you'll get off.

Piazza San Marco by Renoir

I like this shot of San Marco; at the upper right you can see the original brick church behind the fanciful facade which was added centuries later:

At this hour of the morning it shouldn't be too hot or crowded. Also the lines to get into the church and the Doge's Palace should be short. You can also aimlessly check out the streets around the church & square, as well as the pleasant views along the Canal. It's hard to be lost for long.

When you've had your fun, walk from P. San Marco to Rialto bridge. It's a wander, there are a few ways to get there, and don't worry about getting lost, there are directional signs painted on the buildings. There are also shops & stuff on the way, and public restrooms near San Marco. Also many ATMs; I use my regular bank card to make withdrawals, and the machines have an English option. Generally stores take creditcards; street vendors want cash; public restrooms want 1.5€; restaurants are ok with creditcards, but the waiters want cash tips.

On the Grand Canal by the Rialto bridge on the St Mark's side (before you cross over) there's an affordable self service cafeteria if you want lunch or something to drink. It has a restroom for patrons. In this photo the cafeteria is to the right of the Hotel Rialto:

There are shops, etc., on both sides of the bridge, and on the bridge itself. Cross over the Rialto bridge. At this point because I like art & churches I'd walk over to the Basilica di Santa Maria dei Frari. From there I'd go see the paintings around the corner at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. So much of the art is on the ceilings that you can borrow a mirror so you won't wear out your neck.

After all that edification it's time for sitting down & having refreshments at Campo Santa Margherita. Once restored, head to Accademia Bridge (public restroom). From Accademia you can:

1. Walk over to Santa Maria della Salute church (the big white-domed one):

Salute by Canaletto

I like Salute (sa-LU-teh). By the way, the name means Saint Mary of Health. The church was built after Mary's intercession spared the city from the worst ravages of plague. You may notice on the #2 map that there's a Salute stop, but it's not on the #2 circuit and so I don't count it.

2. Or cross over Accademia bridge and take a gondola ride right on the other side (I think it's worth the money to silently glide in those narrow side canals):

Through silken waters my gondola glides...

3. Or take the #2 vaporetto to the city park at Giardini (Gardens) stop and then walk along the water back to San Marco. On the way back, near the Zaccaria stop you'll see the famous (and ho-hum) Ponte dei Sospiri, the Bridge of Sighs:

...and the bridge- it sighs

Sigh.

Also at Zaccaria is San Zaccaria church, which has the relics of John the Baptist's father.

4. Or take #2 out to the Lido stop, and promenade along the lovely Gran Viale Santa Maria Elisabetta with a gelato. Walking to the beach and back is pleasant and not too long. The Lido is not like Venice, and has its own charm, having been a glamorous resort going on 150 years.

We're incognito/ down the Lido/ and we like the Strand

Many of the houses & hotels have a light Viennese character in contrast to the more sober textures of Venice proper. Returning from Lido to Venice on the vaporetto also provides a seaward, historical approach to the former Mediterranean power:

La Serenissima from her best angle

5. Or take the #2 to the San Giorgio and Redentore stops to visit the Palladian churches of the same names. Depending on the time of day, just up from the Redentore stop is the Palanca stop which has affordable places to eat & drink.

San Giorgio by Canaletto

Il Redentore (the Redeemer) by Canaletto

For dinner I suggest taking the #2 (or walking) to the Zattere (or Palanca) stop, and dining at one of the outdoor restaurants there. Zattere means "rafts:" it's the wharf where rafts once delivered bulk materials to the city. Now the only rafts are those which provide restaurant dining right on the water. The breeze is welcome, the view across the Giudecca Canal (you can see both of the above-mentioned churches) is gracious, and the prices for pizza are not paralyzing (but check the posted menus). A bonus is that the cruise ships all tiptoe through the Giudecca Canal to reach the Adriatic, and you may see this happen. Some ships are so crazy big that they ruin the scale of the city:

Wave at the people on the ship

Also at Zattere is La Chiesa dei Gesuati, well worth a peek and a prayer if it's open. If you do dine at Zattere you might then take the #2 across the Giudecca to the Palanca stop, and stroll over to the Hilton Molino Stucky for a pricey drink and included hors d'oeuvres at the rooftop bar with its splendid views (again, I thought it was worth it).

It was once Conrad Hilton's turn to marry Zsa-Zsa

Once your day is done, if it's not too late take the #2 back through the Grand Canal again before getting off at Ple. Roma: at night it's more mysterious...eerie...morbid, even. Plus you can see inside a lot of the grand main rooms of the palazzi. Let's say you had drinks at the Hilton. You'd be near the Palanca stop. From Palanca if you had time, you'd take #2 counterclockwise to see the Grand Canal before getting off at Ple. Roma. But if you just wanted to get on the ship, you'd take the #2 clockwise back to Piazzale Roma (and then the PeopleMover back to the cruise terminal.) If you're taking the train, you'd get off at Ferrovia.

Here's the easy way to tell if a vaporetto's route is clockwise or counterclockwise: let's say you're at Palanca (per the #2 map). If the boat is coming from the left, from Zattere, it's counterclockwise. If approaches from Redentore, to the right of you, it's clockwise.

The regular vaporetto routes cut way down at midnight or so; get on before then.

My strategy for the day is to stick with the #2; strike a balance between walking and vaporetting; and between gotta-see and wandering. I've listed more than can be done in a day, so don't run yourself ragged. Also consider that sometimes you can walk straight between points such as Accademia & Zattere, or Rialto & San Marco more quickly than you can take a vaporetto.

Of course, your mileage may vary, and you have my blessing to do your own thing.

Also have a look around Venice using Google Earth; it's a great way to get a sense of the city before you visit.

Ravenna Catechism

2011-07-18T11:42:00.007-04:00

My family and I returned home early Sunday morning from a couple of days in Venice, preceded by an Adriatic cruise (the family preceded the cruise with a 10-day Catholic land-tour of Italy), all arranged by My Wife the Travel Agent.

Among the ports we visited was Ravenna, Italy, home to many of Eastern Christendom's best-preserved mosaics. Like most people who learn Architectural History in college, I was familiar with the churches, baptisteries, and tombs I'd see, and their more well-known mosaics. But I was pleasantly surprised by the catechetical content of less-famous mosaics which I hadn't seen before.

We first visited San Vitale. With the viewer facing the altar at communion-rail distance (there isn't a communion rail) the following image is high to the right of the altar:

The area under the arch is called a tympanum. On the left is Abel offering up a lamb (Gen 4); on the right, Melchizedek offers bread and wine (Gen. 14). The Hand of God reaches down from Heaven to accept their offerings from the shared altar. I plan to use this image in class this year. Visual details are useful: while I read the stories bit by bit from Genesis, the kids can tell me why Melchizedek's house and clothes are nicer than Abel's, and locate the wine on the altar. Check out the close-up:

But why is the poor shepherd Abel wearing that red robe? What other Bible figure is often depicted wearing a red robe? Uh-huh. With a little guidance the kids will figure out the significance.

Directly across from Abel and Melchizedek is this mosaic:

Just fyi, on the upper left is Jeremiah; upper right, Moses. For class I'll crop that image, so the focus is on the tympanum. The first 2/3 of the image depicts the L'Ospitalità di Abramo, The Hospitality of Abraham, as recounted in Genesis 18:1-15. I outline here how I treated this in class last year with a fresco painting I don't like as well as this mosaic. The mosaic has lively visual cues from the story that will help the kids listen to the text: the tent on the left, the slaughtered young steer about to be served by Abraham, the shady tree. Who knows, maybe 1400 years ago when that passage was read in San Vitale, parents would point the images out on the walls to their kids.

The last 1/3 of the image shows the Sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. 22). Nice of the artist to show the ram which will be sacrificed instead of Isaac, and also the Hand of God reaching down to interrupt Abraham. By the way, seeing a character appear in different scenes within the same composition is not unusual.

This shot gives some context:

In the center is a young, beardless Christ (not unusual in the East) flanked by two angels. At the extreme left is St. Vitale; at the far right I think is the guy who paid for the church (he's offering a miniature church to Jesus). To the lower left and right of the high windows are buildings labeled Jerusalem and Bethlehem. I won't cover this picture in class, but it's instructive to see how densely-packed the church is with graphic catechetical information.

I already treat these four stories in class as part of an Old Testament lead-up to the Mass. But this pair of mosaics flanking San Vitale's altar shows the kids that for a very long time these stories have been connected to each other, and to what happens on the altar at every Mass. I can always tell them that; but they'll learn it better if they can vividly see it for themselves. I expect to hand out 8x5 color copies of the appropriate tympanum as we cover each of the Old Testament stories. At the end of any class that I hand out copies, I take them back up unless any kids want to take their copies home. Nice color copies ain't cheap, and by taking them up the DRE saves some money; plus it means if kids want to keep the copies they must say so. I believe that requires a bit of commitment on their part not to throw it away when they go home. I know that sometimes kids will take a picture from class to show their parents what they are learning, which is terrific. Having the kids evangelize their parents is a conscious part of my catechesis. So each tympanum may be handed out twice, for a total of four stories, and taken up again in the first few weeks of class. The kids won't see them again until we cover the Mass months later, when we get to this point in the Eucharistic Prayer:

"Be pleased to look upon these offerings
with a serene and kindly countenance,
and to accept them,
as once you were pleased to accept
the gifts of your servant Abel the just,
the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith,
and the offering of your high priest Melchizedek,
a holy sacrifice, a spotless victim."

I'll hand out both tympanums this time, and we'll revew the four stories. Having the pictures will help them remember. I'll say a bit about San Vitale, and explain where the mosaics are located in the church. Then through a series of questions and answers, the kids will work out why the artists at San Vitale would have put those images so near the altar, and why 3 of the 4 stories are referred to in the Eucharistic Prayer.

Should be fun.

Ciao dall'Italia

2011-07-07T09:18:00.003-04:00

This post is linked to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

My 22 year-old youngest son, Christian, Jr., may have a vocation to the priesthood. This Fall he'll spend his senior year of college living in the diocesan discernment house near campus, in its first year of operation. That's him as a 4-year old (I think) in the blogtitle.

Tempus Fugit.

Every now & then over the last decade, people have commented on his altar service, observing that he does a good job. Before college, the mother of another server once said of him, "He's very I-don't-know-what...I suppose he has a modesty of motion so you aren't really aware of what a good server he is." Modesty of motion. I like that: being noticed for not being noticeable.

Christian, his two sisters, and My Wife the Travel Agent are on a Catholic tour of Italy right now (Popes, shrines, relics, Eucharistic miracles, etc.). I'll join them in a few days.

My wife has been posting about the trip on Facebook; this bit's interesting:

"We are in Florence now, leaving tomorrow for Padua and Venice, but the past few days have had some truly curious twists and turns, especially for Christian:

Lanciano

First, we were in Lanciano to see the famous 8th century Eucharistic Miracle. We got there on Sunday morning shortly before Mass so the local priest asked that we quickly go in before Mass started. Our group filed single file in front of the altar to climb up behind to view the Eucharistic Miracle which is elevated above the altar. The church was full with the choir trying out some of the hymns before Mass, so we were parading in front of the congregation kind of by default. When Christian rounded the altar after his viewing, an older nun rose out of her pew and approached him, embraced him and gave him a kiss in the cheek. Others in the group asked if he knew her but of course he'd never seen her before in his life. After greeting Christian, she returned to her seat without explanation, and she did not greet anyone else or speak to anyone else in the group.

Crocifisso di San Damiano nella Basilica di Santa Chiara

The following day we were in Assisi, and among the many stops was time spent in the Basilica of Saint Clare. Christian was praying before the Crucifix of San Damiano, and this time a Franciscan friar approached him and handed him a small replica of the crucifix - none of the rest of us were so honored. Oooeeeooo - kind of an interesting couple of days for Chrisbo!"

I'll say. Must've been that modesty of motion. Or something.

Food Pyramid

2011-07-03T21:10:00.023-04:00

This post is linked to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

Pero yo quiero Taco Bell

Let's talk about the food pyramid. No, not that food pyramid...a virtuous food pyramid, a Bible food pyramid with six groups like so:

4 5

1 2 3

Let's treat them in chronological order.

Food group #1:

The Israelites were 6 weeks away from Egypt, 16 chapters into Exodus, and slap out of vittles: "...the whole congregation of the people of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness (murmur against is the nice way to say whine about), and said to them, "Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger."

I have to digress already. This is a timeless line: "...we sat by the fleshpots and ate bread to the full." I love the visceral "fleshpots," and the vivid imagery (I think of Homer Simpson: mmm...fleshpots). Hard to believe that at least one modern Bible version (which shall remain nameless) says "we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted." I have reasons beyond mere opinion for ummm, murmuring about this phrasing which I'll explain presently. And I probably shouldn't mention that "pots-meat-food" brings this image to mind:

I hope that's Kosher

So anyway, you know the story: "And the LORD said to Moses, "I have heard the murmurings of the people of Israel; say to them, 'At twilight you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread; then you shall know that I am the LORD your God." In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning dew lay round about the camp. And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as hoarfrost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "It is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat."

But aren't quail flesh and bread separate food groups? Well...yes. Actually I'm not so interested in making a pyramid of food groups as I am in making one of food miracles. So the quail and manna together are the first food miracle. Already you can see the parallel between the people whining in a KKollwitz-approved Bible about a lack of flesh and bread, and the LORD saying he's gonna give them...flesh and bread.

Food miracle #2:

Amid a God-induced drought, the LORD's authorized agent Elijah leaves Israel and heads to pagan Zarephath for his own safety. Food was scarce (drought = famine), but no worries: "And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook." I don't count that as Food Miracle 2 though. It's a reiteration of the bread and flesh theme, and a prologue to miracle 2:

Upon his arrival, Elijah asks a starving widow for a bit of bread: "...he called to her and said, "Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." And she said, "As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a cruse; and now, I am gathering a couple of sticks, that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die." And Elijah said to her, "Fear not; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make for yourself and your son....And she went and did as Elijah said; and she, and he, and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not spent, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD which he spoke by Elijah." Apparently the food lasted until the drought ended.

Food miracle #3, Elijah's successor Elisha feeds a, umm, multitude with a few loaves of bread:

"Elisha came again to Gilgal when there was a famine in the land. And as the sons of the prophets were sitting before him...A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley, and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Elisha said, "Give to the men, that they may eat." But his servant said, "How am I to set this before a hundred men?" So he repeated, "Give them to the men, that they may eat, for thus says the LORD, 'They shall eat and have some left." So he set it before them. And they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the LORD."

That all seems weirdly familiar...why, it reminds me of Jesus' loaves & fishes miracle! Oops, it's the other way around: Jesus' miracle recalls Elisha's, which recalls Elijah's.

Those three Old Testament miracles form the base of the pyramid. The next three will form their own little pyramid, but it's given more heft and height by being built on this sturdy O.T. base.

Food miracle #4:

"On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples. When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." Now six stone jars were standing there, for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the steward of the feast." So they took it. When the steward of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, "Every man serves the good wine first; and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept the good wine until now." This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him." Let's agree right off the bat that wine is food. If you don't think so, ask an Italian.

This miracle is particular. Unlike the prior three, it's transformative. Not a little bit of wine, or meal, or oil multiplied into a lot, but water turned into wine, and no going back. Count on any witnesses to this miracle to recognize Jesus is a food-miracle-worker like Old Testament experts Moses, Elijah and Elisha; but maybe more...sophisticated in his miracle-working? Count on them to also tell others, creating expectations.

Food miracle #5, Jesus feeds more people than Elisha using fewer loaves:

As [Jesus] went ashore he saw a great throng; and he had compassion on them, and healed their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a lonely place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves." Jesus said, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." They said to him, "We have only five loaves here and two fish." And he said, "Bring them here to me." Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass; and taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children."

This miracle is clearly based on Elisha's, so much so that the Gospel writers borrowed the basic story line and changed the details. Surely people left that meal chattering about the Elisha-ness of it all, and what its significance might be. Of course the next day they found out that Jesus used the loaves & fishes to prepare them to hear the bizarre Bread of Life discourse, and accept it not through experience or understanding, but through faith. This is the point where the food-miracle business gets a bit tough on the followers. Yesterday's miracle was real, literal; they felt it in their bellies. And the Old Testament miracles: they were literal...right? But Jesus' followers took the literalness of Elisha's loaves, and Moses' flesh & bread on faith. Now Jesus likewise expects to be accepted through faith when he says "the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." Is it coincidence that a day earlier Jesus whipped out an Elisha bread-miracle, and now he speaks Moses-like of flesh and bread?

You can imagine the arguments that even the apostles must have had between this Passover and the next one, the occasion of...

Food miracle #6, the tip of the iceberg, the top of the food miracle pyramid, the Last Supper:

"And he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant..."

At this climactic dinner, amidst a torrent of information from Jesus, an apostle might reasonably think, "Aah, Jesus is recalling that flesh-and-bread eating business from last Passover. But could He mean this literally? Of course, changing one thing into something else that's better ain't the usual, but all that wine at Cana a few years ago was real. The loaves and fishes were real last year; and Jesus plainly drew on Elisha's miracle...and through that miracle, Elijah's at Zarephath. And He clearly said bread and flesh, as in Exodus when our ancestors ate manna and quail, and when the raven helped Elijah in 1Kings. If we don't believe those were miracles we may as well be pagans. And the Baptist calling him the Lamb. Wait...what's that about blood and covenant? Is he referring to Jeremiah? So is this bread truly His flesh? Well...for right now let's say maybe, and we can discuss it with Jesus later...hey, Judas, where ya goin'?"

So: why would Jesus stand atop a pile of food miracles stretching back to Exodus in order to cap it with mere food symbolism?

Well, he wouldn't; and didn't.

Alice Meat

2011-06-29T10:38:00.005-04:00

Really; indeed

This post is linked to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

There's a whole lotta John 6 on the Internet about this time every year. There's a whole lotta John 6 in Wednesday Sunday School, too. One of the key John 6 classroom verses reads:

"For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed." in the Douai-Rheims & KJV;

"For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." in the RSV;

"For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink." in the NIV;

and my preferred translation in the NAB, "For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink."

I find the word "true" a bit more compelling than "real," and way more compelling than "indeed". Truth is simply a more moral, profound and comprehensive concept than the other two. I don't see how real or indeed add anything to true; but they do take something away. St. Jerome must have agreed: his Vulgate reads, "Caro enim mea vere est cibus; et sanguis meus, vere est potus." You know: truly. English uses that Latin-French -ver- root in veracity, aver, very, and of course, Jesus' favorite, verily.

Uh-oh; now I'm curious about verse 55 in French...here we go:

"Car ma chair est vraiment une nourriture, et mon sang est vraiment un breuvage." Yep, truly again.

And in Greek, the passage reads, "η γαρ σαρξ μου αληθως εστιν βρωσις και το αιμα μου αληθως εστιν ποσις," which is Greek to me, but the keyword ἀληθῶς/ alithos also means truly. You know, like in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when they give the Easter greeting: "Χριστός ἀνέστη! Christ is risen!" followed by the response, "Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη/ Alithos anesti/ Truly risen!"

Ἀληθῶς-alithos is the adverb form of ἀλήθεια-alitheia-truth. So for example, when Pilate spoke to Jesus, he asked him, "What is alitheia?" And Jesus said of Himself, "I am the way, the alitheia, and the life."

By the way, Alitheia is close to how Spaniards would pronounce Alicia, i.e., they lisp the s sound. Would Alicia/ Alice come from alitheia and mean Truth? Why, yes, it would. Now I wonder about Martha-Marcia...why yes, Martha is Greek from Aramaic (mistress, the feminine of master). See, languages ain't so tough.

I know this doesn't have to be the big deal for everyone else that it is to me. But in Catechism class, it's good to be able to draw parallels among: Pharisees saying Jesus is true; St. John writing that God is true; Jesus saying he's the Truth; Pilate looking right at the Truth and asking Him what is Truth; and Jesus flatly stating that his flesh is true food, his blood true drink.

Saying real or indeed in the last case takes the simple & straightforward and makes it complicated.

Is that fussy? Well, if your name were Alice, and you were to tell me what your name meant, what would you say?

Uh-huh.

Flow States

2011-06-27T14:40:00.008-04:00

This post is linked to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

A couple of posts ago I was talking about Turkish a little bit, which reminded me of an exhilarating conversation I had a long time ago. That's right, exhilarating.

I had just arrived way jet-lagged at İstanbul Atatürk Havalimanı (the airport), to begin a two-week tour of Turkey. I picked up my bags, and headed to Customs. After a few minutes of standing in the Customs line, it quit moving: some kind of kerfuffle at the front. Raised voices. Then a uniformed customs officer walked down the stalled line, repeating something I didn't understand, although I knew it was not yes, no, thank you, good morning, or I want two beers please. Then he went back to the front. The line still didn't budge, and the voices at the front got louder. Then a civilian student-age Turk came down the line asking in English, "you speak Italian, you speak Italian, you speak Italian." I said yes, I spoke some Italian, but not in a few years. He asked me to come to the front of the line anyway.

An unhappy Italian was at the counter with his big suitcase open; concerned Turks were investigating the contents. The case was foam-lined with recesses for all kinds of odd-looking metal-rubber-plastic-electrical objects. All harmless one supposes, but the customs men couldn't tell. So the English-speaking Turk and I were going to manage a bucket-brigade conversation between the Italian and the Customs officers. I explained to the Italian what we were going to do, and then the four of us proceeded to translate from Turkish to English to Italian and back again:

Customs wants to know what these things are.

They're industrial parts, I'm a salesman. I have appointments in Istanbul.

They have to verify the parts are not dangerous.

Fine. They are not dangerous. That is not a problem for me.

Customs says they must have someone else decide the parts are not dangerous.

Yes, I will wait here.

The man who decides is not here now. They say you have to leave the bag and return tomorrow....go to the airport customs office tomorrow; don't return here. Are you good with this?

I can't do anything but as they say. I will return tomorrow, but I need a receipt.

They will give you a receipt now. They also want a business card.

OK. (produces one)

That's all, they are content for now. (smiles all around)

OK, Thank you.

Thank you; I like to have the occasion to speak Italian.

This conversation didn't take long, and there was no time to review verb conjugations or vocabulary. It was like accidentally falling into water and immediately starting to swim. But because there was no warning there was no time for anxiety or fear, or even thinking in the normal way. Just a suspended-animation sense of joy and getting it done. The languages ran together as a continuity, rather than as separate things. A weird language high. Forget the jet-lag, I was fired-up! I realized later that for those few minutes I had been in a flow-state.

(Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.)

Back in the 70s I read an interview of Mario Andretti in one of my father's Road & Tracks. In the interview, Andretti said he drove the fastest in a flow-state. Being an unfamiliar term back then, he explained it in the same way as the above Wiki definition. Sounded like fun. I never expected to enjoy one at the airport in Turkey.

See that picture at the top? It's not Turkey! Yes, it's Russia. No, it's not Moscow and the church isn't St. Basil's. It's St. Petersburg, and the church is the Храм Спаса на Крови/ Khram Spasa na Krovi/ Temple (of) Savior on Blood. We'd say church for temple. This photo was taken a couple of minutes before I experienced a second and most recent flow-state. After the shot, my family wandered individually back to the tour-bus (My Wife the Travel Agent and Art History Prof put together a small-group 2-day tour with a minibus and guide). Halfway back, my wife comes over, says can you help this German couple, I don't think they speak English or Russian. Umm...OK! (I really like German. By the way, my experience is that once you learn a second language enough to use it at all, learning more of them is pretty easy. It's the first second language that's the hurdle. Languages are not the big deal people think they are.)

Hello, I speak some German.

Yes! We are looking for Nevsky Prospekt. (St. Petersburg's main street)

I think that Nevsky Prospekt is straight up that way, but I am not sure. I can ask our tour-leader. Let us go to the tour bus.

(We do; only the driver is in the bus)

Mr. Driver, these German people want to know: Nevsky Prospekt this way? (Russians don't say "is" if it's obvious)

No. Go 4 blocks and turn left.

The driver says go straight 4 streets then turn left.

All good; is it far to walk?

Mr. Driver, Nevsky Prospekt not many meters, maybe 10 minutes to walk?

Yes, 10 minutes.

Thanks!

You're welcome.

The walk is only 10 minutes or so.

Thank you!

Thank you too, I like to have an occasion to speak German.

Bye!

Bye!

And once again I came down from that high, and was charged-up for the rest of the day. I doubt I could have translated straight from German to Russian and back if I had planned to do it. My self-awareness would have processed the conversation through English each time, each way; slowing things down.

So: two flow states, both involving a loss of self-awareness and increased ability. Seems like something that'd work well spiritually. I imagine saints must experience such flow-states; I'm not there yet.

Cup with a Theme Song

2011-06-24T14:00:00.010-04:00

My wife & I watched a movie last night called The Gift. We realized within the first few minutes that it had been filmed in the Deep South, where we live. We like to guess filming locations: we'll freeze a frame to discuss the fine points of trees, topography, flowers, architecture, any detail that helps us nail down an anonymous location. In this case, the Deep South coastal plain, but not Louisiana or Mississippi; maybe around Mobile Bay; not Florida; most likely somewhere between the Okeefenokee in Georgia and the Pee Dee in South Carolina. Beaufort? No, Beaufort's too much of a city. Savannah? Again, too built-up. But around there. Low Country. Around Edisto? Yeah...those roads look like the roads to Edisto:

And the swamp scenes look like swamps around Edisto:

Like lots of South Carolinians, we vacation on Edisto Island. It's very isolated and there's only one grocery store. Part of the Edisto Island experience is unloading the car at the rental house, then heading over to the Pig to buy groceries. That is, the Piggly-Wiggly:

Pay no attention to the lower case p and w.

Piggly-Wiggly is a regional chain, founded in Tennessee in 1916. Just based on the name you might've guessed it was Southern: where else in the 21st century United States could such artless charm be profitable? Here's an old logo:

Is that corny, or what? Reminds me of Betty Boop. But even in the Information Age, the Pig is still the Pig:

I have liked the Pig since I was little: he was happy and friendly and helpful and about my size. And in my adulthood I appreciate that no-one has tried to make him cool, clever, sexy, sophisticated, or God forbid, pretentious. Being happy and friendly and unaffected is enough. The Pig is just a decent human being, so to speak; a citizen, transcending both cool and corny.

So anyway, in the movie there is a scene where Cate Blanchett is toting some groceries...and the Pig is on the bags! Ha! We knew they filmed it around Edisto! But as the credits rolled, we learned that we were wrong. They'd filmed The Gift near Savannah after all.

A few Edisto summers ago the house we were renting didn't have enough coffee mugs, so my wife picked up a few at the Pig. The mugs of course had the Pig on them. Every morning that week I'd get up, pour coffee into a Pig mug and go drink it out on the beach; and in some winsome way the natural optimism of those beach mornings was enhanced by the cartoon pig on my cup. I enjoyed seeing his shiny happy face each day, and when the week was over, the Pigmugs came home with us, along with the mustard, ketchup, spices, cereal, and other nonperishables that we didn't finish off.

Now I drink all my coffee from a Pigmug. I must sound like a happy idiot (which I am in many ways not related to coffee cups), but each morning the unassuming Pig still sparks in me a microburst of cheerful energy. Other coffee mugs don't do that.

There's an old song that comes to mind when I'm out on a morning beach: a morning-beach-theme-song. It's one that I sing to myself more often, now that the Pigmug bears summer beaches year-round into my Upstate world. In fact, as much as that theme song belongs to the morning beach, it belongs to the Pigmug even more:

All Year Permanent Beach

Oh, yeah...I almost forgot: the Beach-Pigmug Theme-Song.

Tomato, Tomahto, Potato, Papaya

2011-06-21T13:20:00.006-04:00

This post is linked to Amazing Catechists

A good Catholic Bible, relatively speaking.

In Wednesday Sunday School virtually everything that is read out loud in class is from the Bible. I use the NAB for most reading (that's what the kids hear at Mass), but usually check the RSV-CE, Douai-Rheims, and KJV for critical verses: sometimes I just don't love the way the NAB says things.

As part of lesson planning I frequently do word searches. The best online searchable Bibles IMNSHO are the collated Protestant versions at Bible Gateway (Gateway graciously gives you the option of searching the 7 Deuterocanonical books along with the 66). There are several search options, plus it's easy to quickly see a given verse, chapter, or the whole Bible in a number of versions and languages (Spanish!). Occasionally I will prefer the 1611 King James Version to the Catholic Bibles I typically use, so my default version at Bible Gateway is the KJV.

Gateway also has the NIV (New International Version) which I understand is one of the most "readable" Protestant Bibles. Occasionally I have a look at the NIV. Sometimes it's ok with me; other times, wow, it's not. I mean: if you are reading the Bible to learn or teach your Catholic faith, it will be hard to do if you're using the NIV, or anything like it. Let's look at a few examples comparing the KJV to the NIV:

Bishop/ Episkopos/ἐπίσκοπος (literally, over-seer)

In class we use the New Testament to discuss the early organization of the Church, including offices such as Bishop. The word bishop shows up 6 times in the KJV; zero times in the NIV.

KJV: Acts 1:20 For it is written in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein: and his bishoprick let another take.
NIV: Acts 1:20 "For," said Peter, "it is written in the book of Psalms, "May his place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in it,' and, "May another take his place of leadership.'

"Place of leadership?" Ya kiddin', rite? The Greek word here is ἐπισκοπή/ episkopi. At least use the word office. Office? We'll get to that in a few minutes.

KJV: 1 Timothy 3:2 This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.
NIV: 1 Timothy 3:2 Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task.

KJV: 1 Timothy 3:3 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach....
NIV: 1 Timothy 3:3 Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach....

KJV: Titus 1:7 For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre;
NIV: Titus 1:7 Since an overseer is entrusted with God's work, he must be blameless--not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain.

KJV: 1 Peter 2:25 For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
NIV: 1 Peter 2:25 For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

Yes, bishop means overseer; but saying overseer eliminates the historical significance of the word episkopos. You may as well say "saver" instead of "savior." They both mean "one who saves," right? And at least in the South, overseer already has meant for centuries the Simon Legree types who boss the slaves on a plantation. Nobody down here would want to use that word for anything else because of its pejorative meaning. Now I'm thinking that Southern revanchists might want to take a hint from the NIV and start saying bishop instead of overseer. It sounds so much nicer to say the slaves had bishops rather than overseers.

KJV: Philippians 1:1 Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:
NIV: Philippians 1:1 Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons:

I love this one. The Greek word bishop just has to go; but the no-less-Greek deacon (diakonos/ servant) gets to stay. Is that because someone thinks it's ok to have deacons, but not bishops? Well, as Ian Faith might say, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no...no, no, not at all. I, I, I just think that the...uh...the NIV is becoming more selective."

Communion/ Koinonia/ κοινωνία

Communion is found 4 times in the KJV; zero times in the NIV.

KJV: 1 Corinthians 10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
NIV: 1 Corinthians 10:16 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?

KJV: 2 Corinthians 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
NIV: 2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

KJV: 2 Corinthians 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.
NIV: 2 Corinthians 13:14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Koinonia translates well as communion; e.g., the koin- root shows up in other Greek words such as koine, which describes the common, spoken Greek of St Paul's day. Participation and fellowship are not bad words, but they move away from the root meaning of koin- and also strip out the historical continuity and implications of the word communion.

Tradition/ Paradosis/ παράδοσις

Uh-oh. You know how the Catholic Church accepts the authority of Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium. But non-Catholics are ummm, non-fond of the latter two. But the KJV and NIV both use the word tradition to translate paradosis, which means to surrender, give up, hand over. Or at least they do when the traditions are bad. For example, the N.T. speaks of the "traditions of men:"

KJV: Mark 7:8 For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the traditions of men
NIV: Mark 7:8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.

KJV: Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
NIV: Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

So where tradition is found in a bad context, both Bibles keep the word. But, you ask, doesn't Scripture also say good things about tradition? Why yes it does, when it speaks of tradition which is "handed down" by the Church's authorized teachers, such as St. Paul and the Apostles. But gosh, the NIV won't say tradition if it's in a good context, per the examples below:

KJV: 2 Thessalonians 2:15 Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.
NIV: 2 Thessalonians 2:15 So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

KJV: 2 Thessalonians 3:6 Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us.
NIV: 2 Thessalonians 3:6 In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us.

So if traditions are shown in a bad light, the NIV sticks with the KJV; when traditions are shown in a good light, the NIV punts the KJV and says "teaching." By the way, the Greeks do have a word for teaching; it's διδασκαλία/ didaskalia. You'd think it'd be easy to distinguish didaskalia from paradosis; St. Paul must've been way confused.

Work/ Ergon/ ἔργον

Uh-oh, problem word: works. Like traditions, sometimes works are bad; sometimes works are good. How to translate? Let's see if this rule will "work": bad works are works; good works are anything but works.

Works are bad or useless:

KJV: Romans 4:2 If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about--but not before God.
NIV: Romans 4:2 If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about--but not before God.

KJV: Romans 4:4 Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation.
NIV: Romans 4:4 Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation.

KJV: Romans 4:6 David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
NIV: Romans 4:6 David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

KJV: Romans 9:32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the "stumbling stone."
NIV: Romans 9:32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the "stumbling stone."

KJV: Romans 11:6 And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.
NIV: Romans 11:6 And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace

Yep, works are works! So far, anyway.

And where works are good:

KJV: James 2:24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
NIV: James 2:24 You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.

KJV: James 2:25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?
NIV: James 2:25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?

KJV: James 2:26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
NIV: James 2:26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

KJV: James 2:14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
NIV: James 2:14 What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?

KJV: James 2:17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
NIV: James 2:17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

KJV: James 2:18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
NIV: James 2:18 But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

KJV: James 2:20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
NIV: James 2:20 You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?

KJV: James 2:21 Was not Abraham our father justified by work, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
NIV: James 2:21 Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?

KJV: James 2:22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
NIV: James 2:22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.

KJV: Rom 2:10 but glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile...
NIV: Rom 2:10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

KJV: Rev 20:12-13 the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
NIV: Rev 20:12-13 The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done.

That was easy! You just have to apply the rule.

Last one now. Both the N.T. Greek and Old Testament Hebrew have an array of words which the KJV translates as office. In total the KJV says office 46 times. In contrast, the NIV uses office 7 times. Some NT examples:

KJV: Luke 1:8 And it came to pass, that while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course.....
NIV: Luke 1:8 Once when Zechariah's division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God,

KJV: Luke 1:9 According to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord
NIV: Luke 1:9 ...he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense.

KJV: Romans 11:13 For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office...
NIV: Romans 11:13 I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry...

KJV: Romans 12:4 For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office...
NIV: Romans 12:4 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function...

KJV: 1 Timothy 3:10 And let these also first be proved; then let them use the office of a deacon, being found blameless
NIV: 1 Timothy 3:10 They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons.

KJV: 1 Timothy 3:13 For they that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.
NIV: 1 Timothy 3:13 Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus.

Like translating bishop as overseer, I don't find these alternate translations to be be less technically accurate than saying office; but if you're trying to show the Scriptural reasonableness of the Church having permanent, formal offices, as opposed to gauzy "places of leadership," you're going to have a problem doing so from the NIV. And the same thing will be true when subjects such as bishops, tradition, communion, and good works are concerned. In the NIV, the positive Biblical support for these (not exclusively) Catholic concepts has been translated right out of the plain text.

Sacraments and Semitic Triliteral Roots

2011-06-15T09:52:00.007-04:00

This post is linked to Amazing Catechists and RAnn's Sunday Snippets

Most names mean something. In some cases the meaning is plain: Prudence, Grace. Other names have meanings that are less obvious: Fletcher (arrowmaker, from the French flèche, arrow). To an Anglophone, meanings of foreign names are practically inaccessible, such as the Turkish girl's name Birsen. Birsen comes from bir, one; and sen, you. The meaning in English isn't so much one-you as it is only-you. Very sweet. Sometimes I tell my wife, "You're the one," and recall that Turkish name.

In Wednesday Sunday School, depending on a name's relevance to the material, I'll tell the kids what a name means. But then I make them tell me why it matters. For example in the first class of the year, we start with Creation. Genesis says, "God said, Let us make man in our image...And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground..." Swapping out some English for Hebrew gives us, "God said, Let us make adam in our image...And the LORD God formed adam [of] the dust of the adama..." Then through quick discussion the kids figure out: Adam got his name by being the first man; that first man was made of earth; and his name helps to explain these things about him. It's good that there's an easy name to figure out in the beginning of the year.

Less easy is Isaac, which means Laughter. But if I've adequately communicated to the class how sad Abraham and Sarah were that their love had not created any children, then someone will get it in short order. Knowing what Isaac means then makes it easier for them to grasp how awful it was for God to ask Abraham to sacrifice his son, to kill laughter.

We treat other names as well, especially the -el- names: Samuel, Elisha, Gabriel, just so they get the hang of recognizing that -el- means God, as in Elohim. My favorite -el- name is Elizabeth, I'll usually explain it just for fun. Eliysheba, אֱלִישֶׁבַע combines God אֱלִ and seven שֶׁבַע to mean "God is my oath," "sworn to God," or my preferred expression, "consecrated to God." Seven is a holy number, so to seven oneself is to swear, take an oath. Kinda fun.

Then this weekend I read this post: Seven Sacraments and the Westminster Confession of Faith which extended the seven/oath concept into an understanding of why seven is the correct number of sacraments. The article reminded me of Elizabeth, and I was prompted to refresh myself on the details of the name. Turns out that seven and oath aren't quite the same word in Hebrew. We might think of them as fraternal twins, like skin/shin, shirt/skirt, ship/skiff, ear/hear: words that used to be one word, but drew apart just enough to distinguish related, but distinct, meanings. In the Hebrew seven/oath case, both words come from a common root...a common three-letter root...a Semitic Triliteral Root! Of course! I should have known.

Long ago I was active friends with a group of Turks (we still keep in touch), went to Turkey, learned some Turkish. One of the words I liked was kitap, book. On one occasion I heard someone say what I thought was kitap, but not quite: katip. Is katip related to kitap? Yes: katip means author. But those aren't Turkish words, they're Arabic words which were grafted onto Turkish, as French was grafted onto English.

Unlike Turkish, Arabic isn't fond of the p-sound. Thus, Arabic says kitab for book; katib for author; and kuttab for primary school. In Arabic, the three sounds k-t-b (or q-t-b) form a triliteral root which itself isn't a word per se, but from which a family of writing/book words spring. Arabic has hundreds of these roots, and shares them with other Semitic languages, including Aramaic and Hebrew. For example in Hebrew, a ktuba is a marriage contract. Just to get a better feel for how these roots work, here are a couple of well-known Semitic roots: Islam/surrender, salim/purity, and salem/peace spring from s-l-m; and s-b-t generates shabbat/ to desist (Sabbath).

Less familiar is the s-b-a root, which shows up in Elizabeth. S-b-a generates a bundle of words whose similarites are Biblically significant:

שֶׁבַע sheba, seven (cf. German sieben, Greek [s]hepta, Sanskrit saptá, etc. )
שָׂבֵעַsabea, satisfied, abounding
שֹׂבַע soba, fullness
שָׁבַע shaba, to swear
שבע shebua, an oath

I understand that in the oldest written Hebrew that these were all spelled the same, that is, with the three letters Shin ש, Bet ב , and Ayin ע , but lacking the jots & tittles that add differentiating stress & vowel information. So before those vowel points existed, a reader would have to already know more or less what the s-b-a root meant in given passage, and be aware of all the overlapping meanings even if one made more (but not necessarily exclusive) sense than the others.

And as the Hebrew in Genesis makes a point about earth and Adam, so it also makes a useful point about שבע s-b-a in chapter 21. What follows is way edited.

After the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah, Abraham and Sarah journey to Gerar, whose king is Abimelek (m-l-k, malik, king, if you must know). Like Pharaoh before him, Abimelek wants to add Sarah to his harem (women can still be babes when they're older). After a misunderstanding as to Sarah's marital status, Abraham and Abimelek make nice, and later swear a non-aggression pact between themselves:

At that time Abimelech...said to Abraham, "God is with you in all that you do...swear/shaba to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my offspring or with my posterity, but as I have dealt loyally with you, you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned." And Abraham said, "I will swear/shaba." When Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well of water which Abimelech's servants had seized, Abimelech said, "...I have not heard of it until today." Abraham set seven/sheba ewe lambs of the flock apart. And Abimelech said to Abraham, "What is the meaning of these seven/sheba ewe lambs which you have set apart?" 30 He said, "These seven/sheba ewe lambs you will take from my hand, that you may be a witness for me that I dug this well." 31* Therefore that place was called Beer-sheba; because there both of them swore/shaba. So they made a covenant at Beer-sheba (Well [of the] Oath).

In order to make a covenant, they had to swear (an) oath, shaba shebua. As part of the oath, Abraham gave Abimelek seven/sheba sheep. This ritually expresses not only the seven-ness, the Godness, the sacredness of the oath/shebua, but also its sufficiency/sabea and its fullness/soba; which are also aspects of God's power & love. That is, fewer than sheba would not have been a plenitude of sheep, and more than sheba would be cloying.

Years later, Jacob would agree to work seven years for Laban in order to marry his daughter Rachel. That's quite a seven to ratify a marriage covenant.

Centuries later Naaman the Syrian must immerse sheba times in the Jordan to wash away his leprosy. Six times would not be what Lincoln might call the "full measure;" and if sheba washings cleaned Naaman's disease, then why jump in an eighth time? It'd be like Moses hitting the rock again: I trust ya God, but I just wanna make sure. You know, in case you don't get it done in one smack. Uh-huh. And remember after the seventh dip, Naaman is converted, believes in Elisha's God.

Now, let's jump ahead to Jesus and his New Covenant, which had been anticipated by the likes of Jeremiah. Before Good Friday, Jesus was physically accessible like the rest of us. But after the Ascension, he wasn't. To maintain that connection to Jesus until he comes back, we have Sacraments, which maintain the fullness of the spiritual and physical aspects of that covenant relationship. Based on the Old Testament precedents, and what Jesus and his apostles did in the New, it's reasonable that the Church recognizes seven Sacraments. And she does so not only through the numeric significance of sheba, but also in the complete oath-swearing covenental fullness and abundance of the s-b-a root.

So how does this apply to Wednesday Sunday School? If my syllabus covered the Sacraments I'd be all set to use a simpler version of this post as an introduction; but it doesn't. But sometimes (ok, rarely) a lesson plan ends a few minutes early. When it does, I like to have something new and useful to teach for those extra minutes, something self-contained, but which connects to other stuff. So I anticipate trying something like this:

"Hey look, we have three whole minutes left in class! So can we get out early? No indeed, classtime is valuable. New topic: somebody tell me a word that rhymes with 'shirt.' Umm...skirt? Yes. How are shirt & skirt alike? They're both clothes. Yes...what do I hear with? Umm, your ears? Yes, I hear with my ear. Y'all see how some words sound alike and have similar meanings? Yes. We only have a few words like that in English.

What language was Genesis first written in? Hebrew! Yes, good on you for remembering. Hebrew has lots of word families like shirt & skirt, ship & skiff, shin & skin. Let's look at one. Y'all know the name Elizabeth? Yes. It's Hebrew: El-i-sheba [on the board]. Remind me, the -el- means....God? Yes, good. And sheba means seven. What's the big deal about seven? It's God's number. Yes.

Hebrew has a lot of words that are like sheba, seven. Say it: sheba. Sheba. Be fearless: sheba! Sheba! Good. Because seven is a holy number, when people like Abraham swore sacred oaths or made covenants, which are like....contracts! yes, they would swear on the holy number seven, make gifts of seven sheep, or work seven years before making a marriage covenant. The Hebrew words for swearing and oath are shaba and shebua, both very close to...sheba! yes, which means...seven! Yes. So Elizabeth means 'God is seven,' but it also means God is holy, God is my oath, God is my covenant, God is abundant, things like that.

So tell me how many Sacraments are there? Seven. Yes. And how many Gifts of the Holy Spirit? Seven! Yes, why seven? Because that's the holy number. Yes, and because it's a covenant-making number. So when you receive a Sacrament, such as...Communion! yes, remember it's one of the seven outward signs of the New Covenant; or as we'd say in Hebrew, one of the sheba signs of the New Shebua.

OK, class is over sheba seconds early!

(At the top, Sarai Is Taken to Pharaoh's Palace, by James Tissot)

The Reticent Circumflex

2011-06-11T12:44:00.010-04:00

This post is linked to RAnn's Sunday Snippets

French is just the greatest; who doesn't like French? And the Anglophone can step easily into French, because our English vocabulary has been enriched (that's right: enriched) with thousands and thousands of French words since 1066, when Francophone Vikings conquered England.

Or something.

Anyway, by recognizing some patterns in French, it's easy to know what the English sibling or cousin of a French word is likely to be. Of course any Anglophone can recognize train, couleur, honneur, fleur, raison, raisin, appetit, detour, porter, direct, and example. In these cases the English siblings are identical, or virtually so, and we don't need to know any patterns.

But here's a pattern in French that isn't so obvious: maître, fête, côte, bête, forêt.

The pattern is the little hat on the vowels; it's a circumflex; or le petit chapeau, the...little...hat. Often, but not always, the circumflex indicates the loss of the letter s from a word, per the examples above. If we add the s back we create (or at least approximate) the English cognates: master, feast, coast, beast, forest.

The circumflex indicates the lost s so often that it always pays to try the s in a circumflexed word just to see if it helps with the meaning. For example prêtre gives us prester, which is an older version of priest in English, as in Prester John. A favorite of mine is huître. Huister...is that English? Yes, but we spell it oyster.

Don't worry if the s trick doesn't always work. For example, in rôle and diplôme it's a comment on the vowel sound. And sometimes I think the French use a circumflex just because they like how it looks.

Now you ask, if we got those words from the French, why do we say them with an s when they don't? Well, because the French still said them with an s in 1066. But the French language in England stopped changing, unlike the French in France, which kept getting more French. As Chaucer said of the Prioress around 1370:

And French she spoke full fair and fetisly
After the school of Stratford at-te Bow-e,
For French of Paris was to her unknow-e.

So the English kept the s (but sometimes in a French way: aisle, island) as the French were letting it go. But if the French increasingly dropped the s in speech, the s didn't erase itself from French books. And I expect that Frenchmen who could write were not fond of spelling forest without its s even if nobody made the sound anymore. Does that seem unduly fussy? It's not- do you want to spell knight as it sounds? Me neither. So the French compromised: drop the s, but add the chapeau where it used to be.

But the circumflex doesn't indicate every case that an s has been dropped; see if you can figure these out: écorcher, école, étude, écrire, étonne. In these examples, adding the s gives us scorch, school, study, scribe, stun. The accent mark takes priority over the circumflex, which is implied though it's not there. So another lost-s pattern is French words which begin with an e followed by a consonant.

There's something else these lost-s-words have in common: they all are part of French's Latin patrimony. That is, école comes from schola; fête from festa; and maître from magister. And this next example is less obvious, but still solvable: château from castellum (fort, castle). But a caution is in order: not every lost-s-word comes from Latin. For example, étiquette lost its s, but its origin is Germanic.

But sticking with the likelihood that a French lost-s-word is Roman in origin, consider how many words that makes available to you, the discerning pattern sleuth, in all the Latin-sourced tongues, the Romance languages. Remember, Latin originally was simply the language of Latium, the area of central Italy inhabited by the Latini tribe. As the Latin city-state of Rome amassed its empire, the Latin language spread. But the people in Hispania, for example, already spoke their own languages. So when Latin was imposed on them, they didn't speak it as Romans did, but altered it through their existing sensibilities of pronunciation and rhythm. As the Empire receded, Latin persisted; but only as a local language. The Latin of Hispania wasn't the Latin of Gaul or Dacia, and these local versions would eventually be recognized by their speakers as languages separate from, other than, Latin. Of course Latin herself was also the child of older tongues, but in this post Latin is the only source we'll look at.

Consider the Latin word schola. In French it's école; in Italian, scuola; in Spanish, escuela; in Romanian, şcoală (shkoala). Each version of schola reveals a pattern of each language's rhythm and sound habits; and those patterns can apply to other words. Since this post is about French, let's try étudiant. It starts with an accented e followed by a consonant; assume it's a lost-s-word with an implied circumflex. So we add the s back to get éstudiant. Allowing for our English vowel preferences, we drop the e to get student. Judging from scuola, Italian doesn't add an e in the first place, but it does want to end with a vowel for reasons of rhythm: studiante, maybe? Close, it's studente. Spanish escuela suggests we keep the French e and add a vowel at the end for rhythm...estudiante? Yes, indeed. And while in Romanian the word is student, it's worth remembering from şcoală Romanian's tendency to turn an initial s into sh, as we do with strike and stranger. Thus when English says scholar, Romanian says şcolar (shkolar).

Now this circumflex pattern is a small one; but it gives the English-speaker easy access through French to dozens of Romance words, and allows a student to jumpstart his foreign language vocabulary with just a bit of practice.

The Wily Umlaut

2011-06-04T21:07:00.007-04:00

Warning: this is not a catechetical post.

English is just the best; it's so rich in words. Not only do we have oodles of 'regular' English words such as chicken, deer, lawyer, pig, and cow, but also thousands of French words such as poultry, venison, attorney, pork, and beef. And words from India such as shampoo, bungalow, ketchup, punch, khaki, and jungle. Not to mention several thousand more loanwords from all over the planet. I will not mention them. But English isn't just a mix of vocabularies: it's also a mix of grammars.

One of the many charms (or aggravations) of English is its plurals. The easiest don't even require a change: deer, fish, moose. Other easy ones all end in s: cats, dogs. Fussier ones take an s but have a consonant change: leaf/leaves; house/houses; mouth/mouths. The oddest (and oldest) require a vowel change to make the plural: geese, men, mice, lice, brethren, cistern (kidding), and my favorite, women. Women is my favorite because both vowels change to make the plural. German, one of English's cousins, requires vowel changes even more than English does. How nice that in German the change may be indicated by an umlaut, those two dots that occasionally appear over its vowels. Like so: Mötley Crüe. Just kidding. I mean like so: ä, ö, ü. Thus in German there is one Buch/ book, and two Büche; one Hand, two Hände. The umlauted vowels sound different. If we used such marks, we might spell particular plurals like this: man/ män; woman/ wömän; and goose/ göse. English umlauts all sorts of words, not just nouns (e.g., sink/sank/sunk); but doesn't ever use the marks.

Now Anglophones learning German often don't want to worry about the umlauts; they're content to show the plain vowels. After all, English don't need no stinkin' umlauts to indicate vowel change...but failure to use the umlaut can radically change a word's meaning.

Here's a little Anglo-Deutsch example which visually makes the point.

With an Umlaut:

Without an Umlaut:

Which example is your favorite? Well, probably neither one...but you get the, uh, point.