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.

The Washington, D.C. earthquake

We had an earthquake today! About half an hour ago…and I was completely oblivious. It just so happened when the quake struck, I was outside walking and so I didn’t notice it. Only when I arrived at my destination, Biagio, the local chocolate shop (five stars!), did I here about it. Two members of the staff were exiting the shop as I arrived. They related the experience to me. It lasted about 15 seconds and was strong enough not only to be felt but to shake a couple of chocolate bars off the shelves. And here I was concerned about a hurricane!

This is the story of the hurricane…

I hope it’s a short story.  Today was a glorious day in D.C.  It was not oppressively hot.  It was not humid.  It was breezy and pleasant without a cloud in the sky.  I walked around in black all day and did not break a sweat, though admittedly most of my day was spent in the library.  Upon returning home, I had a look at the weather forecast for the next few days.  The first thing I saw when I visited Accuweather was the map of Irene’s potential swath, a blur of lines through which the Atlantic coast was only barely discernible.  I began to wonder how this might affect Washington weather, so I hunted around a bit and found this.  Like most meteorology, the article was completely inconclusive and actually predicted nothing.  I could have gotten as good a forecast out of a fortune cookie.  Anyway, hopefully Irene doesn’t drown us.  I will keep you posted as things unfold.  You can hear it from me as it’s happening or from the meteorologists the day after.

Homily for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Though I did not have to preach yesterday, I thought I might offer something in the way of a homily to my reading audience.  Yesterday’s readings may be found here.

Back at the end of June, I moved out of Divine Child parish.  The day I knew I was gone was the day I handed the keys back to the pastor.  For three years, I had access to whatever building I needed to get into around the parish and I was able to unlock doors for others (a blessing and a curse).  I returned a couple times to celebrate wedding Masses in the month of July and felt quite powerless with respect to Divine Child.  I couldn’t open doors for myself, much less for anyone else.  When I arrived in Washington, I did not feel like I quite belonged until I was given the code to open the front door and a remote control to operate the gate.  Now that I have these things, I feel as though I have a place here.  Undoubtedly, you have had similar experiences and such experiences give us a felt sense of the power behind keys.

In the first reading from the Prophet Isaiah, we hear of this Shebna character who is stripped of his role as the master of the palace.  Now the master of the palace was with one who controlled the keys.  He opened and closed the doors and this meant he had enormous power.  He was quite literally the gatekeeper for the king.  If someone wanted to see the king, he was going to have to get through the master of the palace first.  Eliakim is named as Shebna’s replacement and the Lord tells us through His prophet the exact significance of the role and the unparalleled privilege of the master of the palace: “When he opens, no one shall shut; when he shuts, no one shall open.”

This very passage from Isaiah is sung in the Church as part of Vespers (Evening Prayers) in the last days of Advent leading up to Christmas.  It is part of the “O Antiphons,” so called because they all begin with “O.”  The one connected to today’s first reading is “O Clavis David,” “O Key of David,” and the words “qui aperis et nemo claudit; claudis et nemo aperit” follow, that is “who opens and no one closes; who closes and no one opens.”  The words here are taken as applying to Jesus, the Messiah and the “Key of David.”

Old Testament prophecy often has two prongs to it: it frequently foretells something immediate, but it also refers to something more remote.  The Jews understood prophecy as working this way and this understanding has become part of our Christian interpretation of the Old Testament.  The prophecy of Shebna being stripped of the keys and Eliakim being given them has a remote implication as well.  Just as the Old Testament notion of the Land and the Kingdom of Israel symbolize the New Testament Kingdom of Heaven, so the palace master is a symbol (in theology we would call it a “type”) of the Messiah, the true holder of the keys to the Heavenly Kingdom.  Wait, you might say, I thought Jesus took the place of the king…He is after all the heir of David, and you would be right to point that out.  But consider for a moment that neither Shebna nor Eliakim is the proper and rightful possessor of the keys.  The must receive them from the king who by rights holds the keys to his own palace.  In our time in the history of salvation, Jesus is this King and He has the power to give those keys to whom He wishes.

In our Gospel passage today, we see Jesus give what He rightfully possesses as King to St. Peter.  ”I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven,” He says, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.”  There is no doubt that authority is committed to Peter here and it is authority that we understand to flow in an unbroken chain to all of St. Peter’s successors right up the Benedict XVI today.  The authority that Peter was given and the authority that Benedict now holds come with a flip side.  As they share in the authority of Christ, they share in His sufferings.  Each in his own way has been mocked, scourged and crucified.  Through these sufferings, Benedict and even Peter are and were only men, sinners like us.

Next week’s Gospel will present the counter to this week’s.  St. Peter will rebuke the Lord who will look him square in the face and say, “Get behind me, Satan.”  This will not represent the last of Peter’s mistakes: he will deny Jesus three times; he will hide and be too frightened or ashamed to stand at the foot of the Cross; and at last, even after the Resurrection, he will get in his boat and return to fishing.  But Peter realized each step of the way that what was necessary through his sufferings and subsequent stumblings was that he sought forgiveness.  Through all, he always clung to Christ.  And herein is the point of the authority given to Peter.  It is so that we, too, can cling to Christ and we too can seek his forgiveness despite our own faults and failings.  While the power conferred by the “keys to the Kingdom” is not in this case to be interpreted as necessarily referring to the Sacrament of Penance (as John 20:23, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven…”), but more to the governing power of Peter and his successors, everything that the Church does is aimed at reconciling sinners to God.  That is the point, or should be, of any exercise of authority in the Church, and St. Peter would have been a man who understood how deeply the world needs the forgiveness of Christ and someone to open the door to the Kingdom of Heaven.  This awareness remains in the Church.  Pope Benedict XVI, to whom the keys have been passed, reminds us: “In the face of our weaknesses which sometimes overwhelm us, we can rely on the mercy of the Lord who is always ready to help us again and who offers us pardon in the Sacrament of Penance.”  (Pope Benedict’s Response to the Youth Welcome Ceremony at World Youth Day, August 18, 2011)

Bistrot du Coin

Many of you may not be aware, but I like food.  I like to cook it and much more I like to eat it.  While my blog here is primarily devoted to a) my theological/philosophical musings, b) news and my ranting about it and c) what’s happening with me, I thought that I would include some reviews of places to eat around D.C. if you’re ever in the area.  So here’s the first…Bistrot du Coin.

The facade...excuse me, "la facade"

Dining at Bistrot du Coin is dining in France.  If the two-thirds of the conversation going on in English and the one-third going on in French had been translated into Parisian, there would have been no distinguishable difference, apart from the English signs outside and the fact that the smoke of a thousand Gauloises did not obscure the view of the other side of the room.  My waiter spoke French.  The names of the dishes were in French (along with the English explanations).  The dirty look from the maitresse d’ was in French.

The restaurant is located just northwest of Dupont Circle station (red line) on Connecticut Ave.  And I do mean northwest.  Detroit has nothing on D.C. for diagonal roads.  The facade is rather unassuming.  Just windows with a bunch of people sipping wine and gawking at you sitting behind them, like I was this evening.  Having arrived at 5:45pm on a Saturday, I had no trouble securing a table.  The hostess, who still liked me at this point, gave me what I feel must be the best table in the house: a microscopic table jammed in the corner created by the front window and the window alongside the front door.  I was armed with my Kindle and prepared to read some P.G. Wodehouse, but the people-watching opportunity proved too much of a temptation.  My Kindle remains fully charged.

My waiter appeared with a bottle of tap water and had the good sense to pause before pouring it.  Fizzy water for me, mon ami!  What rushed to mind was “avec gaz.”  Not wanting to be the sort of fellow who speaks mediocre French to the evidently Parisian waiter, I fumbled for the adult English word for fizzy.  My waiter supplied it: “Sparkling?”  Yes, that’s it.  Sparkling water, my good man.  My inability to produce the word sparkling and my refusal to say “avec gaz” must have made him think I was German.  The fact that the first thing that rushed to mind was the French term was, I think, a good thing.  As I said, this place feels like France.

To start off, I ordered the gratinee des halles (the “h” is not elided here…thus “grah-tee-nay day ahl”).  This is what they call French onion soup in France since they couldn’t just call it onion soup…I mean, who the heck would order “onion soup”?  Here, we know what French onion soup means, as in France they know what gratinee des halles means…melted gruyere.  This soup was more cheese than onions, bread or broth.  Even when I finally got to the onions in the bottom, they were tender, well carmelized and sweet and I didn’t mind eating them.  I would have liked the soup a bit hotter, but, hey, it was 90 degrees out…I’ll save my complaints for the winter.

Tempted as I was by the extensive mussel menu (I will be returning for the moules roquefort, provided the hostess doesn’t recognize me), I being only one man proceeded to the main course…navarin d’agneau.  Don’t be fooled by the fancy French name.  The key to French is not to pronounce the last three letters of any word, and when you do that, navarin d’agneau sounds a lot like “lamb stew.”  It was ever so slightly garlicky with a thin tomato sauce, spring vegetables and big chunks of tender lamb.  The lamb was a bit fatty, but nothing that couldn’t be avoided and nothing that did anything other than boost the flavor here.  A hearty, rich country dish, this one, with turnips, carrots, peas, pearl onions (I ate around them…I’m sure they lent to the flavor, but I did not want to know how) and that delicious garlic tomato sauce.  Along with this I had the house Cotes du Rhone.  The navarin and the Rhone paired admirably and I did not get taken to the cleaners on the wine.

My waiter waited patiently while I sipped my wine, poked at the pearl onions and watched people walk by outside.  When he had determined I was done with the navarin and the wine, he materialized to remove my plates.  Knowing the sort of man he was serving, he slid a dessert menu in front of me and innocently said, “Just in case.”  Just in case, my eye…this guy knew the fix was in.  The dessert menu alone at Bistrot du Coin is enough to keep me coming back.  Thirteen dessert selections and all of them French classics…excepting perhaps “Le Banana Split.”  I ordered the “mont-blanc,” a chestnut mousse topped with crushed hazelnuts.  I’d like another, please.  And, hold on, mon frere!  This dessert menu has a back side!  On that side you will find listed cognac, armagnac and that delightful Normandy liquor known as calvados (for some reason, you pronounce all the letters on this one).  Calvados is apple brandy and not everyone has it.  Every country, it seems, has liquors it likes to keep secret, either because they’re delicious or because they are needed to start fires.  Brazil has cachaca (fires); Mexico has mezcal (fires); Italy has grappa (both).  France has the delicious calvados and she doesn’t seem to let a lot of people in on the secret.  My chestnut mousse and calvados concluded the evening perfectly.

So, these things having been done, I paid my bill, stood up and turned around.  The restaurant I had entered while it was still (relatively) quiet was now jam packed.  The path along which my hostess had initially led me to my table was occluded by my erstwhile fellow diners.  I walked along the path a bit.  Blocked.  I went a little further…still blocked.  My Detroit sense that says “I must make it to an exit before some sort of violence breaks out” kicked in.  I found a narrow passage betwixt tables through which a person of my girth could fit and I took it as the most direct passage to the egress.  The hostess was not pleased.  She told me I was supposed to walk all the way to the back of the restaurant, make a Michigan left and come back to the front.  Well, sorry.  I said as much.  She did not look pleased.  I have a feeling she’ll get over it.

All in all, this was an excellent dining experience and I would recommend the place.  The food was not as good as Bistro d’Oc, another French restaurant here in D.C. (which I will formally review shortly, I’m sure), particularly the bread (d’Oc’s bread is just amazing), but as far as feel, this place had it.  As I said, it was France, and food being more than just food but also everything that goes along with it, I would take this short trip down the red line to a country across the Atlantic any day of the week.  And to the maitresse d’ whom I frustrated beyond all comprehension: I’m sorry; please let me back in and let me have that good table again!