bearing blog

"Take as your model the tall women with yellow hair in plaits/Who walked back into burning houses to die with men..."

Marc Barnes at Bad Catholic put up a post today in which he quoted a few lines from a poem by C. S. Lewis that I didn't know -- a poem that appeared to mock the idea that the modern world is falling into "paganism," on the grounds that paganism is much cooler and certainly manlier than whatever it is the modern world is falling into today.   I thought my classics-loving 11-year-old would like it, so I went looking.

Here's the poem, Googled and presented for your enjoyment.

Cliche Came Out of Its Cage

by C. S. Lewis

1

You said 'The world is going back to Paganism'. 
Oh bright Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House 
Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes, 
And Leavis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with flutes, 
Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses 
To pay where due the glory of their latest theorem. 
Hestia's fire in every flat, rekindled, burned before 
The Lardergods. Unmarried daughters with obedient hands 
Tended it By the hearth the white-armd venerable mother 
Domum servabat, lanam faciebat. at the hour 
Of sacrifice their brothers came, silent, corrected, grave 
Before their elders; on their downy cheeks easily the blush 
Arose (it is the mark of freemen's children) as they trooped, 
Gleaming with oil, demurely home from the palaestra or the dance. 
Walk carefully, do not wake the envy of the happy gods, 
Shun Hubris. The middle of the road, the middle sort of men, 
Are best. Aidos surpasses gold. Reverence for the aged 
Is wholesome as seasonable rain, and for a man to die 
Defending the city in battle is a harmonious thing. 
Thus with magistral hand the Puritan Sophrosune 
Cooled and schooled and tempered our uneasy motions; 
Heathendom came again, the circumspection and the holy fears ... 
You said it. Did you mean it? Oh inordinate liar, stop.

2

Or did you mean another kind of heathenry? 
Think, then, that under heaven-roof the little disc of the earth, 
Fortified Midgard, lies encircled by the ravening Worm. 
Over its icy bastions faces of giant and troll 
Look in, ready to invade it. The Wolf, admittedly, is bound; 
But the bond wil1 break, the Beast run free. The weary gods, 
Scarred with old wounds the one-eyed Odin, Tyr who has lost a hand, 
Will limp to their stations for the Last defence. Make it your hope 
To be counted worthy on that day to stand beside them; 
For the end of man is to partake of their defeat and die 
His second, final death in good company. The stupid, strong 
Unteachable monsters are certain to be victorious at last, 
And every man of decent blood is on the losing side. 
Take as your model the tall women with yellow hair in plaits 
Who walked back into burning houses to die with men, 
Or him who as the death spear entered into his vitals 
Made critical comments on its workmanship and aim. 
Are these the Pagans you spoke of? Know your betters and crouch, dogs; 
You that have Vichy water in your veins and worship the event 
Your goddess History (whom your fathers called the strumpet Fortune).

Fun, isn't it?

Lent, Monday one.

Last Friday, the kids and I met Mark at church for the fish fry dinner, then he took the three younger ones off to run errands while the 10-y-o and I stuck around to attend Stations of the Cross followed by Eucharistic Benediction.  I pointed out that the booklet (it's the Liguori stations) contained the Stabat Mater in Latin as well as in parallel English translation, and out of the corner of my eye watched him happily flipping back and forth trying to make out the Latin as best he could.  It's exactly the sort of thing I would have been doing as a ten-year-old, and I had  to hide my smile.

My mind wanders terribly during these things, but a phrase from one of the Stations jumped out at me -- so to speak -- and I decided right there to take it as my Lenten theme.  It's the ninth Station, "Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem:"

"...do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children."

I'm not sure exactly where that will take me, yet, but I think it will take me far in forty days.

* * *

My plans are modest.  I'm hoping to make it to an hour of adoration twice a week during Lent -- just me -- using about two-thirds of what's usually my school-planning time.  And I set some limits for myself on the computer, eliminating some of the extra time and also taking some of the stuff I usually read out of my RSS reader, with an eye towards serenity.  Above that, I'm going to try tentatively giving up some items of food, but on a day-by-day basis.   I swore off giving up food-type things for Lent a couple of years ago, because I felt it exacerbated my eating disorders, but I'm feeling stronger about those now and so I think I'm ready to give it a try again, but carefully.  I also have some spiritual reading lined up.

So, not one big thing-to-do-every-day, but several small things that hopefully will add up to doing something every day.

Could use a little advice here from the cradle Catholics.

So one thing I really don't understand about how Lenten penances are supposed to work out within a family. 

Do your children (older ones -- say 8 year olds and up) take responsibility for their own Lenten devotion?

As far as I know, "giving up something" for Lent is an optional devotion.  It's not optional that we have to observe Lent somehow, with prayer, fasting, penance, almsgiving.  But, say, "giving up chocolate" for Lent, that kind of thing, that's traditional but not obligatory.  Right?

So, as a mother, I feel like my role ought to be to encourage my kids to come up with a Lenten sacrifice and follow through with it.  But I'm really uncomfortable with enforcing it in any way, or even with making gentle reminders.

(Yes, it's my role to enforce religious obligations, e.g., Sunday Mass attendance -- I'm talking about optional devotions.)

 If they were much more mature, like 16 or older, it would definitely be inappropriate for me to butt into their private spiritual lives.  Also, by that time, they should be able to take responsibility themselves for their own sacrifices -- they should be totally voluntary.  I'm clear on the concept for older kids and adults.

So should they be voluntary from the beginning?

Let me give an example.  When my oldest was eight, he announced he was going to give up ketchup for Lent.  I thought that was a really great sacrifice  for a kid -- doable, but noticeable.  For the first couple of weeks he went without ketchup.  Then one night he forgot and put it on his plate.  Just as a reminder -- not at all in a punitive way, I swear -- I said, "Hey, did you forget that you gave up ketchup for Lent?"   And he got this look on his face that said I know.  Please don't remind me.    A few more times that happened, and then by the end it was clear that he didn't want to give up ketchup anymore.  I stopped reminding him.  It felt wrong to "nag" about something that was technically optional and that, if he were fully grown, would be totally his own business.  It definitely felt wrong to speak to him about it at the dinner table, in front of people.  

I get even more nervous when my son announces that he's going to give up something that I just know is going to be really hard for him.  Like, "I'll give up video games."  Great, I think, it's really a good idea, but... do you expect me to be your policeman?  Like, when you're at your friends' house and they're all playing video games, do you want me to come down the stairs and say, "Hey, 10-year-old, you told me you were giving up video games for Lent, so put down the controller?"

I don't have an example for how to do this.  I was not a child growing up in a practicing-Catholic family.   I literally do not know how to encourage a Lenten devotion without becoming Lent Cop Mom. 

Seriously.  Help me out here.  And if you have a blog which gets more traffic than mine, how about asking your readers?  Because I have a feeling I need a lot of ideas.

UPDATE:  Oh, good, Jen at Conversion Diary has kindly linked to my question!  That should help.  So has the other Jennifer, Fitz at Riparians at the Gate.

Double effect, in the bathtub.

Jennifer Fitz, as part of a longer discourse on lying, offers a novel explanation of the principle of double effect.  I think it's very approachable (and as far as I can tell, accurately represents Church teaching) so if this oft-misused principle has ever confused you -- please, check it out.

Hint:  The principle of double effect is not just a way of saying, "We can do something bad if we can think up a good enough reason."  Money quote:  "That's the clincher of double effect -- there are two effects."

Double effect (also called “parallel effect”) is actually one of the two principles that work together to keep our moral system sane.  The other is ‘ends don’t justify the means’, but that isn’t our topic today until way down below where I go out on a limb and guess things.  Back to Double Effect:

#1 Reason to love Double Effect: It lets you take a shower.

Because here’s what: Showers and bathtubs are super dangerous.  You could slip and crack your head open. And if the bathroom weren’t bad enough, you probably keep a stove and a water heater around the house, and perhaps even some kind of Vehicle of Death in your garage.  (Or, if you are a Luddite, a Pack Animal of Death for your transportation needs.)

Double effect says that you are allowed to have all this and more!  Because you aren’t actually trying to drown, scald or maim anybody.  Those are unintended consequences of your perfectly reasonable efforts to stay clean, fed, mobile, and so forth.   You’ll try to avoid those bad effects if you possibly can.

[What you can't do: If your enemy fails to drown in his bath, you can't hold him under.  In fact you can't even lay out the bath things and light a scented candle in an effort to lure him to his death.  You may only lead him to the tub for a legitimately good reason, such as to reduce the general stinkiness and discourage the spread of impetigo.  Or perhaps so that he might unwind after a long day driving. you. crazy.  But not to kill him. Barring circumstances we'll get to down the page.]

So that’s the use of double effect.  It lets us do something good, even if there is a some risk of something bad happening in the process.

Now unless you suffer from deep scruples, you probable don’t lay awake nights wondering if your really did the right thing, caving in and buying a water heater.  So where double effect gets famous is because it permits seriously dangerous action if there’s a genuine need for it.

You may not, for example, throw yourself in front of a bus in order to get that drat fly at last. (Even though the fly is germy and annoying, and you only want to give your beloved a peaceful picnic.  Good cause, good action, but the risks are disproportionate.  It’s a no-go.  Hope the bus gets the fly, and live to swat another day.)  But if it is to push your hapless child out of harm’s way, yes you may take the risk of your likely death in order to save the child.  You aren’t trying to die.  You hope to avoid dying.  Everyone will be much happier if a guardian angel steps up and takes care of things.

And that’s the clincher of double effect — there are two effects: There is one thing good you are trying to achieve, and one bad bad you hope to avoid. Even if the bad effect is 100% likely barring supernatural intervention, you can’t be trying to achieve the bad effect.

There's more -- go read the whole thing.  I think Jennifer's explanation is really helpful.  Double effect is a seriously hard-to-understand principle.  I think that's because there's a long separation in logic, and usually time and distance, between convincing yourself in the abstract that the principle of double effect is correct and morally right (which isn't so hard), and many of its applications, which can sometimes seem convoluted and (shall I say it?) jesuitical.    To navigate some of these situations, it's like you have to wander through a long, twisty tunnel.  At the beginning of the tunnel, the principle of double effect is well understood.  At the end of the tunnel, you see the conclusions it leads to.  The principle goes with you through the long, twisty tunnel, your only source of light, and it remains true all the time, but once you get to the end sometimes the conclusion is surprising and hard to understand.

Take one example:  the end-point of Catholic moral theology with respect to ectopic (tubal) pregnancy.  We wind up with what must seem a very bizarre conclusion:  

• A persistent ectopic pregnancy creates a life-threatening disorder from the point of view of the mother.  
• Yes, the out-of-place and growing embryo is a human being who deserves our protection. 
•  No, that doesn't mean that the mother doesn't get medical treatment, because she is also a human being who deserves our protection.  
• So yes, she can seek treatment for it, treatment which will end the pregnancy and inevitably kill the embryo.  
• But (assuming the mother wishes to remain true to Catholic moral understanding of life issues, and understands all this) she won't choose to use the drug methotrexate to end the pregnancy by killing the embryo, even though it is first treatment choice of many doctors and is probably physically the least dangerous option that doctors offer her, 
• and it may be she won't even choose the least-invasive surgical method, salpingostomy (incision in the fallopian tube) followed by killing the embryo by removing it and its amnion;
• but she can choose salpingectomy, which is the removal of the section of fallopian tube containing the misplaced embryo, 
• even though that removal inevitably results in the death of the embryo,
• which we knew all along was going to happen,
• and even though it would be objectively physically safer for the mother to undergo methotrexate or salpingostomy,
• and even though the salpingectomy will likely damage the mother's fertility.

I mean, if you don't have any understanding of the principle of double effect, this sounds nuts.  Even if you do have an understanding of the principle of double effect, it might still sound nuts.  You have to sit down and take time to connect all the dots to figure out how we got from here to there, or why it matters that we prefer one option to the other when the end result is a no-longer-in-danger mother and a dead embryo for all of them, and especially why "but the salpingectomy is more dangerous!" isn't a good enough reason to use one of the other methods, considering that the embryo is dead either way.

And yet, this is where double effect, properly understood, gets you.  If it isn't obvious, why not head over to Jennifer's blog and see if you can make the connections between her bathtub assailant and the unfortunate ectopic pregnancy problem?  If nothing else, the exercise illustrates why it's important for ordinary Catholics who desire to follow Church teachings -- whether they understand them or not -- to be confident that their local Catholic hospital faithfully follows it, and why the bishops have to guard that confidence even if it means getting bad press.

 

(UPDATE.   Edited slightly to avoid implying that salpingostomy is definitively considered illicit.  See first comment.)

Diversity.

Our parish started up a lay Carmelite group this past year.  I haven't joined up, but it got me thinking about the lay associates with the various orders.  What's the difference between a lay Carmelite and a lay Dominican?  What are the requirements of becoming one?  Things like that.  

I stumbled across this informative article about lay Dominican spirituality not too long ago.  I'd like to read more about what is unique to other Orders and Societies and especially to their lay associates.

There are so many different ways of spirituality and even of worship within Church Tradition.  Truly mindboggling. 

Sometimes you hear people, even Catholics, trying to be all positive and ecumenical and referring warmly to the great diversity of people's paths to Christ, as if it's actually a good thing that we have Baptists and Methodists and Lutherans and what-have-you all doing something different, all believing something different, all contradicting each other in so many places.  True, much that is good has come of the work of fine people who live and worship and believe in various traditions outside the Church.  But it's a false dilemma, to think that we must disagree to have diversity, that somehow the Protestant Reformation has freed us from stifling uniformity.  It has occurred to me that in a world without heresy, all that energy and vitality that has gone into building the various denominations would have found its expression in an outblooming of wholly unique, wholly individual, wholly Catholic spiritualities and devotions.   

Maybe in some alternate, Reformation-free universe we'd see the mirror-images of wholesome practices that are today associated only with certain denominations, bearing fruit and finding their full expression in full unity of faith and belief with the Apostles.  Who knows, those vines may be grafted back on someday.

A deliberate community... of "slow geeks."

How the Amish go about embracing new technology.

(h/t Instapundit)