More Background Info on “Cuties” (“Mignonnes”) at Netflix

UPDATE: Having seen a snippet of one of the more salient portions of the film, I can categorically recommend that you not view the film. (Assuming what I saw, an excerpt shared on Twitter by someone who should have known better than to post such a thing, was in fact taken from the film and not a deepfake. )

Whatever the artistic merits of the film may be overall, based on what I viewed the film violates the fundamental rule decency: If the only way you can film the shot is for the actors to do on camera (which means doing in front of the crew) what they ought not be doing in front any audience, ever, then you are not a director who cares about the well-being of your actors.

–> Find a different way to shoot the scene.

I will update again if I learn that the pertinent excerpt circulating is not from the film, but at first glance it appears genuine.

2nd Update: A little more research confirms that what I saw (excerpted on Twitter) is what multiple reviewers saw when watching the original film. The film also includes, per a warning at IMDB now taken down, a scene which meets, unequivocally, the definition of child pornography per US law. Not sure why Netflix isn’t being charged. No shortages of witnesses.

Interesting side note: My Twitter account is set to hide “sensitive content” which results in all kinds of innocent media being hidden from my view unless I choose to click through — most memorably the time Twitter felt that the view of a priest praying at Mass was, it seems, too risky for tender eyes. (Um. It was just some priest. At Mass. Doing normal priest things.) In contrast, I did not have to choose to click on the excerpt of the young girls dancing lasciviously, Twitter did not find that to be “sensitive content” at all. Hmmn.

***

The French film Mignonnes is (rightfully) causing a stir after Netflix ran a provocative publicity campaign and then failed to care very much that decent people don’t approve of sexualizing eleven-year-olds.

If you are looking for more information on the film, pull out Google Translate and get ready for a set of unsatisfying-but-enlightening answers:

The director’s interview at Paris Match
An article on the director’s background and vision for the film at Le Point – Afrique
A review of the film at La Croix
An English-language review from back in January, at Seventh Row
A review back in May from Jalouse
UPDATED to add this review from MagicMaman, which I think is one of the most informative from a (non-religious) parent’s-eye-view.

Because none of the reviews include spoilers, I can’t give a final verdict (without having seen the film) on exactly where the director takes this. But here, I think, are the key pieces of info for readers of this blog:

#1 It is in no way a film for children. Don’t let the promotional materials fool you.

#2 Maïmouna Doucouré is telling her own story, and (more below on this) the story of many girls growing up in France (and the US — all over the world, I suspect) today. For her, the reality is one of coming from a strict, traditionalist, polygamous Muslim family where women were treated as sexual objects and forced into relationships that did not respect their dignity as human beings. So when Netflix sets up a lazy conflict between “religious family” and the hypersexualized dance world into which Amy, the young protagonist, is pulled, it is important for Catholics and other parents of good will to understand that Amy, like Ms. Doucouré, is not coming from a sane, healthy, dignifying religious background.

–> A major early plot point is that Amy’s mother is charged with organizing the wedding of her still-husband to his second wife, and Amy’s grandmother is aggressively insisting that Mom do her duty and shut up and put up, this is how things are. For the purposes of this film (not the purposes of its promoters or the wider non-immigrant culture receiving it), tween conflict over family-of-origin’s “religion” is not a case of garden-variety boredom with the parent’s conventional, anodyne religious practices as familiar to readers growing up in most of western society.

2nd Update: In this video interview, near the end when asked what she’s viewed lately that made the most impression on her, Ms. Doucouré says with obvious enthusiasm the Swedish television drama Kalifat. I think it’s a particularly good insight into her own worldview as a director — what she finds resonates with her in other productions out there right now.

#3 The problem of young girls being pressured into hypersexualized dance movement and attire is widespread. How widespread? Longtime readers may remember my answering this question. Let me emphasize the setting of that question: We are talking about upper middle class (you have to be affluent to afford dance team), religiously-affiliated suburban professional families in one of the most religiously-conservative cities of the Bible Belt, and the question was posed by a guy who knows the family through church. I cannot emphasize how many times I’ve been party to discussion among nice Catholic moms wondering what to do about the slutty dance routine problem. Parents rearing daughters in the most religiously conservative corners of the western world have to work hard to find a dance school for their daughters that doesn’t consider sexually suggestive clothing and dance moves to be a normal part of the repertoire.

#4 So, after reading what the director has to say about her film, here’s where she was trying to take it: She grew up in an immigrant household where religion was used as cover, among people her in native culture, to justify the objectifying, subjugation, and sexual exploitation of women. As a teen she was torn between that world and a permissive hedonism in teen culture that any reader coming of age after 1965 would recognize. And yet, as a grown woman attending a community event in her home neighborhood in Paris, she was absolutely shocked to see tween girls performing, with no one batting an eye, in a manner that you see in the trailer for the film.

–> The director’s statement of purpose for the film is that she wanted to show how girls growing up in her culture are pressured into choosing among two different kinds of sexually exploitive cultures.

(More below on that.)

#5 One thing Ms. Doucouré says in one of the interviews is that, in fact, she had to use quite a lot of restraint and under-tell just how sordid is the world that real middle school girls are living in today. In her words: Parents aren’t ready to see this. In my words: It would be illegal.

Is it morally problematic for Ms. Doucouré to be filming girls doing the dance moves, in the costumes, as she is? Absolutely. I do not approve. I do not say to you, “Go watch this film!” I do not say to you, “Subscribe to Netflix!” But understand that, from the director’s point of view, she is literally only having girls perform exactly what they are already doing in real life. She is having girls perform on film exactly what parents of competitive dancers in affluent, even nominally religious families, already pay buckets of money to have their girls do.

Her stated purpose in doing this (and I cannot confirm how well she pulls it off) is to show the harm that comes from this. Dance moms? Ms. Doucouré is after you.

#6 Let’s talk about that directorial restraint.

Ms. Doucouré’s research confirmed what I’ve known ever since I first sent an undercover agent into the world of affluent, mainstream suburban middle schoolers here in the Bible Belt: Girls these days expect to have to perform sexual favors for their peers.

Not just girls from poor immigrant families living in tough neighborhoods. We are talking girls at private schools, girls in club sports (read: thousands of dollars on her sports hobby), girls growing up in McMansions.

How normal is the promiscuity among tweens and teens? It is so widespread, and so self-sabotaging, that my kid’s class got abstinence talks from the atheist public-school biology teacher — a person with no moral reason to object to consensual sex, no reservations about contraception or abortion, but who could not help but see how teens were destroying themselves with the sheer quantity of premarital sex that had become the norm among the students.

If you are shocked by what you see in Cuties trailer, God bless you. Yes. Yes. It is two inches from child porn.

Why those two inches? Because it is a film about girls who are entering the now-normal world of actual child porn that is your teenager’s daily reality.

#7 Your middle schooler’s porn problem doesn’t come from nowhere.

I have no expectation that Mignonnes (Cuties) resolves in a manner that would win a Theology of the Body award. Mainstream, traditional French culture is not a culture of chastity. I love France. I love many things about French culture. But this is also a place where adultery is normal and accepted. What has changed in recent years, in terms of sexual morals as explored in this film, is not a change of kind but of degree. Traditional French culture at the highest, most respectable levels demanded discretion. Americans who disparage the French president’s having a mistress commit the fault of being uncouth. From the traditional French point of view, it would be like complaining the president uses the toilet — everyone does, but that doesn’t mean we have to chat about it.

Americans have our own, differently-flavored unchastity problems. (We, too, have adulterous presidents. For example.) Keep in mind that the parents and grandparents now approving of their daughter’s participation in Little Ho-House Dance Team grew up believing that Risky Business, Top Gun, and Officer and a Gentleman were all great films. Classics! I can remember watching what was supposed to be clean-cut classic Western — and one featuring boys and teens is co-stars in a youth-can-do-it themed film — and turning it off when we hit the Happy Prostitute trope. The US is the place where sweet old ladies at the antique mall try to convince your kids that porn is just fine.

So no, I don’t expect Mignonnes resolves a story about an eleven-year-old torn between two bad choices by finding the third way that is chastity. If nothing else, it’s an award-winning French film, and let me tell you, it is hard to find a French film that doesn’t glorify unchastity. It’s hard to find a French film that didn’t require someone to strip naked on the set in the making-of, and here I’m using the very, very low bar of “if it could have been filmed in a way that kept the naughty bits covered, it might can get a pass, but if there was simply no way to film this scene without the actor or actress actually being required to work nude in front of the camera, then we’re done, movie over.”

So. In conclusion:

Per her own words, the director of Mignonnes (Cuties) was attempting to show that the sexualization of tweens is a serious problem;
I agree;
I have no reason to believe that the film resolves in favor of chastity, though I’m certainly open to being surprised, if anyone who’s already seen the film wants to cough up spoilers.

Here, have a palate cleanser, courtesy of Wikimedia’s Image of the Day (CC 4.0). Look here for a detailed description.

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.

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

Need Your Help: Stories of Equal Access

I need your help with getting a door unlocked.

I’m a parishioner (and at last check parish council member) at a large and historically-significant parish. Thanks to renovations over the years, there are three wheelchair-accessible entrances feeding the parish church. Unfortunately, since November of 2017 all three of those doors have been locked. The only way to get into the building during Sunday Mass or Saturday Confession is to either walk up a short flight of stairs (seven if I counted correctly) or wait around on the sidewalk hoping to flag someone down who will go unlock an accessible door for you.

Unfortunately, the pastor of the parish doesn’t seem to understand that it isn’t okay for someone with a disability to have to make advanced arrangements in order to be able to get inside the building for Mass or Confessions. He’s otherwise a fairly stand-up guy, but he seems genuinely shocked that I would be angry about this issue.

I’m not above launching a massive public shame-storm, but that’s a weapon of last resort. What I’d like your help with is attempting to show Father (and I tell you again: he is otherwise a pretty sane guy) that equal access matters.

Here is a form where you can share your story. Can you share with him an example (or multiple if you’ve got them — fill out as many entries as you’d like) of how equal access, or lack of it, has affected your life?

My plan is to pass on to him your stories so he can see, person by person, just how painful it is to be the one stuck out on the sidewalk wondering how you’ll get in. I’ll also put in a Mass intention for the collective intentions of those who share their stories (so Father L. gets to pray for you, cause that’s his job), and of course I’ll pray for you individually and I think he will too.

I’m not looking for angry. He’s gotten plenty of angry from me, and believe me, I’m not as nice in regular life as I am on the internet. I’m looking for your personal story of how being able to participate in parish or community life made a positive difference for you or someone you love, or how being excluded by needless barriers did the opposite.

The reality is that barriers keep people out. After a year and a half of locked doors (in a previously accessible parish), the only regulars with disabilities are the few who are okay with the new status quo as second-class citizens. Everyone else has disappeared. If you showed up as a tourist (the parish receives many out-of-town visitors at weekend Masses), you’d follow the signs to a locked door and maybe succeed in waving someone down, or maybe just give up and move on. As a result, Father L. no longer sees the people who are most affected by his decision: You’re all gone.

I need you to make yourself visible to him again.

Thank you so much.

I’ll post updates as I get them. Also: If you choose to let me share your story (and only in that case — opt in or your story remains completely private), I’ll pick a few to post here and elsewhere, so that your voice gets heard far and wide. Thank you!

Image: No Accessibility Icon, courtesy of Wikimedia, Public Domain

Manliness and a Perfect Funeral

Hathaway’s funeral was perfect. Chanted Extraordinary Form Requiem Mass at the old but not old-old St. Mary’s church in Aiken, then procession to the graveside for a Melkite burial. Nothing says “four last things” like a Dies Irae in the hands of a good cantor.

As our line of cars, lights on, hazards flashing, police escort, ambled down US 1 towards the cemetery, traffic of course made way. But this is a land where funerals are still taken seriously, and even on the four-lane highway where there was no practical need to do so, most vehicles coming the other direction pulled to the side, stopped, and put on their lights, paying their respects. You have no idea of it, I thought as I passed driver after driver putting life on hold for two minutes of stillness in honor of a complete stranger, but you are witness to the funeral of one of the world’s great men.

***

John’s daughter asked (shortly after his death) if I could speak at the funeral meal. After the perfection of the funeral homily and the solemnity of the mass and burial, what I had prepared seemed woefully inadequate. It also was not very gentle, but fortunately there was a line-up of nice friendly people to follow, including a dear friend with the gift for coming across as a big, chummy teddy bear while he reminded the audience of the value of redemptive suffering and the need for masses and holy hours of reparation.

I’m sure most people did not like what I had to say, but the one person it was written for thanked me for saying it. Below is the text, with most of the typos removed.

***

When we try to explain the difference between men and women, we tend to resort to stereotypes. We know that men possess, on average, more physical strength than women, so we use examples of large, muscular men performing heavy manual labor. We know that men have an inborn, undeniable vocation as providers and protectors, so we reach for clear examples of those. When we think of providers, we might give the example of a successful business owner, or an accomplished professional; or we might think of an ordinary workman or farmer putting in long hours at physically grueling labor in order to provide a simple but decent living for even a very large family. We know that men are created to be protectors of the family and community, and thus we look to the sacrificial life of men who have careers in the military or as law enforcement officers. These are not bad examples. But they don’t get to the heart of what it means to be a man.

John Hathaway had the rare and excruciating vocation of showing the world what it means to be a man.

You could not look at John and think “typical big strong muscular man.” (Though at times he astonished me at how strong he was.) But what is a man’s strength for? It is for serving God and serving his family. John Hathaway used every ounce of his physical strength in fulfilling his vocation as husband, father, and Christian. I remember him telling me the story of literally crawling to Holy Communion one time, so determined he was to receive Our Lord despite whatever parish he was visiting not noticing he needed the sacrament brought to him in the pew. John was a wealth of medical knowledge – if I had a difficult medical question, he was on the short list of people I’d go to with such questions – because he was utterly focused on husbanding his strength, as the expression goes, so that he would be as strong as he possibly could be in order to serve his wife, his children, and God.

As a provider, John fell in the terrible predicament of those who are extremely talented but not in financially lucrative ways. He was an English professor in a nation where adjunct professors sometimes literally live out of their cars because they cannot afford rent. Many men find themselves in this position, willing to do whatever it takes to provide for their families, but thrust into overwhelming circumstances beyond their control. The despair this can cause men is at times deadly.

John Hathaway deployed extraordinary determination and perseverance and ingenuity in figuring out, day after day, year after year, how to provide for his family. And he did provide. He absolutely embodied what it means for a husband and father to be a provider.

As a protector I want to talk about John’s role in defending his children’s very lives.

We live in a time when it is legally and politically and socially acceptable to say that John and Allie and Gianna and Josef and Clara should simply be killed. They should never have been allowed to be conceived, for fear they not measure up to some ideal standard of human health. Allie, the same Allie who has been a pillar of strength and a fount of practical help to Mary over this past harrowing week; the same Allie who is delightfully talented and devoted to sharing her talents with the community . . . is someone that even Christians will sometimes say, “it would have been better if she’d never been born.”

I would say John’s life work was one steady, undying protest against that evil. He tirelessly spoke and wrote and worked to persuade the world that his children deserve to live.

This vocation of his was painful. It was physically and spiritually exhausting. He deployed every spiritual and physical weapon at his disposal against the constant and at times overpowering despair and darkness that descended on his life.

I can recall at times literally thanking John for still being alive. I thanked him for the depths of the agony he endured by dint of continuing to pursue medical care in order that he might, for as long as possible, be present in this life to his family. I thanked him selfishly: I knew that death would be easier and more pleasant for him, and I knew that when that time came I would feel his absence profoundly. John was a delightful person to know and to talk to and to be with.

In closing I want to commend Mary for her choice of a husband. She has faithfully withstood no end of criticism for marrying a man who lacked the superficial traits that are idolized by our society. But she has known what others don’t see: That she married a man who truly embodied manliness to its fullness. He cherished her, he sacrificed daily for her and the children, and gave his life and every ounce of his strength to providing for and protecting his family. He made his own and by extension their relationship with Jesus Christ his number one priority. He was everything any man could ever aspire to be.

The pale and fleeting beauty of the Shadowlands, as seen in the Jesuit church in Quito, Ecuador. Photo by Diego Delso, delso.photo, License CC-BY-SA.

Solemnity on a Friday!

December 8th is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. In addition to being a holy day of obligation (translation: Go to Mass!), its status as a solemnity means that on years when the day falls on a Friday, the usual obligation to do penance on Fridays is lifted:

Can. 1249 The divine law binds all the Christian faithful to do penance each in his or her own way. In order for all to be united among themselves by some common observance of penance, however, penitential days are prescribed on which the Christian faithful devote themselves in a special way to prayer, perform works of piety and charity, and deny themselves by fulfilling their own obligations more faithfully and especially by observing fast and abstinence, according to the norm of the following canons.

Can. 1250 The penitential days and times in the universal Church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent.

Can. 1251 Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday. Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Let the bacon be served.

If you live in the US, your bishops already gave you the bacon-option, but it’s penitential bacon:

Can. 1253 The conference of bishops can determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence as well as substitute other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety, in whole or in part, for abstinence and fast.

Way back in 1966, the US bishops determined that if abstaining from meat isn’t penitential enough for you, outside of Lent you are free to substitute some other penance:

28. In summary, let it not be said that by this action, implementing the spirit of renewal coming out of the Council, we have abolished Friday, repudiated the holy traditions of our fathers, or diminished the insistence of the Church on the fact of sin and the need for penance. Rather, let it be proved by the spirit in which we enter upon prayer and penance, not excluding fast and abstinence freely chosen, that these present decisions and recommendations of this conference of bishops will herald a new birth of loving faith and more profound penitential conversion, by both of which we become one with Christ, mature sons of God, and servants of God’s people.

The whole document is worth reading. But not tomorrow! On solemnities, we feast.

Which of Your Friends are Going to Hell?

Someone both lovable and known-to-be-sinful died recently, and a friend posed this question: What does the Church teach about so-and-so? Is this person now in hell?

This was my answer:

The Church will very occasionally confirm that someone is in heaven, but never makes a judgement on who is in hell.

We can know that certain sins will mortally wound the life of the soul if they are freely chosen by someone who understands their gravity. We cannot know the inner life of another person, and therefore cannot know how culpable they are for a given sin, nor whether they repented (if necessary).

Heck, we barely scratch the surface on our *own* inner lives.

We can, in contrast, appreciate all that is true, good & beautiful in the people around us.

***

On that note . . . I wrote a long rambly post back in August on the complicated lives of us sinners. There was a relevant section to my friend’s question, so I’ll share that again:

Mercy is the thing that makes us see the part of our friends that must at all costs be saved.

Yes, yes, we know about the immense weaknesses and deplorable lapses and insufferable habits — but we know the other side! We have seen selflessness to make your mouth gape, and virtues so indelibly marked on our friends’ souls that they track in purity and joy on their shoes even when they try their hardest to wipe their goodness off at the door.

Some people get so despicable that it’s hard to see the parts worth saving. God can see those parts though. The question of salvation isn’t how much nastiness needs to be removed to get down to the person you were created to be. The question of salvation is: Are you willing to be saved?

Happy Advent, everyone!

Detail of a Cross of St. Longinus. If there’s hope for him, there’s hope for you. Photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Longinuskreuz_1.JPG CC 3.0

Memento Mori

While All Hallow’s Eve is no day to be dabbling in the demonic (no day ever is), it’s as fine a time as any for pondering one’s mortality. A little artwork for the season:

Danse Macabre from the Domincian cemetery in Bern:

Stained glass from the Bern cathedral, photo by Andreas Praefcke CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons:

Fresco: The Triumph of Death, on the external wall of the church of Disciplini, photo by Paolo da Reggio via Wikimedia, CC 2.5:

And for those who have been pondering the blog silence of late (including a few overdue book reviews, sorry there): It’s due to a distinct lack of death in these parts. Camping, volleyball, children studying music, adults studying the Bible, children and adults putting on an All Saints Play, a writer posing as a literature teacher beginning this Friday, friends visiting from out of town, friends visiting from in town, a Quiz Bowl around the corner — life is good.

Castles in Alsace, Part 3

Do not trust me if I say to you, “I know there’s a castle around here somewhere . . .”

Unless you want to be taken for a ride.

A long ride up a windy mountain road, and then back again by a different way, with a stop for photos in a picturesque village because it isn’t fair that the children get to take all the photos out their windows while I keep my eyes on the road, so humor me we are going to stop and park so the mother can get out and take pictures . . .

Eventually we did end up in Katzenthal (also picturesque), home of the Château de Wineck. FYI, Wikipedia seems confused about this castle, in both French and English. The place we visited, as you’ll see, is the one I’ve linked to — hit the Google translate button and scroll down for some history.

I’m not sure whether I would have marched myself up the hill or not, but a tired child dug her heels in at yet another evening-after-a-long-day castle hike, so the two of us walked the other siblings as far as the trail at the edge of the village, then ambled back towards our car. We were halfway across the village when the two hiking children raced back and intercepted us excitedly: “There’s a road! We can drive up!”

Foolishly, I believed them.

We loaded up and headed towards where I’d left them. The “road” begins with a teeny-tiny alley between two buildings, ample for pedestrians and more than sufficient for those narrow tractors that the farmers drive through the vinyards, but not the sort of place Americans drive automobiles. Warnings from the rental contract flashed in my head.

Conveniently, I have rented a French car. It knows the way French drivers behave, and so it has sensors that beep ruthlessly at you if you get anywhere even vaguely French-like in your parking habits. I really wanted to see this castle. Possibly an addiction is forming. So I sucked in my gut (as if that would help) and thought French thoughts, and threaded the needle.

No furious beeping. No scratches for the rental car guy to charge to my credit card. Apparently it is a road.

Except that the “road” never turned back into a full-sized road. As we wound our way up, I grew increasingly suspicious that I was on a private road belonging to the vinyard owner. Also: I wanted to see that castle, and anyway there was no place to turn around. So up we drove, and sure enough there was a wide spot for parking right at the castle, and that, too, was probably meant for castle custodians and not for us, but the place was empty because it was late, so if we were supposed to get in trouble the villagers were slacking off on that job.

***

The remains of Wineck are small – here’s the keep and tower. You can go inside on the occasional opening hours, but we declined to trespass (we’re like that — our ambiguous vehicle situation not withstanding).

Castle Wineck Keep

Here’s a detail from one of the walls at the base of the structure:

Castle Wineck - Wall detail

And here’s a wall cross-section:
Castle Wineck - Wall Cross-section

There are some slight but distinct differences, you’ll note, between this wall cross-section and the cross-section of wall from the Eguisheim castles in Part 2 of this series. If you are just joining us on the castle tour, Part 1 is here. The last thing I have planned for the (Alsatian) castle series is a look at the furnishings in Haut Koenigsbourg, coming next.

The Epic Vacation Archives:

Castles in Alsace, Part 2

Part 1 is here.

The next place we went after Ribeauvillé was the Ecomuseé d’Alsace, outside of Mulhouse. (Say it: Moo-Lose, as in, “the first cow to moo loses the game.” Resist the natural urge to prounce it “Mull-House.” You are not mulling the house wine, you are playing the quiet game with cows. Also recall: Google Translate is your friend.)

There are no castles at the museum, but there is a strong house – une maison forte – built on site from salvaged 15th century components rescued from Mulhouse.

Medieval "Strong House" reconstructed at the Ecomusee d'Alsace

The tower is not a perfect reconstruction. The curators took the remains of the original building parts and gave their best rendering of what it might have been used for, and what would be most interesting or educational for museum-goers. Like Kaiser Wilhelm’s reconstruction of Haut Koenigsbourg, it’s an interpretation, not a replica. It’s useful for thinking about how fortifications were made for various purposes.

After a full day at the museum (topic for another post or two), we drove north towards our home village and of course we spied castles on the western horizon. There was no other choice but to hop off the autoroute and pick a departmental road that pointed in the general direction and try our luck. After several missteps we succeeded in the following the promisingly named Route des Cinqs Châteaux to the parking lot for Les Trois-Châteaux du Haut-Eguisheim.

There are two trails out of the parking lot, one of which will take you in five or ten minutes to the three castle ruins above the town of Eguisheim. The other trail will take you all kinds of places far, far, away. It was only obvious in retrospect which trail we should have tried first. Eventually, however, we reached our goal.

As you come up the trail from the parking lot, the first castle is this rectangular tower. We’re viewing it in this photo from the north, standing in the ruins of the second castle, but you actually arrive on the site from the west. (These photos are from about 6:30 in the evening, beginning of July, so the sun is informative for directions.)

Rectangular tower of the first of the three castles of Eguisheim

To the right of all those low walls of Castle #2 in the foreground are two towers. Below you can see the remains of the northern of those two towers. Both are closed (for safety reasons) but trespassers with decent climbing skills do go up to recreate. (Not us, thanks for asking. All these easily-accessible high places along the edge of the Vosges are popular with local teenagers.)

One of the towers of the second of the three Eguisheim castles

You can see in the above photo a bit of broken wall between the sites of Castles #2 and #3. Here’s the cross-section of that wall:

Cross-section of a wall between Castles 2 & 3 at Eguisheim

In case you tend to wonder, like I do, how the insides of walls are built. And finally, here are the foundations of Castle #3:

Foundation of the third ruined castle at Eguisheim

The three castles are right up on top of each other. It’s more like a castle complex. Or one of those castle-subdivisions where the neighbors all complain about how they have no side yard and you can see into each other’s kitchens. It’s enough, though, to make you wonder about the other two châteaux implied by the road name. There was plenty of daylight, so we decided to keep driving up the mountain.

The parking lots at Château du Hohlandsbourg were all packed at 7pm, which at the time we resigned ourselves to hiking up from the farthest of the parking lots seemed like no big deal. What do we know about castle popularity?

So we haul ourselves ten minutes straight uphill, which after already having walked around all day took a lot of castle-hunger, and were rewarded by this massive impenetrable edifice:

Entrance - Chateau Hohlandsbourg

Wait. Except that we’re looking at a wide open door, right?

What you don’t see is the hired security guy whose job is to inform us that under no circumstances can he let us inside, because it is now 7:15, and the castle closes at 7:00, and there’s a big government meeting going on inside. Ah. So that’s why all the parking lots are full.

We resigned ourselves to staring out at the view of Colmar in dazed dejection at our fifteen minutes of misfortune, and took photos for a bit, because we couldn’t bring ourselves to leave.

View from Chateau Hohlandsbourg

The security guy was, however, fine with us walking around the exterior of the building. After enough landscapes and selfies and group portraits and eavesdropping on the sorrows of other rejected hikers, we were feeling energetic again. We scrambled up an informal trail and started our tour of the walls.

For the most part, Holandsbourg looks like long stretches of blank wall, which make for horrible photos, and a few of these on the corners:

You can, however, look in through the arrow slits down at ground level, which from some angles gives you a view of the governmental party-tents, and into other holes you see things like this:

View into Hohlandsbourg castle

Honestly I think we had more fun scrambling around the perimeter of the castle than we would have had if we’d been let inside. We never would have circumnavigated the place if it hadn’t been our only choice.

Jen looking into the Forbidden Castle (Hohlandsbourg)

Me, looking into an arrow slit of the Forbidden Castle. There is glass behind this particular slit, hence my reflection, but you can see into the meeting space that’s been created within. Two more castles still to come in this series. And for those who are wondering, all the photos in these posts are mine, all rights reserved. See the copyright notice in the sidebar.

Category: Art and Archictecture

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Which of Your Friends are Going to Hell?

Memento Mori

Castles in Alsace, Part 3

Castles in Alsace, Part 2

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