Cogito et Scribo...

Dear Papa

2011-10-16T07:01:00.000-07:00

Today I saw Pope Benedict XVI!

He was offering Mass in St. Peter's for people involved in the New Evangelization, which is this movement to bring back Catholicism to places that have been Catholic but are loosing the Faith. Through some connecitons, I and some fellow students were able to go to the Mass and get seats toward the front, right on the edge of hte aisle. Since we were on the edge of the aisle, we saw Pope Benedict when he processed to the alter for Mass, only an arm's reach away.

I had spent yesterday afternoon writing a letter to Papa, and as he went by, I was able to give it to one of his guards. So the guard will give him my letter, if he has not already given it to him!

From my seat, I could see the entire Mass and see the Pope concecrate the host and wine. After the Mass, the Pope processed back down the aisle, and for the trillionth of a second, he looked at me.

Afterwards we went into the Piazza and prayed the Angelus with the Pope, and the Pope spoke short messages in different languages. The message in english was about the necessity of fulfilling our duties.

I wish there is more I could say, but beyond the bare facts of the event, nothing can be expressed with mere words.

Papa, we love you and pray for you with all our hearts!

This Is Not My Country

2011-09-30T11:38:00.000-07:00

Rome is a life-changing place to be. I say that because I am here, now, in Rome; every sophomore of TMC goes to Rome for a semester, and I am here in the Fall Semester. I don't have much time to blog, which is kind of obvious considering how rarely I post anymore, but I thought I would take a few minutes to share something of my experince in Rome so far.

Rome is not my country, but it is my home. It is at times very difficult to be here: I am not a city person at all, and while riding the sweaty busses amidst the chaos of voices in languages I cannot understand and the honking of passing ambulences (there is an odd abundance of honking abulences in Rome), I miss the forested hiddeness of my beloved New Hampshire.

But that is only a fleeting sensation. What stays with me is the fact that I am surrounded by churches of unserpassable beauty, and that God is always so near. St. Peter's is always only a short trip away, and the Tiber curves gracefully through all my trampings. The cobblestone streets meander through the delightful neighborhood of trastevere, where one is always popping into piazzas. Culture and history imbue every stone, and the wine is fantastic. It is sometimes too tremendous to wrap my mind around, and that makes it all the better.

I thank God for this opportunity. I hope to post some more later on about my upcoming adventures in and out of Rome.

Man and Woman

2011-05-24T12:51:00.001-07:00

A few months ago I was talking to one of the Senior guys at TMC. The conversation came to be about boyhood and manhood. He said that he thought that manhood was about Gentle Strength. He said he thought that Jesus' Crowning with Thorns was an example of this~ Jesus possessing the power of God, yet allowing Himself be treated like scum. His strength was not so shallow that it exploded constantly from Him, like a tyrant. And He was not so weak that He could not have defended Himself.

I suggested that maybe womanhood is about Strong Gentleness. Mary, for example, is incredibly strong, the way she handles all that she must suffer. But her strength is never without gentleness. She is never pushy, never demanding of people. But neither is her gentleness, which defines her as being feminine, without strength. Consider her conversation with Christ, when she spoke with gentleness fortified with strength.

Man and Woman: Each is beautiful; each is powerful; neither can survive without the other.

Golden and Green

2011-05-14T00:42:00.000-07:00

All golden and green
were the secret pond's pebbles,
glittering in sacred glory.
And we all ran down
where the rocks rose up,
splashed in divine white foam.
Our dirty feet
were surrounded by foam,
our eyes drinking in the light
as it sparkled untempered
on the secret pond's pebbles
all golden and green, golden and green.

Free stretched the sky
in unending blue,
unlimited by lazy clouds.
And the air was filled
with a sweet fresh roar:
the water pounded, dancing down
in a thunderous, delicate fall.
Years of forever here are captured
in rushing, unbroken waters.

Fight for Premicy

2011-05-13T21:50:00.000-07:00

So I was thinking while enjoying the first few days of summer vacation~ philosophers, particularly ones like Seneca, say a lot about thought ruling emotion. And if you talk to just aobut any TMC student on the topic, they will say that yes, reason is supposed to rule over reason. And it makes sense, but WHY?
I mean, why is the ideal not to have emotions rule thought? And it occured to me while cleaming up campus for the seniors' graduation tomorrow afternoon that it is because the universal is supposed to rule over the particular.
This pattern of universal over particular is everywhere that is orderly. Consider the universe. The universal laws of nature and motion rule, and each particular case follows those rules, though with some exceptions. Or in art, ther are universal prinicples, and each peice of true and real art follows those principles, with some exceptions. That is why whenever we want to learn something, we start by observation of the immediate particulars which we sense. But we always move on to the universal principle, so that we can apply our knowledge about what we sense even to things which we have not sensed.
Thought and emotion follow in this pattern in that by thought we perceive and come to understand the universal principles. Emotions, on the other hand, are what make us alive in a particularly human way to each particular situation.
So thoughts, well reasoned thought, ought to be the guiding principle. By thought we understand a situation, analyze it, classify it and so discover how to handle it according to the modes of acting appropriate to the categoryunder which it falls.
Emotions are much more particular to the situation and personality of each person. They fluxuate with the slightest of details, so they do not have the same semi-reliable reliability that thought has. Emotions, rather, make us acutely aware and alive to what is going on around us in each particular situation, but they cannot guide us to the ruling universal principle as thought can.
So that, at least, is my theory as to Why it is better, in the fight for primacy, for thought to win over emotion.

Twixt Lowly Earth and Fiery Sky

2011-05-13T21:43:00.000-07:00

Twixt lowly earth and fiery sky
runs the winding coarse of man.
From east to west the sun doth ride
over the shifting, changing land.

All the fires that burn to ash
and all the hills that falll to rubble
upon the decaying, drying earth,
all the trees that rot to stubble~

Death is all their end entails.
Death is all that comes of earth.
Not so for man, not so:
For him the Creator suffered birth.

Twixt lowly earth and fiery sky
till all was conquered and set right
ran the bounding coarse of Christ
that all the earth may be alight.

Changeless as the turning stars,
God's own love more changeless still
bides unto eternity,
each man's lonely heart to fill.

Drinking Song

2011-03-18T09:59:00.000-07:00

To much wine, I think, my dear
is wrong, you know, is wrong.
But just a little more for cheer
cannot be wrong, oh no!
You'll forgive me, I'm sure, my dear.
I drink, you know, to you.
I drink to all who have no fear
on all their escapades;
To those with loves ones near
and those so far away;
To those who hope to steer
mankind to his right end.
So I pour once more, my dear
into my little cup.
And I drink to German bear,
that holds our wild minds sane;
To all that remains so pure
despite man's devilish work;
To all that is, and my dear,
to what never shall be.
And now at last, I am here,
having trecked the long way
From the pub to you, my dear,
along reeling wild roads
Under a spinning moon~ "Here
I am, my spotless bride,
I've made it back to thee. Hear
my shout, for here I stay.
So open the door, my dear."

'I Do Not Know' Includes Hope For Happiness

2011-02-28T12:05:00.000-08:00

Right now I have no idea when I will see either of my two best friends again. But it came to my mind while I was taking a test in Ancient Greek class a few minutes ago that not knowing includes hope for happiness. Suppose I did know that I would not see either of them until Christmas 2011. Then I would know exactly how many days lay between now and happiness. And I would begin the slowly treading countdown and be one of the most miserable students at TMC. But since I do not know, I am forced to take each minute one at a time and simply hope.
This is rather the same thing with Heaven. We haven't the slightest idea when we shall see our God. We have no idea when we shall pass through death which will free us into needing hope no longer.
Suppose we knew when our deaths would be- then our hope would not have the same eternal quality about it. It would be limited by time, i.e.: "I hope that by the day I die, 54 1/2 days from now, I shall be purged of all sin." But instead our hope is not confined within the set number of days we have yet to live. Our hope is light that shines upwards beyond the confines of time and gravity into the depths of eternity.

Photos of Thomas More College, NH

2011-02-15T05:39:00.000-08:00

About a week ago I stepped outside and saw this-a land freshly sparkling in new snow. So I took pictures of the loveliness. Here are those pictures along with a poem I wrote about snow for 'Ardhoniel' a few weeks ago and some pictures of the inside of the chapel.

Snow lay softly and gleamed

in the light of the awakening sun~

light, like silken threads it seemed

as it shimmered though the trees

and past their dark silhouettes.

All was still; not a breeze

altered the hush: snow lay softly.

Snow clung to the pines. And the red oaks still haven't given up all their leaves.

These are some of the longest icicles, hanging from the roof of the girls' dorm. They are over 6 feet long.

Lanterns light the path from the girls' dorm.

Coming to the end of the path, this is the delivery truck inching over the ice rink known as the parking lot. And a senior walks by, adding some 'human interest' to these photos.

He's going over to the library where all our classes are held. With a school no more than 85 students, only three classrooms are needed, and they fit comfortably into one building. This building also holds an extensive library which wraps around the walls of the classrooms and sits in semi-organized stacks in the basement. These is also a computer room which brags of 6 computers and an art studio. One of the classrooms has a wooden floor, for which reason it is called the ballroom. By clearing out or rearranging the tables and chairs, it becomes a dance floor for formal dances, ballet lessons, an open area for fencing, and a makeshift theater for plays.

Overhead, the sun shines weakly through the clouds.

When you first step into the chapel (which used to be a barn, back when this land was a farm), this is what you see.

The tabernacle.

The crucifix on the alter

One of the station of the cross.

An illustrated book with the mass readings.

Ode to Silence

2011-02-13T14:15:00.000-08:00

What is that I hear~ running through the rushes?
...over the water and along the wind~
......what is that I hear? Hush now,
Lest you disturb the creature with your gushes
...of long and noisy speech. How will we find
......this unearthly thing? Hush n ow
And hear how the coldness of its step clutches
...at the brains of those who are not refined
......by hearing it pass. Hush now:
You begin to feel how it softly touches
...the listener; when it leaves, you have pined
......to breathe it once more. Hush now,
And listen~ How its magic sings and hushes!

A Post for Jenee

2011-01-12T14:15:00.000-08:00

This is a little post dedicated to Jenee.

The real beauty of a human person

is something we cannot see at first.
It is not a firework.

The real beauty of a human person
IS LIKE A BURIED TREASURE.

It is like a pearl deep inside its clam,
leagues beneath the surface
of the sea.

The real beauty of a human person...

not stagnant but growing. It is like an acorn, or like the tiny seeds
WHICH BECOME WILDFLOWERS.

The human person is truly beautiful because he is a reflection of the Creator.

On the Christmas Epistle Reading

2010-12-26T11:53:00.000-08:00

At Midnight Christmas Mass a passage from Titus was read (Titus 2:11-14). I found it interesting because of its mirror-like structure.

The grace of God our Savior has appeared to all man, instructing us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and justly, and godly in this world, looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and might cleanse to himself a people acceptable, a pursuer of good works. These things speak, and exhort, in Jesus Christ our Lord.

"God our Savior" mirrors "Christ Jesus our Lord." Like bookends, these two phrases state and echo the connection between God and man. These phrases communicate an essential aspect of the Judao-Christian God who, unlike the deities of other religions, has a deep love for His creation. He is not just 'God' or 'Jesus Christ'. He is 'our Savior' and 'our Lord'. God's deep love is shown in His dedication to His creation, which is shown most in the life Jesus (and the birth of Jesus is a most important moment in that life) and which is also shown in the heart of this passage.

"instructing us" mirrors "these things speak, and exhort." What Jesus has told us, we are to tell others. The Good News was fist preached to the Jews, but it is not supposed to stop there. So St. Paul tells Titus what he has learned, that Titus might tell others, and then what st. Paul wrote may edify us to communicate to still more people. Like all good things, the Good News is open and growing.

"denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and justly, and godly in this world" mirrors "all iniquity, and might cleanse to himself a people acceptable, a pursuer of good works". The first speaks of us actively leading virtuous lives. The second speaks of us being made clean, that is, passively receiving what is being done to us. The first is in the context of obeying what Christ has instructed us and in hope of His second coming. The second is in the context of being redeemed. As the second one explains, Jesus has cleaned us of our sins that we may be acceptable to Him by pursuing good works. The first exhorts us to live up to our redemption: to do what Christ has given us the grace to do. For this purpose Christ came to earth and was born amongst us.

"looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory" mirrors "who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us". Here it is as if we are living amongst mirrors. For we are to look forward to the future, but the means by which we look to the future is nothing else than the past.

"God and our Savior Jesus Christ" calls us back to the beginning and end of this passage. And as God is the center of all the Universe, so His name lies at the center of this passage. In these few words we find a small echo of the incarnation. For first God revealed Himself as a single being, 'God' or 'Yahweh'. Then the Prophets proclaimed to the Jews the coming of a Savior. Next, the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she was to have a son and name Him Jesus. Finally, Jesus' followers recognized that He was the promised one, that He was the Christ.

This passage is like concentric circles. In the heart of this passage we find God. Next outside of that we find the mission of Christ's life accomplished and our own lives in the context of His redemption. Then outside of that we see the essence of Jesus' mission and how we are to live according to all that He has done for us, actively leading lives in accord with all He has done for us. Then outside of that we discover that as Christ has taught us, so we are to teach others. The Passion does not stop with the Jews or with the first converts but extends to all peoples of all countries and all ages. And finally we find again the name of God.

We see in the first instance of God's name that 'Savior' is connected with 'God'. In the second instance, 'Lord' is connected with 'Christ Jesus'. This shows a melding of two views of God. He is not just our eternal ruler and Lord, nor is He just a Savior who turned up once long ago. Rather, both roles are of the same Almighty Creator.

Although this passage doesn't seem very appropriate for Christmas, it in fact leads us deeply into the heart of what Christmas means.

Surrounded by the name of God which reveals who He is, this passage leads us from
the proclamation of the Good News (as the angels sang to the shepherds)
to the essence of why Christ was born on Christmas day- to redeem us that we may live virtuously and reach heaven to be with Him.
We see Christmas in the context of the entire plan for the redemption of mankind.
From there this passage leads us to Calvary where Christ gave Himself to redeem us; and because of our redemption, we live in the hope of our redeemer's promised return.
Now we see our lives and those of all mankind in the context of our redemption.
And at the heart we again find the name of God,
as it gradually reveals more and more of who He is.

Things You Learn in College that Are Not on the Syllabus

2010-11-02T17:33:00.000-07:00

1. Seeing a person every single second of every day does not mean they are your friend.
2. When a girl gets something drastically different done to her hair, it usually means she just broke up with her boyfriend, or something emotionally traumatic like that.
3. When a friend who is a guy punches your arm and smiles it means he's thinking about and hoping you're ok, you but he doesn't have time to talk.
4. When a girl punches a guy playfully, he might take it more seriously than she meant it to be.
5. When a girl punches a guy hard, he had better listen because she has something really serious to say and the friendship just might be over.
6. Funny accent aside, people from Wisconsin are awesome!
7. When you're sad and someone sits down and is willing to listen to you, then you know you have a friend.
8. People who always have the earbuds of their iPods in their ears tend to be odd.
9. Never over-plan your day because ridiculous things that you could never expect will always happen and throw you off schedule.
10. When a professor laughs at a student's silly remark in class, that means he has good ears and a sense of humor. It doesn't mean he'll be a easy person to please when it's time to write an essay for his class.

Hope you enjoy these. Got to go catch up on 5 bazillion pounds of homework. Bye.

Christ, Abraham, and Malchizedek: A Parallel

2010-10-19T18:44:00.000-07:00

For Theology Class I have to read chapters 1-28 of Genesis by tomorrow (so I should be reading, not posting, actually, but anyway...). In chapter 14, verses 11-20 I found this very interesting parallel.

So basically there's all these kings (I skimmed that part with all their long unpronouncable names) and some sort of war, and kings charging through lands full of bituman pits (?). And these kings come charging through Sodom and Gomorah, plundering and looting as they go. Abraham finds out and gathers up his army of a big whopping 318 and goes and rescues the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorah since his relatives- Lot and his family- live there.

After the dust clears, the king of Sodom, Abraham, and the King of Salem meet in the Valley of Shaveh. And the King of Salem is Melchizedek, the priest who offers bread and wine.

The parallel I found was that Melchizedeck and Abraham are both Christ like figures. As you probably know, Sodom and Gomorah were not the most clean and righteous of cities. But Abraham goes and rescues all the inhabitants, not just his family. That's how Christ is. He spoke especially among the Jews, but salvation is not limited to them. No, it is extended to all people, even the most sinful and wretched.

And then we have the prefigurement of the Eucharist. Malchikedek offers the sacrafice of bread and wine even with the king of perverse Sodom right there. Judas was present at the last supper, and Jesus does not confine the sacrament of the Eucharist to only a select perfect few.

And just the other day I found out that there is significance in the number 72 when Jesus sends out 72 disciples to preach. At that time it was thought that there were 72 nations, indicating that Jesus is not confining His good news to just one nation, the Jews. No, Christs wants, through His disciples, all people to come to know Him. Christ came to save all mankind.

'Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw Him they worshipd him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of hte Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."'

A FABULOUS 24 HOURS

2010-10-10T20:46:00.000-07:00

WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY OF LAST WEEK WERE SO FABULOUS! SO LAST NIGHT MANY TMC STUDENTS INCLUDING MYSELF WENT TO THE BOSTON AQUARIUM BECAUSE LAST NIGHT WAS THE ANNUAL FREE COLLEGE STUDENT NIGHT. I SAW ALL THESE REALLY COOL FISH! I WAS SAD ABOUT SOME SAD THINGS HAPPENING IN MY LIFE AT HTE MOMENT, AND LOOKING AT ALL THOSE AMAZING FISH I FELT LIKE JOB, WHO I JUST READ ABOUT FOR THEOLOGY CLASS. I CAN'T UNDERSTAND A FISH; WHO AM I TO QUESTION THE WAYS OF GOD?

THEN WE DECIDED TO WALK TO THIS COFFEE PLACE SINCE IT WAS A COLD RAINING NIGHT. GREAT! EXCEPT THAT THE SHOP SUGGESTED TURNED OUT TO BE ALMOST ALL THE WAY ONT HE OTHER SIDE OF BOSTON, SO WE HAD QUITE A WALK THROUGH RAINY NIGHT STREETS. BUT IT WAS FUN IN THE TOTAL RANDOMNESS SPONTINAITY OF IT ALL. IT WAS ANNOYING, I GUESS, ALL THAT WALKING, BUT I WAS DETIRMINED TO MAKE THE BEST OF IT.

AFTER GOING TO THE CAFE, WHERE I ORDERED GELATO ICE CREAM, WE WERE STANDING OUTSIDE AND THIS STREET MUSCICIAN CAME UP AND ASKED IF HE COULD PLAY FOR US. WE ALL PITCHED IN SOME MONEY AND I DECIDED TO PIPE UP AND ASK FOR A REALLY PRETTY ROMANTIC PEICE OF MUSIC THAT WAS A LITTLE SAD. SO HE PLAYED SEVERAL TUNES, I DON'T REMEMBER THE NAME OF THEM, SORRY. BUT THEY WERE LOVELY, AND THE WAY THE MUSIC ECHOED AGAINST THE BUILDING ON ON SIDE OF HIM AND WAS LOST INTO THE NIGHT ON THE OTHER SIDE OF HIM WAS QUITE FASCINATING.

THEN TODAY WAS THE FEAST OF OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY. I'M IN THE CHOIR AT TMC, AND FOR THE FEAST DAY THE CHOIR SANG THE AVE MARIS STELLA AND THE GREGORIAN CHANT AVE MARIA. IT WAS WONDERFULLY BEAUTIFUL BEINGA BLE TO SING. I PASSIONATELY LVOE MUSIC, AND IT'S ALL THE BETTER WHEN YOU CAN BE APRT OF IT, BECAUSE- HAVE YOU NITICED- MUSIC THAT IS PLAYED REALLY WELL IS ALIVE? HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT- THAT GOOD MUSIC IS ALIVE? AND THEN WHEN YOU'RE ACTUALLY PART OF THE MUSIC, PART OF YOUR OWN SOUL IS GOING INTO MAKING THAT SOUND BEAUTIFUL, AND IN ITS BEAUTY IS GROWS AND IS ALIVE.

THEN AFTER MASS I HAD NATURAL HISTORY, IN WHICH WE ARE LEARNING DIFFERENT TYPES OF TREES AND BIRDS OF NEW ENGLAND. TODAY OUR TEACHER TOOK US ON A FIELD TRIP TO THE 'GREAT MEADOW NATURAL RESCOURCE'. IT'S A LOVELY PLACE. HE SHOWED US DIFFERENT TREES AND PLANTS, AND THEN GAVE US AN ASSIGNMENT AND WE WERE FREE TO EXPLORE FOR AN HOUR. THIS PHOTO IS VERY LIKE WHAT WE FOUND:

WELL, IT'S BEEN FABULOUS, I MUST SAY. KEEP ME IN YOUR PRAYERS, AND I AM PRAYING FOR ALL OF YOU.

p.s. If you click on the pictures you can see them enitrely. None of the photoes except the religious painting were small enough to fit completely in the space Blogger gives, but if you click on them you can see the complete photo. Also click on the drawing below of Cardinal Newman that was drawn by my Dad!

Gallery II ~ My Dad

2010-10-08T09:53:00.000-07:00

IN THIS SECOND GALLERY POST, I WOULD LIKE TO SHINE THE SPOTLIGHT ON MY DAD, IN HONOR OF HIS BIRTHDAY TO DAY (AND NAME SAINT FEAST DAY LAST THURSDAY, AS I RECALL)...

The drawing above is of Blessed Cardinal Newman, recently beatified by Pope Benedict XVI. It was done with charcoal from a photograph of Cardinal Newman.

Below is an oil painting of St. Bernadette. Dad worked on it for years. My mom and my brothers and I would come down to Dad's studio in the basement after he had spent all night awake painting and study the painting. Sometimes it was hard to tell what he had worked on all night, but other times it quite caught our breath away. my brothers and I refer to this painting as 'Dad's masterpeice'.

My dad has gone and still goes to several art clubs where artists will get together to paint a model. This is one his best from those sessions.

And here is the link to Dad's blog where you can find photoes of some more of his work: http://http://runartist.wordpress.com/

Feel free to comment on my Dad's blog!

Curious Observation

2010-10-03T14:34:00.001-07:00

It has rained everyday this past week, almost non-stop. The only days it did not rain were Wednesday and Saturday. Wednesday was particularly sunny.
Wednesday was the feast of the Archangels, Sts. Raphael, Michael, and Gabriel. (St. Raphael is fantastic, by the way.)
Saturday was the feast of Guardian Angels.

Wisdom Chapter 6

2010-09-27T13:29:00.000-07:00

You can find Wisdom Chapter 6 online here.

Keeping Wisdom's laws->Love-> desire of discipline-> Wisdom -> incorruptibly-> God

Of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, Self-control is the seventh. By self-control of the desire of discipline, we control our tendencies toward sin and keep our desire for goodness pure. As it is explained n chapters 1 ad 4, Wisdom cones to those who are good and pure. It is by love that we persevere in disciplining ourselves, for out of love of God and of what is good and of other people, we restrain ourselves from doing thoughtless and reckless things. Restraining ourselves from doing stupid things, keeping our desires pure, and acting accordingly is nothing less than living by Wisdom's laws. Living thus is living virtuously, which leads to heaven. So by desiring discipline, and keeping that desire alive and pure with love, and living according to it we receive Wisdom, the first of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. In this way we reach heaven where we will be forever united with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Wisdom Chapter 5

2010-09-18T09:23:00.000-07:00

Chapter 5 of Wisdom can be found here.

Although verses 3-15 are told from the point of view of wicked people, it is very truthful. Two things I find particularly insightful:
1) The connection between understanding and God. The minds of the wicked were clouded with sin so that they could not understand why the good were living as they were. As chapter 1 says, sin separates us from God, leaving us without wisdom, for "wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul." (1:4) This makes sense especially if the definition of wisdom is "the taste for goodness" as st. Bernard of Clairveiux said. For if one is in love with sins, one's 'tastes' are so askew that one cannot recognize goodness, and if one did 'taste' goodness, it would seem putrid. Catholic Masses always begin with the confiteor so that we may understand the wisdom spoken to us in the readings and Gospel and the living wisdom within us that is the Eucharist.
2) The lack of legacy. The good people have a legacy without going to any special effort to make a legacy. For when good things are done, they are good because they are done in God who is eternal. The wicked, however, leave no legacy, for there is no life except in God. And God draws even greater good from evil, so that everything that is wicked is eclipsed by God's goodness.
This chapter concludes with the destruction of the unwise, for not only are they unwise, but they are unwise because they are sinful and have rejected God.

Ascent and Prostrate

2010-09-06T16:35:00.000-07:00

While hiking through the mountains as orientation for TMC last week, I thought of how all people seem to have a deep desire to ascend. We desire to strive,to go beyond limits, to soar and be unbonded. Perhaps that's why we climb mountains. It's like the mentality of the Tower of Babel wasn't just those people at that time. It is all of us always. And we are constantly building little Towers of Babel in our lives to be like ladders to carry us up. I think God has implanted this desire in us, as something curiously human, something to take us up to heaven where all that is human will be fulfilled in His magnificent glory. This desire then is a good and pure passion, and it drives us to seek purification and ascention from all that is muddied with sin and evilness. If sin is the lack of good, then sinning is lacking goodness. And if we are made to BE good, then sinning is ceasing, to some degree, to BE. Every time we sin we die a little.

Then during Mass that evening, kneeling on rock, it occured to me that it is when we lower ourselves that we become most human. It is when we cast ourselves down that we are entirely human, for it is then that everything in us in univocally in accord with what we are: lowly, helpless creatures before our awesome God. I think of when the priest prostrates himself at the Tres Ores on Good Friday- that is the true image of humanity. And every Tridentine Mass begins with the priest kneeling and begging God for forgiveness and to accept his prayers. And when we confess out sins, and when we recieve Christ in the Eucharist, we kneel.

It is when we cast ourselves down, accepting the patheticness of our fallen human state that God can elevate us. Only Christ could ascend, for He is God. Even the sinless Virgin Mary was carried into heaven- assumed. We cannot take ourselves up, but we can humble ourselves to accept God's help. So when we truly and sincerely cast ourselves down before God, kneel with all our hearts, and admit of the burden of our sins and our flaws- then God can lift our flaws and carry us up to Himself.

The next day I was really tired, and it was an even bigger mountain we were climbing, and then we had to climb all the way back down again, so my prayer was, "Lord what strength I have is in You. Carry me up, then help me back down again."

Wisdom Chapter 4

2010-09-04T05:09:00.000-07:00

Chapter 4 of Wisdom can be found here.

I find it very interesting that it is in matters of chastity that the good prove their goodness and in death that the good are blessed. Humans have a spectacularly deep longing for union, given to us by God so that we will thirst for Him and seek Him. The ultimate union is between God and us in heaven. God gives us Himself to unite us to Himself on earth in the Eucharist.
And He gives union with friends, parents, sibling, and primarily with one's spouse to be like peices of heaven on earth so that we can help each other get to heaven. It is in living virtuously in these unions that we attain to the Ultimate Union, so that our passage to God - death - becomes a blessed thing. But those who distort and pervert the God-given unions with family and spouse defile themselves so that they cannot enter into the Ultimate Union with God forever in heaven. So it is very imprtant to be chaste; for as verse 11 and 12 say, perversion changes one's understanding so taht one's mind is twisted. Jesus said, "Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God." (St. Matthew 5:8)

A good bye post

2010-08-23T17:17:00.000-07:00

For many years she has been my sister. But she still is, but she is going of to college. I will be missing her. It is kinda cool that I get her room; I won't be sleeping in the living room any more. But on the other hand I won't have some one to pick on (only for fun). Elisabeth is awesome because of her points on everything. She looks on all sides of thing and is a big help. Life for me will be a bit more boring without her because of the positive attitude (usually). The logic I must say is a little annoying, but it is cool that she is so smart. When summer break comes around again, life will feel a bit more whole, I guess. That's the best way I can put it.

christopher

Playlists galore!

2010-08-23T17:03:00.000-07:00

OK. So I'm leaving in two days. And I have been working on compiling two more playlists. The first is the one I promised about a bazillion years ago of all the music I was dancing and writing to that I could find on playlist.com. The other is this insane conglomeration of insanity. Please don't define me by what you hear on it. Just enjoy it, laugh at me, and fast forward the songs you don't like. Neither of these two new playlists are on autostart, but the original cogito et scribo list is. So if you want to change, scroll down, turn off cogito et scribo and turn on the list you want.

Packing

2010-08-18T17:36:00.000-07:00

This is driving me insane; I am really really busy, and as much as I love it, it's driving me nuts. But it's still kind of adventurous, I guess. I can't figure out what my emotions are, or should be, except for sadness at leaving my friends- the two dearest most wondrous people in the universe.

And my thoughts are so overwhelmed trying to comprehend what it means to be going out of state for college that sometimes I find my brain freezing up with simple questions like 'how many wash cloths did I just put in my suitcase ten seconds ago?'

It's all so crazy. I feel like maybe I should be ecstatic about this. But I'm not really...

Honestly, I can only take so much. Packing just wears me out because of all it means. I don't know. Just pray for me.

But underneath all that, I am truly very happy. I love finding the truth, and I know this is what is good for me, what God wants for me. I've prayed about this a lot. Please keep me in your prayers.

Wisdom Chaper 3

2010-08-13T09:47:00.000-07:00

Here are my thoughts on the 3rd chapter of Wisdom, which can be found here.

Picking up where the last chapter left off with speaking of the good man's martyrdom, this chapter begins by showing that death is not a miserable thing for good people. While chapter 2 begins with evil people's despair at death, chapter 3 begins with how the good need not fear death at all; in fact, for the good, death is good.

Tolkien writes of death in the Silmarillion, chapter 1:
"It is one with this gift of freedom that t he children of Men dwell only a short space int eh world alive, and are not bound to it, and depart soon [...] But the sons of Men die indeed, and leave the world [...]. Death is their fate, the gift of Iluvatar [...] But Melkor (the most evil god) has cast his shadow upon it, and confounded it with darkness, and brought forth evil out of good, and fear out of hope."

Verse 9 is very insightful of human nature and how humans react to God. There is a definite connection between understanding truth and trusting God; the more one trusts what God has revealed and trusts Him rather than questioning everything, the more one can learn and discover the answers to the questions we all naturally have about what God has revealed to us. And loyalty in love definitely leads to rest, not just in love of God but in all relationships. For the more and the longer one loves, the more that love becomes a habit and part of one's essence. Such love is stable and persevering; the loved one can rest in its certainty.

The wicked shall be punished by their own devices. For sin involves a selfish turning inward of one's focus; so the consequences of sin fall like a poorly built structure collapsing in on itself. Those who believe in abortion and contraception will probably be defeated, if by nothing else, than by there eventually being no one left alive to continue their side of the war.

The rest of the chapter states the consequences of rejecting wisdom. Basically, without wisdom, you're life will be pathetic. Wisdom, with discipline, gives happiness. It makes your hope worthwhile, your labors fruitful, and your words profitable. So with wisdom, your thoughts, words and actions have merit.

Wisdom Chapter 2

2010-08-01T09:21:00.000-07:00

Here are my thoughts on the second chapter of Wisdom, which can be found online here.

Here is summarized the mentality of wicked people. Whether or not the righteous man really is disgusted by them, the wicked people perceive disgust. The wicked seek to avoid the truth. People who do not live in accord with the truth naturally want to avoid it and are even afraid of it because the truth necessitates reform, which means admits one's deeds are sinful and then not sinning. The righteous, as disgusted as they may act toward the wicked, are still a painful contradiction to all the wicked tell themselves is true. So the wicked wish to exterminate the righteous. As if by exterminating the ones who live by the truth they may exterminate the truth. It seems that in many complicated situations if one wants to know the truth, one has only to look to those who have been killed.

The photos are of Blessed Miguel Pro's martyrdom.

What is Wisdom?

2010-07-30T10:27:00.000-07:00

A priest at my church gave a homily several weeks ago in which he said that someone had said wisdom was the taste for goodness. That phrase got locked in my brain and now I'm searching for the original definition and who originally said it.
What I have found is Old Testament-St. David, St. Augustine, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and a lot of common sense wisdom from my mother. You can read the full article here. The specific words I googled are high-lighted.
St. David says in Psalm 118:66: "Teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge." After reading the book of Wisdom by David's son Solomon, I think those three things pretty much sum up what wisdom is. Wisdom, being a good thing, naturally has goodness as a part of it. Discipline, as is explained in chapter 6 of the Book of Wisdom, leads to Wisdom and it helps us to be willing to follow Wisdom's laws, which leads us to heaven, our final destination. From the beginning of recorded thought, with Socrates and Aristotle and what not, Wisdom has been seen as a step up from knowledge, thought different philosophers have defined this 'step up' differently. My mother has said that the step up is the ability to use knowledge for the good of other people. I think my mother is very close to the truth; her idea combines all three elements stated by David: knowledge- a thing of our intellects, put into our action- that would entail discipline, for the good of others.
St. Augustine and St. Bernard of Clairvaux give some sensory language to their understanding of what wisdom is. The version of the Bible which St. Augustine used had the word 'sweetness' instead of 'goodness' in Psalm 118:66. So St. Augustine read 'Teach me sweetness...' From this he realized the necessity of experiencing the sweetness of Christ before being able to handle the hardships of following Christ. My mother often compared the spiritual adventure to God handing us a bowl of candy. Day by day He removes more of the candy till there is an empty bowl; that is when He asks us to follow Him for His sake, that our love be purely centered on Him and not on anything else. St. Bernard of Clairvaux adds to this concept when he says, "where there is love there is found not labor but flavor." St. Bernard sees wisdom as that which makes the journey sweet and makes the soul able to taste what it is meant to taste. "When wisdom enters it renders dull the carnal sense, purifies the intellect, heals and restores the palate of the heart. So that now, having a healthy palate, it has a taste for the good." This makes a tone of sense when considered in the light of how Christ compared heaven to a feast and in the light of the Eucharist.

"To taste and see that the Lord is sweet- that is wisdom." So wrote St. Bernard. So wisdom then is a taste for what is good (for the Lord is the ultimate good) (When Plato wrote of The Good, he had a beginning grip of the concept of one, benevolent God.) Let us complete this view of wisdom, which looks on wisdom in terms of taste, by seeing how knowledge and discipline fit in.
Knowledge fits in if it is the right kind of knowledge. The right kind would be that which leads us to the Lord and so helps us to reach that for which we hunger and thirst. In the Litany of the Holy Spirit, one line is "Holy Spirit, grant us the only necessary knowledge." (Wisdom, btw, is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.) St. Bernard wrote: "[The milk of contemplative prayer is better] than the wine of worldly knowledge which, to be sure, is inebriating, but with curiosity, not with charity. It fills us up but does not nourish; it puffs up but does not edify, it replenishes but gives no strength."
Discipline fits in because it is through discipline that we persevere and trust in our spiritual adventure. Discipline gives us the strength to keep going and to realize, beyond our pain, that it is sweet to seek for the Lord. Discipline gives us the ability to not question but to trust the Lord to lead us to Himself. If we can discipline our rebellion and our impatience and our curiosity to know about everything now, then we can persevere till death.

Wisdom Chapter 1

2010-07-22T10:10:00.000-07:00

My spiritual director suggested I read from the Bible every morning. So I have been, kind of. Anyway, after I read I write my thoughts, and I thought I might share them.
So here is the link to chapter 1, Douay-Rheims translation.
And here are my thoughts on Wisdom Chapter 1:

There is discord between what is good, simple, and alive and what is evil, complex, and seeking death. The first part of this chapter speaks of how people who are good and simple are aided by God. Simplicity is often considered a sign of foolishness, yet in the context of serving God (and not one's self) it is good. It makes on e open to Him and willing to accept Him and admit we need Him.
The second part is all about the corruption of the unjust and how God does not help them. God is almost too polite, the way He lets us push Him away. But that's how love is - it accepts and knows when it is unaccepted.
Finally, this chapter speaks of destruction versus how God made us to exist. It often takes incredible strength to be OK with existing, and again simplicity helps. Sometimes the answers to life's questions seem too simple or short, and it feels like one must keep looking for more, but that only adds unwanted complications. It takes resignation to be simple, because it means being more reliant on God. But as the first part of the chapter says, it is with simplicity that we find God and in simplicity that He aids us.

The Joys of Having a Best Friend

2010-07-13T07:20:00.001-07:00

A while back I did a really sarcastic post called the joys of college. But this is a for real post:

The Joys of Having a Best Friend

Dedicated to 'Ardhoniel' on her return from camp

When there's no one to talk to, there is your best friend.
When you're wishing someone would remember you and do something to show they care,
when you least expect it, your best friend does something incredibly sweet.
When you wish you weren't so alone, your best friend calls.
When no one seems to care to listen, your best friend does;
even if she doesn't give a darn about what you're saying,
she listens because she is your best friend.
When you want desperately to be able to have someone to love,
to dedicate all your life and energy to, there is your best friend.
When you desire a companion, and when you desire to be a companion,
through thick and thin, she is there.
When your life seems hollow and meaningless, she is there to give to.
When there are words to write, but no one to write them for, she is there.
When there are posts to type, but no one to type for, she is there.
When there are prayers to be prayed, but no one to pray for, she is there.
When there are tears to shed, but no one to shed them for, she is there.
When there is laughter, but no one one to laugh for, she is there.
When you want a reason to run and there's no one to run for, she is there; and even though it's really hot out and you're going down a highway you can run because she is finally home from camp and she's so contagiously happy!

Ethos and Eros

2010-06-21T07:40:00.000-07:00

I have 20 minutes before my apointment for internet is over; I'm at the library since the internet at home crashed. ok, 19 minutes now. Here's what I have to share with you:

Ethos and Eros are two types of love. Love, as I've said before, is wanting the best for someone and being willing to sacrifice to give that person the best.

Ethos. Jesus tells us to love our enemies. But who the heck wants to sacrifice for an enemy? This is when we need God. He loves all of His creatures, and we can only love those who are hard to love when we love with His love. God's love for us and our love of God is called agape. When we let agape spill out of us and share it with our fellow-humans, that is ethos. Ethos should be at the foundation of every relationship, from spouse to annoying naighbor (but don't look to me as an example of it).

Eros. This is the love between lovers and spouses. With this love the two aspire to God. I think it is like when you touch the one you love you are both reaching out together and touching God. Eros can get pretty darn perverted when it does not have agape as its example and ethos as its foundation,so it must be fused with agape. (Again, don't look to me as an example.)

So I am posting this to encourage myself and all of you to find love in God and so love others with the love of God. I pray we all are in heaven together someday where all the labours of loving our neighbors and (as of now future) spouses will be fulfilled in the satisfying overwhelming love of God. For ethos and eros are both like stairs to climb. Their foundation is agape and they reach to agape.

For more on this, read Deus Caritas Est by Pope Benedict XVI and The Love that Satisfies by Christopher West.
Hope you liked this post!

Truth 2- Post in progress

2010-04-26T16:09:00.000-07:00

1 Two types of truth and their relation to each other:
In a post I did back on December 2, 2009, I talked about how truth is the correspondence of reason and reality. There 2 types of truth: truths of reason and truths of faith. Both are reasonable. The difference is that the first WE can figure out with our reasons, the second we can't figure out with our reasons, so we have to take them by faith. They follow God's reasoning. Also, one helps the other. The Catechism talks about the relationship between these types of truth in paragraph #158:

"Faith seeks understanding":³³ it is intrinsic to faith that a believer desires to know better the One in whom he has put his faith, and to understand better what He has revealed; a more penetrating knowledge will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love. The grace of faith opens "the eyes of your hearts"³⁴ to a lively understanding of the contents of Revelation: that is, of the totality of God's plan and the mysteries of faith, of their connection with each other and with Christ, the center of the revealed mystery. "The same Holy Spirit constantly perfects faith by his gifts, so that Revelation may be more and more profoundly understood."³⁵ In the words of St. Augustine, "I believe, in order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe."36

33 St. Anselm, Prosl. prooem.:PL 153,225A.
34 Eph 1:18.
35 DV 5.
36 St. Augustine, Sermo 43,7,9:PL 38,257-258.

So reason helps faith and faith helps reason.
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2 Difficulty of Finding Truths of Reason
(This is from Humanis Generis by Pope Pius x11 which is quoted in the Catechism here.)
Truths of Reason are not easy to discover. The Truths of reason that have to do with God and His relationship to us are particularly hard for three main reasons, as Pope Pius XII says in his encyclical Humani Generis:

"Though human reason is, strictly speaking, truly capable by its own natural power and light of attaining to a true and certain knowledge of the one personal God, who watches over and controls the world by his providence, and of the natural law written in our hearts by the Creator; yet there are many obstacles which prevent reason from the effective and fruitful use of this inborn faculty. For the truths that concern the relations between God and man wholly transcend the visible order of things."

1. These truths cannot be sensed. Jesus was present on earth about 2000 years ago, and the Eucharist is present with us now, but none of this makes any sense (no pun intended) if you do not even believe in a God. And the existence of God and His relationship to us is not something we can sense.

"If they [these truths of reason about God and His relation to us] are translated into human action and influence it, they call for self-surrender and abnegation."

2. They demand self-surrender and self-sacrifice. Having a God means having someone you have to bow to. And many if not all people do not like, in fact, detest, bowing to anyone (Example #1: me).

"The human mind, in its turn, is hampered in the attaining of such truths, not only by the impact of the senses and the imagination, but also by disordered appetites which are the consequences of original sin."

3. Senses, imagination, and evil passions have a tendency to get in the way of the reason. An example of how the senses get in the way is the man in Letter 1 of Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis. On the verge of a spiritual discovery, the man is driven by 'his demon' and hunger out of where he thinking into the street, where he sets aside his thoughts as silly compared to what he senses, which he calls "real life". An example of imagination getting in the way is me during Speech class last semester. An example of evil passions getting in the way is how sins against purity especially cloud the mind. "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God." ~St. Matthew 5:8 (Douay-Rheims Bible)

"So it happens that men in such matters easily persuade themselves that what they would not like to be true is false or at least doubtful."

3 Truth and Truthfulness
Truth, in the strict sense, is a concept in our intellects. We can't see it or hear it or taste truth (We can see and hear things which are true, for example, reading the Bible or catechism, and we can taste something that is true, for example, the Eucharist, but we can not see, hear, or taste truth, just things that are true.). Rather than sensing truth, we understand truth with our intellects via reason and faith. 'God is the Truth' refers to truth's utter source Who IS the very things of which He is the source. For example, "My words are true."
Truthfulness is the quality of being true. It is when one's actions, especially one's words, line up with what is true. For example, "I am being truthful."

"To be truthful is to act and think in agreement with what is reasonable and real, especially by not misrepresenting reality in our words."~ From the essay I wrote- 'Rediscovering Love' for TMC's Faith and Reason Essay Scholarship.

Our understanding of truth has meaning and fulfillment when our lives are truthful.
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4 Relationship of Truth and Intellect
While part 1 classified 2 types of truth by their source, there are three ways to classify truth by its relationship to the intellect. The intellect is the reason. It is the faculty of the mind which thinks; it is the part I am using now, even though it is 12:30 am. So, the three types of truth according to relationship to intellect (quotes from Pocket Catholic Dictionary by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., definition of Truth):

Logical Truth:

"In logical truth, the mind is conformed or in agreement with things outside of the mind, either in assenting to what is or in denying what is not. Its opposite is error."

When the mind is in tune with what is outside of it. When we know what is and know what isn't and accept that as true. The opposite is error, when a person is mistaken about what is or isn't. For Example, it is logically true that you are reading this. It is an error that you are not on a computer.

Metaphysical Truth:

In metaphysical or ontological truth, things conform with the mind. This in primary conformity, when something corresponds to the idea of its maker, and it is secondary conformity when something in intelligible and therefore true to anyone who knows it.

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that deals with first causes and sources. So metaphysical truth has to to do with things according tot heir source. When the things outside of the mind conform to the mind. This happens on two levels: 1) When something matches up to the idea of its maker (its maker is its source). 2) When something is understandable, so it is true to anyone who knows it. When the reality of what is made makes sense to someone's reason: a correspondence of reality and reason. For Example, this post is metaphysically true because it is turning out according to my plan. It is metaphysically true to you if you can understand it.

Moral Truth:

In moral truth, what is said conforms with what is on one's mind. This is truthfulness and its opposite is falsehood.

When what we say matches what we are thinking. This is truthfulness. the opposite is falsehood, when you tell a lie. For Example, this post is morally true because it aligns with what I believe.

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5 Two Properties/Qualities of Truth:
(I think 'properties' is the right word).
Truth is Universal. That means that no matter where you are, from on the computer reading this post to on the 10,056th planet, what's true is true.
Truth is Eternal. That means that no matter when you lived, from today to the year 10,056, what's true is true.
These properties are a big help when it comes to sharing the truth. The truth is the easiest thing to communicate because while things like status and historical era and culture are different for people, the truth is not different and it does not change.
These properties of universal and eternal are evident in this quote:

"Truth, by enabling men and women to let go of their subjective opinions and impressions, allows them to move beyond cultural and historical limitations to come together in the assessment of the value and substance of things. Truth opens and unites our minds in the 'logos' of love: this is the Christian proclamation and testimony of charity." ~Introduction to 'Caritas in Veritate' by Pope Benedict XVI

Truth allows us to move beyond cultural and historical limitations. Because Truth is beyond those limitations. Because truth is not a human invention. It is divine. God is the Truth.
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6 Truth's Universality and Eternity as shown by the Intellect
In other words, the relationship between the two properties of truth and the strict sense of truth as a concept in the intellect (which we know via faith and reason).

So the concept of truth is in our intellects, and with that in mind we can see that if there seems to be change in truth, it is not in the truth itself, but in the intellect.
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in the Summa Theologica, in answer to the question

7 Relativity and Truth
Now, there is a screwy idea out there that truth is when two people agree on something. That is watering truth down so that it is the slave of perception. Say two color- blind people looked at my blog and thought the themes were pink or green, but the truth would be that it's mostly brown. Or consider back when people thought the world was flat. Plenty of people agreed that it was flat, but that didn't make it true that it was flat. The world is round is round is round. Truth doesn't change just because we don't know what is true.
Truth doesn't change? Really? Well, what about the truth that I'm typing right now. In half an hour that will change to I am eating dinner. But it is still and will always be true for all people in all ages that at 7:37pm on April 26 2010 the person known as philosopher was typing a brainstorm post about truth on her blog, 'Cogito et Scribo'.

Arf

2010-04-20T08:29:00.000-07:00

Hi again; I'm sorry I haven't been blogging lately. I just can't get anything of the things I want to blog about into sentences. But anyway, I do have one thing to share.
See, I work at the library, and while I was straightening up the library for closing I found this scrap of paper which some kid had scribbled on. Maybe I'm kind of weird, but I thought the cartoon was really cute (I hate that word, but that's the best word to describe it), so I took it home and photographed it and here it is:

Bit of Poetic Prose

2010-04-12T13:02:00.000-07:00

Speaking of how a poet and philosopher are alike, here is a bit of poetic prose written by 'philosopher', yours truly, for my friend, about seeing the ocean last month:

The ocean was just how I had imagined it. It was grey-green, and everywhere slivers of land were running down and slipping away into it. It rippled and lapped like a music from a memory, as peaceful as if it were always like that and would be like that for ever and ever. Cold rain dripped down everywhere, and a chill wind shivered in the air, but the ocean remained calm,
melodious.

Photos are by my brother; is he good with a camera or what?

Thomas More College

2010-03-25T07:40:00.000-07:00

Well, guess who got accepted to Thomas More College last month? And whose essay for T.M. C.'s Faith and Reason essay contest won them quite a large piece of their tuition covered?

Those who want to can spend two weeks in Oxford...

All Full Time students spend one semester of their sophomore year in Rome...

Here is the link to Thomas More College's website, where I got these photos.

Please pray for me that everything continues to work out as well as it has so far.

Why the Catholic Church Has No Women Priests

2010-03-06T14:22:00.000-08:00

That is the name of a speech I wrote for the speech class I am taking. I think it came out well, and since it is such an often asked question, I thought I'd type here the answer I gave in my speech:

A question about the Catholic Church that has come up in recent times is why the Catholic Church does not ordain women priests. The Church is often considered sexist for this. I researched the writing of Pope John Paul II, who was Pope from 1978 to 2005. His Address to General Audiences on July 27, 1994 and his Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis especially discuss this question.

I think this question needs to be addressed because just as we need to know what is going on politically, we should also know what is happening when it comes to religion. Whether we belong to one religion or another, or even believe in a God at all, we all come in contact with people of many beliefs everyday. By knowing what is going on religiously, especially in such a big and often controversial religion as the Catholic Church, we can know what beliefs are effecting people we come in contact with, and so we can better understand how their beliefs will effect us. So, in this speech -blog post-, I will explain the Catholic Church's reasons for not ordaining women priests and then I will explain why this is not sexist.

The reason, essentially, is that Jesus did not chose any women to be Apostles. The apostles were the twelve followers which Christ specifically chose. At the Last Supper Jesus gave the Apostles the power of celebrating the Eucharist in His name. After His resurrection He gave them the power of forgiving sins. Jesus also gave His Apostles the mission of evangelization. Celebrating the Eucharist, forgiving sins, and evangelization are the essence of the priesthood. So Jesus gave the powers of priesthood to the Apostles, who were all men, and to no one else.

The Church has no power to change what Jesus did. Rather, the Church has the mission of continuing and spreading what Christ did. So since Jesus only gave the priesthood to men, then the Church does likewise, preserving what Jesus did. The priest continues what Christ did by representing Christ to the people. As Christ is a man, so must the priest be.

Jesus was not sexist in choosing only men, nor was He forced to choose only men because of the mentality toward women at His time. I found out from a Jewish friend that there was at Christ's time a group of men call the 'Essenes' who lived in the dessert and thought that it was impure to associate with women. Jesus went against this and any such view of women by allowing and welcoming women to follow Him. He talked openly with women, and even stood up for an adulteress against the people who would have killed her for adultery. God also chose to honor a woman above all His creation by giving this woman, Mary, the distinction of being the Mother of Christ and caring for Jesus as He grew up. Mothers have this added honor of being like Mary, hte Mother of God. So Jesus did not deny women anything, but gave them a differnt role.

That is why hte Catholic Church has no women priests. Ina nutshell, Jesus chose only men to give the priesthood to. Because of how Jesus was against distorted views of women, we know He made this choice freely. And the Church continues what Jesus did.

ART IV ~ The Problem of the Artist

2010-02-19T06:58:00.000-08:00

So far I have stupidly left out a huge piece of art: the artist. So, I shall discuss the artist, using the Catechism of the Catholic Church as my guide. So, once again, let's read CCC 2501:

Created "in the image of God," man also expresses the truth of his relationship with God the Creator by the beauty of his artistic works. Indeed, art is a distinctively human form of expression; beyond the search for the necessities of life which is common to all living creatures, art is a freely given superabundance of the human being's inner riches. Arising from talent given by the Creator and from man's own effort, art is a form of practical wisdom, uniting knowledge and skill, to give form to the truth of reality in a language accessible to sight or hearing. To the extent that it is inspired by truth and love of beings, art bears a certain likeness to God's activity in what he has created. Like any other human activity, art is not an absolute end in itself, but is ordered to and ennobled by the ultimate end of man.

Let's analyze this, breaking it down sentence by sentence...
1. Man is created in God's image; he expresses that in the beauty of art.
2. Art is specifically a human endeavor; it is a generous expression of the riches in a human.
3. Art arises from talent and effort, and it unites knowledge and skill in a form of practical wisdom for the purpose of giving form to the truth of reality in languages that we can see and hear.
4. As it is inspired by truth and love of beings, it is like God's creating.
5. Like anything else human, it is not an end, but it has order and nobleness from the end of man.

As you can see, there are some very important connections being formed here. First let's consider the one stated in sentences One and Four: 1. That man's making art is like God's creating man 2. because both are inspired by truth and love of beings, and 3. that this relationship is expressed in the beauty of art.

Adam in the Garden of Eden

1. Man's making art is like God's creating man- we are created in God's image, and the art that we make somehow reflects us. An effect always is similar to its source, or cause, because it has nothing of its own but what came from the cause. Even when an artist says a painting took on a life of its own, the painting is still coming form the artist, just in very unexpected and surprising ways.

Painting by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel, showing God creating Adam

2. Both God's creating and man's making art are inspired by truth and love of beings- Love naturally spreads to include more and more people, which is evident in how a family begins as man and wife and spreads to include children. God did not need to create anything, but being love, He wanted to extend love to more beings. as the Catechism says in paragraph 1, "God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life." God's love for us, and the truth of His love, and the Truth which God gives us because He loves us continues and will continue for all time; that is "God's activity in what He has created." Art comes, more or less, from the artist's observation of truth within or outside of himself, and for love of some being. This calls to mind two quotes from the Introduction of Caritas in Veritate by Pope Benedict XVI: 1. "love and truth never abandon them (all people) completely, because these are the vocation planned by God in the heart and mind of every human person." 2. "Truth should be loved and demonstrated."

Painting by Jack Hayes of Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel

3. This relation is expressed by the beauty of art- As we said in 'ART III~ The Problem of Beauty', the more a things is beautiful, whether in a sensual or intellectual way, the more a thing is like God, who is the most beautiful. So it is in the beautifulness of art that the viewer, or audience, can grasp the profound relationship he, the artist, and all people have with God. It is through beauty that lies one of the clearest ways of leading our thoughts to God. God directly manifests Himself in the beauty of creation (also discussed in 'The Problem of Beauty'). People directly and indirectly, intentionally and unintentionally, manifest their Creator and their relationship to Him in art.
Then it seems that when art does not reflect this relationship in a good way, but rather distorts it and mocks it, it is a great sin. For the relationship between man and God is sacred.

Lucifer by Jackson Pollock

Further posts concerning sentences 2, 3, and 5 are on the way!

Gallery I ~Ikons

2010-02-16T07:05:00.000-08:00

I'm not just going to talk to you about art; I am going to show you some art. So here is the first Gallery post; subject matter: Ikons.

ART III ~The Problem of Beauty

2010-02-10T06:03:00.000-08:00

There are two posts already on my blog that deal directly with art: 'What is Art?' and 'Art Is.....?' I am now going to continue my discussions of art, dealing with this question: in the first post I said, "Beauty and Truth are far from always agreeing. But in art they are shown as sisters." Then, in my second post I had a huge quote from the CCC, and one of the things it says is: "Truth is beautiful in itself." The problem is, are truth and beauty opposed or is truth beautiful in itself?
As always, the best place to start is to define our terms. Truth is a correspondence of reason and reality. Beauty is... And this is where we run into problems. As we all may attest, I am sure, the wonders of creation lead us to consider the greater wondrousness of the Creator.

3 [...]let them know how much the Lord of them (fire, wind, stars, the sun, etc.) is more beautiful than they: for the first author of beauty made all those things. 4 Or if they admired their power and their effects, let them understand by them, that he that made them, is mightier than they: 5 For by the greatness of the beauty, and of the creature, the creator of them may be seen, so as to be known thereby. ~Wisdom 13:3-5

And that is the closest thing I know to an actual definition of 'beauty'.
So, beauty was made by God with the purpose of showing by it His own beauty, and so reveal Himself. In human works, beauty has the mission of showing some truth. In creation, beauty has the mission of showing the Truth.
We observe beauty through two things: the mind and the senses. As it says in the definition of beauty at dictionary.com, 'The quality that gives pleasure to the mind or senses and is associated with such properties as harmony of form or color, excellence of artistry, truthfulness, and originality.' (emphasis added) This is where the whole problem of defining beauty comes up, I think. Because when we think of what is beautiful, we tend to think of things like this:

Or like this: Rapsodia Romania (op.2) by George Enescu
These are all beauties that reach to the senses, and can lead us higher than the senses ever will be able to. It was in thinking of these sensual beauties only that I wrote that beauty and truth were often opposed. I was thinking along the lines of, 'A lie may sound perfectly marvelous, but it isn't true. It may be true that someone is dead, but that isn't beautiful.' And so I cam e to the conclusion that beauty and truth are often opposed. If the only sort of beauties that existed were the sensual kind, then I am right.
However, there are also things which are beautiful, and whose beauty only the intellect can grasp, things which may even repel the senses. For example, suffering and death. How can they beautiful? Although it seems almost impossible to see these as beautiful, they are, because they can lead one closer to God.
As the senses have 5 faculties, so the mind has 5. One of these is the intellect, which has the ability to sense what is beautiful, even of the senses cannot or will not. Consider again the definition from dictionary.com: 'The quality that gives pleasure to the mind or senses and is associated with such properties as harmony of form or color, excellence of artistry, truthfulness, and originality.' (emphasis added) One cannot see, hear, taste, feel, or smell truthfulness. But one can sense when what they see, hear, or feel is true- with the intellect's sense for what is good, true and beautiful.
So, now that we have explored what beauty is and how truth and beauty can be opposed of one is only thinking of sensual beauties, let us find how they correspond, when thinking of both sensual and intellectual beauties.
As Wisdom 13:3-5 shows us, sensual beauties that are created by God, such as fire,wind, stars, and the sun, can and should lead us to God. Thus they correspond to Truth. Sensual beauties made by man- clothes, paintings, sculptures- are an imitations of the created; others like photos and videos are ways of holding the created from the changes of time. These can lead us, indirectly, to the Creator. The purer they are of sin, the more they do this.
Intellectual beauties, both created and made, correspond with truth and the Truth because God is beautiful. We know God is beautiful because, as said in Wisdom 13:3-5, the beauties of earth reflect that. If He were not beautiful, He would not be able to have made anything beautiful. Also, all that is the best is in Him, so if there is beauty in creation (there is), then He is the most beautiful (He is). (There is a slight distinction I will make before going on: the beauties of the earth are a means for us to reach Him, mentally and actually. The beauty of God is an end to be contemplated and enjoyed here and forever in heaven.)
Now, God is beautiful and God is Truth. As He is all perfect, there cannot be anything contradicting in Him, so his beauty and Truth must perfectly be in agreement. Thus, the Truth is in itself beautiful. Going down now in thought, from greatest to least, we may conclude that the more a thing is like God, the more it is true, the more it is beautiful, and the more these two qualities agree and compliment each other. And the less a thing is like God, the more sinful and low, the less it is true and beautiful, and the less these agree.
Specifically, on the example I gave of an intellectual beauty- death. Death is the way that, because of sin, we have to pass through to get to heaven. But the end of all things, God, has purified and made holy our only means of actually reaching and being with Him eternally in His full glory. So, death not only has beauty in that is a way to the greatest beauty; it now is a beauty in itself, a sanctified way, and when we go through it we are following in the footsteps of God.
Finally, if even death, the greatest effect of sin- ugliness and lies- can and has been sanctified and so made good and holy and true and beautiful, then we can know that truth and beauty are not opposed. When they seem opposed, it is probably because one of them is either lacking or impure, or our senses intellects are dulled and warped by sin and so we cannot see or think correctly.
And now, I big thanks to you, my reader, for having read that humongously long post!

Divine Love

2010-01-29T13:44:00.000-08:00

"To every existing thing God wills some good. Hence, since to love any thing is nothing else than to will good to that thing, it is manifest that God loves everything that exists" ~St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

.......As Fr. Hardon puts is, love is "to will good to someone." (Pocket Catholic Dictionary, definition of 'Love')
.......Pope Benedict elaborates further as he says in the Introduction of Caritas in Veritate, "To love someone is to desire that person's good and to take effective steps to secure it."
.......So God loves us and thus wills good to us and wants to give us that good. What is the best for us? Nothing less than God's love. Because God loves us he wants what is best for us, and what is best for us is His love, so He loves us, so He wants the best for us... Divine love is both the gift and the reason for giving. Moreover, it is the giver Himself.
.......In the light of this, all love between humans falls into place as a reflection of God's love. Human love is inspired by Divine love. "All people feel the interior impulse to love authentically." (Pope Benedict XVI, Introduction to Caritas in Veritate). Not only do people naturally want to love in response to the love of God, it is our mission to love. "As the objects of God's love, men and women become subjects of charity; they are called to make themselves instruments of grace so as to pour forth God's charity and to weave networks of charity." (Pope Benedict XVI, Introduction to Caritas in Veritate)
.......A proverb states, "Love elicits a response." So God's love elicits two responses: the one above, that we love one another and that we love Him. It is only by loving God and being open to the love He wishes to pour upon us (and that we need) that we are able to fully love others. For often, our love falls short. It is not enough. By opening ourselves to God's love, we can think, say, and do what is needed with love, though it is not our own. Consider this passage from The Jeweler's Shop by Pope John Paul II in which one of the characters is speaking of the marriage of a friend which had almost completely broken and is now slowly recovering:

"The cause lies in the past. The error resides simply there . The thing is that love carries people away like an absolute, although it lacks absolute dimensions. But acting under illusion, they do not try to connect that love with the Love that has such dimensions. They do not even feel the need, blinded as they are not so much by the force of their emotions as by lack of humility. They lack humility toward what love must be in its true essence. The more aware they are of it, the smaller the danger. Otherwise the danger is great: love will not stand the pressure of reality."

And the more we are open to God's love, the more our own grows. Because of God's love, we can transcend our weaknesses. God's love gives us the opportunity for an eternity in heaven, so it gives us a purpose for living now. "Love is God's greatest gift to humanity, it is his promise and our hope" (Pope Benedict XVI, Introduction to Caritas in Veritate)

"Charity is love received and given. It is "grace" (charis). Its source is the wellspring of the Father's love for the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Love comes down to us from the Son. it is Creative love, through which we have our being; it is redemptive love, through which we are recreated. Love is revealed and made present by Christ (cf. John 13:1) and "poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit" (Rom 5:5)."
(Pope Benedict XVI, Introduction to Caritas in Veritate)

.......To consider further what love is, I have compiled this list of what charity is and is not, according to Bishop Fulton J. Sheen's' essay entitled Charity:

Charity
IS NOT...........................................IS
In emotions.................................In the will
Spasmodic....................Habit, Commandable
Contract..................................Relationship
From man or ................Supernatural, from God
anything sensual.........................................................
Picky about who ........................Wills to love
deserves to be loved...........everyone for God's sake
Isolated, countable acts................................Good habit
Occasionally good..................Growing and eternal virtue
A contract.............................A supernatural relationship
.......................................with God and neighbor
According to merit.................Loves the sinner,
..........................................hates the sin
Changed by ...........................................Eternal
and with time............................................................

.......The best place to learn what Love is is in the Bible, especially St. Paul's passage in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. My advice when you read it is, 'Since you have probably heard this a hundred times before, try to read it now with fresh ears and an inquisitive mind.'
.......Let us now conclude this discussion of Divine Love with another quote from The Jeweler's Shop:

...."Sometimes human love seems too short for love. At other times it is, however, the other way around: human love seems too short in relation to existence-or rather, too trivial. At any rate, every person has at his disposal an existance and a Love. The problem is: Hos to build a sensible structuree from it?
....But this structure must never be inward-looking. It must be open in such a way that on the one hand it embraces other people, whole on the other it always reflects the absolute Existence and Love; it must always, in some way, reflect them."

All Virtues Essentially Come From Love

2010-01-16T18:03:00.000-08:00

All virtues come from love. We can know this for two reasons:
1. God is Love, and God is the source of all things. Everything which comes directly from Him thus directly comes from love.
2. Goodness is a reflection of the ultimate good being, who is God. Virtues are good habits- that is, they are a way of acting, thinking, and speaking in a way that consistently reflects God. And since God is love, then reflecting God consistently is loving.

Playlist

2010-01-11T16:59:00.000-08:00

Christmas is over, so my blog is back to the standard playlist, with several more songs added. I'ts long overdue for the next music experiment. This next experiment, which started yesterday, is one hour of music in the morning which I will dance to, and one hour at night to write to. I'm in the process of making a playlist of all the music I use to dance and write for these hours, and once it's of a substansive size, I will post it.

Year 'Round, Wonder, Winder

2010-01-06T16:55:00.000-08:00

This is inspired by Lewis Carrol:

Little ideas skitter skatter
across the piano keys.
Notes, brokenly, clitter clatter.
And the snow
The snow is floating
past the window:
I'll go boating
In the spring, splitter, splatter;
in the rain my paddles
are dipping smoothly trishle, treshle.
There are fairies
thin as whispers
dancing on the reeds
in their fairy slippers.
Magic swirling the air, swirshle, swarshle
as I slip by in my canoe.
Water lilies white blooming, brundle, brindle
like little blooms
of promises to the autumn
that is fast nearing
With golden leaves fallin'.
The world spins round, wonder, winder,
and snow falls by the window
as I play the piano, wender, wainder.

Descartes III - Radical Doubt and Faith

2010-01-04T12:50:00.000-08:00

Descartes (1596-1650) invented and used a method called 'Radical Doubt' with the goal of finding 'true ideas', or clear truths. The rules of this method are:
1. Never immediately accept anything as true. Question all ideas.
2. Break ideas down into smaller pieces.
3. Do all reasoning in order, from simplest to most complex.
4. Omit no ideas. Take everything into consideration and enumerate everything.

Lately I've been talking to one of the librarians at the public library, and she is Jewish. I've also been communicating to a fellow blogger who is Jewish. They both say that the central core premise of their beliefs is to not accept anything anyone tells you until you have questioned it, analyzed it, thought about it, and were sure it made sense.

Sound similar, don't they? And it sounds like a great way of going about things and shifting out the truth from all the lies we get shoved in our face every day. But, if reason is all there is to finding the truth, why does the Catholic Church put so much emphasis on faith? If we can use our reasons well, what need have we of faith? God gave us brains, didn't He? Are we supposed to just let ourselves be spoon fed what a bunch of priests and bishops and the Pope say? And then believe it just because they said it?

This is my answer to those questions:
If I try to reach the truth, and I decide to take this premise of always questioning everything before accepting anything as true and of using only my reason, I am putting faith in my reason. I am putting immense trust in one, limited faculty of my mind that is just as fallen as my every other faculty because I am human. And on what grounds? What reason have I to put faith in my reason? My reason can even tell me that since it is limited it cannot take me unguided and alone to the truth which we all seek.

Consider what would happen if everyone used only their own reasoning to find the truth: no one would agree or come to any conclusions. Everyone would have pieces of the truth, arguments would constantly break out, and everything- morals, principles, etc.- would become relative. (sounds sort of like today, doesn't it?) Truth, however, by its very nature, is universal and eternal.

Furthermore, I can use my reason to find that God is so beyond my comprehension that I cannot reach Him through human reason alone. Then, I can use my reason to find that since He is all-loving, He would not have abandoned His creatures on earth with nothing but their reasons to guide them to Him. God would reveal truths about Himself, truths which help us reach Him by believing in them, though such truths surpass our reason's ability to comprehend.

The more our reason is lit by the light of faith, the more we may understand what we believe in, and the more we understand, the more deeply we believe and love what we know by faith. And what we know by reason and believe in by faith become tightly and wondrously bound.

Finally, belief is not based on how much sense the believed-in thing makes. Rather, we believe in truths beyond our comprehension beyond God told us. We believe for the authority of the person (or Divine Person) who told us.

Once again I refer to my favorite source:

156 What moves us to believe is not the fact that revealed truths appear as true and intelligible in the light of our natural reason: we believe "because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived".28 So "that the submission of our faith might nevertheless be in accordance with reason, God willed that external proofs of his Revelation should be joined to the internal helps of the Holy Spirit."²⁹ Thus the miracles of Christ and the saints, prophecies, the Church's growth and holiness, and her fruitfulness and stability "are the most certain signs of divine Revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all"; they are "motives of credibility" (motiva credibilitatis), which show that the assent of faith is "by no means a blind impulse of the mind".³⁰

157 Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience, but "the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason gives."³¹ "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt."³²

158 "Faith seeks understanding":³³ it is intrinsic to faith that a believer desires to know better the One in whom he has put his faith, and to understand better what He has revealed; a more penetrating knowledge will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love. The grace of faith opens "the eyes of your hearts"³⁴ to a lively understanding of the contents of Revelation: that is, of the totality of God's plan and the mysteries of faith, of their connection with each other and with Christ, the center of the revealed mystery. "The same Holy Spirit constantly perfects faith by his gifts, so that Revelation may be more and more profoundly understood."³⁵ In the words of St. Augustine, "I believe, in order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe."³⁶

159 Faith and science: "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth."³⁷ "Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are."³⁸

---------------------------------------
28 Dei Filius 3:DS 3008.
29 Dei Filius 3:DS 3009.
30 Dei Filius 3:DS 3008-3010; Cf. Mk 16 20; Heb 2:4.
31 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II,171,5,obj.3.
32 John Henry Cardinal Newman, Apologia pro vita sua (London: Longman, 1878) 239.
33 St. Anselm, Prosl. prooem.:PL 153,225A.
34 Eph 1:18.
35 DV 5.
36 St. Augustine, Sermo 43,7,9:PL 38,257-258.
37 Dei Filius 4:DS 3017.
38 GS 36 § 1.

Hume and Is It All about Pleasure?

2009-12-22T10:25:00.000-08:00

David Hume was a Scottish philosopher who thought all ideas came form experience, none from reason. I can't stand him, but I bring him up to refute his central claim that everybody does everything because they are seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. When we act in front of others, we act to seek praise and avoid blame, according to Hume.
This idea has been bouncing around in my head for quite some time. Between my uncle, two friends, my dad, and two priests, I've accumulated several reasons that it is wrong.

1. That's how two year olds act, and the whole point of growing up and being raised by your parents is to grow strong enough to break out of that selfish mode of behavior.

2. There is no way we could possibly know if everyone always acts like that. I might find that I do, but I will never know more than that for sure, and assuming others do because I do is a fallacy. (Incidentally, I don't always act for those motives.)

3. To disprove such a statement, we have only to find one person in one situation. That alone would show that such a statement isn't true. The Martyrs are examples of this; they offered their lives because of belief, not for anything less, not for the happiness of heaven; they died because they loved God and His truth and wanted to obey Him for His pure goodness.

4. We obey God because He is our maker, not because He will reward us. That is the call of every Christian, and every person really: to obey God, not for our own gain, but because it is the will of God who is all goodness, all truth, all love.

5. Pleasure, essentially, is the satisfying of the lower urges and passions: hunger, thirst, wanting to be warm and comfortable, have the admiration of your friends (or maybe the whole world), etc. etc. etc. Pain, then, is when these desires are not fulfilled and/or denied. People do not always operate on such lowly motives. Sometimes we are actually capable of doing something for the goodness of the act and the joy of the person who will benefit. We are more than animals. We have higher faculties and aspirations. We can go beyond these lower urges by using these higher faculties to strive for these higher aspirations, which take us beyond our falleness into the fullness of who God calls us to be and do.

6. Our own pleasure may somehow be involved, like as an encouragement or incentive to push yourself with when you want to give up, but that doesn't make it the motive. Take the task of fighting sin to reach heaven, or any other such high mission. They are all about someone else, some good and truth of God. We fight temptations because they are wrong and we do good because it is right; that in itself is the reason. When it gets hard, the pleasure of heaven is an encouragement, but it is not our motive for fighting evil and doing good. The pleasure of heaven, though great, is not enough to inspire such martyrs and saints and missionaries as there are in the world.

7. Consider the nature of temptation. I've been tempted (and fallen) enough times to know that temptations often appeal to the pleasures. Pride appeals to the pleasure of thinking you are great; Gluttony appeals to the pleasure of taste and eating; Hate appeals to the pleasure of not sacrificing for anyone or doing anything selfless, and instead being consumed with yourself; Envy appeals to the pleasure of thinking you deserve things and feeling angry and revengeful to those who have what you think you deserve. The list goes on for miles. The urge to do good deeds, on the other hand, comes from knowing something is good, someone needs something done for them, etc. Virtues all come from love, and love... Love gives pleasure, but the main point of love is the sacrificing for another, for their sake. I shall paraphrase Pope Benedict XVI: Love is wanting the best for someone and taking efficacious steps to provide what is best to the beloved. Since love, the root of all good (because God is Love), is not about satisfying your own pleasures, than neither are all things which come, purely, from love. Sins, however, are very driven by seeking pleasure and avoiding pain for oneself.

8. And last but not least, the argument by my very own dad: If all actions are based on seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, then morality becomes nothing. There is nothing wrong with killing your nasty neighbor if it gives you the pleasure of blasting his head to smithereens and knowing you'll never be bothered by him again. Of course, you are forfeiting the pleasure of heaven, but if you don't believe in an afterlife, or can convince yourself that sinning won't be an obstacle, you are all set to do the most horrific nasty pleasurable things you can imagine.

In conclusion, let us consider the prayer the Church instructs her members to say in the repentance from their sins: "...I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because I have offended Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love..."
The first motive for hating the faults one has committed is the loss of heaven and the pains of hell; this is a pleasure vs. pain motive, but it is not the only motive. Nor is it the main motive, or the strongest motive. It is surpassed by far by the regret of having offended God. Notice how the attention goes from oneself to something other than and beyond oneself. The motives for which people do truly great things are other-centered. Notice also the reasons for regretting having offended God: it is for no other reason than that God is good and deserves our love. He deserves not all only our love, but all our love, once again showing that great deeds are other-centered while sins and lowly behavior are self-centered.
Hume may think we always operate in self-centered ways, but if the Church instructs us to act in other-centered ways, then it is possible. Moreover, the Church gives us examples of such behavior in the saints and drives us to do likewise, for we are all called to be saints.

TRUTH

2009-12-02T12:38:00.000-08:00

Truth is the correspondence of Reason and Reality. God is Absolute Truth, and with our reason and what God has revealed to us -Divine Revelation- we can reach truths about God and His creation.

There are two Kinds of Truth:
Truths of Reason These truths are learned by our reason and observations. They lead us to know that there is a First Cause, a source of all that exist.
Truths of Faith These truths are the truths we learn from God because we are not capable of learning them through our own reason and observation. They lead us to know who the First Cause is. They deal with realities we could never learn of by our human reason. They are based on God's reason.

The authority of God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, is why we believe. With God's aid, we believe. This believing is faith. Further, we naturally search for more understanding of what we believe in; the more we understand, the more clearly and firmly we believe.
This is a sketch of the relation between reason and faith.

Memory of You

2009-11-30T08:09:00.000-08:00

Slowly forgetting as my memories drift away
far, far way into imagination's dream land;
flickering in the firelight, I see yesterdays merge;
voices blur and I can no longer understand.
Where have they gone- my days of childhood, my past?
Your face is softened to nothing; still I feel
you were smiling. I try to focus and blow away the dust;
your face becomes sickeningly polished and surreal.
But I remember the rain, as I hear it now.
And I know I was glad, and was unafraid,
for you cherished me though you never said it
all the time you were with me, all the time you stayed.
My heart remembers even if my eyes do not.
My promises I recall; each one I will fulfill.
You are never far from me, for you I will not forget:
You loved me then, and I love you still.

Diagram of the Soul

2009-11-29T10:39:00.000-08:00

I was talking a couple of nights ago to a very close friend, and the topic of the soul came up. A little over a year ago I came up with a diagram of the soul, as below.Central Circle: Place of inner peace and integrity, love; Where God is when the soul is in a state of Sanctifying grace; commonly called the "heart"
Middle Circle: Place of chaos, confusion, inner war, temptation from within
Outer Circle: What others see first; facade; reputation
Central Stripe: Existence; essence of your being and personality
Middle Right Stripe: Thoughts; opinions; philosophies
Middle Left Stripe: Feelings; emotions; passions
Outer Right Stripe: Talents; skills; hobbies; interests
Outer Left Stripe: Senses; how we perceive the things and people around us

ART II ~Art is..........?

2009-11-28T07:12:00.001-08:00

Thanks to Tolstoy's What is Art? I've been thinking about art a lot lately, and I've come up with this theory:

Essentially, art is the portrayal of truth through beauty; by doing this, it can reflect the goodness of God and lead to contemplation of things eternal.

I have charted out the components of Art in this way:

In art, beauty serves truth, but the relationship between truth and beauty do not have to be 50/50. Still, every component has to be there for it the work to merit the name 'Art'. art also has a relativity in that what some people call art others call junk. This is because what appeals to some people's senses is repulsive to others, what some people consider reasonable others think is stupid and nonsensical. I think people can pretty much agree on what reflects reality and what is orderly.
Notice that Order and Reason are more internal and mental qualities. Reason is an action of the mind, and order is something perceived by the mind. Meanwhile, appeal to the Senses and Reality are more physical and external qualities which we learn through our senses and through experience.
Now, I said in my theory that art can lead to the contemplation of the eternal. This ability and its effectiveness depend on two things: 1. the artist(s)' intention and his/her/their ability to fulfill the intention 2. the mental capacities of the audience.
Considering the first, no mater how much a person has a good intention, if they can't portray it, the art is stuck in their heads. This is why talent is such a huge thing to be an artist. As my friend pointed out, you can fix technique, but not talent. The talent of art is a God-given gift, and those with it have the ability to communicate well their intentions, to lead to truths beyond the senses by appealing to the sensible. The problem is when the intention is wicked and sinful. I cannot think of any situation when such an 'art' would lead beyond the sensible. Moreover, truth is a good thing even when it is far from beautiful. When exposed to such 'art', which I cannot quite consider merits the term 'art', the right thing to do is to avoid it and all temptations it will give.
Considering the second, no matter how simply the artist portrays the truth, if the audience is hopelessly or obstinately stupid, they won't understand, and again the art will by stuck in the head of the artist. So when viewing or listening or watching art, one should try to hear what the artist is saying, no matter how hard. If there is no message, mere beauty, then it is not art but mere beauty. Remember, however, that one person may get nothing from a work of art while others get very much, and so what may be mere beauty to one might be art to another.
To summarize, let's read one of my very, very, very favorite passages from one of my very, very, very favorite books:

2500 The practice of goodness is accompanied by spontaneous spiritual joy and moral beauty. Likewise, truth carries with it the joy and splendor of spiritual beauty. Truth is beautiful in itself. Truth in words, the rational expression of the knowledge of created and uncreated reality, is necessary to man, who is endowed with intellect. But truth can also find other complementary forms of human expression, above all when it is a matter of evoking what is beyond words: the depths of the human heart, the exaltations of the soul, the mystery of God. Even before revealing himself to man in words of truth, God reveals himself to him through the universal language of creation, the work of his Word, of his wisdom: the order and harmony of the cosmos-which both the child and the scientist discover-"from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator," "for the author of beauty created them."²⁹⁰

[Wisdom] is a breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her. For she is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness.²⁹¹ For [wisdom] is more beautiful than the sun, and excels every constellation of the stars. Compared with the light she is found to be superior, for it is succeeded by the night, but against wisdom evil does not prevail.²⁹² I became enamored of her beauty.²⁹³

2501 Created "in the image of God,"²⁹⁴ man also expresses the truth of his relationship with God the Creator by the beauty of his artistic works. Indeed, art is a distinctively human form of expression; beyond the search for the necessities of life which is common to all living creatures, art is a freely given superabundance of the human being's inner riches. Arising from talent given by the Creator and from man's own effort, art is a form of practical wisdom, uniting knowledge and skill,²⁹⁵ to give form to the truth of reality in a language accessible to sight or hearing. To the extent that it is inspired by truth and love of beings, art bears a certain likeness to God's activity in what he has created. Like any other human activity, art is not an absolute end in itself, but is ordered to and ennobled by the ultimate end of man.²⁹⁶

Aglow, Aglow, the Warm-Chilled Earth!

2009-11-27T07:29:00.000-08:00

The earth is ablaze and alive:
Life steams up from the ground
in a thousand flashes of gold.
The leaves, they fall in golden ease
and rest in the folds of the golden ground
They roll and skitter, sparkles of glitter
and fall tumultuously down.

Splendor solemn, trees arising
in a sacred, solemn majesty.
A warmth, a world of golden bright.
The wind - the air - is soft and chilled
but warm the golden light
aflame with life.

See them dancing down the wind,
along the ground and down the wind?
rolling down the hill, sparkling in your hair?
Natural gold of our sacred God
falling here about our feet,
Aglow, aglow! the warm-chilled earth.

Birdsong

2009-11-27T06:40:00.000-08:00

Birds sang, their voices light and sweet. Emily opened her eyes and listened to the morning. Emily was nineteen years old and a college student. But when she heard the songs of the birds, she was a little girl again, without a single worry or a single fear. Emily listened, and heard the birds of her childhood.
Emily was a little girl, and her daddy was big and strong. He went to work every morning. When he came home she attacked him with hugs and kisses, and told him what her mother had taught her in school. Her mother taught her at home. She taught Emily stories from the Bible, and how to read, and everything she thought Emily should know. Emily would sit on a stool in the kitchen, struggling through her reader. Her mom, washing dishes, would correct her mistakes and urge her on.
In spring, her mother and her would clean the house. It would smell of fresh soap and lilacs. Emily would run to the window and lean out, breathing the clean air of spring. The scents of flowers were faint upon the breeze. And the birds, singing and singing until Emily thought their hearts would burst.
Her daddy taught her to ride a bike. How proud she was when she could fly along the sidewalk with the other children. She even raced with the boys in their bike races. Once the boys piled up twigs to see who could break the most as they rode over them on their bikes. Emily won because her bike wheels were pure rubber, and the boys marveled at her bike.
On summer evenings, her dad would take her on walks. She loved to watch the sky as it settled soft and dark upon the neighborhood. The flowers of gardens glowed, and fireflies sparkled. The trees seemed strangely mysterious in the dim light of evening, as if they could move when you weren't looking.
. . . when she heard the songs of the birds. Then the alarm went off, and she had to be nineteen again.

Punishment of God

2009-11-16T16:14:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it seems as if God is a punishing being, and when I read a fellow blogger's view, I decided it was time to do some research into what my religion says of God's punishments. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

The Commandments [...] express the implications of belonging to God through the establishment of the covenant. Moral existence is a response to the Lord's loving initiative. It is the acknowledgment and homage given to God and a worship of thanksgiving.

So, we obey the Commandments, the morals given us by God because we are His, and it is our way of honoring and paying homage to God.
Consider also the quote, "Love elicits a response". Because God loves us, He gives us commandments and morals by which to live well and reach heaven. This love elicits our response in two ways. 1. Loving Him back (the 1st Commandment: "I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other god besides Me.") 2. Obeying Him. (the 2nd - 10th Commandments) The first way causes the second way, and the second reinforces and demonstrates the first.
Therefore, when He is punishing us, He is punishing us for making Him second in our hearts. He is also punishing us for extending this misdirected love/hate into our actions, which effect others.

Life of an Artist

2009-11-09T14:02:00.000-08:00

Little girl sitting at the dining room table. Before her is a sheet of paper, and on the paper is a large, black circle. Around the circle is gray, like a gray doughnut with a huge black hole. A black hole. Around the gray is a squiggly line of purple. She can't think what more to draw. She pokes the purple crayon, rolling it along the edges of her paper. She looks at the black circle, ponderously. Her name is Cassandra. She-! Did the black hole just move? It seems to quiver. Not the black wax on the white paper but something Deep in the picture quivered. Cassandra shakes her head, quivers to break her concentration. And when she looks back at her drawing, she is very small.
She is very, very small. The little girl sitting with her chin in her fisted hands at the edge of a black hole. Behind her is gray. In the far horizon is a ring of squiggly purple. Before her is black and black and black. 'What is black?' She wonders. 'Is it anything more than this color?' But her questions are only little quiverings in her mind. She does not know how to say them, for she does not know the right words. Her thoughts are prisoners of her wordless mind.

Veins of white, where the black wax did not quite meet, ripple through the black hole. The veins are slitting farther. The peices of black are splintering apart. Where they shift, the paper under them glares white. Something deeper than the paper, nearer than the wax, is stirring. Something is moving and moving everything else. The gray throbs and the purple squiggly line, far in the distance, squirms uncomfortable.
Steady, up and down; up - the living thing under the black wax is trembling - violently. The white cracks, like lightening, shoot to the edges of the black. The gray heaves and lowers, vomiting a gray minst. Heaves and lowers. The purple squirms and rises. It is a ring of electric fury, snapping and flexing. It sends out purple and orange sparks. The enormous drawing comvulses in rhythm, as if it has a pulse.
The girl waits for the living force with a pulse to come out. She knows it will come out. Chunks of black wax are being rent from the paper and flung. They hurtle outwards. Just as they are about to smash down into the gray fog, they rear upwards. They lift and wheel around the black hole's edges. Cassandra watches all this. . . astonished. The chips of black wax are circling evenly, like horses on a carousel.
Little girl waiting. Waiting with her chin in her fisted hands, but nothing comes out of the black hole. 'How did my picture come alive?' She wonders wordlessly. 'Where did its life come from?' But there is no one to answer her questions. No one who can understand them. No one. The girl is entirely alone. She sits and waits, but there is nothing in the black hole.
There is more black orbiting in the air than black on the paper. Only a few specks of black still cling to the very, very blank white paper. The paper is empty of any secret. Cassanra walks into the center of the paper where the pulsing thing was supposed to be. There is a Deep pulsation, but it is so low she can barely hear it. But she feels it. Everywhere she feels it. She stands in the center of the very, very empty paper. But there is no wiggling beast giving her drawing life. There is only Cassandra. And the pulsation. The pulsation is very heavy here. She feels it in the edges of the paper, in the sparking, flexing purple line. She feels in it the heaving, vomiting gray mist, and the circling chunks of black wax, and along her skin. She feels it in her blood. It is a heart beating, heart of the little girl.

What Does One Owe To One's Parents?

2009-10-27T17:01:00.000-07:00

I was talking with a friend earlier today about duty and parents- what one owes to their parents, what is obligatory, what is done out of love, etc. I thought I'd post these from the Catechism of the Catholic Church for my friend:

2199 The fourth commandment is addressed expressly to children in their relationship to their father and mother, because this relationship is the most universal. It likewise concerns the ties of kinship between members of the extended family. It requires honor, affection, and gratitude toward elders and ancestors. Finally, it extends to the duties of pupils to teachers, employees to employers, subordinates to leaders, citizens to their country, and to those who administer or govern it.

2215 Respect for parents (filial piety) derives from gratitude toward those who, by the gift of life, their love and their work, have brought their children into the world and enabled them to grow in stature, wisdom, and grace. "With all your heart honor your father, and do not forget the birth pangs of your mother. Remember that through your parents you were born; what can you give back to them that equals their gift to you?"¹⁹

2216 Filial respect is shown by true docility and obedience. "My son, keep your father's commandment, and forsake not your mother's teaching. . . . When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you."²⁰ "A wise son hears his father's instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke."²¹

The catechism goes on after 2216 to say a lot more about the duties of grown children. Here is the link to further reading on this:

The catechism of the Catholic Church on duty, love, and parents.

Sacred Music - the playlist

2009-10-26T16:36:00.000-07:00

Every other month for a month I listen to a specific composer or genre of music ONLY. This month, the 27th of October to the 27th of November, I am dedicating to religious, prayerful music. So, there is a new playlist of religious and prayerful music on my blog. On the 28th of November I will reinstall the original 'Cogito et Scribo' playlist.

While on the topic of religious Music, there is a wonderful paragraph from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on sacred Art:

Sacred art is true and beautiful when its form corresponds to its particular vocation: evoking and glorifying, in faith and adoration, the transcendent mystery of God - the surpassing invisible beauty of truth and love visible in Christ, who "reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature," in whom "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily."²⁹⁷ This spiritual beauty of God is reflected in the most holy Virgin Mother of God, the angels, and saints. Genuine sacred art draws man to adoration, to prayer, and to the love of God, Creator and Savior, the Holy One and Sanctifier.

2009-10-23T23:26:00.000-07:00

..........The flower and the raindrop
..........tender, cool and young they are
..........full of growth, and let us speculate on where
they might go. Little children are so
fascinating because you do not know if
..........or how their lives will unroll
..........or when they might fly or fall.
..........All is mystery unwheeling
..........a sunrise and the light of day is fresh upon
their amber cheeks. Their eyes are glassy, rounded and
blue and ~ a sunrise and the light of day
..........bloom on the flower and the
..........raindrop.

2009-10-23T23:22:00.000-07:00

.....The ground is damp~
..........The air is muted
by chill ~ and
.....The sky, the sky!
..........Oh, the sky, is
heavy with gray.

Descartes II

2009-10-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

Descartes has rather odd ideas concerning the senses and the mind. Basically, he says that in our search for absolute, unquestionable truth, we must realize that the senses deceive us. He uses this as one of many examples of the deception of the senses.

"[F]or example, I find in my mind two wholly diverse ideas
of the sun; the one, by which it appears to me extremely
small draws its origin from the senses[...]; the other,
by which it seems to be many times larger than the whole
earth, is taken up on astronomical grounds, that is,
elicited from certain notions born with me, or is framed
by myself in some other manner. These two ideas cannot 
certainly both resemble the same sun; and reason teaches
me that the one which seems to have immediately emanated
from it [the former]is the most unlike."

Therefore, he reasons, all that is left to rely on is the mind.
One of the problems with this idea is that the senses have no will of their own. They are faculties of the body which collect data about the world around us and about ourselves. They are not capable of deceiving. What deceives us is the part of our mind that deciphers the information collected from our senses.
Also, one must keep in mind that the senses aren't the only faculties we have for learning and figuring things out. They can only go so far, but reason can go farther. For example, the senses teach us tat the sun gives light and heat. Reason goes on to teach us that it is immobile, extremely large, etc.
The fact that what we learn from the senses is rarely the entire truth because the senses are limited and because we do not always understand the data they collect correctly is no reason for disregarding them.

(Thank you, Joe, for your input in this problem.)

Descartes (and a tangent on some definitions of 'person')

2009-10-22T12:20:00.000-07:00

Descartes is a rather controversial philosopher, at least among conservative Catholic circles. Presently, I have read his Discourses, I-III and the first half of IV, and his Meditations, I, II, & III. I would like to explain his "I think, therefore I am".

"I Think, Therefore I Am"
That is THE statement of Descartes, and few know much more about him than that. At first this statement seems to say that thought is the source of existence. But let us examine the text, keeping always in mind that Descartes was rather obsessed with doubting everything until he had undeniable proof for it.

"[F]rom the very fact that I thought of doubting the truth of other things, it followed very evidently and very certainly that I existed[...][T]here is nothing at all in this 'I think therefore I am' that assures me that I am speaking the truth, except that I see very clearly that, in order to think, it is necessary to exist."

You see, he is so concerned about not calling true anything that has the slightest possibility of being false, that the only thing left for him to know for sure is that his mind, which he calls 'I', exists. His proof for the existence of his mind is that it is thinking. And so, his 'I think, therefore I am' is really just a poor way of saying 'Because I think, I know I (that is, my mind) exists.

This would all be well and good, except for what he says during the ellipsis in the above quote.
He states:

"had I simply stopped thinking [...] I would have no reason to believe that I had existed."

This statement gives two criteria for a thing, specifically a human, to be considered living:
1. The thing must be thinking
2.The thing must be conscious of its thinking.

True as it may be that one's thoughts are a proof to oneself of one's existence, they are not a criteria for being considered a living human.

Speaking of criteria to be considered a living human, these are the definitions of some other philosophers of the word 'Person'.

Soul trapped in a Body - Plato
Rational Animal - Aristotle
Embodied Spirit - St. Thomas Aquinas
Thinking Thing - Descartes

It seems that these Philosophers fall into 2 groups- Those that define a person by what it does (thinks), and those that define a person by what it is made of (a body and a soul).

truth is. . . and it is where?

2009-10-19T17:19:00.000-07:00

The more I read and study other philosophers, the more truth and good sense I see in the Catholic Church for having answers to all that befuddles them. It is quite extraordinary, and I think the whole lot of the philosophers would agree, that all the answers to all the problems all nicely fit together in the same place. One need not go trudging to all the ends of the earth to find a thousand different answers to a thousand different questions only to find that the answers don't always agree. For the Truth is one, it is alive, and it is near.

Story of a Thought

2009-10-19T16:26:00.001-07:00

Thoughts have lives of their own.
They show themselves to us in the secret dark corners of our minds.
Where did their life come from?
What is their soul?
Whatever they are, they are a fire that drives man
and makes a magician or a fool of him,
a painting or mud of his life.

Maybe they wake
when
something in us brakes.
And they all spill out,
embryos ready for our consciousness to nurture them.
And our emotions drive and whip
like the wind.
And our friends. . . we need not think on all the things they say,
Only that our thoughts are fragile and scared.
and Sacred.
And they are shattered and shattered again
until they are grown

and strong enough to stand on their own
and ripple unbroken in the winds of time
and chance.
For they have found their place
'mongst the threads
of all our other thoughts.
And they are stitch
sewing a soul,
shattering us
till we are who we have become.

Virtue and Emotion

2009-10-11T12:18:00.001-07:00

It is easy to agree with Plato that emotions are lower than thoughts and that they ought to be suppressed because they get in the way. However, emotions show the depths of the human soul. They lead a person where mere reason cannot. And if we really are to agree with Plato, we must see that if God made emotions, then -in the original way in which God made them- they cannot be bad.
I would like to raise the question, what is a virtue made of? A virtue is the fruit of all that is best in a human. This best includes emotions. When a person acts virtuously, are not all the components of their soul in a harmony with God and with each other?
Emotions must be guided by thought, but likewise thought must be guided by emotion. When these two seemingly opposite parts of the soul work together, there is harmony; and where there is harmony, there is the possibility of virtue.

Virtue
/\
/...\
/......\
Emotion.......Thought

Dreamly

2009-10-04T18:11:00.000-07:00

When you can look into the future and see a dream coming true, stitch by stitch sewing together an impossible hope and the next several months into a cloth of reality, it is very frightening. When you see something so good you did not think it would ever exist, sitting a little ways away made of brick and mortar, it is very startling. When an idea you had hardly dared to follow because of its impossibleness is right there for you to jump at, you wish you knew how to run. Because it does not fit into how you thought it would have to be. Your idea of stark 'reality' is meaningless dust. And the dust is blowing in your eyes so that you can hardly see, but you don't know how to run away with the dust. There is a siren beauty about the dream in front of you, enticing; it somehow seems very dangerous, and you do not know whether to follow or not. You are a coward to run, a coward to hesitate, but you have not the strength to do anything but stand and stare. You wonder, its seems so hard to comprehend that a dream could come true. It seems an illusion. There has to be something wrong with it. It cannot possobly be real, it is too perfect. You pull back your foot, and kick it. It hurt your foot. You know it is real by the pain in your leg. 'Pain,' you think, 'equals real.' And you are no longer so afraid, because pain is real. It is definitely not the fearsome unknown. You know now how real your dream is, and you can walk into it, becasue it has caused you pain.

Wisdom

2009-09-29T13:31:00.000-07:00

A sort of meditation
Some things are too deep and dark to be put into tests. There is no mathematical formula for evaluating trust, for example. But I am talking to myself. Everyone knows what I am saying. But they forget it. And the wise repeat it. And I hope I am one of the wise. But I'll never know, because wisdom can't be measured by degrees or tablespoons. What exactly makes a person wise? Perhaps, understanding of all that is forgotten, what must be repeated, and then repeating it.
Yet, I think it also has to do with truth . The wise person is the one who searches for the truth, because he understands its value. The wise person searches, and does not give up until he finds it. He prepares against what might discourage him, and he perseveres. The wise person is the one who sharpens his perception of good by remaining chaste and pure in heart. He deepens his intellect by studying the truth of other wise men. Thus, when he meats the Truth of God, he recognizes it, loves it, and spreads it.
This, I think, is wisdom.

2009-09-29T12:42:00.000-07:00

I went to New York City last summer, and I walked to the shrine of the North American Martyrs. Had a blast, but during both trips, I missed my piano.

Nothing to say

2009-09-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

I have nothing to say.
I want to wrote something, something

beautiful and lovely, like
folds of green gossamer
that ripple like water,
but I have nothing to say.

day drifting and another
hour to go, and homework
and all that sort of rot.
But it's not much of anything
when you have nothing to say.

When all that you feel
is sound and dance
but all that you have is words
and repetition and a nice
reputation and you
are caught up in now,
a now not worth having

and you have nothing to say
to the lilting green day
as it whispers and passes
you by. You are mute
and alone in a land all a dream
of what could be- unworded
and you have nothing to say.

The joys of college

2009-09-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

1. Annoying professors
2. Annoying classmates
3. Annoying textbook prices
4. Annoying pressures to be getting a job
5. Annoying rooms whose numbers are not in numerical order
6. Annoying opportunities for financial aid that don't exist
7. Annoying worry of where to transfer to
8. Annoying kid behind you with cough
9. Annoying adults who congratulate you on your wise choices in life and don't realize how annoying it all is
10. Annoying campus that has no where beautiful or slightly less blah-looking
So don't go to college unless you're sure you want to be annoyed for the next 4 plus years of your life.

Sea shells

2009-09-21T16:09:00.000-07:00

What is Wisdom?

2009-09-19T09:32:00.000-07:00

Clear, calm, accurate vision, and comprehension of the whole course, the whole work of God.
~Cardinal Newman

Education? Pshaw! just my JOB and $$$$

2009-09-19T08:27:00.000-07:00

Tons of people are heading off to liberal arts colleges with the single goal of attaining the greatest good this world has to offer: A JOB. They are abusing and disregarding the college's purpose. A liberal arts college is not just about getting a job; it is about learning from vast fields of knowledge which have proved useful and applicable to the desired degree. In other words, liberal arts colleges are about knowing much in many different subjects and specializing in the field of your choice. This field of choice, or degree, can thenn be put towards many things, including a job. But what people want is only a job, nothing more, above or beyond that. And so one hears such things as, "I don't like high school; but, yeah, I'm going on to college." "I don't need this; I'm going to be a ---." If people want preparation for a job, let them go where they will get it and not ruin and disrupt the studying of those who want a liberal arts education. Let them get internships, apprenticeships, and go to vocational and trade schools. Then the liberal arts colleges will be able to better provide for those who do desire and want what they have to offer. Those who want a liberal arts education will actually be the majority and dominant student force in the liberal arts college.

joke

2009-09-14T18:10:00.000-07:00

What do you get when you cross a river and a stream?

highlight below to see the answer:

Wet feet

Education

2009-09-01T15:48:00.000-07:00

Never has it been more urgent to reinvigorate the moral vision and resolve essential to maintaining a just and free society...Young people are surely your nation’s greatest treasure... That is why they urgently need an all-around education which will enable them to reject cynicism and selfishness and grow into their full stature as informed, wise, and morally responsible members of the community.
~Pope John Paul II

Inspiration

2009-08-31T15:03:00.000-07:00

"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered."
G.K. Chesterton- On Running After Ones Hat, All Things Considered, 1908

Our Economy and the Real Causes

2009-08-28T18:13:00.000-07:00

I here have in crude cartoons and captions my view on the economic situation.

1. Ideal Situation: With children and the elderly and some other groups, there are a little more consumers than workers. Of course, workers are also consumers.

2. But then, there came along the abortion
and the contraceptive and the spendomaniac
and the debt, and all of a sudden, there
weren't enough consumers and the
consumers there were weren't spending.

3.The number of consumers kept shrinking. So the number of workers kept shrinking. Because not all co nsumers are workers, but all workers are consumers. And when there's no one to buy, what demand is there to fulfill and who has money to pay workers, who in turn have no money to buy. Because there aren't enough of them to create a demand.

4. There are not that many children. There are not enough consumers.
If someone is not a worker, what are they? Are they unworkers?
Because there are not enough consumers.
Because there are spendomaniacs and debts
and there is the contraceptive and the abortion.

here is a much more informed video on this topic

you are lovely

2009-08-25T17:24:00.000-07:00

this is one of those poems when you find something really great to listen to and then just go with it- turn it into words. ( I know a certain person doesn't like poetry without meter, but whatever. I suppose there's probably really good music without a time signature.)

~The music is Waterfall by John Schmidt~

you are lovely
listen to the water
falling
as if it were
raining
strongly for you
you are lovely
and I
I know not what to think
only to hold you
not let you fall
away like the
water

what is an adult?

2009-08-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

What do you think makes an adult?

I think that these make a person an adult, among many
others (ellipsis)

1. self control in suffering without being heartless
2. perseverance in affliction without not knowing when to surrender
3. steadfastness of conviction without being narrow minded
4. willingness to listen without not giving advice where it is sought
5. able to sacrifice without letting go of one's original hopes
6. prioritized without not having time for others
7. perception of others' good without over estimating others' merit
8. perception of others' evil without over estimating others' faults
9. Wisdom

4 kinds of music

2009-08-18T13:47:00.000-07:00

There are, I believe, four categories into which all music can be divided, according to one's reaction when the music is over:
1. The kind of music you don't even bother to hear till the end.
2. The kind of music that when it is over, makes us glad it is over.
3. The kind of music that when it is over, makes us replay it in our minds and wish it had not ended quite so soon.
4. The kind of music that when it is over, makes us cry because it leaves the air empty, absolutely hollow like a body whose soul has just abandoned it.

(thank you, Paul, for your input)

WHY

2009-08-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

and i am beginning to think that people simply do not ask WHY enough and they call their teenagers selfish and immature for asking but i think maybe they are afraid of the answer and we teenagers are perhaps too stupid to know fear and common sense we only want to know WHY and have a way of asking WHY in the most inconvenient of times
we are desperate to know and as we do not find out we become complacent and stagnant and the rush of emotions stills and the tornado is over everything is much more settled but there is no real foundation things are only settled because they are settled and we have grown too adultish to ask WHY only we smirk at teenagers when they ask as if we knew and we wish they thought we knew but obviously we teenagers know they adults dont and what makes a person an adult anyway
if you dont have a foundation of answers to WHY then you are merely a settled teenager and nothing more but where there is a foundation there can be something real and strong and strong enough to always be a tornado and always be asking WHY and not be silenced by adultish people who are merely settled teenagers but really finding the answers

what is that?

2009-08-01T14:04:00.000-07:00

I don't know. What do you think it is? Abstract stuff supposedly has a meaning. This means ... well, what do you think? I think the colors are unborn thoughts. and the purple squares are where the thoughts have been broken into words.

2009-07-21T14:40:00.000-07:00

For most of us reading, whether prose or poetry, is a form of entertainment. At times if we find our own life disjointed and our reactions to some situations beyond clear, reasonable explanation, literature offers us the opportunity to look at patters of human life and contemplate them from a distance. If the writers are good, we can see parallels with what we have experienced and causes and effects make sense. According to one English teacher, "Fiction gives us little universes to ponder, to discuss with others, to marvel at and question."

from a lecture handout

White Music

2009-07-21T14:31:00.000-07:00

Blank, soft sound, muted
by the sense of brighter.
No specific voice sings.
all voices melt and span
the breadth of the day.
Across the open, flat sky
the white flash of a seagull wing.
Rising, falling, open, flat,
filling the vastness,
creating the vastness.
Wide and untroubled
float these voices.

I think therefore I am- until I was

2009-07-15T05:43:00.000-07:00

Writing exercise from my Composition class: Describing dieing in outer space because your ship has blown up.

That's my wing over there. I think maybe it's moving. I think... Who said that? Cogito...
My thoughts freeze in my head. I feel as if I ought to feel like I'm falling. But I don't feel... What do I feel?
Cogito igitur... Who said that?
I should be tired. But I am too tired to fell tired. I am freezing, but my blood is moving so slowly I don't feel it stop.
Stop.
Twitch my finger, and it hurts. Hurts to move: am I moving in this stillness?... So, this is dieing. I see a friend's face before me. Why her face? I wonder. Why not someone else's? I cannot remember what they look like. I can never remember what anyone looks like. Why am I thinking? Shouldn't I be dieing? Am I alive? I know I'm not dead.
Stop. Like a telegram. Stop. But I haven't stopped yet. Cogito Igitur Ego. Stop. I hold on to that thought, like a lifeline. But I don't care about dieing. I am too far from what I love to think how I will never be near it agian. I cannot, somehow, think 'Why am I dieing?' Perhaps because I only know it, cannot feel it.
It hurts to twitch my finger. Is this what death feels like?
There is a vacuous silence. My thoughts are sucked into it. They enter it and die. Dieing... But I cannot be sucked away into nothingness. I must exist until I die. I cannot disintegrate and evaporate with my ship. I must be. I will be. Until I am beyond existence. Stop.
Cogito Igitur Ego... Sum. And that is the final word, the closing chord. I am alive and wait. Wait. this is going very slowly. Why, I wonder, why am I dieing so slowly?
Blackness all around. Strange place to die. As if I were buried alive. Will my body fall apart, once I die? There is a very white star over there. It is so white and far away. Maybe I will come near it.
Stop.

water lilies

2009-07-11T17:00:00.000-07:00

Water lilies whisper wondering
in the lakes and wetlands.
These are hard times;
these are cold times.
These are times,
and time's a river.
Listen, listen!
Don't you hear it?
There are times:
All times are history
by the morning
aft the closing
of the night.
Water lilies, water lilies,
wild stagnant water lilies
in the blooming of the waves
and in the sparkle of the the sun.
Time goes; time goes, and it's lost.
Hard times down the water falls.
What is left? What is left?
Water lilies, Water lilies.
Wild, stagnant, still the same.
Heart unbending in the waving,
blooming and not wilting yet.
These are hard times, water lilies.
These are hard times yet.

and the garbage cans

2009-07-09T15:54:00.000-07:00

The sky is gray
and it's raining.

I lie here
petting the cat.
I should be
doing school.
I was so
happy yesterday.
I thought I'd
found something,
a reason to
hope in today.
But the earth is
the same place,
Nothing
has changed.
We lie here,
and it's raining.
We want to know
the answers,
colors to our
gray questions,
and be able to lie
down and sleep.

The answers are there,
at the other end of it all,
So I must keep going.

The bicycles lie by the garbage cans.
I thought I had found my answer.
But only I asked the question.
And there are many more questions.
The bicycles lie by the garbage cans.
It seems as I gaze at the cat
like I'm ready to sleep and not ask.
And the bicycles and the garbage cans in the rain.

The cat's eyes slit open in sleep.
Even in dreams you cannot leave
the life holding you and the rain.
It seems like I'll be passing
while the bicycles, garbage cans, rain.
The earth is the same thing

And it's fading away.
Vague thoughts that I don't hold.
And the bicycles- the cat twitches-
the rain. The rain has gone.
And I lie here by the cat.
And the bicycles lie by the garbage cans.
My thoughts run on; they ask
and I'm tired. The cat is asleep.

And I'm fading away.
I thought I found something.
I'm fading while the bicycles
rust by the garbage cans cracked.
And I'm fading. The earth is the same.
And cat, in the dream, and the rain's gone.
I'm fading. The questions still ask.

fascinating, isn't it?

2009-07-09T15:53:00.001-07:00

stupid people

2009-07-08T11:08:00.000-07:00

you are a fish in a glass bowl
your eyes are big
you cant break your confines
just swim in circles
in circles
in circles
your eyes are big
what do you see
locked yourself in a glass bowl
away in selfmade walls
selfmade walls
selfmade walls

Pondering the Quiddity of the Palpable

2009-07-06T20:09:00.000-07:00

You figure out what "Pondering the Quiddity of the Palpable" means.

I think that thinking of anything that can be sensed automatically leads one to ponder that which cannot be sensed. Because the rules and consistencies behind the palpable are the impalpable.
The apple falls from the tree because of that force know as gravity. We can sense gravity upon our own bodies, but in a much more abstract way than how we sense the apple in our hands.
Pushing this thought farther, take something like a hug. Palpable indeed, but there is an impalpable truth behind it- love. Love may lead to palpable sensations, but love itself is beyond our senses.
That is why I chose the least palpable color- gray. This picture represents the moment when the human mind leaves off pondering the quiddity of the palpable and transcends into the impalpable.

2009-07-06T17:00:00.000-07:00

So, I had to write this essay for my English Composition class. I think it's worth reading.

Music, Who Am I?

It was all Socrates’ fault. He said that one can tell who a person is by what they listen to. I desperately wanted to know who I was, and I was determined to discover the truth is this assertion.

I remembered how on the last days before my three most recent birthdays I had watched the hours end, one by one. It was like trying to hold the waves as the river dragged me onward. Then, shortly before my seventeenth birthday, I heard the song “From a Distance” played by flutist James Galway. I instantly associated it with growing up, and the song became a source of steady hope and my window through which I looked back at my past and forward into my future. On the last day before my seventeenth birthday, I thought of that song and all it was to me; I did not count the hours.

I recognized this as proof that music did indeed shape me, perhaps even who I was. I decided to test Socrates. I don’t know who I, a stupid American teenager, thought I was to challenge the unquestioned wisdom of an ancient Greek philosopher.

For one month I did not listen to music. I hoped I would discover my essence, uninfluenced by music. In the silence, I became more perceptive of sound, and as my ears sharpened, I grew to rely on them more than any other sense. A strong connection developed between what I hear and how I consider my life and surroundings.

I became acutely aware of the evils of the world, perhaps because I was listening more than ever before. The world struck me as horrific, resonant with hatred and deception. My friends were disappointing me; my parents expected me to make choices I was not ready for, and I was hungering for something I hardly believed in. The chaos of others’ voices and my own faults strangled me. My mind was jarred with raucous noise. With increasing panic I struggled to understand it all- society, immorality, people. Yet I did not even know how to perceive the world. Truth and falsity are too tangled. What was I to do? How was I to react? Below all this was a throbbing hope that there might be a universal truth to summarize, unite and explain all people, including myself.

Also at that time, I found everyone wanted me to be happy and nice. It was like a sheet of smoky glass surrounded me. People only saw of me what they wanted. When I did not smile, they would laugh and say, “Smile! The sun is shining.” They did not listen to what I was trying to say. I would flounder for any answer to their questions and hope they would hear the hypocrisy in my voice as I said something I did not believe. But I was saying what they wanted to hear, nice things lit by the sparkle of an imaginary sun. Why did they expect me to be so happy and nice? Did they think that by being so, they could pretend the world was a good place and life easy?

As another month began, I decided to listen to music for one hour in the morning and one hour at night. One Saturday morning, I chose Shostakovich’s 8^th Symphony.

I listen.

The music is wild, bizarre, unlike anything I ever heard before. Like water might feel as it spreads across the ground where it has been spilt free from its container, so I feel my mind expanding, daring to look into horizons I had never thought possible. I try to do something while I listen, but I cannot. My entire mind is consumed by the symphony. The instant I am not alert, the music will leaves me miles behind and become incomprehensible. I close my eyes, and I see colors, brilliant colors on opaque darkness; they seem to mean nothing, only visual translations of the sound. Then I realize the darkness is my mind; the colors are my thoughts. My thoughts are being blown up as they are given unbelievable expression in the music. The music explodes in the darkness, challenging, mounting, bursting, shattering. Breaks. Heals. Breaks again. Is meant to be broken. The bandage was false. My thoughts are all fragments, dancing apart like galaxies, held together by sound.

The music begins to translate itself into the language of my mind. I understand. The music is an analogy of society, immorality, people. It is a rhythmic explanation of all the inconsistencies and faults of mankind. Within this symbolism, I find I am a microcosm of the wild, bizarreness of life and the human experience. We are each worlds of unanswered questions; we are each symphonies. All people together create the chaos portrayed in this symphony.

The music grows to be everything but what I hear. It is the patters before my eyes. It is the swaying surrounding my body. It is the clean, limitless air I breathe. Yet I cannot hear anything, just as I cannot see my face. The music is my mind. I am slipping from it. I am slipping into it. Music, who am I? The music is me. The music is the confusion in my own soul.

If I could breathe slower- If I could write faster- Every measure is a day’s emotions, rising, falling. Every wave is a passion. I skim at breakneck speed across the foamy crests with hardly a chance to see into the depths.

My eyes are closed. I do not see the sun. I feel motion. I am moving through my mind; I am climbing up into the past. Problems unsolved, like incomplete days, are sewn together. With rapid speed the music fills the voids in me of unanswered questions, from the surface of perception to the depths of my subconscious. The darkness is alive, and I am alive. I do not need the sun to show me that I am moving, that I exist.

I open my eyes. The music seeps from my consciousness. I have not moved an inch. The air of my room is polluted with demanding questions and haughty answers and expectations. I feel a queasy uneasiness. When my eyes are open, I need the sun to see that I exist, but I do not know who exists. So I close my eyes.

And I listen.

I am turned inside out and shaken like an old rug. My essence is explodes into a thousand fragments that transform themselves into sound. All the confusion in me is surrounding me. Mental trauma, which once choked me at every turn of my mind, is now outside of me. The symphony is coming to a close. I watch the minutes end, one by one. I wait for one last discordant eruption. But the music is simple, vulnerable; what could it mean? I wonder at myself for understanding the dissonant sound but not being able to relate to a restful melody. My subconscious, concupiscent desires, despair, and perverted hopes talk to me from outside of me. They are far from me, and I realize I am free to sense the inner peace that I had almost forgotten to believe in. The answers and harmony I have been hungering for are being sung to me. I know how I am to respond to society and the faults of humanity. The symphony glides into a finish with poignant ease.

Music, who am I? I close my eyes, and I know. I am the question, the seeker. The music is my reason, my illumination.

what is an artist?

2009-07-03T12:49:00.000-07:00

What is an artist? What makes a person an artist?
H.L. Mencken said:

It is almost as safe to assume that an artist of any dignity is against his country, i.e., against his environment in which God hath placed him, as it is to assume that his country is against the artist. The special quality which makes an artist out of him might almost be defined, indeed, as an extraordinary capacity for irritation, a pathological sensitivity to environmental pricks and stings. He differs from the rest of us mainly because he reacts sharply and in an uncommon manner to phenomena which leave the rest of us unmoved, or, at most merely annoy us vaguely. He is, in brief, a more delicate fellow than we are, and hence less fitted to prosper and enjoy himself under the conditions of life which he and we must face alike. Therefore, he takes to artistic endeavor, which is at once a criticism of life and an attempt to escape from life.

From The Vintage Mencken by Alistair Cooke, New York: Vintage Books, 1958

lovliness

2009-07-01T19:14:00.000-07:00

pulcherissima

2009-07-01T19:13:00.000-07:00

stream of conciousness

2009-06-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

Absurdity. I am. And I like that word. It sounds what it is. Uncanny balance. Rediculous parallels.

For the challenge of it all

Addicted to books like computer games

fractions (5/16) and fragments that come falling
like rain, and I don't know if I'm nuts, .......... or
maybe ..................(or maybe)
just/more of a
...............................(more of a . ' , ")

than them.
Than them. Than Them thanthem thanthemthanthemthanthemthanthe/m,
..............................................................and
wh/o is comparing? we're all just fractions (5/16) and
doomfully nothing is (quite)/new ..................only
maybe...................(maybe)
(more)thanthemthanthemthanmaybeI'mnutslikethem.

The Uninvisibles

2009-06-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

Shimmering and glowing, they stand up and are seen.
They are the shimmering and glamorous,
and they force us to look and behold.
Their splendor dazzles us until out eyes are
too contracted to see anything else.
They are like rotten eggs that have been painted;
they have pretty shells.
They are the visibles.

They slip by peacefully, content in unpublicity. Simple.
Unwanted by the visibles except to be
their audience and source of loyal acclaim.
They're hardly noticed. They attract no attention
into their humbly lit world.
They are like plain surfaced rocks;
perhaps there are crystals inside.
They are the invisibles.

They're what both worlds bear alike
though not received alike by both.
They are the growing ones, too small to be seen,
too beautiful to be ignored.
They beg our attention, yet we hardly notice
with our contracted and dimmed eyes.
They are like delicate flower buds;
there is a promise if they are not killed.
They are the uninvisibles.

2009-06-25T11:57:00.000-07:00

Marriage: The act of uniting a man and woman for life; wedlock; The legal union of a man and woman for life. Marriage is a contract both civil and religious, by which the parties engage in living together in mutual affection and fidelity, till death shall separate them. Marriage was instituted by God himself... for promoting domestic felicity, and for securing the maintenance and education of children.
From American Dictionary of the English Language Noah Webster 1828

2009-06-25T11:50:00.000-07:00

I have a couple relatives in Germany,
and a friend of mine's older brother delivers supplies to the troops in Iraq.
So in honor of them, I'd like to share this picture.

2009-06-22T12:21:00.000-07:00

PRESSURED TO BE LEADERS OF AN UTOPIA

Does it ever seem that you are bound down by a sense of duty, a strict idea of what is 'right', and that somehow your happiness lies beyond this 'right', so maybe it's not really 'right' after all? It seems as if the young people of today are expected to do so much, be tomorrow's everything, the hope of their fellows,and the saviors of the world form undoubted and unidentifiable doom. It's as if I and my peers are not allowed to breath unless we are breathing in our tireless work to help people and save the world.
I don't understand this. Our parents perhaps had the same pressure, and as they did not live up to it, they place it on us. Generation after generation, placing their hope for the future in their children. I'd like to object to this legacy on 3 points:
1. Does the future have to necessarily be good? Considering that our parents will be dead by the time this 'future' rolls around, what do they care? If the future is not heaven, at least it is reality.
2. If the future is, by some unknown decree, supposed to be utopia and all that, why should we be the ones to bring it about if so many generations before us have obviously failed?
3. Isn' it rather ridiculous to place one's hope in one's children, especially since so much of the child's faults are inherited from the parents?
I think in this sense, the parents are the ones being irrationally idealistic, and the teenagers the ones being understandably rebellious, not because of some idea of drug and sex freedom in their own minds, but because of the perfect economy and relaxed lifestyle dream of their parents.

2009-06-17T06:35:00.000-07:00

Are the trees purple in your dream? Tell me,
tell me, in your dream, is the water red?
What do you want or wish for- tell me,
tell me- that is not in part here?
Am I there? In your dream, tell me-
Tell me, In your dream. Are you there?

2009-06-11T06:58:00.000-07:00

Happiness

2009-06-11T06:10:00.000-07:00

Happiness and Us

Happiness. People use it to deceive themselves, to prove the supposed goodness of bad things.

'Happiness comes from good things.'
+ 'This makes me happy.'
= 'This must be good.'

Happiness does not always come from good things.
People also draw strength from it, a sort of emotional security. Unfortunately, happiness is very illusive; it vanishes, and you don't even know why. Or, is it a result of the choice to hope and not despair?

Despair.....x.....Hope
/........................\
V.........................V
'Utter grief'................... 'Happiness'

Happiness' Source
Is happiness merely an illusive emotion, or is it the result of a choice? What is its source? I think ability to be happy comes from 1 source, but happiness itself is triggered by several sources.
For example, music brings about the heightening of many emotions, especially happiness.
Another example: when a friend smiles because they are glad to see you, you are a source of happiness for them.

Mapping out Happiness
Happiness has many flavors, tones, shades. I like to think that happiness is rather like the spectrum of visible light rays.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

At the red end 'fun', in the yellow is what people usually think of when they think of happiness. At the purple end is 'contentment'.
The 'fun' is giggly goofiness that little kids like. 'I'm having so much fun! Yeah!'
The yellow is where most adults are when they are telling themselves, 'I am happy= this is good.'
The purple is the deep happiness, rooted in hope. This is the happiness that is chosen, the happiness that despair tries to erode.
More on Happiness later.

ART I ~What is art?

2009-06-09T18:30:00.000-07:00

What is art?
Art is. . . Does anyone really know? Anyone can give examples, but does anyone really know?
I think it is the explaining of the wild torrents of our minds. It is the taking of what we hold to be true and making it pleasing and accessible to others. It is a teaching of truth, an explaining of mysteries which transcend our limited comprehension. It is a window into another's soul. It is a source of hope when we have given up on beauty and truth.
Beauty and Truth are far from always agreeing. But in art they are shown as sisters.