Reality is an Event That Proceeds From An OTHER

Some texts from Msgr Giussani in our recent reading:

"Recognizing reality as deriving from the mystery should be familiar to reason, because precisely in recognizing what is real, just as it is, as God wanted it to be, rather than reduced, flattened out, without depth, we find a correspondence with the needs of our heart, and our innate capacity for reason and affectivity is fully realized. 

"For reason, owing to its own very original dynamic, cannot fulfill itself unless it recognizes that reality is rooted in mystery. Human reason reaches its apex, and so is truly reason, when it recognizes things for what they are, and things as they proceed from an Other."

In fact, this proceeding-from-an-Other means that everything that exists is constituted as an event. "The dynamic of event describes every instant of life: the flower in the field ‘which the Father clothes better than Solomon’ is an event; the ‘bird that falls’ and the heavenly Father knows it, ‘is an event;’ ‘the hairs on your head are numbered’ - they are an event. 

"Even heaven and earth, which have existed for a million centuries, are an event: an event that still occurs as something new, since their explanation is inexhaustible. To glimpse something greater in the relationship with everything means that the relationship itself is event.”

~Luigi Giussani

Teresa of Avila: "Fulfill God's Will in Us"

"We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can: namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us" (Saint Teresa of Avila).

Here is today's "Collect Prayer" for Teresa's feast day:

War and Peace and Japanese Cartoons Everywhere

For many decades now, it seems that Japanese cartoons and animated series are everywhere. This is, in part, attributable to their creative and vivid storytelling, innovative design, hard work, and clever marketing.

But there's more to it than that.

Anime treats in certain ways some of the concerns of my "East Asian Studies Project" (that I described in a previous post, HERE). It emerges against the backdrop of the pervasively influential (and in some ways traumatic) "invasion" of East Asia by Western ideas, influences, and power over the past century and a half. 

In the throes of its own cultural crisis and change, the West flooded this region of ancient interconnected (yet often mutually hostile) societies and cultures with a spectacular mashup of the whole Western heritage: the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

Japan was affected in a very particular way by what I have called the "East-West collision" of the 19th and 20th centuries. Therefore, it's useful to view the Anime phenomenon in the larger context of the historical conditions from which it arose. 

Here I would like to put forth a few observations that are necessarily incomplete and by no means exhaustive (e.g. there is the whole specific story of the development of animation in general, and the way pioneering animators on both sides of the Pacific Ocean mutually influenced one another). I limit myself to the broader sociological view, which is a difficult endeavor when trying to assess the long (and ongoing) Japanese experience of the West in all of its peculiar complexity. Indeed, it is peculiar and complex in ways Westerners never think of.

The crucial point here, obviously, is that for Japan, the "East-West collision" included a war that was unprecedented in its magnitude and destruction.

We now are beginning to have enough "historical distance" from the most intense moments of Japan's 140 year modern relationship with the West to risk moving beyond the partisan narratives of the brutal conflict in the Asian-Pacific "theater" of World War II. Indeed, it is time to sketch a larger perspective that is more fully objective about the multifaceted events that took place in the war. This is not to challenge the established (and undeniable) consensus that the Japanese government and military waged an intolerable and criminally aggressive war of conquest in Asia and the Pacific. Defense against Japanese aggression was in principle necessary and just, and considerable effort went into meeting many of the demands of justice in practice. 

Japan's invasion of China, the brutal attacks by Japanese soldiers against Chinese civilians, and the (at least ferociously disproportionate) preemptive strikes and/or offensive territorial seizures of places under USA or British governance (notwithstanding Japan's stated motives of combatting Western imperialism) all point to the extremely violent and dangerous elements of Japanese militarism in this period. Whether these violent tendencies remain latent in Japan's national identity, manifest themselves in other ways, or might reemerge in revived forms is difficult to predict. Japan's current system of government with its political process has overall responsibility in this area, and - having demonstrated cooperation and good faith for over seven decades - it deserves the corresponding degree of trust from regional and international partners in addressing the violence in its own heritage.

But how did this conflict emerge in the first place? 

After the West's forcing open of Asian markets in the mid-19th century (which launched a cultural revolution in Asia beyond anyone's expectations), Japan's apparently wholesale adoption of Western social forms gave the impression that it had entered "the modern world" (a term still filled with "enchantment" in the West and regarded as an unqualified good). As already noted, however, the West rushed into enagement with East Asia on many levels at this time, thanks in large part to the advances in shipping technology (not least of which was the steam engine) that made unprecedented global interaction possible. The result was that the very different sets of cultural forms of the Western world and East Asia crashed into one another in an experience fraught with mutual misunderstandings, with the West bringing to bear the pressure of its superior material power to impose its structures and patterns in the East. What furthered the traumatic charactor of this imposition was that the West itself was in the midst of a crisis regarding the meaning of its own structures. What was exported to Asian peoples at this time was therefore very much a "mixed bag" of good and bad tendencies of material progress, and conflicting ideas about their significance.

Japanese culture, however, used its genius for adaptability to rapidly integrate the whole Western "package" (and all its good, bad, and ugly aspects) into Japan's own native idealistic renaissance and reinvigorated martial spirit. The result was an admirably dynamic but also inherently unstable and even volatile emerging culture. Not suprisingly, extremists with sweeping visions of grandeur rose to positions of leadership. The drums of war - amplified now by microphones and dispersed everywhere by radio - began to beat.

By the middle of the 20th century, Japanese militarism was using its own "Westernized forces" to pursue a nationalist and regionally imperialist agenda. Ultimately, Japan became first the perpetrator of the horrors of technologically advanced "total warfare" on its neighbors, and then the catastrophic victim of the West's newer, savage, unprecedentedly brutal war technology that brought the Japanese people to a condition of devastation and utter humiliation. Japan has since been excluded from direct participation in the (ongoing) war culture, but it has regenerated on an even larger scale its industrial and financial "success" using Western ideas, and has become an innovator (along the lines of Western development) in engineering, electronics, and digital technology. Today, Japan is "more like us" than ever... or so it appears.

So, is the Japanese identity crisis a "thing of the past"? Has it moved on from wartime defeat and destruction, and decided to embrace "the Western road"? I don't really know the answer to that question. Japan today is hard to fathom. It has possibilities and problems similar to those in the West, but it faces distinctive challenges as well. Anime is an interesting medium for a mature observer to see these various tensions "played out" in diverse ways in a vast imaginative space.

Meanwhile, the real Japan remains enigmatic beneath its Western dress. It is a secular, materialistic, work-obsessed, often-lonely place. Economic assessments of material properity and productivity do not necessarily reflect these cultural factors (at least, not yet). In particular, the Japanese family has become fragmented and the newest generations are shrinking alarmingly under the looming shadow of demographic winter (caused, in part, by yet another, more recent Western imposition: an ideology-of-sterility implemented by a relentless technological invasion of the human ecosystem).

Yet the Japanese have not forgotten their history, their ideals, or their great sense of integrity, and they long for the lost solidarity of their families (which still exercises a defining, even though increasingly impotent, influence on their view of themselves and their own success). 

Also, the Japanese people - who during the war were largely victims of isolation from information, relentless propaganda, and a distorted, manipulated sense of "patriotic duty" - have since tried to embrace non-violence (an approach that also has roots in their tradition). They profess it sincerely, but inwardly there is much complexity and obscurity in their struggle to make this ideal their own. The Japanese are wrestling with what it means for human beings to use physical force against others, in what manner (and when) it may be appropriate or necessary, and what dispositions are required to keep force with the limits of respect for the other person. I think basic intuitions of morality (which we find at the foundations of "natural law" ethics) are being brought into consideration in a manner that has a certain freshness to it, like firm ground rediscovered in the midst of an ongoing overall disintegration. We see examples of Japanese culture today working through these questions and difficulties in original ways, including in the development of new schools of karate and other martial arts. 

Anime is also a forum where imaginary realms visualize these questions, the perplexity involved in them, and the consequences of transgressing the limits of force and indulging in violence. The context of this struggle for understanding and coherence is a story intended to "entertain" but that also moves within a spectrum of "attitudes" ranging from high idealism to deep cynicism. These cartoons (intended for adults) are most interesting when they are neither ideologically didactic nor morbidly aimed at providing vicarious indulgence of the urge for violence as revenge or self-destruction; they are most interesting when they present complex characters in empathy-engaging circumstances that are resolved imperfectly. Thus, imaginary universes with monsters and mythical creatures can simultaneously "entertain" by taking the viewers to a different world, amaze them with rich and original artwork, and mirror something of the viewers' own struggle with issues of the ambivalence and the problematic nature of "using force" in the context of some kind of ideal of non-violence. Anime also can reveal a society still seeking (often in repressed ways) the meaning of its own enduring pain.

This is not surprising, because in Japan the wounds of their last war remain open. The necessary repentance for their own crimes against their Asian neighbors (especially China) is mired in difficulties - not only because of their own pride but also because of China's tumultuous post-war history. 

Moreover, deep down they have not forgotten the (arguably disproportionate) punishment imposed upon them for their own arrogant imperial ambitions, or the massive direct attacks against their civilian population by incendiary bombing, and of course the unprecedented, horrifying liquidation of two cities by nuclear weapons whose damaging after-effects are still unknown. 

All of this was "justified" (according to a coalition led by Western powers) by the need to defeat Japan's extremist militant aggression. But the Allied Powers sought not just any ordinary victory. They were determined to coerce an unconditional surrender not only of Japan's armed forces but of the governance of the whole nation. The Japanese ultimately put their entire country into the hands of a coalition of "United Nations" that included one nation (the Soviet Union) whose leadership had perpetrated far more "crimes against humanity" (including genocide) than were ever dreamed of even by the most monstrous, deluded Japanese practitioners of neo-bushido ideology and its barbarous war crimes in the region.

Imperialist Japan had many foolish dreams regarding the domination of East Asia, and aims that its armies and navy pursued recklessly, without regard for human dignity or human life. But it had at least one instinct rooted in reality, and that was its fear of communist aggression from the north with the intention of establishing Stalinist hegemony in the region. Notwithstanding the arrogance of the Japanese imperialists themselves, this instinctive fear turned out to be eerily "prophetic."

Nevertheless, the Soviet Union played no role in the occupation of post-war Japan itself, in spite of Stalin's gigantic eleventh hour entry into the Pacific War with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria at 12:01 AM on August 9, 1945. The one-and-a-half-million men of the (Soviet) Red Army who poured into China and Korea would, nevertheless, have a decisive impact on the future of those countries. Japan was entrusted entirely to the USA, and was treated with an undeniable generosity and subsequently protected during the Cold War era. 

Over the past 75 years this has appeared to be unalloyed "win-win" situation for both countries, but beneath the surface it remains a complex, ambivalent experience that Japan still wrestles with. Its effects on Japan's sense of pride, honor, national identity, and capacity for an integrally human development are difficult to measure. There has been much good, and yet - as indicated above - all is not well, and scars and malformations abound that hinder in some respects the human and spiritual energies of the people.

It is important to understand all the factors of a wounded perspective that still festers in Japanese society, and to remember that ancient peoples hand down their resentments from generation to generation. Still, this is only one aspect among many conflicting memories evoked by the whole national effort of Westernization, including the rapid influx of often partial and distorted Western ideas. Underlying everything, there remains the serious search for identity that the Japanese people cannot escape, as they are confronted with basic questions underlying all the particular details of their gigantic ancient post-modern dysfunctional Japanese society -- questions about what it means to be human. 

All these considerations are applicable to a lot more things than Anime, but they're part of what these cartoon stories are involved with: pieces of a shattered cosmos of mythology and ancient customs of honor and propriety combined with Western science, the shattered fragments of Western humanism (and the sometimes-distorted shadows of the Christianity that once informed that humanism), and the peculiar historic experience of a complex combination of Western technological violence and Western magnanimity. It's all in the mix, along with the existential drama of living with freedom and aspirations and responsibility for the good that every human being goes through, AND (in Japan the still mostly hidden and mysterious) provocations of the grace of redemption and transfiguration.

In any case, we can't ignore the universe of Anime, and the diverse themes it deals with: from nihilism to the search for deeper identity and moral conviction. It shows us much in particular about the last several generations in East Asia (especially in Japan, where there has been 75 years of often perplexed but persistent soul searching) as they struggle to "re-create" and clarify their identity in the midst of a globalized world order of Western-influenced post-World-War-II technological-power-defined societies. 

We also need to look at why Anime has had such a universal impact on youth culture everywhere as well as the ambivalence of that impact - which sometimes appeals to aimless or bizarre violence and domination, bleak despair, superstitions or vacuous fantasies, but in other instances has some positive elements that revive perennial mythic expressions of good-versus-evil and the drama of human freedom struggling for the good.

In a world of flattened, exhausted imagination dominated by the milieu of materialistic consumption and the absence of the search for meaning and transcendence, the Japanese animated story may be one of the protagonists leading the way (for better or for worse) in the direction of a renewed human fascination with myth and symbolism.

To be continued...

"He Will Wipe Away the Tears From Every Face"

The Lord "will destroy

the veil that veils all peoples,

the web that is woven over all nations;
he will destroy death forever.

"The Lord God will wipe away
the tears from every face;
the reproach of his people he will remove
from the whole earth; 

for the Lord has spoken.

"On that day it will be said:
'Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us!
This is the Lord for whom we looked;
let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!'"

~Isaiah 25:7-9

Christina Grimmie: "I'm Feeling So Alive"

"Everything's all right. I'm feeling so alive..." (Christina Grimmie - image from the movie "The Matchbreaker"). 

This is our hope for all our loved ones who have passed from this life into the embrace of the Infinite One who is merciful Love beyond all measure.

Each month Christina shines her bright beautiful light on that hope, and I find that I have a little more strength for what remains of my own journey, and a little more depth of conviction that the fulfillment of my journey is not extinction but the Life that has overcome death.

In these past couple of years, there have been some months when I have really needed this strength. So, once again, four years and four months after she passed from this life, I remember Christina Grimmie. Dear, dear Christina, thank you!💚 I have come to love you so much.

💚💚 Thank you.💚💚

Dear Brendan McGuire, Rest in God's Peace

Today the whole university community at Christendom College joins many friends and family in mourning the loss to this world of Professor Brendan McGuire, who died of cancer early this morning. We entrust his good soul to the Lord with prayer in the firm hope of eternal life through Jesus Christ. We pray especially for consolation for his wife and children, and an abundance of God's mercy and healing.

Brendan was my student, long ago. Part of me will always remember him as "that incredibly bright kid" (teachers always remember "the kid" you once were, and will still see that young person who remains "part of you" no matter how old you get). But time moves fast, and soon he was my colleague. Then he was a much-loved professor to my own kids. 

He was also, for years, a witness to us all of faith, courage, and even a remarkable joy in the midst of great suffering. He was an accomplished scholar and a brilliant teacher, and a wonderful, strong, humble, charitable man. Even when facing very difficult and painful periods in his long battle with cancer, he showed appreciation and gratitude for the smallest things in daily life. He lived his days fully, with vigor and all the energy he could muster, because he had hope for eternal life. He saw, in the seeds sown in the ground of this world, the beginning of the garden of the New Creation where Jesus transfigures and brings to fruition all the good we have done.

What immense sorrow this brings (in different ways) for so many people! Sorrow and grief are mysterious things which we cannot avoid enduring in this world. They especially are the human things that would seem to have no resolution, but we know by faith that the Risen Jesus transforms even our sorrows from within by His love that has overcome death.

Lord, grant eternal rest to Brendan and let perpetual light shine upon him. And by your mercy, give spiritual healing, strength, and peace to his wife Susan and their children. Dear God, also grant consolation and encouragement to family, friends, colleagues, students, the whole Christendom community and our local parish community.

And may the Lord have mercy on us all.

"Now He's Becoming a Horticultural Nerd Too?"

I saw colored leaves on this bush and thought, “There IT IS!! Fall is HERE!” But, after checking my "plant identifier" app, I’m... not so sure. 

The Nandina schrub (an Asian import popular in Japanese gardens) apparently has leaves all year round and its own schedule for dropping the red ones. This is an unusual, colorful bush. 

Those red berries add further visual variety (and they usually get bright red). That's important to remember, because “bright red” is nature’s “DANGER: POISON” sticker. 

The entire plant is “cyanogenic” — so it can kill birds or small animals if they eat it, and you... shouldn’t put this in the salad (why would you want to?😝). 

It’s also a “hardy plant” (several US states consider it invasive). 

Am I becoming a horticultural nerd too?😳😉

Saying Goodbye to a Pioneering Guitarist

As you know by now, this blog is one of the few places on the internet where we address everything from saints to rock stars! Today brings sad news about Eddie Van Halen. RIP to another guitar legend.😥🎸🔥 As a guitar hack for over forty years who even played a few gigs on rather small stages, I must pay appropriate tribute to this Master of the craft.

Now remember, it was “the 70s,” dear people. Eddie Van Halen was not what one would call an exemplar of moral virtue when I was a teenager. But the dude could PLAY!🎶💥

I can’t say that I consciously “imitated his playing style” because it was so far out of my league (or anybody’s league that I knew). This was from some other planet. (Actually he and his brother both had classical training on piano, which is one aspect for his inspiration for what’s going down on this video.)

Click THIS LINK to watch and listen to VIDEO 

Let me tell you, for a kid in those pre-digital days, an electric guitar was a marvel in itself: part challenging musical instrument, part interactive multimedia device, part rowdy noisemaker. (I apologize to all the folks in the neighborhood we drove crazy in those days. It didn’t help that we weren’t any good!😝) But Eddie Van Halen was crazy good.🌟 You didn’t have to be a “Van Halen” (the band) fan to appreciate it. Anyone who “plugs in” a musical instrument today owes gratitude to this sonic pioneer. Eddie invented many of the “sounds for guitar” that are built into today’s gadgets.

Every electric guitarist who came after him stole something from him, or tried to! (which is how you show respect for someone in music😉🎵). 

Sadly, Eddie has had cancer the past few years. It wasn’t widely known, so we all find ourselves surprised. He was 65, which is uncomfortably close to my current age (gosh, when you’re 17 you think these guys are so much older than you... but that gap closes so soon😳). 

Life is more precious and more mysterious than we know.

God unfolds his plan for each of us in the time and patience that correspond to the particular mystery of each of us as a person, his gifts to us, and his amazing ways of engaging our freedom while respecting it completely and bringing his healing mercy to bear gently upon it.

May the merciful Lord grant that Eddie Van Halen might rest in his peace.

JJ's "East Asian Studies Project"

I want to introduce here some important scholarly work that I have been engaged in for the past three years on a consistent basis. I generally refer to it as my East Asian Studies Project.

My primary focus has been and continues to be China, where a fifth of the world's population lives. It wasn't until I reached my mid-50s that I realized that my knowledge about China was ridiculously superficial. After many years of historical study, I had little more than an introduction to China's immense history and culture, its geography and natural riches, its people[s], their language[s], their pictographic writing, their unique literary tradition, etc. And yet China is everywhere in the world today. It is becoming positively silly to think that we can speak about the world of the 21st century and know nothing about China.

Venturing into China (by way of study), I have also found the need to do justice to the various related peoples of the region, who have their own proud histories, traditions, and languages while also intersecting with China over the course of more than a millennium: the Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai, Malay, and (to some degree, at least) Mongolian and East Turkic peoples, as well as the diverse minority groups living among these peoples. This is a broad research project that I think is crucial for the 21st century (even though I'm probably too old to do much of it - at least I can point others in its direction). It entails the effort of a Western-educated mind to acquire foundations for appreciating East Asian history and understanding Asian societies in the new directions they are taking today with all their raw and rapid flow of novelty. It also seeks insight into how Asian societies' "new directions" - often drawn from the influence of the West and interestingly adapted - relate to their roots and their future.

I believe we Westerners need to learn a lot in order to grasp the importance of "building bridges" and deepening the dialogue with this universe of peoples, whom we too often stubbornly insist on caricaturing or misunderstanding. We especially need to be able to pay careful attention to what has happened over the course of the past century-or-so in what used to be called "the Far East," and what continues to happen today. 

The multifaceted, complex, and (from a historical point of view) very rapid series of events that continue to tear asunder and reconfigure life on "the other side of the world" cannot be accurately described in a few sentences. But generalizations do serve useful purposes. They can help us "map out" some of the terrain that we must travel through, and give us some perspective on the noteworthy things we might encounter therein. They also help us formulate hypotheses as we go along (hypotheses which, of course, must be tested, refined, or altered according to what we learn from experience). In the increasingly interactive global village we live in, it's all the more important to "get to know" our global "neighbors," to build bridges of mutual understanding, to peacefully coexist (at least) and even collabrate fraternally on common (and urgent) problems the whole village must face, as well as building mutually enriching relationships.

Let me, therefore, start by proposing a few generalizations. Over the past century-or-so, the peoples of East Asian societies (whose identities were long and deeply rooted in ancient "pre-Christian" cultures) have been experiencing the impact of a sudden, widespread, and often traumatic "involvement" with the Western world. It was (and continues to be, even with the emergence of powerful responsive and increasingly original reverberations generated by Asians themselves) predominantly a massive and pervasive encounter initiated and precipitated over time by the West. 

Many, many good things have come about as a result: tremendous goods and dimensions of human development that no one would want to reverse. Indeed, the way forward is clearly one of dialogue and integration, rather than disconnection. This point is very important to establish and refer to wherever (and insofar as) it applies to our understanding of one another.

The first thing people would be inclined to point to as an unqualified good is the prolific material prosperity in so many areas of the region today. But I think that "the increase in power over material things" is by itself an ambivalent indicator of the health of a society in its properly human realm: its culture, its awareness of the dignity of the human person, its organic communities and healthy sense of inclusiveness, its pursuit of justice and equity, its governing systems, and its regard for the ultimate meaning of life.

Here we need to examine more closely how the historically "recent" phenomenon of East-West interaction came about. Clearly what made it possible were the (previously unimaginable) developments in the West of technology for rapid, convenient transportation and mass communications, as well as the continued expansion of the industrial revolution and everything that followed from it. Thanks to these unprecedented innovations - which also spurred the invention of the technologically enhanced, mass produced, and powerfully destructive weapons used in the devastating wars of the 20th century - we could say that in a sense the West "collided into" East Asia.

This was an "encounter" that was in many respects violent. Some of the violence was "accidental" (at least, at the beginning) and good intentions abounded that brought forth many good fruits (as we noted above). But in many respects the encounter and subsequent "engagement" was (and continues to be) an upending of Asia extending beyond anyone's intentions or control, a "collision" resulting in many abrupt changes and their often unforeseen consequences, precipitated over the course of a century-or-so by the West. 

The Western world brought its "way of life" haphazardly but rapidly and relentlessly into a very different environment it failed to understand. It overwhelmed many Asian peoples, while others adopted one or another aspect of it and turned it to their own purposes. There were some (but not nearly enough) engagements that took root with patience, flowered through mutual exchanges, and bore fruit in enduring friendship. When this happened (even imperfectly) the results included the emergence of people on both sides - Asian and Western - with a deeper perspective that is much needed in today's global village. They are "bridges" between East and West, and those who express their vision in literature and/or scholarship often do so with remarkable and much-needed appreciation. I am always searching for these people who are "bridges" - not because they build perfect bridges - but because of the helpful insights and perspective their efforts provide. Perhaps I should develop a reading list of authors I have found helpful in my research (some of them have already been featured on this blog).

Having noted these fruitful efforts and the legacy they continue to generate, I want to return to the larger view of "the West-East collision" as a whole. What makes this especially complicated is that it reflects something much more than just an "encouter between two different types of cultures" and the crises resulting from it. Underlying the collision, and in some respects accounting for the confusion and violence it generated, was the tumultuous crisis that had already begun within the Western world itself, and that was destined to increase.

The West arrived in the mid-19th century with the intention of being a benefactor and a master, not simply because of racism, imperialism, or an insufficient education and lack of openness and patience, but also and especially to make money. In the midst of this hurricane there were great goods to share - life-giving water, healing medicines, certain approaches to political and social reform, useful technologies. 

But overall what pounded itself into East Asia - beginning with gunboat diplomacy in the mid-19th century and continuing with a shamelessly-rationalized enormous drug-peddling operation, cultural hegemony, colonialism, the introduction of industrialization, consumerism, all kinds of "modernization," and a flood of "Western ideas" - was not some static, stable form of "Western Civilization." It was a strange combustible, concentrated, chaotic "mashup" of "the West" - with its heritage, traditions, and history of intellectual development mixed together and compressed by the heat of its own great crisis as it plunged (and continues to hurtle at breakneck speed) through its own disconcerting transition from "the epoch of human self-assured rationalistic organization and classification of reality" to the titanic, wildly unpredictable and more evidently ambivalent "post-modern technocratic epoch of power."

You knew I would get to the "epoch of power" eventually. It's the factor that enters into every circumstance of our recent history and current affairs (right down me writing this blog post that in a few moments will be accessible to humans all over the planet).

That, of course, is another topic. It's relevant here because some places in East Asia today (certainly China, Japan, and Korea) appear to be "ahead of" the West in heralding the new epoch of the totalization of technological power. They have grabbed it with both hands and entered into it with lightning speed. They are also exhibiting in vivid ways some of the dangers of the new epoch (China and North Korea come immediately to mind, but the social impact in other societies also bears consideration).

At the same time, the ancient heritage and the sense of life that have shaped peoples in East Asia for millennia have not disappeared. Many antiquated superstitions endure, but so does a great treasury of wisdom - religious, philosophical, cultural, and common-sense wisdom. How much of the best of this human wisdom-tradition remains vital in the lives of people today? How does it "intersect" with the blinding materialism that drives the socioeconomic superstructure of China, with its evolving ideological stew of Marxism-Leninism and Fascism (the worst fallout from the historic collision with the West) and modernized versions of the Chinese "Legalist" or Neoconfucian, "extrinsicist" traditions and the ever-resiliant imperial-bureaucratic governing forms of the past?

That's a big long question. I hope I can learn enough to know how to ask the right questions, and how to listen to people who can shed light on the unpredictable path forward, and the hope for further possibilities of East-West friendship even in the midst of the ongoing whirlwind.

The Unforgettable Saint Francis

Sunday takes precedence over Francis this year in the Roman liturgy, BUT he is impossible to forget. 

Buona Festa di San Francesco!🔥➕

*Above: detail from painting by Margaritone D'Arezzo, 13th century.

We Are Defended By Their Protection

"The disciples approached Jesus and said, 'Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?' He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said, 'Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me... See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father'" (Matthew 18:1-5, 10).

On October 2, the Roman calendar celebrates the Guardian Angels, who are with each person during the course of his or her life, cooperating with the Holy Spirit who leads the person on the path to the fullness of redemption and glory. 

The angels too are God's "co-workers" and our helpers and friends. God's Kingdom, which is in the absolute sense His work - precisely because it is His omnipotent, unfathomable creative and recreative action, His mysterious love - generates an interpersonal communion of mercy and service, gratitude and self-giving among those who share in His life. The New Creation is a "symphony of Agape, of joy, of thankfulness" whose music has already begun now, as we journey to its fulfillment.

O God, who in your unfathomable providence 

are pleased to send your holy Angels to guard us, 

hear our supplication as we cry to you, 

that we may always be defended by their protection 

and rejoice eternally in their company. 

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, 

who lives and reigns with you in the unity 

of the Holy Spirit, 

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Thérèse: Love Really is "Stronger"...

I only get as far as “mourir” (to DIE) and them I’m like: “ahhh, RUN!”😲 And yet...just the fact that a human being in the midst of dying an awful, painful death could say things like Thérèse said in her Last Conversations awakens a wild hope. As if to wonder: "you mean, this is not just a game? You mean, life and death actually really matter? Love really is 'stronger'..?"

Too often I don’t think and act like a true Christian. I think and act more like a “fan of Christianity...” That’s why we need witnesses.

And Saint Thérėse is one of the greatest witnesses.

Before she became a Carmelite, she was the girl in the picture below. A late-19th-century French middle-class girl. Just a “regular” human being, with particular social and cultural characteristics, but with no "special marks," just the same fundamental humanity we all share. 

What a blessing that photography was invented in time to give us images of Thérèse, not only the famous pictures of her in the monastery, in her nun's habit, but also this one, which requires our eyes to affirm that this girl was so very particularly, unmistakeably human. 

What an awesome, amazing thing it is to be human!

The most astonishing Thérèse, the Queen of all those very special friends we have in the communion of saints, whom I refer to as "God's Girl Squad" because they are His great, ready, "energetic" helpers and our good, brave, loyal companions. These are the "wise virgins" whose lamps burn brightly for Jesus at the "wedding feast," and who light up the way for us too on the paths of our own histories.

They come from every time and place: from unknown early martyrs to Saint Agnes to Joan the Maid to martyrs of China, Japan, Korea to Kateri Tekakwitha to Maria Gorretti to my dear, beloved "little sister" Chiara 'Luce' Badano to all the multitudes of saints who look after us with such tenderness even if we don't know their names in this life - young girls and young-at-heart too, who gave their everything that the fire of God's love might fill the earth.

Thérèse expresses her great desire, which is a promise from of all of them to "return to the earth," to be near to us in our sorrows and cares, near to us - just beyond our sight, to "make Love loved."

Saint Jerome "Finds the Words of God"

"So you want 'realism'?" Caravaggio asked. "My kind of realism? OK, but I'm gonna at least give him a table. I mean, people can only take so much...." 

Here is CARAVAGGIO'S "SAINT JEROME" (1605).

"Your words were found and I consumed them;
Your word became the joy and the happiness of my heart" (Jeremiah 15:16). 

Happy Feast of Saint Jerome!

Baseball Braketology Begins

Oh you crazy 2020. Staaahp!

I have seen many wild, weird, wacky things in my 57+ years of life, but I never dreamed I would live to see anything like... this, THIS... nutty baseball "season."

Now the "Irregular Season" is over after 60 games. On the one hand, we did get to have baseball. It was worth it.

Baseball on TV only. With no fans (but artificial "fan-track" - which was actually better than nothing). Baseball with seven inning doubleheaders, universal DH, extra innings starting with a runner on second base. (!) And now, sixteen teams in the "postseason," an entire first round of seeded matchups, eight three game serieses to determine who advances to the "next round."

Baseball "Braketology"?

Alas, our beloved World Champion Washington Nationals didn't even make the "Round of 16." The Nats were just getting warmed up when the season ended.

There are some happy things. The Nats finished strong, rallying to a final record of 26-34 and tying the Mets for fourth place. It was a dignified ending. Juan Soto hit .351 to win the National League batting title a few weeks before his 22nd birthday. Some young players brought some excitement to... well, our house at least, and no doubt many others.

I'm proud of our Nationals. I hope we can have a "regular" regular season next year, but we know not what awaits us in baseball or any of the other events we had grown accustomed to in the pre-Covid19 world.

I hope that baseball has not passed the point of no return. When (if?) we return to the old ways, someday, I hope we won't keep any of these crazy new rules. Sixteen playoff teams??

I know, it’s just “special” for pandemic, they say! That’s like what the mythological Pandora said before she opened the box ... “I just want to take ONE little peek, just once.” 

Forces have been unleashed! Is the proverbial “cat out of the bag”? I hope not.

Avril Lavigne is How Old???

In her kitchen, like... last week! Seriously?

Happy Birthday, Avril Lavigne!

The Sk8er Grrl is 36 years old, and everyone finds it hard to believe. "She hasn't aged a DAY since 'Complicated' came out in 2002!", people cry out with a mixture of amazement, admiration, and... I don't know, maybe envy?

They are exaggerating.

First of all, 36 is not that old. 36 is still young! Secondly, she has "grown" artistically and survived some very difficult experiences (the insanity of superstardom and the paralysis of serious illness). I'm struck by the fact that she's "still in one piece," she's sober (and pretty much always has been, in spite of her rebellious role-playing), she's relatively normal (as rock stars go). Aging? C'mon, she has “people” to make her look good, plus she is just one of those small-sized folks who is just always going to "look young."

Avril's "ageless look" may be a crisis for the younger generation. People my age don't think much of it. We are much more likely to envy her Beverly Hills mansion, her swimming pool, and her 55-million-dollar net worth. (Greed lives longer than all the other vicious temptations.) I'm actually impressed that she has not squandered her money, and that she invests her time advocating for people with chronic illnesses. I'm grateful for her dedication to fighting Lyme Disease.

But I get how folks born in the '80's might be freaking out. Calm down, peeps. I know. This is not really about Avril. It’s about a more fundamental experience you’re going through that has you a bit... unsettled. The bottom line is this: if Avril Lavigne is in her mid-30s, then so are you. Yikes!😟

Dear Millennials everywhere, I feel your pain. "Where did those years go?" you ask, as your hairlines have begun to recede, your backs are aching, and you complain about all the awful music kids listen to these days...😏 (you're right about that, by the way😝). You are perplexed by the person who stares back at you from the other side of the mirror - a person who every day looks more and more like your parents. You wonder, "What happened to my 18-year-old self?"

Generally, you still "feel" the same as when you were 18, at least in terms of your physical energy. If you have a family of your own, of course, you can't help being aware of many "lifestyle changes" that come with having kids (n.b. Avril does not have kids of her own; she has nieces and nephews and is undoubtedly the cool Auntie). Parenthood changes us in many ways. Although, according to most generational studies today, your kids are probably all under 12 years old, which means you can still put them all together in the house with a babysitter and go out for a fun night with your friends - at least once in a while (which means the-big-changes in your lifestyle and sense of identity and responsibility are yet to come; I can't explain how it will all happen, but I advise you to "buckle up" and get ready for a "bumpy ride"!😳😜 #DontWorryItsNotThatBad).

But whether or not you have families of your own, you all notice some basic differences in daily life. Cars today seem to require more bodily maneuvers to get out of - not like when you used to just open the door and bounce out in a single effortless motion without even thinking about it. Some of your old clothing has shrunk!! You think, "How did I ever fit into this?" Fortunately, there is usually a corollary question: "WHY did I ever want to wear this? Or you go to the grocery store (I'm assuming, or at least hoping, that you're not an alcoholic) and you open the beer fridge. As you grab your favorite craft beer or - better still! - a bottle of Belgian Ale brewed by monks according to a thousand-year-old secret recipe, you look over at the six-packs of Bud and think, "I can't believe we drank that stuff in college!"

I empathize, partially, with what you're going through. I am not a Millennial. I was your undergraduate university professor back in 2002, and I was a little older than you are now. You have changed, grown, and matured much more than you realize. I am so proud of most of you (and if you're actually reading this, you're probably near the top of that category). In any case, my ears are still open for you and my virtual office (on Facebook, Instagram, etc) is open, anytime.

But back to MUSIC: in 2002 you kids were sitting in the grass around campus with your CD boom boxes and I would walk by and think, "What awful music kids listen to these days!" And I was right... for the most part.😏 But there were some diamonds in all that mud, and I might have noticed them if I had been paying more attention. Some of you were definitely tuned into the good stuff back then.

Avril wore a loose tie? Everybody wore loose
ties! She actually stopped wearing the ties when
she realized that kids were imitating her.

Half of her lifetime ago, Avril Lavigne was a bright and talented kid from the "five-thousand-person-town" of Napanee, Ontario. She skateboarded, was a good hockey player who could hold her own on the ice with the guys ("always-beat-the-boys-up"). She was a nice girl known to everyone in town, who "made-her-money-cutting-grass" and, it seems, "got-fired-by" the local "fried-chicken" ... ummm... restaurant(?). She also sang at local county fairs, book stores, and churches in that "small town, Na-pa-nee!" that had no idea it was on the verge of becoming an international tourist attraction (for a few years, anyway). [Italics quotations from the song "My World"]

They may not have realized that young Avril had enormous aspirations, fierce ambition, remarkable talents, tons of energy, and - to top it all off - that indefinable, potentially great, potentially dangerous quality that makes people natural leaders or lets them get away with doing whatever they want: charisma. But in order for things to happen, she needed to leave the small town and head for New York (and later Los Angeles). She got a contract and began recording (all the stuff that never got released can be found without too much trouble on YouTube, and some of it is very nice).

Avril's special singing style was shaped by her particular background and experience growing up - with roots in Evangelical Christian music and the Canadian strain of Country music, then her later discovery of Rock and increasing fascination with it. The result was a voice that could be sweet, sassy, bold, and sorrowful - that could disarm you with soft tones and then crash down on you in a storm of euphoria or anger. She could bend words over a variation of notes, wiggle vowels beyond their grammatical limits, and add nuances and character to her intonation like fine brush strokes on a painting.

Avril had immense versatility and lots of her own ideas by the age of 17, and she resisted efforts by some of the "suits" at the record company to force her into a targeted genre. But she was too talented to ignore. Thus, many hands went into the making of her first album, and the resulting mashup was recorded on both coasts with several different producers and different musicians and song co-writers. The kid couldn't do it by herself, but she unified all the various (and in themselves quite substantial) contributions from others and made it all her own by her inimitable voice and her personal charisma - that "indefinable quality" that gained her a world of wildly loyal fans, made her a pop superstar for over a decade, and eventually got her into more than a little trouble. In this moment, however, she was just beginning to spread her wings.

By the time you all came back to school in the Fall of 2002, Avril Lavigne's voice was everywhere. The album Let Go was a tour-de-force, an astonishing debut. You kids heard it then, whereas I didn't really hear it until some years later. But it's still fresh even today. It's a classic, from your era, that can take its place alongside the "classic rock" of my era.

Just a word about words: No one since The Beatles has taken that overused word "Yeah" and raised it to such lyrical, evocative, stunning heights as Avril does in "I'm With You" (and in basically every other song she sings it). While I'm on the topic, there are also her signature "La-La-La-La..." and "Na-Na-Na-Na..." tossed in everywhere: in the background, the chorus, the lead voice, at the beginning, the end, the transition, or making up a whole verse, puntuated with a "Yeahh-ee-yah-ee-yeh-Yeahh"! A cynic would grumble that "she probably couldn't think of any more words." I say it's brilliant. It's the simple, spontaneous, exuberant outburst of affirmation and possibility - the echo of the freedom of childhood - made into art. It lights up everything.

It never gets old.

And you kids shouldn't worry about getting old either. Experience enriches memories, so that revisiting them revives and renews the sense of wonder through which we grow as persons.

A big "yeah, yeah, yeah" to that.

Avril Lavigne just turned 36 years old, and Let Go recently turned 18.(!) Above is a recent still shot of Avril playing the piano at home on an Instagram video. Next, of course, is the album, with the famous "baggy-pants." (The Japanese edition. They went crazy for her in Japan.)

Suicide Prevention and Awareness about Mental Health

September is National Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month.

And, inevitably, it's not until the end of September that I can bring myself to write anything about it. I know how horribly real, devastating, and incomprehensible it is when a family member or friend dies by suicide.

I think that when this happens, it is rarely the result of a fully rational and free choice by the person to kill his or her self. Generally, these tragedies involve people with severe psychiatric afflictions that may or may not be evident to those around them. The behavior that results in their death is set in motion by a pathologically distorted perception of themselves and/or their environment.

What I might be able to contribute along the lines of "awareness" is to emphasize some important factors regarding mental health.

Please note: I am not a medical doctor nor do I have any training in the mental health or counseling professions. I am an experienced patient, as well as a university professor in humanities, an active scholar and author, and an incurable thinker who has had a lot of time (and a lot of personal motivation) to think about these things.

The psychological dimension of our humanity remains mysterious in many ways, but we continue to learn about what helps and what harms its delicate balance, how it shapes our attitudes and actions, and how psychological disorders can hinder and even cripple a human being. Psychological health is affected by our own actions, but it is to a significant degree woven from predispositions, events, and experiences that impact us in ways outside our control. Obviously, there are ways to respond to and reintegrate the damage inflicted by bad experiences on our psychological "inner fabric" (and important ways to be helped in doing this). But often we can't "fix" all the complex features of inner brokenness, and therefore we must endure the pain that remains. Psychological suffering is real, and none of us can presume to measure how great is the burden borne by another person.

There is another important and particular point that continually needs to be emphasized: what we categorize as psychological or mental problems are often connected to empirically accessible "physical" diseases, imbalances, and afflictions. Overall physical health and the hormonal and central nervous systems have a significant impact on how well we "think and feel." Then there is the health of the brain itself. In my lifetime, much has been discovered about the complexity of brain functioning and the wide variety of ways it can be damaged or diseased. Neurobiological research still holds much potential, but medications have already been developed that help treat brain disorders in a more "fine-tuned" manner. There are no miracle drugs, but psychiatric medications - responsibly used under proper supervision - can contribute to a therapeutic regimen that makes a big difference in people's lives.

I can vouch for this. Psychiatric medications have been a great help to me in my own 47-year-long battle with depression and OCD. (Ten years ago, I published a book about my experiences which is still available HERE.) I'm old enough to remember what it used to be like struggling with mental illness. Things have gotten a lot better, and the stigma surrounding it has generally decreased.

At the same time, it is often said that we have more mental illness in today's technologically advanced societies than ever before. In part, this might be explained by the fact that we have more awareness and more openness about mental health. But it may also be true that the stressful environments we live in today may be harder on brain health, especially for people who have a (possibly hereditary) predisposition to develop neurochemical imbalances.

There are many reasons why life today has a higher tension, requires more mental energy, and passes through more phases of stress and abrupt change than in the past. I have written about this elsewhere on the blog, with regard to issues related to the enormous growth of technological power. I think it's important to be aware that depression (which is often a factor in the tragedy of suicide) can be a condition "managed" over a lifetime, and subject to different phases of intensity. And while most people learn to navigate the hard stresses of modern life, there are some (perhaps more now than in the past) for whom modern tensions are experienced as overwhelming and "tramatic" events, and who face more personal disruption as a result.

People who are already "managing" (formally or informally) with depression or some related disorder based on a neurobiological-dysfunction/chemical-imbalance in the brain are subject to experiencing a "flare-up" (i.e. their disorder may become symptomatically acute) because of a triggering event - and in our society these may involve disruptions in physical or emotional life, employment, or any number of intense transitions or problems similar to what many people experience in one way or another as stressful and difficult, but manage to recover from and move on. Whereas for people with depression these circumstances and events can have a traumatic effect. They can crack the very fragile edifice of coping mechanisms, the network of convictions, and perhaps even the neurological "rerouting" that the brain has developed to compensate for its chemical or functional weakness. The result is that the whole edifice is destroyed, and the person loses their handle on their "normal" perception and judgment of life, interests, relationships, etc. Recovery will depend on the person's success in reconstructing another "cognitive edifice" with the help of a positive environment and support, psychotherapy, short-term or long-term assistance from medication, and other kinds of therapeutic care. The healing that is achieved will always be tenuous and susceptible to re-injury.

There are many ways you can help someone suffering from depression, but it does not help to tell them to make themselves better by their own willpower or some kind of self-initiated activity. The depressed person cannot "get over it" or "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps." This helplessness is one of the distinguishing characteristics of depression.

Nevertheless, depressed people often don't recognize their own helplessness, which means that they are already adding frustration and self-blame to the depression itself. What you may be able to do is to help them realize their need for specifically psychiatric help, or at least to encourage them and help them to accept that there is no shame in seeking care for mental health. Be gentle, be supportive, be available, and - depending on your relationship with the person - try to help them be accountable for keeping up their healing work, keeping concrete goals in focus, communicating with doctors and therapists, taking their medication, and assessing progress. Be a human being, and treat them as human beings, with all the dignity and love they deserve. Don't dismiss the human person with prepackaged demands or ideas for what they must do to "fix themselves" so that they might become "worthy" of being loved and respected as human beings. This is actually more difficult than you might think. We tend to disrespect one another all the time, even in "normal" situations. You will not always succeed, but be humble and keep trying. Be a friend. Become better informed about mental health, and get advice from relevant mental health professionals and resources (see e.g. HERE) on specific conditions and other factors that bear on the concrete circumstances of the situation the person is facing, and that help you to discern the best ways that you can be helpful in this particular person's life. Be a part of their "team" along with caregivers and other friends and family. Know the role you play and work together with everyone else.

It is very important for other people not to add fuel to the fire of emotional abuse that a depressed person is already afflicting themselves with. That person has already run through the list of "healthy lifestyle choices" they've failed to make, "positive attitudes" they haven't cultivated, prayers they've failed to say, and many other reasons why they think that they ought to blame themselves for their various incapacities. This spiral of self blame and deeper incapacitation can become a whirlwind of interior violence that spins entirely out of the bounds of rationality. A level of delusion emerges which can lead to external self-inflicted violence.

We can imagine how something like suicide may be waiting at the bottom of this descending spiral, like a black hole. But this hardly even begins to grasp even one facet of the destructive catastrophe that is suicide. I know something of the incapacitating strangeness of depression, the suffering it causes, the disconnection from one's sense of one's own value such that one longs to shrink into a little ball and disappear. None of these afflicted states are necessarily aiming at suicide. That doesn't mean we shouldn't care about people who are suffering in this way. It's terrible suffering. We need to help people who are suffering in these ways.

Of course, even in these general and limited considerations, I cannot forget that I am a Christian. Faith, prayer, the sacraments, and spiritual guidance matter very much here. They can reach aspects of suffering (physical or mental) that are inaccessible by other efforts. Jesus brings light to every kind of darkness. Jesus wants our healing. But he wants us to follow him, to do the will of the Father. The things of faith are not meant to replace our humanity. Faith is not a cheap substitute for the human care we owe to ourselves and to one another, or for the application of what medical science and the arts of the healing professions can provide. "Miracles" are possible, but they certainly won't happen for us if we neglect our responsibilities to receive God's help through the natural and human gifts he has already placed on our path. We can rely confidently on God's grace to give us the courage to follow him by seeking all the appropriate resources for help, and by enduring the sufferings that cannot be helped because they exceed the possibilities for human healing available to us and because God permits them (for a time) because he has encompassed them within his plan, through Jesus Christ, to unite us more fully to himself.

It is our task to bring comfort to the afflicted and mercy to those in need. We can't judge with condemnation the ultimate destiny of anyone who dies by their own hand. On the contrary we have reasons to hope in God's mercy, including the perspective that an awareness of mental illness gives us, that suggests full culpability is so often lacking in these tragedies. Why God permits this kind of awful thing is a question that remains mysterious and painful for the living. Still, we must continue to trust in God, no matter what. Before suicide happens, however, we must also do everything we can to help the afflicted person step away from the edge. We must accompany them, love them, and beg them to stay with us. Life is always a gift. As long as it is given, we don't have the right to choose to give up on it, or to neglect other lives entrusted to our care.

I don't have "internal experience" of what leads to a suicide attempt. I have been at the bottom of some of depression's awful holes, but I'm not suicidal. Not everyone with serious depression thinks about or makes a plan or tries to do something to end their own life. There are differences between "feeling like you want to die," "feeling like you are somehow 'dead'," "feeling like you have no value" and "feeling like you should take steps to end your own life." They are all destructive and dangerous states of disordered perception that require personal attention, and medical and therapeutic care.

I know something of what it feels like to "want to die," such that I have had to work on "wanting to live." I still work on it, although in these days - as difficult as they are - I find that I very much want to live. I have never "felt like ending my own life," which is not anything I can take credit for. It's not one of the sufferings that afflicts me. I have wailed in desperate sorrow for the incomprehensible loss of someone else. Why him and not me? I don't know. There are different kinds of depression and different levels, and different ways that it combines with a wide spectrum of other mental disorders. Prevention experts have useful information for helping us identify signs of specific danger (this LINK is an accessible and wide ranging resource from the National Institute of Mental Health).

We can only do our best. Most of the suicides I know or have heard about are very complicated. They still seem like a bunch of knots that I cannot even begin to untie.

There's an element in suicide that is quite obscure to me, that I can't analyse. It's inexplicable to me how I lost my friend 15 years ago on a bright beautiful Fall day, or how we lost some kids in our area over the past decade. Nothing I think or say will ever be anywhere near enough to explain what happened.

To loved ones who remain behind, it stays like an open wound. It always hurts, but it's a pain that cries out to the infinite mercy of God. It stays open as a space where the seeds of ultimate hope mysteriously grow for those we have lost.

"O Lord, You Have Been Our Refuge"

From the readings of the day:

"Vanity of vanities!
All is vanity!
What profit has man from all the labor
which he toils at under the sun?

"All speech is labored;
there is nothing one can say.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing
nor is the ear satisfied with hearing"
(Ecclesiastes 1:2-3, 8).

"In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge"
(Psalm 90:1).

[Image above: Tattoo, "All is Vanity" from right forearm of Christina Grimmie.]