(CARROLLTON) - Today I have decided to review and defend a movie typically NOT lionized by Christians in general: Jesus Christ Superstar.
As a lad (this movie came out in 1971 - actually that was the stage show, the movie was, I think, 1973) I remember the nuns in my grade school briefly discussing this movie. I believe the word blasphemy was thrown around.
Posted in Uncategorized
BY Frater Bovious
CARROLLTON, Texas –I will start with a couple of pictures to illustrate a point:
These folks were on a one way trip – there was no easy way back.
These folks are not on a one way trip. They can go back and forth.
There are many similar reasons why both groups headed to the USA. But the approach of both groups toward assimilating into our culture are different – I believe the primary difference is to be found in the fact that one group had committed to living and dying in this country while the other group has options. This impacts the desire to learn the language, to fit in to the culture, etc. This impacts the immigration debate – for, at a certain level, these people don’t intend to be immigrants (a : a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence). They are just here for a while, and they are sending lots of money home.
But that’s all prefatory to the point of this post. The simplest and most obvious commonality to both groups is the availability of jobs in the USA versus where they were coming from. There are other reasons of course, but jobs are the foremost common denominator between the two groups – the ones on boats and the ones on foot.
The current immigration debate is like current TV and Movies – it’s all the same stuff repackaged – 60′s Batman TV show, 80′s and 90′s Batman movies and 21st century reboots of Batman movies to just point out one obvious example. So, the debate we are having now is the same debate we were having 30 years ago – including the band-aid of amnesty. Amnesty won’t solve the illegal immigration problem – partly because, as noted above, it’s not really about immigration (just keep that in mind as this post continues to use that word), it’s simply about work, and people will still walk across the border.
So, to change focus for a minute – here are some interesting facts:
According to the New York Times, writing in March of 2012, there were 11.5 million illegal immigrants in the USA in 2010. Of that number, PEW estimated 8 million are in the work force.
According to the BLS, currently we have just at 12 million unemployed.
Switching gears once more: everyone does realize, right, that the government HAS NO MONEY. I don’t mean just being nearly 17 trillion in debt. I mean, government has no money – everything they have, everything they spend, they got from the USA workers and businesses. Everything. Which means, we, you and me, pay for unemployment, food stamps, etc. And of course now they are taking from our future earnings, our kid’s future earnings, their kid’s, etc.
So, now, for the illustrative if inflammatory and yes inaccurate observation: Do you realize that at a certain level we are paying one person not to mow our lawns while we are paying another person to mow our lawns? Is this actually sustainable? Of course not and I have nearly 17 trillion reasons that undeniably demonstrate that this is not sustainable.
8 million people are undocumented workers in this country. Based on our unemployment levels there really shouldn’t be that many jobs available for these folks. You do realize that Mexico is simply exporting its unemployment, right?
The Point: As long as we have jobs here that our citizens will not do, someone who is not a citizen will come and do it. We cannot stop them – look around.
And, at a certain level, we should not stop them. The Bible has some pretty non-negotiable instructions regarding the sojourner in our midst:
For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. Dt 10:17-19
The above applies to everyone (yes, even the American Indian, who came over from Asia in the mists of time) that lives here in the USA. We are to take in the sojourner, provide justice for the fatherless and the widow, etc. We have a moral and natural obligation to do so, for we are all of us here from somewhere else. We will always have the poor and the downtrodden in this world – and we will always have the obligation to take care of them at some level.
But, there is another truth ignored here. We have to take care of ourselves and our own to truly be able to take care of the sojourner.
We need to change our ideas about the dignity of work – you do also realize that we have generational welfare – that generational welfare is a cancer in our system and it is killing us. The dignity of persons, the dignity of work. They go hand in hand. We have to address the fact that there is no work beneath us; to realize that our very dignity as human beings dignifies any work that we do, that we define work, work does not define us, before we will have any kind of meaningful conversation regarding immigration reform. The actual amount of work available has to be reset to what it actually is – and our citizens need to be employed doing that work in order to force some clarity into the immigration debate. Until then we can all sit mindlessly watching another version of Amnestygeddon III.
Posted in Catholic, Culture, Ethics, Politics
Tagged Immigration, Irregular immigration
Some years ago, three brothers left the farm to work in the city. They were all hired by the same company at the same pay. Three years later, Jim was being paid $500 a month, Frank was receiving $1,000, but George was now making $1,500.
Their father decided to visit the employer. He listened to the confused father and said, "I will let the boys explain for themselves."
Posted in Miscellaneous
BY Frater Bovious
CARROLLTON, Texas — I’ll dispense with defining family, because it does not need defining; 2+2 = 4, no one wants to drive on a bridge where the builders have redefined 2+2 to fit the moment, so we can all just quit pretending that it is up for debate. We all know what family is.
But does it matter? Yes. In the absence of family, “society” becomes the primary social structure, the primary educator, the primary disciplinarian, the primary care-taker.
Is that good enough? Let’s just talk about education. Not just reading, writing and ‘rithmatic. I mean the holistic development of the human person. What parts of society are better equipped to educate children in the foundational things that matter? Do schools teach kids not to steal? Or to not lie and cheat?
Did you send your kid off to school to get educated or to get high? Or pregnant? Or to join a gang? Because, if family does not teach kids about drugs and sex and how humans should treat each other, school, that is, society, will teach them about those things.
Thing is, without a family, there is no telling what kids will learn in school. What about after school? If young adults haven’t been formed and educated by society in the kinds of things that make society functional, then prison will teach them those values, right?
I have a secret. I was a kid once. This gives me some insight into being a kid. As a kid, I can tell you that parents matter. Family matters. I am personally grateful that I was raised by my family, and not by a village. The village – that is, society, is most functional as an extended family. An extended family. Not a replacement.
Posted in Calling Things What They Are, Culture, Education, Miscellaneous
Tagged Children Youth and Family, Education, Family, Formation, Home
BY Frater Bovious
I choose “Now!”
CARROLLTON, Texas — If you offered your dog a biscuit and said “You can have this biscuit right now, or you can wait 15 minutes and I will give you two biscuits,” assuming no prior training, what would your dog do? Having tried this experiment with my dog, Coco, I have learned that he believes a biscuit in the mouth is worth two in the bush, every time.
The iconic version of this experiment with humans is the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment of 1972, you can look it up, it’s interesting. Basically, kids ages 4 to 6 were presented with a marshmallow and told that they could eat it now or wait 15 minutes and have two. Only 1/3 of the kids managed to get two.
In general the experiment is thought to indicate the amount of self-control a kid has, as demonstrated by the ability to delay gratification. As an added bonus, follow-up studies seem to indicate that those that could delay gratification were more successful in life as demonstrated by career, spouse selection, lower incidences of addiction, etc.
Follow up and additional experiments have raised questions regarding whether or not self-control was the factor in play. Instead of self-control some have argued that the ability to reason and predict outcomes impacts whether or not the kid opts for the immediate marshmallow. And further experiments showed that kids who had been lied to or otherwise disappointed by a failure to keep a promise tended to immediately eat the marshmallow.
As if all the above are not inter-related.
First relevant point is that age is a factor. It is a biological fact that our brains develop over time and become more and more capable of rational thought. Just like I can’t simply say to Coco, “Do you want this now or would you rather have two in 15 minutes” and have him understand the question, the Stanford Marshmallow experiment was not done with one and two-year old children. Please note it was also not done with 30-year-old adults either. It seems self-evident that the ability to reason plays a role in self-control.
Also note they did not put a line of coke in front of an addict in withdrawal and say, “You can snort this now, or you can wait 15 minutes and snort two lines of coke.” It also seems self-evident that severely altering brain chemistry with addictive drugs impacts one’s ability to reason and that also plays a role in self-control.
The ability to delay gratification then is not an innate trait present in some and not in others. It is an ability that some learn and some do not, or that some have short-circuited.
So, what about this bit of folk wisdom that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush? It’s rather situational and conditional. The Marshmallow experiment would seem to indicate that a bird in the hand is not worth two in the bush, if one can be reasonably certain one can get the two in the bush. The key word being reasonable, that is able to be reasoned out.
A dog will choose the bird in the hand every time because they cannot reason to a future potential good. And, in the wild, this is behavior that has immediate benefit. And in uncertain situations where one cannot reasonably predict the outcome of behavior, it is reasonable to get what you can when you can get it because you just don’t know if you will have another chance.
But, we are not dogs. We have abilities, and therefore options, that dogs simply do not have and never will have.
So, let’s talk about concupiscence! Yeah, I’m tying this into Lent again. I talked about concupiscence in an earlier post here. Simply put, as a summary of the above, a Lenten observance of delaying gratification is an opportunity to be fully human, and to realize our potential as children of God.
As a quick aside, I link to an article below that links to an article by a person that writes a lengthy article about her dismay at how 2012 worked out for her. It is a long and interesting read about how her life has kind of fallen apart and which she ties to her refusal to delay gratification but that it’s all good in the end mostly because she gets to write the truth about herself.
By Frater Bovious
She didn’t say “just faith” but my sense was, while she was willing to just go on faith, she really wanted some kind of verification. This appears to have been triggered by the fact she had several losses in her life, various in-laws and such, and was trying to “cover her kids with prayer”, but nevertheless had some anxiety concerning the safety of her children.
This triggered a line of thought for me – the following is not a response to her and her situation, though it may be related. The line of thought concerns the proper disposition to prayer.
It’s worth considering for a moment if we have a “lucky rabbit’s foot” approach to prayer.
There is no soft way to put this: There are two basic dispositions to prayer, in my experience:
My Will Be Done |
Thy Will Be Done |
| “If I do this and such, God will grant me my wish.” | “God wants me to be with him in heaven.” |
Humility is the sine qua non for answering the call to be holy. Many times it’s not that we aren’t getting an answer to our prayers, it’s that we are not getting the answer that we are listening for. God is not a lucky rabbit’s foot. He is not a talisman. There is no formula, no incantation, that will bend God to our will. But much of our prayer comes with that underlying premise: “I will bend God to my will.”
Even when we ask him to protect our children?
Even when we ask him to protect our children.
Jesus prayed a lot. Here is one:
MT 26:39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”
It’s hard to acknowledge that we are not in control, isn’t it.
In the end, all one’s time and all one’s strength is spent.
(ROME – Vatican City) Meticulously following Canon 322 §2, the Pope renounced the See of Peter on February 10th, 2013, with the following words (spoken in Latin):
For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.
The above referenced code says: If it happens that the Roman Pontiff resigns his office, it is required for validity that the resignation is made freely and properly manifested but not that it is accepted by anyone.
You will note that his actual statement fully meets the requirements of Can. 332 §2. This is to be expected from someone with a mind like his. And, when I say “this” is to be expected, I mean both the manner of the renunciation and the fact of it.
Anyone that has read any of Cardinal Ratzinger’s or Pope Benedict XVI’s works, is familiar with his lucid prose and depth and breadth of thought. Our Pope is an uncommonly gifted theologian with a professor’s love of study and a pastor’s concern that God be known and understood insofar as man is capable of understanding. Having said this, I noted with interest a comment in his foreword to Jesus of Nazareth:
As I do not know how much more time and strength I am still to be given, I have decided to publish the first ten chapters…
He wrote this in 2006, when he had been Pope for less than two years. Elsewhere he has stated that he can feel his “powers fading”. If we can say that one mark of genius is the ability to see what is there, to penetrate to the core of the issue, and to glean the immutable truth within, then what can we say about someone of such genius with regard to self-knowledge and understanding? I think it fair to suppose that such a mind may be more keenly aware of its own decline than most.
Consider this as well – usually the Church does not know when the See will be vacated. We may have a pretty good idea, but, we certainly in recent history have not known the exact day and hour. Pope Benedict has set up the Church for as smooth a transition of pastoral care as is humanly possible. The rest is up to the Holy Spirit.
Virtually all the sound and fury from the vultures swarming this news story signify nothing. People with agendas, people with no knowledge but with mere opinion, and those who simply live to shock or outrage are saying all manner of silly things. There is a saying, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” In the case of journalists, so-called, all they have is gossip, so everything looks like scandal. There is no scandal here, not in the sense of discredit nor in the sense of leading someone into sin. There is simply a man who believes he can best serve Jesus by devoting what time and strength remains to him to prayer.
Posted in Calling Things What They Are, Canon Law, Catholic, Culture, Spirituality
