Quotes: Private profits, socialized losses

Overheard: Tom's comment on Eugene Cho's blog...

In our current capitalist systems, the profits of big business are privatized, while their losses are socialized."

--Brazilian president Lula da Silva

JUST WONDERING: How much is 700 billion?

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: (09-23) 04:00 PDT Washington - -- Members of Congress and both presidential candidates found themselves caught Tuesday between widespread public anxiety over the breathtaking $700 billion plan by the Bush administration to bail out a growing class of debtors and their own fear of an economic collapse if they don't act....

The price tag is already more than $1 trillion, when earlier ad hoc bailouts and loans that failed to stem the collapse are included. The administration and Democrats said they do not expect taxpayers to lose all that money because the assets eventually will be sold. However, there is no way to know yet what the actual cost will be. Some outside experts believe the price tag could go higher.

_____________________________________________________________
The figures are boggling.

1 Thousand = 1,000
1 Million = 1,000,000
1 Billion = 1,000,000,000
1 Trillion = 1,000,000,000,000

Still perplexed? Here's some ways to begin wrapping your brain around them:

1) Read "How much is a Million?" by David Schwartz. (How about making this required reading for every American citizen, and make Phil Gram and everyone on Wall Street do a book report?)

2)Look here to see what a million dots looks like.

3) Use salt to get a "feel" for big numbers.

4) Or try counting them yourself, like these folks did.

Okay, got that? Now try to understand the concepts of "a billion" and "a trillion." Take a deep breath...

5) Look at this page. Shiver as you read the following:

If we wanted to pay down a billion dollars of the US debt, paying one dollar a second, it would take 31 years, 259 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds.

To pay off a trillion dollars of debt, at a dollar a second, would take about 32,000 years.

A tightly-packed stack of new $1,000 bills totaling $1 billion would be 63 miles high. In comparison, jet planes fly at 30,000 - 40,000 feet (5.7 - 7.7 miles high).

About a billion minutes ago, the Roman Empire was in full swing. (One billion minutes is about 1,900 years.)

About a billion hours ago, we were living in the Stone Age. (One billion hours is about 114,000 years.)

About a billion months ago, dinosaurs walked the earth. (One billion months is about 82 million years.)

A billion inches is 15,783 miles, more than halfway around the earth (circumference).

The earth is about 8,000 miles wide (diameter), and the sun is about 800,000 miles wide, not quite a million.

Now all that is not even considering how much it costs to conduct the war in Iraq. For that, look here.

Plastic Water Bottle Waste

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZbTXDkrD1o

Animating Water Bottle Recycling Rates, by Doug James, Cornell University

Small delights

Has anyone else been delighted by the latest version of the Google logo?

Nailing it: McKnight's "More on the Liturgical Turn"

Scot McKnight nails it and so do his commentators.

I currently know of two bright, devout former-Evangelical women, one who has converted to the RCC and the other who is pursuing it.

Alisdair MacIntyre traveled this road. People can't live among shards forever. Some young people have figured out that the soils of Encyclopedia and Geneology are infertile, so like MacIntyre, are making the u-turn to Tradition. I hope to be counted as one of those Aristotelian/Thomistic professors who have been their intellectual midwives.



More on the Liturgical Turn

by Scott McKnight

"What is going on? There is a rise, a burgeoning rise, of young college students converting from low church evangelicalism, with its anemic, unhistorical ecclesiology, to the great liturgical traditions: Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Three students this semester have already told me they are considering converting. I have spoken with professors or chaplains at a few colleges and they are seeing the same thing. The numbers are not large, but the students themselves are often some of our brightest and best. So, what to say?

We’d like to hear from students (and others) who are considering this turn, from those who have already made the turn, and from chaplains and college professors who are witnessing the experience.

Paradoxically, I see this as part of the emerging movement. One of the themes of the emerging movement is made up of several threads: weariness with evangelical bickering, a yearning for liturgical form, and an awareness of the value of the ancient fathers of the Church. But instead of pursuing the vicious radical low church ecclesiology we see in some writers today, which is evangelicalism on steroids, these young students move out of evangelicalism with some emerging ideas and return to the ancient church traditions. (I trace some of this story in Finding Faith, Losing Faith: Stories of Conversion and Apostasy. In this book I cite the major collections of stories of conversion to liturgical traditions.)

Here’s how I see it, and I’d love to have a public and open conversation right here about this topic among those who are seeing this first hand. (So College profs and chaplains, let’s hear what you are seeing. You need not mention your school; you can. It’s going on all over the place.)

How do you explain it? Here is the beginning of my thoughts:

These kids come to college with:

1. No ecclesiology to speak of in their low-church evangelical experience.
2. Complete ignorance of the first 1500 years of the Church.
3. A chaotic postmodern culture in search of anchors.
4. Pastors who act like popes and read the Bible authoritatively with reckless disregard for anything prior to 1500.
5. Professors who each interprets the Bible for himself (or herself if they are lucky to have a woman reading the Bible).
6. Learning to read the Bible for themselves … again with little regard for anyone or any tradition.

And… then these students …

1. Land upon Ignatius and Irenaeus and Athanasius, each of whom materially shaped what we believe.
2. Are told by professors how important these great thinkers were.
3. They see the budding rise of early Catholic and Orthodox thinking in these writers.
4. Know that Nicea is not only a good set of ideas but something you better believe or you get kicked out.

In other words….

Everything in favor of thinking EO or the RCC just might be the way to go.

And I suspect they have friends, good solid mature spiritual friends, who are EO or RCC.

And a professor or two who teaches Aristotle or Thomistic thinking (behind RCC) or some good solid Platonism (behind EO).

The conversion of young low church evangelicals to liturgical traditions should hardly surprise us. What we should be doing is correcting our weaknesses by listening to those converting."

You heard it here...over a year ago

According to the Washington Post, "[Treasury Secretary Henry M.] Paulson and [Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S.] Bernanke presented a 'chilling' picture of the state of the financial system, according to a participant in the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity."

Over a year ago, this blog quoted Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. His words were prescient, given the current economic debacle.

"Socialism is not the only enemy of the market economy. Another enemy, all the more powerful for its recent global triumph, is the market economy itself. When everything that matters can be bought and sold, when commitments can be broken because they are no longer to our advantage, when shopping becomes salvation and advertising slogans become our litany, when our worth is measured by how much we earn and spend, then the market is destroying the very virtues on which in the long run it depends. That, not the return of socialism, is the danger that advanced economies now face. And in these times, when markets seem to hold out the promise of uninterrupted growth in our satisfaction of desires, the voice of our great religious traditions needs to be heard, warning us of the gods that devour their own children, and of the temples that stand today as relics of civilizations that once seemed invincible.

The market, in my view, has already gone too far: not indeed as an economic system, but as a cast of thought governing relationships and the image we have of ourselves. A great rabbi once taught this lesson to a successful but unhappy businessman. He took him to the window and asked him, What do you see? The man replied, I see the world. He then took him to a mirror and asked, What do you see? He replied, I see myself. That, said the rabbi, is what happens when silver covers glass. Instead of seeing the world you see only yourself. The idea that human happiness can be exhaustively accounted for in terms of things we can buy, exchange, and replace is one of the great corrosive acids that eat away the foundations on which society rests; and by the time we have discovered this, it is already too late.

The market does not survive by market forces alone. It depends on respect for institutions, which are themselves expressions of our reverence for the human individual as the image and likeness of God."


I find it sadly ironic that at the very time the market might be open to rethinking its need to respect the institutions Rabbi Sacks names (Sabbath, marriage and family, education, property, tradition/Law/Scripture) so many Christians are advocating jettisoning the very concept of "institution." Are we missing a really important teaching moment?

Formation in an Electronic Age

In thinking about acedia I stumbled over a convicting article: "Formation in an Electronic Age," by Sister Prudence Allen, R.S.M. Though it is written for a Catholic audience, its wisdom is for us all. Personally, I found myself frequently convicted, especially regarding gluttony. Passive lifestyle, inordinate amounts of food and drink...ouch! Corporately, I wonder if we shouldn't pause to consider this observation:

"Another side-effect of gluttony for electronic media is that persons who are consistently used to high levels of sensory stimulation during times of relaxation and recreation, seek for the same kind of experience in spiritual contexts."


Some highlights:

"Since the electronic age is introducing new components that provide unprecedented challenges to human integration, it is essential for formators of seminarians, religious and Catholic laity to develop new strategies to help persons achieve personal integration so crucial to living their vocation well."

"...How can formators make the virtuous life attractive when electronic media are frequently used for relaxation or recreation? To begin, persons need to rediscover the dynamic gift of conscience through which the practical intellect evaluates responses to the moral quality of the sensate expressions generated by media.The Catechism teaches that "moral virtues grow through education, deliberate acts, and perseverance in struggle. Divine grace purifies and elevates them."

The virtue of justice renders to God what is due to him. Through the virtue of temperance, a person can moderate both how much electronic media is used and how he or she engages with it when it is used. The struggle to live the virtuous life is difficult. The virtue of fortitude helps when suffering or difficulty is experienced in exercising responsibility by purifying the senses.

Practical wisdom, or the virtue of prudence, is the "perfected ability to make right decisions." Dom Lorenzo Scupoli, in The Spiritual Combat, suggests a way to develop practical wisdom: "When an agreeable object is presented to the senses, do not become absorbed in its material elements, but let the understanding judge it."

The virtue of charity can be developed by offering difficult acts of electronic fasting for the good of others. Formators cannot anticipate all the future situations that will face a person being formed, but they can help the person to a true integration of the principles taught and encourage practice of virtues so that he or she will make good decisions as situations arise.

Forms of electronic media and the senses

Marshall McLuhan, a convert to Catholicism, is credited with first bringing to the world's attention the effects of electronic technology on the unsuspecting viewer. He was inspired in 1950 by Pope Pius XII, who encouraged a serious study of media, including "techniques of communication and the capacity of the individual's own reaction." While communications media such as the printed book, cable, or telephone extended outwards the powers of sight, hearing, or touch, electronic media implode (explode inwards) on the same senses. As McLuhan summarizes it: "After three thousand years of explosion, by means of fragmentary and mechanical technologies, the Western world is imploding." McLuhan observes: "In television, images are projected at you. You are the screen. The images wrap around you. You are the vanishing point." Mary Timothy Prokes, FSE, describes immersion virtual reality head-mounted displays, which increase self-centered experience and "cut off visual and audio sensations from the real world outside in order to replace them with computer-generated sensations."

Excessive use of media for individual relaxation or communal recreation can foster fatigue and dullness in the life of the person. A study in Scientific American reported that "the sense of relaxation ends when the set is turned off, but the feelings of passivity and lowered alertness continue. Survey participants commonly reflect that television has somehow absorbed or sucked out their energy, leaving them depleted." Marshall McLuhan noted that the tendency toward excessive use of electronic media appeared to follow from the forms of electronic media themselves: "The urge to continuous use is quite independent of the "content" of public programs or of the private sense life."

In addition to the constant demand for more time for relaxation, fatigue and dullness may follow a law identified by McLuhan: "because there is equilibrium in sensibility, when one area of experience is heightened or intensified, another is diminished or numbed." McLuhan's law explains reduced capacities in other powers of the soul as well: "Present communication technologies supplant man's external senses, and more recently, the internal senses of imagination and the most important, the central or common sense, which brings the various data of the external senses together into a cohesive unity . . . This involves a process . . . called auto-amputation."

High-tech television screens and powerful amplification systems now produce such vivid colors and loud sounds that all attention is drawn to a medium by the effect of its over-powering impact on sight, hearing or touch. McLuhan describes how this anesthetizes other internal powers: "If a technology . . . gives new stress or ascendancy to one or another of our senses, the ratio among all of our senses is altered . . . But any sense when stepped up to high intensity can act as an anesthetic for the other senses."

A viewer's effort to provide continuity to what is discontinuous contributes to fatigue. McLuhan observes that: "when things change at very high speeds, a need for continuity develops. You see, you're in such a complete discontinuity at high speed. Everything you're looking at now is gone in a second . . . " Consider contemporary news programs with its screen divided into segments which themselves are in constant contrary motions. When both the form of the television or computer screen and its content are in constant motion, the need to establish spatial continuity becomes ever more pronounced, unless the viewer simply gives up and leaves the discontinuities in place.

Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. in "Catholics and the World of Mass Media," observes: "Accustomed to surfing, we lose our ability to focus on anything in particular. We switch from one perspective to another rather than consistently following up any one point of view. Having more choices at our finger tips that we can seriously appraise, we lose our capacity for profound and permanent commitments and our taste for sustained analysis." In addition, a place in which the television is permanently left on as background noise has an impact on concentration and reflection, and thus interferes with prayer.

Distinguishing sense stimuli from spiritual realities

Formators can teach how to distinguish between sense and spiritual realities. Several classical sources come to mind. St. Ignatius of Loyola developed criteria for discerning the difference between sense experiences, which gave immediate pleasure, but left him feeling empty afterwards, and spiritual experiences, which also gave him initial pleasure, but remained filling him with joy.

Karol Wojtyla similarly distinguishes between "excitement [which] as such remains indicative of the sphere of sensuous stimuli or stimulations . . . [and] elation . . . [which is] spiritual in nature." Excitement occurs when vivid images happen in the person. Elation occurs when the person acts in discovering truth with the intellect, encountering the spirit in prayer, or performing an act of charity.

In Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities, St. Edith Stein also distinguishes two states of consciousness. The first, or feverishness "comes on perhaps with high stimulation . . . and is like a restless geyser that drives the current of experiencing onward"; it "is followed by exhaustion, [and] . . . isn't any beneficial relaxation — something of the restlessness . . . that cannot come to repose." The second, or vigor "is like a steadily flowing fountain from which strong, serene waves of experience are billowing"; and "when it has played for awhile in the flow of experience, goes over into a wholesome tiredness that allows the current to slacken and shut itself off against external influences."

Anyone who has observed the self or others while playing a computer game, watching a dramatic video or breaking news, or surfing the internet, can relate to this description of feverishness that pushes one to play "just one more game," to make "just one more search," to watch "just one more program" before turning back to school work or taking well-needed sleep. Subtly, many software programs encourage the participant to continue.

High sense-stimulation has another dangerous effect according to Stein: "Impressions do not simply glide off; they don't remain flat as they do with tiredness, nor are they picked up effortlessly and joyfully. Rather, they barge into the defenseless consciousness and hurt it." Scientists studying television addiction confirm Stein's observations in recognizing "how easily organisms can be harmed by that which they desire."

...A further danger is habituation to television, internet, headline news, or video games. While not a bio-chemical dependency, habituation to electronic media does share other characteristics of addictive behavior. David Stolinsky describes two: "withdrawal symptoms and tolerance." Robert Kubey describes four noticeable features: "spending a great deal of time using the substance [or media]; using it more often than one intends; thinking about reducing use or making repeated unsuccessful efforts to reduce use; [and] giving up important social, family or occupational activities to use it."

Men or women who are caught in compulsions and/or self-delusions usually believe that they are not harming anyone. Edith Stein agrees: "This enhancement of experiencing can appear to us straight away as a heightening of life, and can delude us about the 'true' condition in which we find ourselves." If persons share with others their compulsion toward electronic media, they may think that they are building relationships. However, they may be simply isolated egos, watching television sitting next to each other, yet actually alienated from their neighbor, alienated from the work of their study and prayer, alienated from the mission of their vocation, alienated from the self, and alienated from God.

Many seminarians, religious, and laypersons today are intrigued by secular entertainment. Communal forms of recreation could be encouraged as an antidote through which several persons work and play together in building up the common good. The key is active participation by persons so that multiple experiences differ from the passive experience of electronic media. Constructing a living area, preparing and sharing meals, singing together or playing musical instruments, making recordings with hi-tech mixing boards, walking, hiking, or producing dramas with technological effects can be excellent forms of common recreation for those who have talents to share. Over time, the skill of good judgment will improve about practical means to achieve a good end for an individual person or community. ..."

...In "Asceticism and the Electronic Media" Hugh McDonald observes: "The most dangerous attitude is that of one who sits in front of a television set or computer terminal without a critical attitude. Since the machine is on, he takes up a passive and receptive stance. The Christian practices of fasting and abstinence are perhaps easy compared with consciously limiting our use of the media, yet that is required for mental and moral health." What strategies could a formator use to encourage someone to take up a critical attitude in relation to his or her own relation to electronic media?

Examination of Conscience: One possible strategy might be to create a new form of examination of consciousness with the following questions about the content of the experience.

1. Am I an electronic "Peeping Tom?" Even though I do not lurk in the shadows looking into the windows in private homes, do I get pleasure by watching scenes that are erotic and by their intimate nature should be private?

2. Am I an electronic "Voyeur?" Do I live through other people's experiences on reality shows as a substitute for the life I should be leading myself?

3. Am I a "Curious Addict?" Do I have to follow every step of a televised trial or media event employing my intellect towards sensible matters that are not useful for my vocation?

4. Am I a "Busy-body?" Do I eagerly listen to gossip on talk shows or in newscasts so that I can pass it onto others?

5. Am I an electronic "Safe-house?" Do I fill my needs for love and friendship by the safety of stimulation detached from relationship?

6. Am I an electronic "Stalker?" Do I have to see every appearance of particular actor or hear every recording of a particular person or group as a way to possess another's identity for myself?

Catechesis: Another practical strategy might be to use the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a basis for examining how the content of a particular experience of electronic media contravenes one of the Ten Commandments with respect to taking the name of God in vain, killing, adultery, lying, detraction, calumny, and so on. The person could also consider how his or her self-possession is affected by graphic depiction of sexual relations or repeated tactile and visual experiences of violence.

Spiritual Authors: Still another strategy could provide new applications of classical approaches to capital sins. Garrigou-Lagrange states that: "Spiritual sloth, disgust for the spiritual things and for the work of sanctification, because of the effort it demands, is a vice directly opposed to the love of God and to the holy joy that results from it." He continues: "Sloth engenders . . . pusillanimity in the face of duty to be accomplished, discouragement, . . . [and] seeking after forbidden things."37

According to Josef Pieper, sloth or "acedia means that a man renounces the claim implicit in his human dignity. In a word, he does not want to be as God wants him to be, and that ultimately means that he does not wish to be what he really, fundamentally, is." While laziness may be described as doing nothing, Pieper characterizes sloth as "the sense of restlessness," hyperactivity, and frenetic work — often leading to despair. Jean-Charles Nault describes acedia as "aversion to action," and "paralyzing the dynamism of action, [it] impedes communion with the other and the gift of self that enables it."The remedy for this "refusal of one's own greatness," is a renewed opening of the heart to the divine friendship of Jesus Christ, and a recovery of true spiritual joy.

Alternatively, gluttony may be associated with excessive use of electronic media for relaxation or recreation. Garrigou-Lagrange identifies various consequences of leaving this disorder in the soul: "gluttony . . . engenders: improper jokes, buffoonery, impurity, foolish conversation, stupidity."According to Thomas Aquinas, gluttony is an inordinate desire of eating and drinking, this desire for food not being regulated by reason.There are many in formation who have an inordinate desire to use the electronic media for relaxation and recreation. They feed themselves with electronic data while they cannot be satiated. This may be adjoined to a passive lifestyle, lacking moderation in food or drink. This is indeed a new portrait of gluttony.

Christian life has always been a struggle to overcome the tendency towards sin. Classical spiritual writers provide deep principles for this struggle. St. John of the Cross, in Dark Night of the Soul observed how gluttony interferes with the relation between a person and his or her spiritual director, formator, or religious superior: "The fragmented self rises up in many beginners, rebelling against wholeness, heightening sensual cravings, stirring gluttony so that they cannot help but try to escape obedience. Submission becomes so distasteful to them they are compelled to modify or rearrange or add to whatever is required of them."

Another side-effect of gluttony for electronic media is that persons who are consistently used to high levels of sensory stimulation during times of relaxation and recreation, seek for the same kind of experience in spiritual contexts. Analogically, St. John of the Cross observes: "they [gluttonous persons] are so attached to reaping a sensual harvest that when no such feelings come they think they have failed. This is a negative judgment against God. Don't they realize that the sensory benefits are the least of the gifts offered by the divine?" A person in formation can be invited to prayerfully study these classical resources while the formator offers opportunities for more authentic spiritual experiences and provides alternate kinds of recreation and relaxation.

Value of relaxation and recreation

In the Summa Theologica Thomas Aquinas recognizes the value of relaxation: "Now this relaxation of the mind from work consists in playful words or deeds. Therefore, it becomes a wise and virtuous man to have recourse to playful things at times. Moreover, the Philosopher [Aristotle] assigns to games, the virtue of . . . pleasantness." In The Intellectual Life, A. G. Sertillanges supports recreational breaks from intense life of study and prayer: "Relaxation is a duty, like hygiene in which it is included, like the conservation of energy . . . The effort cannot be continuous. We must come back to nature and plunge into it in order to recover our energy."

Electronic media can help relaxation and recreation when what is communicated has a meaning that attracts our higher personal faculties of intellect and will. Then media evoke a release of the natural passions through what Aristotle called "its catharsis of such emotions." Then they draw forth laughter by good humor, inspire acts of virtue to build the common good, and increase love for our vocation.

Technology has positive uses in formation. A good video can be a true source of individual relaxation and of communal recreation. A television news program can open the mind and heart to pray for situations in the world, and certain video games may genuinely relax a tired mind. Internet access opens many avenues for research and for continuity of good friendships.

Sertillanges encourages us: "St. Thomas explains that the true rest of the soul is joy, some activity in which we delight." Varieties of activities provide frameworks for much needed relaxation and recreation for seminarians, priests, religious, and lay Catholics: "Games, familiar conversation, friendship, family life, pleasant reading . . . , communion with nature, some art accessible to us, some not tiring manual work, an intelligent stroll . . . , theatrical performances . . . , sport in moderation: these are our means of relaxation."

Considering the radical changes that electronic media have brought into the world in recent years, it is reasonable to expect that equally radical changes will confront persons in times ahead. As Cardinal Newman asks: "Many things are against us, it is plain. Yet is not our future prize worth a struggle?"

IMAGES: Bride of Christ:

Cardinal Avery Dulles is known for his books,Models of the Church and Models of Revelation. But in the spirit of the times, I propose a new series that would focus on images rather than models. And for starters, lets ask the question, "What image comes to your mind when the church is described as the Bride of Christ?

Here are some possibilities to get us started:





















So, what do you think?

The Shack so far

So I'm on the bandwagon, too.

I've been reading The Shack, and am up to the part where he discusses freedom with Papa. Whew! Way to skate through the Big Questions. A regular Reader's Digest version of Intro to Philosophy of Religion. I suppose that's all a lot of people want, or need, but I for one am left gasping and growling, and furthermore, am feeling guilty and wrong for wanting more.

Some parts are great, like Papa's explanation why God is appearing to him as a motherly woman. But overall, I feel like I'm eating fast philosophical and theological food. I may feel full after dining, but I haven't gnawed on any bones or savored any nectar.

(νέκταρ = nek- "death" and -tar "overcoming". )

Overall, it's difficult for me to separate the author from his main character. Perhaps I'm not supposed to? Young himself keeps a safe distance from Mack, telling the story "for him" in third person, which suggests to me that he, as an author, wishes to be "free" and "outside" the narrative. But that's ironic, since the story is about the reestablishment of intimacy and relationship! Maybe that's postmodern irony for you.

Speaking of which, Mack/Young seems to have really bought into postmodernism, with all its suspicions about authority, institutions and intellect, and its contradictory desire for simultaneous autonomy and community. Lots of passive aggression. For me, reading The Shack is like reading a text in a foreign language. I speak a different philosophical and theological tongue. I can do it, but it takes a lot of energy to constantly keep translating.

We all react to our past, and what goes around comes around. So far The Shack has deposited me back into my late teens, among Christians who told me good Christians don't wonder about Big Questions. Furthermore, they certainly DON'T study Vain Philosophy. (And good Christian women don't ask questions, period!)

The carousel of time now has gyrated so that now not only women but men are told, "don't bother your pretty little heads asking questions...the only answer is the Complete and Certain answer...anything less is no answer at all...and since you are a mere human, you can NEVER understand the Complete and Certain answer...God is too big for you...so just relax....flow with the mystery..."

(musterion --"But whereas ‘mystery’ may mean, and in contemporary usage often does mean, a secret for which no answer can be found, this is not the connotation of the term mysteµrion in classical and biblical Gk. In the NT mysteµrion signifies a secret which is being, or even has been, revealed, which is also divine in scope, and needs to be made known by God to men through his Spirit...mysteµrion is a temporary secret, which once revealed is known and understood—a secret no longer.. "--Harpers Bible Dictionary )

Many are finding The Shack to be a means of deepening their relationship with the Trinity, and for that we should all be greatful. So far it isn't doing much for me. I still return to Eleanore Stump's article, "Aquinas on the Sufferings of Job" when I am troubled by the Big Question of suffering and evil.
"...Everything depends on what you take to be dream and what you take to be reality," she concludes. Now that is something William Young, Eleanore Stump and I can all agree on.

Humor: Better than feeling groovy?

From one of my student's papers, this Freudian slip:

"Inner beauty can be shown on the outside just like inner ugliness can show as well. When a person is virtuous the person will have a beauty that is shown on the person. The outward beauty may or may not be there. But the inner beauty will shine thru where you still see a beauty in the person, where inner ugliness can also show thru outward beauty. A woman who has great beauty but is stuck up and thinks she is better than anyone else can be seen. The inner ugliness will show thru that very few will like a person like that. But when a person is a good person and you can see it on their smile. It will glow and they will feel genital."

Preface to Contrariness's entry

Contrariness nails it in his blog entry entitled "Coming of Age:"

The Age of Enlightenment: "I think, therefore I am."

The Age of Entitlement: "I do because I can."

This got me wondering: what should be the motto of the Age of the Eucharist? How about this:

"God was, and is, and ever shall be,
therefore we live and move and have our being in Him.

Who owns my syllabus?

Apparantly, not me. But maybe that will change?

from the Chronicle of Higher Education:

"The American Association of University Professors has an informational outline on intellectual-property issues that says the 'prevailing academic practice' is for faculty members to own the copyrights of scholarly works and teaching materials that are 'created independently and at the faculty member's own initiative.' However, some faculty work is considered 'work for hire' — documents made by faculty members for the university to fulfill their contractual obligations, and owned by the university.

"It is much easier for institutions to claim to own the copyright for syllabi and other teaching materials than for published research. 'Some argue that faculty are hired to teach,' the AAUP outline says, 'that teaching and the byproducts thereof are thus within the scope of employment, and this additional control by the employer institution transform syllabi into work-for-hire.'

But maybe not. As Gary Rhoades writes in 'Whose Property Is It? Negotiating with the University,'

'increasingly, faculty members' intellectual products, including those generated from their basic research and teaching activities, are being considered as commodities.' Much of that push comes from courses delivered online, where the syllabus and other course materials are purchased and both faculty members and universities have the potential to make money.

As was the case with the printing press, it is the commodification of teaching materials that might eventually render the syllabus irrefutable intellectual property. While recent lawsuits seen to favor faculty members in broadening their claims to intellectual property, I couldn't find any mentioned online that relied on the syllabus as a test case for plagiarism" ...continued here

I have just finished teaching my first online class. It is demoralizing to think that all the materials I uploaded are now no longer my own, and that someone can be hired after me who can take those materials and "teach" the class. If we're going to play the education game as capitalists, then why shouldn't those of us who create new courses and go to the effort of setting them up on Moodle or Blackboard or whatever be remunerated

But to be forced to entertain the very idea of "owning" a syllabus or intellectual materials is disturbing to me. I resent having to stoop to this level. Like Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, once you admit it, your situation as a teacher is changed. Teaching shouldn't be a game, with winners or losers. Nor should it be a business, with capitalists and proletariats. It is a relationship between student and teacher, nd some things just shouldn't be commodified: friendships, parenting, teaching. Alas, we live in a culture where, if anything is to be valued, it must have a price.

Just Wondering: about McCain's speech

The transcript of John McCain's acceptance speech is available here.


"I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else’s. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency, for its faith in the wisdom, justice, and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again; I wasn’t my own man anymore; I was my country’s.... "

You are not your own; you were bought at a price I Cor. 6:19b-20a

"I'm not running for president because I think I'm blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need. My country saved me."

It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is 'the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone, 'Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." --Acts 4:12

"My country saved me, and I cannot forget it. And I will fight for her for as long as I draw breath, so help me God."

If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame" .... Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Rom 10:9-11

Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. --I Cor. 15:1-2

Report from Toronto: Bagged Milk

So Susan is getting settled in her new digs, a basement apartment 20 minutes+ on the subway from the University of Toronto. Steve is there with her, helping haul her four huge and heavy suitcases, two which are full of books. He's got her wired and we skyped tonight.

Seems that their grocery run produced an interesting cultural phenomenon: the milk bag. "What am I supposed to do with this?" Susan pondered. "I think I'm going to need a pitcher."

Actually, this seems like a fine idea to me, in environmental terms. But I wonder if the bags are strong enough to withstand the rigors of being bagged with other groceries. One prick from a pineapple or a split from a box corner could cause a mini-Niagra.

A change of spiritual season

I feel another Dark Night coming on. I need to read John and Teresa.