Exit Music

This book by Ian Rankin is the 17th and last in Rankin's series featuring Detective Inspector John Rebus. Needless to say I've read all 17; just finished Exit Music last weekend. Just recently I wrote about the mini-depression that comes from finishing a great book. How much worse it is to finish a great series! Rebus is one of the most interesting and real characters I've ever come across. Totally different from Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op, but the same sense of life and struggle.

Rebus was an outsider, somebody that never fit in the police force or anywhere else; he sacrificed his marriage, most of his friendships, and his faith to the job itself. I'm not that kind of brooding obsessive; there's no way my work will expand to fill my entire life. Still I have the same sense of being an outsider. To really get ahead requires some devotion to consensus-building, to a quid-pro-quo maintenance of favors received vice favors given, and looking to advance your ally's self-interest and squelch your opponents. These are games John Rebus never played, and I've never succeeded at. One of the best things about Rankin's books is that he doesn't glamorize Rebus's iconoclasm and outsider-ness; a trap so many boring and tedious private eye writers fall into. The cost to his career and private life is pretty obvious.

And now it's all over... no more Rebus!

Standing down

Tonight my Knights of Columbus council had the annual election of officers for the next fraternal year (which starts July 1). For the last 9 years I've been on the slate of incoming officers. This year breaks the streak - starting July 1 I will not be an officer in my council.

9 years ago I was a liberal Democrat cafeteria Catholic; while not so pro-death as our current President I was certainly not truly pro-life. Today I'm a life-voting orthodox Catholic. My experience as a Knights officer was part of this growth...

3 years ago my term as Grand Knight (chief officer of the council) was ending. My year as Grand Knight was very difficult for me personally; when my term started I was very active and gung-ho; at the end I was embittered and on my way to ending my involvement in the council programs. Even so, this experience was basically a good thing. Considering all that happened that year and contemplating exactly why I reacted so negatively taught me a lot about myself and how I affect other people and how they affect me.

So - I don't regret my time as an officer, but I would never repeat it!

Reasonable

I meant to write about the President's ludicrous speech at Notre Dame, but Ann Coulter beat me to it.

I have been thinking how the baby killers like to portray themselves as the reasonable, tolerant people, and like to portray the pro-life crowd as humorless theocratic ideologues.

The following activities are fully endorsed by the pro-choice regime; when I say "fully endorsed" I mean the pro-choice regime will fiercely resist the slightest effort to place the slightest limit on any of these activities:

• use a syringe to suck a baby's brain out of its skull
  
• use a pair of pliers to crush a baby's skull
  
• use a hacksaw to cut a baby's arms off
  
• throw living babies in the trash; just imagine how dead babies are treated!
  
• inject saline solution into the baby's sac, poisoning the baby; similar to how mean little boys kill garden slugs
  

Read about more ways to kill babies here. Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the Democratic Party, and the President of the United States support all of them!

Remember that it's the people that support these activities who are moral, tolerant, upright, and reasonable (at least, if you read the Washington Post). And remember it's the people who want to save, love, and treasure all babies who are intolerant, demonic, and bigoted; at least, if you listen to Fr. John Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame, a fine school that used to be Catholic.

How did this country end up like this? The U.S. gives equal weight to the life of a human child - and a garden slug.

The purpose of the Mass

This Tremendous Lover has been tremendous reading. Chapter 11 is on the sacraments in general; Chapter 12, on the Eucharist; and I'm in the middle of Chapter 13, on the Mass. I wish I had the time and ability to write about all these topics! I certainly recommend everyone read this book.

Boylan presents the Mass with passion and clarity. The Mass is a sacrifice: the re-presentation of Jesus Christ's sacrifice of himself on Calvary. What is the purpose of sacrifice? To remind ourselves of our dependence on God; to provide an outward, sensible sign of our inward devotion. The outward sign means nothing without the inward turning towards God.

From page 183:

Our Lord's whole life was one long act of adoration and complete submission to God's will. His "interior" sacrifice was continual from the first moment of His life.... The external sacrifice on Calvary was the perfect expression of that interior sacrifice that was our Lord's whole life of submission to the will of God. That external sacrifice is given to us in the Mass, and we have to make our life one similar interior sacrifice.... There is the plan of the whole Christian life -- to live up to what we say in the action of the Mass.

So the purpose of the Mass is our sanctification (1 Thess 4:3 "This is the will of God, your sanctification"); to conform our will with God's will, for us to live with Him and in Him.

Such are the fruits of faithful participation in the Mass. What of faithless participation? As always it is easy, indeed easier now than ever, to attend the Mass and even partake of the Eucharist, without the inward consent of the will. This is the same outward piety and inward hard-heartedness condemned so often in both the Old and New Testaments. We must all strive for constant increase in our knowledge of God, in our faith and trust in Him, and in our conformance of our will to His.

5/8/77 Cornell University

The Grateful Dead's concert on May 8, 1977 at Cornell University is widely regarded as the best ever. Mostly because of this show's impact on the tape trader community at the time. This show was the first high quality soundboard tape that got into wide circulation and really changed the entire Grateful Dead community.

So I downloaded the show from etree... etree has most all the GD concerts. It's the first time I downloaded a community-hosted show vice ordering from dead.net. Pretty easy all in all - the download comes in Shorten format, and the shn2make tool easily unpacks the Shorten files onto CD-R discs, complete with CD-Text.

It is, in fact, a very good show... May 1977 is about as good as it gets. But I prefer the Closing of Winterland concert on 12/31/78, and there's a couple other in my collection I like more. It is comforting to know that etree basically has as many concerts as I can stand to download... No worries about running out!

The Inferno - Canto I

Finishing a book like Lord of the Silent Kingdom causes some problems.

• Reading the book is exhilarating; finishing the book is depressing! No more pages to flip to!
  
• What to read next? What could match the experience?
  

Fortunately The Inferno is a worthy followup! I read John Ciardi's translation before, but this translation is the classic Longfellow one, and plus, this is an oversize hardback edition with Gustave Dore's woodcuts! Truly a visual treat.

A few nights ago I read the famous first canto. Dante finds himself midway through his life's journey (35 of his Biblical 3-score-and-10), lost in a dark and thorny wood, with no recollection how he got there... just exactly like I found myself some 15 years ago, mired in sin. He sees a mountainous slope ahead - a way out! He starts climbing eagerly - just like I eagerly latched back onto the Faith. He finds himself trapped by his own sinful past! Try as he might he cannot escape. A trustworthy guide appears to show him the way - for Dante it is Virgil, the icon of human reason, who promises to guide him through Hell and Purgatory; but Virgil is not able to guide Dante through Paradise; a full understanding of revelation is beyond the reach of human reason. Needless to say, my trustworthy guide is the Holy Catholic Church!

Reading, reflection, prayer

I've been reading more in this book about a basic plan for growth in the spiritual life. Boylan lays out three basic needs: reading, reflection, and prayer.

Reading is to learn more about our Lord and Savior; when we love someone, we want to know more about them, and we love our Lord more than our own lives! Plus, there is so much sentimental and malicious distortion of His life and teachings that it takes some time to root out our built-in misconceptions and replace them with the wonderful truth. Reading should be done every day, at least ten to fifteen minutes worth. We should read carefully, with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Reflection is to prayerfully consider what we have read, to turn it over in our minds, discuss it with Our Lord, and drive it deep into our subconscious. Reflection is how we root out the misconceptions and lies I mentioned above, and plant the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Prayer is conversation with God, recalling Him to our mind and placing ourselves in His presence. We should get used to talking with Him from time to time throughout the day, and practice being aware of His presence. The phrase I use is "practicing the presence of God"; taking a few moments to become of aware of Him and recall Him to my mind.

All of these are closely intertwined. Reading can be a form of prayer, and many people mix in reflection during their prayer time. All three of them combined into a daily practice will have a singular effect: to make us Christ-centered, to put Him at the center of lives and thoughts. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, used to say that we should be able to close our eyes and mentally play back scenes from our Savior's life, placing ourself in the scene. I often picture myself in the crowd when Christ was passing by. Reading, reflection, and prayer is what allows us to bury such scenes and images so deep into our souls that we can close our eyes at any time and find ourselves crying out for Jesus, like the tax collector that climbed the sycamore tree to see Him.

The need to excel vs. fortitude

All my life I've wanted to do everything the way it should be done, and do it well. They aren't quite the same thing. The first part is to do things the way they should be done - by the book. In fact, the main way I learn new things is to read the classic book on the topic. The second part is to do things very well. From making popcorn to implementing customer requirements, I want to do it right, and do it well.

This approach is a big factor in whatever success I've had in life. To this day I still don't understand how people can put their names on work they know isn't very good. I still remember the shock when I realized it didn't bother my stepchildren to turn in shoddy homework, or even not turn in the homework at all.

But life is a hard problem, and any approach that gives you strength in some ways, makes you weaker than others. My weakness is fear to take on things where I might not succeed. When confronted with tasks that could well be beyond my abilities, I tend to freeze or become passive-aggressive.

This is where fortitude comes into play. Fortitude is the virtue that gives us the courage and energy to tackle problems that could overwhelm us. Josef Pieper's book on the four cardinal virtues includes an excellent, even life-changing, discussion of fortitude.

So with fortitude (one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit) to give me strength, and faith and trust in God to give me peace of mind, I hope to be more willing to try new things and very difficult things.

"This Tremendous Lover": a plan of life

In This Tremendous Lover, Boylan discusses a methodical approach towards growth in our spiritual life. So far he recommends a daily plan that is pretty similar to other spiritual writers. As always, every element of the plan must be approached from the heart with faith! Every Old Testament prophet rails against empty ritual observances that are not animated by love for God. Every day our hearts must overflow with love for Him. That being said:

• a daily short formal prayer spoken in a formal posture (i.e. kneeling). I say the Angelus every day, but not usually kneeling or in other formal posture.
  
• "A habit of talking to our Lord frequently during the day, quite informally"
  
• 10 to 15 minutes of private prayer every day. This is contemplative prayer where we are loving and adoring God. 15 minutes is not a maximum; longer prayer always pays off. But I can say from practical experience that 10 minutes is a minimum. 10 minutes of loving and adoring God every day will change your life. Fewer than 10 just doesn't seem to accomplish anything. I hope to write more articles on private prayer...
  
• 10 to 15 minutes of spiritual reading every day; especially the Gospels and the Psalms
  

Boylan has much more to say on prayer and spiritual reading and our whole life with Christ and in Him... This little book is well worth the read.

Which direction to face?

In my previous post I mentioned my struggle with sin and ways to resist my temptations. In a weird way this orientation towards sin is a big part of the problem. One of the priests at my parish had a saying: "When you face your shadow you can't see the sun; turn towards the sun and you can't see your shadow." The shadow is sin; the sun is the Son, our Lord and Savior. Being preoccupied with sin takes time away from being preoccupied with God. When we face in His direction our temptations become insubstantial shadows we can't even see.