The Mismeasure of Man, 21st Century Style

Mark Shea posted a reader email with a link to an article about a book that I haven't read. I read the article. Newspaper articles on research usually end up making scientists either gnash their teeth or add the lurid headlines to their conference powerpoints for a good laugh with their fellow nerds, so it's quite possible that Rosin's work was WAY better than this article would have me believe. The article...failed to affirm me in my womanly splendor, though it sure did try! Not enough data, article. But it's ok. I got all the data about my womanly splendor RIGHT HERE.

I found most interesting the story of how men and women responded differently to work in Alabama; the women learned different jobs, and the men "sat around" waiting for their old jobs to return. The conclusion is that the women are more adaptable.

I wonder what the specifics are, though.

Were the men and women working the same jobs for the same number of years? Or had the women already dipped in and out of the workplace multiple times between kids, and worked for multiple employers, while the men had been working at the same company for years? In that case, it would be the prior habit of employment flexibility that made the difference. Did the men have longer investment in their prior careers (courses, licensure) and are their jobs likely to return when the economy improves? Sinking money into courses might be a poor investment IF their business picks up again. New businesses fare better when started by women rather than men, but are the rates of starting new businesses the same for both sexes? If only the most gung-ho, business-minded women start new business, while a larger percentage of men with a broader range of skills start them, you could expect the same result, regardless of the "flexibility" of the entire population. Also of interest was the observation that men and women in finance (same career) who switch to a new firm (same action) end up with different results; most of the men do worse, and most of the women do better. I wonder what the reasons for their moves are. What if men switch because they are not fitting in very well and are low performers and the really high-performing men tend to stay with one company? The low performer is now the new guy at the company AND not too great at his job, and people are quick to be unimpressed. What if the women switch because they are doing amazingly well and get offered a higher salary/benefits elsewhere, while the low-performing women are not wooed and decide they are better off with their annual percent raises? That would mean that, rather than women being "more flexible," the workplace is treating high-performing men and women differently.

Imagine a graduating high school class in which both sexes are equally represented and have an equal range in intelligence, work ethic, and skills.

Case A: The women are more flexible and adaptable on average than the men.
Case B: The flexibility and adaptibility is the same for both sexes.

Now I throw in totally made up statistics.

1. A recession hits. Women and men have equal unemployment. 95% of the women go back to school and get different jobs, while 95% of the men wait patiently for their old jobs to return. Now I change the stats. 37% of the unemployed women go back to school. 30% of the unemployed men go back to school. The rest wait patiently for their old jobs to return (or find other jobs in the same field as before, with no extra training). Now make it 43:41.2 and no, you don't get to see the data distribution or the standard deviation. Now make it 7.5:5 who go back to school and over 90% of both sexes who take the dole until it runs out. How impressive (sorry, I would say "significant," but this is journalism we're doing here) does the statistical difference have to be to conclude something about the difference between men and women? In any of these cases, could we use these statistics to tell whether we are in Case A or Case B?

2. Men and women start businesses, and the women's do better (they make more money, they last longer, higher clientele, franchising, whatever). Only 5% of the women start new businesses, while 20% of the men do. Are we in Case A, Case B, or both? Let's say at 15% of both sexes start businesses, but the women all open ice cream parlors (with homemade flavors that change each week) and the men all open gun stores (and they sell that fancy ammo that bursts apart when it hits the human body). These men and women are in a very big town, so the ice cream and guns are spread out. Can we learn that women are better at starting new businesses than men if the ice cream stores are more popular and make higher profits? If so, can we also learn (from these business stats alone) because the women have succeeded because they are more adaptable and in tune with modern society? Let's say that 70% of the ice cream parlors fold in the year, and 80% of the gun stores fold. What if it's 90%:95%? What if it's 5%:95%? What if we are in NYC? What if we are in Dallas? What if we are in Nome, which has been populated by masochists? Again, do these statistics tell us more about the differences between the sexes-in-general or the differences in a town's appetite for ice cream and guns, and the entrepreneurs ability to discern this appetite? Discerning what other people want -- a classically girly trait -- hmm, maybe there is a book in here for me, too! Now imagine that each man and each woman starts a different business -- restaurants, stores, tech support, handicrafts, skilled labor. Does that change the conclusion? Do you just ignore this factor because it is so complex? Does the difficulty of analyzing the business factor mean that it isn't the primary reason for success or failure? What if it isn't the business type, but the way it's run? Will you be able to tell? Will those data teach you about the differences between the sexes? What kind of data would you need?

3. Women and men go into finance, and some of them switch firms. The women do "better" and the men do "worse." Let's say the women make more money. No, wait, they get promoted faster. Pick your favorite. The women get it. I've already hinted that the reason for switching could have little to do with innate flexibility and could be critical for understanding performance. Maybe the study "controlled" for the age of the person and the reason for switching -- and the financial situation of both companies at the time of the switch (imagine the difference between leaving to join a young firm, or to start one, or to go from a small firm to a huge firm, or to go to a competitor, or to leave right before a big layoff, or to leave at the peak of financial success and Business Weekly articles featuring oneself and the old firm). Forget all that. The study has "controlled" for it. Not sure how, because they will never tell us, even in the supplemental figures of the original peer-reviewed article, but they have. I swear. Now let's just think about the ratio of men to women in finance. If the finance world were evenly divided between the sexes, would the information about higher success in a new firm tell us that women are more adaptable? What if the financial world is more like 70% men, 30% women? What if it's 90:10? Can we, without ever interviewing the bosses who gave out the raises and promotions, figure out their reasons for doing so, based simply on income tax reports?

I get that Mark, being a dude, read this article and thought "Gee, another article about how great women are and how men just won't get with the program." I got that too, to an eyeroll-inducing degree. But I, being a lady scientist, and therefore privileged in this particular case, was WAY more intrigued by the mishmash of "science," "math" the lack of hard information presented, and the grandiose conclusions drawn from tests that did not set out to test adaptibility, rigidity, flexibility, enthusiasm, or really anything other than employment and finances.

What if a misogynist had interpreted these dry financial facts? Would he have written about men's fortitude and women's flightiness? Would he have implied that the women at new firms had new lovers (and all that extra money and promotions prove it, because look at how the men -- the normal, appropriate workers -- fare at new firms)? Would he have concealed the fact that women's businesses do better and reported that men start more businesses, concluding that they are bolder and take more risks (which of course pay off) and have a better head for business? Probably, because I've read a bunch of articles that have gone on and on about the bold risk-taking man and the reason for his greater success. You don't often hear articles about the bold risk-takers who end up failing and going under -- unless they are being compared to the sensible, flexible women who start SUCCESSFUL businesses. I wonder. How many of the men who grew up reading those articles like I did now feel they need to be BOLD and start NEW BUSINESSES and DROP OUT OF COLLEGE just like STEVE JOBS? And don't check themselves for Steve Jobs' skill with computers and his vast intelligence? Or themselves for actual business sense? Or the world around them for successful men who went to business school and took entrepreneurship classes? Maybe we timid little risk-averse ladies just are reaping the benefits of not getting set up for failure by articles, movies and books that showed the rewards of risk-taking without ever emphasizing the risk part other than as a fun obstacle. Men in the 70's presumably had just as much testosterone and adrenaline (mustaches HEYO!), but were better at staying in school and learning the skills needed to succeed in their desired goals. Of course, they got laid off a lot then, too. Maybe the men of my generation got suckered by the propaganda. Maybe the economy sucks, life is cruel, random bad things happen to people, and God blesses the just and unjust alike. Or women are just awesome.

Makes me think. Now women are being lauded to the skies. Pride goes before a fall. There could be a lot of girls and young women out there who will think, "Hm, I guess I am great at being adaptable and flexible, and that is a winning strategy. Time to quit my job? Time to shell out lots of money for extra classes that I might end up not finishing?" The virtues that come easily to us -- if indeed we possess them and are not merely deluded by flattery -- are not the only virtues we should focus on.

The question of why so many men are dropping out or hurting in their finances needs to be addressed, but I don't think that poorly drawn conclusions help.

When you have the idea that one sex is superior in character at all times and in all ways, it can lead you to conclude things about cause and effect that have not actually been tested.

It can lead you to conclude what you expected to find.

Ephphatha

Today's EF Gospel is how Jesus cured a deaf and mute man by touching his ears and touching the man's tongue with a spit-moistened finger, and saying "Ephphatha," be opened.

That is gross, but totally worth it, and much less invasive than modern-day surgery for cochlear implants.

"Ephphatha" is a very weird way to write a word with two f-sounds; what would be so terrible about writing "Effatha?" It is an Aramaic word, and as we can't use the Aramaic letters, why not use the letters that would look less bizarre? I kept thinking there was a missing vowel in there somewhere.

Trying to say both f-sounds distinctly does give the word a very slushy feel that goes well with the salival message of the day.

The crudeness of our corporeal reality was indeed shared by Christ. Sometimes, when I hear the phrase "spiritual but not religious," I am tempted to say that I am "religious but not spiritual," because I am so rooted in the corporeal realm. I am only tempted to this thought, because I know that I am also a spiritual being.

I am fascinated by the interconnections of spirit, soul, and body. How do traditional thoughts about our souls, the seat of our consciences, work considering how much our physical brains affect our ability for decision-making and self-control? Damage the brain in the right place, and the personality may change; maybe the person will have less ability to control his temper or speak politely -- or no ability. How does the development of a well-formed conscience coincide with the development of the pre-frontal cortex, which is involved in foreseeing the consequences of our actions, and doesn't finish developing until age 25? A child, though, may have a better-regulated temper than an abusive parent. Who and what are we, at the depths of our being, both dependent and independent from our neurons? How does the Holy Spirit really speak to us?

I enjoy reading scientific studies about the brain's activity during prayer, especially those that involve asking nuns to pray while hooked up to EEG or MRI. Of course they use nuns -- what loser researchers want to ask ordinary laypeople to pray when they can peek into the neural activity of the Catholic Church's ultimate prayer champions! So far, researchers have discovered that nuns who claim to feel a sense of peace during prayer actually do have a change in emotional state; they ain't lyin'! I would be even more interested in the brain activity of nuns who ONCE had intense spiritual/emotional responses to prayer but now feel nothing. What did Mother Teresa's brain look like when she was in the Dark Night of the Soul for decades, all while praying throughout the day and working with the poor? Her soul was growing closer to God, but this growth was not reflected in her emotions. What about when prayer does NOT give a "sense of peace?"

How can we be open to God showing us the way?

I think it is fascinating to be a Christian, and to believe that there are so many possibilities for what we can experience in the world.

If we "feel inspired/called" to do something:

1a) We might just feel that way because we like or dislike something
1b) We can make stuff up to back up (1a) (see: pattern finding)
2) We can be feeling the inspiration of the Holy Spirit
3) We can be misled by demons

I am quite interested in the interplay of 1a, 1b, and 2. I think #3 can usually be avoided by not doing anything obviously sinful ("I feel called to tell you what a B**** you are..." is probably NOT the prompting of the Holy Spirit, people")! I believe that God answers prayers and the He can guide us, but I also believe that people are very good at justifying what they want to do anyway by talking about God and that we are very good at looking for "signs" in nature to support our desires. I also believe that we are supposed to use our rational minds to make decisions, and that not every choice needs to be madly discerned in the hopes of a voice from Heaven speaking out to us. I do pray before all my big decisions, and I pray for their success, but when I feel myself turning from petition to anger or resentment at God for not answering me quickly enough, I realize that I am trying to avoid adult responsibility in choosing the good. If only God could just tell me what college to go to or where to live! But, perhaps, He has simply called me to go to a college at all -- anywhere -- and to live out the Gospel while there.

I think we put a lot of store on the big life decisions, the first of which for most American Catholics is deciding on our college &/or major, but the Gospel is lived out in all of the daily moments of our lives. God may be more intent on calling us to take time for the people who need us and to change our hearts toward the people who annoy us than He is on the particular place in which we might serve. We want God to call us by solving our problems for us; but he may have another call for us entirely.

We want to be open to the call of God and to our consciences.

I have found the best way to be open is during Adoration. Somehow, the truth of my life is revealed to me there, and it is there that I feel most aware of my failings and blessings. It is in quiet meditation that I realize something is bothering me -- how I get so angry when I drive, for example. By the way, the only way I've found to prevent road rage is to take a less busy road or drive at a calmer time of day. Praying the rosary while driving almost led to a crash!

I also liked learning about Jesuit discernment. I am not all that great at it, but I liked very much that it was rooted in a good understanding of human psychology. One of the best parts about it, in my opinion, is to avoid making important decisions in a time of of spiritual desolation. That is often a time I WANT to make important decisions -- when I feel depressed and lonely, I like to try to figure out where I could move instead. I usually just end up more stressed than ever. When I am happy and feel very content in my life, I don't usually think about the next move, but I am better equipped to assess my life accurately. Our emotions, hormones, and physical well-being have a HUGE effect on the way we perceive the world, and I appreciate that good Catholic discernment requires us to assess our physical state before we try to assess our call. By acknowledging that we are biological, rather than ethereal, beings, we are embracing our reality, which is the only way we can move forward in a truly rational way.

Trouble Praying the Rosary

Last year, I figured out that my mysterious recurrent eczema was coming from my rosary.

It had taken me 4 years to finally put the pieces together.

I generally say the Office of Readings, but when I go in the field, I don't like to pack the breviary, which at that time was already fairly battered. My rosary is much more portable, so I would say that.

My hands tended to break out in little weird bumps during field season, but since I was spending 10 hours a day digging, often in clumps of poison ivy, I figured it might be ant bites or a contact allergy from soil or plants. I also had to wash my hands multiple times a day and of course couldn't bring my GOOD lotion in the field because it is in such a big, terrorist-y bottle that it can't get through security.

Then I started noticing that even when I was back working in the lab, I would get what a couple of friends identified as eczema.

I switched lotions from my fun, scented lotions to Aveeno unscented products, and that helped cut down on a lot of it. However, there could still be weeks of this weird, moderately annoying skin condition.

I finally figured out it was my rosary because the eczema was now confined to only those spots on my hands that the rosary beads touch. I was using one of those rose-petal ones, and since fragrances can irritate sensitive skin, I switched to a plain wooden one. Sorry, Confirmation sponsor!

All was well, but when I started saying the Rosary every day recently, I found myself breaking out again, though to a much smaller extent than before. I don't break out the second I pick up a rosary, just if I use it for more than a few days.

I am still praying it every day! I just alternate days with the actual rosary beads, using my fingers, and the excellent website comepraytherosary.org

I thought it might be a classy move to just use gloves, but the only ones I have available are lab gloves -- and I do get tired of wearing them all day long.

The time to stop cleaning up glass...

is when you kneel in it and your leg starts to bleed.

That is all.

Obsession

How am I supposed to relax in the evenings when I take a shower to relax and end up thinking about statistics? Seriously???

I got off work "early" at 5:30, got home, and was all excited about reading books and watching TV. Instead I spend several hours freaking out over work.

Then I took a shower to relax and transition to bedtime, ended up drawing all over my mirror to try to crack a problem I'm having with serial dilution statistics.

That worked about as well as one might have expected, but at least my mirror got cleaned when I wiped all the dry-erase ink off. Hey, at least I didn't waste paper.

Except then I sat down and worked on paper.

Then I started looking up articles on statistics for serial dilutions. It doesn't look promising. Whenever you see the words "Bayesian" or "Maximum Likelihood" in the titles, you know you're not likely to get to just take the mean and standard deviation and go for a walk or something.

My brain needs to learn to turn off or something.

At least tomorrow, I get "MasterChef." Ah, the fury of Gordon Ramsay, sending my brain into sweet, sweet oblivion.

Experiments in Virtue

I just got done reading "The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment," by A. J. Jacobs. It was a quick read and quite entertaining.

Jacobs, also the author of "The Year of Living Biblically," and "The Know-It-All," frequently tries out different modes of living and then writes essays or books about them. For one month, he was Radically Honest, saying absolutely everything that came into his head. Another month, he outsourced all his email and shopping to India. He went a month fully concentrating on the present task, rather than multitasking. Another month, he was completely obedient to his wife.

He is a likable and humorous writer, but what I had not expected was how, from each experiment, he succeeded in holding on to some lesson. He decided to go back to giving "white lie" compliments, but to stop lying to get himself out of trouble. He started closing his eyes during phone calls so he could concentrate on the conversations. He and his wife discovered they had been getting way too snarky with each other, and both started treating each other with more consideration.

I think all Catholics can relate to this life of experimentation, because we do it at least every Lent. Read the whole Bible. Say the Rosary every day. Go on a retreat. Start saying the Office of Readings. Volunteer. Give alms.

We enter these actions with as little intent on lifelong commitment as Jacobs does, but with the hope that we will find some lasting benefit.

Outside of Lent, we can have other experiments in virtue when we join parish groups or start volunteering. I think this area is a little more scary; Lent ends every Easter, but we could keep on teaching that 3rd grade Bible class until we die (or move). SCARY!!! OH NOES!!! But, really, it's not like we're taking vows to these activities.

We must walk a fine balance between fickleness and slavish loyalty. We do not take vows to stay in the choir forever, or even to lead Newman Center retreats until graduation day.

When we are children, we want to quit activities as soon as our fantasies crash up against our real limitations. We can't play the piano (even after 1 week) like the prodigy on the latest musician-worship movie, so we want to quit. Well, so we've discovered it won't be all that easy for us. It's in those moments that our parents encourage us to keep going.

It's an important lesson, but I think that for some people, it needs to be re-examined.

On Seraphic's blog, a lot of college women write in worried about some romantic drama in their lives with a guy in their Newman Center. The women are involved, he's involved, and they can't stand the sight of him anymore, but feel obligated to keep going to all the same activities. I've met women like this in my own life too, and I thought of them when I read A.J. Jacobs' book.

We can get a lot out of things and activities that we quit.

There can be excellent reasons for backing out.

Maybe the choir you joined has changed directors, styles, music, and just isn't that challenging or fun anymore. It used to make you happy, but now it's something you dread each week. You aren't getting paid to be there; you don't need to keep going. The musical skills you learned there will still be with you in the next choir you join.

Maybe the Newman Center Bible Study used to be a fun place where you deepened your faith and made great friends. Now you are supposed to be a "leader," but you don't really like being the organizer, and you don't like going because you have to watch your ex-crush flirt with his new crush. What used to pick you up after a tough week is now the worst part of it.

So stop going.

Look, if you are a "leader" in college, you already know that life will move on for the organization after you graduate. You are allowed to move that day up a little bit. Try Mass at the nearby parish. Go to one of the other groups at the Newman Center. Start a prayer group instead. If you go for 1 semester to the nearby parish, you could just go back to being a participant, rather than dealing with the stress of planning and cajoling your fellow students.

If you are frustrated with your current schedule, make a little experiment. Drop the extracurriculars you don't enjoy and replace them with something. Just for a month. Or a summer. Or a semester. Plunge in whole-heartedly, and reassess at a specific date. If you miss the old group, the drama will have died down, and you can go back with less worry.

If you have actually been sitting on the sidelines and are bored or lonely, make an experiment of joining some group. Purposely decide on a time to evaluate whether you should stay in or leave.

I like the Jacobs way of life, and I realize I've been following it for a long time. I tend to stick with things, but the freedom in beginning new ventures without making a big commitment has helped me be more social and creative.

Total Gift of Self?

Seraphic recently wrote on her blog that she and her husband don't really like the phrase "total gift of self" from John Paul II's theology of the body. They think it is weird, kind of funny, and rather unsexy, but that perhaps it is a phrase that sounds better in Polish than in English.

When I think of the total gift of self, I think of spider mating habits and the "nuptial gift" of the spermatophore.

The spermatophore, also produced and given away by many different male insects, is a ball of fatty, protein-rich food mixed with sperm that is made of most of his body weight. That little male spider on the left in my blog photo is holding a white spermatophore, about to offer it to the big brown female. He gives this to his mate. The food may be essential for her to get the nutrition to make all the eggs that will become their 1000s of adorable baby spiders. Alternatively, eating the food may just be a big distraction that keeps the female from mating with other spiders.

Either way, the male has just given away most of his body weight in the form of a big ball of food and sperm. He doesn't get to mate again (usually). He doesn't get to live very much longer.

Praying mantises and black widow spiders, who kill and eat their mates, are an obvious cliche, but though it's a little more total, it doesn't seem much like a gift.

When you know all of this stuff about weirdo invertebrates, it's hard not to think that human sex pales in comparison (in terms of the self-gift idea). That's not to say that I want 75+ lbs of fat and sperm placed in my ovipore by a spouse in his last minutes of life!

Speaking of which, I really must get to writing "The Ovipore Monologues" some day.

I'm just sayin' that it's a lot easier for me to conceptualize "self-gift" as the acts of charity and service that take place throughout a marriage than to be very impressed with the gift of semen. Or is that not what the Pope meant? Perhaps I have interpreted his writings too literally. Wouldn't be the first time that's happened. Human men have to give other stuff to their wives to keep them happy. The engagement and wedding rings, a significant portion of the man's salary, could be seen as a nuptial gift. Oh, because it is! Riiiight, the spider thing was named AFTER the human marriage convention.

Now I am more confused about sex than ever.

When PotF turns into TMI

I am back on blogger! I was busy finishing my dissertation, moving, and starting a new job all last year, but I am feeling the urge to reconnect with strangers on the Internets, so here we go.

I have begun attending an Extraordinary Form High Mass in my new town. I go to the OF for daily Mass and when I'm out of town. I love the EF for Sunday Mass because it feels different enough from daily Mass to warrant the extra half hour. Horrible Catholic that I am, I found myself getting impatient with Sunday Mass when I started going to daily Mass regularly. It all just felt like there was unnecessary padding.

I like the meditative aspect of the EF. I have a busy workweek and spend a lot of my free time thinking about my next experiments, so I find it quite refreshing to spend time in silent prayer. I am not good at doing silent prayer in my house, with my laptop beckoning.

One of the things I appreciate, about all the Masses in my new town, is that the Intercessory Prayers (aka Prayers of the Faithful) in Mass are very nicely written.

In my old town, a layperson would read off some lovely, rather long PotF. The priest would then start taking requests from the congregation. At one parish, the majority of these were "For a special intention, we pray to the Lord." A small percentage were general, such as "For all those struggling with addiction..." or "For those traveling..." It was always a little awkward when some people spoke over each other, or if they forgot to say "We pray to the Lord," and the priest had to say it for them. My least favorite prayers (and yes, I rank prayers according to how they please ME) were both prayers to God AND news bulletins for the congregation. My favorite of these were 1) short and 2) involved people I might actually know or have seen at Mass, such as "For Marjorie, who isn't here today because she is having heart surgery..." or "For Mrs Tuttle, who moved from here several years ago and just lost her husband this weekend..." The most embarrassing were evolving prayers for chastity from the newly dating couples that then ceased when the couples were married. The most annoying were long, detailed stories that really could have been summarized in one phrase.

"We pray for Elizabeth and Jane, who have both recently experienced disappointment in love, the first from a young man who seemed interested and then went out of town with no explanation given, and the second from a man whom she detests and whom she thought detested her, and he does but also loves her despite himself and his loathing for her admittedly problematic family, and anyway, we just pray they don't become spinsters and that their mother stops being rather a trial and that their younger sister repents of her libertine ways, let us pray to the Lord," could easily be condensed into "For God's blessings on the Dashwood family."

It was a temptation for me, judging other people's prayers. I shouldn't have, I knew I shouldn't have, and sometimes I succeeded in not doing it very much. I am very grateful that now I only pray for things that are phrased in a short sentence.

The Internet holds a greater temptation for me, because of the numerous prayer requests on Catholic blogs. I skim the really long stuff just to see what the point is, say a quick prayer, and move on. Unfortunately, the more detailed the post is, the more chance there is that I may end up reacting out of negative emotion rather than Christian fellowship and charity.

"Please pray for Catherine, who is struggling in her relationships and has a life-threatening cold" gets a nice prayer.

"Please pray for my darling mistress Cathy. She is in passionate love for her adopted brother, who is the love of her life, but she married another man out of greed and childishness because her dear brother was too poor and uneducated for her at the time. She loves him, though he has raised her nephew to be an illiterate reprobate who tortures and kills animals. Despite his declared intentions to destroy the life of everyone around him, including his emotionally and physically abused wife (the sister of Cathy's husband), Cathy longs to run away with him. She got pneumonia when she ran round the rainy, freezing moor hoping to commit adultery. Please pray for her speedy recovery and happiness." This prayer will get a very different gut reaction from me. Rather than sympathy, I feel horrified shock. I find it hard to say nice prayers for strangers when I am in horrified shock.

I should keep these feelings to myself, and I certainly mustn't put an outraged comment on a blog post that is just a prayer request, but I can't help but wish that either the friend who'd sent in the prayer request OR the blogger who posted it had eliminated at least a little bit of the TMI that was bound alienate at least a few Catholics.

Then again, perhaps lurid details make a blog's readership pray more urgently. Who can say? Tragically, the universe does not revolve around me, so if most of the Catholics out there are inspired by long prayer requests, then we should keep on doing them!

My general attitude, though, is that God knows the details, and I don't have to. In fact, it's better that I not know them. So please, if you want prayers, but you think if some people know the full story that they might get upset, just ask for the prayers, whether in Mass or on the Internets, and give the poor Newsies a day off.

Thomas Kinkade, or Why I like Paintings of Houses

"Clearing Storms by Thomas Kinkade"

I've read a couple of well-written essays on Thomas Kinkade by Catholic writers recently in First Things and NCRegister.

People got kind of angry at Simcha Fisher, particularly when she said Kinkade was "anti-incarnational" because his prettied up houses and landscapes lack the mess of reality.

First, I would say that Kinkade is attempting, in his work,to be transfigurational. Whether or not he succeeds is another matter! I will just say that I think this is a fine goal for an artist to have, and that the Transfiguration is also an important feast in the Church calendar.

Second, I would say that I think most of Kinkade's paintings are kind of ugly and garish. However, some of them are well-composed and restrained. The one up top is one of the few I like. There is a nearly perfect circle formed from the clouds and rocks that leads the eye through the painting, while the lighthouse & house are the clear focus. The dark rocks and sea contrast with the brighter colors, and the lights are appropriately bright. Lighthouses are classically picturesque, possibly overdone, but they truly are beautiful. They were designed to be pretty as well as functional, and I'm just sorry we stopped bothering. If air-traffic control towers looked as nice, maybe traveling would be less of a chore. This is a pretty, charming painting with a bit of drama, and I like it.

Third, I would say that critiques of his paintings that focus on the choice of subject matter are probably what is most irritating to fans and indifferent bystanders alike. Neither of the two essays I linked to make that mistake, but I've heard it before.

I have heard criticism of him because he leaves people out of his paintings, because his paintings are too bucolic, because his paintings are of country houses rather than people/cities/slums/something else. These critiques make my hackles rise because they are missing out on a major portion of art, art history, and the human experience. They also fail to understand what it is about Kinkade's paintings that has made him so popular -- he has been able to capture feelings that people have already felt, but didn't know how to visualize.

When I used to go on long road trips with my family, I loved driving down a dark highway and seeing far-off houses with their lights on. It was both a lonely and comforting feeling. It was comforting to know that there was someone else in the world, and lonely to know we would never meet. I got the same feeling when I would look outside my childhood bedroom window and see houses miles away from my mountain view. These lights are alienating while at the same time reminding us of a common humanity. A lit house is mysterious and is a great subject for paintings. I wish there were loads more of them. The people who complain that the viewer of a Kinkade painting is shut out of the family life of the people in the house have entirely missed the romance of that very feeling. You are shut out, looking in, wondering.

When I saw a Kinkade for the first time, I was a college freshman. I thought "At last! Someone who knows how I feel about houses!" Then I noticed the mawkish coloring and I didn't like it as much. I think the Kinkade fans have latched onto that feeling and that recognition of kinship. When Kinkade is criticized, particularly when he is criticized for the subject matter instead of execution, they feel criticized too.

The most tone-deaf criticism, of course, is that of someone complaining that the scenes are too country. Great, thanks, pal. I grew up in the country. Our houses don't really look like that, but if they did, they would totally sell at high prices. That's another thing I want to say. Kinkade isn't selling to a nostalgia, he's selling to a market whose architecture is generally void of beauty. The pre-fab homes, bland stuccoed developments, and strip malls in most American cities are drab chunks of ugly. Or you can get a lovely brick building from the 1910's that's falling down around your ears. Boo. A Kinkade cottage is unique, it is made of serious things like rocks, not plastic siding, and it looks like it could last more than a decade *please to ignore improbably architecture*. If it's shown with other cottages nearby, they don't all look the same. The gardens are lush and overgrown; no neighborhood authorities to tell you to trim your dang bushes or force you to mow the lawn around the edges. It's a dream house, but not like any dream-house you can actually buy. For a few million, you could get a McMansion, but you can't get a house made of rocks. I want a house made of rocks. Always have.

But remember, I said I didn't actually like most of Kinkade's cottage paintings. So I looked up ten paintings of houses that I like better.

Number 10
House by Edward Jones" This a painting found in an auction, and was done by a high school student. I love the color scheme and style, but the compositional issues typical of young artists take a lot away from it. The house is too big for the canvas, and it ends up looking scrunched. The trees are too small as well; they may have been that size in real life, but the artist would have done better if he'd made them a bit larger. They end up getting lost.

Number 9

Baba Yaga's House by Steve Dismukes

Any list of my top house paintings has to include a picture of Baba Yaga's house. When I first came across Russian folktales when I was 11 years old, she and her house took up residence in my imagination and never really left. The most entertaining and frightening witch of all time. A haunted house that lets you know immediately just how bad it really is, but it won't do you any good. By the time you see the chicken legs, Baba Yaga has got you already. I like this painting because of the contrast between the greyed-out landscape, the glowing, cheerful windows, and the small sinister details. I think the painting would have been stronger without the ring of skulls -- it would be better if the chicken legs were the only "off" detail in an otherwise charming scene. This artist is really into illustration and comic-style art, though, so he would want to put those extra details in.

Number 8
Burning House by Lois Dodd

This is not the first burning house you will see here! Simcha Fisher had joked that Kinkade's bright windows look like the house is on fire. If you just look at the bottom windows of this house, you will see a strong resemblance to the Kinkade windows. Hmm. I like this one for the strong colors and movement, especially in the top left flames. What really sells it for me is that stream of water from the firehose that looks like another jet of flame. The way it cuts across the painting is so interesting. I'm not so wild about the olive trees in the background. But ultimately, the contrast between the organic flames and the straight lines of the house and the water stream are gripping and powerful.

Number 7
"Country House by Vyacheslav Tsay

You ask for incarnational? I give you the Vyacheslav Tsay. So faithful to details of reality there is a satellite dish at the apex of the hill. I love this painting for its attention to detail and to the dizzying steepness of this village on a hill. He plays a lot with the disorientation one feels at night when the colors all fade into one blue/green mess punctuated by white. I really like the chaotic sweep of dark trees. I only wish he had left out a bit more -- after exploring all these details, the eye does not have somewhere to rest.

Number 6
House on Fire by Paul Keysar

Okay, forget all that stuff I said about the lonely mystery of seeing a lit window and just take in this drama. The triangles from the smoke and from the late afternoon sun in the foreground make a perfect composition. The ominous shadows in the forest set off the glowing white house about to be consumed. The balance -- or tension, however you want to see it -- of rough and smooth textures, peaceful nature and raging inferno in a gorgeous, stately house are so intelligent, and more importantly, true. September 11 happened on one of the most beautiful fall mornings I've ever seen. Heartbreak and beauty sometimes coincide.

Number 5
House at Essoyes by Renoir.

So whenever I seen Kinkades, I'm reminded of Renoir's use of speckled light and saturated color. We usually think of his crowd scenes, though, and I wanted to find out what he did when he wasn't painting people. Well, he's still got some people in there, but they're not recognizable, and they're great for giving the scale of this quite large house. More like a mansion. I'd love to see this one in person -- at this scale on my computer screen, I'm sure I'm missing out on the textures and subtleties I could see in the real thing. These hazy days do happen in France, and the softness of the trees captures that warm summer feeling that's just shy of oppressive. The light source is a little confusing, though based on the direction of the tree shadows, I'd say it's mostly coming from the upper right. The focus of the painting is so clear. The eye is immediately drawn to the glowing, creamy surface of the house tower, flanked by dark trees. It's a restful painting. I would love to be able to sit for a long while in front of this one. That's what happens when a painting is well-balanced; it has all the detail you might want to explore, but it is still enough to invite contemplation.

I have Renoir lower on my personal list because I think this is a bit too sweet for my taste. The die-hard Kinkade fans should check out Renoir. Good luck trying to buy an original, but affordable reproductions are fairly easy to find.

Number 4
"East End Sunlight by Cooper Dragonette
Here's a lovely painting by a Maine artist that does the opposite of the lit window -- the light in the room is all coming from a sunset. This was a small painting, 6x8", so it's just a little detail from a beautiful moment. He's caught some of the nice architectural details in an old house. I think it is well composed and an unusual close-up, but what I really love is how the warm rosy sunlight on the inside punctuates that dark room and that beige-yellow house. It takes something I generally dislike -- the dull colors of most houses I see, the coldness of blank glass -- and adds the warmth and vitality of sunlight. Nature here is softening and beautifying the manmade. It's simple, and I really do dislike that ugly beige color of paint that is everywhere, but I have this up high on the list because I think this is showing me something special. I like noticing those little moments that are easy to miss. A grace moment, when something we take for granted is made beautiful. It earns its number 4 spot because it challenged and excited me.

Number 3
Country House by Viktor Safronov
Okay, finally back on the topic of houses at night with a window lit. Here's another Russian artist, Viktor Safronov. Dang, Russia looks cold. This isn't even one of the coldest paintings of his work. That house is kind of shabby and probably leaks, but I'd rather be in there than out here in this chilly, muddy foreground. Maybe this theme is popular in cold places, where the only thing on your mind when you are outside is "How do I get back in???" The foreground shows why people built houses in the first place. I like the way the sky looks scratched up with paint, as if the artist was attacking the canvas. The twisted trees with their sharp branches, the murky colors, the interposition of the snow between the viewer and the warm house, the lit window in the very far edge of the painting, the way the house is set so you don't get to see a door, all add up to a feeling of homelessness and longing. This house, small as it is, is a true refuge from a hostile world.

Number 2
Tallinn at Night by Eva-Maria von Nerling.

This painting, wow. Check out the link, because what this German artist does with color is just mindblowing and so much fun. One of the defenses of Kinkade is that he is pretty and decorative, and why shouldn't people get to enjoy happy, pretty things instead of misery? Fair enough, but I say von Nerling does it better. Her art ranges from symbolic to abstract, and the vivacity and joy shines through better, I think, than most of Kinkade's ultimately placid paintings. She also does textile arts, and one can see the influence of quilting in her geometric work and willingness to mix bright colors. In this painting, we see a rainbow of colors that would fit in any gallery in the American Southwest. I have no idea if Tallinn really looks like this at night -- I rather doubt the trees are purple and blue -- but why shouldn't it in a painting? This is a point I will always defend for Kinkade fans: an artist's imagination should not be restricted. Fantasy need not be only dragons/unicorns/obvious surrealism. If you want to paint a purple tree next to a blue tree, even though trees look grey at night, go right ahead. In von Nerling's painting, the variety of color is prevented from chaos by the stark black night sky punctuated by tiny white stars and moon. Looking closer, I started to notice more detail -- the washes of paint on the houses blur in and out, and each house has a different set of windows and doors. The blurring effect is interesting, and I think it does a good job symbolizing the loss of color saturation at night while letting us still enjoy some serious color. The tiny purple house helps break the symmetry imposed by the four tall buildings, and along with the moon and trees, it gives a simple composition movement and life. It also gives the exact opposite feeling from the loneliness and longing I'd said I wanted from a painting of houses -- but I don't care. My list, my rules, my breaking of rules. It goes at Number 2. This artist could single-handedly destroy Germany's reputation for grey solemnity. I want her to come decorate my life, seriously.



Night, Blue House on Clydesdale" by Paul Keysar

Yes. Perfect. This tiny painting (5x7") is so simple but so well executed. This is finally showing what my heart has felt about other people's houses since I was a very small child. The austerity of the yard -- a few trees and a phone line -- makes the homeowners seem poorer, more isolated themselves. Maybe they are lonely too. The darkness, the glow in just two windows, one darker than the other, as if the light source is just in one room but bleeds over into the next, is oppressive and beautiful at once. The brushstrokes are gentle and varied. I appreciate the inclusion of telephone poles & lines, which could easily have been left out. The presence of poles in rural areas has always given me hope; someone else has cared enough to drag some metal and wood somewhere so people could have electricity and a connection to the rest of the country. Just like the lit window off in the distance, they let us know we are not alone. You will notice this is the 2nd Paul Keysar painting I've listed. I really like this guy. He's an artist in Charlotte, NC and has a whole series of night landscapes.

There is so much more to contemporary art than the shock-art we hear about in the news. There are fantastic, joyful, talented artists painting their vision of the world. Have fun checking out their work for yourself.

Remember Your Chocolate - corrected and expanded!

We sang "Remember Your Love" by Darryl Ducote and Gary Daigle as the Communion hymn at Mass yesterday.

I rather like the first bit of the song because it sounds kind of like chant.

But the hook always makes me think of Willy Wonka, and I really want to know the back story there.

Had Darryl been battling a 3-day fever with nothing but Gene Wilder movies in the house to watch? I like to watch G movies when I am sick. Maybe he does too.

Were Gary's kids playing it all the time in the background? "DADDY! Can we please watch Willy Wonka for the 47th time?" "Yeah, yeah, just let me write this hymn and I'll be right there!"

Did it inspire one or both of them so deeply that, after seeing it only once, it floated to his conscious mind years later as the perfect hook for his song about Our Lord and his Mercy?

I like to think they woke up, hungover, to find the following version on a cocktail napkin, and then edited out all the chocolate references they could, leaving only the tune as a reminder of one crazy night in Hershey, PA.

Refrain:
"Remember Your Lo-ove
And Your faithfulness, O Lord!
Remember Your Fact'ry
and make chocolate for us, Lord!

V1. In a world of pure imagination
The Lord is ne-ear!
Though others turn into blueberries,
I shall not fe-ear!

V2. Don't get too close to chocolate rivers;
Shun gluttony-y!
Don't constantly demand more presents
So brattily-y!

V3. The prophets who will give you warnings
Will show the wa-ay
Their orange faces may be scary
But they're oka-ay!

V4. Avoid unhealthily obsessing
About TV-ee!
Obey all rules and regulations
And you'll go fre-ee!"

Hymnals could be so much more entertaining if they included tracknotes. Alert GIA!

Trolley Problems, or A Great Way to Spend My Time

DarwinCatholiclinked to a great Trolley Problem that I just had to draw in Paint.

"

On Twin Earth, a brain in a vat is at the wheel of a runaway trolley. There are only two options that the brain can take: the right side of the fork in the track or the left side of the fork. There is no way in sight of derailing or stopping the trolley and the brain is aware of this, for the brain knows trolleys. The brain is causally hooked up to the trolley such that the brain can determine the course which the trolley will take.

On the right side of the track there is a single railroad worker, Jones, who will definitely be killed if the brain steers the trolley to the right. If the railman on the right lives, he will go on to kill five men for the sake of killing them, but in doing so will inadvertently save the lives of thirty orphans (one of the five men he will kill is planning to destroy a bridge that the orphans’ bus will be crossing later that night). One of the orphans that will be killed would have grown up to become a tyrant who would make good utilitarian men do bad things. Another of the orphans would grow up to become G.E.M. Anscombe, while a third would invent the pop-top can.

If the brain in the vat chooses the left side of the track, the trolley will definitely hit and kill a railman on the left side of the track, ‘Leftie,’ and will hit and destroy ten beating hearts on the track that could (and would) have been transplanted into ten patients in the local hospital that will die without donor hearts. These are the only hearts available, and the brain is aware of this, for the brain knows hearts. If the railman on the left side of the track lives, he too will kill five men, in fact the same five that the railman on the right would kill. However, ‘Leftie’ will kill the five as an unintended consequence of saving ten men: he will inadvertently kill the five men rushing the ten hearts to the local hospital for transplantation. A further result of ‘Leftie’s’ act would be that the busload of orphans will be spared. Among the five men killed by ‘Leftie’ are both the man responsible for putting the brain at the controls of the trolley, and the author of this example. If the ten hearts and ‘Leftie’ are killed by the trolley, the ten prospective heart-transplant patients will die and their kidneys will be used to save the lives of twenty kidney-transplant patients, one of whom will grow up to cure cancer, and one of whom will grow up to be Hitler. There are other kidneys and dialysis machines available; however, the brain does not know kidneys, and this is not a factor.

Assume that the brain’s choice, whatever it turns out to be, will serve as an example to other brains-in-vats and so the effects of his decision will be amplified. Also assume that if the brain chooses the right side of the fork, an unjust war free of war crimes will ensue, while if the brain chooses the left fork, a just war fraught with war crimes will result. Furthermore, there is an intermittently active Cartesian demon deceiving the brain in such a manner that the brain is never sure if it is being deceived.

What should the brain do? Excerpted from:
– Michael F. Patton Jr., “Tissues in the Profession: Can Bad Men Make Good Brains Do Bad Things?”, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, January 1988

I think that drawing diagrams is a great way to work through complex problems.

When I drew this crazy thing out, I noticed right away that the 5 people are doomed and the orphans will be saved in either scenario. Thank goodness, the author of the problem and the idiot who put a brain in charge of a trolley are doomed along with an orphan murderer (too bad for you, 2 other nameless victims). We're now guaranteed to have a tyrant queen Orphan Annie, a GEM Anscombe Orphan, and an Inventor-of-the-Pop-Tab Orphan grow to maturity.

So, I blocked out that whole section.







What if the brain KNEW about the extra 20 kidneys outside the scenario? It could block out that whole section, like this...







Then there's an unjust war with no war crimes, a just war with war crimes, 10 people who will or won't receive heart transplants, a nice man and a mean man. Under a strictly utilitarian scenario, the justness or unjustness of the wars may not matter if they kill different numbers of people or render them unhappy or if the "wrong" side wins. Outcomes, not justifications, are important. The war crimes sound really bad, but if the war crimes are committed against fewer people than the regular waging of the other war happens to kill, then a purely utilitarian brain would favor the criminal war. Since the brain doesn't know the numbers, it can't make a decision, and would ignore that section of the problem.









In this case, we can see that sending the trolley down the right side of the tracks will kill only one man and save 11.

HOWEVER, remember that I said that the brain is actually ignorant of kidneys, so it would NOT ignore the kidney patient problem.








I used the World Health Organization estimation of cancer deaths in 2008 to factor the worth of a cure for cancer. For Hitler, I used 12,000,000 deaths from the Holocaust (6 million Jews + 6 million others-- Gypsies, political prisoners, disabled people, etc), a number I may have underestimated, especially if you put in all the millions killed in combat in WWII. In 2 years, according to a utilitarian brain in a vat, a cure for cancer would "balance out" the Holocaust, so it would send the trolley down the LEFT side, killing the nice man, destroying the hearts, and allowing the 20 kidney patients to be saved. The brain was ignorant and made the "wrong" choice.

All this, of course, ignores both the Cartesian demon confusing the brain intermittently and the unknown ultimate effects of the brain's choice on the other brains.

Update:

I just realized the brain may be ignorant of all future outcomes of the people involved in these scenarios (from the car crashes on). If so, one might think it would kill the man on the right to save the 10 heart patients and the man on the left. If the brain is a strict utilitarian ignorant of kidneys (other than that each person has 2), though, it will destroy the hearts of 10 (plus the man on the left) so that the kidneys of 20 might be saved. So it will send the trolley down the left.

25,000,000,000 flavors

It seems that whenever someone wants to make a plug for adultery -- or to at least knock monogamy -- he asks "What if you could only have one flavor of ice cream for THE REST OF YOUR LIFE???!!!"

There are so many stupid things about this metaphor, I thought I'd write up a few approaches to answer this.



1) Holding out for better

If we did courtship like we do ice cream, it just wouldn't work for me. Internet dating sites are kind of like that. You see a bunch of guys' pictures and get a little info, and you can pick which one you want to write to. Naturally, it's up to both of you to decide whether you meet, and whether you keep dating, but the initial process seems more like choosing an ice cream flavor or pair of shoes online. When I go in an ice cream store, I never leave because the flavors on offer aren't as thrilling as I'd hoped. I have frequently left online dating sites because the men just didn't interest me.

2) Too many choices actually kind of sucks
I have been eating ice cream for 28 years, since I was weaned off formula.
I've tasted a lot of flavors. I've eaten at local ice creameries that make up flavors each week. I've explored the multiple variants of gelato, yogurt, ice cream, and custard.

I've probably had about 25 flavors in my life, and I probably won't add much more to that.

I like the mint, I like the chocolate, I really like pistachio and butter pecan if I can get them, I like berry flavors and sometimes mango or watermelon.

I've probably sampled over half of the possible flavors. I don't know if I will sample the full range, and I don't care. It's not really a top goal of my life.

I have found that when I visit an ice cream store that offers only two flavors, I don't really care. I pick the one that sounds good, I eat it, I find it cool and delicious. When I visit a place that offers 50 flavors, I actually get kind of annoyed because it is so hard to choose. I only spend about 30 seconds deciding, and about 10 minutes eating it. But when I eat it, I find it cool and delicious, and I don't wish I had actually gone with another flavor.

I have not treated men the same way. There are billions of people in the world, so there are billions of men, and I definitely don't want to sample them all. Ugh. It would be impossible. I actually want to spend more than 15 seconds deciding which one I want. People aren't products.

3) Do you take this ice cream company and flavor?

If I swore an oath and signed a legal document saying I would only eat Blue Bunny Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream for the rest of my life, munching on no other flavor, whether in cold weather or hot, on holidays or Tuesdays, with bananas, toppings or plain, in a cone or a bowl, until my tongue crumbled unto the dust from whence it came,

And if all of my religious upbringing had emphasized the importance of fidelity unto ice cream flavors,

And if Hollywood films for the last hundred, and novels for the last several hundred years, and legends and tales of the last several millenia, had explored the wonders of finding the perfect ice cream flavor and the tragedy of ice cream infidelity,

And if one was traditionally supposed to discern this flavor -- not on tasting it -- but on sight, smell and nutritional packet information alone, because it was gravely improper to eat the flavor without having first sworn the Lifelong Consumer oath, so that a person would not only commit to an ice cream for life, but would have tasted no other ice cream previously,

And if I knew that other ice creams could be tainted, that if I strayed I might get food poisoning because other flavors were not as carefully preserved and other ice cream companies were not as scrupulous about testing,

And if -- should I break my vow and be discovered -- the Blue Bunny Ice Cream company could kick me out of my home, take my children from me, run about trashing me to all my friends and family, keep me in court for months, and send a representative mascot dressed as a mint chocolate chip cone to weep, curse, and throw things at me,

I might occasionally wonder about the other flavors, but I don't know how other ice cream flavors could possibly be so attractive to me that I would throw away my life for a couple of seconds of taste. And in such a society, a person who did would be considered a freak, someone with no foresight or self-control, who lived purely for their tastebuds and was pitifully selfish and foolish.

I am become ScienceGirl, Destroyer of Liturgies, Part the Second

The hot summer weather we are experiencing makes me flash back to my good old days as an altar girl in my small town church that had poor air conditioning.

Me being an altar girl -- or "acolyte" as I was called -- may have wrecked the liturgy, but it's a tough call.

The liturgy was broken on arrival, pre-wrecked by King Henry VIII, the late, of England.

Yes, I was a Catholic altar girl at the local Episcopal church. When I went to confirmation classes in college, I learned that this was all kinds of messed up, but back in my teenage years, I thought it was pretty great.

I was enlisted as acolyte by the lady in charge of all things liturgical at this tiny parish. I was one of the 9 kids over the age of 12, and since she wanted 3 altar servers at each Mass? Service? JESUS-TYPE THINGIE?, we were all signed up to help. I was a very bad Catholic at this time, and an even worse Episcopalian -- we only went because we thought it was basically the same as the Catholic church, only with a less boring priest. Each member of the tiny parish also took turns reading, or in most cases painfully mumbling, the readings. Looking back, I am surprised we were all trained by her instead of by the priest, but she did a pretty good job. I have no idea how to judge whether I was a good altar girl or not. I seem to recall playing with the rope belt a lot. That can't have been too helpful in creating an atmosphere of reverent prayer. I also could NOT MANAGE to snuff the candles after it was all over. I would put the snuffer on, then remove it. The flame would shoot up. On went the snuffer. Up flared the resilient flame. Snuffer. Flame. Snuffer. Flame. After the first JTT, I got fed up and just blew out the pesky flame, while pretending to snuff it by cleverly holding the snuffer near the candle. How I longed to be as brave as the altar boy who licked his fingers and reached right into the flame to snuff the wick. He did this way before Aragorn's candle-pinching scene in "Fellowship of the Ring," and it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Each week, I would think "This is the week to put out a flame with my fingers," but each week, I chickened out.

The detailed rubrics combined with my equal and opposite penchants for daydreaming and mortification in the face of error made the JTT's at which I served rather nerve-wracking. But stressful though it was, I loved being an altar server, and was always a bit sad when it wasn't my turn on the schedule.

I liked it when it was my turn to ring the bell, though since I had only been trained once and had no written script, I was always worried I would ring it at the wrong times. If I was a candle-bearer, I would need to haul the candles around the church at different times, and what if I was 15 seconds behind noticing when the priest needed me and my sister had to nudge me? HUMILIATION!!! These were the beginnings of what I deem liturgi-phobia: irrational fear of Wrecking the Liturgy. 5 years later, I experience liturgi-phobia in my (Catholic) Confirmation Mass, when I Wrecked the Liturgy by starting to turn the wrong way after being anointed. My awe of the Holy Spirit had me in a bit of a daze, and it's a good thing for me that my Confirmation Sponsor was there to turn me around and set me back on course for my pew.

Anyway, I think I should tell you why I loved being an altar server so very much.

Tragically, it was not due to a deep love of the Eucharist (at the time I didn't know that Episcopalians don't necessarily have the Transubstantiation or believe in it). I did have a deep love of the Eucharist, and I hope God doesn't think it too idolatrous that I received the Episcopalian sacrament fully thinking it was the same Eucharist I'd learned about from the nice nuns in my First Communion prep.

Happily, it was not because I had any jealousy toward boys or desire to wreck their fun. I hadn't even known altar girls weren't de rigeur in even the Catholic church, and since I'd been enlisted by the sacristan, I thought it was just another job everyone needed to do and had always done from time immemorial.

No, my reason for loving serving at the altar was something much more simple and more worldly:

I was not sitting in a pew with my family.

Therefore, I was not sitting with my younger brother.

Therefore, I did not have to hold his hand at the Our Father or shake it at the Sign of Peace.

Therefore, I did not have to see him wipe his hand disgustedly afterward and glare at me for having sweaty palms.

Even when my brother and I were serving together, we didn't have to hold hands.

It made going to church so much nicer and less humiliating.

As a teenager, I generally felt humilitated most of the time when I was around other people, so I was happy with anything that decreased it. As an altar girl, I was actually sweatier because I had to wear the robe thingie over my clothes, but nobody could tell.

Look, it was really hot in that church, and I had all these adolescent hormones going.

Combined with the irregular periods typical for teenage girls, my numerous "hot flashes" caused by the 100+ degree weather made me fret that I probably had the medical condition called "Early Onset Menopause."

Early Onset Menopause was a condition that existed only in my brain.

You may wonder why I did not consult a doctor or my mom about my self-diagnosis.

I did not consult a doctor because I never really went to one unless I was horribly ill, what with our lack of health insurance and all.

I did not ask my mom because well, what would she know about the functioning of the uterus???

Also, I couldn't decide whether or not I dreaded or desired to confirm my EOM. On the one hand, BOO! No babies. On the other, HOORAY! No more period, ever.

My period always showed up eventually, so the thought of EOM gradually disappeared.

I stopped going to the Episcopal church, too.

My liturgical wreckage and attendance at that church may appall some nice Catholics out there, but it actually gave me a great benefit: I started praying again. The measly "Our Father" I would say after Communion in that church was for a time my only prayer for the whole week. Eventually, I got to thinking maybe I should pray more frequently. So I started saying the "Our Father" every night, and kept adding "Hail Mary's" until I ended up saying the Rosary. Actually, I started saying the Rosary as a way to fight insomnia, and my usual prayer was that I would fall asleep halfway through. I would feel so irritated if I got to the "Salve Regina" and was still wide awake! "Hey God, why are you not answering my prayer that I will not be able to finish my prayers to you???" As soon as I thought this, I realized I was being kind of dumb.

God worked a lot on me during those years.

I am become ScienceGirl, Destroyer of Liturgies, Part the First

Ah, liturgical abuse.

I have become well acquainted with it. But can I truly complain, in all fairness?

No.

For all the messed up stuff I've seen priests do over the years, I know that I have Destroyed the Liturgy uncountable times myself.

1. I Have Committed Liturgical Dance

Yes. Oh, but yes.

During Christmas Eve Mass, no less.

And it was spontaneous liturgical dance, at that!

I remember how beautiful the candles were, flickering all over the altar and near the side altar. The changing lights made me think of the angels someone was droning on about, and I had to dance. And sing.

The joy and uplifting beauty of this Mass moved me quite literally.

I lurched about. I waved my arms. I chanted words understood only by myself and the Lord.

It was 1984.

George Orwell got it just slightly wrong.

Big Brother was not watching me, but the priest and most of the congregation were.

Congregational Reverence: TERMINATED!

And thus began, at the age of two years, my path of Liturgical Destruction.

Throwing Cliches Under the Bus

The yahoo headlines have angered me yet again.

Mitt Romney is quoted as allegedly saying that Obama has thrown Israel under the bus.

I sincerely hope he said "Obama has betrayed Israel" or "Obama has really let Israel down" or "Obama has hurt US-Israel relations in a shocking yet also somehow entirely predictable way," and that the reporter just got clever.

Because, you see, Obama can't possibly have thrown Israel under the bus.

I say this not just because an entire country can't really be thrown, like a person, under a bus. I get that the metaphor could be extended, though tortuously, to a nation. I guess.

No.

I say this because the bus has had so many people "thrown under" it in the last few years that it can no longer run.

It is piled on a pile of thrown corpses.

Its gears are jammed with blood and guts.

Now, when anyone tries to throw anyone under the bus, they can only throw the person in front of the bus, and since the bus is no longer moving, what with being on all the other people, the thrown person just gets up and walks away unscathed.

If Anna Karenina wandered by all sad and wanted to end her life, she would find the bus no decent substitute for the Russian railway.

Even if the bus -- driven, let us suppose by an undead Ms Frizzle bent on vengeance -- even if this bus had the magical ability to expand itself to enormous size or to rear up to crush its victims like an angry steed, it still would only end up propped on the prone bodies of so many -- from Jeremiah Wright to the middle school girl whose sister refused to lend her favorite sweater -- that it would have no power left to cover Israel.

So when Obama, using his mighty arms, gathered into one the nation of Israel and tossed them/it toward the reddened tires of the DeathBus, he just threw out his back for nothing.

Mitt, Mitt, Mitt.

Be true to yourself.

"Betray" is a good, old word. It is powerful. It is serious. You are a bland, serious man. Middle English suits you. Trying to talk like you are hip and urbane will fool no one.

My Celebrity Dream: True Story

About two years ago, I had an amazing dream that I was dating a celebrity.

I had never had a dream involving a celebrity before, and this could have been a pretty fun dream. It was more weird and nightmarish than anything else.

I dreamed that Seth Rogen was my boyfriend and that I convinced him to go to Easter Vigil with me because it was so important to me. I did not at the time, nor do I now, feel a conscious attraction toward Seth Rogen.

Easter Vigil is normally about 2.5 hours because of all the readings. In my dream, it was much longer. I was feeling very guilty because my nice Jewish boyfriend Seth had finally agreed to come to Mass with me and here it was taking forever. The readings kept going on and on, and there were numerous songs between each, complete with tambourines, trumpets and drums. We sang all the verses, all the time.

Seth Rogen shifted uncomfortably on the hard pew. "Sorry," I whispered, "it's not usually like this." I was certain he would never come to Mass with me again, and I was kind of scared that he would take this chance to be witty and rude. But he was perfectly polite, in stark contrast to the oafish characters he usually plays.

I fell asleep on Seth Rogen's shoulder, and only woke up when the sunlight hit me on the face. I mean I woke up in the dream thanks to dream sunlight. The dream/nightmare Mass was still going on. "They haven't even got to the liturgy of the Eucharist," I thought miserably. "This is taking forever!" Seth Rogen had gamely stayed awake the entire night, listening to what must have been the entire Old Testament and every verse of every song ever written by Haugen, Hass, and company for Easter. Maybe they'd even run out and had to bring in the Ordinary Time stuff. I don't know because I had dreamed that I was asleep. Seth Rogen looked at me with tolerance and love.

Then I either woke up or my subconscious moved on to less memorable fare.

Why did I dream I was dating Seth Rogen, whose movies I barely like?
Why did I dream I was stressed and bored by Easter Vigil, my favorite night of the year?

Was an enemy hacking into my brain to cause an inception?

What on earth did they accomplish?

Is Seth Rogen the symbol of Jesus? Was I like the disciples falling asleep in the garden? What would that mean?

Some questions will never be answered.

Confiteor and Fight Club

At Mass recently, I've been in the habit of hitting myself during the Confiteor and whenever we ask for God's mercy. I found out this is a thing we traditionally have done because when I went to the Extraordinary Form Mass, I read in the red guidebook (Little Red Massbook, lol) that we are supposed to. I started doing it in the OF too and may have gotten carried away.

One day, when I was participating in this ancient gesture of humility and repentance, I thought "If we were REALLY hardcore, we would punch each ourselves in the face." Naturally, this led me to thinking about Fight Club, which I saw for the first time a couple months ago. I go to Mass each day, and every day I hit myself, and every day I think about Fight Club. My time would have been better spent actually working up some real sorrow over my sins. In that effort, I have stopped beating my chest like an angry gorilla and have tried to do a more slow, pressing motion.

This always happens to me when I try to do nice liturgical gestures. Taking communion on the tongue leaves me terrified like I'm at the dentist. I so much prefer receiving in the hand, but the hosts we use here are crumbly and I got tired of licking them up.

If I had tassels on my cloak, I would so totally lengthen them. I would then think about the bell-pull scene with Eeyore's tail in Winnie-the-Pooh. Good thing I don't have a cloak.



On one level, my idiotic thought about "improving" the ancient gesture by having us all imitate the totally awesome scene where The Narrator sends himself through a glass bookshelf is just one more example of me failing to concentrate well during the liturgy.

I could blame others. I could say that the lack of holy images for me to look at during Mass means I have to make up my own images in my head, and my head is mostly full of pop culture, and whatever mess floats up from my subconscious is not likely to lead to holy reflection. It is true that my local churches don't have much in the way of sacred eye candy, and it is also true that when my attention wanders and I can actually look at something like an icon or statue, it really helps bring my focus back. Speaking of which, I really think my Magnificat subscription is maybe the best thing I've ever bought. I can focus better on the readings if I get to actually see the dang words, and I like looking at the cover picture and the extra art in the booklet! Whenever there is a lull, like during the Collection, during the bit where the readers have to get up to the mic, during the bit where the announcers have to drone on about what I'm going to read anyway in the bulletin, during the bit where everyone else gets communion or the priest washes up, or any of the other numerous bits where nothing much is going on, I can read a prayer, look at a picture, or read an alternative homily. It is so great and it basically solves 95% of my concentration problems at Mass. The remaining 5% are for things like the Fight Club notion that just pop into my brain.

On another level, I think that Fight Club is actually a pretty good movie for one aspect of my approach to the faith, if you ignore all the violence, swearing, and graphic sex. And ladies, there is a lot of all 3, so don't go watch it with your Rosary group thinking it's going to bring you closer to Jesus. It will probably just gross you out. It's rated "R" for a Reason!

Spoiler alert! The movie is about dudes hitting each other because they feel stifled by a society that crafts status and identity out of material goods. The main character explodes his own apartment and goes and lives in a filthy, abandoned home that becomes an oasis for disturbed men looking to find masculinity through aggression. The obviously crazy person is their hero and they put all their confidence in him. There's a lot here that ladies won't necessarily relate to, but I did relate to the anti-materialism message of the (wildly successful) film, as described by its (rich) main actors. Buy your Fight Club poster today!

From the wikipedia article:

Edward Norton said, "I feel that Fight Club really, in a way ... probed into the despair and paralysis that people feel in the face of having inherited this value system out of advertising."[12] Brad Pitt said, "Fight Club is a metaphor for the need to push through the walls we put around ourselves and just go for it, so for the first time we can experience the pain."[14] Fight Club also parallels the 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause; both probe the frustrations of the people that live in the system.[12] The characters, having undergone societal emasculation, are reduced to "a generation of spectators".[15] A culture of advertising defines society's "external signifiers of happiness", causing an unnecessary chase for material goods that replaces the more essential pursuit of spiritual happiness. The film references Calvin Klein, IKEA, and the Volkswagen New Beetle. Norton said of the Beetle, "We smash it ... because it seemed like the classic example of a Baby Boomer generation marketing plan that sold culture back to us."[16] His character also walks through his apartment while visual effects identify his many IKEA possessions. Fincher described the narrator's immersion, "It was just the idea of living in this fraudulent idea of happiness."[17] Pitt explained the dissonance, "I think there's a self-defense mechanism that keeps my generation from having any real honest connection or commitment with our true feelings. We're rooting for ball teams, but we're not getting in there to play. We're so concerned with failure and success—like these two things are all that's going to sum you up at the end."[14]

Got all that?

This stuff, this idea that our identities and characters have been crafted in large part by vendors, hit me like a ton of bricks 7 years ago. And I hadn't even seen the movie! I was contemplating various things about the Church that drove me crazy. I had been confirmed in college, and while I believed in the teaching power of the Magisterium and had decided I would obey all that the Church teaches regardless of whether it made sense to me, there was still a lot that I found distasteful. But I read a lot in the hopes of better understanding. It occurred to me, however, to question where I had gained the idea that (for instance) it was horribly unfair for women not to be priests. I realized that it was just from television. Every kiddie show that had said "You can be anything you want to be!" as its main message left Catholics like me feeling frustrated because obviously if a girl wanted to be a Catholic priest, she couldn't be. I already understood intellectually the historical arguments that Jesus established the priesthood the way he had, but this emotional side, which had been established in me at an early age, was still getting in the way of full acceptance. Not that it really mattered, because I have never felt a call to any sort of ministry, but ideas do itch at me. What I realized was that the nice kiddie shows about self-esteem and fairness, etc, may or may not be true, but that they were designed mostly to get kids to bother their parents for toys. The makers of the shows may love children, but they love the parents' money just as much. I felt like the man who built his house on sand. My moral foundation had been a mix of Catholic piety AND a mix of secular piety, and some of it had to go. You can't be anything you want to be, or in the words of Tyler Durden, "You are not a special snowflake."

I am not a PC. I just own one.

Of course, Tyler Durden gets it wrong too. The Christian view is that we are beloved in God's eyes and that He died for our sins and rose again to redeem us. The brutal truth is only this, that by his stripes we are healed.

Confrontation with our sins actually makes us want to beat ourselves up. Accepting God's mercy and forgiveness can be so much harder and more humbling. Taking emotional distress and turning it into physical pain makes the emotional pain temporarily go away. "Rend your hearts and not your garments," says the Lord. In conclusion, I was wrong. It would not be more hardcore to give ourselves concussions every Mass, because it is actually more hardcore to limit ourselves to a couple of gentle taps and prepare our hearts for the mercy and love of the Lord.