Hobbit-Sense at OneFreeGarden.com

I have to say, aside from a very sweet candy packet sent to me in high school (at a time when I was completely unable to “get it” and hence completely missed the fact that a guy liked me… oops), I’ve never gotten a real Valentine’s Day gift, so, no, this isn’t a “V-Day” post…

Rather, this is about one of “my” beggars.  Remember back in October, when I posted somewhat regularly (sorry!), and talked about my decision to give to beggars?  Well, I can gladly say I’ve kept up with it, and changed the rules around a bit.  I have some “regulars” that I give to, those who I see frequently enough that we recognise each other.  A couple of these people beg at my church.  One of them often begs at my metro stop.

In the beginning, because I saw her so frequently, I tried to give to the lady at the metro stop once or twice a week, figuring I couldn’t give more.  But around Christmas, I gave everybody extra, and I started giving the lady at my metro stop something every time.  My “limits” were only small hurdles I’d built for myself.

She’s always in the same coat.  She has a worn-looking crutch, and a worn-looking face, but it’s always made up a little bit, giving her a look oddly cheery despite her usual implacable sad face.  For over a month, I gave to her every time I saw her, and she smiled at me, and, like many beggars, thanked me profusely and, I think, asked God to bless me.  Then, a couple weeks ago, she actually told me to stop giving to her- I couldn’t understand it exactly, but I think she was saying something like, “I’m fine, you don’t have to give all the time.”

When you’ve seem somebody with a bandaged foot begging on the barely sheltered stairway of your metro station at midnight, well, it stays with you.  So I left off for about a week, before giving her another small bill and saying, “Sometimes it’s possible.”

I was going up the stairs after work and saw her tonight, and I was debating whether I should give tonight or not when she stopped me.  Tonight, she’s selling some roses, too, 100 roubles for 5 (they don’t do dozens here).  She told me to take some, so I picked up a pack of red ones, and she told me to take some white ones, too.  For 200 rubles to help someone who in some sense is nearly a friend, well, it’s not much.

But when I reached for my wallet, she told me not to pay.  I thanked her a lot, and as I started to leave she asked me my name and I asked hers.  Please remember Masha in your prayers.

There are many things I could say, but it comes down to the love of God touching us through each other.  She’s given more than I have, I who have plenty, and I can never repay her.  Ten roses sit in a jar on my dresser because the seed of generosity God planted in me grew in both our hearts.  I couldn’t keep my hard face on for the walk home– that face I use because everyone here seems to wear one.  I simply cradled the flowers and smiled to myself.

The idea of a garden flows throughout literature and popular metaphor for a reason.  It seems to me that God is ever looking to plant a new Eden in our hearts.  I am usually a poor gardener, but in this one small corner of it, I can see the true Gardener’s work, and it is good.

Courtesy the fellows at Creative Minority Report, I’ve watched an audition tape for a 16 year old girl called Maddie Curtis. I liked Maddie so much that I thought I might try to follow this season, so I googled and got to the official website to look at start dates and what have you, and couldn’t help but click to watch Maddie’s audition again.  And from one video follows another, and now I’ve watched all the featured auditions currently available, and a couple of other auditions stood out.

All three (including Maddie) have great voices.  They also had great stories and great personalities.  They were complimented on their honest, authentic performances, which were not carbon copies of the original artists but expressed themselves.

I think a lot of that has to do with the lives these three have lived.  Many people are close to their grandmothers;  not many 16 year olds spend their free time hanging out with grandma, or are, like Katie Stevens, prepared to talk about singing for her and winning for her before she can’t remember who they are anymore.  Seventeen year olds can’t vote or smoke or drink;  and yet at that age, Jermain Sellers began taking care of his sick mother.  And while, despite the huge efforts of parents of kids with Down’s in the last 40 years to mainstream them, many struggle with the idea of having a person with Down’s in their family, Maddie Curtis is proud of her four brothers with the condition.

American Idol and shows like it are great at introducing us to people with great talent and interesting stories.  But I imagine that many other people also found these three stories particularly touching, and these three talented people endearing.  And I think it’s because these three people have close relationships with people whose lives are very different from the norm– people who, either from their very nature or from their current condition, have their “quality of life” questioned.  There are people and places who would allow or even encourage the snuffing out of these lives simply because they involve pain, or won’t be able to take care of themselves, or can’t live up to “normal” standards.  We already know that rates of Down’s in the US has fallen where statistically it should be more likely (given older motherhood)– I don’t think it’s a stretch to infer that has something to do with babies with Down’s being aborted.

And yet these three most likeable contestants all come from families where the “abnormal” was their normal.  And that’s why all three were complimented not only on their voices, which, with training, are essentially received or not received, but also on the honesty of their performances.  They’ve experienced, at a young age, life’s breadth, with includes difficult illnesses and disabilities and all the rest.

And all of this is a long-winded way of pointing out that without Jermain’s mom’s suffering, Katie’s grandmother’s slow deterioration, and Maddie’s brothers’ “abnormality” we don’t get the wonderful Jermains, Katies and Maddies whose compassion, honesty, and lack of self-absorption not only make for compelling television, but enrich our communities.  Jermain’s mother, Katie’s grandmother, and Maddie’s brothers have been good, strong influences on these people, and they have been loved:  that sounds like an excellent quality of life to me.

I don’t doubt that, while sinister influences are at work in some, many people who support abortion, euthanasia, and the rest of these “solutions,” do so out of a misguided compassion that thinks they’re keeping people from suffering.  But death isn’t an answer to suffering or difficulty;  it’s only an end to our interaction with those people.  There are places where these individuals, in pain, deteriorating, or with a perceived low quality of life can be excised from the picture– and those places are poorer for it.

It’s not compassion or love or self-sacrifice that drives “mercy” killings which are anything but.  And it won’t make us a more compassionate society.  What it will do is leave us with a future made up entirely of people who met some imaginary, ridiculous, and completely arbitrary idea of what constitutes a life worth living;  we will be a population of the most well-intentioned but least able to actually be compassionate executioners and survivors.  That’s a quality of life we can do without.  There’s a lot of talk about the value of diversity, but the diversity that’s truly dying out isn’t cultural or ethnic– it’s a diversity of experience which requires people to suborn their own interests for someone else.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to follow Idol from across the seas, but I can tell you I’ll be rooting for these three– they haven’t just got talent;  they’ve got heart.

Watch videos of Maddie Curtis, Jermain Sellers, and Katie Stevens at the American Idol Featured Auditions page.

Dawn noted on my last post that I’d basically upped the ante for God- and I think that’s an accurate way to put it.  But I guess it’s good to keep in mind that in a poker game, you keep betting until everyone’s even.  Ironically enough, I even found mention of a “poker priest” who’ll be on a televised competition, trying to win money for his parish.

I have to say, I really enjoy watching Texas Hold’em, which is a rare game where it’s definitely more about the betting– much more about the betting than the cards.  You don’t play the cards in Hold’em:  you play the people.  So I’ve watched and gotten all the catch phrases down- “Pocket deuces” and “he flopped trips!”  and calling Kings “cowboys” and such.  And in case you haven’t watched Celebrity Poker Showdown (the one you actually learn the most from) or the World Series of Poker, here’s a quick primer on how it goes.

There are some obligatory bets in Hold’em – a bigger one and a smaller one (half the bigger one)- called “blinds.”  Then those who haven’t put in the largest amount in have three options: “fold” and be out of the round, spending nothing;  ”call” and put in enough to match the big blind;  ”raise” by putting in more money.  The trick of the raise is that after that, everyone has to put in enough to match it or else fold.  And players can “re-raise.”

And that’s exactly what I think has been happening with me, Ten Prayers, and God.

Today I dawdled and delayed a bit by reading more in Orthodoxy (GKC) and Ten Prayers (DeStefano) before realising that, yes, I did actually have to shower and get dressed (I was in fact in my pajamas quite late- I like them and had nowhere to go yet) and go to Mass.  I hit chapter 8 today, well started it- at 1:40 I finally came to my senses (English Mass is at 3- well there’s one at 9 but I’d have to leave at about 8:10 to get there and that’s not going to happen right now).

I had to pull myself out of Ten Prayers in Chapter 8:  ”Sometimes Being Smart Just Isn’t Enough; God, Give Me Wisdom.”  DeStefano was just telling me about asking God to help with decisions.  This is an area in which I can use a lot of encouragement.

I think it comes down to being afraid of what God will say.  What if he wants me to be a “holy beggar” or something?  What if he wants me to do something completely different from what I thought?  What if he tells me and I don’t know how to listen?  Actually, the last one is a biggie for me, because the thing I miss most from my childhood is the closeness I felt with him, where I was sure I heard his voice.  I don’t regret growing up, but I do regret growing foolish and unable to hear him.  How will I know what he wants?  And will I be able to give it?  I know logically and through faith God won’t give more than I can handle, but that hasn’t stopped the fear.  I guess that’s why any time he has a big announcement, it starts with, “Don’t be afraid.”  In one sense, I trust God quite a lot– because of my closeness as a child, I have been blessed with certainty of his existence.  In the senses that matter more in everyday life… I’m a real skeptic.

But I’ve been smart enough, I think, to be skeptical about my own plans as well.  I just don’t know that they’re what he wants, so I don’t have complete peace with them.  So I figured I ought to pray that prayer.  I almost “dashed it off” quickly as I read and then hopped in the shower.  I figured I’d already gone in on the whole charitable giving thing, and that if I really missed that closeness, prayer was the only way to get it back.  So I said it.

And God saw my bet, and re-raised me.

As I mentioned in a Quick Take a couple weeks back, I was asked to lector at Mass the second Sunday I attended, after which I also said, I’ll be here til July, so you’ll see me around.  Well, every Sunday I’ve been since then I’ve been asked to lector.  Not only have I been asked to lector, but I’ve been given the biggest portion- first reading plus the psalm response.  Today I only got there with about 5-8 minutes to spare, and figured they’d have already gotten someone.  But I guess they were hoping I’d show because I sat down and immediately was handed the lectionary.  The fellow who is basically the acolyte and does things like assign readings and get Communion counts told me they love it when I read.  I’m one of the few English speakers there from a country where it’s the sole dominant language so it’s easier for me to be expressive I think, plus I figured if I’m reading it I should read it with expression.  As long as no one else is getting shafted, I’m happy to help, even though a bit nervous when I step up there.

Given that I’m eight hours ahead of EST, it’s entirely possible that some folks haven’t gone to Mass or service if you’re in a Protestant church that follows the calendar of readings, so here’s a little liturgical “spoiler alert.”

I looked down at the book, and I almost had tears running down my cheeks– my eyes were suffused with them, and are again now even thinking about it.  Here is the first reading:

I prayed, and prudence was given me,

I pleaded, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.

I preferred her to scepter and throne,

and deemed riches nothing in comparison with her,

nor did I liken any precious gem to her;

because all gold, in view of her, is a little sand,

and before her, silver is to be accounted mire.

Beyond health and comeliness I loved her,

and I chose to have her rather than the light,

because the splendor of her never yields to sleep.

Yet all good things together came to me in her company,

and countless riches at her hands.

– Wisdom (!) 7:7-11

Okay, okay, I get it.  That’s a dose of wisdom, a “trust me” and an implied “be not afraid” all in one, right when I asked for wisdom.  I don’t get amazed by “coincidences” — I am constantly amazed by how detailed God is, and how, if you’re looking, he’s really hitting you over the head (lovingly, of course) all the time– he just knows everything so well that he stands behind you encouraging you, and is the ground beneath you so you have a good path, and is the star before you to follow, and when you finally do listen, he’s already in the place he’s been leading you to, ready to welcome you in.  It’s mind blowing, because it’s so incredible- and so incredibly loving.

I’ve been shuffling my way along on this wisdom thing for a long time.  I think God even helped the priest out with the homily today just for me, the one about the rich man who doesn’t want to give up all his stuff.  He said something like, ‘It’s not enough to stay out of trouble;  you have to go beyond that.’  Giving God something to outdo, and now asking him for wisdom– and it seems like that line is just for me.

You know what I didn’t mention about betting in poker?  At any point in the game, any player who’s still got his hand can go “all in” — and anyone who wants to remain in the game has to go all in, too.  I think the reason I was folding so many hands was because I’ve been afraid of going all in.  I hope that the prayers I’ve been praying, “God, outdo me in generosity,” “God, give me courage,” “God, give me wisdom,” and “Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” will prepare me to go all in.

I sure hope so– because I’m finally starting to want it again.

-theRosyGardener

Updated only to add categories and correct a typo in which I accidentally claimed I’d been asked to lecture at church– thankfully for both my pride and the very lives of anyone potentially subjected to a lecture by me, I was asked to lector.  And all my family will commence laughing now….

I haven’t been as dedicated in reading this week, but I have been pondering what I have been reading.  As I mentioned, per Jen F.’s recommendation I got Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To.  The only thing consistent about my prayer life is how haphazard it is, so I’ve been trying to get in rosaries or the Jesus prayer when I think of it.  But this little book has been a gem, not only because it’s got a lot of truth and good pointers, but also because it’s made me think about my values.

More than thinking about them, it’s got me thinking about how I live them.  I’ve always been sensible and I’ve always been big-hearted, I think.  And in many instances, these two things have been at odds.  Sometimes, the heart wins, and sometimes, the head does.  Of course, sense and compassion aren’t inherently contradictory– it’s just that I often find myself pulled between them.

The heart winning has had its problems– I can tell you it does not mean one jot in terms of holiness in and of itself.  But that would take another whole post.  The head winning has saved my bacon a number of times, but there has been one area where it has always left me heartsick.

The prayer from that book is this:  God, outdo me in generosity.

I like to think of myself as a generous person.  I am I think rather generous with time and talents.  But giving money I’m not usually so generous.  And it bugs me.  One is purely selfish, not giving at church or giving little.  If a disaster happens, or I read about some charity needing help, I’m there– but when it’s personal, I am always in two minds- or rather I’m stuck between head and heart in a cycle of charitable heartburn.

Basically, I listened to all the arguments about giving to strangers on the street.

And I never gave anything to strangers on the street.

And I always regretted it.

But this prayer got me thinking.  God will always answer it, but I didn’t want to ask– because there was nothing to outdo, atleast monetarily.  I let money concerns for myself, which could easily budget in a few rubles for other people, outweigh the heart that walks past a beggar and cries a little.

I had grand ideas– okay, so maybe beggars are drunkards, and if you give them money they’ll buy booze.  Well, one day, thought I as a little girl, I’ll go around with McDonald’s money so I know it’ll be for food.  And the adult never has.  One day, I’ll give them rides to homeless shelters or work with the beggars.  And the adult never has.  Now, I’m still early 20s, so I’m not counting myself out, but I miss the little girl my parents were terrified would be walked all over trying to be friends with everyone– the little girl who said “Hi!” to every person she passed in the mall.

And here in Moscow, it’s worse.  Yes, there are drinking problems, of course.  But the beggars are largely old women and disabled people, some on the metro, some old women in the streets prostrating and crossing themselves.  And for the past few weeks I’ve walked right by them into the church I attend, where I put a few rubles in the collection basket and felt like a hypocrite.

And that feeling, at the same time as reading this book, and the old worries about it percolating around my brain, may have been the greatest gift I’ve gotten this year.

God, outdo me in generosity.

I figured, if I wanted to really be able to say that prayer honestly, I needed to do something.  I don’t make tons as a teacher, and I haven’t mastered budgeting (although I’ve done a good job of not spending everything).  My main issue at this point is how hard it is to get change, actually.  I know that I really cannot afford to give lots of money.  But I decided I had to do something.

I’m not going to lie, it’s kind of scary.  I always seem to be picked out by the more forceful beggars- if five people are walking down a street, I’m the one who is actually approached and asked.  Throw in that I don’t really know the functional language of begging, and it’s pretty jarring.  And old man chastised me on my street a week before this decision for not giving him money, not realising I was actually pretty startled (he crossed the street to ask me).  I don’t know why I get singled out, but I think it was probably a grace I didn’t know I was getting.

I didn’t give that old man any money, just like I didn’t give the crippled girl any money, or the man with no legs who rides on my metro line on a plank with four wheels any money, or the few beggars outside church shortly before my Mass starts.

I thought Moscow would be a tough town to be a beggar in.  And I guess I was wrong- because all of a sudden, where I hadn’t seen anyone giving money, I started seeing people in the metro, which seems so… distant- there is no cameraderie in the kind you sometimes get on the T in Boston really– I started seeing them pull out money, often bills (as opposed to coins which are only up to 5 rubles).

And I did too for the crippled girl, that second time I saw her, with my bag from freakin’ Ikea.

It wasn’t an overall change, but it was something.  I still didn’t give anything to the old lady crossing herself I passed searching for a metro.  I was unsure how to handle all people begging underground, too.

And then on Sunday it was enough.  I couldn’t walk into God’s house and leave his children outside without atleast doing something- and I couldn’t pray that prayer, either, even though I wanted to.  When I walked in, there was a begging bag sitting there, and a crippled man standing. I wasn’t sure what was his, so I put some coins into both.  On the way out, there were two old women begging.  I gave each of them 10 rubles, not much but there being so many beggars I figured it made the most sense– I can’t go past them anymore.

One of them called for God to bless me.  The other told me she had a bad leg and needed lots of money.  I certainly felt better, even with feeling bad about not giving more– and better yet, I didn’t feel resentful of the fact that the second had peeked into my wallet as I got out the bill and seen I had more cash on me.

I gave away money to 2 or 3 more people this week.  I haven’t get given to my ‘local’ beggars who are usually at my metro stop, because I think I can’t afford to do it every time I see them so I will space it out.  It will also depend of course on what bills I have on me- I can’t afford to give away the bigger bills, and if people are stacked up in a row I can’t do that for everyone.

Essentially, I’m still a long ways from the widow’s mite– but I’ve finally given God something to outdo.

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Hmmm.. that turned out longer and more rambling than anticipated.. I think I needed to do it.  Too bad that now I really need to go to bed!  Thanks, any who may be reading.

-Rosy

I can’t recall if I mentioned but I am a native Bay Stater.  In fact, Ted Kennedy has been my senator for my whole life– in fact, he has been a senator almost as long as my parents have been alive.  I have had severe philosophical differences with the senator both on issues of governance (I’m a liberal in the classical sense, not in the big government sense) and moral ones (yes, red flag to a bull, the abortion issue).  I also have hated the mystical near-worship of the Kennedy clan in this area– I don’t believe fantasy of that kind is good for anyone, especially not the person (or group) being lionised.

The Catholic blogosphere, which generally crosses the political spectrum, has been ablaze with the subject of Ted Kennedy’s death.  What I have encountered has been just- neither sugarcoating his sins nor claiming to know the status of his soul.  I’ve had a lot of disparate thoughts about this subject, but I wanted to add my two cents in my own little corner of the internet.

From a Catholic perspective, there are a few things to be said about the senator.  There are rumors (many substantiated) of infidelity and alcoholism.  There is the sad story of Mary Jo Kopechne whose life was imperiled by Kennedy and whose death was caused by his failure to procure help.  And the clincher for most devout Catholics- the one thing that they really can’t get past- is his support for abortion.

And by all rights, abortion is something we should never “get past.”  There is no getting over so grave an evil.

But stories have started to trickle out that have made me look Ted Kennedy in a different light.  I don’t do well at personal malice (atleast of people I don’t know, excluding Andrew Jackson whom I despise– no room for explanation), so I never disliked Teddy K– in fact, he’s someone I imagine I would really like on a personal level.  He and his family also have my sympathy for having suffered so many tragedies.  It cannot have been easy to have been the last brother out of four when the other three all died young and tragically.

The stories have to do with prayer.  I heard someone say that the Eucharist was the center of his life.  I don’t know if that was true.  But I do know of two different people, both of whom disagreed with him politically, that they saw him praying.

The first is from Kathryn Lopez, who writes for the National Review, saw him at daily Masses in DC when she dropped in from an internship at the Heritage Foundation (a conservative thinktank).  And not just once or twice.  As she said, “[H]e probably led some people astray by his example. But our faith also teaches that we are all sinners and that there is redemption.”

The second is from a man, I don’t remember his name, who lives in the area of the basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, covered in the Boston Herald.  He described himself as a ’small goverment guy,’ and also as someone who dropped into the basilica having been taught by nuns to visit our Mother daily.  He too saw Senator Kennedy there, in the pew, deep in prayer.  This gentleman, who serves as an acolyte at noon dailies, had hoped he’d be allowed to serve, political differences aside.  Most important to me, however, is that these stories were not told while the senator lived– his prayers were not for show.

There is no escaping the fact that Kennedy’s flaws and particularly his public political support for abortion have given scandal and also have harmed the Church through tacit encouragement of the view that one can be a Catholic in good standing and support morally objectionable causes that have been expressly prohibited by the Vatican.  But there is also no escaping God, whose standard shows all of us that our “good standing” leaves quite a lot to be desired.

I will make no excuses for Senator Kennedy’s actions;  they are grave ones indeed.  But reading all these little tidbits, listening to the eulogies at the wake and the funeral (Teddy Jr.’s was especially good), I felt little tugs on my memory.  Wisps of the story wafted around my brain until I could finally grasp just whom this Ted Kennedy I was just starting to know reminded me of:  the tax collector in the temple.

Remember that parable?  Two men go to the temple to pray.  The first is a pharisee who thanks God that he follows all the laws and is better than lots of other people, including the second man.

The second man, a public sinner by virtue of being a tax collector, doesn’t even approach the front, doesn’t even look heavenward.  Instead, so conscious is he of his sin that he only stands, pleading with God, “Have mercy on me, a sinner!”

I don’t have any special knowledge of anything, let alone Ted Kennedy’s soul.  But, for all his faults, though they were grave and in some cases persistent, I just have this inkling that he clung to prayer like that second man.  The good father at the Byzantine Rite church we go to occasionally said today, in that Tradition, we say that we are the first of sinners in the Liturgy– a Liturgy which is suffused with petitions for God to be merciful.  Perhaps that is the lesson of Senator Kennedy’s life to those of us who remain- a reminder that we are all wholly dependent on the mercy of God.

And just because it’s a beautiful prayer that bears repeating, here is the prayer Byzantine Rite Catholics (in various Churchs- e.g. Ukrainian Catholic Church), say before receiving the Eucharist:

I believe, O Lord, and confess that You are indeed the Christ, the Son of the living God, Who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first.

Of Your mystical supper, make me a partaker this day, O Son of God, for I will not speak of Your mysteries to Your enemies, nor like Judas will I give You a kiss, but like the good thief will I confess to You.

Remember me, O Lord, when You shall come into Your kingdom.

Remember me, O Master, when You shall come into Your kingdom.

Remember me, O Holy One, when You shall come into Your kingdom.

Not for judgment, nor for condemnation be for me the partaking of these Your Holy Mysteries O Lord, but for the healing of my body and soul.

O God be merciful to me a sinner. God, cleanse my sins and have mercy on me. Innumerably have I sinned, forgive me, O Lord.

(A brief note that this is in no way a criticism of actual vegetarians.)

I’ve been mulling over this idea for a while but it was only in a conversation with Plush Appendix over the weekend that I put a name to it. I call it vegetarianism of faith not because of an abstenance borne of good will. Rather, this is the choice to avoid the “meatier” elements of faith, because they are disagreeable to the person.

That is, rather than go for the real core of faith, we stay at a comfortable surface level, where differences are matters of opinion rather than truth and honest discernment. This mentality leads to a tricky kind of idolatry, one which tends to replace God with a shifting notion of “social good” and, as Chesterton put it, “not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice.”

The common good is certainly a Christian idea, but the mistake is in mistaking that for the whole of faith. These are the sort of people who point to Mother Teresa and Dorothy Day as examples of their kind of Catholocism or Christianity, and then proceed to make all sorts of unjustified assumptions that will aid in their avoidance of the center of their faith. They are very results focused- Mother Teresa is a hero because of all the help she gave the poor. But easily overlooked is why she did those things.

Mother Teresa didn’t do these things because she believed in a social good- she did those things because she loves Jesus. It wasn’t an ideology of common good, or a high ideal, even though those can be parts of it. But mistaking the effects of a deep love for Jesus as the equal of that love is an easy way out of the more difficult parts of faith. The moral requirements, the challenges to the ego, the reliance on God, and perhaps most importantly the awareness of one’s flaws– all these are easily set aside when faith is reduced to “being a good person,” which is an effect, not the source.

And yet practicioners of this meatless faith will claim that those who go beyond the broth are polemical because, having had the better portion, they will not surrender it or compromise its potency.

At the risk of adding even more to my various food metaphors, I will offer one last though, which is a challenge to everyone, myself included. As much as I wish it were otherwise, I’m often a vegetarian when it comes to faith. But I have found a useful reminder in the wedding feast at Cana: a lot of times we settle for the cheap wine. But if we will wait, and plead for help, and follow Mary’s injunction to “do whatever he tells you,” we will get the better wine. Our task then is to discern what are the hearty things we leave in the bowl, what is the cheap wine we’re settling for.

Thanks for bearing with my long absence and any lack of cohesion due to writing this on the small screen of an iTouch.

Best,
-Rosy

I’m quickly posting some fascinating excerpts from Fr. Dwight Longenecker’s blog. (Apologies for missing Monday – I had a whole post, then a server hiccup and lost most of it courtesy my failure to type it in a word processor- and I knew better. I hope to re-write it better.)  

I know that a lot of people supported our new President’s election most fervently.  There have also been debates that basically circle around the idea of how much opposition loyalty covers when we speak of a loyal opposition (for a debate on this subject, check out this post and the subsequent discussion by my friend the Raving Theist).  

It seems to me that where some extremists during the last administration made the ridiculous accusation that those who opposed the war were somehow unpatriotic, well, we haven’t gotten better now that hope and change have come to Washington.  I don’t know a single Democratic voter who wanted Bush’s policies to succeed, but now it appears that not wanting Pres. Obama’s policies to succeed somehow amounts to treachery or hatred.  If someone truly believes that his policies will be bad (and in the pro-life crowd, that pretty much amounts to a genocide of the unborn), then you’d be inconsistent in hoping he succeeds.  What pacifist would one reasonably expect to support Bush’s wars while opposing war in general?  

But I digress.  Fr. Longenecker has expressed exceedingly well those aspects that should give anyone pause when voting for a politician.  His remarks are in regards to Pres. Obama, but they are valid for anyone (and read the comments box at his page for his delineation of the difference between liberal and conservative ideologues).  Highlights:

He may be a Messiah, but he is also a Minotaur. That is to say, he is bull headed. He is bull headed as are all ideologues. The ideologue is different from an idealist because the idealist has a belief and faith whereas the ideologue has dogma and certainty. The dogma he holds to is even more insidious because he does not believe in dogma, and his certainty is frightful because it brooks no opposition.

…

This ideological Messianic minotaur (with his soaring rhetoric and inspiring vision for a brave new world) seems to be the most wonderful kind of politician, when in fact he is the worst kind of politician. He is the worst kind of politician because he believes himself to be the best kind of person. But he is the worst kind of person because he really believes he can do no wrong. He is so convinced of the rightness of his ideology that he will not hear reason from anyone, least of all from the fearless little matador who dons a tri-cornered hat and ridiculous tight trousers and tries to skewer the bull.

…

This is why I dislike and distrust and fear the Messianic Minotaurs: because they believe they can do no wrong. These are the political Pharisees, the ones who, history has shown us, slaughter millions to create a master race, or effect a more equitable redistribution of wealth to bring about a ‘just and fair’ revolution. These are the ones who self righteously accept the adulation of the crowds as their just due.

The whole post is definitely worth reading (and covers also the difference between idealist and idealogue).  These elements should give us concern about any politician.  They take on somewhat different characters as left or right ideologues, but the problem remains the same.  And the answer lies with us:  we need to stop exalting people, and exalt the only Man who really can save us.

Shortly before the election, living deep in the “blue-state” heartland, I ordered a bumpersticker I intend to leave on for all elections.  It reads, “I already have a Savior.  I’m looking for a President.”  The widespread adulation of public figures, be they the first African-American President or a pop-star, is a ridiculous attempt to find someone worthy of worship, but it will never work out, because they are flawed human beings like the rest of us.  It’s not even fair to treat any politician like that, let alone being illogical and irresponsible.  I’ll put this out there:  We Cannot Save Ourselves.  Every attempt to make the human race better has generally had the opposite effect.  We can’t organise our way to utopia (sorry, Marx), or think our way to goodness (sorry, Enlightenment thinkers).  There’s only one Savior I know of who can help, and he didn’t exalt himself.  

I really encourage everyone to read the full post by Fr. Longenecker, and I hope to post again today or tomorrow.

-the Rosy Gardener

So, I’ve been working for three days now on another post, but I read this in the paper this morning and I wanted to post it.  Basically, the ACLU is suing Health and Human Services over the US Conference of Catholic Bishops because when they help victims of trafficking, they won’t allow money to go to services and items which are in conflict with Catholic teaching.  Here’s the crux of it:

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the complaint in federal court in Boston against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The suit claims HHS, which distributes funds to help trafficking victims, has allowed the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to limit the services its subcontractors provide. The ACLU claims the bishops’ conference is misusing taxpayer money and attempting to impose its religious beliefs on trafficking victims. …

“The whole goal of this program is to provide the full range of services, and the concern is that because of a main contractor’s religious beliefs, it will be much more difficult for women to get these services,” said Brigitte Amiri, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project.

Here is the whole article from The Boston Herald.

I know there are a lot of people with strong opinions on the ACLU as an organisation.  It doesn’t help their cause that the cases that get the most press are generally the most controversial ones.  In a sense, I can appreciate their dedication to taking on cases that oftentimes aren’t going to win them any fans, and defending clients who are otherwise reprehensible people (but aren’t necessarily legally responsible).  On the other hand, I have a sense that they like to create a ruckus atleast as much as they like to help people.

I have a couple big objections to this, one a bit of a legal squabble, and one culture/morality.

Legally, I think they chose to file suit in Boston because it is the most likely place it’ll be given any weight.  From the limited information, it seems like the ACLU contends that by funding the USCCB services, the HHS is violating equal protection for those who do not subscribe to the same beliefs or prohibitions.  They rest this claim on the assumption that denying certain services because they are in violation of religious doctrines constitutes imposition of religious beliefs.  Now, I don’t have all the answers, and I’m not a lawyer, but since I’m applying to law schools next year, I might as well try to start training my mind.  If any real lawyers stop by, maybe they can help me out here.

First, let’s tackle equal protection.  If the Department of Health and Human Services exclusively grants public funds to help victims of human trafficking to organisations like the USCCB that refuse to fund contraceptives, abortion/abortifacients, etc., they might have a case.  (A sidenote here:  the USCCB subcontracts with these funds, basically to dioceses.)  But I find that extremely unlikely.  I don’t have time to go tracking down HHS spending, but estimates on human trafficking are in the millions.  One organisation, even the USCCB sending the money on down to individual dioceses, can’t possibly be handling every victim of trafficking,  because they don’t have unlimited staff, either.  There is also nothing preventing victims of trafficking from seeking those refused services elsewhere;  there are other trafficking agencies, and entire groups devoted to offering abortion on demand.  The Catholic Church isn’t in the habit of holding people hostage, honestly.

Another thing is the idea of imposition of religious beliefs.  If the Catholic Church were the only organisation that opposed abortion and contraception it would still not prove imposition of religious beliefs.  Aside from making the wrongful assumption that there is no non-religious argument against abortion et al., I don’t think they can claim that anyone was forced to adopt the Catholic religion in whole or part.  They simply were not assisted in those particular ways.  

Now, some may argue that that is an imposition of some sort, so I’d like to create a parallel case.  Let’s say that the HHS was funding the Jainist equivalent of the USCCB.  Jainism as a religion considers vegetarianism part of its overall philosophy.  So, any help that anyone received would not involve animal products.  In clothing them, there would be nothing of leather (such as gloves in wintertime), in sheltering them they would use nothing that involved products taken from dead animals, and stocking up their refrigerator would not include meat, eggs, etc., even though the clients may be meat-eaters.  If the Jainists were to extract some promise of vegetarianism from clients, or to prohibit them from procuring meat on their own (neither of which would likely happen), then I think there would be a case for them imposing their religion on clients.  Well, the USCCB has done in effect the same thing:  they have not included in their aid things which they believe violate life.  The difference is political, not religious or philosophical.  I doubt any reasonable person would expect the ACLU to take on this hypothetical Jainist organisation.

I actually interned at a diocesan office that was responsible for diocesan efforts in helping immigrants and refugees, and probably would be the one to take care of trafficking victims that the USCCB took on.  The staff itself was not all-Catholic, it may not even have been half-comprised of Catholics (and this was a relatively large group).  And as an intern helping clients, I didn’t actually work with any clients who were Catholic.  I worked with Jewish and Muslim refugees from the former Soviet Union.  The faith I saw was that for some staff it was the reason they wanted to help people;  nobody was denied services based on it, nor did anyone proselytise.  So the entire imposition argument simply rests on refusal to provide some (few!) services that are against Catholic moral teaching.  The place I worked, and I imagine most others, tried to get people on their feet as quickly as possible – housing, jobs, money, English lessons and English translation.  In other words, if they want a condom, they can get one from the doctor they will most assuredly visit very easily, and probably can even manage to procure an abortion.  (I know Planned Parenthood takes donations (towards middle of article) to cover the costs of abortions for low-income women in crisis pregnancies.)

And now to the culture/morality issue..

This one really ticks me off.  The ACLU may be able to make a case, and I hope it comes right back to them, but really, it’s the cultural double-standard that bugs me more.  In our society, we have this idea than whatever an individual’s conscience says is okay for them – a moral system of “whatever floats your boat” in which a person decides for himself what right and wrong are, and no one can judge.  But people do judge all the time.  Many people have decided that abortion is wrong;  others have decided that it is right, or allowable, or more wrong to legislate their personal beliefs.  Of these two groups, pro-life and pro-choice (I call people as they prefer to be called), one’s beliefs are an imposition, and one’s aren’t, yet both get taxpayer money, and they don’t both get sued.  

So, is conscience okay or not?  I don’t really like the fact that public funds support abortion, something with a 100% casualty rate (as a bumper sticker put it: “Abortion: 1 dead, 1 wounded”).  And people who support it are apparently miffed that public funds go to groups that don’t support it, and yet they won’t even call it even.  My conscience and many others’ say thay abortion kills human beings, and really hurts the women who have them, and my Church (and other churches and groups are/)is willing to back that belief up with a lot of crisis pregnancy funding and help, with adoption agencies, and also with post-abortive counselling and support groups (which are desperately needed and have many clients, and which, according to pro-choice groups, there is no need for).

I guess I’m just frustrated that in our culture, we can bandy about phrases like conscience and liberty but when push comes to shove, certain groups want to exclude other groups.  I’d never tell Planned Parenthood they can’t have a seat at the table, despite the fact that they think we should be “beyond” my conscientious objections to murdering millions and turning the womb is designed to foster life into a place of death.  Where’s equal protection for our consciences?  I guess that doesn’t really fit the ACLU’s rubric for things worth defending.

For more depressing news, check out the plight of doctors in Wisconsin (hat tip to Matthew at CMR).  These are not isolated incidents;  they are coordinated assualts.

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thanks for reading!

-the Rosy Gardener

Editing to add a link to a post by my friend the Raving Theist posted at Dawn Eden’s site from 2006 about the ACLU “supporting” free speech by opposing “Choose Life” license plates:  “License to Kill” by the Raving Theist.