'Nir'

The first daffodil of the season has opened, and thus begins the 2017 Daffodil Journal series on this blog.

Narcissus 'Nir' is one of the commercial paperwhite cultivars. I wasn't aware that paperwhites are hardy in zone 8 until I read more about them this fall. So far, they have survived temperatures in the mid-twenties. Of all the daffodils I planted in mid-November, the paperwhites sent up foliage immediately and are now flowering some six weeks later. I wonder how well they will perennialize.

In any case, a bulb that flowers the day after Christmas and fills the yard with its bright, fragrant presence - as well as attracting winter pollinators - is very welcome here.

Cindy was tired of all the picture-taking and wanted the focus back on her.

Next up in the daffodil journal: another paperwhite called 'Wintersun'. It's a bicolor paperwhite and should open in the next few days.

"Aphoristic Madrigal"

Last week I wrote about 1/3-comma meantone tuning and its near equivalent 19-tone equal temperament. There is another Renaissance tuning, 1/4-comma meantone, which dominated Western music for several centuries. While 1/3-comma meantone has pure 6:5 ratio minor thirds, 1/4-comma meantone has pure 5:4 ratio major thirds. 1/4-comma meantone has a near equivalent also, 31-tone equal temperament.

I found a nice piece for voices and Fokker organ, an organ tuned to 31-tone equal temperament. It's very modern; I think of a sci-fi setting for it. The harmonies are interesting.

Pepper

Our cat Sacci actually got better and is very lively, so we did not put him down. Unfortunately, our other cat Pepper got violently ill on Friday and stayed in a poor state all weekend. My mom took him today and the vet decided it would be best to put him to sleep.

He reached the ripe old age of 19, which is surely 100 in cat years. His favorite activity in his grumpy old age, after he got arthritis, was to lie down in doorways and growl and swat at people who walked by. Actually, he was the most affectionate cat I've had. Whenever you picked him up he'd go completely limp and let you cradle him like a baby. Sometimes he would crawl on people and try to nurse from them, purring and drooling while working his paws. He was a huge, muscular cat in his prime. He dominated the cats on our street.

My nickname for him was Peahopper.

Pepper as a kitten, wrestling with our old cat Tiger.

Harpsichord and Temperaments

I recently moved my harpsichord to my apartment. It has been about ten years since I had it on hand to play daily. I have spent much of the time tuning it. With the changing season and the alternating dry/wet and hot/cold, it goes out of tune almost every day.

In my most recent tunings, I've tuned it to 1/3 comma meantone, which is a tuning that goes back to the Renaissance. Its defining characteristic is minor thirds at the pure 6:5 ratio, which makes music in minor keys sound startlingly sweet and serene. As one goes around to more distant keys, though, there are some very sour intervals, and then there's a "wolf" interval that sounds absolutely horrendous. I can't even find an example of how it sounds on harpsichord, but on Sound Cloud I found a synthesized version of 19-tone equal temperament, which is more or less 1/3 comma meantone extended to 19 keys per octave (hard to describe in non-technical terms; just listen).

"Seigneur Dieu ta pitié" by Guillaume Costeley. I found this piece while looking for information on 1/3 comma meantone and 19-tone equal temperament. Costeley, who lived in the 16th Century, apparently was the first to theorize this tuning. I wish I could find a recording of this piece sung by a choir.

Poor Little Saccmeister

Our cat Sacci has become very sick and will probably be put to sleep soon. We've never done that with one of our pets before, but in his case he's very miserable and fifteen years old.

I just wanted to remember Sacci. He's a Himalayan cat; he has long white, silky hair with red "flame" tips on his ears, nose, and tail. When you give him a bath, he is skinny as bones, but his hair makes him look large. His eyes are icy blue. His meow is very quiet. Sometimes you only see his mouth open with no noise, other times you hear only a faint "ow." He's shy, finicky, and withdrawn normally, though sometimes at night you'd hear him run back and forth down the hall in a frenzy.

He spent most of his life inside and was afraid to go outside, though in the past few years I started letting him out and he came to enjoy sunbathing.

My sister named him Versacci (how she thought Versace was spelled) because he was a fancy cat. Most of the time I call him Saccmeister ("sotch-meister") or Saccminster Abbey.

Poor little Saccmeister.

The Apogee of the Clavecin

France was the last stronghold of the harpsichord before all the world was benighted under the spell of that vulgar clunk of iron we call the piano (I say this with a wink). French harpsichord music of the period is perhaps mankind's greatest achievement in musical nobility and subtlety; the harpsichord's own "limitation" was also its crowning asset: it did not allow a player to bang on some keys to make a lot of sappy or sensational noise.

One of the last harpsichord composers of the period was Jacques Duphly, who died the day after the storming of the Bastille. When I listen to his music, I feel I am at the apogee of an age, a form of art. It feels like a noble end, a death with dignity.

Take, for instance, La Félix (played on a German harpsichord):

Or the same piece on a 1776 French harpsichord from Lyons:

One of Bach's most beautiful harpsichord pieces

I am biased because the "French Suites" are how I first fell in love with Bach's harpsichord works, and yet we often find in life that where we started out is where we tend to return...

This is the Sarabande from the suite in d minor. I just love how it builds and lifts and then releases in an outpouring of passion.

Christophe Rousset is an amazing harpsichordist.

Thoughts on the Election

The election of Donald Trump was not really a victory for conservative Catholics. We are now in one of weakest negotiating positions: our principles have been compromised and we have nowhere to run. No longer does a candidate even have to put on a facade of the most basic moral decency; he only needs to say he is opposed to abortion, and some of our bishops hint that we must vote for him under threats of excommunication and eternal damnation. One wonders how far this could actually go; would a future candidate running on a platform of overturning Roe v Wade, the re-establishment of African slavery, and the expulsion of Jews be guaranteed the Catholic vote under threat of damnation and excommunication? One wonders.

The strongest negotiating position is the ability to walk away and not look back. By spiritually coercing Catholics to vote for certain lesser-of-two-evils candidates, bishops take this powerful negotiating position off the table. No Republican candidate has any real pressure to outlaw abortion. What are we going to do, vote for Elizabeth Warren instead?

I think Catholic bishops and leaders should use these next few years to our maximum advantage. With a Republican/conservative presidency, legislature, and soon-to-be Supreme Court, there will be no excuse why real changes in the area of abortion cannot get passed. And perhaps the hard-liner bishops should be saying: any Catholic who votes for a candidate who promised to abolish abortion and had the opportunity but didn't follow through is under the threat of excommunication and eternal damnation. And when Republicans see that we can and we will walk away - and they will lose elections because of it - then our voices will really be heard.

Identity

Fr. Hunwicke has an interesting post entitled "Identity" over at his blog (linked to the right).

Evelyn Waugh was once described as a man who thought of himself as being, in the sight of God, an English Country Gentleman of ancient and recusant ancestry. In fact, he was the son of a parvenu Anglican publisher quite well down in the Middle Class.

I sometimes think about this, especially as a convert. When I attend Mass, for instance, I think of how profoundly foreign all of this is to the upbringing of my parents. My parents even say so when they attend Mass with me. I justify it to myself by imagining more distant ancestors before the Reformation worshiping in this way (or rather, the medieval uses of the Roman Rite). And yet, as a convert, I will always have the tension that my faith was not passed down to me from my parents, but something I discovered apart from their influence. 

Or was it? On the other hand, I see the Catholic faith as not merely an expression of a culture and time period, but the most fundamental insight into the nature of reality, so essential that it had to be revealed by the Creator of reality, God Himself among us. Seen from this perspective, my upbringing and background not so much clash with the Catholic faith, but serve as kinds of sacramentals that brought me to the truth. I did not discover this new faith; it was passed down to me also. Because the Catholic faith, revealed by God, is so fundamentally connected to our nature, it is not truly foreign anywhere and belongs to everyone.

Another aspect of Fr. Hunwicke's post was commentary on the modern tendency to see identity as something we create or discover or mold for ourselves. Such was the fantasy of Evelyn Waugh. I see this tendency in myself and in other Catholics - convert or cradle. One manifestation was the men's nights among Catholic friends in college, where we smoked pipes or cigars and drank whiskey and might have worn bow ties if we had them. There is nothing more foreign to my upbringing than pipes and whiskey and bow ties. It's fun to play with costumes, but I wonder if sometimes in Catholic circles we sort of see ourselves as really being this kind of person, even if we are not, solely by our own invention, as if being an authentically-Catholic educated young man requires us to don this costume.

Sometimes people ask me why I don't have a Southern accent. That's because, for me, the Southern accent is not a caricature I put on for the admiration or entertainment of others. I would argue that my way of speaking is more authentically Southern than that found in the movies. The way I speak is a real-world manifestation of the way a person with deep roots in the South speaks when not thinking about the way he sounds.

At other times, people seek out the authentic Southern experience by putting on overalls and cowboy boots and going square dancing in a barn somewhere (with some eye-rolling by native onlookers). I, and every other real Southerner, have more authentic Southern experiences by waking up and going about the day as usual (which, for some Southerners, may also happen to include overalls, cowboy boots, and square dancing).

What we would find, I think, is that what often appears as the authentic Southern experience is actually a fantasy or caricature created by screenwriters and directors on the West Coast or in the imaginations of novelists, whereas true Southern experience appears ordinary and un-noteworthy upon casual inspection, or rather, is not apparent to us at all. This begs the question, then, for me, of whether the authentic Catholic experience we imagine is not, in fact, influenced by Catholic novelists who were themselves wearing costumes and putting on caricatures.

Catholic faith is not primarily a set of masks we wear in public (or even in private, to delude ourselves) to hide our roots and put on airs and pretenses. Because the Catholic faith is so deeply rooted in reality and our nature, it must "baptize" our identities to their deepest cores, not merely mask them. Implicit in Evelyn Waugh's costume was the notion that the Gospel might be more attractively incarnated in an "English Country Gentleman of ancient and recusant ancestry" than in a "son of a parvenu Anglican publisher quite well down in the Middle Class."

The contrast between Fr. Hunwicke's image of himself as a classicist who revels in Roman culture and French wine, versus the kind of man his father was as an ordinary British naval officer, is particularly striking.

Fall Colors

Some photos I took recently: native sunflowers, mountain mint, goldenrod.

Circular Polarizer

This morning I went for a walk and played around with a circular polarizing filter on my camera. I took a series of before and afters:

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

La Marche des Scythes

"La Marche des Scythes" is a piece for harpsichord by Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer (1705 - 1755). Fiery, virtuosic, moody, humorous; I have trouble believing fingers can move like this. The growling of the bass is fantastic.

Skip Sempé has the best performance I've heard.

Jean Rondeau has an impressive performance also, but a little less precise.

Silence

I like this observation from Fr. Ray Blake, which I saw on Fr. Z's blog:

Why do attacks on the Church always begin attacks on contemplatives? It was the Carthusians the French masonic government first attacked in 1903, just as bloody Henry had begun his English Reformation with martyrdom of St John Houghton and his Carthusian companions. 

The silent Church is always a greater threat than the chattering Church. The chattering Church is easily manipulated, it depends on its own resources, its own wisdom and insights, it is receptive to novelties and eager for change. The silent Church is close to Christ, it contemplates the essential mysteries of the faith, it is in the World but not of it, it depends not on its own resources but the Power of God. It is united to an unbroken Tradition.

I really must watch Into Great Silence again soon...

Dissonance

Looking at a keyboard, we see a compromise. The notes in our Western scale are derived from Pythagoras's "pure" ratios, but these pure ratios do not fit neatly into a twelve-note system. D-sharp is not really the same note as E-flat, nor is E-sharp really the same as F, and so on. Thus, Western music has had to compromise, resulting in intervals that are almost pure, but not exactly. Modern equal temperament, for example, is based on the square root of 12, not a pretty number at all, but close enough for our ears. In this system, the only pure ratio is the octave. The result of these impure ratios is more dissonance.

Italian composers in the 17th Century were not happy with this compromise, however, and began composing music for instruments with more than 12 notes to the octave. One instrument is the cimbalo cromatico, a harpsichord that has 31 notes per octave.

Take a listen to this "uncompromising" music. I think I like music with more dissonance better. All those pure ratios, oddly, make me feel dizzy and uneasy.

Late Bloomers

Some perennials wait until the end to bloom. Such are Lion's Tail (Leonotis leonurus) and Salvia 'Anthony Parker'. All summer long these two gradually grow to become 3-to-5-foot leafy balls, and then in September explode in flower.

Lion's tail is a member of the mint family from Africa. It is naturally pollinated by the African equivalent of hummingbirds, which I believe are called sunbirds. Our hummingbirds want nothing to do with them, however, though butterflies love them. I've read before that lion's tail can be smoked and it's like a milder form of cannabis, though I have no intention of trying.

Lion's tail (Leonotis leonurus)

I love when the sun back-lights these.

Salvia 'Anthony Parker' is a hybrid between pineapple sage (Salvia elegans) and Mexican bush sage (Salvia leucantha). This is my first year growing it, so I'm unsure how it will survive winter. However, both parents (which are also excellent fall-blooming sages) survive most winters here, so I'm confident in 'Anthony Parker'. The flowers are most vibrant in morning, withering somewhat in the heat of the day. Bumblebees love it and often sleep on it overnight. Unlike pineapple sage, the leaves have no fragrance.

Salvia 'Anthony Parker', Salvia greggii in background

I found a velvet ant crossing a gravel path. When I was a kid, velvet ants were my favorite insects. They aren't actually ants, but a kind of wasp, and the females have no wings. They walk very fast and supposedly have painful stings.

The Iconic Jonquil

Bulb planting season is just around the corner. I've been digging around my mom's yard, redoing her flower beds, and in the process unearthed hundreds of daffodil bulbs. 

I was amazed by a daffodil called 'Trevithian'. I first bought 30 of these bulbs eight years ago. This year I dug up about 400. I've given some away in the past, which means the population might have grown to 500 or 600.

Narcissus 'Trevithian'

'Trevithian' is a special kind of daffodil. It belongs to the division Jonquilla, the jonquils. These daffodils descend from Narcissus jonquilla and other closely-related species from the Iberian peninsula.

Jonquils usually have from 1-3 flowers per stem, rounded, rushlike foliage, and a strong, sweet fragrance. Jonquils are also among the most successful and prolific daffodils in the Deep South. In fact, driving along a rural highway in February and March, you're likely to find them growing in roadside ditches and abandoned lots.

Narcissus jonquilla var. jonquilla, which blooms late.

Narcissus jonquilla var. henriquesii, which blooms early.

Some Narcissus jonquilla var. henriquesii bulbs I grew from seed.

To me, the jonquil is an iconic, legendary flower. It embodies the idea of a people and a place. I am fascinated in all aspects of this plant.

'Trevithian', technically speaking, is a triploid jonquil hybrid, meaning that it has three sets of chromosomes instead of the usual two. This causes the plant to be (mostly) infertile (the reproductive cells cannot divide normally), more vigorous, and more robust (every cell is larger to accommodate the extra set of chromosomes). Most Jonquil cultivars are triploid, caused by crossing tetraploid (4 sets of chromosomes) standard daffodils with N. jonquilla and allies, which are diploid (2 sets of chromosomes).

'Trevithian' in twilight

Another jonquil I've grown is 'Hillstar'. 'Hillstar' is special among jonquil cultivars in that it is tetraploid, and therefore fertile. This means that 'Hillstar' can be crossed with other fertile daffodils to produce fertile offspring. It is therefore useful in breeding. I also like 'Hillstar' because it's a reverse bicolor. The petals are yellow and the corona becomes white as the flower ages. It blooms a few weeks later than 'Trevithian'.

If you look closely at the photos, you see 'Hillstar' has anthers with developed pollen whereas 'Trevithian' and 'Bell Song' (below) do not.

Narcissus 'Hillstar'

Another jonquil I've grown is 'Bell Song'. Like 'Trevithian', it's triploid, but it blooms at the end of the season and is not very prolific (none of the pink daffodils are in the South, as far as I know). Still, it comes back reliably every year.

Narcissus 'Bell Song'

This year I've decided to test out many other jonquil cultivars, including some white, pink, and orange ones. I'll hopefully have some nice photos and reviews by next spring.

Klavierbüchlein for Wilhelm Friedemann

J.S. Bach made a keyboard music book for his eldest son, the Klavierbüchlein for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. In it are several early versions of preludes found in the Well-Tempered Clavier. The first prelude, in C major, is one of Bach's most famous pieces, and the piece that initially attracted me to harpsichord music when I was a teenager. The early version found here, performed by Christophe Rousset, is dreamy and mesmerizing, and seems to end abruptly if you're used to the later version. I can't get enough. And then there's the prelude in c minor which follows it, and the transition couldn't be more jolting. This is harpsichord performance at its most expressive. A masterpiece.

Too bad some of Christophe Rousset's CDs are in the $40-$50 range.

Upbeat and Apocalyptic

On the way to work, I listened on repeat to the prelude and fugue in f minor from Bach's Well Tempered Clavier, Book II. If I recall correctly, during the Baroque era, f minor was considered the most somber key. As Wikipedia has it: "Schubart described this key as 'Deep depression, funereal lament, groans of misery and longing for the grave.'" I don't know who Schubart is, but I like his description.

Bach's prelude and fugue in f minor elicit complex emotions in me. The pieces are upbeat, playful, and - with the prelude - almost silly. And yet I have the impression of impending or actual Doom.

The prelude, as I imagine it, portrays the eve of the end of the world. Two birds perched on a power line tweet at each other under an evil sky. The subject suffers bouts of denial and merry delusions interspersed with awakening realizations of immanent doom. As the prelude reaches its end, the subject gradually comes to face and accept his fate.

The fugue is the apocalypse itself. Each angel pours out his bowl of wrath in turn. Fire rains from heaven; oceans boil; the parched earth ignites; the bowels of the earth spew molten rock. God has brought his judgment and wrath upon the wicked world. Yet, there is a catharsis as the anticipated doom of the prelude actualizes. The end has come. The worst has arrived. The judgment has been delivered. The subject receives the privilege of seeing the world and his wicked self through the eyes and wisdom of God, and declares that God is just.

The theme of this piece, as it speaks to me, is the recognition of sin and evil within oneself and the wrath incurred, and the celebration of God's judgment and victory over evil. It is a call to repentance and sobriety, a call to acceptjust punishment due to one's evil actions.

J as in Hieronymus

I was looking for St. Hilary in the multi-volume Fathers of the Church series, and noticed that the volumes go from Gregory to Jerome, and Hilary comes after Jerome. I stood puzzled by this, even looking to see whether the volumes had been improperly shelved. Then I remembered, Jerome in Latin is Hieronymus, which would of course come before Hilary. Still, it seemed odd, since these volumes are all in English. In a nod to this Catholic geekery, I think I will place Jerome among the aitches in my own library.

On a similar note, it's sort of like how in some alphabetical lists of states, Alaska comes before Alabama, and it took me 30 years and my friend Brittany to realize it was because AK comes before AL. Hmm...

Talking to Children

I was in a restaurant today and overheard a mother talking to her son. She was in her late twenties, wearing a white tank top, and tattoos covering her arms and legs. Her son, an angelic blond three-year-old, picked up the plastic number card the restaurant used to bring food to the table, and began playing with it. I imagined a parent might allow the child to play with it, or calmly order the child to put it down if he was starting to cause trouble. 

The boy, however, was just holding the card and quietly looking at it from both sides. His mother said this as the first thing that came out of her mouth: "You better put that down. That's stealing. They're going to call the cops and you'll go to jail and never see mommy again. Do you want that?"

I though this response from the mother was interesting, and also that the little boy just quietly handed over the card. 

97 Years Ago

Today is my grandmother's 97th birthday. On this day in 1919 in rural Shelby County, Alabama, this beautiful woman was born.

Wild

Over Christmas break, lightning killed my uncle's horse. I sensed something missing when I came back in January. It was the horse, though I didn't find out for a few weeks. Dad said there was a loud bolt and a flash, and the next day they found the horse dead in the barn. In the corner of the pasture, there was a dirt mound where they buried her.

In August, the pasture is covered with little yellow daisies. Butterflies, wasps, and bees hover about. The grass reaches my knees. Unmowed and ungrazed, it grows wild.

Music on my mind

This has been on my mind for a few days now. I wake up and it is already playing in my head. I love the combination of this prelude from the Well Tempered Clavier with one of the French Suites.

Fish on Fridays Solidarity

On Fridays my dad asks me to bring lunch back from town for us. I noticed that he started always asking for fish on Fridays.

Today, when he asked for fish, he said, "Catholics eat fish on Friday, don't they?"

I explained how abstaining from meat on Fridays is now an option. He said, "Oh, well when I was a kid in school we always had fish on Fridays for the Catholics."

It surprised me that rural schools in Alabama in the 50s would make such an effort for Catholics.

In any case, I'm happy my dad shows solidarity with me in my Catholic Friday penances.

I was just reading the Didache yesterday, and came upon this line: "Let not your fasts be with the hypocrites, for they fast on Mondays and Thursdays, but do you fast on Wednesdays and Fridays" (VIII, 1).

I remember my Armenian/Georgian coworker at the nursery always fasted and abstained on Wednesdays and Fridays, even though she was Catholic.

Thoughts on Catholicism and Homosexuality

Jesus knows better than we do what to do about messy issues, so better to go to him continually in prayer, and read and live the Gospel message.

St. Thomas is Cool

I will be grateful throughout my days to Josef Pieper for opening the door to St. Thomas Aquinas for me. Before reading his introduction to Aquinas (which I highly recommend), the Angelic Doctor seemed so dry and impenetrable. Chesterton made me admire St. Thomas, but I still was unable to read him.

Lately I have run to St. Thomas as a thirsty man to a well. In our world of excess, deficiency, and overall insanity, St. Thomas provides the cool and refreshing voice of sanity, balance, and reason. In any distress of my mind, I can go to the Summa and not only be consoled, but ready and moved to action.

Family

My sister and brother-in-law have taken me into their home during the 12 days before I move in my new place. It is strange to live in with family after a number of years on my own. When with a family, we do things together and not merely on our own. With my roommates, I felt quite free to come and go and do as I pleased. Being in a family, and in somebody else's house, I have to say what my intentions are: when I plan to leave or come home, what meals we will have together, how we will divide and share things in common. I can't just go to my room and shut the door and be in my own world while others expect company. We have to communicate boundaries. Staying here makes me a more considerate and communal person. I would like to carry what I learn here into my future living plans.

The Image of God

I am in the image of God. This is the fruit of prayer. God sees in me what I fail to see. I am grateful for the man I am, because God chose to bring him into existence from nothing, and declared him very good. I am grateful for the man I am becoming, because Christ died that I might become him. 

St. Thomas's 16 Principles for Acquiring Knowledge

The Blessed Thomas, in a letter to a brother named John, set down sixteen precepts for the acquisition of knowledge. Sertillanges treats them extensively in his book, The Intellectual Life, though one source I've checked online says the letter is apocryphal.

It seems difficult to find a good translation, and there are inconsistencies in numbering among the translations I've found, but this one was the most clear, in my opinion (I added numbers to make it clearer):

Because you have asked me, my brother John, most dear to me in Christ, how to set about acquiring the treasure of knowledge, this is the advice I pass on to you:

(1) that you should choose to enter by the small rivers, and not go right away into the sea, because you should move from easy things to difficult things. 

Such is therefore my advice on your way of life: 

(2) I suggest you be slow to speak, 

(3) and slow to go to the room where people chat. 

(4) Embrace purity of conscience; 

(5) do not stop making time for prayer. 

(6) Love to be in your room frequently, if you wish to be led to the wine cellar 

(7) Show yourself to be likable to all, or at least try; 

(8/9) but do not show yourself as too familiar with anyone; because too much familiarity breeds contempt and will slow you in your studies; 

(10) and don't get involved in any way in the deeds and words of worldly people. 

(11) Above all, avoid idle conversation; do not forget to follow the steps of holy and approved men. 

(12) Never mind who says what,

(13) but commit to memory what is said that is true:

(14) work to understand what you read, and make yourself sure of doubtful points. 

(15) Put whatever you can into the cupboard of your mind as if you were trying to fill a cup. 

(16) Seek not the things that are higher than you. 

Follow the steps of blessed Dominic, who produced useful and marvelous shoots, flowers and fruits in the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts for as long as life was his companion.
If you follow these things, you will attain to whatever you desire.
Farewell.

Are Costly Vestments Opposed to Modesty?

The Blessed Thomas (as one priest I know calls him) weighs in:

"Those who are placed in a position of dignity, or again the ministers of the altar, are attired in more costly apparel than others, not for the sake of their own glory, but to indicate the excellence of their office or of the Divine worship: wherefore this is not sinful in them."

Mistakes

I've made a lot of mistakes this year. I've done a lot of trying to rationalize them. We tend to love to see "instant karma" applied to wicked people. But "instant karma" for oneself is also a pretty sweet gift from God, if you're willing to look at it that way. (Better justice this life that leads to self-knowledge and repentance than justice in the next which only manifests in despair.) One of the greatest gifts Jesus has given me in the year of mercy is a two-sided mirror: one side with which to see myself at my most merciless, the other with which to see myself deeply dependent on His mercy. Both sides teach me a lot about being a more merciful man. 

Do only what brings joy.

There is a quote I should have written down and can't find now - perhaps a reader can point me in the right direction - I believe it is from a Catholic source, possibly from A.G. Sertillanges or Peter Kreeft.

The gist of the quote is like this: "You may do what you want, as long as you really want it."

At first this seems selfish or hedonistic. But, upon further reflection, I believe it coincides with some ideas I wrote about earlier in this blog. I wrote that the desire for happiness is a kind of appetite that causes us to unceasingly seek what truly perfects us. Another way to word this might be, "Do only what brings you joy."

What brings joy? I find that joy comes not from the easy or comfortable way out. It doesn't come from the acquisition or possession of people or things. It doesn't come from the quenching of human or bodily desires and passions. Wise words from Fulton Sheen:

The modern tendency is toward the affirmation of the ego, the exaltation of selfishness, riding roughshod over others in order to satisfy our own self-centeredness. It certainly has not produced much happiness, for the more the ego asserts itself the more miserable it becomes. (Way to Inner Peace)

True joy comes from the emptying of self and opening oneself in a detached way to receive God's gift. True joy is recognized after-the-fact, as Scripture says "But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19).

What about sin? Does sin bring joy? Sin may be doing what we want, but in the aftermath of sin, we eventually recognize that we did not really want it. We recognize that sins are choices we made in desolation, as all self-seeking and small-minded choices are. St. Ignatius' principle forbids us to make life decisions while in desolation. In desolation, we choose what we did not really want. Desolation is the time for patience and endurance.

In consolation, we make noble, generous, self-emptying choices, and even though these choices may bring a degree of suffering and hardship, in patience they bring a joy that could never be extracted from a quick-fix.

So, yes, I think it is true, and I wish I could find the quote again: "You may do what you want, as long as you really want it."

Didascalia Apostolorum

Via Msgr. Pope at the National Catholic Register, an excerpt from the Didascalia Apostolorum, written about AD 230, probably by a bishop:

Pretty damning evidence against those who still hold on to the thoroughly-debunked scholarship from the 60s and 70s about how in the early Church the liturgy consisted of Mass facing the people:

Now, in your gatherings, in the holy Church, convene yourselves modestly in places of the brethren, as you will, in a manner pleasing and ordered with care. Let the place of the priests be separated in a part of the house that faces east. In the midst of them is placed the bishop’s chair, and with him let the priests be seated. Likewise, and in another section let the laymen be seated facing east. For thus it is proper: that the priests sit with the bishop in a part of the house to the east and after them the lay men and the lay women…Now, you ought to face east to pray, for, as you know, scripture has it, Give praise to God who ascends above the highest heavens to the east… And if there is one to be found who is not sitting in his place let the deacon who is within, rebuke him, and make him to rise and sit in his fitting place… Likewise, the deacon ought to see that there are none who whisper or sleep or laugh or nod off. For in the Church it is necessary to have discipline, sober vigilance, and attentive ear to the Word of the Lord.

Purity and the Heroic Moment

To grow in purity a priest told me I need to get out of bed and pray the morning offering as soon as I wake in the morning, read the Bible every day, and fast one day a week. It has been eye-opening to observe how hard it is for me to do these things, especially the morning offering. I had almost rather pray a holy hour later in the day than get out of bed at once and pray a quick prayer. I suppose that's why it's called the heroic moment. 

Edit: It seems St. Josemaria Escriva calls it rather the heroic minute.

The Childlike

From today's Gospel:

At that time Jesus exclaimed:

"I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for although you have hidden these things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to the childlike."

I don't know what the Gospel reading is on his feast, but when I heard these words I first thought of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Prepare to Meet Thy Maker

Last night, I was listening Bach's enigmatic suite in c minor (BWV 997) in Gergely Sárközy's equally enigmatic and genius interpretation for lute-harpsichord, as I had listened a dozen or so times this week, and I fell asleep apparently.

I woke up sometime later, music still playing, and the same piece, but YouTube had auto-played a performance arranged for flute and organ. When I woke up to this, I was mesmerized, and the first thing that came to my head was: "Prepare to Meet Thy Maker."

Treating Fine Linen with Respect

Linen is the queen of plant fibers. There's nothing like putting on a crisp linen shirt on a muggy summer day, and no way to describe the weightless warmth of a linen shirt on a chilly morning. You have to experience it yourself. I first discovered linen in 2008, when I bought my first linen shirt. It still feels fine today, but unfortunately I didn't treat it right for many of the intervening years. There is a learning curve for linen, but once treated with respect becomes an easy fabric that will last for decades. I will not repeat mistakes with my newer linen garments.

I have linen shirts, shorts, pants, socks, a towel, boxers, and a sweater. This is what I've learned about linen.

Wash linen in cool water on the gentle cycle. Unbutton all buttons and turn the garment inside out. Use a quality gentle detergent, and sparingly. Add a little borax to boost the detergent. Instead of fabric softener, add white vinegar to the rinse cycle.

Remove the linen garment from the washer as soon as the cycle ends to limit wrinkling. The garment should have a faint vinegar odor. Never put linen in a dryer. Flax fiber is extremely strong when wet, but dry heat makes it brittle and the fibers will literally snap in half on a microscopic level if tumbling in a dryer on high heat, not to mention the extreme wrinkling (tumbling on dry heat is how I messed up a few of my shirts in the past). 

Line-dry linen for best results. In my apartment, I hang shirts on a shirt hanger, button the top button, smooth out any wrinkles, and hang on my shower curtain rod and blow a fan in the room. The shirts dry in 30 minutes, and there is no vinegar odor left. Since they're already on a hanger, I just move them to the closet from there. 

For a crisper look, iron linen on the iron's highest setting while the garment is still damp. For an even crisper crisper look, use starch. I don't bother with ironing, though. The steps above eliminate enough wrinkles for a casual look. 

For knitted linen garments, I use the same principles above, except I hand wash and dry flat. 

That's all there is to it. Crisp, clean linen ready to throw on, and no loud hot dryers wasting electricity. Enjoy your fine linen. 

Authentic Development of Doctrine

Authentic development means this: an acorn becomes an oak tree. This is because an acorn is an oak tree, and by growing into a mature oak tree, it develops into more of what it was from the beginning. The purpose of pruning and training is to make the oak tree more authentically an oak tree. Incorrect pruning or training is an attempt to make the oak tree into something it is not. When I see an oak seedling, I already know what it will look like 100 years from now, if it succeeds. It will look like a beautiful, mature oak tree. It will not look like a beautiful, mature pine tree. Some people like the new leaves on the tree, and the roots below, but they don't like the trunk and the branches from which the new leaves bud. They want to cut out the trunk and the branches. There is one word for such a tree: dead.

Applying this to doctrine: If we cannot be sure what members of a church will believe in 100 or 500 years from now, then we can be assured that such a church is not the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of Christ.  In the same way, authentic development of doctrine means that we are sure what Catholics will believe 100 or 500 years from now. It will be a mature version of the Faith that was passed on to us also. Any development of doctrine that tries to cut out portions of the trunk, or change the shape and nature of the Faith altogether, is not authentic development, but mutilation.

June Ask

I haven't done one of these for June yet!

Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you?
When I was a child, I used to feel like I wasn't real sometimes.

On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you?
1.

If you were a type of tree, what would you be?
I'd love to be an American beech, Fagus grandifolia. Hardly a more majestic tree in any forest.

When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought?
Damn, I need to get more sleep.

What shirt are you wearing?
A black t-shirt with a pocket.

What do you label yourself as?
Human being. Child of God. Catholic Christian. Southern American.

Bright room or dark room?
Bright room, high ceilings.

What were you doing at midnight last night?
Sleeping.

Favorite age you’ve been so far?
30. Life keeps getting better, even when it gets harder.

Who told you they loved you last?
My mom.

Your worst enemy?
Myself.

What is your current desktop picture?
A plain blue background.

The last song you listened to?
"Opie's Funeral Song" by Sufjan Stevens

You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place?
I would make myself absolute monarch and establish Catholicism as the state religion.

What was your last dream about?
I don't know but it was good.

Have you ever been admitted to the hospital?
Yes, for my two salivary gland removals.

Have you ever built a snowman?
Yes. The Infamous Blizzard of 1993.

What is the color of your socks?
I'm wearing Chacos; i.e. no socks.

What type of music do you like?
Baroque solo instrumental music, mostly.

Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets?
Sunrise. I feel so good for waking up to see it.

Do you have any scars?
I have a few. The most noticeable is the one on my neck.

How long could you go without talking?
A few days.

What do you like on your toast?
Butter and preserves or marmalade.

Have you ever had a crush on a teacher?
Yes, in 8th grade.

What was your last text message?
Hey, thanks -----!

What do you see yourself doing in 10 years?
I'd like to be self-employed or doing simple manual labor or both.

What was your favorite 90s show?
Seinfeld.

Have you ever been stood up?
Yes. Not on a date, though.

Your favorite pair of shoes?
My Vivobarefoot desert boots, or my Chacos.

What is your favorite fruit?
Watermelon. I've eaten watermelon almost every day for the past year.

Your fears?
Being a dumb/fake/pusillanimous person.

What is something most people don't know about you?
I enjoy hugs. 

What makes you feel the happiest?
A friendly glance with an authentic smile.

What store do you shop at most often?
Publix

Do you believe in karma?
I believe in a perfectly just and merciful God. And I believe what Jesus said - that the measure with which we measure will be the measured back to us.

Are you single?
No, celibate.

Do you think flowers or candy are a better way to apologize?
I don't give flowers to say sorry; I give flowers to say, "You matter a great deal to me."

Are you a competitive person?
In a quiet way, yes; especially with myself.

Do you like dancing?
I don't like dancing in public. I like dancing at home.

What kind of music to you listen to?
Mostly Baroque and Sufjan Stevens lately.

Eat at home or eat out?
I like both. Sometimes I like to eat out just to be around a lot of people.

How much more social are you when you're drunk?
I usually get tired and say stupid things when I drink, or get quieter.

How many hours do you sleep at night?
Sometimes as little as 5 or 6, depending on the night.

Are you happy with yourself?
Happy with myself? I consider self-satisfaction a character flaw and a spiritual blindness, so any time I catch myself doing it I try to eradicate it. But this is different than loving oneself, or seeing oneself as lovable, both of which are necessary for holiness, I think.

What do you wish you didn't know?
Every time I hear gossip I regret hearing it.

What's your favorite Website?
YouTube, maybe.

What's the habit you're proudest of breaking?
I quit Diet Coke completely for two years. Now, I drink it sometimes, but moderately. I still want to quit again.

If you had to teach a subject to a class, what would it be?
Latin or horticulture.

Favorite kind of chips?
Tortilla chips, especially blue corn. I also love those chips made from black beans called Beanitos.

What's the most memorable class you've ever taken?
A world lit class in college with a Macedonian teacher. He was insanely funny. I'll have to write about his asshole metaphor sometime. 

What's your favorite breakfast?
Fried potatoes. Bacon and eggs.

Do you like guacamole?
I LOVE guacamole. I eat it several times a week.

Favorite city you've been to?
Melbourne, Australia. Or Chicago.

Favorite day of the week?
Thursday.

How do you feel about porn?
A degrading, destructive, and diabolical force in the world which ought to be eradicated.

Which living celebrity would you like to know?
Pope Benedict XVI, if he counts.

What is your favorite word?
Anything in Latin. I love how Latin sounds. A favorite Latin word: quoque. Or anything ending in -ibus.

How do you feel about tattoos?
I would never have one. I don't like them, unless it is a small or inconspicuous one.

How tall are you?
5'11"

How old are you?
31

3 physical features you get complimented on a lot?
My beard, my legs, my voice.

Do you believe in love at first sight?
Yes, but love takes time to perfect.

What are some words that you live by? Why?
Esse quam videri - to be, rather than to seem to be. Because I'm a Catholic, not a nihilist.

Enchanting Ghost

Dreamy and sad. Raw and heartbroken.

Filler Noise

When I was out of town a few weeks ago, I attended Mass at a local parish. At the beginning of Communion, the cantor approached the microphone and told us, "Our Communion hymn will be 687 and 686 if we need to."

I laughed on the inside at the absurdity of this statement in regard to its attitude towards silence in the liturgy. What need is there for hymn 686? Obviously, it is in case Communion takes too long, and we need more music to fill up the time so that there won't be any silence. The same concept is played out in my home parish, where sometimes verses of a hymn are repeated or omitted, to make sure the song is the length required to take up all of the available space.

In the old Mass, passed down to us from the Fathers, there is no music to take up space. Everything that has to be sung is sung. Omissions are not allowed and repeats are unnecessary. If the priest takes "too little" time with his actions, he'll have to wait for the music to end before he can continue. At a polyphonic Mass, this may mean that the priest sits down and listens for a few minutes. On the other hand, if the priest's actions take longer than the music lasts, there is just stillness and silence. And that's okay. 

For all of its ancient and medieval holdovers, which refuse to submit to the rationalism and pragmatism of post-Enlightenment, Modern man, the old Mass is remarkably simple in many ways. One of these is that there's nothing there just to take up space, nothing spoken or sung for the purpose of ensuring a constant influx of noise and movement. Sometimes one finds oneself sitting still with no noise and nobody moving around or talking or anything. And that's okay.

I was reminded of this when I was reading from Romano Guardini's Meditations Before Mass, written before the liturgical reforms: 

Lengthy, unbroken singing is objectionable, as is continuous organ music, which drives stillness from its last possible refuge. In the course of these meditations we shall see that the periods of silence are not mere interruptions of speech and song, but something essential to the sacred act as a whole and almost as important as the periods of speech.

The Holy Mass was, at one time, the last vestige of stillness and sacredness left in the communal life of Western Civilization. Even now this has corroded into more noise and more moving about - the last thing we needed more of.

June Afternoon

I took some photos in the arboretum recently.

Pycnanthemum muticum, one of the native mountain-mints. Attracts droves of pollinators all summer long.

Lonicera sempervirens, coral honeysuckle. This is one of our native honeysuckles, much less robust but more elegant than the invasive Japanese honeysuckle (the one with the yellow and white flowers we kids used to love picking and sucking on)

Another shot of the coral honeysuckle. As you can imagine, hummingbirds love this flower.

Bignonia capreolata, crossvine, another Southern native vine. This plant loves to scale pines and other tall trees. One usually only sees the flowers as they fall and scatter on the bed of pine needles below.

Aclepias tuberosa, butterfly-weed. This is one of the milkweeds, which are hosts to monarch butterflies.

Butterfly-weed closeup.

Echinacea purpurea, purple coneflower. One of our most well-known U.S. wildflowers. Some of the other species are used in herbal medicine.

A carnivorous pitcher plant, probably a hybrid or cultivar (Sarracenia species). These are related to Venus flytrap and also catch insects to supplement their nutrition. Unlike Venus flytrap, it has no moving parts. The insect flies into the pitcher, attracted by the smell of nectar, and gets trapped by downward-facing hairs which push the victim down into a digestive fluid at the base. The white spots on the pitchers are false-windows, further confusing insects in search of a way out.

Alligator: Dead

There has been an alligator in our pond at work. It apparently came up from the creek. Well, it is no longer. Dad got permission from the game warden to shoot it.

Happiness: An Inferior Goal?

A few weeks later, I am still pondering a statement in Mary Gordon's essay "Flannery's Kiss", which I posted earlier on my blog. This section, namely:

Flannery O'Connor: orthodox, celibate, childless, living with her mother, devoted entirely to her art. To the perfection of a form. Unafraid to look at the darkness; unafraid to imagine that human happiness is an inferior question, an inferior goal. Flannery O'Connor: radically unseduced. How can I think of her and not think of myself as heavy with the things of this world: men, children, dogs, food, clothing, all the distractions of sexual allure? The demands of art ignored, pushed aside for the demands of what I call life. But what would she call it? Distraction? Illusion?

Unafraid to imagine that human happiness is an inferior question, an inferior goal.

I don't imagine that Flannery would have said this in her words, but did she say it with her life? It is an interesting question: is there more to life than being happy? If I were to venture into this question, this is what I might say:

It is obvious to any thinking man that every human being seeks happiness in everything he does. Is happiness, though, the end, or the means, of life? I'm tempted to compare it to hunger. Hunger is an appetite that is sated by eating food. Yet, is the feeling of fullness the purpose of this appetite? It seems to me that we experience the desire to eat, not for the feeling of satiety as an end, but as a means to the perfection of our bodies by nourishment. The perfection of the body, via nutrition, is the end of this appetite. The feeling of fullness is pleasurable as a means to entice us toward the perfection of our bodies.

If we look at happiness, then, as an appetite of the the spirit, happiness no longer appears as the purpose of life, but as a means to life's purpose. As hunger drives us to the perfection of our bodies, the desire to be happy drives us to the perfection of our existence. The perfection of our existence is to be true, beautiful, good, and one with God, Who is Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and One. The happiness that can only come from this perfection is what entices us towards it. It seems, then, that we should not say that we seek to be perfect so that we can be happy. Rather, we experience the relentless desire to be happy in order that we might reach perfection and not stop short of it.

Happiness, then, like feeling full from eating, is a side effect growing toward perfection and in its attainment. But, just as the body reaches perfection not only in nourishment, but also in the pain and stress of growing stronger, so our existence grows toward perfection not only by seeking happiness, but also by redemptive suffering.

It seems, then, that happiness, though we cannot help but seek it, is an inferior goal. It is a means toward our perfection. But, if the desire to be happy ever interferes with our growth toward perfection, because of being distorted by concupiscence, it must be subjected to violence, as God does when He permits suffering in this life that leads to perfection.