Judgment

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.³²All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,³³and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.³⁴Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;³⁵for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,³⁶I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’³⁷Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?³⁸And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?³⁹And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’⁴⁰And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’⁴¹Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;⁴²for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,⁴³I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’⁴⁴Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’⁴⁵Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’⁴⁶And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Any questions?

Evil III

Part 3.

I met another person who would have been considered a personification of evil by many: John Wayne Gacy.

Gacy lived from about 1964 to 1968 in Waterloo, Iowa. A face people saw was that of a pleasant, hard-working, affable fellow, a man whose in-laws owned a group of Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises. Gacy worked at one of them, and showed promise as one who could own franchises himself one day. But, there was always the dark cloud. Toward the end of his time in Waterloo word had begun to spread that Gacy had unconventional sexual preferences. He had made passes at some of the adolescent boys that worked for him. In the spring of 1968 he was convicted of brutally raping a teenage boy. The sentence was ten years, but he was paroled in 1970, and he returned to his birthplace, Chicago. A few months after he arrived in Chicago he and his family purchased a house: a two-bedroom ranch with a crawl space. It was just outside the Chicago city limits.

By 1972 visitors to Gacy's home noticed a terrible odor. Gacy explained the odor as being from moisture accumulating in the crawl space.

No, that wasn't it.

Through 1976 - 1977 - 1978 young men disappeared, and the authorities could not pick up any trail for them. Police eventually focused on Gacy's house because the mother of the last victim remembered the construction firm at which her son had applied for work. They went to his home for the first time on December 13, 1978. They found several items that had belonged to the victims. They noticed that horrible odor. They looked in the crawl space, and found nothing. In a subsequent visit investigators noticed, in the crawl space, a mound of dirt. They dug, and found human remains. That same evening the Cook County Medical Examiner was called to the home. He recognized the stench immediately. It was the smell of death. By the end of the month 27 bodies had been found buried under the crawl space. There were others - two in the concrete of Gacy's patio, two in the Illinois River, one buried under Gacy's rec room. Poor fellow had run out of room in the crawl space, I guess.

Thirty-three in all.

I saw John Wayne Gacy briefly after he was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. I was a correctional officer at the Joliet Correctional Center. I was on the tactical unit, and was taking some training in Springfield. Death Row was at the Menard Correctional Center in Chester, Illinois, just down the river from St. Louis. We toured death row. Gacy was helping with some painting, so he wasn't quite as locked down as the other inmates.

I've met three famous people in my life, and two of them were serial killers. About those people I hang out with. . .

What convinced Arthur Gary Bishop and John Wayne Gacy that other people saw themselves as things to gratify Gacy/Bishop? What persuaded them that other people don't want to live? Or, what made that idea such a matter of indifference to them?

In the prior blog posts we addressed the idea of societal pressures, and maybe that partly explains the Nazi phenomenon. But, let's not forget that those who worked at the camps made a choice to do so. Even if they made the choice with a pistol pointed at their heads, they still made a choice.

We talked a bit about evil personified  - Satan, the devil, etc. But, like societal pressure, this being, even if you accept his existence, can't force you to do something that isn't in your nature to do. Notice how much luck Satan didn't have with Job and Jesus.

What, then?

A couple of thoughts.

When forensic psychologists talk about serial killers, they talk about murder as giving these people a high. Once a killer has killed, it gives him a high that nothing else can match. It sounds almost like addiction. One prism useful to folks who work with addiction is to categorize addictions into substance addictions and process addictions. Substance addictions are the better known: addiction to alcohol, crack, tobacco, meth, and others. Process addictions are addictions to things you do, rather than things you use. To use an example, as good as exercise is as a habit, it is bad if it turns into an addiction.

For Gacy and Bishop, could murder have been the ultimate process addiction?

Gerald May, a noted author on the subject of addiction, published a book entitled Addiction and Grace. His position is that the opposite of addiction is grace. If you absent grace from your life, some form of addiction is inevitable. I think May is worth paying attention to, although I'm not on board with all he has to say.

I think this note is long enough, but I do want to follow up another time with a concept that I think may be the most relevant to discussion of evil and its origins: C.G. Jung and the concept of the shadow personality.

Thanks for hanging out. As always, I'd love your thoughts.

Evil II

It has been common to attribute evil to some supernatural force. In the western monotheist religions we envision a personification of radical evil. Satan, the devil, Beelzebub, Lucifer. This being is referred to  in the Hebrew Scriptures as well as by Jesus, so if pressed about the existence of a devil, my response will be something like, "If it'll make you happy to have me affirm that, I will. But, we do have bigger and better fish to fry, no?" I happen to think there's plenty in human nature to create the evil we see.

From the Chicago Tribune, October 28, 2011:

Miguel Renteria broke a knife in the chest of his 18-year-old daughter during a struggle in his Skokie apartment this week, then pushed his elbow into her throat until she stopped moving. . .Renteria's crying 2-year-old granddaughter hit him with a toy, and Renteria stabbed the toddler 10 times in the abdomen with another knife. . ."While the knife was in her little heart, he made the sign of the cross."

The devil shows up in The Book of Genesis, in the Garden of Eden. The devil is a central character in the opening chapters of The Book of Job. I find it interesting that, in the original Hebrew in Job, the definite article is used: not Satan, but THE satan - the tempter. Satan as prosecuting attorney. That theme - Satan as prosecutor - is the dominant theme when Jesus speaks of Satan. When Satan directly tempts Jesus - let these stones become bread, throw yourself down from the parapet of the temple, you can have all the kingdoms of the world - it is, in part, a means by which we see the stuff of which Jesus was made.

A second theme that emerges is that Satan's temptations inevitably fail if the temptation presented is something that was not inside the temptee in the first place. The temptation to Adam and Eve? I'm thinking, although Scripture is silent on this, that they had been wondering about that tree and its fruit for some time, so when the serpent tempted, they were ready. And then, Adam, when confronted by God, gave in to the second temptation: Blame it on the woman! Blame it on SOMEone else - anyone else. Even blame it on God: The woman YOU gave me tempted me. . .Satan's tempting worked, because the urge to taste the fruit - and the urge to drop their reliance on God in favor of the illusion of independence - was inside them to start with.

Job? The temptation was the temptation to curse God. Great to worship and give thanks when you're the richest person in the land. When things go terribly, inexplicably wrong, curse God and die. The problem for the satan: that urge was not in Job. Satan's temptation was a FAIL. Not that Job didn't complain - he did plenty of that - but he never gave in to the urge to curse God. Satan did fulfill his role: we found out what Job was made of.

Jesus? Satan's temptations were an EPIC FAIL - even the offer of all the kingdoms of the world would not deter Jesus from his mission. Again, Satan could not tempt anyone to do anything that wasn't in their nature.

So we're back to human nature. Something within human nature, something that we seem hesitant to even mention these days - sin. Sin, not as action, but as something that is with us from the womb. The Greek term is Ha marteia - literally, "missing the mark."

I have known personally some people that have given in to that part of their nature. Trust me, that's not bragging.

I used to be Mormon (more properly, Latter-day Saint, or LDS.) No, the LDS faith is not - repeat, NOT - part of my thinking about evil. I had my reasons for leaving, but I still think very highly of most of the people that are LDS. Most of my family is LDS. Besides, I have never been on a "Let's bash the Mormons!" kick, and I have no intention to start now. This paragraph was to set up the following story.

I served a mission in the Philippines. I arrived in Manila in December, 1972, and went to my first assignment, in a couple of towns called Cainta and Taytay, in suburban Manila. My first missionary companion was an Elder from Oregon. My second was a bookish young fellow - glasses, round face, a little shorter than I was. He'd worked as a bookkeeper, and he'd been an Eagle Scout. He intended to further his education and become an accountant. His name? Elder Bishop. He went by what I thought was his first name, Gary, but I found out that Gary was his middle name. Arthur was his first name.

Arthur Gary Bishop. Name ring a bell to anyone in the mountain west region?

Elder Bishop and I became companions in February, 1973, and remained together until April, when I moved on to my next assignment, in Iloilo. We were never in touch after that - we shared a very pronounced trait in that we were both friendly enough, but hard to get close to.

Imagine my surprise when I read in a newspaper that the state of Utah had executed one Arthur Gary Bishop by lethal injection on June 10, 1988. I searched the article - this couldn't be the Elder Bishop I'd known, could it? But - Eagle Scout, served an LDS mission in the Philippines, bookkeeper (who'd had an earlier conviction for embezzlement - didn't see THAT coming.) Besides, how many Arthur Gary Bishops could there be in the state of Utah?

Yep. Same guy.

I'd lived for two months with a man who was hiding a monster inside. He was executed for torturing, sexually assaulting, and murdering young boys. Four, by one count. The ages were between 4 and 11. I was in no danger; I was bigger than he was and well able to take care of myself. I wasn't his meat.

What brought that murdering monster out of Arthur Gary Bishop?

Next post: consideration of the role of addiction in the evolution of evil.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. I'd love your thoughts.

The problem of evil. Part 1.

Whence evil?

I don’t know if there are many parents who read this blog and share it with their kids. Heck, I don’t know if there are many people who read this blog at all. But –

PARENTAL ADVISORY: The following contains material that is graphic, and may not be for all stomachs. Probably want to keep the kids away from this one.

Before Halloween a friend and former colleague posed a question on Facebook: What was the scariest horror move? My response was that I have never really been frightened much by horror movies. I just can’t suspend disbelief to the degree required, so I watch the goriest scenes thinking, “Gee – nice special effects. I wonder how they did that!” The second thought followed: Real life offers horrors enough. Who needs a movie? Schindler’s List was a truly terrifying move because its basis was reality, and because, if we were paying attention, it says something about all of us, not just the Nazis in World War II Germany. Any time one group of people is given absolute, unfettered control over any other group of human beings, there will be those who abuse the power, and may not even be aware that they are abusing both people and power.

Elie Wiesel was a Jew who lived in Romania before the War. He was a teenager when the Nazis invaded. He and his family were sent to the camps. Elie survived and wrote a book about the experience, Night. It’s a small book – my edition is 109 pages long. If you haven’t read it yet, go get a copy and read it. You can read it easily in one evening. You may sleep with difficulty that night.

Scenes that stand out in memory: Wiesel describes the hanging of a boy. There were three gallows set up on the occasion; adults were hanged on either side of the boy. The hangings occurred with all the inmates of the camp assembled. When the assembly was dismissed the adults were already dead. Their bodies had sufficient bulk so that the rope applied enough pressure to finish the job fairly quickly. The inmates all had to file past the gallows, all had to look the victims in the face. They were making an example of them, you see – corpse as object lesson.

The boy was not yet dead as the inmates filed past. For upwards of thirty minutes he hung there, in the agony of his struggle against death. And the voice of one of the inmates asked a question that has, ever since, haunted those who were there: “God, where ARE you?” And the answer that came to Wiesel internally: “Where is he? Here He is – He is hanging here on this gallows. . .”

Later, Wiesel’s father fell ill. In the Nazi camps, that was usually a fatal mistake. Why would the camp officials want to feed someone who could do no work? Wiesel’s father was not sent to the crematorium, as so many were. He was allowed to endure the pain of his slow death. On the night of January 28, 1945, Wiesel slept in a bunk right above his father. On the morning of January 29, 1945, when Wiesel awoke there was another inmate in the bunk where his father had been. Thus did this teenager learn that his father had died.

After the liberation of the camps, Wiesel relates:

One day I was able to get up, after gathering all my strength. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto.

From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me.

The look in his eyes, as he stared into mine, has never left me.

It would be so easy to attribute the horrors of the Holocaust to the insanity of individuals. A striking thing, though: When the monsters that created all of this were examined later, many were observed to be completely sane. Just folks that lived In and adjusted to the society they lived in. Thomas Merton wrote an essay about Adolph Eichmann that presented this information. Folks would do their day at work in the camp, then go home to their families.

I think I’m doing more than one post about evil and its origins. It’s such an involved subject! But I do think that one area worth considering as a source of evil is societal. German culture had a history of anti-Semitism that long predated Hitler. Martin Luther, when he argued against the overabundance of religious rules and regulations, wrote publications inviting Jews to join his branch of Christianity. Look – none of those silly Catholic laws and rituals! Luther overlooked something: Jews were not not leaving  Judaism just because Catholicism wasn’t appealing; they weren’t just waiting for a new Christianity in order to become Christian. No – Jews were remaining Jews because that was the faith of their ancestors, and because they liked being Jews. When Luther realized that, he published tracts that included some of the most vituperative anti-Semitic material imaginable.

Anti-Semitism ran deep in German culture. Hitler didn’t invent this; he tapped into something that had been there for a long time. Thus, society as a source of evil.

I’ll be revisiting this topic, sources of evil. Hope you accompany me.

I’d love your thoughts.

Political observations. . .

. . .from where I sit, anyway.

The only campaign for candidates for President is on the Republican side since President Obama has no primary opposition. So,the Republican side is where my observations center, for whatever they're worth.

A note on that "whatever they're worth" comment (full disclosure): I am a Democrat, and I will be voting for Obama again. Some would take that as an indicator that my thoughts may not be worth a lot. Fair enough. You should also be aware that I place the same sort of importance on your thoughts about Obama that you place on mine about the Republicans. Since we all know that neither side is going to convince the other, let's all relax and enjoy the ride.

So, the candidates (alphabetically) (approximately):

BACHMANN: She comes off as, not only an idealogue, but a something of a ditz. That's not entirely fair to her; news reports indicate that she's actually quite bright. (The idealogue thing stands.) Her problem is, she misses details. She reads something, has a firm grasp of maybe 90% of it, which is far better than most of us do, but she completely ignores the other 10%, and it's that other 10% that contains the detail that would change the whole meaning of what she read. Thus, she gave a shout-out for Elvis Presley's birthday - on the anniversary date of his death.  That thing about Waterloo, Iowa being John Wayne's home town? Uh, no - Waterloo was the home town of John Wayne GACY, a serial killer. John Wayne the actor was also from Iowa - Winterset, Iowa. That thing about the Founding Fathers not resting until slavery was eradicated? Never mind - that was pure ditz. Many of the Founders were slave owners, and not interested in removing the institution.

BTW, I met John Wayne Gacy once. He was on death row at the Menard Correctional Center, near Chester, Illinois, just outside of St. Louis. I was a correctional officer, working in Joliet but on a tour of death row. I took a long, hot shower afterward.

Bachmann was the flavor-of-the-month at the time of the Iowa Straw Poll. I think she'll be little more than that. Fading fast.

CAIN: The current flavor of the month. His 9-9-9 plan has the beauty of simplicity. But, talk about the devil being in the details. One of the 9's is a national sales tax. There is not any national sales tax at this time. Iowa, my state, has a state sales tax of 6%.  A 9% sales tax, in addition to our 6% state sales tax, means that if you purchase, say, a frying pan, you'll be paying 15% tax on the purchase. And this is Cain's idea of how to rev the economy? Get people to buy more stuff? Seriously? A sales tax is the most regressive form of taxation in that its impact on low-income families is far greater, as a percentage of income, than its impact on high-income people. Cain is now backing off, and presenting a "9-0-9" tax low low-income people. That's supposed to be an improvement? News flash, Herman: many low income people, because of current tax codes, are already at 0% effective income tax. So, you move their income tax from zero to zero, and slap on a 9% national sales tax.

Seriously??

Rick Perry nailed Cain on this weakness in "9-9-9": "You're going to go to a state like New Hampshire, which has no sales tax at all, and you're fixing to give 'em one?"

Cain's answer to the issue of states already having a sales tax? "State sales tax don't count." I'm sorry, Herman - say again? That state sales tax comes out of my pocket, Herman - it damn well BETTER count!

Cain's answer to "How do you get this through Congress"? "I'm not worried about Congress." Really? You need a tax change as radical as this, and you aren't worried about Congress? Hint, Herman: you should worry about Congress. 9-9-9 or 9-0-9 doesn't do anything until Congress passes it. And if the Republican Congress has had its fun dragging their feet and the President through the mud - just you wait. Memories are long. Loooonnnnggggg.

Cain's got another issue. He claims to be stauncly pro-life, but some of the social conservatives have detected a softness in his position. He has come out and said, "No abortions. No exceptions." C'mon man - even my Roman Catholic Church doesn't go that far.

In a sense, that really doesn't matter. No Republican candidate - no prominent Republican at all, as far as I know - not one - could consider himself/herself pro-life, as the Catholic Church refers to pro-life. They're not within a mile of it. Unfortunately, most Democrats are no better. So, "Vote for the pro-life candidate"? OK - show me one. Just one.

This is long enough for today. We'll revisit. As always, love your thoughts, reactions, reflections. Yes, you can be a friend of mine - a great friend, a dear friend - and disagree with me. I'm cool with that.

Thanks for hanging out for a few!

writers' block

I just had a little exchange with a good friend and former co-worker, Ravis. Ravis does some writing; she';s currently working on a children's book. We exchanged a little about writers' block. I've had the issue with my blog - writers' block complete with a moat, gators and a squad of Marines.

I am convinced that the only way to get past writers' block is to just write. So, y'all are in on my big effort to defeat this case of writers' block.

Write, write, write. . .

Tomorrow night is our Parish Council Meeting. I'm the President of the Parish Council for St. Mary's Parish in Davenport. I'm also the Lector at the 5 PM Saturday Mass in April, July, and Octob. . .zzz. . .zzz. Well, I'm excited to do it.

Write, write, write. . .

About three weeks ago I drove to Des Moines and stayed for three days. The occasion was the 2011 Annual Convention of the Iowa chapter of thr American Insitute of Architects. The convention itself was a half-day of set-up and a day and a half of not much, but I enjoyed the company of those who staffed the booth with me, there was a free lunch - although, even now, I'm not quite sure what it was - and we had a dinner at a French sort of place. They had "potatoes dauphinoise". While the waitress took our order I mentioned that I'd try that dish just to find out what "potatoes dauphinoise" are. The waitress asked, "Would you like me to tell you, or do you want a surprise?" I took the surprise. They weren't bad. Think of a cross between hash browns and potatoes au gratin, and you'll haved it about right.

While driving across the state I thought often about what a beautiful state Iowa is. Those who are not from around here tend to think of Iowa as a sort of Kansas North, but we're nothing like that. Kansas is a flat as any musical key could be. Those who've ridden in the annual bike ride across Iowa will tell you, Iowa is not flat. Iowa is rolling country. There were lots of trees and the landscape was mostly green, but there was the occasional splash of golden yellow to let you know that the change of seasons was coming. And I found myself wondering, or hoping - hoping Iowans know how blessed they are in their state, in their country.

On I-80, on the way from Davenport to Des Moines, you will encounter the North Skunk River and the South Skunk River. Besides the question of why anyone would name something so marvelous as a river after a skunk (and what any Westerner thinks of as a river, any Iowan or Missourian would think of as a crick), one is left to wonder: How did they tell a North Skunk from a South Skunk? Was it the blue and gray coats?

Write. . .write. . .write. . .

There's nothing like good writing. And that was nothing like good writing. (That was a joke.)

Well, 'nuff for now of my effort to overcome the block. I love having you hang out for a few.

Faith Formation. Meri.

I'm not a cradle Catholic. I came to the faith as an adult. In 1992 I started to explore the idea of becoming Catholic, and what I found was a faith that spoke to both intellect and emotion as no other version of the faith had done.

The process of my becoming Catholic was greatly accelerated in late summer of that year, when I was advised by my doctors that I needed to have open heart surgery. I had to have an artificial aortic valve. This prompted me and my family and our parish priest at the Church of the Nativity in Dubuque to think that maybe we should not wait until the next year's Easter Vigil for my receiving the Sacraments of Initiation and joining the worldwide fellowship that is the Roman Catholic Church. So, in one day, September 26, 1992, I was baptized, I was confirmed, I was given the blessing of the sick, and I received my first Eucharist. That's pretty fast work; I received four of our seven Sacraments in one afternoon. I couldn't have received the other three. We were already married, so I couldn't do that again; I couldn't receive Holy Orders, because I was already married; there probably wouldn't have been much point in Reconciliation, because I was baptized just after noon, and what could I have done between then and the 4:30 Mass? Heck, what would I have had time to do?

I joined the Roman Catholic Church, and I have not looked back. I have not regretted it for a moment; I find enormous joy in my faith. Now, I attend Mass weekly; I am a lector at the 5 PM Mass at St. Mary's in Davenport in April, July and October; I am a eucharistic minister for the same Mass in May and November. I pray daily. I am loving it.

One memory from the early years: a rather unforgettable mass reconciliation service. One of our kids wore a Coed Naked Basketball t-shirt. She was wearing a jacket to the church, so we didn't know about the t-shirt until we got inside and she took that jacket off. Then it was, "Young lady, PUT THAT JACKET BACK ON and keep it on!"

At such a reconciliation service there are opening prayers and songs, then people go to a priest to make confession. The priests are scattered about the sanctuary; the space is open enough so that it's private, but it's not in a confessional, as such. One of our other daughters - our special needs daughter - went to one of the priests and started her confession. The priest kept looking over at us, which led us to wonder. . .Turns out that our daughter had confessed our sins. At least, our sins as she saw them. Harrrumph.

Time marches on, all too fast. Now, most of those kids have had kids, and Cindy and I are grandparents to ten. Tomorrow, one of those ten will be attending her first religious ed class, and I think she's pretty serious about finding her faith, learning about Our Lord, and joining the Church.

Meri is ten. She's a fifth-grader in the Bettendorf School System. She has a little brother, Logan, who is seven and who lives to push Meri's buttons. Meri is very tall for a fifth-grader; although she's ten, she is already over my shoulder. Brownish-blond hair, green eyes. People who see us together see the family resemblance immediately. There is nothing bashful about this girl.

Meri and her brother have been through a series of shocks over the past year that I don't want to get into here, except to say that too many other kids have been seriously damaged by similar events. Meri and Logan have had a solid rock and good support from their mom and from their grandparents. And, she has learned that part of what makes Grandma and Grandpa the people we are is that our lives are built around our faith. She couldn't articulate all of that just yet, but she does know that this is something she wants to find. So, tomorrow she'll be at the 9 AM Mass with us, and there will be a short ceremony - prayers and blessings - for the kids in Religious Ed, and for their teachers - then Meri will continue to learn, to find a new way to grow, and - who knows? - maybe at the next Easter Vigil she'll become a fully communicant member.

And I pray for our grandkids like I have prayed for no one before.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. Love your reactions.

9-11.

The Book of Job.

I'm in a reflective mood today, largely due to today being the tenth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks.

9-11-01, I was working for the company that is my current employer. I was a Customer Service Associate in the Call Center. My shift started, if memory serves, at 8:15 AM. I arrived in the Center at about 7:50 AM. When I got to the break room, everyone was talking about the plane flying into one of the towers. The television had one of the networks on, and the horror of it all sank in. I clung to the hope that maybe, maybe this was just a terrible mistake in navigation. But the thought wouldn't go away: amateur pilots flying little planes might make such a navigational mistake. But a professional pilot, qualified to fly a large jetliner? I don't think so. . .

Then the second plane hit. All doubt was gone. A jet hit the Pentagon. Flight 93 crashed in that field in Pennsylvania.

What I remember then: confusion. No one knowing how many planes had been taken. Rumors about other crashes. Grounding of all flights. No clue about how many had died, how many injured - people jumping from the upper floors of the towers because since death was imminent that way of dying was preferable to waiting to burn to death, people losing their life partners, kids losing parents. . .For three or four days there were very few calls that came in. Eerie silence.

It's now 8:59 AM Central - the time when the first tower collapsed. Observing a moment of silence.

Now, of course, we know. And we reflect.

Some years ago, Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a book, When Bad Things Happen To Good People. Kushner looks at three traits we attribute to God. God is all-loving. God is omniscient. God is omnipotent. In this, Kushner's attempt to come to grips with undeserved suffering, he suggests that we must surrender one of those traits. Kushner asks if we can accept the idea that there is a certain randomness in Creation, that things do happen that God has nothing to do with, and that there really is no explanation.

9:28 AM. The second tower falls. Another moment of silence.

Followed by a song - The Sound of Silence. Highly apropo.

I agree with Kushner in saying that we can't explain unwarranted pain. But, surrendering the concept of those characteristics of God? Sorry, Rabbi; I respect your life and your body of work, but I can't go with you there.

God is all-loving. God is omnipotent (and omnipresent). And, God is omniscient.

I recently finished rereading The Book of Job. This was another attempt to wrestle with undeserved suffering. It's one of my favorite books of the Bible. It's one of the most ancient of the books, and one of the more difficult to analyze. Where exactly did that guy Elihu come from? But the central message of Job still hits home.

Let's don't talk about the patience of Job. He wasn't especially patient. Friends arrived to "comfort" Job. They're silent for days. When Job finally speaks he whines like a puppy and cries like a baby. Yet the phrase recurs: "In all of this Job did not sin against God." When bad things happen we are not obligated to grin and bear it. We can tell God what we think. In any interaction between us and God, God is the grown-up. The ones who were upbraided for their sin? The three friends who insisted, "You or someone in your family must have sinned terribly. This must be your fault somehow." Wrong.

Then God answers Job. God's answer? Who are you to put me on trial? Where were you when I created the universe? Behemoth and Leviathan - those creatures you find so fearsome - are but toys to me.

In the end, Job can only bow to the wisdom of the Creator. As must we.

So, hatred motivated the attacks. Why did God not intervene - stop all this pain?

I don't know. Neither does anyone else. But, even so. . .

Praised be the name of the Lord.

And may we honor those who died - those who tried to save others, even if the cost was their owns lives - those who serve to protect us from this ever happening again. Thank you!

Confessions

Earlier I wrote a series of posts about the Nicene Creed and why I am Catholic. I do acknowledge that the Roman Catholic Church is a human institution. It has its flaws, and it has its apologies to offer.

Long ago, within a few weeks of Jesus' death, the Holy Spirit inspired Christians to form a church. It was a perfect institution. Then Father, Son and Holy Spirit made the one mistake they have ever made throughout all eternity. They let people into that perfect institution. (Well, at 58 years of age, I may have something to say about shoulder and hip joints. If I'd been there at the creation, I might have had some useful tips to offer. ) (jk!!) So much for perfection. And please don't bother me with the idea that your church is perfect. No human institution is, and nothing brings out the cynic in me like a claim of perfection, either by an institution or by an individual.

So, let the apologies begin. Not from the Catholic Church - I am obviously in no position to offer such apologies - but from me. One, and only one, communicant member of said Church.

TO A LOT OF KIDS. TO A WHOLE LOT OF KIDS:

The institutional church has offered apologies for the clerical sexual abuse issue. Numerous dioceses of the Church have been sued, and some have gone into bankruptcy. That is as it should be, and maybe we haven't yet paid enough of a price.

To those who were abused, I am so sorry that this happened to you. I can't imagine the pain, the suffering, the sense of betrayal. The list of people around whom you should have been absolutely safe and protected would include parents, doctors, police, teachers - and your parish priest. I deeply regret that this was not so for you, and I suspect that your experience has led you to doubt whether you could ever be safe around anyone. I know it doesn't help much, but for what it's worth, this is truly a hot  button issue for me, largely because of your hurt.

It does seem that factions within the church have decided to get on their hobby horses over this. From the conservative side,.it was "Get the gays out of the priesthood!" (Yes, I think we will also owe apologies to our GLBT friends, if for no other reason than this.) The problem I see with that position is that the Catholic Church does not hold that homosexual orientation is a sin. If the orientation is not sinful, and if one is taking a vow of celibacy, what's the issue? What, exactly, is the difference between gay and straight celibacy?

Another problem with the "Get the Gays out!" approach as a solution to clerical sexual abuse is that it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of pedophilia. The majority of pedophiles are not gay. Most are straight. Many are married, although many of those marriages are troubled. Pedophilia, like rape, is not a crime of sex. It's all about power. The pedophile's marriage tends to be troubled because these people do not deal well in relationships in which the power is equal, and that's what a marriage is.

My approach to pedophile priests: as soon as a credible allegation is made the priest would be suspended from all clerical activity pending investigation. The allegation's credibility would not be determined by the bishop, but by a board consisting of qualified people (qualification details would be too much to address here). If the board determines that the priest is guilty, defrock. Immediate, first offense. Another characteristic of pedophiles: they don't grow out of pedophilia, and they don't age out of it. The church authorities should cooperate in every possible way with criminal investigation ad prosecution. Come clean; be an open book.

And about the bishops' complicity: if a bishop hears of a priest who may be abusing youngsters, and the bishop's only action is to move the priest elsewhere and shield the priest from publicity, does that not make the bishop an accessory after the fact? And, if that priest then commits further abuse at the new parish, does that not make the bishop an accessory before the fact?

From the left, the hobby horse was, "Let them marry!" See the above info about the marital status of pedophiles.

An apology is also due to the priests of the Church. The vast, vast majority of priests understand celibacy, see it as the gift it is, and live it faithfully. Statistics I have seen indicate that, in the very worst dioceses, at the very worst, about 4% of priests may have been engaging in such behavior. I can just hear the snide "You know they all do it." What ill-informed blather! What I know is that very few ever did. Almost all remain the faithful servants of the Lord that they were called to be. I thank God for them, I'm lucky enought o have some as friends, and I apologize to all who have been painted with this brush.

There are other apologies we owe, and I'll discuss them, as well. But, for many of these, I would not hold your breath waiting. We just recently got around to apologizing for what happened to Galileo.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. As always, I would love your thoughts.

The Creed - my faith - reflections - conclusion

We believe in God, the Father almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is seen and unseen.

We believe in Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

Eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God,

Light from Light,

True God from true God,

Begotten, not made,

One in being with the Father.

Through Him all things were made.

For us, and for our salvation

He came down from Heaven.

By the power of the Holy Spirit

He was born of the Virgin Mary and became man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

He suffered, dies, and was buried.

On the third day he rose again

In fulfillment of the Scriptures.

He ascended into Heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in Glory to judge the living and the dead

And his kingdom will have no end.

Up to this point the Nicene Creed is an almost universal statement of faith. Mainline Protestant denominations would subscribe to it. We Roman Catholics recite it each week at Mass. But Eastern Orthodox do not subscribe to it. The reason is in the next passage, and the difference is over one word:

We believe in the Holy Spirit,

The Lord, the giver of life

Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

The difference is in the phrase "And the Son." It's one word in Latin: Filioque. The Scriptural evidence seems to indicate that the statement as presented in the Creed is correct. Quite a number of times in the Gospels we see Jesus saying that He would send the Comforter. The Eastern Orthodox ask, "Does not this phrase, as written, imply a subordination within the Trinity?" The conclusion I came to: Maybe it does. But if your concern is that "from the Son" implies subordination of the Spirit to the Son, can we even say that the Spirit proceeds from the Father? Is that not also subordination within the Trinity? I think the answer may be that, maybe it is subordination, but it's subordination based on love. My further answer would be that people should not impose their conceptions of relationships and subordination on relations within the Trinity. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts. . ." To put it another way (I'm borrowing this): "A comprehended God is no god at all."

With the Father and the Son He is worshipped and glorified.

(Doesn't sound like we place the Spirit in a subordinate position at all.)

He has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead

And the life of the world to come. Amen.

And that's the Creed.

I am Roman Catholic. Unashamedly, joyfully Roman Catholic. I was not born to the faith. I have been affiliated with two other denominations. I left one of them; I was having some issues in my life at the time, but I never went back. The theological differences between what I think of as the Scriptural position and the positions they took became compelling to me. In this series, if you really want a starting point for those theological differences, see the discussion of homoousios v. homoiousios. If I am one, and you are the other, then it's hard to maintain that the God we worship is the same God.

The next denomination I joined was one of the mainline Protestant denominations. I got my undergrad degree while thus associated, and got about 2/3 of the way throuigh one of their seminaries, on the way to becoming an ordained minister. I'd gotten good grades in my coursework there, and I still have some Hebrew phrases and passages memorized. I did a lot of pulpit supply work (i.e., delivering sermons). I am now very comfortable speaking to groups, and I understand theological reasoning fairly well (I think I do, anyway.) The reason I became a Roman Catholic is a subject for another posting. So are the issues that I think face our Church. I'm not blind, and I don't think I'm stupid. 

Thanks for hanging out for a few. Love your thoughts and responses!

The Response. Or whatever.

I'm sure that Governor Rick Perry is sincere in his religious beliefs. They are, from what I've heard, longstanding beliefs, beliefs on which he acts and by which he lives. Good for him.

But about this event - The Response? The hope is that they'll fill the 71,000 seats of Reliant Stadium with people to pray for whatever they think needs praying for. Again, good for them.

The issue I have is with Rev. John Hagee. Rev. Hagee is a co-sponsor of the event. I am Catholic. Rev. Hagee is anti-Catholic. I know, he has apologized for his public remarks. Really and truly he hasn't apologized for the remarks. He apologized if any Catholic's feelings were hurt by the remarks. He says he recants, and doesn't hold those anti-Catholic views. Well. The problem is that you can't, as hard as you may try, unring the bell. You can't unscramble the egg. I'm thinking he was fully aware of what he was saying and of the impact it would have. Public people making public statements are usually very well aware of what they are saying. Besides, many of his strongest anti-Catholic statements were made in books he wrote and published. Publishing any book involves writing, countless reviews and rewriting. He knew - and he only "recanted" when things got a little - warm? - for Hagee's favorite presidential candidate. Yes, John McCain did have his Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

So you've recanted?

Horsepuckey.

This was a showcase for Gov. Perry's evangelical base. His fundamentalist base, anyway (don't confuse "evangelical" with "fundamentalist". They're not exactly the same thing.) Fundamentalist; conservative; Christian; straight. You'd be hard-pressed to find more than a token presence of anyone who didn't fit that description at this event. (And, since this is now in retrospect - I started writing this on Saturday morning, and am now writing on Sunday night - I can report they didn't get anywhere near 71,000.)

So, could Jews pray for their country? Well, sure; the old cover-up: "Everyone's invited!" was given. But, no Jewish presence among the speakers or pray-ers.

Any Catholics on the dais? Well, no. In fact - well, see the above remarks about one of the co-sponsors, the Good Rev. Hagee.

A word to the wise, Gov. Perry (or Rep. Bachmann, or Gov. Romney or Huntsman): do not disregard the Catholic electorate. We are about 25% of the U.S. populace, and about 27% of the electorate. No other religious voting block comes close to our numbers. And don't think, just because we are firmly anti-abortion and you follow us in that regard, that you have us in your pocket.

Do not disrepect us. If Gov. Perry really wants to make a run at the Oval Office, he should run, not walk, away from the Rev. Hagee, as John McCain had the sense to do.

Do not assume that, because we agree on abortion, we will vote Republican. To wit:

THE DEATH PENALTY. At least the last two Popes have been opposed to it. This is also a pro-life issue and to be a Catholic pro-life person you must respect life from conception to natural death. Meaning: no abortion, no death penalty, no euthanasia. The American bishops, as a group, have called for the end of capital punishment. So where are you, my fundamentalist friends?

IMMIGRATION. The worldwide church, the Pope and numerous American bishops have called for more humane treatment and a more helpful attitude toward immigrants. Funny thing: most of those who are the most virulent anti-immigrants are those whose own ancestors could not have gotten into the country under current law. So, where are you, my fundamentalist friends?

A huge wave of immigration occurred in the nineteenth century. A great number of Irish came over. Many of them were welcomed, and told to go right over there and see that nice Army man. See, we've got this little Civil War thing going on. So the Irish would go to see the soldier, and go to fight in a war that wasn't really his. Then, they would go to their new homes and see signs like, "No Irish need apply"; "No dogs or Irishmen." Poles and Italians ran into much the same sort of bigotry. One thing they all had in common: Poles, Irish and Italians were and are almost all Catholic.

Some felt so threatened by these Catholic immigrants that they formed anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic groups. You may have heard of one such: the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK was largely motivated by an anti-black animus, but they were also anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish. Anti-everything except WASP.

Part of the reason the Catholics built such an extensive school system was that, in many parts of the country, the good Protestant parents didn't want their kids contaminated with that Papist stuff. So Catholic kids couldn't get into the public schools.

And now you see the conservatives in their attitudes toward immigration from Mexico, and you can almost see the white robes and hoods coming out. Truth is, those robes and hoods never went away. The immigrants - then white, now brown; then, as now, almost exclusively Catholic - are still seen as a threat. Didn't want to allow those Irish, Polish and Italian kids into school then? You don't want to allow the Mexican kids in now.

And that's what Gov. Perry wants to associate with? Even be in the forefront of?

Oh, yeah, a third issue: THE ECONOMY. Catholic social teaching has never allowed for furthe enrichment of the already-wealthy at the cost of leaving behind the poor, the less fortunate. Rep. John Boehner is a Catholic, and in the recent budget debates his own bishop sent him a letter to remind Rep. Boehner of this. The late pope John Paul II saw that a common thread between the Communist systems and Capitalist systems was that both, rather than enhancing the value of the individual, sought to lessen that value - to grind up the value of the individual. Reread Ayn Rand. Don't pay attention to what she says about her novels' heroes. Pay attention to what she says about everyone else.

Don't take the Catholic vote for granted. To play to your base and to ignore us could be a huge mistake.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. As always, would love your res;ponses.

Three strikes and other legal silliness

George Will, conservative columnist, once wrote that the five most glorious words in the Constitution are, "Congress shall make no law." Never mind what might have followed in the text of the Constitution. Just, "Congress shall make no law." That's a truly libertarian position to take, from one who used to be a Goldwater speech writer.

"Congress shall make no law." Well.

There are laws that obviously need to be made, but there is a law of unintended consequences that isn't written, but surely binds. To wit:

Once upon a time, someone thought a "Three strikes and you're out" law would be a pretty good idea. On the surface of it, it sounds great. Three felony convictions and, buddy, you're locked up and the key is in the sewer somewhere. But there were unforeseen issues. There were those who were repeat offenders of violence, and it's hard to argue that these should be allowed back on the street. But the three strikes laws give no consideration to whether the three offenses are, in fact, violent. Does it seem reasonable, given our already overcrowded prisons, that we should place non-violent offenders away for life while we grant early release to violent offenders?

It makes no sense to me. I worked at an adult max joint - the Joliet Correctional Center - for about three years. Part of the center was a Reception and Classification Facility. Inmates would be transported in by their county sheriff - the Cook County one was, by far, the largest - and the state correctional department would determine what kind of facility the inmate would be shipped to. Maximum? Medium? Minimum? If you came in with a life sentence, it was a stone-cold guarantee that you would go to a max joint. When I worked in Joliet, I rubbed elbows with people who would have killed me without blinking an eye if they had the chance. They'd done it before. I dealt with rapists who continued to see women - and men - as so much dressed-up meat. I've had boiling water on me. I've worn urine home. I've worn a bloody shirt home (the blood wasn't mine; I was a kind of crazy person in the day.) It was during that time that my drinking was at its worst.

And if I had run into someone who was in a max joint for a non-violent offense I'd wonder, "What in HELL are you doing here?" But, under current law, that's where they are,

Shame on us and our vigilante justice.

But, then, there are areas where I go all vigilante. To wit: pedophiles. Those who would sexually abuse a child. For these people, I would be all in favor of a life sentence. No parole. First offense. I know - there would have to be gradations, and I would advise any teenager to wait for marriage - subject for another discussion - but I don't think you can treat a relationship between an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old in quite the same way as you would treat a 40-year-old who abuses a 4-year-old. Still, I'd be pretty severe. There are two particular reasons for my thinking this way.

One, most criminals do age out of their types of crimes at some point. A 45-year-old armed robber is a comparatively rare critter, and armed-with-intent and assault with a deadly weapon are, for the most part, a younger person's game. Sexual offenders tend not to age out of their habits. A pedophile at 30 is a pedophile at 70. (Note the frequent use of the word "tend". I'm aware there are exceptions.) The only way to keep society safe is to remove them permanently.

The second reason has to do with that unintended consequences thing. Davenport is a case in point. Iowa has a law that a sex offender cannot live within a certain distance of a school. Good idea, right? Except. . .except. . .there is a mobile home park way out west on Kimberly Road. It's not near a school, and offenders can live there. So offenders do live there - a cluster of them. The schools are safe - great! - but what do you think the families who live in or near that mobile home park think of this? Are they just as pleased as punch that so many sex offenders are clustered right over THERE?

So just remove them

Or let me have at 'em. Father of 5, grandpa to 10 - who owns garden shears. I leave to your imagination. . .

Borders, RIP

I see in the news today that Borders is closing its 400 remaining stores. I am heartbroken.
Borders wasn't done in by competition from Barnes and Noble. B&N has been in financial trouble, too. It's a shame, because this could have been and should have been a rollicking competition between two great companies that understood two of the great loves of my life: books and music.
No, B&N and Borders didn't do each other in. Rather, both were done in by far more disturbing trends. One was the onset of the Internet. A second was Amazon.com. And yet another was Kindle.

I'm so bugged by the Internet because it seems to have shortened attentions spans in a way no one would have believed possible ten years ago. "TLDR" - Too Long, Didn't Read - seems to apply to anything longer than a short paragraph. It bothers me because, admittedly, some of my trains of thought get a little long. We've become a nation of readers who think that such garbage as the Harry Potter series and the Twilight series are good writing. Never mind the cliched plots and plastic characters.
We've become a nation of self-styled "speed readers." Woody Allen had a great line about that: "I took a speed reading course. It was great! Read War and Peace in one night.

I think it had something to do with Russia."

If Amazon.com has been a reason for the demise of Borders and the near-demise of B&N, {sigh} {rolls eyes}. Bookstore browsing is a joy, and something I could do for hours if permitted. If your idea of "browsing" is browsing through Amazon (once you get out of the socks and watches), you won't be surprised by anything. You usually knew what you were looking for before you went there. You won't experience the unexpected find at a used bookstore like The Source in downtown Davenport. I found a book by Anthony diMello in a Borders in Colorado Springs. I'd thought the book was out of print. I found a copy of Montesqiueu's The Spirit of the Laws, a book often cited as being influential in the French Revolution, in a B&N one day. Who reads that? Well, if you're into things like libertarianism or maybe liberty, equality, fraternity, maybe you should. Jaroslav Pelikan's history of Christianity is something you'd probably not start looking in Amazon for, but if you're interested in the subject the display on the shelves of an actual bookstore just might interest you.

B&N and Borders have fallen victim of our not wanting to search. They have fallen victim to our intellectual laziness. Why wrestle with, say, Niebuhr or Husserl or Plato or Shakespeare or Milton or Hopkins when we can get it all in a paragraph in Wikipedia?

And what happens to poets when we can only think in one paragraph?

And Kindle? Pulleeeze. Try passing your Kindle "book" to your son or daughter. I know of someone who was reading a bio of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Her friend expressed interest in the book. The first person used a kitchen knife to cut the book roughly in half. She let her friend read the part that she'd already read; she kept the part that she hadn't yet read.

Try doing that with Kindle! But Kindle does play into our one-paragraph-at-a-time thinking. I guess it's supposed to be - I dunno, businesslike?

Thanks for hanging out for a few. Love your thoughts.

BTW, wonder if Borders will be having a sale?

The Creed, continued

We believe in God, the Father Almighty

Creator of heaven and earth,

of all that is seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God,

Light from Light,

True God from True God,

Begotten, not made,

One in being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation

He came down from heaven.

By the power of the Holy Spirit

He was born of the Virgin Mary

and became man.

For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

He suffered died and was buried.

And then the statement that it's really all about:

On the third day he rose again,

In accordance with the Scripture.

We Catholics recite the Nicene Creed in every Sunday Mass. I would hope that repetition never makes this statement go flat. This statement should set off a "GLORY, HALLELUIA!!!" reaction every time it's said.

If this statement is false, we base our whole faith structure on nothing. With Paul, we must observe: "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all" (emphasis mine.)

But no. That is not where we are. We hear the news from the angel at the tomb: "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, He is risen."

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

He ascended into heaven,

And is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead

And his Kingdom will have no end.

Next week - the rest of the Creed, and how one word contributed to a Churchwide split.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. Love your reactions!

Furthermore. . .

Today's post will be a further reflection on faith. I'd wanted to step deeper into the Nicene Creed. But there's an observatiion I'd want to make about the Creed.

Note that the first word in both segments we've looked at so far is "we": "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty"; "We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ." The third section also starts with "we": "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life." Always "we". In the Hebrew Scriptures the relationship with God was a relationship of community. It was Judah to whom God spoke. God spoke through prophets, but God usually spoke through the prophets to the community, to the nation. (Also - the prophetic word was almost always aimed at those inside the community. That word rarely was aimed at anyone outside the community.) Where God offered some level of salvation to an individual, it usually came to no good. Hezekiah had been a good and righteous king. When he was told that he was about to die, he pled with God for an extension. God gave Hezekiah fifteen more years - then spent those 15 years wondering why he'd bothered.

"We". Community, always community. I pointed this out to a couple of friends, that in the Old Testament salvation was always a communal business. To one steeped in American concepts of "individualism" (yes, Ayn Rand was a proponent of such individualism and Ayn Rand was an atheist -  not just coincidence) - to one whose spirituality has a strong tint of "You and me, God", this idea that God deals with communities as communities is really a disruptive concept. So, they asked, "So this emphasis on community changed in the New Testament?" NO - it didn't change. "The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common" (Acts 4:32). And Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, was quite articulate in stating that every part of the community needs every other part of the community (see esp. 1 Cor. 12:12-31. Then, if you really want to see what it's all about, go on through 1 Cor. 13. 1 Cor. 13 is all about love - but what's love if not shared in community?)
Paul assumes the existence of the church - community. Later, St. Cyprian of Carthage said, "Outside the Church" - outside of Christian community - "there is no salvation." Roman Catholics would assert this. Eastern Orthodox would assert this. Both Luther and Calvin affirmed this.
"We." We just can't overlook the cruciality of community in the Christian life.

Back to the Creed next week, I think. Thanks again for hanging out, and I'd love your reactions.

That jury thing

I write this with Caylee Anthony in mind. I write, actually, in defense of the jury.

I am so incredibly saddened by what happened to Caylee that I have no words. My porch light most assuredly was on at 9:00 tonight. I cannot comprehend a mother who, even if we accept her account of events, was partying for the month between the time her daughter disappeared and the time she finally got around to telling someone. I'm married to a mom of 35 years. Two of our daughters are moms. I work with a lot of moms, and am related to a lot of other moms. The very minute any child of any of them came missing, every single one of them would have given a whole new meaning to "raising hell." NOBODY - least of all, them - would have been spending a minute partying until their kid was found.

So, I think Casey Anthony killed Caylee Anthony. I think Casey Anthony got away with murdering her daughter.

Wait - I thought this was supposed to be a DEFENSE of the jury?

Yes.

I have sat on juries twice. Both  were criminal trials. Both were cases involving sexual assault of a student on a college campus in the Quad Cities. In both cases I served on the jury through the reaching of a verdict. In one case I was the jury foreman. One of the juries convicted. The other acquitted.

(This gets a little graphic here.)

The first trial involved a staff maintenance man at Augustana College who had sex with a student summer worker. Her account: he cornered her in a restroom in a dorm. He forced her to the floor, pulled off her shorts, and assaulted her. His account: she purchased condoms ahead of time; at the end of the work day they went to a dorm room. There was foreplay, followed by intercourse. The fact of sexual intercourse was not in dispute. The question: was this a rape that occurred in a bathroom, or was this consensual sex that occurred in a dorm room?

We convicted. At one point, after a few hours of deliberation, I asked my fellow jury members, "Does anybody seriously think anything at all happened in that dorm room?" We all said, "No." But we weren't absolutely certain. We wondered why the Rock Island Police Department did no investigating of that dorm room. (Answer: the suspect didn't even mention the dorm room until later. It was no crime scene.) We would have loved to know if there was any evidence of sexual activity in that dorm room, but the evidence at trial was silent. What we found out after the trial: the defense had lab people search that room with a fine-toothed comb. If they had found so much as a hair from either suspect or victim, game over for the prosecution. But the lab folks found nothing. Neither of these people had ever been in that room.

Wouldn't we have loved to know that in deliberations? But we couldn't know that. For the police that room wasn't a crime scene. The rest room was. For the defense, they knew there was no trace their man had ever been there, but the defense is under no obligation to present that at trial. So, there was something we just didn't know.

We convicted. A couple of months later the suspect was sentenced. Before sentencing, the judge affirmed that he thought we'd reached the right verdict, and sentenced the convict to 15 years.

And I replayed that trial again and again, in my waking hours and in my dreams. This was a family man whom we separated from his family (the thought later occurred to me that, even accepting his version, he was going to have sex with a college student in a dorm room. Not very family-friendly, I'd say.)

A couple of years after, I Googled the convict, just to see what turned up. He'd committed suicide in prison. And again, the waking reflections - the dreams - the nightmares. This trial stayed with me - was there any way around the verdict? Was there any possible alternative outcome? Eventually I made my peace with it. I didn't rape that girl. I'm just not bolted together like that. He raped her. I didn't tie that bedsheet around that light fixture. . .I just did the duty I was called to do.

The second trial, we acquitted. The girl was a student at St. Ambrose. She had celebrated her finishing her final exams in her senior year. The celebration involved about 10 beers and a Jager. She went to her dorm and went to bed. She woke up to find a hand where she'd given no permission for a hand to be. She screamed, and the assailant ran off. She had a roommate who woke up with the scream. But, the roommate saw no one. All I could think was, ten beers and a Jager. I don't even know if anything happened at all.

In the case of the Augie student, the assailant was well-known to the victim. The St. Ambrose student didn't make an ID until months later, and she made it from a newscast. The Augustana case was handled by the Rock Island Police Department, who knew a crime scene when they saw it and did understand evidence. The St. Ambrose case was handled by campus security, who obviously didn't. They did get Davenport PD involved - four days later. Davenport PD noticed that there was only one way out of the building (except emergency exits, which would have sounded an alarm.) Davenport PD noticed that the one way out had a security camera. They noticed it four days later. D'ya kinda think that if Davenport PD had been called immediately, it would have taken them two seconds flat to say, "That camera - where's the tape?!" But four days later. . .

So please don't think too harshly of the Anthony jury. The missing pieces of information they would have loved to have seen - a cause and time of death, for starters - will drive them crazy. It's one thing to say, "I think Casey Anthony is a murderer." It's quite another to say, "I have seen evidence that is convincing beyond a reasonable doubt that Casey Anthony killed her daughter."

And let's not think that Casey Anthony has an easy road from here on out. For the rest of her life she will be the one who murdered her own daughter and got away with it. I don't forecast a surfeit of prospective employers. She threw her entire family under the bus in the trial; I doubt that she can go home again. Maybe some network will pay for an interview. I don't know.

Thanks for hanging out. Love your reactions.

Today, July 4, 2011. . .

I will wear black.

One of my dear friends posted an item that some would wear black today because of what happened to a woman who was trying to board a flight. She's 95 years old, a cancer patient, and she was wearing a diaper. The Transportation Security Agency personnel who were doing the screening at that terminal subjected this woman to a search that went as far as making this woman remove that diaper. There is, I guess, some justification for concern on the part of the TSA - they didn't know who it was that dressed her that day - but really? Seriously?

When my friend posted this, she posted with a note, "Take back Independence Day." I thought that was a bit overstated. Did you lose Independence Day somewhere? I thought it was. . .yeah - it is! Right there, on July 4. Like always. Just where we'd left it. Besides, the concerns brought up were constitutional, a matter of the Bill of Rights and that unreasonable search and seizure thingy. The U.S. Constitution didn't take effect until years after the Declaration.

Still, my friend makes a point that I now see as valid. (And it's really a socialistic point from that libertarian.) If one person's rights are diminished or violated, then the rights of all of us are violated. If one person's dignity is assaulted, then the dignity of all of us is under attack. Point well-made. Point taken.

So I wear black. If I knew that woman, or if we had any mutual acquaintances, then I would say that I am so very sorry that someone representing my country - someone who, since I vote and I pay taxes, is in my employ - thought it either necessary or appropriate to do that to you. I am sorry. We all should apologize.

We celebrate Independence Day for the promise of America. We celebrate because of an ideal, because of what America should stand for. In that very Declaration we see the profound statement: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (how about we leave that word out?) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Please note that this does not say that all white natural-born U.S. males are so endowed. It's a statement of a universal - all are thus endowed. Today I wear black, because we've fallen short.

I wear black for that woman in Florida.

I wear black for Native Americans. We (yes, we - I'm not all Anglo although you couldn't tell by looking) have been starved, driven off lands onto reservations, the land no whites wanted. The Rez becomes a lifelong trap. Poverty is endemic; alcoholism abounds. The whites who started educational systems were well-intentioned, but part of their effort was to eradicate the native civilization. Children who spoke their own language were severely punished. As a result, the number of Arapaho speakers, to use one example, is low and dwindling. Diabetes on the Rez is almost pandemic.

Mount Rushmore comes to mind. A monument to four Presidents, carved right in the middle of what had been Native American lands. I know what that looks like to most. Do you know what that looks like through Native American eyes? Betcha don't know. Bet you never thought about it.

I wear black for African Americans. Faulkner, in writing about his South, treated it as a cursed land, and Southern civilization as a cursed civilization. The source of the curse was that it was stolen land (from the Native Americans) built by stolen labor (slave labor). The question: Was it just the South? And, is it any less true now? Have the vestiges of racism gone away?

Short answer: no, they have not. Case in point: Barack Obama and the "birther" garbage. He'd produced his short form birth certificate. That's all we would have required of Hillary Clinton, of John McCain, of Mitt Romney. Not only did the birthers not have any reason to doubt that Barack Obama is a native-born citizen; they had been presented affirmative proof that he is such.

It was not enough for the birthers. It wasn't a matter of Obama's standing. The simple fact of the matter is, the birthers could not stand it that an African-American is President. The birther nonsense stemmed from racism, pure and simple.

Case in point: DWB is an offense that will still get you pulled over, despite police departments' protestations that they do no racial profiling. For the unititated, "DWB" - Driving While Black. Or, since this happens also to those of Hispanic heritage, Driving While Brown.

Case in point: two reporters - one black, one white - graduated from college about 25 years ago. They hired on to the same news organization. They handled savings and investments in a similar manner. Both married and had families. After 25 years, the white reporter was about $500,000 ahead of the black one. How could this happen? Fifty years ago both of these reporters' parents went house-shopping. Both came from professional families, but there real estate salespeople wouldn't show houses in certain affluent areas to blacks. That still has repercussions.

I wear black for our treatment of undocumented immigrants. The various ethnic groups that have made up our country have long been possessed of a "last one off the boat" thought pattern. The result is they sound like a KKK chapter. The KKK was, in its origins, an anti-immigrant group. They didn't like blacks or Jews, but they really didn't like those Poles or Italians or Irish. They were all Catholic, and the Poles and Italians - for that matter, the immigrant Germans - didn't speak much English. The Catholic schools were founded largely because the Catholic kids weren't allowed into public schools. Now, the immigration is Mexican. They don't speask much English; they are almost uniformly Catholic and they have an additional quality that makes them especially inviting as targets: their brown skin. So, kick 'em all out. Never mind that they've been holding a job and paying taxes for twenty years. Never mind that you're imposing a family split because the kids were born in the U.S. and are citizens.

And about that little bit of uneducated garbage that I see on Facebook: "You're in America. Speak English." No. No. How's this: "You're in America. Speak Cherokee." Or, "You're in Arizona. Speak Spanish - it was there before English."

Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she,

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breath free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the tempest-tossed, to me.

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

We might as well take that statue down and send it back to France.

I wear black for our schoolkids, who are relegated to middle-of-the-world-pack status in math and science. Our school years are limited to about 180 days. Can't overload the poor little brains! OK, maybe. But if we want to know why India, China, Japan, Korea are gaining on us so fast technologically and economically, pay attention to their longer school years. Pay attention to Americans' lack of family involvement in their kids' education. Pay attention to funding. Abundance of funding doers not necessarily guarantee good outcomes, but pay some attention, anyway. And quit whining about those overpaid, overbenefitted teachers. They are no such thing.

Come back home to the refinery;

Hiring man says, "Son, if it was up to me";

I go down to see the VA man;

He says, "Son, don't you understand. . ."

I am a Vietnam-era vet. The status is a matter of when I enlisted in the Navy; I never saw the 'Nam. Bruce Springsteen's Born In the USA (the song, not the whole album) is a protest against the way such vets were treated by the society we served to protect. Note that the sentences are unfinished: "Son, if it was up to me. . ." "Son, don't you understand now. . ." Springsteen didn't have to finish the sentences. Every single one of us vets knows the rest of the sentences. America celebrates those who serve, before it tosses them aside. And I'm seeing the same sort of pattern setting up for those who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Go serve! We honor you! We'll take care of you!" Then, when they come home, "We're broke!"

So I wear black for all vets who served so well and are served so badly.

I do love my country. I wore the uniform of the U.S. Navy, and I swore to defend my country. I love that America, while it has its flaws, has many people in it who are aware of the flaws and who want to fix them - who strive for our reaching of the higher dream that we should represent. I love that we can speak in opposition to our government - well, many of us can - without fear of repercussion. There is so much to love, and I would enlist to defend this nation again. I thank God that I'm an American.

But. . .but. . .

"It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people (and the immigrant, and the vet, and the schoolkids, and the Native Americans, and that lady in Florida) a bad check, which has come back marked, 'Insufficient funds.'"

But -

"But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt."

Preach it, Dr. King!

There was One who also preached a higher standard:

"Inasmuch as you have done it for the least of these, my brothers (and sisters), you have done it to me."

That's the hope we cling to. In my work with the core group at St. Mary's - in my involvement with Quad Cities Interfaith and its immigration task force - that's the hope I cling to. We can do better. And, until recently, I was convinced that America wanted to do better, that we wanted to rise above and reach for better. I'm not as sure now, but I cling to the hope. I do cling.

So, I wear black today.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. Your reactions?

More on the faith

We believe in one God, the Father almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth,

Of all that is seen and unseen.

We believe in one lord Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

Eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God,

Light from Light,

True God from True God,

Begotten, not made,

One in being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

Another assertion against those who would maintain that this creation, since it has so much evil in it, could not have been created by a good God. Another assertion that Jesus Christ, in a mysterious way completely beyond our comprehension, is the same as the YHWH that the Hebrew scriptures maintain is God.

For us, and for our salvation, he came down from heaven.

He was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.

Most presentations of the Creed insert the word "men" into the first line. When reciting the Creed at Mass I, and a lot of other Catholics I know of, omit the word "men". The reasons are obvious to me.

For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

He suffered, died and was buried.

This statement, as obvious at it seems to us, was a major bone of contention in the early church.You can see St. Paul in debate with the early stages of this position. The question: If Jesus was truly God, could he have suffered? Would God have even been capable of suffering? Or was this all a front, an effort at making the appearance of Jesus' being fully human? Would God even have been capable of dying? Paul stated that this whole idea of a crucified God would have been nonsense to his civilization: "The message of the cross is folly for those who are on the way to ruin, but for those of us who are on the road to salvation it is the power of God. . .While the Jews demand miracles and the Greeks look for wisdom, we are preaching a crucified Christ. . ." Since nothing ever goes away, two and three centuries later some who called themselves Christian also found the idea of a crucified suffering God to be untenable.

But - Jesus was also fully human. That being the case, he could suffer. He could die. And the conclusion that the Church came to was that Jesus did just that.

How?

Remember: don't ask how. We can't get it. Just ask Who?

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate - really and truly -
He suffered, died and was buried. He was indeed.

Thanks for hanging out for a few. The last few posts have been about that which is most central to my life and being. That, and family, but since I am Catholic, I can't really separate the concepts of faith and family. They go together.

Love your reactions.

Vi

One July 3, long, long ago, in a place far - well, never mind, it wasn't so far away - Vi was born. Violet Marie Bales.

Vi grew up in Rock Island, surrounded by family. The average American family produced the average American girl. Except, she was anything but average. You had to know her, or have the good fortune to be related to her, to know that, though. She never was much of one to seek to get her name in the papers.

Vi graduated from Rocky High School. Then we had this little affair in Europe - World War II, which was really a continuation of World War I, after a 21-year hiatus. Vi went to work at the Servus Rubber plant in Rock Island. Then, in 1945 that little European business ended. Vi met a guy that was returning from that European unpleasantness. Vi and Walter married in 1946, and Vi became Violet Marie Hendrix.

And then they started something. A LOT of something. Vi and Walter (and they were and are a matched pair) became the parents of 14 - count 'em, 14 - kids. Eleven daughters, three sons. I married one of those daughters. Three sets of twins (the only way they could get a boy was to take a girl along with) - six babies in diapers at the same time. It's wearing me down just to think about it. Walt worked at the Arsenal, and retired from there. Vi worked at her family, and never really did retire.

There was joy and accomplishment. All of the kids graduated from high school. All grew up to become the best citizens they knew how to be. That, in and of itself, is a remarkable accomplishment.

There was pain that had to be almost unbearable and searing. Vi anmd Walt lost one of their sons, Paul, in infancy. Their two other sons served in Vietnam, and came back with their issues from that. Vi has buried grandkids.

And yet, through it all, Vi lived her life with integrity. Utter, complete integrity. She knew who she was, and she knew what drove her. She was a dedicated mom. She was a happy person, easy to get along with, but if someone - anyone - messed with one of hers, that unfortunate would find that they had aroused a tiger - a ferocious one, at that.

The part of her attitude that I remember best: Life is not to be pissed and moaned about, and it isn't all about you. Get over it, get over yourself, and you might actually enjoy the ride.

Walt passed in '88 after a bout with cancer. Vi passed a few years ago, after her own bout with cancer. They are buried side-by-side - as I said, a matched pair - in National Cemetery on Arsenal Island. Today, Vi's birthday, my wife and daughters and granddaughters, along with some of Vi's other daughters, visited the gravesite. In celebration of Vi's birthday. In honor of a woman worthy of honor. In celebration of a life lived long and well.

In honor of Mom.

I'll have another posting today, in continuation of a theme I've been writing on. This, though, is for Vi.

My Catholic faith, part quatro

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,

Eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God,

Light from Light,

True God from True God,

Begotten, not made. . .

Then comes a statement that was hotly debated during early Christian history. It has tgo do with the relationship between Father and Son:

One in being with the Father.

This was a debate over one letter. In Greek, the word homoousios means "the same as," or "one in being with." It posits identity between the Father and the Son. The word homoiousios does not suggest such identity. The Father and the Son are very much like each other, but they are not the same.  The answer that classical Christianity settled on was that Jesus Christ was "one in being with the Father" - i.e., homoousios. When we Catholics say the Nicene Creed, we affirm the homoousios position. Most Protestant denominations also subscribe to the Nicene Creed, and affirm the same. Eastern Orthodox do not use the Nicene Creed, but the difference between Eastern Orthodox and Western Christianity does not hinge on this phrase. Eastern Orthodox would also affirm the homoousios position.

The Scriptural backing for such a position is plentiful and, to me, compelling. When Jesus says, "I and the Father are one"; when Jesus says, "He who has seen me has seen the Father", he seems clear enough. But this is even clearer if you read in the original Koine Greek. In the Gospel of John, you see frequent "I Am" sayings of Jesus: "I AM the bread of life". . ."I AM the bread that came down from heaven". . ."I AM the living bread". . ."I AM the light of the world". . ."I AM the gate for the sheep". . ."I AM the resurrection and the life". . ."I AM the way, the truth, and the life". . .and, maybe the most emphatic of all, "Before Abraham was, I AM."

The Greek term that is translated as I AM is ego eimi. It's so strongly emphatic that there's really no adequate English translation. It's roughly equivalent to announcing it through a bullhorn" I - and only I - am. . ." And the writer of the Gospel sprinkles Jesus' saying this all over the place. Think he's trying to make a point?

Indeed, he is. The audience to Jesus' saying this wasn't a group of Greek speakers - the New Testament was written in Greek, but when Jesus said this he would have been speaking in Aramaic, a close descendant of Hebrew. He would not have said "ego eimi." He would have used the Hebrew term: YHWH. The ineffable name - the name that was so sacred it could not be pronounced - means "I AM" (or I AM WHAT I AM, or I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE - the Hebrew language doesn't use tenses quite like English does.)

Ego eimi = YHWH.

Before Abraham was, YHWH.

And we wonder why the Jewish crowd wanted to run him off a cliff? Homoousios!

Seems pretty persuasive to me, and it seemed so to the early church. But, as I learned in Dr. Healey's class, the first principle of theological history is, "Nothing ever goes away." So there are those groups who maintain the homoiousios postion even today.

Thanks for hanging out for a few! As always, I'd love your thoughts and reactions.

My Catholic faith and me, part drei

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God. . .

I have seen much written about opening communications between Muslims and Christians. That is well and good and to be applauded, but the limitations of such dialogue must be recognized. Dialogue will open communications and further understanding, but if the idea of such dialogue is to convert the Muslims to Christianity, or to convert the Christians to Islam, forget it. It's on this very point that conversion stops. Islam holds that there is one God only. Trinitarian thought, the triune God that is standard to Christianity, the dual nature of Jesus Christ, are complete anathema to Islamic thought. In fact, Islam is much closer to Judaism than to Christianity in many respects - which only highlights the tragedy of the struggle in the Middle East. It's a fight between cousins.

The Hebrew word for peace - shalom - implies much more than an absence of war. It refers to one's being well with the universe. The Arabic word that captures the same concept: Salaam. Quite a resemblance there! The words are cognates, and there are quite a few cognates between Hebrew and Arabic.

But I am part of the Christian faith community. Thus:

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God. . .

And the Nicene Creed continues:

eternally begotten of the Father. . .

That also doesn't go over very well in the non-Christian community.

God from God, 

Light from light,

True God from True God. . .

The nature of this Jesus Christ has been a source of much discussion, even during his own lifetime. The disciples wondered, "Who is this man, that even the wind and sea obey him? Who is this man who, using just a few loaves and fishes, feeds thousands? Who is this man who causes the blind to see, the lame to walk - the dead to live?" In asking this, they were really asking the only question that they could ask. The history of Christian thought tells us that if we start down the paths suggested by the question  "How?" or "Why?" we're going to wind up down a wrong path. We can't get our heads around concepts like, "How can God be three-in-one?" "How can Jesus be, at one and the same time, fully human and completely divine, with no confusion of the natures?"
No - the only question we can really ask is, "Who?" Who is the God-Man? Who was it who, in his earthly life, showed us who and what God is? Who is it that, by his Passion and Resurrection, provided the onkly means of salvation for us all? No other question really matters.
'Nuff for now. Thanks for hanging out for a few, and I'd love your thoughts.

Catholicism and me, part deux

I am a Roman Catholic.

We believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, of all that is seen and unseen..

That's the starting point.The rest of what I want to write about this is based on the Nicene Creed, one of the creeds of the early Church. The creeds were written to reply to contrary positions that some had taken. The form of theological debate was frequently a bit different than what we're used to. One group, holding to one position, would show up at a council with as many longshoremen as they could round up. Another group, maintaining a different position, would show up with their longshoremen.

Definition of a heretic: the guy with the weaker longshoremen.

One of the heresies in the early history of the church was that a good God could not have been the creator of an existence with so much evil. Today's exercise in theology: Go to Genesis 1 and see how many times the phrase "And God saw that it was good" is repeated. This apparently was unconvincing to the folks who maintained that, since a good God could not have created such an evil world, then the creation must have been the work of some other being, some demon. The position of the Church catholic (the word "catholic" - small "c" - means "universal") is and has been that the Creator made a good creation, and was, in fact, the same God that we came to know in the Hebrew scriptures, the same God that was the Father of Jesus Christ, the same God that sent his Son to redeem that creation. I believe in God - one God - the Father Almighty, maker of all that is seen and unseen - every atom, every molecule, every cell of your being and mine.

The second step of Alcoholics Anonymous is, "Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." That's a terribly tough sticking point for many, for two reasons. This is the step that frequently separates the "want tos" from the "want to want tos". One of the reasons has to do with that word "sanity". Do you mean to suggest that we're insane? But an AA definition of insanity sheds much light. Insanity is repeating the same action, expecting a different result. If I know that every time I start to drink I wind up drunk, then isn't it insanity for me to start drinking, thinking that it will be different this time? And so the disease and the chemical kill us. Usually slowly and painfully. Usually taking away everything we'd thought dear before it kills us.

With that, how can you believe in any kind of God? The second reason that step 2 is so problematic has to do with that Higher Power. Our thinking gets so overblown, so egotistical, we start to think there could be no power higher than us. But, that Higher Power is what will restore you to sanity.

Does God still work in lives? Does God still work miracles?

I'll take you to any open AA meeting and show you ten of them. Miracles. Walking, talking, breathing. Living lives they've gotten back.

We believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, of all that is seen and unseen..

There is a Jewish translation of Genesis 1:1 that I find interesting. It's a little different from the translation we're used to seeing: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," or "In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth." But the Jewish translation reads, "When God began to create the heavens and the earth. . ." I like the suggestion that God's creation isn't finished; it's still ongoing. God keeps on creating me, and you, and all the earth. And so I, Rick, alcoholic, last had a drink in 1985. Trust me, it took more than a little of God's grace, but God's grace has been there.

We believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, of all that is seen and unseen..

And I love Him dearly.

More later. Thanks for hanging out for a few!