Dear readers, I have not forgotten you…

It has been a busy month plus for me. There has been a lot of reading and writing and I’m rusty at both of those, at least as far as academia goes. Nonetheless, I’m managing.  Today, though, I am very intentionally taking it easy…a pot of coffee, a little light reading and–in a couple hours–an outstanding dinner.

I have felt a creeping sense of guilt as I have had several people remind me that I haven’t posted in a while and I have even gotten some new subscribers (thanks!) whom I want to assure that I do post from time to time.

Now, I usually (not always) avoid politics, but I am urging you to call your Congressman and tell him or her to support this measure. I would be so much healthier if this proposal were to go through.  Hope all is well from wherever you’re reading, Dearborn to Singapore!  As I finish things up this semester, hopefully posts will be more regular.  God bless you!

Chivalry is not dead!

It made my day and I made a point of saying it.

The red line–maybe that should be capitalized–the “Red Line” was a zoo today.  The Red Line is the Metro line that runs through my neck of the woods here at Catholic U.  I had taken a ride over to Cleveland Park today to have a bite to eat and then walked up to Van Ness–another three quarters of a mile up the line–to hop on the train to get back.  In Michigan, there are two seasons for the roads: winter and construction.  The Metro works like that, except the seasons are severely shortened.  There are the weekdays (read: rush hour during winter) and the weekends (read: construction).  It seems as if every weekend sees the Red Line limited in some way for the sake of construction.  Today was no exception.  Construction had brought it down to one track through spots.  It was an absolute zoo with trains packed, running only every quarter hour (at best) and stopping seemingly randomly between stations.  The trip from Brookland to Cleveland Park was no fun.  The train was packed.  It was delayed.  It stopped randomly between stops.  The driver did not understand how her intercom worked and so left it on the whole trip…this means I not only got to hear what stop was next but I also got to hear about the what and why of the delays on the Yellow Line–at FULL volume.  People were squished together like cattle.  Actually, if cattle were squished together like that, PETA would have a conniption leading to a commercial with Sarah McLachlan, cute puppies and you writing a check–I mean the other “PETA,” not “People Eating Tasty Animals,” of which I am a member.*  I anticipated the trip from Van Ness back to Brookland being equally miserable.  But it wasn’t.  It made my day.

On the way back to Brookland the train was packed.  I did my best not to think about to crowd on the train and so was thinking about natural philosophy.  I was sweating about the possibility of there being a faster than light particle (see Thursday’s post).  On the one hand, I was doing my best to calm myself down and tell myself that it hasn’t been experimentally proved exactly and maybe the people at CERN made a mistake, etc.  This whole faster-than-light neutrino thing has really been troubling.  The physicist in me was offering consolation: “They weren’t actually testing the speed of neutrinos…maybe there’s an error in the experiment…maybe the GPS or the clock was not properly calibrated…they’ll try this in Chicago and find out there was a mistake, no worries!”  On the other hand, The philosopher in me was saying, “Physics has been wrong about everything!  Aristotle was right about everything!  Oh yes!  Dissertation, baby!”  Suffice it to say, my mind was doing its very best to be anywhere but on the train from Van Ness to Brookland.

I came back from my musings to unabstracted reality when we stopped at Dupont Circle, two stops from where I started (see, no need to worry…I didn’t think very long).  The train was beginning to fill up.  A lady boarded the train and approached the area where I had managed to sit down.  Recovering from my meditations on the perhaps imminent crisis in physics (really, if any story were above the fold in the Times or Post, it should have been the CERN experiment!), I recalled the manners my mother taught me.  I rose and asked her if she would like to be seated.  She took the seat and thanked me.  At this stop and the next, I saw as many ladies board the train and stand as young adult males remained seated.  I began to become discouraged.  I began to become disillusioned and wonder if retiring into equations might not be a better thing than existing in an unchivalrous society or at least riding the Metro.

At Metro Center, everything changed.  A family boarded the train, a mother and her sons.  The boys were around seven, eight years old.  One of the boys took one of the seats that had opened.  Mom gave him a look.  He immediately turned to another family that had just boarded and asked the three little girls from that family if they would like his seat.  They were small–they fit.  They thanked him and he stood up and went and stood by his mom.  I was so proud of that little boy I could have popped.

As luck would have it, that little boy and his family were getting off at Brookland, too.  I caught his mom on the way out the train.  Now when someone you don’t know from Adam comes up to you in Washington and starts talking to you, you start to look for the nearest exit.  I suppose that’s the same anywhere outside of the Midwest (for my purposes, I’m taking Detroit to be outside the Midwest and utterly sui generis).  So I got out what I had to say quickly: “Ma’am, when your son gave up his seat to those little girls, it made my day!”  She said thanks and turned to her son and said, “Did you hear that?”  I hope he will remember that: being kind to others is impressive.  Furthermore, doing what your supposed to do as a man is impressive.  I apologize if I offend anyone’s sensibilities, but men are supposed to open doors, give up their seats, stand when a woman enters the room, take of their hats indoors and pay the bill.  My mother taught me all of that.  I’m glad to know someone else’s mother is teaching him that.

*I know Sarah McLachlan does ASPCA commercials, but there is nothing as funny as “People Eating Tasty Animals” that matches up to the abbreviation “ASPCA.”  Furthermore, to prevent any shock and revulsion I should say I love animals…well, an animal: Oscar, my adopted Boxer.  I don’t like your dog.

This could change everything…

Scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN may have found a faster-than-light particle.  The story is here.  There will be a conference on the findings at 10:00 am Eastern time here.  If this finding holds up to scrutiny, this is easily the most significant physical discovery in my life and likely yours.  Einstein’s entire system of physics is predicated on the speed of light not only being a sort of speed limit for the universe, but as being really the chief constant from which everything else derives.  It is sort of the foundation of the building that is modern physics.  Take away that foundation, and you need to rethink how the building is going to be built.  Take away that constant and you need to start over again.  We’ll have to see where all of this winds up taking us.  There very well could have been something overlooked, some error in measurement, some human error, etc.  But if not, if this holds, it could change how we think about physics.  It is a good time to be a philosopher of nature.

In 1933 at the Spencer Lecture at Oxford, Einstein said, “Our experience hitherto justifies us in the belief that nature is the realization of the simplest conceivable mathematical ideas.”  I may be able to leave aside having to contend that our experience “hitherto” does not in fact justify that belief as it becomes harder for science to force nature into a mathematical mold.  We regularly see phenomena slipping through a prospective unified theory as it attempts to close its grasp.  While physics does help us to understand nature, nature is not an object of mathematics.  The precision of nature is not the precision of mathematics and there is something about the way that Aristotle understood the world that is just as true as–and I would argue, truer than–the way Descartes, Newton and Einstein approached understanding the world.

I shall stop waxing philosophical, at any rate, and see how this all turns out.  It may come to nothing.  But if this pans out as a real discovery, the years ahead should be very exciting ones for the world of science and natural philosophy.

And…we’re back

Sorry, readers!  It’s been a busy couple of weeks, but I finally feel as though I’m ahead of things.  I have had a whole raft of reading to get done and a logic exam this morning to cap everything off.  But I am still here and I have not forgotten about my blog.  In a couple of Sundays, I will even have a homily to post!  It has been weeks since I have had the opportunity to preach, but the pastor and the associate at the parish where I am helping out on the weekend will alternately be on vacation in the weeks ahead, so I may actually get to be the principal celebrant at a Mass–with a congregation!  The value of the things you take for granted very quickly becomes evident when you no longer have them.

This past weekend, the pastor in his homily explained some of the upcoming changes in the English translation of the Mass.  The new translation will be in effect the last weekend of November (the first weekend of Advent).  When we go to Mass the weekend after Thanksgiving, things will sound a bit different.  The meaning will not have changed, but some of the words will have.

Over the years since the present form of the Mass was enacted (1972), there has been a steadily growing awareness that the English translation of the Latin is not the best thing in the world.  Take for example the very beginning of the Mass.  The priest says, “The Lord be with you.”  In the English, as it is now, the people respond, “And also with you.”  Consider the Latin for a moment: the priest says, “Dominus vobiscum”; the people respond, “Et cum spiritu tuo.”  Look at the people’s response in Latin, then look at the English.  Look back at the Latin.  You don’t need to be a Latin scholar to notice something is missing.  As monsignor put it this weekend, “Who took our spirit?!”  Priests speaking every other language get spirits!  ”Y con tu espiritu”; “Et avec votre esprit”; “E con il tuo spirito”; “Und mit deinem Geiste”; etc.  This coming Advent, English speaking priests get their spirit back.

There is a lot to like about the new translation, in my opinion, but one of the criticisms leveled against it is that the language is too formal and does not reflect how people ordinarily talk.  I concede that the new translation contains language we do not normally use.  You may not be able to remember the last time you said the word “beseech.”  You may never have used the word “ineffable” in your life.  These are not ordinary words.  But the criticism contains with in it the hidden premise that we should not address God with words we don’t ordinarily use.  I dispute this.  Our relationship with God is completely different from our relationship with anyone else.  Should there not be different words?  So often in our relationships, the nature of the relationship informs the vocabulary we use.  We do not talk to our families the same way we talk to our colleagues nor do we talk to our colleagues the same way we talk to someone we just met in the street.  The nature of those relationships determines our manner of speech and our vocabulary.  Our relationship with God is unequivocally unique and should involve a language equally unique.  The new translation tries to render the Latin in just that sort of language.

I look forward to Advent every year.  It is my favorite season in the Church.  This year Advent will bring more than its usual share of gifts.  We will have a more accurate translation of the Mass, one that better reflects the mystery that the Mass is and the uniqueness of our relationship with God.  This new translation is a great gift to the English speaking Church.  And for my part, perhaps best of all, I get my spirit back.

“Mind” or “brain”

Until about 40 minutes ago, I was sleeping peacefully.  Then lightning struck.  I mean that: lightning struck, quite literally.  It was bright, close and loud and it woke me up and now I can’t get back to sleep.  I tried staring at the ceiling for a while, but I can’t see my ceiling without my glasses on.  Then I started thinking and lying in bed in hopes of falling asleep began to seem more and more fruitless and hopeless.  It’s ten to one in the morning and I’m hoping blogging is the 21st century equivalent of counting sheep.

I thought I might write a bit about a question in philosophy I have been considering lately, the “psychophysical” problem.  No need to be intimidated by the fancy words: “psycho” means soul and “physical” means, in this case, matter or the material realm.  How do you put the two together is the problem.  When you read this, for instance, is it just your brain working (just matter, just your body) or is there something else deeper that’s thinking about this and processing it, you mind?  The question should not be framed strictly in terms of “or” because it can be both, and thus I include the word “just.”  Is it just your brain?  Is it just matter in motion and chemicals?  Is subjectivity (your thinking self) real or a mere illusion created by these chemicals and this matter between your ears sparking away?

The question stated, I know the answer.  I am convinced that I am a mind, a real subject and not just electricity and chemicals.  But how do I go about demonstrating this to the doubter, the one who argues, “Subjectivity is nothing more than the illusion created by matter in motion.”  The philosopher Hans Jonas offers an interesting counter and to my mind a devastating counter to this argument and a clear answer to the doubter.  Among other methods, he uses a very simple one.  He uses retortion.

Retortion is “twisting” (like “torque”) an argument back on itself and seeing if it works.  It is checking the argument’s self-reference.  Let’s take a classic example of how we might use retortion.  Suppose you are an Athenian and you’re off on the road to Morocco (perhaps to see Dorothy Lamour).  You run into a fellow from Crete.  He introduces himself and you say, “Judging by the way you pronounce your iotas, you must be from Crete!  I’ve never been, but I’m headed there next month…what are people like there?”  He responds, “I’ll level with you…all Cretans are liars.”  You begin to think about contacting your travel agent and changing your plans when…hey, wait a minute.  If this guy is telling the truth, then he’s lying!  He’s a Cretan!  If it’s true that all Cretans are liars, then he himself must be a liar and yet making a true statement.  When we bend the proposition back on itself, we are trapped in a conundrum when we consider that the speaker is a Cretan and his statement might be true.  Applying retortion to this proposition allows us to see that the Cretan’s statement must be false.  (Your logical sense may be playing a trick on you and telling you, “If he’s lying, he must be telling the truth.”  That does not follow.  If you want to wrestle with that, I will alert you to a spoiler: the last paragraph is how that is reasoned out.)

Jonas takes the proposition “All subjectivity is an illusion created by matter” and says that it cannot be true.  The very fact that this statement is made and is supposed to be taken as the statement of a rational mind shows us that the speaker himself must presume it not to be true.  He would have to say, in essence, “All statements are irrational, except this one” or “No one can make a rational statement, except me.”  Now Jonas provides further arguments why “I am just a brain and just matter” must be false and several of these he argues quite subtly based on the laws of physics.  But this argument by retortion is the simplest and clearest argument for the reality of a mind.  The strict physicalist will say that you and I are merely brains.  We are bodies and nothing more with an illusion of subjectivity.  The choices we make are in fact occasioned by the haphazard firing of neurons in our brains.  The fact that I am typing is effected merely by my brain’s sending motor impulses down to my fingers.  All the while, the collection of neural activity in the head creates an illusion of a mind in each body.  Jonas says clearly and simply that life must involve something more than the forces of interaction of material bodies.  To say otherwise is a performative contradiction (like writing, “I cannot write in English”).  Even though I’m awake, you can rest at ease: you are a mind, not just a brain.  The real question for Jonas and for us, then, is how do mind and body fit and work together.  That’s the kind of stuff that keeps you up at night.

SPOILER ALERT

So, the Cretan says, “All Cretans are liars.”  Let’s presume for a moment that the definition of “liar” is “one who never tells the truth” and that not to be a liar is to be “one who always tells the truth.”  If he’s telling the truth, then he’s lying because no liar is a truth-teller.  Simple enough.  So he must be lying; the statement must be false.  This is where the mind can get hoodwinked.  We want to go on to say “Well, if he’s lying, he must be telling the truth!” but to do so would be to commit one of the classic blunders (the first being never start a land war in Asia).  Our initial reaction is to say that if “All Cretans are liars” is a false statement then it must be the case that “No Cretans are liars,” and our speaker, in lying, would be telling the truth!  This conclusion would be erroneous.  The Cretan may be uttering a false proposition and still lying.  Consider for a moment these two statements: “All politicians are Democrats” and “No politicians are Democrats.”  The first one is false.  There are Republicans, Libertarians and Independents.  But simply because that first statement is false, it doesn’t mean the second statement is true.  There are Democrats.  These statements are what Aristotle would have called contraries.  They are propositions that cannot both be true, but they can both be false.  Turning back to our Cretan, “All Cretans are liars” can be false and at the same time “No Cretans are liars” can be false.  If we say that “All Cretans are liars” is false, the proposition that follows as being true of necessity is this: “Some Cretans are not liars.”  That latter statement is the “contradictory” of the first statement.  Contradictories work like this: if one is true, the other must be false; if one is false, the other must be true.  So: the Cretan to whom you are speaking is a liar.  ”All Cretans are liars” cannot be true (at least when it is coming out of a Cretan’s mouth), which means that it is false.  What must then be true is the contradictory: “Some Cretans are not liars.”  By the situation at hand, we can conclude a further truth: “Some Cretans are liars” and you’re talking to one of them!

Really?

Classes have started…the work begins.  This post has been sitting in my drafts since Monday.  I’m finally getting around to it.  Between reading Leibniz, Descartes and Aquinas, and then trying to wade through Newton’s Principia besides, I am up to my ears in books.  I will make sure I keep posting, though.  My posts may not be as regular in the coming weeks, but I shall do my level best.

Looking at the news earlier this week, I ran across this headline from the L.A. Times: “A few Catholics still insist that Galileo was wrong.”  Being a science-minded Catholic I bit.  The article is about a few dozen people in Chicago who are part of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) who avow geocentrism.  One imagines that the discoveries of modern and contemporary science since Galileo are lost on them as well.  Having read the article, I returned to the headline.  How incredibly obnoxious.  These people are not Catholics.  They are no more Catholic than Presbyterians, Lutherans, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons or any other sect that is not Catholic.  The Code of Canon Law for the Roman Catholic Church states: “Those baptized are fully in the communion of the Catholic Church on this earth who are joined with Christ in its visible structure by the bonds of the profession of faith, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical governance.” (c. 204)  Being Catholic means professing the faith, sharing communion in the sacraments and falling under the same Church government, which is a round-about way of saying the Pope.  The last part is problematic for the Society of St. Pius X.  They abandoned Catholic ecclesiastical government.  They broke away and decided to do their own thing after the Second Vatican Council.  According to the Catholic Church’s definition of what it means to be Catholic, the SSPX is not Catholic.

My problem with this article is not that there are people who avow geocentrism.  The may believe what they like.  My problem is two-fold.  First, to place the views of these individuals in the context of the group to which they belong suggests that the entire SSPX believes that the earth is the center of the universe.  I am no fan of the SSPX, but let’s be fair–geocentrism is not part of their creed.  Secondly, and more importantly, my problem derives from what I stated above.  The SSPX is not Catholic.  The fact that the author refers to them as “a small group of conservative Roman Catholics” shows one of two things: the reporter is a lousy journalist who is incapable of researching her work properly or she wrote this as a hit piece.  The Chicago Tribune is a major paper and I am guessing they don’t hire lousy journalists, so I am forced to conclude the latter.  This is intentionally anti-Catholic.

Let’s turn to the editor for a moment.  The headline betrays either bad journalism or an intentional attempt to smear Catholics.  The editor who wrote the headline is either miserable at his or her job, or is simply anti-Catholic.  I presume that the L.A. Times, being a major paper, does not hire people who are miserable at their jobs.  And so, once again, I am led to conclude the latter.  But wait, there’s more.  From time to time, editors will do their layout and, after having included all the articles and such from their own reporters and commentators, they will still have white space on the page.  White space is not allowed in newspapers.  To solve this problem, the editor will go hunting for something he can drop into that white space that still remains.  He may find a story from the Associated Press wire or from another newspaper.  In the present case, what happened was that the editor decided to pull the story from the Chicago Tribune.  The original story is here.  This story was originally published on July 4 in the Tribune.  This editor dug up something nearly two months old to run in his paper.  He did not just grab the first thing that he found on the AP wire.  He went looking for this story, slapped a headline on it that basically says “Look at these stupid Catholics” and ran it in his paper.

In our world of tolerance and multi-culturalism, there remains one group that it is still okay to mock, slander and hate in public.  It is the Catholics.  The long tradition of anti-Catholicism in our country marches on and media outlets like the L.A. Times and the Chicago Tribune are keeping everyone in step with nonsense like this article.  Here we have further evidence that Archbishop Chaput was right on the mark with his remarks at World Youth Day:  ”We make a very serious mistake if we rely on media like the New York Times, Newsweek, CNN, or MSNBC for reliable news about religion. These news media simply don’t provide trustworthy information about religious faith — and sometimes they can’t provide it, either because of limited resources or because of their own editorial prejudices.  These are secular operations focused on making a profit. They have very little sympathy for the Catholic faith, and quite a lot of aggressive skepticism toward any religious community that claims to preach and teach God’s truth.”

After Irene

Te Deum laudamus…everyone here at the house is safe, there are no trees down and there wasn’t even any flooding.  While Irene is still technically over us here in Washington, she has all but past.  The overcast sky and the breezy conditions she carries in her wake are what we are experiencing now.  And in all truth, she’s left us with quite a lovely day.  It’s cool and pleasant out at the moment.  The rain has stopped and left us with, well, pretty nice weather.

Some debris on the street, but all the trees are standing.

The storm was not too bad.  I had an invitation to dinner last night, but cancelled on account of the weather.  I was not sure what a drive up to Silver Spring might look like after it had been raining all day.  It was late afternoon when the wind picked up in earnest and I was admittedly grateful that I had altered my plans.  I have never seen wind blow so constantly for so long.  It was not strong enough to carry away trees, nor even tree limbs as far as most of our trees were concerned, but it was constant and it kept up all night.

We did lose power at around 6:00pm.  One of the other priests and I went on a mission of mercy to the freezer to rescue the ice cream, lest it not fulfill its purpose before it melted.  There was much more ice cream than we could eat, but we did our part.  Our rescue mission turned out to be unnecessary, though.  At around 8pm, the power came back on.  Then at 9pm it went off.  Then at 9:30 it came back on.  Then at 9:45 it went off and came immediately back on, and sort of blinked off and on for a few minutes, finally deciding to remain on for the rest of the evening.  And that was the worst of it.  Well, actually the worst of it was that when we lost power the Paulist Fathers didn’t.  We can see the Paulist Fathers’ house behind us.  When our power went out, theirs stayed on.  At least our envy only lasted for two hours.  So that was Hurricane Irene and we are none of us worse for wear, thanks be to God.  Thank you for your prayers, and keep praying for those still in the path of the storm.

Irene’s on her way

Provisions? Check. (Matt Groening and anonymous Korean animators)

I am not sure what to think anymore about the approaching hurricane.  On the one hand, I have heard some sources saying this storm will destroy us all.  The Weather Channel, for example, foretells doom.  A punishing blow.  On the other hand, I have heard that it’s not going to amount to too much.  Dr. Masters at Weather Underground has a somewhat less ominous vision for the future, it seems.  Whatever the storm turns out to be, we have plenty of bottled water at the ready here and plenty of food too (though a week or so of living off the calories I’ve stored up in my own body probably wouldn’t hurt).  I am betting we will lose power here, but I have a flashlights–and there are plenty of candles–and lots of books.  The only thing that I find slightly troubling is my coffee situation–perhaps I had better grind some extra tomorrow.  So, whatever may happen, I have water, light, books, coffee and food (in order of importance).

Please keep us and all the other folks in the path of the hurricane in your prayers, especially those close to the shore.  Also, tomorrow being the feast of St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine who prayed him back into the Church, be sure to say a prayer for anyone you know who may have fallen away from the Faith!  You never know what miracles those prayers can work.

On gifts and a rainy day

It was a gray day today.  It threatened to rain all day and finally managed to do it.  It was a good day to stay inside, do laundry, read a book on metaphysics and alternately return e-mails and chat with friends.  My plan of the day involved these activities and no more.  While in large part I spent my day doing those things, it’s the things I didn’t expect to be doing that give me food for reflection here at the end of the day.

Though I am a diocesan priest, I am living right now with a religious community that was gracious enough to take me in during my time in Washington.  The men here are good men and so far I am enjoying it here.  From the moment I moved in I’ve felt welcome and I’ve felt like I fit.  Now something I’ve noticed about moving into a new place is that you not only learn new things about new people, you learn a lot of new things about yourself.  As much as I have remarked before how I despise moving, I do like being in a new place because it is an opportunity to learn.  Often, being in a new and foreign environment brings a person’s strengths and weaknesses into such high relief that even the person himself can see them.  If we are at all self aware, we are usually ready to see our weaknesses to the point of destructive self criticism.  There are those that have a blind spot when it comes to their own weaknesses, but even for them a radical change usually brings those weaknesses into their field of vision.  Gifts are often another matter.  We can be shy about them.  We can deny we have them. We can be so completely oblivious to them that we take them for granted.  Today was a day for noticing gifts.

Apart from metaphysics, laundry and correspondence, I found myself today helping another priest with his Latin.  There was a time when I could have composed this post in Latin.  I could even have found a clever way to say “e-mail.”  Gone are those days.  I still pray my Office in Latin and I still do my fair share of reading in Latin, mostly St. Thomas Aquinas and Vatican documents, but my capability has waned considerably.  Every now and then Augustine sends me running for my dictionary and Leo the Great just makes me say, “Huh?”  Yet to another priest in our community, struggling to master the Latin language well enough to pass his reading exams, I am exactly the person he needed to have living down the hall.  I spent some of my afternoon and evening with him, discussing what cases which prepositions took and helping him with his homework.  I did not know it, but for all the Latin I have forgotten, there is still a gift in me.

The second thing that I found myself doing was working on a computer as in fixing it.  I know nothing about computers.  Nothing.  I can manage this blog because it is basically just typing.  Typing, I can do (admittedly, not the way they insist you’re supposed to in typing class).  Ask me why some dialogue box appeared on your screen or what you’re supposed to click and I will tell you I have no idea.  I have found “Cancel” to be a handy option.  It’s sort of like voting “Present.”  It is absolutely non-committal–of course, it also means you’ll never get anything done.  Every now and then a dialogue box will appear with some ominous message like, “Windows has encountered an error and will now delete every document you have ever saved on this drive.  Microsoft goons have been dispatched to your home to slash your tires and kick your dog.”  Of course, these sorts of boxes don’t come with a “Cancel” button, only an “Okay” button.  I keep a bucket of water next to my desk to throw on the computer when boxes like that come up.  At any rate, I digress…computers are not my thing.  But for the priest who needed help with his computer when he couldn’t stop Symantec security alerts from appearing (“Alert: You forgot to buy our newest version!!!”) and then couldn’t turn scanned images into Word documents, computers were more my thing than his.  I straightened out his system and showed him how to deal with the scans.  As much as I chalk it up to being able to enter the right question into Google, there is a gift in me.

The thing about these gifts that I found today, gifts which are admittedly not miraculous or even perhaps impressive, is that they were needed, but not by me.  When we are honest with ourselves about the gifts we have, we are not being prideful or boastful.  The gifts we possess, realized and yet unrealized, were given to us for someone else.  We are meant to pass them on and to use them for others.  I am grateful for the gifts that God gave me to help others today and I am grateful for the people in my life who shared their gifts with me.  It was a quiet day, but a beautiful one.  I hope tomorrow may be that sort of day for you.  Be generous with the gifts you have, and don’t be afraid to take some steps out of your comfort zone into a new environment where your gifts can jump out at you.  There just might even be someone in that new place who needs them.

Today’s adventure

The front page of the Washington Post stared up at me from the breakfast table as I settled in to have my morning pot of coffee.  Most of the front section was, of course, devoted to the earthquake.  Now in places, the earthquake caused some serious damage to buildings.  The National Cathedral (not our National Shrine, but the Episcopalian cathedral) sustained some damage.  One of the buildings at Catholic University had its chimneys damaged.  Likewise, the quake caused its share of mess in places like grocery stores where things are loose on shelves.  The Post included a photo from a grocery store at the epicenter, Mineral, Virginia.  I’m sure there is some employee there today re-shelving everything and cursing the Italians for having so many different shapes of the same pasta.  But the picture right there on the front page above the fold was of a lady with a look of sheer terror on her face.  I marveled at this considering I was only about six blocks away from this lady, completely unaware that anything had happened.  But she, like many, when she felt the tremors and heard everything shake thought one thing…terrorism.  Someone remarked that he thought the Metro station beneath him had been attacked.  What the earthquake produced more than anything else by far–more than damage, more than mess–was fear, confusion and panic.  People overreacted.  But they were not reacting to an earthquake.  They were reacting to what they thought was something much worse.

But we know it was an earthquake now.  These things happen.  Hurricanes blow.  Tectonic plates shift.  Teutonic Wagnerian sopranos break glasses.  Such are the forces of nature.  Reading that article in the Post, I saw that I was and am a lot more lighthearted about the whole thing than most people, even after they realized it was simply an earthquake.  Immediately when someone said to me, “It was an earthquake!  Didn’t you feel it?!” my first thought was,  ”Cool!  Now I would like to buy some chocolate.”  My second thought was, “Ooo!  Wait!  I have to get over to the Natural History Museum and have a look at the seismograph!”  Worrying doesn’t add one hour to our lives…the Lord tells us that (Mt. 6:27).  It does subtract days…science tells us that.  I’m fairly sure laughter adds days and helps us appreciate the beauty of what we have.  A cheerful heart puts us in a better position to appreciate the gift of life, ours and that of those around us.  That said, I shall proceed.

Having clawed my way out of the rubble here in earthquake-ravaged D.C. with a renewed realization of the joy of being alive, I decided to have an adventure today.  ”Carpe diem!” and all that sort of thing.  Today’s adventure was “Carpe chartam!”  A library card for the Library of Congress, to be specific.  I decided that since it was such a beautiful day, I would hop off at the Union Station Metro stop and walk down to the Library rather than go to the much closer Capitol South stop.

Here's Union Station. Cupcakes, fresh fruit, clothes stationery, chocolates and coffee...oh, and trains or something.

Calling Union Station a Metro stop is like calling Buckingham Palace a single family home.  A massive temple constructed to propitiate the fickle gods of public transportation,  Union Station is more than trains.  The building itself is a blend of architectural styles (the good ones, not the styles that generate buildings that look like a spilled pile of books), and is a sight to behold.  And then there are all the shops inside.  If you need something to eat, it’s in Union Station, whether you want to sit down or eat while walking.   Everything from fast food that’s had every last bit of nutrition processed out of it to fresh bananas is available.  But if you’re not hungry and just want to shop, Union Station can accomodate: shoes, cigars, jewelry, cell phones.  Run out of cash?  No problem…there are banks, too.  Full service.  Drained your account?  Manage to hold onto 44 cents and you can write a letter (“Send money!”) and stamp it at the USPS branch downstairs, complete with surly clerks.

Crumbs Bake Shop. Caution...looking too long may cause diabetes.

Now I was not there to spend money.  I was there taking advantage of the convenience that was the station’s original purpose: it provides a place for you to get off the train.  But the fact that I did have to stop in the post office and pick up some stamps from the least cheerful postal clerk I have ever encountered–a man who greeted me with the word, “What,” said as a statement, not a question–led me dangerously close to the stairs to that stunning upper chamber and I was drawn in by the siren call.  Unable to wrestle any other sort of pleasantry out of the clerk, I concluded my business, collected my stamps and headed upstairs.  As I reached the top of the stars and looked to my left, I saw cupcakes.  Lots of them.  In a variety of colors and all one size…big.  I went in for a closer look.  Flavors like “Elvis,” “Grasshopper,” and “Milkshake” made “Devil’s Food” and “Red Velvet” seem dreadfully mundane.  I stood back from the counter and took all of this in.  I also took the picture at left.  The very cheerful lady behind the counter said “Hi!  What can I do for you?”  Not wanting to disappoint her and deciding against asking her to go stir the enthusiasm of the people at the Post Office, I ordered a cupcake.  I do not know what I expected when I ordered “Milkshake.”  I do not know whether or how the cupcake I received represented an actual milkshake.  I don’t care.  It was good.  Very good.  And I don’t even really like cake.  Next time I visit, perhaps I’ll try “Grasshopper” and maybe pick up an “Elvis” to make the grouchy postal clerk hate life and customers a little less.

I headed out of Union Station and went down First Street to the Library of Congress.  I have yet to go into the Jefferson Building–that’s the main building with the giant reading room.  My business was in the Madison Building, which is not as impressive.  The Madison Building is where you go to get your library card for the Library of Congress.  The Library of Congress Reader Registration Card is like a lot of library cards you’ve had in your life, except that it has your picture on it, your signature on it, and a statement on the back telling you–and I am not making this up–that in order to get books, you first have to register for and obtain the very card you are holding in your hand.  Thanks for the tip, Congress!  As I entered the Madison Building, I began emptying my pockets of the change received from my cupcakes, my rosary and phone, set my bag on the conveyor belt and walked through the metal detector.  I greeted the guards on the other side saying, “Good morning!”  My greeting was not returned.  One grunted at me while the other looked at me like I had three heads.  They were evidently relatives of the gentleman at the Post Office.  I collected my things and reassembled myself, whereupon I headed off to Room LM 104.  Another chipper soul was waiting to greet me at the desk.  I said hello.  She responded by looking at me like she did not quite understand why I was there, which is interesting because that office does exactly one thing: gives out reader registration cards for the library.  So I went ahead and explained why I was there.  ”You’re going to do research?”  ”Yes.”  ”Take this form over there and fill it out, then go to step three where she’ll take your picture.”  ”Thank you!”  She was done with me and did not acknowledge my thanks with so much as a look.  I filled out my form, proceeded to step three, got my picture taken and my card printed and now I have access to a whole mountain of books.  Mission accomplished.

The motif that I find arising from my adventure today is this: people need to cheer up.  There was an earthquake yesterday.  People’s worst fears did not come to pass.  Not only did the earth not swallow us up, but we get to tell everyone we were here for Great Earthquake of 2011.  Christmas has not been stolen.  Union Station is still pretty darn amazing.  It was a gorgeous day.  This world in which there are cupcakes available is still here and we’re still in it.  The woman at the cupcake shop knew that.  No one else I encountered seemed to appreciate the beauty of it.  Worry, grouchiness, sullenness…these things get us nowhere and they certainly do not help us appreciate the world or the people around us.  Thank God for your life and enjoy it, and for goodness’ sake, say “Hi” to people.