HerbEly

Search Engine Enables Comparison of Catholic Blogosphere Interest in War, Sex, and Work

Back in February, I wrote CatholicBlogs to tell them that there search engine would not recognize search requests for three letter words. Searches for "just war theory" (or, perish the thought, "Herb Ely") returned no result. This was, I suggested a serious flaw - at least the inability to search for articles mentioning "culture war" or actual "war."

CatholicBlogs can now find 3-letter words. (Certain 4-letter words are could always be found - but we weren't interested in them.) This is an important upgrade. I urge Catholic (and other) bloggers to use it as a research tool.

A search of CatholicBlogs.com may indicate a comparison of levels of interest. A search for "war" yielded 1926 hits. A search for that other three letter word of great interest - "sex" - yielded 1328 hits. A search for "theology of the body" yielded 161.

Sports has much to teach about the relationships of mind, heart and body. A good coach can teach many spiritual lessons about integrity, anger management, courage, etc. Courious to see if the theology of the body had explored any of these connections, I tried a search for "sports" and "theology of the body", sorted it for relevance and found nothing. This strikes me as a major oversight. As we heard in yesterday's reading from Mk 12: 28b-34 we are commanded to:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.

As an Old Married Guy and father of four, I am glad to see John Paul II's emphasis on the goodness of sex through his writings on Theology of the Body. As a martial arts student, retired federal manager, public speaker and civic leader, I need to point out the obvious but overlooked fact that there is more to the body that just sex. Classroom teachers know that body messages are essential to classroom discipline and effective teaching. We need a much more fully developed spirituality of the body.

For what it is worth, a search on "work" and "spirituality", yielded 191 hits. Less than ten percent of these touch on the practice of spirituality in the workplace, even though most of us will have far more influence on the world through our jobs than we ever will through church inspired work for social justice.

This strikes me as an exact reversal of priorities. It is safe to assume that Catholic bloggers spend more time working than in either of the other two activities.

Intercessions at Our Son’s Wedding

    On Sunday, Oct. 8th, our son, David and new daughter-in-law, Katherine celebrated their wedding at the Wren Chapel at William and Mary - the most romantic spot in the State of Virginia. For wedding photo’s, go here.

    I was privileged to write, and read the intercessions (prayer of the faithful), based on the readings and my own hopes for David and Katherine as well as for all of us. The readings were:

Genesis 2:18-24 
Psalm 145
1 John 4:7-12 
John 15:9-12 

Here is the prayer:

For the church, may it always support, encourage, and challenge David and Katherine – and all couples – to continually grow in their love of one another, we pray to the Lord:

Response: Lord hear our prayer

    For leaders in government, business and academia, may they strive to provide a climate of peace in which all families can prosper and grow in love for one another, we pray to the Lord:

Response: Lord hear our prayer

    For all assembled here – and all who cannot be here – may they be encouraged in their love, return home safely and continue to grow in their own love, we pray to the Lord:

Response: Lord hear our prayer

    For Katherine and David as they begin their life’s journey as husband and wife, may they continue to grow in love with all their hearts, all their minds and all their strength, we pray to the Lord:

Response: Lord hear our prayer.

Amen

Cut It Off – but What is It?

    Last Sunday's gospel gives us a startling and challenging image:

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire.
And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna.Mark 9: 43-45

    What is there, in our lives, that so strongly holds us that it will cause us to sin – either by omission or commission? If you want to know, try rephrasing the saying, substituting some other parts of ourselves that might cause us to sin and the nature of that sin.

If your dedication to your job causes you to work 24/7 ignoring your family and your own health, cut it off.

If your desire for power and prestige causes you to fail to tell your boss the truth when the public safety is on the line cut it off. (I suspect that there a large number of Enron employees and Presidential aides who wish that they had heeded this verse.)

If your need for possessions causes you to encumber your own life and home, cut it off.

If your need for esteem and affection causes you sacrifice your legitimate needs in order to gain someone else’s approval, cut it off.

If your need for safety and security causes you to avoid taking up a new profession or changing your lifestyle, cut it off.

The immediate objection is that dedication to job, power and prestige, and “worldly goods” can all be positive goods that help us to care for ourselves, and others, in this world. It is through our jobs that we provide service, care for our families and find ways to be creative.

In order to see past this objection one must discern whether dedication to job, etc. are “causing one to sin.” The best way of discerning this comes from the first principle first principle of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.

The human person is created to praise, reverence, and serve God Our Lord, and by doing so, to save his or her soul.

All other things on the face of the earth are created for human beings in order to help them pursue the end for which they are created.

It follows from this that one must use other created things, in so far as they help towards one's end, and free oneself from them, in so far as they are obstacles to one's end.

To do this, we need to make ourselves indifferent to all created things, provided the matter is subject to our free choice and there is no other prohibition.

Thus, as far as we are concerned, we should not want health more than illness, wealth more than poverty, fame more than disgrace, a long life more than a short one, and similarly for all the rest, but we should desire and choose only what helps us more towards the end for which we are created.

If we are indifferent to goods, power and prestige, or health and security, we are surely ready to “cut it off.”

    The challenge of the gospel is for us to learn what it is that causes us to sin by omission or commission. Given the power of the human soul to fool itself, we need to understand that it is only with time, prayer and perhaps the help of a spiritual director, coach or trusted friend.

    Cutting it off is a daunting prospect. Gerald May’s Addiction and Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions is an excellent source of advice, both for distinguishing legitimate needs from disordered attachments and for meeting the demands of Mark 9:43-44 in "cutting it off."

 

Parental Over-involvement

As the father of four, guardian of a nephew and niece, and the husband of a gifted education specialist, I hope that every parent reads and heads these words of wisdom from a story by Sandra G. Boodman  in the Health section of today’s WaPo.

“In her new book, "The Price of Privilege" (Harper Collins, $24.95), Levine says that over-involved parents who pressure their children to be stars -- in school, on athletic fields, among their peers -- have created a generation that is "extremely unhappy, disconnected and passive." Unabashedly materialistic and disinterested in the wider world, they are both bored and "often boring," she writes. A large number suffer from depression, anxiety and substance abuse.”

Snippets from Boodman’s interview of Levine:   

Fortieth Wedding Anniversary

Today is our 40th. We have many prayers of gratitude – and no way to list all of them without making this posting more personal than I intend. It’s enough to say thank you to our four children, spouses, fiancées, brothers, sisters, parents, nieces, nephews and a host of friends and colleagues.

The scripture makes extensive use extensive use of images of marriage and sexuality in depicting God’s personal and passionate love for us. Here are a few examples for your meditation.

Your eMail has a 44% Chance of Being Misinterpreted

Go here to read the story and find out what you can do about it. Of course, the first thing I did is send it to all the president elects in Kiwanis Capital district's division five. As my son, Matt, pointed out: Dad you are sending them an email to warn them that emails are easily misinterpreted.

As the article points out, emai works best when it follows personal communication and when the emotional content of the message is low. Negative messages and disagreements should always be handled in person or by phone.

A Father's Day Tribute

Jack Smith, in this morning's WaPo, offers Flashlight-Holding 101: A Father's Teaching Tools has a nice tribute to his dad:

My father's method of imparting advice wasn't direct or even obvious, but in his own way Dad made sure he passed on the guidance that would help me through life. He was a tinkerer and I was his young apprentice.

One of my earliest memories was helping him fix our blue '51 Dodge Coronet. I was 5 or 6 years old and it was very cold and very dark. Dad was bent over the engine trying to change a particularly stubborn spark plug. My job was to keep the flashlight aimed exactly where he was struggling.

I was mostly thinking about anything but the work at hand. As my mind wandered, so did the beam of light. Every few minutes Dad would remind me, "Jack . . . the problem is here," as he tapped the wrench on the engine. "Shine the light where I'm looking, not where you're looking! Your job is to make my job easier."

Read and give thanks.

Not Hypocrisy but Still Homage

Stacy Weiner’s Washington Post story story tells  how parents who are not believers, are sending their children to church.

In my younger days, I thought that the adults were hypocritical, requiring children to do something that they themselves would not. It was La Rochefoucauld who said

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.

Now I’m inclined to give the adults a little more slack: here is what Weiner has to say:

…many nonreligious parents -- whether they've eschewed belief or practice or both -- find themselves seeking the psychological, spiritual and moral blessings they hope a religious background can bestow on their offspring.
Less-than-devout Americans may be surprised that millions of folks share the same pew. Sixty-four percent don't attend religious services even once a month, according to a 2003 Harris poll, and 21 percent don't believe in God or aren't sure a deity exists. Forty-six percent live in a household where no one belongs to a place of worship, according to the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, conducted through the City University of New York. And 12 percent don't identify with any faith, the Harris poll found.
But at some point, a number of parents seem to flock to religion. In 2002, for example, the percentage of fathers who attended church at least once a month was nearly twice that of men who had no children, according to data from a major demographic study. At least some parents likely were motivated by a kid-centric quest.
Such parents may seek the sense of community or emotional security they hope religion will provide their kids; they may want a sense of purpose or tradition; and they may be looking for ethical or spiritual influences to mold their children's lives. For some, a religious education simply means giving their kids a better shot at understanding a cultural force that they consider both powerful and pervasive.

In Defense of the Hired Hand

In the past I've heard the reading from yesterday's gospel (John 10:11-18 ) as a criticism of those who do good works in exchange for pay:

12. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it.

It seems that the criticism was not that he worked for pay but that

13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

It seems to me that this has text has been used to imply that it is a higher calling to be a shepherd than a hired hand. Yet the problem was not that the hired hand earned his own bread by the sweat of his brow (Gen 3:19), it was that he cared nothing for his sheep.

Many people - doctors, teachers, and carpenters both earn their own bread and "care for their sheep." What could be a better life?

As I posted earlier this morning, each of us needs to discern a personal vocation. No "state in life" (i.e. lay, religious, single) is inherently superior to another. What matters is that we honestly discern our calling.

Rabbi Boteach on Duke Lacrosse

Rabbi Smuley Boteach doesn't know what happened in the alleged rape of a stripper by members of the Duke Lacrosse team. His Beliefnet column has some pointed comments:

Because no one knows what really happened that night, anything I write below is purely speculative. But what is certain is that a bunch of drunken college boys at an elite university hired an exotic dancer as a way of entertaining themselves. And I am, unfortunately, used to scenes like that with male students. You see, I served for 11 years as rabbi at another elite university, Oxford, and witnessed firsthand the growing misogyny that has become a central staple of university life.

…
It is time for the Western world to accept the sad truth that universities are becoming bastions of female-hating lechers who spend four years trying to bed as many women as possible, while making the word “bitch” one of the most used in their vocabularies. Tom Wolfe’s newest novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons, chronicles the unbelievable scorn for women that permeates the American campus, and depicts how women have lost all dignity, becoming complicit in their own degradation, as they stop at nothing to become the male plaything.

He then makes a startling suggestion:

Male overexposure to women has even led to the death of the heterosexual man as we know him. If the definition of a heterosexual man is a male who is attracted to women, then most men today are barely heterosexual.

Think about it. Nearly all the men I know are only attracted to about one in 10 women, that is, the 10 percent of women they consider "hot." The other 90 percent leave them cold. Doesn’t that mean that they are ninety percent asexual? And I’m not trying to be funny. If a man is not attracted to a woman, then he is not heterosexual. Period. And if he only attracted to a small fraction of the women he meets, then he is fractionally heterosexual.

The second great tragedy of the contemporary Western man is that since women no longer strongly attract him, he cannot separate himself from his male buddies and truly attach himself to a female soul mate. Everywhere I go in the Western world I meet husbands whose real confidantes are still their drinking and card-playing buddies, and who are lonely in their marriages as a result. Alternatively, they are single men who are addicted to dating but who never fall in love.

I could ask precisely what he means by "attracted to a woman". Presumable there are a wide range of attractions. Still, he has a point.