Irony

First, let me thank clairity for creating this forum. I would have logged in earlier and contributed my thoughts, but the truth is that I haven't been blogging much in the past six months or so. And I would like to think that that's a good thing for my life.

But the upcoming election did get me to start blogging again (at least compared to the long hibernation that's befallen all of my other blogs). I'll admit here that I'm behind the (never read) blog, Diary of a Disillusioned Voter. I started the blog as an expression of my frustration with American politics. I will not bore you with a repetition of all the reasons here; go visit the blog and you will find plenty.

I used to be very politically interested and involved. A good friend is now an elected official and another is likely to be shortly. Yet, I have largely withdrawn from politics until recently, much to the shock of people who haven't seen me in five or ten years, for whom an image of me immersed in politics is what is attached to my name in their memory.

I label this post "Irony" because I feel less disillusioned today than I have in a long time. I think things started to change for me with a local aldermanic election in which a neighbor of mine was the candidate challenging a longtime incumbent. Most would never think I'd support him, yet through all the differences in our beliefs -- and if you know my neighborhood you would know that there are many -- at its core was an honesty about our neighborhood's real situation and a common bond to better our neighborhood. And that cut, fast and smoothly, through all the things that ideologically could have divided us.

I have had a similar experience with this presidential election. I had been dreading it for a long time, thinking that there would be no candidate I could possibly support. To my surprise, I found one. And not long after starting a blog entitled, "Diary of a Disillusioned Voter," I find myself having contributed money to a presidential campaign and having written letters on behalf of a candidate. I am not naive enough to think that he's guaranteed any victories or that I might not find myself in just a few months facing the final selections of this primary season, dissatisfied and unmotivated. But still something has changed.

In the first place, I think I have thrown off some of the lies our political culture tends to give us. These days, there seems to be two main reasons offered up as why you should vote for someone: peer-pressure and fear. Fear: fear that if you don't vote for Candidate A, then that oh-so-evil Candidate B is going to win and, you know, that's going to mean Armageddon. Peer-pressure: the classic, "why do you want to waste your vote" jazz. All of this gets wrapped up for us Catholics in that neat little moral theology wrapper of it being permissible to vote for the lesser of two evils. Now, I'm not questioning the validity of that premise in theory, but in practice voting for the lesser of two evils for the past 15 years has torn a hole in my soul. And I realize that that was because I had bought into the cultural lie of what gives my vote meaning. It is no longer about prediction for me. I no longer buy into the ideological rantings that the other candidate is the devil incarnate and that my vote is the world's last hope. I'll cast my vote for very different reasons this year. My candidate will likely not win, but at least I won't lose in the process.

Politics and Desire

Yesterday, Fred posted on the coming election: "Above all, we need a reasonable candidate, or better yet a contest between two reasonable candidates. We also need to keep the ideal in the public square, and not reduce issues to whichever candidates get nominated." He included a link to Noonan's excellent column on reasonableness and our own Major David Jones' piece offering a criterion to face the election.

It is a huge temptation to duck out of this election. The last one also appeared dismal to me. And I remember just before the Iraq invasion that I could not bear to watch television or discuss the imminent horror with anyone, as most that I knew supported the war vigorously. After some time, I had to pull myself out of this denial to return to participate in the most human debate of politics and to engage again from a position of hope that Christ is saving the world now.

I would invite everyone to read David's piece in its entirety. It is beautiful and the best thing I have read on the election so far, with its fine and full Christian perspective. I have stolen the title of the upcoming issue of Traces for my post, not knowing in particular what it will contain. But I believe David has also addressed this desire of ours for peace and solidarity with all of humanity.

I appreciate first of all that he doesn't tell us how to vote. He doesn't contrive a complicated point system to rate the candidates as one might do for the attributes of racing horses. "Like so many I wish I could make my own Mr. Potato Head' candidate, but this is not possible, nor even desirable, for many different reasons. The first and foremost being the need to embrace reality for what it is and not for what one desires it to be."

He suggests the possibility of trust which allows us to look beyond particular blindnesses and limits to a candidate's potential. He acknowledges the fallen nature that we all have, which need not block God's grace for our country.

When judging these political candidates we must consider our obligation to be in solidarity with one another. Who has the greatest compatibility to unite the American people? Which candidate has firm convictions and beliefs but will work with others both within their party and in Congress to serve the common good? Who can move beyond their own particular political ideology to see the world and current events as they truly are? Who are their trusted advisors and friends who will guide them in these very difficult times? These are all questions we must ask ourselves in judging who the best candidate for President is.

He reminds us that what will change our country and the world will be our faithfulness to Christ, and concretely that is in our adhesion to the Church in the person of the Holy Father. The Pope speaks on the fullness of human dignity in its various concerns. There is no reduction to a single-issue or hierarchy of needs, but we desire the full freedom and life of every person in the world without exception. David reminds us:

In conclusion, let us never forget that America will be transformed by Christ through Catholics staying faithful to the Holy Father. Additionally Europe will be transformed by Christ through Catholics staying faithful to the Holy Father. Lastly the world will be transformed by Christ through Catholics staying faithful to the Holy Father. As Pope Paul VI taught in his first encyclical letter, Ecclesiam Suam (Paths of the Church), the transformation of America, Europe and the world will happen first through our own personal Awareness.

A Witness

I share this story of Vicky's, who shared it with us. From Traces. There is nothing to add to this witness. This is simply the way to live.

There will be a Rhythm 'n' Soul Benefit Concert in New York on January 19th which will take place at the Cooper Union Great Hall. The proceeds from this event will be used by AVSI for the HIV/AIDS project "Meeting Point Kitgum" in Uganda, the center that was available to Vicky.

My name is Vicky. I am 42 and I come from the eastern region of Uganda. I
want to thank you and God for the precious life that He has given me. In 1992,
when I found out I was pregnant with Brian, my last child, my husband gave me
the choice of giving up the pregnancy and remaining his wife, or separating from
him if I wanted to keep the child. At the time, I only had two children, and I
decided to carry on with the pregnancy, a choice that marked the end of my
relationship with him. I truly couldn’t understand why he was so cruel and
unyielding. Then, in 1997, when I lost my job because of sickness and, at the
same time, my son Brian manifested the initial symptoms of tuberculosis, I began
to have my first suspicions. The next year, I got worse. In the Nsambiya
hospital, I was examined and tested for AIDS, and showed up HIV-positive. That
was when I understood why my husband hadn’t wanted the pregnancy with Brian,
because back then he had known that he was HIV-positive.

Life at home with my three children became even more difficult. The two
older boys were healthy, but we didn’t have enough money for school. We didn’t
have food or money for medicine and, worst of all, we didn’t have love from
anyone anywhere in the world. I really didn’t know whether God existed. In 2001,
someone directed me to the International Meeting Point, where I encountered
women with such joy on their faces, even though they too were sick with AIDS,
that I found it hard to believe. They danced and were glad, and I wondered how
anyone with this disease could sing and dance. At the Meeting Point, they
welcome all with music and songs from different peoples–African, European, and
Indian; I even heard some from my own tribe. After a long time, I began to see a
glimmer of light shining on my ruined life, so I continued spending time with
them.“An important thing I’ll never forget is the day someone looked at me with
a gaze shining with hope and love. In all the time I was bedridden, all my
friends, relatives, and even neighbors looked at me and my children with
rejection and contempt. This gaze of love and hope showed me something that
brought life to my spirit and my ruined body. It told me, ‘Vicky! You have a
value, and your value is greater than the weight of your sickness, greater than
death."

In 2002, I began buying medicine for my child, who was on the verge of
death, after taking him out of school because of the seal of discrimination
they’d set on him: they’d nicknamed him ‘skeleton.’ In 2003, I began buying
medicine for myself as well. I weighed 99 pounds, and now I weigh 165. Now Brian
is truly healthy, and has begun going back to high school. My oldest son is
attending the university, and the second is in the fourth year of high school.
Where is the power of death? It is in the loss of hope and the lack of love. Now
I am a volunteer at the Meeting Point, and every time I receive people I tell
them that the value of life is greater than that of the virus they carry within
their bodies. This affirmation nurtures the hope of people who are suffering and
about to die, and brings them back to life. All these results have been possible
because I have taken on the garment of something beyond death–in particular,
love. I want to thank all the people who have educated us, even if we’ve never
met them in person. Today, in the name of Fr. Giussani, Fr. Carrón has come
among us, who were poor and forgotten. Who is richer than us now? We are the
richest people in the world, because someone has brought a smile to the face of
at least one person.

Adventures in ecumenism

20 years ago I was on a week-long retreat led by Jean Vanier for volunteers with l'Arche. Knowing that l'Arche includes Catholics and Protestants, among others, the organizers had tried to make things ecumenical.

Prayer rooms were set up: in one were icons and candles, another had a Tabernacle with pews and kneelers. The sun room (with full 180 degree solar exposure) had an open bible on a table surrounded with chairs, each of which having a Bible too. The most popular chapel had the Blessed Sacrament exposed. Some people kneeled or prostrated themselves while others sat on pillows.

The reconciliation service had something for everyone. Folks were encouraged to ask forgiveness of each other; The passion of Christ was enacted; individual Confession was also available.

Liturgy was a bit messy. The original plan was for noon services alternating Catholic one day and Protestant the next. But the Catholics wanted daily Mass, so on Protestant days Mass was offered in the mornings. Also, a variety of Protestant services had to be added in order to address high church and low church preferences. Some folks asked about intercommunion. Vanier said that yes we have a desire to be one in Christ, but that obedience and humility indicated that we embrace the suffering of a broken communion (I speak from memory here, so forgive/ correct any imprecision).

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Christmas eve this year, my family sat behind another family. The grandparents of the family in front stood and sat but didn't kneel. I couldn't help noticing that they sang songs and prayed the Our Father. I was touched to see this couple participating in the Mass as much as possible. After Mass, I wished them Merry Christmas and thanked them for praying with us.

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The root of ecumenism is the desire for the truth made flesh, Jesus Christ. Only his gaze can resolve the contradictions and sins that divide us, not only between Catholics and Protestants, but even between Catholics, even within families.

Any experiences with ecumenism you would like to share?

Politics 2007: Major Jones speaks to Catholic Online

LOS ANGELES (Catholic Online) - As a political junkie who has spent far too much time following current events in these days and not contemplating or praying enough about the Mystery of the Incarnation I must publicly repent.

Along with many close Catholic friends, I consider the upcoming caucuses/primaries and general election season one of the most important of our lifetimes. As Catholics deeply engaged in the world it is our duty to properly form our conscience with the teachings of the Church.

We must then make a prudential decision on which candidate is best based upon the policies they support and endorse.

- more -

Merry Christmas 2007

Translation:

Yes, [this history] really did happen. Jesus is no myth. He is a man of flesh and blood and He stands as a fully real part of history. We can go the the very places where He himself went. We can hear His words through His witnesses. He died and He is risen... the myths had waited for Him, because in Him what they long for came to pass.

Benedict XVI

Christianity is not born as the fruit of our culture or as the discovery of our intelligence... it reveals itself in facts events, which constitute a new reality in the world, a living reality; in movement. Christian reality is God's mystery that has entered the world as a human history.

Luigi Giussani

Tradition and Modernity

Thanks to our friend Martin for passing along this link to an article about the new artwork commissioned for the new lectionary in Italy. While on the surface it is only about an aesthetic judgment, I think the issue is much broader and opens up many avenues for exploration.

It wasn't so long ago that I myself would have been one of those angered by this artwork and grousing about the incompatibility of it with Sacred Scripture. However, recently my idea of Beauty has been broadened. If Christ cannot come down and speak to modern man - at the place where modern man lives - what good is He? How one-dimensional and powerless is a God and a faith that cannot respond to the tough questions posed by modernism, by existentialism, by idealism, by any-ism? A singular quality of true Christianity, on the contrary, is that it has the ability to meet all of reality head on and transform it with beauty.

Christmas and Twelfth Night by Sigrid Undset

Last Christmas I came across a book by Undset that I loved, and I posted the first part on my blog. Please go here to read it. The book is out of print, and not the Internet Archive yet:

Christmas and Twelfth Night by Sigrid Undset

-- originally posted on the 29th of Dec, 2006.

Traces: our 'letters of communion'

NOVEMBER 2007
Table of contents

Every month in Traces,
words from Benedict XVI.

Letter of His Holiness Benedict xvi to the President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference on the occasion of the centenary of the first social week of Italian catholics

ENCLOSED:

Educating: a Communication of Yourself, that is, of Your Own Way of Relating with Reality - A meeting between Julián Carrón and the Communion and Liberation members in the teaching profession. Milan, October 14, 2007

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NEXT ISSUE:

Subscribe to Traces now!
Traces makes a great gift also.

I want to see: «Youth without Youth»

Francis Ford Coppola seeks answers in 'Youth'

«Youth Without Youth is Coppola's rendering of a novella by the Romanian emigre philosopher Mircea Eliade. Tim Roth plays an aged academic who becomes young again when he's struck by lightning. It's a movie of ideas, a mystery that doesn't ask whodunnit, but instead what is it? What is time? Memory? Reality? Knowledge?»

And who is Eliade, you may ask . . . go check the index to At the Origin of the Christian Claim. An interesting fellow - I've been wanting to read something by him for some time.

Encounter, Lake Wobegon style

OK! There is nothing of Lake Wobegon here; but, here is a wonderful article by Garrison Keilor on Incarnation:

...This magical story is a cornerstone of the Christian faith and I am sorry if it's a big hurdle for the skeptical young. It is to the Church what his Kryptonian heritage was to Clark Kent -- it enables us to stop speeding locomotives and leap tall buildings at a single bound, and also to love our neighbors as ourselves. Without the Nativity, we become a sort of lecture series and coffee club, with not very good coffee and sort of aimless lectures.

On Christmas Eve, the snow on the ground, the stars in the sky, the spruce tree glittering with beloved ornaments, we stand in the dimness and sing about the silent holy night and tears come to our eyes and the vast invisible forces of Christmas stir in the world. Skeptics, stand back. Hush. Hark. There is much in this world that doubt cannot explain.

Via Ironic Catholic.

"a knowledge of man is a prerequisite for a knowledge of God"

Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete quoted these passages recently. Without googling or otherwise peeking, who spoke these remarks?

«The religion of the God who became man has met the religion (for such it is) of man who makes himself God. And what happened?
[...]
The attention of our council has been absorbed by the discovery of human needs (and these needs grow in proportion to the greatness which the son of the earth claims for himself). But we call upon those who term themselves modern humanists, and who have renounced the transcendent value of the highest realities, to give the council credit at least for one quality and to recognize our own new type of humanism: we, too, in fact, we more than any others, honor mankind.
[....]
the Catholic religion is for mankind. In a certain sense it is the life of mankind. It is so by the extremely precise and sublime interpretation that our religion gives of humanity (surely man by himself is a mystery to himself) and gives this interpretation in virtue of its knowledge of God: a knowledge of God is a prerequisite for a knowledge of man as he really is, in all his fullness; for proof of this let it suffice for now to recall the ardent expression of St. Catherine of Siena, "In your nature, Eternal God, I shall know my own." The Catholic religion is man's life because it determines life's nature and destiny; it gives life its real meaning, it establishes the supreme law of life and infuses it with that mysterious activity which we may say divinizes it.
[...]
we can and must recognize in Christ's countenance the countenance of our heavenly Father "He who sees me," Our Lord said, "sees also the Father" (John 14:9), our humanism becomes Christianity, our Christianity becomes centered on God; in such sort that we may say, to put it differently: a knowledge of man is a prerequisite for a knowledge of God.»

Update: Pope Paul VI - Address to Vatican II, December 7, 1965

More on Spe Salvi

What strikes me first of all when reading Spe Salvi is the Holy Father's essential point that hope has a communal dimension:

14. Against this, drawing upon the vast range of patristic theology, de Lubac was able to demonstrate that salvation has always been considered a "social" reality. Indeed, the Letter to the Hebrews speaks of a "city" (cf. 11:10, 16; 12:22; 13:14) and therefore of communal salvation. Consistently with this view, sin is understood by the Fathers as the destruction of the unity of the human race, as fragmentation and division. Babel, the place where languages were confused, the place of separation, is seen to be an expression of what sin fundamentally is. Hence "redemption" appears as the reestablishment of unity, in which we come together once more in a union that begins to take shape in the world community of believers. We need not concern ourselves here with all the texts in which the social character of hope appears. Let us concentrate on the Letter to Proba in which Augustine tries to illustrate to some degree this "known unknown" that we seek. His point of departure is simply the expression "blessed life". Then he quotes Psalm 144 [143]:15: "Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord." And he continues: "In order to be numbered among this people and attain to ... everlasting life with God, 'the end of the commandment is charity that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith' (1 Tim 1:5)"[11]. This real life, towards which we try to reach out again and again, is linked to a lived union with a "people", and for each individual it can only be attained within this "we". It presupposes that we escape from the prison of our "I", because only in the openness of this universal subject does our gaze open out to the source of joy, to love itself—to God.

What particularly strikes me is that at Pentecost, in contrast to Babel, those who receive the gift of the Holy Spirit are able to speak in other languages -- they regain what was lost at Babel -- not by having the multiplicity of languages erased in favor of a universal "esperanto," but by being able to make themselves intelligible in every language. This intelligibility is something we yearn for and work toward still. Even after we receive Confirmation, we do not suddenly burst forth in languages we have never studied. Yet we, like the apostles, are called to "Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation..." (Mark 16:15b). The content of the apostles' speech, when they were given the gift of tongues, was "God's deeds of power" (Acts 2:11b). If we were moved to speak and think exclusively and joyfully of God's deeds of power (and not of our own), what new intelligibility would our speech develop? How much more clearly understood would our actions, and even our mere presence be? Much love is communicated in the absence of words.

What was the sin of Babel? Instead of going out into the world, the people tried to build their own pathway to a "name" for themselves. What they wished to avoid was being "scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth" (Genesis 11:4bc), which was precisely what God intended that they do. When he saw the city they were building, God said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them" (Genesis 11:6). Why should God wish to thwart our proposals and weaken our ability to carry out our plans? Why does he wish us to be scattered?

I think that the answer to this question lies in understanding what it means for human beings to want to make a "name" for themselves. The people saw their common language as a safeguard against the unexpected, the surprising. Their unity was a way to build power and glory for themselves, to try to sever the ties of dependence that bound them to God. What would be the features of this utopian city, built by human hands?

We can see, in many new technologies (that are analogous to the baked bricks and bitumen mortar of the people who began to build Babel), some of the consequences of using human means to reach human ideals. The internet, to give one example, promises us that we can form "one" people, with one common language, and what are the consequences of this particular "unity"? Let's just say that not every use to which the internet is put yields glory to God or even benefits our humanity.

What we need is not a common language, but a common "Logos" that will infuse our language and the texture and grit of our daily existence with meaning.

So, again I want to ask, why does God wish us to be "scattered"? Here is another excerpt from Spe Salvi that helps to answer the question:

In this way we further clarify an important element of the Christian concept of hope. Our hope is always essentially also hope for others; only thus is it truly hope for me too. As Christians we should never limit ourselves to asking: how can I save myself? We should also ask: what can I do in order that others may be saved and that for them too the star of hope may rise? Then I will have done my utmost for my own personal salvation as well.

We are not redeemed alone. What happens to my brothers and sisters concerns me because what Christ has promised us, (the "mystery of God's will" that St. Paul speaks of) is "a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Ephesians 1:10). Thus, what I want is not simply to make sure that I (and the select few I would like to spend my eternity beside) have a berth in heaven, but rather that "thy will be done." More than any particular glory or name for myself, what I want is for all things to be "gathered" or "summed up" in Christ. Therefore, it is with the whole community of believers that I "wait in joyful hope for the coming of the Lord." It is this communal waiting for the coming of Christ that constitutes the true language, or Logos, of hope and redemption. I cannot speak it alone.

The heart of Spe Salvi

Spe Salvi draws repeatedly on Hebrews 10-11, so you may want to review these chapters before or after reading the encyclical, especially Hebrews 11:1. It's a bit daunting to read in its entirety, but thankfully, Pope Benedict XVI has summarized the core of the encyclical for us. I've emphasized some key points by using a larger type font here.

«30. Let us summarize what has emerged so far in the course of our reflections. Day by day, man experiences many greater or lesser hopes, different in kind according to the different periods of his life. Sometimes one of these hopes may appear to be totally satisfying without any need for other hopes. Young people can have the hope of a great and fully satisfying love; the hope of a certain position in their profession, or of some success that will prove decisive for the rest of their lives. When these hopes are fulfilled, however, it becomes clear that they were not, in reality, the whole. It becomes evident that man has need of a hope that goes further. It becomes clear that only something infinite will suffice for him, something that will always be more than he can ever attain. In this regard our contemporary age has developed the hope of creating a perfect world that, thanks to scientific knowledge and to scientifically based politics, seemed to be achievable. Thus Biblical hope in the Kingdom of God has been displaced by hope in the kingdom of man, the hope of a better world which would be the real “Kingdom of God”. This seemed at last to be the great and realistic hope that man needs. It was capable of galvanizing—for a time—all man's energies. The great objective seemed worthy of full commitment. In the course of time, however, it has become clear that this hope is constantly receding. Above all it has become apparent that this may be a hope for a future generation, but not for me.

And however much “for all” may be part of the great hope — since I cannot be happy without others or in opposition to them — it remains true that a hope that does not concern me personally is not a real hope. It has also become clear that this hope is opposed to freedom, since human affairs depend in each generation on the free decisions of those concerned. If this freedom were to be taken away, as a result of certain conditions or structures, then ultimately this world would not be good, since a world without freedom can by no means be a good world. Hence, while we must always be committed to the improvement of the world, tomorrow's better world cannot be the proper and sufficient content of our hope. And in this regard the question always arises: when is the world “better”? What makes it good? By what standard are we to judge its goodness? What are the paths that lead to this “goodness”?

31. Let us say once again: we need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else. This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain. The fact that it comes to us as a gift is actually part of hope. God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His Kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that will never arrive; his Kingdom is present wherever he is loved and wherever his love reaches us. His love alone gives us the possibility of soberly persevering day by day, without ceasing to be spurred on by hope, in a world which by its very nature is imperfect. His love is at the same time our guarantee of the existence of what we only vaguely sense and which nevertheless, in our deepest self, we await: a life that is “truly” life. Let us now, in the final section, develop this idea in more detail as we focus our attention on some of the “settings” in which we can learn in practice about hope and its exercise.»

The three settings for learning hope, which present a practical guide:

1. Prayer
2. Action and Suffering
3. Judgment

Culture, Growing Children, and Passing on the Faith

Because I have been blessed with children, the last few years have been a journey of much growth for me. I just wanted to share the structure our lives have taken and how this relates to our aspirations of Christian culture.

We have two kids, and they are both the result of struggle. We adopted my son after a 3 year fostering process, and 15 hours after we finalized his adoption I gave birth to my daughter who was conceived after 5+ painful years of infertility. Somehow I think that without these crosses I might have been much more likely to go through parenting on auto-pilot, less willing to rock any boats with unusual choices. Speculation is futile, I know, but let's just say that I believe graces of freedom came to us through our crosses.

If homeschooling is counter-cultural, then in my adult life I have always been counter-cultural enough to prefer it over other forms of educating children. Not to mention that currently I live in a community with tons of homeschooling families. So when I set out to learn more about homeschooling when my son was three, it was no big deal to me.

When I tried applying theory to reality, I quickly learned I had to adjust my theory. I hadn't quite taken into account that human beings, by their nature, desire knowledge, and that each person has a learning style by which they most naturally and readily gain this knowledge about the world around, inside, and beyond them. I really did not consider that my son's learning style and my own are most definitely not the same! But I did have enough sense to see that if I wanted to avoid the battle and folly of trying to remake my son into myself, I would need to start learning from him about how to proceed.

This led me to embrace unschooling, and I have found Fr. Giussani a helpful companion along this way.

Many have no idea what unschooling is, and some who feel they do have an idea that unschooling means parents abdicate leadership of the family to the whims of their children. I would risk a definition as natural learning within an intensely lived family relationship. I'll leave the quibbling over definition to others. For us, the major step in unschooling was to let go of cultural expectations for what children are supposed to do, what homeschooling parents are supposed to do for them, and judgments about which things are valuable to learn and which are not. So what do we do if we don't go with the traditional scope and sequence? We live our lives. Unschooling is really just about living. Because it is all about life, it is all about the Source of our life. We learn as we live, and we learn as reality makes it fitting or necessary. I learn to understand my children, to see when they need challenges, when they need rest, when they are learning, when they are expending their energies productively. I see when we are all just lazing around as well. But the response it all of the above does not have to be based on any externally imposed expectation. This gives us all the freedom to live in response to the God who calls us, but does not force us.

I see many advantages in this approach for us. For one it allows, nay, requires, us to create our family's culture rather than accept the bulk of it from a prepackaged, external source, which would be my natural inclination. Passing on the Faith becomes as natural as breathing, even when we don't spend time with Bible or Catechism lessons.

I'm by no means trying to hold up my family or the other Catholic unschoolers I know as the salvation of Western civilization. I'm sure that many would find serious problems with our approach. But it works for us, and I feel God has called us this way. I also find tremendous affirmation for my educational philosophy in the writings of Giussani (despite the ironic use of the term "School" of Community!).

How did we get here? How do we move forward?

I really appreciate this discussion and the Wilkin article. What interests me first is how did we come to this particular historical moment? One thing I love about Fr. Giussani is that he knew that we must focus on youth and education, if we care about culture. How do we raise, educate, and form our children? Imagine someone from an alien culture coming here and doing an ethnography -- what occupies our children? What do they see? What do they experience? How do they make sense of it all? This last question is perhaps the most interesting one.

It seems to me that we adults spend very little time with those younger than we are. In other times and places, the teenage years were a time of apprenticeship to a trade, and even younger children worked and lived alongside adults in farms, artisanal, and cottage industries. Now we "farm out" their education, group them into large cohorts, and leave their peers the job of helping them to form their opinions and tastes. These practices are relatively new givens, and I believe that we have to take them into account when we begin to address the question of culture, particularly the formation or transformation of culture. A great deal of awareness is needed -- and careful attention paid to the way in which we educate one another and the young.

This past week I've been reading and rereading the fourth chapter ("The Christian Existence") of "Traces of the Christian Experience" in which Don Giuss writes about culture -- "the new culture" which is characterized by "unremitting activity, unavoidable responsibility, a true 'service' in every moment, every word...; service to the Kingdom, that is, to the plan of the universe by which Christ heads all of reality" (The Journey to Truth is an Experience, page 78). The Christian question par excellence is, "How can I give myself as I am, serve all things, the Kingdom, and Christ evermore?" How we answer this question, each in his or her own way, according to our vocation, in concert, will be the "method" through which a truly Christian culture will grow and thrive. I don't think there's any other way.

And then Father Giussani says, "Simple, lucid, comprehensive sincerity and resolute magnanimity as a Christian concept of our own existence can develop easily and surely only in early youth" (The Journey to Truth is an Experience, page 79).

I really felt I had to post about CGS before I could begin to explore these larger issues along with all of you. I am convinced that we face a crisis in catechesis and in Catholic education (at least in this country -- I don't have enough experience of what is happening in other countries), and that we need to turn our attention to how we raise children and youth in this Christian conception of life. The prevalent model -- Catholic schools and weekend religious education programs -- needs urgent attention. I see CGS and GS as two methods that offer real answers to the problem of culture -- Christian culture -- how to sustain it and how to recuperate it.

Christian culture reborn

There's so much in Robert Wilken's "Amo, Amas, Amat: Christianity and Culture," that I hardly know where to begin. In her post, Sharon repeated Wilken's call for a rebirth of Christian culture.
It would be worth it to unpack the historical development of Christian culture as Wilken traces it.

The starting point is the way that Christ came into the world: «But Christ entered history as a community, a society, not simply as a message, and the form the community’s life takes is Christ within society.»

This society, the Church, started by embracing the good around them, and by discovering a new significance in the symbols already in use around them.

«In buying and displaying objects such as lamps or ring or seals Christians created the first Christian art (of which we have knowledge), but what the symbols represented lay in the eyes of the beholder, not in the object. As far as Roman society was concerned Christianity was invisible.»

My mother gave me a metal decor cross to me for my birthday. This cross was bought and sold as an object with no memory of its significance except as a conventional form. But my mother recognized it for what it means and gave it to me. A similar example would be to listen to the human cry of pop songs with the ear of Christ.

Then Christians begin something new. They bury their dead in catacombs, hallowing out a place of memory that is out of the way and yet public.

«Significantly Christian culture first takes material shape in connection with caring for and remembering the dead. Memory, especially of the faithful departed, is a defining mark of Christian identity.»

Memory is the key word here, but it is not only the memory of the dead, of the saints that we remain in communion with - it is above all the memory of Christ's presence, his crucifixion and resurrection. The memory of the saints is the experience of Christ's resurrection in His people. Christ present keeps the saints present with us.

In time, the universal (catholic, ecumenical) dimension of the Christian proposal becomes evident. Christendom becomes the expression of a society transformed by the leaven of the Christian people.

«It is shallow and petulant to rail against the political aspects of Constantinianism while ignoring the efforts of Christians of ancient times to stamp the face of Christ on the mores of society, in the ordering of time, in architecture, and law (e.g. prohibition of the exposure of infants, an ancient form of birth control).»

Christ has conquered the whole world, and so it is no wonder that Christians will propose the boldest changes to society at the broadest levels. Our goal, however, is not to run the world, to fix all the world's problems, to impose (like others) a final utopia. It is to accompany the world and to foster true freedom by having the courage to show another way of living.

Mirrors to Each Other

[cross-posted at Monastic Musings]

In 2005, Kiri Davis, a 16-year old high school student in New York City, made A Girl Like Me, a 7-minute film that leaves me thinking for days every time I show it in my Family and Society course. We watched it this week. (You can watch it below, streamed from YouTube.)

Davis made the film to explore the impact of social definitions of beauty and value on young black women. The young women discuss the preference, even within their families, for lighter skin - to the point of refusing to date darker skinned people. I was unaware of the widespread use of bleaching cream - but it was a commonplace for these teenagers.

The centerpiece of the film - the scenes which imprint on my memory - recreate Dr. Kenneth Clark's famous doll experiments of the 1940's.

In the "doll experiment" from the 1940s, husband-and-wife psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark asked black children to tell them which doll—a white one or a black one—they thought looked most like them, and which was good and which was bad. They found that black children identified with and preferred white dolls to black ones. They concluded this was proof of internalized racism. Their research later became cornerstone evidence in the landmark Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education decision of Topeka, Kansas, which ended American school segregation.

In the years since those experiments were done, schools were desegregated, the Civil Rights Movement unfolded, "Black is beautiful" became a well-known slogan. Having taken action, social scientists presumed the problem was fixed or at least improving. It took at 16-year old's insight to ask, "How much have things really changed?"

Kiri Davis found a doll that was available in two skin tones, but otherwise identical. She dressed the dolls in identical outfits and placed them on a desk. We see brief clips of young black children identifying the doll that is "good" or they "want to play with" or the one that is "bad" - and even naming why it is good ("it's white!"). The telling - and touching - moment comes when Davis asks them to tell her which doll looks like them.

I show this film as we discuss Charles Horton Cooley's theory of how we develop a sense of our own identity: the "looking-glass self." In the looking-glass self, we see ourselves through others' perceptions in society and, through them, gain identity. Identity, or self, is the result of the concept in which we learn to see ourselves as others do. Beginning in early childhood, we constantly check our notion of who we are against the self we see reflected in those around us - just as we check the mirror to see if we look okay - and adjust our self-understanding to incorporate what is reflected.

Davis' film brings home the power of community - and our tremendous impact as members of community. In spite of our huge government and social change efforts, these beloved children of God have peered into the looking-glass of their surroundings - television, teachers, family, church, and all the rest - and received the message that they are not the ones who are good and likable.

I hear Jesus' strong words every time I see this film: "But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister,^* you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, “You fool”, you will be liable to the hell^* of fire." In our encounter with Christ, we experience both the joy of our ties in community but also the deep and important responsibility it places upon us - for the well-being of all our brothers and sisters.

In our individualistic age, sociologists have to re-discover the connection that Jesus and the ancients took for granted. The call on our lives, though, is the same. In community - in communion with God - we can experience God's love for us in the faces of those around us, and we can be the looking-glass that reflects back the awareness of being formed in the likeness of God - and very good.

Preserving the Christian Culture

Material culture and with it art, calendar and with it ritual, grammar and with it language, particularly the language of the Bible—these are only three of many examples (monasticism would be another) that could be brought forth to exemplify the thick texture of Christian culture, the fullness of life in the community that is Christ’s form in the world.

Nothing is more urgent today than the survival of Christian culture. Yet in the last generations this culture has become dangerously thin. At this moment in the Church’s history in this country (and in the west) it is less pressing to try and convince the alternate culture in which we live of the truth of Christ than for the Church to tell its own story and nurture its own life, the culture of the city of God, the Christian republic. This is not going to happen without a rebirth of moral and spiritual discipline and a resolute effort on the part of Christians to defend the remnants of Christian culture.

Robert Wilken, "Amo, Amas, Amat: Christianity and Culture"
Hat tip to Crossroads NYC.

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