Writers have a variety of sources for inspiration, and anytime they feel they are suffering from writers' bloc, they are especially conscious of the extent of that variety. Although the latest chapter of Not Without the Angels has generally been going well as far as I can see, the too many days previous to yesterday afternoon's installment were not a little trying, with no production, and no ideas about how to get any. A day or two off I'm very used to, even when I feel on a roll, simply because the nature of spiritual writing in itself rarely allows quantitative output, but when the days start to multiply I can get anxious. For some reason I've never completely shut down the devil trying to tell me I'm lazy as quickly as I would like to. I always beat him in the end, but the end doesn't always come as quickly as I think it should, and the bastard gets his licks in. Time wasting, of course, but this is not quite heaven, and the father of lies must be allowed his innings, I suppose.
So I have to be patient, and humbly wait to be surprised by the next source of inspiration and clarity. Do I need to prowl in a book? Will the insight come from a story in the media or a film drama? Does someone in the household have the gifted word? The parish? Or should I take another stroll downtown? Or do I simply need to wait through an extended stretch of the dark night, with or without it being connected with the latest words being run through the computer?
With yesterday's input it was mostly waiting. The day before, I did find myself coming out of the black tunnel with an idea - which turned out to be the key - but I had to wait twenty-four hours before it was anything but the barest skeleton. This was not very pleasant, but I knew I could not push the Muse around just so I could feel good at supper time.
Besides, He had decided to give me the grace to get reunited with my apprentice days and Ernest Hemingway, and I had been somewhat enjoying The Sun Also Rises. I say "somewhat" because there's an awful lot of booze and sodden company involved in that tale, and the relationship between Jake Barnes and Lady Brett is so painful, but the boy from Chicago remains a provocative stylist and I can never quite give up thinking that he could have been a great metaphysician if he read as well as he fished and hunted, and maybe given up that hogwash about bull fighters being the only men who lived life all the way up. But, as I said, he was definitely a writer's writer, as well as, for me at least, a huge insight into how to think about my own wilderness, and when I went to the computer, to see if I could move forward - I could not - I was moved to reread what I had written so far, and cut out more than one quite superfluous adjective, and then, as I said, wait a day. The neat things about the other side of the Muse is that, for a long time now, the tiniest correction has always carried so much of a mental reward, actually hard to believe.
And then came yesterday. A lot more Jake and Brett, but the promise of the trip to Spain, and then I was suddenly back to the typewriter, where some stuff I'd always known as extremely challenging to get right, actually was made to work, and I came out of it all rather buoyant, finished the modest heel of a bottle of sweet vermouth, and sat down to a very tasty supper. I couldn't help but feel that some corner had been turned, and I couldn't help but feel for some time that I might have enough bounce to follow up with what is now this post. But I didn't, because while I was waiting for the computer I read my daily ration of Marianne's poetry, and I think that left me thinking I had better wait again. Besides, it was almost time for the weather news, and then the household's evening recreation, which for the past few weeks has been the BBC series, from the books of James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small.
The last half-dozen episodes have all carried a mention of the immanence of World War II, and last night we heard Neville Chamberlain announcing the decision to keep Britain's promise to Poland and take on Germany.
Which was precisely what I needed to remind me of the need to go on treating the Canadian Conference majority as if it were public enemy number one.
When will I stop? When their deliberations and canonical actions annihilate the ridiculous tone of our Sunday liturgies, unless of course the Pope simply bans guitars and pianos. Unlike Gregorian chant, which has within itself sufficient spirit to persuade the Holy Spirit to inspire good souls singing just a capella, the current popular slop, like AM radio, could never survive without an instrumental foundation, or at least a celebrant who so confuses noise with prayer that he takes any opportunity to perform.
The War had its Nuremberg Trials. When this nonsense is over, will we have the Liturgy Trials? Do we have enough gallows to hang all the guilty? Perhaps not. but Purgatory has lots of space, and I think God has considerable eagerness to punish those, clerical and lay, who have so blithely defied those very early words in Sacrosanctum Concilium. If, as John of the Cross insists, God will certainly
punish spiritual directors who do not do their job properly, even though they are responsible for only the tiniest fraction of the Catholic population, what can He possibly say to the leadership that has so abused just about everybody who shows up for Mass? Christ died for every man and woman of good will, not just for that little band that tries to take perfection seriously.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
Two Thumbs Up, and How!
In three days it will be precisely four years since I began the Kootenay Ranger, the blog that became a little family of blogs, and the perfect kind of outlet for a writer like myself, a much studied senior citizen who suffers fools gladly in any office except that of the editor or publisher. April 30, 2008, feast day of that stern old Dominican pope, Saint Pis V. I didn't intend the timing, it merely came up as the result of my asking the junior agent's opinion on yet another prospective guinea pig for piano studies. It was getting close to lunch time, and in order to make sure I actually got fed - the agent also wears a chef's hat - I had to back away from the student plan, quickly, and agree that it was time I started putting my ideas on the Net. The rest, as they say is history, and not a little success, given that a writer who spends so much effort promoting the toughest writer that ever lived, the impregnable John of the Cross, king of all the mystics, can acquire four thousand hits from around the world. Selling pain has never been the route to fame and fortune, even when it is acknowledged that the great Carmelite's brand of agonies paves the fastest track to Heaven man will ever find, so those four thousand nods, even though many of them were entirely accidental, are not a little satisfying.
What is equally satisfying, I have lately been made to realize, was that my instinctive reaching out for what would have been my youngest experimental student was not entirely in error. There was something utterly primitive provoking my inquiries over basic fingering fundamentals, which was most certainly not being answered by any teachers or texts that I was aware off. I think now that I would never have found the solution with a child that young, however, and I know that there was still a great deal of analytical probing to be done. And oddly enough, and I think quite to my surprise, the solution actually lay in close study of written music, and not only written, but written in four-part harmony. In other words, a lot of attention to Bach's two-part inventions, etc, was not the full answer by any means.
Again, Marianne had a lot to do with this. She has been getting more and more involved with chant and Latin, partly through listening to what's available on the Net, and partially by printing from the same source. About two months ago she found the Vatican Kyriale, all 156 pages of it, laid down in four parts by the Belgian musician, Achille P. Bragers, in 1937. She printed it out and put it all in a big ring binder in nice plastic sleeves. I did not actually leap with joy at first, to tell the truth, but quite quickly some great progress with Tim McDaniel's reading skills led to my realizing that Bragers would be the perfect text. I had learned. more or less, how to decipher modes so that we could read the chant texts in numbers and Tim was eager to fly at it, with something more substantial than nursery rhymes and folk songs.
And some how, I had found the secret I had been hunting for so long: with four parts the key is to begin reading with the alto and tenor lines, played at first - and for some time - only with the respective thumbs. And I mean respective, just one at a time, at least for a while.
Tim has done so much work with intervals, with both thumb involved and thumb entirely removed, that he is very precise. Adding soprano and bass notes with the requisite finger follows quite naturally.
Honey, we're home.
Now, how long will it take the Canadian Conference, currently playing around in the music publishing business with the worst melodies imaginable, to catch on?
What is equally satisfying, I have lately been made to realize, was that my instinctive reaching out for what would have been my youngest experimental student was not entirely in error. There was something utterly primitive provoking my inquiries over basic fingering fundamentals, which was most certainly not being answered by any teachers or texts that I was aware off. I think now that I would never have found the solution with a child that young, however, and I know that there was still a great deal of analytical probing to be done. And oddly enough, and I think quite to my surprise, the solution actually lay in close study of written music, and not only written, but written in four-part harmony. In other words, a lot of attention to Bach's two-part inventions, etc, was not the full answer by any means.
Again, Marianne had a lot to do with this. She has been getting more and more involved with chant and Latin, partly through listening to what's available on the Net, and partially by printing from the same source. About two months ago she found the Vatican Kyriale, all 156 pages of it, laid down in four parts by the Belgian musician, Achille P. Bragers, in 1937. She printed it out and put it all in a big ring binder in nice plastic sleeves. I did not actually leap with joy at first, to tell the truth, but quite quickly some great progress with Tim McDaniel's reading skills led to my realizing that Bragers would be the perfect text. I had learned. more or less, how to decipher modes so that we could read the chant texts in numbers and Tim was eager to fly at it, with something more substantial than nursery rhymes and folk songs.
And some how, I had found the secret I had been hunting for so long: with four parts the key is to begin reading with the alto and tenor lines, played at first - and for some time - only with the respective thumbs. And I mean respective, just one at a time, at least for a while.
Tim has done so much work with intervals, with both thumb involved and thumb entirely removed, that he is very precise. Adding soprano and bass notes with the requisite finger follows quite naturally.
Honey, we're home.
Now, how long will it take the Canadian Conference, currently playing around in the music publishing business with the worst melodies imaginable, to catch on?
Sunday, February 12, 2012
The Interdict
Is the Pope pondering the interdict?
I've just read a directive out of the Diocese of Calgary, written by Simone Brosig, PhD, Office of Liturgy. From the very first sentence to the last it is full of heresy, so flagrant that this woman must be suspended by her bishop, and if not, then he must be subject to Papal discipline. It is also, I suspect, full of lies and confusion over the question of not keeling in the pew after the reception of communion. I mean lies about the Vatican, and if it is not, then the Vatican is wonderfully stupid or wonderfully careless.
Having lived through some pretty careless papal thinking and papal acting, all in the name of letting the rats steer the ship, I could still be worried, as Benedict, I suspect, still has some lame brains in his curia. But he's cut them all off at the pass with his declaration of the theme for Lent: Fraternal Correction.
Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will correct My Church.
What Christ sees is that the Canadian Conference, having, with much help from Rome, finally more or less exorcized the devils of inclusive language from its midst, is now trying to develop one of the other lines of non-reasoning that hell has so generously tickled its privates with, sentimental doctrines of community, fed with the worst liturgical music in the history of the Church. The Conference has clearly yet to learn its lesson. Better from the Pope than a close personal friend of Elijah's, and perhaps the Transformation. I mean the real one, not the average preacher's concept.
I've just read a directive out of the Diocese of Calgary, written by Simone Brosig, PhD, Office of Liturgy. From the very first sentence to the last it is full of heresy, so flagrant that this woman must be suspended by her bishop, and if not, then he must be subject to Papal discipline. It is also, I suspect, full of lies and confusion over the question of not keeling in the pew after the reception of communion. I mean lies about the Vatican, and if it is not, then the Vatican is wonderfully stupid or wonderfully careless.
Having lived through some pretty careless papal thinking and papal acting, all in the name of letting the rats steer the ship, I could still be worried, as Benedict, I suspect, still has some lame brains in his curia. But he's cut them all off at the pass with his declaration of the theme for Lent: Fraternal Correction.
Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will correct My Church.
What Christ sees is that the Canadian Conference, having, with much help from Rome, finally more or less exorcized the devils of inclusive language from its midst, is now trying to develop one of the other lines of non-reasoning that hell has so generously tickled its privates with, sentimental doctrines of community, fed with the worst liturgical music in the history of the Church. The Conference has clearly yet to learn its lesson. Better from the Pope than a close personal friend of Elijah's, and perhaps the Transformation. I mean the real one, not the average preacher's concept.
Friday, December 16, 2011
All We Want for Christmas
To every thing there is a season, including maxims. Here are three:
Better late than never.
It wasn't a pretty goal, but we'll take the point anyway.
There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the ninety-nine that have no need of repentance.
After the past few weeks of spending much more time than we should have to deliberate over one of the most ridiculous decisions ever made by a national conference of Catholic bishops, we have finally been let off this annoying assignment by the bishops of Alaska. This is not to say that much in the way of damage control has actually been exercised in Canada, but the news from way up north indicates that it's only a matter of time, and we probably don't have to worry about it very much from now on. An example is an example.
I speak, of course, of this novel practice of making an entire congregation stand after receiving communion until the last parishioner has got his wafer. In actual fact, of course, nobody can actually make anybody do this, and we get regular reports of people who have the sense to do what they've always done: kneel and say a prayer of thanks, and perhaps offer their communion for another soul or two, as soon as they get back to their pews. Any Catholic who believes this standing around wrinkle is a matter of obedience and unity within the community is only telegraphing the poverty of his individual spiritual life. If there was ever a clear cut instance of where, when, and how to offer fraternal correction to a bishop or priest this is at the top of the list.
And speaking of lists, where are the Guiness Book of Records people? In this time of growing interest in making Mass more and more of a circus act, is there going to be a prize for the congregation which has to stand the longest? The record so far, that I have heard of, is fifteen minutes. But that should be topped come Christmas.
But the really big prize should not be given out for this small marathon. The big prize should go to the most idiotic sermon justifying the innovation, with a special bonus for the silly oaf that speaks the most abusively of 'individual piety'. Tape the moron, and send a copy to the Pope. It will make a nice subject to discuss at the next ad limina session of the Canadian bishops. The severest tongue lashing I've ever read in L'Osservatore Romano was John Paul to the bishops of Western Canada in 1988, but perhaps it will be outdone by Benedict this time around. You'd think they'd learn.
Believe it or not, Alaskan Catholics have actually been enduring this heresy since 2005, when Roger Schwietz became archbishop of Anchorage and its 400,000 souls. And more incredible, a lot of American dioceses started inflicting it back in 2002 or so. We'd never heard of that, to tell the truth, until now, when we were sent to a Net interview, with Cardinal Arinze, then head of the congregation that governs worship practices, that he gave when he came to the States in 2003. He assured his audience that such nonsense had not come from Rome. (He also assured his audience that if he were Pope he would not allow altar girls.)
But now, the majority of American sees have taken their brains, at least in this regard, and because Alaska gets a huge tourist inflow from the lower 48, confusion has reigned supreme in visiting season for these half-dozen years and Schwietz and his fellows have finally seen the light. They actually saw it in the month of November, which I wish I'd known, for the sake of my good night's sleep, and got the change going for Advent. Joyeux Noel, Alaska.
May your thinking spread as quickly as possible. The round red fellow with the reindeer couldn't bring us a better Christmas present.
Better late than never.
It wasn't a pretty goal, but we'll take the point anyway.
There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the ninety-nine that have no need of repentance.
After the past few weeks of spending much more time than we should have to deliberate over one of the most ridiculous decisions ever made by a national conference of Catholic bishops, we have finally been let off this annoying assignment by the bishops of Alaska. This is not to say that much in the way of damage control has actually been exercised in Canada, but the news from way up north indicates that it's only a matter of time, and we probably don't have to worry about it very much from now on. An example is an example.
I speak, of course, of this novel practice of making an entire congregation stand after receiving communion until the last parishioner has got his wafer. In actual fact, of course, nobody can actually make anybody do this, and we get regular reports of people who have the sense to do what they've always done: kneel and say a prayer of thanks, and perhaps offer their communion for another soul or two, as soon as they get back to their pews. Any Catholic who believes this standing around wrinkle is a matter of obedience and unity within the community is only telegraphing the poverty of his individual spiritual life. If there was ever a clear cut instance of where, when, and how to offer fraternal correction to a bishop or priest this is at the top of the list.
And speaking of lists, where are the Guiness Book of Records people? In this time of growing interest in making Mass more and more of a circus act, is there going to be a prize for the congregation which has to stand the longest? The record so far, that I have heard of, is fifteen minutes. But that should be topped come Christmas.
But the really big prize should not be given out for this small marathon. The big prize should go to the most idiotic sermon justifying the innovation, with a special bonus for the silly oaf that speaks the most abusively of 'individual piety'. Tape the moron, and send a copy to the Pope. It will make a nice subject to discuss at the next ad limina session of the Canadian bishops. The severest tongue lashing I've ever read in L'Osservatore Romano was John Paul to the bishops of Western Canada in 1988, but perhaps it will be outdone by Benedict this time around. You'd think they'd learn.
Believe it or not, Alaskan Catholics have actually been enduring this heresy since 2005, when Roger Schwietz became archbishop of Anchorage and its 400,000 souls. And more incredible, a lot of American dioceses started inflicting it back in 2002 or so. We'd never heard of that, to tell the truth, until now, when we were sent to a Net interview, with Cardinal Arinze, then head of the congregation that governs worship practices, that he gave when he came to the States in 2003. He assured his audience that such nonsense had not come from Rome. (He also assured his audience that if he were Pope he would not allow altar girls.)
But now, the majority of American sees have taken their brains, at least in this regard, and because Alaska gets a huge tourist inflow from the lower 48, confusion has reigned supreme in visiting season for these half-dozen years and Schwietz and his fellows have finally seen the light. They actually saw it in the month of November, which I wish I'd known, for the sake of my good night's sleep, and got the change going for Advent. Joyeux Noel, Alaska.
May your thinking spread as quickly as possible. The round red fellow with the reindeer couldn't bring us a better Christmas present.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Appointment Number One
Remember the Michael Keaton film Dream Team? It has a wonderful opening that occurs to me as the perfect image to identify the fantasy life of, apparently, the majority of Canadian Catholic bishops.
The movie opens in a mental hospital, with Christopher Lloyd, white-coated like a staff member, carrying a clip-board as he moves from to room taking notes on the patients. It's all very serious for a little while until a real doctor shows up and we realize that good old Chris is actually a patient. A roaring great laugh from the audience, and once again we enjoy the blessings of the talents of a great comic actor.
By now, there are a lot of bishops, priests, religious and grossly undereducated but nonetheless self-confident parish assistants in Canada who are trying to convince themselves and each other that I am just like the character Mr. Lloyd plays in that movie. After all, did I not use the term for one of our cultural high priests, the psychiatrist, in opening post for this series? I call it series because I suspect it's going to take considerable time and effort to bring so many unfortunate minds to their senses, if not their knees. And if I can actually think of myself in a psychiatric capacity without actually having taken a degree, must I not actually be somewhat off my rocker?
Frankly, I have to admit, I have been moved to wonder the same myself. But that was decades ago, and anyone who is by any means a student of John of the Cross, possibly even without actual experience of the dark night, understands that such thoughts are simply the work of the devil, because the mystical life itself is the prize of all spiritual gifts and no just God is going to allow it to be easily won, or easily retained, and is thus obliged to test those to whom it is given. Wondering if you're crazy is only one of the abuses to be suffered.
One of the learned - and experienced - of these souls was the recently beatified John Paul II, my spiritual student from 1984 until 1994. He was not in the Seventh Mansion, but I was, so he was open to conversation, and became, they say, the wiser for it. But not quite wise enough to excommunicate bishops who cluttered their altars with those tedious and spiritually very unsightly young females, mind you, and for this I had to resign my office. All the Vatican knows that the day he got my letter, more or less, is the day he broke his hip. But the beginning was very, very good, and offered some future hope for the Church, if only because it also led to perhaps the more important result, my becoming known to the man who is Pope now. Benedict and I go back to July of 83, and the imagery I was moved to use even then has a remarkably current relevance: the throat-slitting of the 400 false prophets on the slopes of Mount Carmel.
In 83, however, I assumed that the image - symbolic rather than literal, of course - applied only to certain Catholic leaders only in Canada. I was aware of some troublesome johnnies in the US, but did not really consider them my business. My principal concerns were Canada and getting a novel finished. (It was then far from being even half done.) Also, even a mystic can take on only so much, and the sex abuse situation of those days, especially in our diocese, was a big enough burden to labour with, or so one would think.
But then it became increasing obvious that even Rome was part of the abuse problem: it gravely lacked a suitable machinery for dealing with the offenders in an expedient manner, clearly a travesty of justice. Those failures have been corrected.
And now it may be possible that it is faltering on the questions of liturgical practice, by insisting, perhaps because of certain lacks of detachment on the part of John Paul, on a power in the liturgy it cannot have in this earthly sphere. Heaven on earth exists only the souls of those granted perfection at the highest practical level. John of the Cross has ceased to become a theory: he is the norm of discernment for questions at this level, and if necessary, Christ may show up in various ways to make sure the Church uses that norm.
The Pope has been warned.
This means everyone else should take heed.
The movie opens in a mental hospital, with Christopher Lloyd, white-coated like a staff member, carrying a clip-board as he moves from to room taking notes on the patients. It's all very serious for a little while until a real doctor shows up and we realize that good old Chris is actually a patient. A roaring great laugh from the audience, and once again we enjoy the blessings of the talents of a great comic actor.
By now, there are a lot of bishops, priests, religious and grossly undereducated but nonetheless self-confident parish assistants in Canada who are trying to convince themselves and each other that I am just like the character Mr. Lloyd plays in that movie. After all, did I not use the term for one of our cultural high priests, the psychiatrist, in opening post for this series? I call it series because I suspect it's going to take considerable time and effort to bring so many unfortunate minds to their senses, if not their knees. And if I can actually think of myself in a psychiatric capacity without actually having taken a degree, must I not actually be somewhat off my rocker?
Frankly, I have to admit, I have been moved to wonder the same myself. But that was decades ago, and anyone who is by any means a student of John of the Cross, possibly even without actual experience of the dark night, understands that such thoughts are simply the work of the devil, because the mystical life itself is the prize of all spiritual gifts and no just God is going to allow it to be easily won, or easily retained, and is thus obliged to test those to whom it is given. Wondering if you're crazy is only one of the abuses to be suffered.
One of the learned - and experienced - of these souls was the recently beatified John Paul II, my spiritual student from 1984 until 1994. He was not in the Seventh Mansion, but I was, so he was open to conversation, and became, they say, the wiser for it. But not quite wise enough to excommunicate bishops who cluttered their altars with those tedious and spiritually very unsightly young females, mind you, and for this I had to resign my office. All the Vatican knows that the day he got my letter, more or less, is the day he broke his hip. But the beginning was very, very good, and offered some future hope for the Church, if only because it also led to perhaps the more important result, my becoming known to the man who is Pope now. Benedict and I go back to July of 83, and the imagery I was moved to use even then has a remarkably current relevance: the throat-slitting of the 400 false prophets on the slopes of Mount Carmel.
In 83, however, I assumed that the image - symbolic rather than literal, of course - applied only to certain Catholic leaders only in Canada. I was aware of some troublesome johnnies in the US, but did not really consider them my business. My principal concerns were Canada and getting a novel finished. (It was then far from being even half done.) Also, even a mystic can take on only so much, and the sex abuse situation of those days, especially in our diocese, was a big enough burden to labour with, or so one would think.
But then it became increasing obvious that even Rome was part of the abuse problem: it gravely lacked a suitable machinery for dealing with the offenders in an expedient manner, clearly a travesty of justice. Those failures have been corrected.
And now it may be possible that it is faltering on the questions of liturgical practice, by insisting, perhaps because of certain lacks of detachment on the part of John Paul, on a power in the liturgy it cannot have in this earthly sphere. Heaven on earth exists only the souls of those granted perfection at the highest practical level. John of the Cross has ceased to become a theory: he is the norm of discernment for questions at this level, and if necessary, Christ may show up in various ways to make sure the Church uses that norm.
The Pope has been warned.
This means everyone else should take heed.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Insane Bishops
"I have ordered all things in measure, number, and weight." That was God speaking, of course, from the Wisdom literature of the Old Testament. It comes to mind as I set out upon my one hundred and fiftieth post on the Ranger, having wondered for months what this specific column would be about. After all, the number 150 must be significant to the creator of arithmetic, as there are 150 psalms in the Bible, 150 Hail Marys in the 15 mysteries rosary - plus the three that start it off after the Our Father, and 153 fish in the net Jesus ordered the apostles to lower after their previously unprofitable hours. I had different subjects in mind, but always lacked that special little intrusion of the Holy Spirit that I know has to be there to make it all fall into place, and make it look easy.
How many times did I say to Him: well, what am I waiting for?
The answer has come: the incredible idiocy of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.
For years, over this or that issue, they've been shooting themselves in the foot, busily interfering, on the advice of God knows whom, with the orderly, devout, worship of Canadian Catholics, and now they've done it again. They're trying to forbid Catholics to quietly offer their gratitude to God for the Eucharist after receiving communion in the way sensible worshippers have done for centuries, by kneeling down to pray as soon as they get back to their pews. The Conference's experts on innoculated insanity have got it into their heads that the people should all stand as a body until the last communicant has got his or her Host.And then they don't kneel anyway, they just sit.
Have Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini come back to life? Or are the bishops so unaware of history and current Church leadership that they cannot grasp that a Pope raised in the Nazi era is particularly sensitive to such mob psychology? Or are they deliberately trying to create a schism?
They've certainly created, yet again, serious variations in practice. Certain bishops and priests are already refusing to follow the party line, and we may even see a few brave local laity follow their example, once they get it through their chronically sheepish heads that the garble that is coming off the pulpit is not endorsed in Rome, as all the print outs we've seen so far lead them to believe.
Our little circle will behave as always, listening to the Holy Spirit and acting according to His promptings, which so far have always been to maintain the standards set by the Archdiocese of Vancouver, at least as early, in the face of group hysteria, as 1969.
How the angels are going to behave is another story. When I looked into my Summa this morning Thomas' first paragraphs about them had a particularly intense light.
How many times did I say to Him: well, what am I waiting for?
The answer has come: the incredible idiocy of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.
For years, over this or that issue, they've been shooting themselves in the foot, busily interfering, on the advice of God knows whom, with the orderly, devout, worship of Canadian Catholics, and now they've done it again. They're trying to forbid Catholics to quietly offer their gratitude to God for the Eucharist after receiving communion in the way sensible worshippers have done for centuries, by kneeling down to pray as soon as they get back to their pews. The Conference's experts on innoculated insanity have got it into their heads that the people should all stand as a body until the last communicant has got his or her Host.And then they don't kneel anyway, they just sit.
Have Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini come back to life? Or are the bishops so unaware of history and current Church leadership that they cannot grasp that a Pope raised in the Nazi era is particularly sensitive to such mob psychology? Or are they deliberately trying to create a schism?
They've certainly created, yet again, serious variations in practice. Certain bishops and priests are already refusing to follow the party line, and we may even see a few brave local laity follow their example, once they get it through their chronically sheepish heads that the garble that is coming off the pulpit is not endorsed in Rome, as all the print outs we've seen so far lead them to believe.
Our little circle will behave as always, listening to the Holy Spirit and acting according to His promptings, which so far have always been to maintain the standards set by the Archdiocese of Vancouver, at least as early, in the face of group hysteria, as 1969.
How the angels are going to behave is another story. When I looked into my Summa this morning Thomas' first paragraphs about them had a particularly intense light.
Monday, October 31, 2011
An Upright Life
It now a full four months since I last published a post on the Ranger.
Some of the silence came from a fitness situation which has yet to be totally resolved. I had picked up a soreness between my shoulder blades, months ago, which I suspect came from an inaccurate rowing posture - and which temporarily gave me a very painful right shoulder - and I had to wait until it was well on the mend before I could discuss it. This was especially true, as in that last post I had somewhat erred, in thinking I would be able to address the back yard buttercup problem with a steady attack with physical labour. I was correct to be confident in the grace to be regularly active in the garden, but that was not for buttercups, but for slugs. I spent a good three weeks manually hunting the little beggars, very bountiful this year, before we bought a manufactured ally. This stuff does the job, with a fortnightly sprinkling of attractive suicide pills, freeing my back from the ache brought on by a half-hour of daily stooping with a dull blade for lifting the little slug off a defenseless leaf and drowning him in a pail of salt water.
The buttercups we are addressing with two bundles of asphalt shingles. The stuff is sturdy enough to walk on, and of course blots out the light the green pest needs to grow with. In the spring we will plant grass on the bare earth, and move the shingles to the other half of the buttercup infested lawn. As might be expected around this house, where all the practical masculine intelligence and brawn is spent on music research, the shingle solution was the cook's idea.
On the erg, I was going in too far on the release stroke. You're right, I had not taken time to watch the DVD provided by Concept 2 and the Australian foursome. Nor had I even looked at the short film on the display terminal on the erg. I was simply trying to maximize the time on the erg - initially, I'm convinced, one does get more calories per stroke on that longer reach - and I had firmly in my mind, so I thought, memories of the Olympic sculling in Sydney, particularly the British Eights. I would have said that they reached as far forward as possible.
My household, as it turns out, was smarter than I was. Both Shawn and Marianne rowed with nicely upright spines, leaning back rather than forward. And to be honest, I did not feel any muscle discomfort in the beginning months that I could attribute to rowing posture.
But in the middle of this winter, I started to notice the pain between my shoulder blades, and found it rather sharp, anytime I turned my head when out walking. For months I had no real solution, and even when I cut back on the rowing, there was no cure. Fat Watch fell back on the Walkman treatment, and I caught up with Eric Clapton and J.J. Cale, the latter of whom actually played in little old Nelson many years ago. Also, I had recently read Clapton's autobiography.
But then the attic ambiance beckoned once again. After all, the view, although small, is exquisite, for memories as well as present events, and the library up there not a little compelling. (I am now half-way through Edith Nesbit's Enchanted Castle, a ripping yarn, and a definite precursor to J.K. Rowling.) It was also a most integral part of a scientific discovery, which may have been the chief purpose in my posture mistake and the result of working my way through it.
You see, my habit in the attic is to read at least half as much, timewise, as I row. This why, for one reason, I suggest the erg as an excellent fitness device for clergy and religious. (But remember, ask your bishop if you may read your breviary, while you row, not if you may row while you read your breviary. Just another example of the sufficient distinctions Saint Thomas speaks of.)
In my first months, I noted, I was often only good for 10 or 15 calories between reading breaks, at least until I was fully warmed up. (10 to 20 minutes, depending on your body type) This was with the arms reaching full forward, and thus, as I was to realize, actually compressing my lungs against a real full breath. Because I was using nasal breathing - easier on an erg or bicycle than running - my nose could sting quite easily. Now, using the upright posture, my average rowing set is 35 calories between reading breaks with no stinging nose unless my body is till rebuilding from previous efforts like longer walks or every day rows of 315 calories worth. I found this situation a thundering validity of the superiority of nasal breathing, and the utter necessity of making yoga the basis of all athletic disciplines. I could even forgive God for letting me wander so long up the garden path of half-wit fitness.
Some of the silence came from a fitness situation which has yet to be totally resolved. I had picked up a soreness between my shoulder blades, months ago, which I suspect came from an inaccurate rowing posture - and which temporarily gave me a very painful right shoulder - and I had to wait until it was well on the mend before I could discuss it. This was especially true, as in that last post I had somewhat erred, in thinking I would be able to address the back yard buttercup problem with a steady attack with physical labour. I was correct to be confident in the grace to be regularly active in the garden, but that was not for buttercups, but for slugs. I spent a good three weeks manually hunting the little beggars, very bountiful this year, before we bought a manufactured ally. This stuff does the job, with a fortnightly sprinkling of attractive suicide pills, freeing my back from the ache brought on by a half-hour of daily stooping with a dull blade for lifting the little slug off a defenseless leaf and drowning him in a pail of salt water.
The buttercups we are addressing with two bundles of asphalt shingles. The stuff is sturdy enough to walk on, and of course blots out the light the green pest needs to grow with. In the spring we will plant grass on the bare earth, and move the shingles to the other half of the buttercup infested lawn. As might be expected around this house, where all the practical masculine intelligence and brawn is spent on music research, the shingle solution was the cook's idea.
On the erg, I was going in too far on the release stroke. You're right, I had not taken time to watch the DVD provided by Concept 2 and the Australian foursome. Nor had I even looked at the short film on the display terminal on the erg. I was simply trying to maximize the time on the erg - initially, I'm convinced, one does get more calories per stroke on that longer reach - and I had firmly in my mind, so I thought, memories of the Olympic sculling in Sydney, particularly the British Eights. I would have said that they reached as far forward as possible.
My household, as it turns out, was smarter than I was. Both Shawn and Marianne rowed with nicely upright spines, leaning back rather than forward. And to be honest, I did not feel any muscle discomfort in the beginning months that I could attribute to rowing posture.
But in the middle of this winter, I started to notice the pain between my shoulder blades, and found it rather sharp, anytime I turned my head when out walking. For months I had no real solution, and even when I cut back on the rowing, there was no cure. Fat Watch fell back on the Walkman treatment, and I caught up with Eric Clapton and J.J. Cale, the latter of whom actually played in little old Nelson many years ago. Also, I had recently read Clapton's autobiography.
But then the attic ambiance beckoned once again. After all, the view, although small, is exquisite, for memories as well as present events, and the library up there not a little compelling. (I am now half-way through Edith Nesbit's Enchanted Castle, a ripping yarn, and a definite precursor to J.K. Rowling.) It was also a most integral part of a scientific discovery, which may have been the chief purpose in my posture mistake and the result of working my way through it.
You see, my habit in the attic is to read at least half as much, timewise, as I row. This why, for one reason, I suggest the erg as an excellent fitness device for clergy and religious. (But remember, ask your bishop if you may read your breviary, while you row, not if you may row while you read your breviary. Just another example of the sufficient distinctions Saint Thomas speaks of.)
In my first months, I noted, I was often only good for 10 or 15 calories between reading breaks, at least until I was fully warmed up. (10 to 20 minutes, depending on your body type) This was with the arms reaching full forward, and thus, as I was to realize, actually compressing my lungs against a real full breath. Because I was using nasal breathing - easier on an erg or bicycle than running - my nose could sting quite easily. Now, using the upright posture, my average rowing set is 35 calories between reading breaks with no stinging nose unless my body is till rebuilding from previous efforts like longer walks or every day rows of 315 calories worth. I found this situation a thundering validity of the superiority of nasal breathing, and the utter necessity of making yoga the basis of all athletic disciplines. I could even forgive God for letting me wander so long up the garden path of half-wit fitness.
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