What to Expect from a Saint

Over at the blorg yesterday I wrote about how, whatever St. Junipero Serra’s sins might have been, an authentic desire to evangelize is not one of them. Figures I’d say something like that. Today I want to address a deeper question: What are we to think about the problematic behavior of saints and other heroes?

Let’s begin with some foundational principles.

We know that the Christian faith is unchanging, and we know that the moral law is unchanging. Murder is wrong yesterday, today, and tomorrow, forever and ever amen. Jesus Christ is the Savior of humanity yesterday, today, and tomorrow, forever and ever amen. Thus, the first thing we should look for in a saint: The moral and spiritual ideals towards which a saint strives are unchanging ideals.

–> We expect a saint to love Jesus Christ and to practice and proclaim the Catholic faith as best he or she is able.

Saints overcome obstacles, but they aren’t omnipotent.

From our lives, from common sense, and from the historical record, we can know that there are obstacles to living out our Christian ideals.

Some obstacles are internal, such as physical or mental illness. These roadblocks to practicing the faith don’t make us less faithful. What they do is cause us to have to put more effort into loving God, who sees and acknowledges the heart. While some saints may have awe-inspiring external, easily-visible accomplishments to their name, others do not.

Other obstacles are created by our society, our culture, or the people around us. In another era, a saint might have been able to care for orphaned children by simply opening the doors and welcoming those in need. In our time, extensive regulations may prevent an individual, family, or religious association from being legally allowed to provide care.

–> When we look at a saint’s life, we have to realistically assess the resources and opportunities that were available to that person living in that era.

Culture clouds our human thinking.

While the natural law is written on the human heart, we know that human beings are fallen creatures. We are tempted to do what is comfortable and self-serving, and often we let our desire for gratification color our understanding of the Gospel.

Thus it is hard for a saint, or anyone, to overcome his or her weaknesses.

Furthermore, our culture affects our ability even to contemplate what the Gospel might be asking of us. A type of generosity or piety or morality that was encouraged and accepted in one time or place might be rare or nonexistent in another. When a given concept of Christian morality or devotion is simply not on the radar in our own time and place, it is very, very hard to look over the walls of our native culture and consider a better way of living.

I’m hard pressed even to provide an example, because I know that for any specific suggestion I make of an area where modern Americans struggle with recognizing and articulating the faith (and some other cultures did not), my suggestion will be dismissed as “ridiculous” or “extraneous” or “old fashioned” or “obsolete” or something else. We cannot see what lies beyond the walls of our own cultural prison.

–> We can expect a saint to respond freely and generously to those aspects of the faith which were understood and practiced in his or her culture, and to make sincere but not always successful attempts to discern and apply Christian doctrine counter-culturally.

Culture feeds certain types of piety.

In contrast, every culture has its virtues as well. What is often very confounding in the lives of the saints are the examples of virtues that are foreign to our time, but were considered ordinary piety in the saint’s time. Here I will give an example.

In our time, the practice of physical penance is virtually unknown. We allow for the merits of offering up unavoidable suffering, but even that is counter-cultural. One of the great challenges of our time is fighting evils such as abortion and euthanasia, which are fueled by a culturally-driven placing of the avoidance of suffering as the highest good. Even Christians have difficulty understanding why some of the suffering that life brings might, at times, have to be endured when there is no moral way to avoid it.

We do have a limited understanding of the value of physical penance. Specific acts of self-discipline are practiced by the most-rigorous of religious associations, and minor acts of self-denial are encouraged for all Catholics during the penitential season of Lent. However, even there, in our time we always temper any mention of corporal penance with warnings not to overdo it, not to commit self-harm, and so forth. I am absolutely at one with my wider spiritual culture in that regard.

In contrast, in other eras, we see that the benefit of physical penance was considered of greater value than the avoidance of physical harm that might result. Hence we have countless examples of saints and ordinary Catholics and even non-Christians carrying on astonishing displays of self-inflicted or self-allowed suffering that, to our modern mind, are contrary to faith and reason.

What’s going on with that? Shouldn’t the saint have known better?

Keep in mind those cultural walls. When your spiritual culture is telling you that xyz is the greater good . . . if your greatest desire is holiness, you will seek after that good.

–> We can expect saints to be willing to go to extremes to pursue paths of holiness encouraged in their time and place.

Saints take strange shapes.

Where does this leave us? It leaves us with saints who consistently love Jesus Christ, and everything else is a toss-up. Saints are people who strive for holiness, but that striving is going to be shaped by his or her personal limitations, by cultural boundaries, and by the types of piety and service that are most encouraged in his or her time and place.

Saints can still surprise. We look with special awe at those saints whose lives were wildly counter-cultural, because they stand out not only in their time but in ours.

All the same, some saints can make us uncomfortable with just how wrong they seem. When that happens, there are three questions we should ask:

Is the legacy of this saint the right legacy? Perhaps I’ve been passed a message about this saint that is honestly not what makes this saint an example of holiness.
Is this attribute of the saint just a plain old sin? Every saint recognizes his or her need for the Redeemer. Unless it’s the Blessed Mother we’re talking about, we know for a fact that some of this saint’s actions were sinful.
Is this attribute of the saint a virtue I need to know about? One of the great gifts of the saints is that they allow us to peek over our cultural walls.

What we don’t need to do is be afraid. It’s okay to have weird saints in our spiritual family tree. We are not a religion that worships mortal men. We are a religion that worships Jesus Christ. Allow the Lord to show when and how to learn from this or that saint, and when you need to recognize that so-and-so just isn’t the best spiritual companion for you right now.

Is this person helping you grow in love? Is this person drawing you closer to Jesus Christ? Whether it’s a saint in heaven or someone you know here on earth, those are the qualities we look for in spiritual friendships. It doesn’t matter whether so-and-so is so helpful to your friend or your mom or you favorite priest. Choose to surround yourself with the people who make you a better Christian.

Photo: Crystals of dried Coca-Cola, courtesy of Wikimedia Image of the Day, CC 4.0, by Alexander Klepnev. I was going to settle for a renaissance peoplescape of Heaven, but then there was this. So this is what you get. Probably the best use of Coca-Cola yet.

White Privilege in a Nutshell

My daughter is, last-minute, looking seriously at a college we had no previous experience with. So Saturday night we drove over to campus. The place was desolate — everyone’s been sent home due to coronavirus — though a police vehicle roamed the parking lots. In the waning daylight we parked in a faculty space (no other cars in the lot) and wandered around.

We liked what we saw and grew more curious. Brazenly we walked right up to the cafeteria window and peered inside. We passed a dorm, and I crossed the lawn to a window with the blinds open so we could stand there on tiptoes looking into a ground-floor room. And thus we wandered.

At no time did we fear, at all, that we would get in trouble. It was possible we’d be approached by security and asked what we were doing and requested to please return on a weekday. It was, and remains, unthinkable that our interaction with anyone, at any level, would escalate beyond a firm-but-courteous insistence that if we wished to walk the grounds, we park in the visitors’ lot and refrain from putting our noses up to the windows.

That’s white privilege.

***

I write this because Rod Dreher, with whom I often agree, shared a story of white poverty and black violence in “Race, Poverty, and Privilege” that misses the point.

“White privilege” doesn’t mean all white people are born into lives of affluence. To say racism persists in American society doesn’t mean that black people never commit crimes.

I know that racism persists because I hear it from the mouths of other white people. Am I to think they are lying to me when they make the comments that they do? Are they only pretending to believe the derogatory generalizations they spontaneously assert?

What I am to think of stories like “A White Woman, Racism, and a Poodle”? No matter what possible charitable explanation you can concoct to justify a woman getting repeatedly stopped by the police for a non-offense only when it appears she has a black man in her vehicle, the reality is: She only gets stopped when it appears there is a black man in her vehicle.

What else is that if not racism?

***

A study I think is needed (and may well exist) is the incidence of crime verses the incidence of getting caught, sorted by demographic factors. Such a study would require respondents to fess up to a reality: We all know people — perhaps even our own self is one of them — who has been spared an encounter with the justice system because they didn’t get caught.

Whether it’s over-dramatized trespassing charges (those noses on windows) or minor traffic violations or an officer following-up on a “hunch” and thus uncovering some more serious charge (drugs, weapons, outstanding warrants), if you are more likely to be policed, you are more likely to get caught. And thus: You are more likely to be considered a criminal — even though other people who did exactly what you did continue to hold positions of honor and power in our society.

(White person can verify: Plenty of leading bankers, physicians, politicians, etc., are guilty of assorted misdemeanors involving drugs, alcohol, and weapons offences that are only ever uncovered if the police decide to do some thorough searching, and therefore said persons now in power never get caught and thus go through life on the Upstanding Citizens Track while so-and-so who did get caught slides onto the Ne’er-Do-Well Track. The difference isn’t in bad behaviors, it’s in whether you get caught.)

***

White privilege is the freedom to go through life being presumed innocent until you make a concerted effort to prove to the police otherwise.

I am well aware that there is more than just a question of race wound up in the privilege of being presumed innocent. Being female increases your odds. Being well-dressed and well-spoken increases your odds. Having the social skills to fit into your milieu in a way that puts people at ease increases your odds.

Still, when everything else is equal, being white works in your favor.

***

Police brutality does affect white people. It’s an issue that transcends race and class.

Likewise, violence against law enforcement officers is a real thing. An epidemic of murders and suicides among our young men is a real thing. The breakdown of the family, with its significant repercussions on all aspects of social life, is a real thing. Lack of protection for victims of domestic violence is a real thing. Lack of social support for vulnerable persons across the spectrum is a real thing. There are many, many different ways that human beings hurt themselves and others terribly.

Acknowledging that racism is real does not erase any of that.

Wikimedia Image of the Day by Reinhold Möller, CC 4.0. The only relationship between this image of a female Phoenicurus ochruros and this blog post is that they lived on the internet on the same day. But I’m confident skilled readers can find some way to read non-random significance into it.

On How You Get People to Kill Other People

I went on a brief social media fast for a personal intention, and, magic!, finished a book. Go figure. The book was On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, by Dave Grossman.

It is the first book I’ve read on the topic (and I lack any pertinent firsthand experience), so I’m not knowledgeable enough to critically assess. I did check the reviews and there seem to be a fair number of combat veterans who found the book to be on point.

I can tell you, caveat lector, that the author spirals through his arguments and evidence as the chapters progress, though I think at least some of that repetition is an essential part of laying out his thesis. Personally I found it helpful to have him recall for me information I read previously that was needed again as he moved on to a new topic that built on previous concepts, though I did eventually wish he’d pull out some new data to freshen up with.

I can also tell you that this is not a book to read if you, for whatever reason, don’t need to be putting unvarnished descriptions of deadly violence into your head.

That said, here’s a short version of Lt. Col. Grossman’s thesis:

Studies that have looked at evidence from battle outcomes and from anecdotal experience demonstrate that consistently, across centuries and cultures, humans are reluctant to kill their own species. (As can be said of other species.) He makes a careful distinction between aggressive posturing, which soldiers do willingly, and the decision to personally kill another human, which soldiers do much more reluctantly.
There are various circumstances that make people more willing to kill, as well as managerial decisions that increase the likelihood someone will obey an order to kill regardless of their personal willingness.
Furthermore, in order to increase the willingness of soldiers to kill, and thus increase the firing (etc.) rate in battle, there are types of training the military can use to cause soldiers to overcome their natural reluctance to kill.

He concludes his book with a final section on civilian violence, which is a sobering bit of opinion-piece worthy of consideration, but not the primary point of my posting this review.

More pressing today: If you are puzzling over police violence, the information throughout the book pretty much answers your questions about what types of training and circumstances increase the likelihood of police brutality, and what types of training and circumstances would increase the likelihood of minimal use of force and increased use of deescalating techniques.

It seems to me that our present problem with police gratuitously killing civilians does not come from nowhere. Possibly there are even handy infographics throughout the book to assist in reminding you how to cut down on all the bloodshed?

***
Dave Grossman is not a moral theologian, so plan to bring your own critical thinking skills to the book. But if you wish to understand how one might hope to curb police brutality, the info is there.

My Vocation-Affirming Experience of Covidtide

I have not read the entirety of it, but Darwin’s posting a series on the pandemic that promises to be his usual clear-headed, data-oriented analysis. What follows is not that at all. I’m here to talk about my mid-life crisis, thanks.

***

So for us the pandemic has been . . . okay. SuperHusband’s employer was ahead of the curve on shutting down travel and protecting employees. South Carolina, meanwhile, has been blessed with a pretty good experience so far, all things considered — made even more so by the unseasonably pleasant weather. In terms of cases that touch us personally, a longtime colleague (age 42) died after a long struggle with COVID-19, and another colleague who has a side business lost one of his employees (age 35) quite rapidly. Otherwise we’ve been fortunate that our friends and family have fared quite well, and we firmly hope that continues.

In terms of practicalities, here’s how coronacation found us: Last year, I was teaching full time. I opted not to renew for this year, even though the job was fun, meaningful, and kept me surrounded by awesome people, because the hours were significantly more than I wanted to take away from family life. Summer, fall, and winter found me discombobulated in six different ways, which I’ll forbear from cataloging, but suffice to say that when the unexpected descended this spring, I did not come into the season feeling like my life was, at all, pulled together.

So here are some of the changes that the big shutdown entailed:

We have six people home full time — four teens doing school, one adult working full-time, one adult (me) working part-time freelancing.
Homemaking skills are suddenly at a premium as we’ve dealt with the minor shortages, the need to be very careful about outings, and the far more intensive usage of our home.
Because all activities are canceled — church, kids’ sports, school programs, substitute teaching, concerts, every. single. thing — we are home, and home, and home.

For my husband and I, this has been mostly-heavenly. The time he’d spend commuting in the morning instead we drink our coffee together and converse. We have lunch together, usually sitting outside enjoying the beautiful weather. We have family dinner every single night. My husband calls it his “working vacation” and even though he is working as much as ever, plus putting in a second shift on construction work finishing out the addition we started last fall, for him this is the perfect life.

We have, of course, had to work through assorted issues that were always there but never dealt with, all related to concerns I had long harbored about what life would be like after he retired, because for an introvert to never, ever, be alone at home can be rough. I think — helped by construction reaching a critical threshold that has caused me to mostly have my own office now — we’ve worked through much of that. Praise God.

Meanwhile, both my own experience and what I’m seeing all around me has been very illuminating, in terms of understanding my own vocation. Here are a few of the things I’ve been getting my head around.

Affirmed: My kids are awesome. I have no opinion whatsoever on the employment decisions of other mothers. I’ve done the range, from full-time homeschool mom to full-time working mom, and lately I’ve been working part-time with all kids in school. Having the kids back home full time? It’s really nice. I like these people. I enjoy being with these people. We are very close to the time when we expect our nest to rapidly empty, and getting these few months of all kids at home has been an affirmation that, for me, who had the privilege of being able to make such a choice, the decision to prioritize quantity-time with my kids over other pursuits has been the right path. A risky choice, no doubt. But a good one.

Affirmed: Relationships consume time. I can remember many nights when my mom, who had to be up for work at four in the morning, would talk to me past midnight because there was something on my mind, or because we had suddenly hit our stride and to her the lost sleep was worth the gained connection with a willful teenager. Talking to your kids take time. Loads of time.

Parents find different ways to do it — time in the car, time spent doing chores together, late nights, weekends — whenever and however you’ve got it to give. But there is no getting around the reality that kids want to spend time with their parents, and that time cannot be assigned to other mental work.

This is valuable for them and precious for me. The only time I have with my kids is this time, right now. So my husband and I — but especially me because without a regimented work day my time is much easier for the kids to claim — find ourselves wondering why we can never get done half the things we thing should get done. It’s because we’re talking to our kids.

Affirmed: Good meals take time to prepare. We’ve eaten better, even during the weeks when groceries were hard to come by, than we have in . . . ever. Prior to coronatide, in twenty years of parenting my husband and I had never succeeded at sitting down to family dinner every night. Over many months prior to the shutdown when I was neither working outside the home nor homeschooling anyone, dinner was still a rushed and hit-or-miss affair. I thought, for years, this failure was due to some inherent defect on my part.

Nope. It turns out that if you spend the hours of 3pm to 5:45 shuttling children around to various events, you can’t also be cooking during that time. It turns out that if every single night of the week your schedule is different, with different family members rushing off in different directions (every single one of them a worthwhile pursuit), you can’t get into a dinner routine. And furthermore, it turns out that giving yourself a full sixty minutes to prepare dinner allows for way more options, and much better quality food, than trying to quick throw something together in twenty.

So now we’re eating really well. People like my cooking better. Our food is more nutritious. I honestly have no desire to go out to eat. Complication: Even though my husband and I both strongly prefer this way of living, we have no idea how to achieve it when the world opens back up again.

Affirmed: Homemaking is its own full-time job. I’ve been watching, remotely, all these really accomplished professionals struggle to keep on with their careers, only now from home and with kids around. Doesn’t work. Last year teaching, I got all kinds of thing done. It worked because I was not present to my family. Getting the beast written and re-written? For lack of an office I found myself ordering three dollars worth of food and coffee from McDonald’s and then sitting in the backseat of my car with my laptop, using the free WiFi from my improvised remote office.

Being present to your family is work. It’s good work. Pleasurable work. Energizing work. But providing that presence — even if the kids are older and self-starters and half of them are legally adults — and attending to the needs of the family takes time and energy. It’s time and energy that you can’t be doing other things. We can prove it is work by the simple fact that if you the parent don’t do it, if you want it done you’ll have to pay someone else to do it. People will line up for rides at Disney. They don’t line up to conduct your home life for you.

My point in observing all this is not to conclude that there is a specific way any particular family should organize its hours and distribute its labor. My point is to share a very reassuring discovery: All these years I felt inadequate because our society sells this illusion that somehow parents can both be full-time homemakers and be full-time professionals. But it’s not so, and the experience of the many, many parents now struggling to work from home is the affirmation of this reality.

Affirmed: Twice as many meals, twice as many dishes. I’m not doing them, the kids are. Interestingly, now that the kids can choose whatever they want to eat for lunch, the school snacks are languishing untouched and the leftovers get eaten. Pretty nifty.

***

I don’t have a big point to all this self-discovery other than that now more than ever I want to punch all the people who saddle parents with “if you loved your kids/neighbor/America/Jesus you would _______.” If the parents are working full time outside the home? They definitely do not have time to do your ‘one little thing’ in addition to their other very real responsibilities at work and home.

***

Beyond that, I have no particular resolutions or vision for our future. SuperHusband and I know that we like the slower pace of life; we also know that the faster pace of life was there for a reason. I can’t think of a single thing we were doing all these years that was not a worthwhile use of our time.

We’ll have to see. Meanwhile, here’s a story for you by way of conclusion: Last spring as the school year wrapped up, at one of our all-faculty teacher meetings, the head of school had those of us not planning to return in the fall share what our next plans were. Most people had the usual — moving for the spouse’s job, expecting a baby, retiring after many years of service.

My answer? “I’ve learned not to make plans.”

If you’ve been reading this blog long enough, you know how I’ve come by that habit.

Coronatide stamped a big fat Affirmed on that one, too.

Photo: Diego Delso, delso.photo, License CC-BY-SA.

Life Coaching Tip, since after all that rambling you surely deserve at least one, right? Here it is: If you aren’t already a Diego Delso fan, you need to change that.

Enemies of the Thinking Man’s Religion

UPDATE: RR Reno apologized. My comments on that are over at the blorg.

***
Over at the blorg yesterday, I broke radio silence not because my life is finally pulled together again, but because I couldn’t resist the siren song of bad logic in need of correction.

The internet, mirror of the world, is of course full of people who are wrong. It holds up just fine without me. So why this one?

Because in this particular case, the stakes are both high and personal.

First Things magazine — printed on paper and arriving via USPS once a month — is an institution worth preserving. Year after year, issue after issue, it is invariably laden with wrong opinions. That is the nature of a forum dedicated to exploring ideas and hosting discourse on anything and everything that touches the public square.

It’s a good magazine. There are the monthly puff pieces pandering to base (ode to learning Latin, much?); there is superb poetry hidden among the pretty good poetry and the occasional “we’re just glad conservatives are still attempting poetry”; there is someone around to take down the hot new liberal sensation posing as a history book; and there’s the unavoidable Theology of the Body segment (not always so-labelled), the thought-provoking memoirs, and the mish-mash of intellectual headiness including plenty of within- and across-issue back and forth on stuff that deserves to be thought about.

Very few pictures or advertisements. Sometimes you go pages at a time with nothing but words. It’s nice.

Complain all you want, and it’s impossible not to when assessing the successors of Richard John Neuhaus, RR Reno has done a decent job as general editor of the place. That he would post something I think is wrong? Sure. Many people I respect disagree with me on all kinds of stuff.

But that he would completely fall off the ledge and lose all grasp of the most elemental understanding of logic?

Something is very wrong here.

***

This is not the first time a notable Catholic writer has gone completely bonkers on the internet. The Catholic Conspiracy exists because we who write here wanted a place that was a hangout for ordinary faithful Catholics, devoid of the sensation and hypiness that has been the downfall of so many previously-worthwhile Catholic blogs and websites.

Fact: Satan wants Catholic writers to fail.

The spiritual battle is real.

Few things help the cause of the enemy more than watching smart, insightful, faithful men and women evolve into crazypants reactionaries in front of their adoring public. (“Adoring public” is likely a contributing factor.)

Lord willing, what RR Reno needs is fresh air and new friends and a gracious audience who can allow that yes, we all lose it sometimes. Presumably his thinking problems are personal issues that are, professional hazard, unraveling in public. It happens. Catholic writers are fallen humans beleaguered by the same sorts of problems that beset us all. So be it.

When the human who’s sinking into this pit, however, is the editor of First Things, now we have a personal problem that’s affecting the common welfare.

So pray for the guy. Since we mustn’t tolerate falling for false dichotomies, don’t get sucked into Canonize-or-Cancel. It’s possible to be the head of a storied institution who’s lately been foaming at the mouth like a man who’s spent too much time caged up with Pop Culture, Elite Edition, and still be capable of pulling it together and resuming the good work.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep on pandering to moderates over at the blorg. Being crazypants only makes half the people mad. If you want to make everyone hate you, use logic.

Photo: Red Clover, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain. I couldn’t think of a good photo to go with this post, so I resorted to that old standby, Image of the Day. Apply the metaphor of your choice to make it meaningful.

How’s it Going, Jen?

It’s been, oh, thirty-seven years since last I blogged?

Quick recap tonight of what you’ve missed, and then as soon as I finally complete the task that is constantly getting shoved to #2 on my to-do list, presumably blogging resumes. Since last we spoke:

I had some form of minor plague. No opinion on what it was or wasn’t. Sore throat, headache, muscle aches, world’s lowest fever that still managed to feel like a fever, mild cough, and award-winning fatigue.

That last one I would have chalked up to old-and-out-of-shape, except two days before the plague descended, I was out running sprints and felt just fine. Within a week of plague lifting, went out and ran sprints and felt just fine.

In between? Found myself watching Samurai Cat (loved it in a cult-classic kinda way, until I got tired of waiting for better plot developments), and then Frozen (mmnn, no, wasn’t sick enough yet), and then at the nadir I came to love Twitter, because I had enough energy to hold my phone, but not enough to hold the laptop. At worst, sitting up even a few minutes was too tiring.

At the worst. Large parts of the plague were not that bad. Other than being someone who really, really loved Samurai Cat for a while. Honestly I’m half considering going back sometime and finding out if our hero ever works through his marital problems, or if he’ll just continue to stare moodily at the cat for another season.

My family attempted to run the house without me. If this were any other year, I might have begged out of chores on the most intently plague-ridden days, and otherwise slogged through the daily grind, albeit with a little more R&R than usual. Cover that cough but don’t let it keep you from making dinner.

But this is not any other year, so into the designated isolation ward I went. My people muddled through as best they could, but it turns out I do a few things around this place? So on the one hand, my convalescence was the most relaxing on record as I was forbidden to get back to work until I finally mounted a rebellion and we all googled probabilities of on-going contagiousness; on the other hand, there was plenty waiting to be remedied when I was finally set free.

Oh look! 300 pages of typos! So I spent a couple weeks digging toward the light at the end of the tunnel, none of it bad, lots of good developments on the construction front, but blogging takes a back seat. As I was working my way through the catch-up-with-reality list, the proof of The Beast came into my hands. It turns out that some author we know put many, many, typos into her manuscript.

Ahem.

Also: Splits infinitives. You may have noticed.

A beloved editor of mine has a ministry of reconciliation, bringing estranged infinitives back into couplehood. I wish her well. I do not claim to be cured of my affliction so easily. Will probably require several more shock-treatments.

Now what? On the to-do list:

Help a friend with her taxes, and maybe another friend with her taxes, and also do my own taxes, ha.
FINALLY write up the awesome interview I did AGES AGO that has been sitting on my desk begging for attention. Hoping to see it at you-know-where, but if not there than the blorg or here or some other venue.
Got another good one in the wings, and a gazillion more I’d like to hunt down. We have a lot of people in Catholic world doing good work on the evangelization front.
Continued improvements here at the castle, where life is good and check it out: I sorta have an office! Of my own! Still sharing it with lumber and a few remaining tools. Plus cats. Can’t bring myself to kick them out, even though it’s warm enough.

FYI for those who are curious, the pink binder on the desk behind Mr. Purrkins contains my marked-up copy of The Beast.

Improvised desk and bookshelves made out of crates and boards, cat in foreground. Occupies old garage space.

Sorry, no selfie, my camera has apparently given up that work. Lent must have been too much for it. I suppose it was for most of us.

How to Keep Your Tiger Safe from COVID-19

TigerCub — *All artwork is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Click through on each image for descriptions and licensing information.*

Now that the coronavirus pandemic has spread to tigers, you’ll want to sit down with your tiger and discuss the CDC’s recommendations for protecting itself from COVID-19.

It’s not always easy to talk about such a frightening and confusing topic with your tiger, so I’ve gone ahead and prepared this illustrated guide.

Hand Hygiene

Explain to your tiger that germs reside on frequently touched surfaces, such as doorknobs.

Encourage your tigers greet one another using alternatives to handshakes.

Discuss the importance of frequent hand-washing,

especially before meals.

Aim for a minimum of twenty seconds of washing with soap and water.

Social Distancing

In order to “flatten the curve” and prevent the spread of the virus, your tiger needs to learn about “social distancing.”

This includes avoiding unnecessary outings,

especially to places like crowded bars and restaurants.

While introverted tigers may be more than ready for an extended vacation from too much social time,

more extroverted tigers may find social isolation depressing.

Your tiger may be tempted to sneak out of the house to meet with friends,

or defy instructions to keep a minimum of one tiger-length apart.

Firm, consistent reminders,

including posters or other instructional material,

may help your tiger remember the rules.

Safe Working Conditions

Unfortunately, many tigers have jobs that involve close contact with others, who may carry the virus without realizing it.

Ask your tiger to discuss with its employer whether work-from-home is possible.

Certain white-collar tiger occupations naturally lend themselves to work from home.

Readily available software may allow your tiger to meet with colleagues via “zoom” conferences,

even for very large groups.

Less-technically savvy tigers may find conferencing software overwhelming, however,

and may find it simpler to conduct business via telephone.

Finally, for tiger occupations which require heading into the office, organizing the workplace to allow at least one tiger-length of space between employees can keep everyone safe.

Personal Protection Equipment

A tiger cough or sneeze can spread virus-laden droplets much farther than we realize.

Unfortunately, an extensive review of the literature shows little evidence that adequate PPE is available for tigers,

and thus your tiger may have to do without, rely on donations,

or sew up its own.

Be Safe, Practice Tiger Distancing!

Meanwhile, readers, if you are worried about catching COVID-19 from a tiger, do like I do and keep a safe distance from tigers at all times.

PS: Feel free to share your own favorite tiger art in the blog discussion group.

***

Artwork credits, in order of appearance:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TigerCub.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tiger-Brahmin-Jackal.gif

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:White_Bengal_Tiger_at_Door_(11889542686).jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_bengal_tiger_play.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Don_go_away.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Big_dish_but_mightly_little_turkey_LCCN2012648582.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bengal_Tiger_in_Water_(13290323163).jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Young_tiger_playing_with_its_mother.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Conti_echo_23_winter.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bar_Trafalgar_-_Santiago_de_Compostela.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tiger_Family.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eug%C3%A8ne_Delacroix_-_Royal_Tiger_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Naughty_Adventures_of_Mr._Jack_by_James_Swinnerton_cover_(1904).jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sc%C3%A8nes_de_la_vie_priv%C3%A9e_et_publique_des_animaux,_tome_1_0480.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kishi_Ganku_-_Tiger_-_36.100.11_-_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Siberian_Tiger_Sign_cropped.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Daniell_-_Tiger_Hunting_in_the_East_Indies_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Briton_Rivi%C3%A8re_Tigerjagd.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:W._Jardine,_Natural_History_of_Pachydermes…_Wellcome_L0030793.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peter_Paul_Rubens_110.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hume_bookplate.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colorado_College_Nugget_(yearbook)_(1904)_(14777209654).jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tiger_Fangs_(1943)_film_poster.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Das_thierleben_in_Sch%C3%B6nbrunn_(1904)_(20219627673).jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bodleian_Libraries,_Tour_through_the_British_colonies_and_foreign_possessions.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Review_of_reviews_and_world%27s_work_(1890)_(14784324615).jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Birmania,_caccia_alla_tigre,_1900_ca..JPG

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Puck%27s_political_weather_forecast_for_Fourteenth_Street_and_vicinity_-_Dalrymple._LCCN2012648722.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rory_experiment.png

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:In_dire_distress_-_F._Opper._LCCN2012648559.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_d_batten_1892_10.jpg

On my bookshelf, Holy Week 2020 and beyond

This is my long overdue post on what I’ve been reading and what I’ve got in the queue, some of it Lenten some of it not (except, of course, that everything is Lenten).

For my top picks of family-friendly Holy Week videos, look here.

Simcha’s Lenten Family Film Festival is here, and Julie Davis has a starter pack of Lenten viewing here, but her whole blog is a treasure trove of reading and viewing suggestions.

***

My Good Friday go-to is Thomas à Kempis’s On the Passion of Christ. I read a little bit more of it every year.

So no, I wasn’t kidding when I recommend partial-book reading as a Lenten strategy. It’s a thing. Sometimes a very spiritually fruitful thing. This is definitely a book for which a single meditation — even just a few paragraphs — can go a long, long ways.

Not recommended for those prone to scrupulosity. Ideal for those prone to laxity. Great example of using one’s imagination to immerse oneself in Scripture as a method of prayer, btw.

And hence: Not for the scrupulous. Just no. NO!

If you are prone to scruples, for goodness sakes do like my kid did today, unbidden, and grab a few of Pauline Media’s Encounter the Saints books. Good for kids, ideal for busy adults who need a quick inspiring read that will challenge your faith. Can’t have too many of these.

Just finished: All Blood Runs Red: The Legendary Life of Eugene Ballard — Boxer, Pilot, Soldier, Spy by Phil Keith and Tom Clavin. I give it . . . I dunno. A lot of stars. Also, I demand a mini-series. Talk about non-stop fodder for period drama . . . the adventures just. never. quit.

Of Catholic interest: Somewhere along the way, Eugene Ballard managed to become a Catholic, often a lousy but also compulsively-heroic Catholic, and he died reconciled to the Church. The biography doesn’t treat his faith very extensively, which is probably just as well; when THEY MAKE THE MINI-SERIES, which I demand, they’d better not screw up the Catholic part.

Did I mention I demand a mini-series? This is a great story.

Currently reading:

When the Brain Can’t Hear: Unraveling the Mystery of Auditory Processing Disorder by Teri James Bellis: Helpful in parts, but more fluffy than I’d like. I skim the chatty bits. If you have one or more family members with an auditory processing disorder, it’s a good place to start.
On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society by Dave Grossman (2nd edition): Pretty interesting, but I’m not very far in. Useful companion perspective to the Eugene Ballard biography.

I apologize if you thought I was reading Lentier-stuff. Well, these are Lenty each in their way. Everything is Lenty.

Okay but I have another one open that is properly Lent-themed:

Just Sayeth the Lord: A Fresh Take on the Prophets by Julie Davis.

I’m a few chapters in, and so far so good. Down-to-earth recaps, explanations, and meditations on the stories of various prophets. Based on the what I’ve read, I’d definitely consider this one as a choice for a parish book club or Bible study, ages teen and up.

Readable, does not assume a particular level of background knowledge, does provide spiritual insights useful to those who are already well-studied.

It is of course no secret I’m a Julie Davis fan. Her other two books are quite different and heartily recommended:

(Head’s up: At this writing I am not active on Goodreads, so please don’t try to message me there and then wonder why I’m ignoring you.)

Next Up:

Living Memento Mori: My Journey Through the Stations of the Cross by Emily DeArdo. I’ve actually kinda sorta already read this book? But not exactly.

Emily is one of my favorite internet writer-friends, and she let me take a look at the original manuscript for this book back when we were trying to figure out who would be the ideal publisher.

Ave Maria was the winner, and their request was that she organize her memoir around the Stations of the Cross — if you didn’t know this already, one of the things publishers do with book proposals and manuscript drafts is come back to the author with requests for how to modify the book to better serve their readers. It’s up to the author, of course, to decide which suggested changes fit with the goals of the book and when it’s time to stand firm (even at the cost of walking, if it comes to it); Emily obviously decided that the stations theme worked with her story, and I trust her instincts on that one.

I haven’t read the Stations of the Cross version, and no, I don’t feel, for a moment, that somehow that framework will become obsolete come Easter. I have a sneaking suspicion, sorry to say, that Momento Mori is going to remain a pertinent theme for many months to come.

In the future I am going to recommend that Emily write something like My Memoir of Everything Being Awesome and Life is a Cakewalk, and maybe world events will take a hint?

And finally, you knew it was coming, I’m eager to finally be able to crack open The Contagious Catholic: The Art of Practical Evangelization by Marcel LeJeune.

Call it Providence or coincidence, but I assure you Catholic publishers don’t get six months advance notice on upcoming world events and tailor their book titles accordingly.

In what is definitely Providence, here’s the story of how we ended up writing overlapping books coming out within just months of each other: I had a brief online conversation with Marcel about the same time I was pitching my book proposal to OSV. He mentioned in conversation that he had a book (he didn’t elaborate on the specific topic) in mind but had no idea when he’d get around to writing it or finding a publisher for it.

So I figure: Okay, he’s the guy to write about a book about this, but he’s not writing the book.

Makes sense. He’s a really busy guy running a major ministry teaching people how to evangelize, and his priority is to do the thing. So someone needs to write the book on how to do the thing. We get lots and lots of people who are excited about evangelization but are seriously wondering, “Okay, how do we do this?” because they’ve never been in a parish where evangelization and discipleship happen for serious.

I’m a writer. I’m not running a major ministry that is sucking up all my time. He can do the thing and I can write about the thing. I guess I’ll do that.

There is no way — let me repeat: NO WAY — I would have even proposed my book if I’d known Marcel was writing his. So it’s a good thing I did not know that he was going to end up finding time to get his manuscript together, because he has read my book now, and here’s his verdict in his email feedback to me:

You hit a lot of areas that I did not, and it seems the most important ones were covered in our own ways by both of us.

That sounds about right. You can check out the Catholic Missionary Disciples blog here to get a feel for Marcel’s writing style and the topics that interest him, how he and I overlap each other, and how is depth of experience is going to bring a different perspective than mine.

Anyway, now that I’m finally done with edits (other than a final look after the copy-editor has finished cleaning up the no-good, horrible, very-bad typos I’ve already identified from my “final” draft after pushing the send button), I’m free to read Marcel’s book with no risk of accidental plagiarizing, and so that’s what I am itching to do.*

For today’s photo penance, let’s do a fresh young face from the camera roll: A child of mine in attendance at a Family Honor parent workshop SuperHusband and I were giving last year. This is what happens when you let her borrow your laptop.

*If you’re wondering: I’m pretty strict with myself about not reading other people’s blog posts or books on a topic I’m actively writing on, except if I’m explicitly researching a response to that literature. So I spent many months not clicking through on Marcel’s blog links because I didn’t want his voice getting confused with my own while I was actively writing.

Could I recommend you read, memorize, and internalize every single thing he writes on his blog? Yes. I recommend that.

And then go do the thing. DO. THE. THING. Thank you.

How to Pick Comfortable Mask Fabric

TLDR: Choose any single 100% natural fabric.

Details follow.

***

The CDC has finally come around on the usage of cloth masks by the general public. Amen.

Masks aren’t magic. They are one piece in a whole collection of safety tactics that, when combined, make things less-bad. It’s just like how your car has many safety features that work together with your safe driving skills, or your table saw comes with safety features that are in addition to, not instead of, your decision to always know where all your fingers are.

But covering one’s mouth and nose does help. So do that. This is the post where I explain to you the trick of how to cover your face with a fabric that will be relatively more comfortable.

My credentials: I spend a lot of time playing outside in a hot, humid climate.

***

Now you might live someplace cool and dry. But your mouth and nose are little heat-n-humidity factories. The whole point of wearing a cloth mask is to keep your hot, moist exhalations to yourself. In other words, by masking up you are getting the Southern Summer Experience plastered to your face.

Please. Allow me to guide you on how to take the edge off, because the last thing we want is your desperate panting miserable self to rip off your mask as you let out a primal scream in the Walmart checkout line.

To spare us all, here’s the fabric you need:

Any single
100%
natural fiber.

Working backwards:

NATURAL means: Cotton, wool, silk, or linen.

You’ll need to get out your reading glasses to read the fine print. Cotton is the most widely used, but any of these can work. You may find tightly-woven silk in the upholstery department. You may find tightly-woven linen in the form of a table cloth or napkin. We’ll talk about wool below.

Yes, I know there are hi-tech wicking fabrics. If you have a garment you find very comfortable in hot sweaty conditions, perhaps an old pair of hi-performance long underwear from your trekking expedition or something, have at it.

But if you must buy new fabric, buy natural because it’s widely available, cheap, and proven. “Wicking” or “breathable” synthetics sometimes are what they promise (more likely so if coming from a reputable purveyor of technical mountaineering gear, just sayin’), and sometimes they are hype. You’ll have to test for yourself, and not everyone has the money to gamble on tests.

Be warned: “Natural” fibers do not include, for this purpose, bamboo or other modern-day recycling projects. Those kinda-natural inventions don’t function the way traditional natural fibers do. Cotton, wool, linen, or silk. Those are the ones you want.

Review Q&A: What does natural mean? It means cotton, wool, linen or silk.

100% means: ONLY the single natural fabric you have chosen, no other material of any other kind.

Your cotton skinny jeans with “just a touch” of spandex are NOT 100%. Your cotton socks are highly unlikely to be only cotton, they probably have some kind of stretchy thing that makes them hold their shape.

Many, many, many natural fabrics used in clothing or sold at fabric stores contain either a poly-blend (looking at you, t-shirts) or a small amount of spandex or lycra to improve fit.

Read the label. Your stash of old t-shirts probably contains both 100% cotton and cotton-poly blend t-shirts. Read every label. Your favorite bandanna might be 100% cotton or might be cotton-poly. Read the label. Your worn-out wool sweater (blazer, skirt, etc.) you could never quite bring yourself to throw away (more below) might be 100% wool or it might be a wool-blend. Read. the. label.

Review Q&A: What does 100% mean? It means that when you read the label, it says 100% of either cotton, silk, linen, or wool, and NOTHING else.

SINGLE means: I don’t trust you with that 100% concept.

Ha! It means this: ONLY cotton, or ONLY wool, or ONLY linen, or ONLY silk.

Linen-cotton blends, for example, are popular for summer shirts and for table linens. This is a trick! Don’t fall for it! Yes, the two fibers are both 100% natural. But when you blend them, you lose the comfort of a single-fiber natural fabric.

Trust me on this. I know.

Other common combos, especially in scarves and luxury fabrics, are wool-and-silk or linen-and-silk.

These will not help you. Do not use these in your homemade or improvised face mask or you will become a sweaty mess. Go for a SINGLE natural fiber in your 100% natural fabric.

Review Q&A: What does single mean? It means that your fabric is composed of only one type of natural fiber.

Readily Available Sources of Single-Fiber 100% Natural Fabric

There’s a good chance you already have something sitting around your house that can be converted into an improvised face covering. Some sources to look for:

T-shirts
Pillowcases or sheets
Cloth napkins
Table cloths
Mom-jeans, Dad-jeans, and cargo shorts
Flannel shirts
Dress shirts
Curtains
Tote bags
Bandannas
Jackets

And yes, sweaters. (See below!) Naturally you aren’t going to cut up a perfectly good garment unless you have no other choice, but you might have something that is stained, pilled, worn through at the knees or elbows, or otherwise ready for re-purposing.

In the average household, your best bets for re-purposing are going to be:

That ratty old thing your husband won’t quit wearing because he loves it, but seriously, it’s time.
That awful dress your six-year-old loves, and insists she still wear, but hello it was her favorite when she was TWO and now not only is it permanently ketchup-marked, it is also no longer working even as a shirt.
The fabulous piece you got on clearance because you love the fabric, but the cut of the garment is horribly unflattering and no amount of belting or cardigans can fix that, and you need to move on.

Find these things, read the labels, and if they are a 100% natural single-fiber fabric, they are perfect for your home-made or improvised face covering.

Finally, let’s talk about wool.

Two things you need to know:

Usually knitted items are a very loose fabric that won’t help much for keeping your cough to yourself.
Wool shrinks in the wash.

If you know what you’re doing, you can use this to your advantage. “Felting” is the process of washing and drying a wool fabric until it shrinks up into a tight fabric. When you do this to your gorgeous handmade Christmas sweater, by accident, instead of hand-washing and laying flat to dry, you end up with a doll-sized sweater. Oops.

But fast forward to today, when you are now eyeing up that wool garment you own that is either no longer presentable, or else it never really was suitable for any human to wear anyway, no matter how much the giver meant well when she gave it to you.

You can use this item for mask-making (having confirmed by reading the label that it is indeed 100% natural single-fiber-type wool), but first you need to felt it. Do that by running it through the hot wash and dryer a bunch of times until it quits shrinking.

That’s it. Not complicated. You need to do this not only because you want to tighten-up that weave or knit, but also because it’s no good to have a mask you can’t wash and dry — you’ll just end up making doll masks. Ha.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Okay that’s it for today’s lecture. Remember, if you don’t want to pass out from heatstroke or infect the world in a sweat-crazed rage as you tear your drenched mask-of-misery from your overheated face, make your homemade mask out of fabric that’s:

100%
natural
single-fiber

That’s 100% of or cotton or linen or silk or wool.

You’re welcome.

File:GreenMask1.jpg

Artwork: The Green Mask comic book cover, circa 1940, via Wikimedia, public domain. This is not the right pattern for slowing the spread of respiratory illness. Pretty sure your forehead is not a major vector of contagion.

On the other hand, let’s say it now right now: If you would also wear whatever glasses you have on hand when you must venture out, that, too, would add yet another layer of protection, however minimal.

Saints overcome obstacles, but they aren’t omnipotent.

Culture clouds our human thinking.

Culture feeds certain types of piety.

Saints take strange shapes.

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Hand Hygiene

Social Distancing

Safe Working Conditions

Personal Protection Equipment

Be Safe, Practice Tiger Distancing!

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NATURAL means: Cotton, wool, silk, or linen.

100% means: ONLY the single natural fabric you have chosen, no other material of any other kind.

SINGLE means: I don’t trust you with that 100% concept.

Readily Available Sources of Single-Fiber 100% Natural Fabric

Finally, let’s talk about wool.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

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