dcn. jquinby's scribbles

Because God is not wholly alien to human thought and freedom, therefore the freedom of Christ can find its authentic fulfillment, perfection, and beauty in being utterly relative to God, that is to say, in knowing and doing the will of the Father. Through the medium of his human reason illumined by grace, Christ as man has knowledge of his own divine will that he shares with the Father, and this in turn renders him humanly free to do the divine will. Were there an absolute ontological dissimilitude between the human nature of Christ and divine nature, there would simply be no possibility of a cooperation of the human will of Christ with the divine will, as the revelation of the will of the Father would remain wholly alien and unintelligible to Christ’s human nature, even in the presence of divine grace. In point of fact, however, Christ’s human knowledge of his own deity deepens his human freedom by augmenting his human potential to love and to choose what is authentically good with freedom. In this way it is the source of the unique freedom of Christ.
— Thomas Joseph White, OP, The Incarnate Lord

This book was a bit of slow going at first - the initial parts of it respond to to other works of theology that I only know by name, though it didn’t take look to suss out the main ideas by way of White’s sed contras. I haven’t had to read that carefully and slowly in a long time, and I can see returning to this frequently in the future.

Why study Christology? Well, if we believe that God became Man, it’s very much worthwhile thinking through that teaches us about Him, especially as regards His death and resurrection. White shows how to bring to bear the theology of Thomas Aquinas to bear on some of the modern lines of thought about Christ, resolving some of the issues that have clouded an already demanding topic. At best, this cloudiness results in confusion; at worst, thoughts which slowly edge in the direction of Nestorianism or even Gnosticism. For my part, the sections on Holy Saturday cleared away some confusion I’ve had since trying to tackle Balthasar’s Mysterium Paschale (which he engages directly). Strangely enough, the descent into hell is something we gloss right over in the creeds but gets called out frequently by adults in our RCIA classes. Wait, what does THAT mean? He descended into hell? They’ve never heard it before, which surprises me.

For many years, I have been contending with a call to the vocation of deacon, and stepped into a focused period of discernment about eighteen months ago. That process has continued, and I’ve entered into a sort of formal process for continued discernment, both on my part and the part of the church. Long conversations with the director of vocations, and the first of many extensive questionnaires. This have encouraged a great deal of meditation and continued prayer on my part. The formation period is extensive and rigorous: four years of study, with coursework completed in parallel for the completion of a masters degree in theology. This in addition to my existing responsibilities: husband, father, and employee. I trust that with the grace of God I will be be led through this process, or perhaps out of it completely. I have but to surrender, you see, confident that He will not take me anywhere that I can’t contend without His grace. Lead Thou me on indeed.

As for reading…well, when you ask the director of vocations for reading suggestions, you’re going to get recommendations on a whole new level. My reading for foreseeable future is going to consist of The Incarnate Christ: A Thomistic Study in Christology by Thomas Joseph White, OP and The Spiritual Life: A Treatise on Ascetical and Mystical Theology by The Very Reverend Adolphe Tanquerey, S.S.D.D. The first author is described as “a stud” by Father, and the first few pages are certainly studly. He said that the Tanquerey book took him the better part of a year. Like I said: a whole other level. Luckily I have some business travel starting shortly, so there’ll be some flight time and hotel evenings to fill.

Update: after a four-hour late-night flight, I’m about 150 pages in. There is lots here to unpack. I’ve certainly read more about the hypostatic union than I have in my life to date.

I’ve also tossed Making Small Groups Work into my bag. There seems to be quite a bit of interest in small groups at our church (for a variety of interests, by a variety of groups).

Maturity comes only when confronting what has to be confronted within ourselves. This is where the vows relate, and illuminate each other. For stability means that I must not run away from where my battles are being fought, that I have to stand still where the real issues have to be faced. Obedience compels me to re-enact in my own life that submission of Christ himself, even though it may lead to suffering and to death. And conversatio, openness, means that I must be ready to pick myself up, and start all over again in a pattern of growth which will not end until the day of my final dying. And all the time the journey is based on that Gospel paradox of losing life and finding it. An anxious attitude with my personal and spiritual growth is disastrous. The goal of my changing life is not self-fulfilment, even though so much of the personal growth movement popular today seems to suggest that that is so. St Benedict is quite ruthless about the sort of self-fulfilment which is self-seeking. My goal is Christ.
– Esther de Waal, Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict

He must increase; I must decrease. You wish to serve - very well then. What if it is His will that you serve by waiting? By turning silence into a joyful communion of thanks and praise? Perhaps this is all there is, and all there will ever be. Or not. But here, now, in this moment, surrounded by these people - how will I conform myself to Him? Elsewhere, de Waal quotes Metropolitan Bloom, to the effect that if I cannot find Him here and now, I will not find Him anwhere, perhaps not even in the Temple. Am I growing in holiness? Or erecting roadblocks based on the way I think things ought to be?

Our technologies have specific ends to which they are ordered. What are they? Are there multiple ends? Those ends for which we use them, but a deeper (or higher?) level, their actual ends, as intended by their creators?

Technology doesn’t exist for its own sake. As there was a creator, there is also a telos.

In the sphere of unlimited, instantaneous global communication and attention, how have our views of ourselves (and by extension, others) been changed for the better or worse? How does the TOB inform this thinking? I’m thinking in particular of authentic, in-person communications and our relationships with enfleshed others.

What if Alison Parrish’s thoughts on a new hacker ethic were to obtain completely? What if they were reinforced by the thoughts in Weapons of Math Destruction, in particular, the growing recognition that humans are not nearly as good at algorithms as we think we are? And that this recognition may not be keeping pace with their widespread implementation? And that this widespread implementation has real, grave impacts? If fully internalized by technicians, how would the technology landscape be different?

If we count the cost, who pays the steepest prices? What does a preferential option for the poor look like in a globally connected world?

As the world prior to the Internet continues to recede, and the second generation to swim completely in it grows up, what new criticism will be levied? As a cohort, where will they stand fast?

When the thistle blooms and the chirping cicada
sits on trees and pours down shrill song
from frenziedly quivering wings in the toilsome summer
then goats are fatter than ever and wine is at its best
— Hesiod

We’re in that weird time of the year where the evenings are beautifully cool and the days are still in the mid-90s. The insects and plants are not fooled. Leaves are just starting to blush a little on some trees and the late summer insects are on the move. Do you have phases of insects? We do. In spring, the crane flies erupt from the grass in huge clouds and manage to find their way into the house, grossing everyone out. Early summer is time for the Japanese beetles. Midsummer, we get the June bugs: large buzzy emeralds that zoom around just above the grass, driving the chickens crazy. About this time the cicadas turn up - annuals every summer, periodic hordes on their own particular schedule.

In late summer, we get the scolidae wasps: dark, blue-winged wasps that zoom around over the grass looking for the larvae of the aforementioned Japanese beetles. The wasps are thereby my immediate friends. They’re nice looking, too: deep purple, almost black, with a cinnamon-tipped abdomen adorned by two distinct yellow dots. They’re non-aggressive and spend most of their time flying in large groups here and there over the grass, hunting the buried grubs that will feed their young.

Late summer is also the time for praying mantises at their largest, stickbugs, and butterflies all over the remaining zinnias and gomphrenas. The little butterfly bush near the porch has hosted monarch caterpillars in years past but I haven’t seen any this year. The pawpaw attracted tiger swallowtails to lay their eggs, but I pulled the larvae off to give the tree another season or two of growth before they make off with all the leaves.

Before much longer, the real heralds of fall will arrive: garden spiders and other large orb-weavers will appear in the remains of the tomato plants or in improbably big webs between trees. That’s when I know the party’s nearly over. Until then, we still get the soft daytime hum of the field crickets and a cicada or two. The hummingbirds are still fighting over the feeders and hopefully getting fat for their big flight south. And the sky has turned that cobalt blue once or twice. The afternoon light is a little redder, and the shadows are coming a little sooner.

Then the quietude. The insects will be gone until spring and I’ll miss their comings and goings, and especially their sounds. As for winter, I have plans for a 3-chambered bat house hanging above my desk. I hope to site it in the farthest part of our back yard, where it’s close enough to see but far enough away that nothing ought to disturb any bats who happen to move in. I saw a bat house in an urban garden recently end it was certainly full of bats. I figure if they can be happy there, perhaps they can be happy here too.

As far as books go, I just finished Ovid’s Metamorphoses and I’m re-perusing Joseph Pieper’s The Four Cardinal Virtues while I try to figure out what to read next.

TV-wise, we’re waiting for the return of The Expanse, Better Call Saul, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Crown. The trailer for HBO’s Watchmen caught my attention, too. Over a couple of nights this week, I watched the BBC/Amazon production of King Lear and I thought it was great. I’ll never read it again without seeing Anthony Hopkins, Jim Broadbent, and Emily Watson in my head.

We recently moved our oldest son into his university dorm, our first child to go out of state and far away. Bittersweet, to be sure, though we had all been quietly getting ready for it well in advance. The campus is small and intimate and he’ll be walking into a ready-made community by way of his teammates. It’s all very exciting.

I spent some time nosing around the campus bookstore and came upon Art Spiegelman’s Maus, which has been on my to-read list for years. So I grabbed it - the hardback definitive edition - and finished it in about 2 days.

Maus was every bit as good as I had expected. You’d think that a story as amazing as this would be tempered slightly by the format - comic book? With mice and cats? But no. If anything, it felt more focused to me. The drawing style is spare and there are panels that will be me for awhile. The story is amazing enough. Highly recommended, even if graphic novels aren’t usually your thing.

In the home-stretch of Daniélou’s From Shadows to Reality, a series of studies in the main threads of early patristic typology. I have to confess that the material is a bit drier than I expected (if you can believe that). Much of it is “so-and-so wrote this, so-and-so affirmed it, but so-and-so’s Homily on Foofooius draws from Philo…” and again I’m not really sure what I was expecting. The book is exactly as described on the cover: studies in the typology of the fathers. I read one of his other books on sacramental typology (The Bible and the Liturgy) and thought it was a bit more engaging. In any case, I can see coming back to this for consultation now and again. It’s a near-certainty to me that reliance on historical-critical exegesis leaves something of a void that a return to the fathers can fill. From the introduction:

Few things are more disconcerting for the modern man than the Scriptural commentaries of the Fathers of the Church. On the one hand there is a fullness, both theological and spiritual which gives them a richness unequalled elsewhere. But at the same time modern man feels a stranger to their outlook and they cut clean through his modes of thought. Hence the depreciation, so common, of Patristic exegesis, which in varying degrees is felt among so many of our contemporaries. We cannot help feeling that this suspicion is due to the fact that, in all the works of the Golden Age of the Fathers, we find side by side the most divergent interpretations, in which good an dbad are inextricably mixed. The problem is how to find one’s way in this new world. If Origen speaks of the “vast forest of the Scriptures,” how much more true is this of the luxuriant commentaries which have grown up around the Scriptures.

I just started the section on the Joshua cycle, and it looks a bit more interesting. We’ll see.

In other news, we just started Chernobyl. I believe I’d watch a miniseries of Jared Harris just working crossword puzzles and putzing around in his kitchen.

WINE comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift my glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.
— Yeats, “A Drinking Song”

RCIA is ramping up again soon and I’ve been asked to take over/restart/reboot the neophyte year. There’s not a whole lot support offered to new Catholics in after the post-Pentacost mystagogy concludes and this needs to be rectified. I’m simultaneously excited and a little nervous, but we’re meeting as a team in a couple of weeks and I’ll hopefully get a bit of clarity. If not, well, Veni Creator Spiritus.

Closing in on the end of the long long trip through Yugoslavia with Rebecca West, her husband, and the odd couple, Constantin and Gerda. There’s nothing in the on-deck circle at the moment. I’m glad to have read it and have learned a fair bit about the Balkans, or at least West’s impressions, in the process.

It’s hot here. The hottest part of the year. The squash is done, the cucumbers nearly so, and both are about to be replaced by beans. Tomatoes have formed an impenetrable thicket. Only the peppers are standing tall. I have a few experimentally drying in the garage. We’ll see how that goes. This morning I skipped Lauds to get in an early morning run before the day got too hot. Then I got back and my work day commenced immediately. So I felt great from the run, but not great from laying aside prayer and meditation to do so. Not a mistake I intend to repeat.

I’ve kicked Twitter to the curb for the most part. I deactivated my main presence there and set up a new one which follows exactly 30 accounts in my local area which focus on severe weather, emergency response, or public information on the same. When bad weather rolls in (as it did last night and will again this weekend), I’ll turn it on to read (and contribute) weather spotting information as needed. The only other thing I was using it for was DM’ing my brother, and we’ve since moved to SMS. To the curb, then. Or halfway to the curb anyhow. The mobile app still has way too many sponsored posts. If I’m sitting at my desk, though, I can use oystyyer to keep an ad-free, 100% text experience.

As for the rest: I’m trying (with variable success) to limit my Reddit intake to the amateur radio-related sub(s). I switch between newsbeuter and liferea for RSS feed-reading. I use Firefox as my main browser, and have installed uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger. For many things, elinks still works fine. I also run a pi-hole on our local network.

Much of this – including renewing subscriptions to the two (!) local newspapers – has been part of a slowly growing focus on the local; that which is still arguably within our ken. I was for a long time “engaged” with way too many things. I know many people who still are, but can’t tell you what the city council decided last night about the big road projects or annexations, both of which have arguably more immediate impact on day-to-day life than a policy fight in Washington. This goes equally for church politics, by the way. The latest pronouncements in Rome are interesting and certainly deserving of attention, but certainly not more attention than the goings-on at our local parish (or diocese). This sounds like a suggestion for complete withdrawal from issues beyond the county line. I’m not sure that’s possible, or even desirable. Recalibrating how much attention is paid or calories burnt in response is possible and worth a go.

And this is all very Benedictine - the focus on the particular people in the particular place you find yourself. Even beyond the walls of the monastery, we can strive for stabilio. In the face of the “engagement” colossus of the connected “social” world, we can’t focus long enough on our own feet. The world longs to see us uprooted - physically, mentally, spiritually.

I regret not keeping a pencil alongside while reading Black Lamb and Grey Falcon; it’s chock full of great passages and now I have to scan for them. Last night I read the following bit and resolved to post it as soon as possible.

The West’s guide, Constantine, has been telling them the story of a church in Bosnia that contained the relics of Saint Luke. However there was another church, in Italy, which also possessed the relics of Saint Luke. Moreover, the Italian relic lacked a head, which was in the care of the Vatican, where the Bosnian Luke was still intact. Yet a third church in Italy claimed to have an arm of Saint Luke and had been using to effect miracles for some time. Constantine continues:

There is nobody today to whom that story would not seem absurd, except very simple people, too simple people, idiots. Those who believe in the power of relics and who are solemn will beg you not to talk of such things, not to recall how the stupidities of our ancestors made foolish a beautiful thing. But most people, whether they are believing or not, will only laugh. But the people of five hundred years ago did not see anything ridiculous in a dead man with two heads and three arms, all working miracles; and they did not feel suspicious because many monks made much money out of such dead men. They saw something else, which made them add a head and a head and make it one head, and two arms and one arm, and make it two arms, and we do not know what that something was. For me, I hate it when I read history and I see that now there is nothing where once there was something. It shows me that man has been eating food which has done him no good, which has passed out of him undigested.

I had laid aside Black Lamb to tackle The Conservative Sensibility by George Will, which has just been published. On the whole I thought it was pretty good, if a little repetitive in places. I liked his arguments about conservatism not necessarily being contingent on religious faith, but could have done without the cosmological rhapsodizing towards the end. Otherwise it was an interesting book and certainly he made quite a few points worth consideration. By design, it’s light on prescription. Much more of an extended think-piece/meditation. It’s nice to return to Yugoslavia.

Catechetical training continues apace. The garden’s growing in and the weather’s ramping into the usual summertime patterns. Things are, as usual, chaotic in our household but the chaos is at its usual level and so a little easier to live with.