Catching Up and the First Day of Class

Apologies to all of you both of you who were pining for a weekly update from me and didn't get one last week. Other than slicing off part of my thumb while working at the deli, I didn't think there was much to report. Come on, who among us can honestly say he hasn't mixed up his thumb and a salami before? Maybe that's why I liked to suck my thumb as a kid... hmm.... Anyway, it wasn't as bad as it first looked--it was just a flesh wound that took some skin and part of my nail, but it's so much fun to say to someone, "I slice off part of my thumb the other day."

This last week featured much less bloodshed and a bit more activity. The DSPT had a two-day event on the place of natural law rhetoric in American jurisprudence. If you're not sure exactly what that means, don't worry; the speakers didn't seem to quite know either. While we enjoyed some very controversial comments from Jean Porter of Notre Dame, some piquant observations from Russell Hittinger of Tulsa, and some trenchant thoughts from Lloyd Weinreb of Harvard, none of them explained particularly well what the natural law even is. They made many pleas to the "complexity of the tradition," etc., and said it was largely a framework for guiding further conversation, but didn't say much as to its content. I thought at first that I wasn't smart enough or well-versed enough to follow them, but several others had similar reactions to mine, making me think that it might possibly have been them, not me. Oh well. I suppose I can always read some St. Thomas and get a few answers.

Yesterday was the first day of classes for the semester. (Yes, it does start a bit late, but they make up for it by making the summer breaks shorter.) I described in a previous post the classes I'll be taking. Just one yesterday: Medieval Philosophy. (It's technically called "History of Philosophy: Medieval," but this is shorter.) It's being taught by Fr. Augustine Thompson, OP, who is an historian and a medievalist by trade; so not only is the subject material right up his alley, he owns the alley and the two adjacent buildings. And he gets so animated... it's going to be a great class.

Later today will be the first class meeting for Philosophical Anthropology, taught by Fr. Michael Dodds, OP. If Fr. Michael is true to form, today's class will be a schola brevis, or "short school," a tradition in the Dominican Order in which the first meeting for a class gives some basic introductory material and then adjourns early. That would be nice, since I've got a boatload of reading for my Patristic Spirituality class for Thursday... which I should probably get to now...

The Week in Review: Henry Fonda Teaches Shakespeare about Love

I hesitate to populate this blog with too many of the mundane details of my life down here for fear of this turning into a LiveJournal/"Dear Diary" endeavor. I mean, do y'all really care to hear about the movies I watched or the random conversations I have with people I hang out with? Certainly if said movies or conversations provoke thoughts I deem worth sharing, I'll share them, but I don't wish to subject you to things like, "I watched The Odd Couple, it was pretty funny," "My friend and I debated the merits of Star Trek: Voyager," or "My roommate and I discussed the various possible explanations in the Manti Te'o hoax." Though if you want to hear such things, say so, and I'll gladly recount them to you.

That aside, there were at least a few events from this last week amusing enough to share.

While driving home from work, my "check engine" light came on. Since the vehicle wasn't otherwise misbehaving, I continued on toward home, but stopped at the local Big O Tires and asked them to look at it. The guy came back to me about 10 minutes later and informed me that there was no oil in my car. I responded with an incredulous, "What!?" and explained that the oil gasket had been leaking but was replaced three months ago by another Big O facility. He said: "Well, if it were burning oil, there should be at least a quart or two of oil left in there if you've only driven 3,000 miles since then. Maybe you've got another leak, but I think they may have forgotten to put oil back in your car when they replaced that gasket." Really? Really!? It seems unlikely that if I were driving around for three months with no oil in my car, the "check engine" light would have only come on now. So, I have to bring the car back in today so they can put 'er up on the rack and check for another leak. Great. Let's hope there's nothing too terribly wrong with it. If they determine there is no leak, and that the only reasonable explanation is that the other joint neglected to re-oil me, rest assured I will return to the other place and politely ask for my blasted money back.

On Friday evening a few friends and I went to Chipotle for dinner, and found ourselves in a discussion as to whether angelic sin is in any way comparable to human sin due to the difference in the natures of angels and humans. I think I can safely say this was the first time such a conversation took place at a Chipotle.

I saw Shakespeare in Love for the first time this week. Two thoughts occur to me. One, Saving Private Ryan should have beat it for Best Picture that year. Two, the movie is improperly titled. In the story, William Shakespeare becomes involved with a nobleman's daughter who disguises herself as a man to act in his plays. The two characters are shown many times in acts of physical intimacy, and professing their and feeling for each other. But perhaps Bill Shakespeare ought to ask himself the question immortalized by the band Whitesnake: "Is this love that I'm feeling?" It looks a lot more like lust or infatuation pure emotionalism. The relationship between them seems so shallow. You don't get the sense that either of the characters really has that deep care and concern and self-sacrificing motivation that characterizes love of another. It's emotionalism charged by physical attraction. That ain't love; that might be how a relationship that leads to love could begin, but it's not there yet.

The distinction between the two is portrayed well in the original version of Yours, Mine, and Ours. Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball play two middle-aged widowed people, each with a few children of their own. They meet, and over a period of time (covered in a montage) they talk about their lives: their past marriages, their children, their difficulties and hopes and fears. They get to really know each other, and to really love each other. This sort of deep relationship is contrasted in the film by the "puppy love" of Lucy's teenage daughter, who wants to run with her beau, whom she thinks she "loves." As the daughter is telling this to her parents, right as Lucy is going into labor with her and Henry's baby, Henry tells the daughter,

You want to know what love really is, take a look around you. Take a look at your mother. It's giving life that counts. Until you're ready for that, all the rest is just a big fraud.... Life isn't a "love-in": it's the dishes, and the orthodontist, and the shoe repairman; ground round instead of roast beef. And I'll tell you something else: it isn't going to bed with a man that proves you're in love with him; it's getting up in the morning and facing the drab, miserable, wonderful, everyday world with him that counts.

Amen, Henry. Amen. I wish that more movies would give this sort of picture of love, instead of the typical "Let's exchange witty pick-up lines until we spend the night together." How pedestrian.

The Meaning of Reconciliation

(This is a re-print from something I posted on my old blog, but I think folks might enjoy it....)

This might be a bold statement, but I’m going for it: the whole of salvation history is summed up in the word “reconciliation.”

What exactly does this word mean? I heard this from David Fagerberg, one of my former professors at Notre Dame: “cilia” is the Latin word for eyelash. So let’s piece it together: if “re” means “again,” and “con” means “with”, then “re-con-cilia-tion” is “to again be eyelash to eyelash with [someone].”

That’s about as close as you can get to a person; but notice, the emphasis is on regaining the closeness that you once had with someone.

We as human beings once had a great closeness with God, in the beginning. In their innocence, Adam and Eve stood uncovered before God, not needing to hide anything. God walked with them in the garden in the cool of evening, like you might do with an old friend after a big dinner --that’s closeness, being con-cilia. But we, in our forebears, separated ourselves from God by our pride, withdrew from that closeness, that intimacy, by wanting to change the nature of the relationship, by trying to be equal to God. Instead of being docile infants held in our Father’s arms, cheek to cheek, we were squirrely two-year olds who squirmed out. And when we realized what we did, we hid, we covered ourselves, and we couldn’t look God in the face anymore.

But God loved us and wanted us back. So He came among us as one of us, like to us in all things but sin—he had arms and legs, hands and feet, a heart and a mind… and eyelashes. Jesus came to sinners, to the afflicted, to the poor, and stood eye to eye with them and said: “Your sins are forgiven you.” And by His Cross, as man he stood eyelash to eyelash with God on our behalf and said, “Father, forgive them,” and as God could respond, “It is accomplished,” that is, our peace with God was restored.

And this is the Good News that the Apostles were sent to preach, as ambassadors for Christ, that “God the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of His Son, has reconciled himself to the world, and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins.” And for the last two thousand years, the Church has brought God’s pardon and peace to us sinners, in the sacrament of baptism where the stain of original sin is washed clean, and in the sacrament of reconciliation, where the priest, speaking as Christ, says to us, “I absolve you of your sins.”

God wants nothing more than to hold us and say, “I love you.” May He grant us the grace not to squirm, but to coo with delight, and nuzzle the nose of our Father.

The Week in Review: Links and Logic

Apart from classes, this week featured two events of note.

On Wednesday we had a special Mass of the Holy Spirit for the opening of the school year. There’s a tradition to celebrate yearly Masses invoking the blessing of the Spirit for certain professions, from beginning-of-the-year Masses for schools, to “Red Masses” for lawyers and judges, to “Blue Masses” for police and firefighters. We converted one of the classroom areas into a chapel by bringing in the altar and ambo from our too-small-for-this-event chapel, and had about 50-60 people overall attend (not bad, given that the total student population is about 110). Beautiful music was provided by a schola of the Dominican student brothers. (“Schola” is short for “schola cantorum,” or “school of songs,” a traditional name for a church choir.) The Mass was celebrated by the school’s president, Fr. Michael Sweeney, OP, and the homily was given by the Rev. Br. Dominic David Maichrowicz, OP. You can find a video of his homily here; it’s worth a view.

(Side note: the title “Rev. Br.” is short for “Reverend Brother.” Br. Dominic David is a deacon. The normal form of address for a deacon is “Rev. Mr.,” but since he’s a Dominican brother, he’s styled “Rev. Br.” Once he’s a priest, it’ll simply be “Rev.” I’m considering doing a post on deacons, since a lot of people don’t seem to know much about them. Any interest, dear readers?)

I volunteered beforehand to lector for the first reading. Might as well put some of those seminary skills to use when the opportunity arises.

On Saturday, I participated in a student retreat given at DSPT. It was titled, "Turning Study into Prayer: How can the intellectual life transform and augment our spiritual life?" and was led by Fr. John Marie Bingham, OP. Only about 10 of us attended, but the small numbers simply aided in giving the event an intimate atmosphere. Fr. John Marie gave two presentations from which I derived several good points:

--always keep in mind, “How can what I’m learning bring me closer to God?”

--Knowledge is a good thing in itself, but, since bonum diffusivum est se (“the good spreads itself”), even better than us having knowledge is us sharing that knowledge with others; so always keep an eye toward sharing that knowledge, and in such a way that people without Ph.D.s can understand it. (Readers of this blog know that is one of my objectives in life, and a main reason that I keep this blog.)

--By our knowledge of things, we participate in them in some way. So, when we learn about God by studying theology and philosophy, in some way we come to participate in God. Study is a foretaste of heaven. (…which is easy to remember during a retreat, and hard to remember when you’ve got three papers due and are a month behind in your reading, but still good to keep in mind.)

The retreat also featured adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, daytime prayer and recitation of the rosary, and was capped off by the celebration of Mass. A good day of rest and relaxation, and a good way to get into the proper mindset as the school year begins.

Later that evening my roommate and I caught most of the ND/Michigan State and USC/Stanford games at the apartment of his old roommate and the old roommate’s girlfriend. (I hesitate to use names, because previous experience has shown me that some people don’t like their names popping up in random people’s blog posts, and I would find it too odd of a question to ask them, “Hey, mind if I mention this in my blog?”) If they happen to run across this, please know I enjoyed your hospitality and good company. Oh, and as to the results of the two games mentioned above, I respond with the following: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Bring it, Denard Robinson! We’ve finally got a front seven that will contain you! And for once, the Stanford game might be tougher than the USC game. We’ll see.

Interesting things we talked about in each class this week:

--History of Ancient Philosophy: The ancient Greek philosopher Anaximenes proposed that everything that exists is actually made of air, but that the air takes different forms depending on how condensed it is. This may sound silly, but…

--Philosophy of Nature: …think of the claim of modern physics that matter is simply a condensed form of energy. Perhaps Anaximenes was on to something. And he didn’t even have a Large Hadron Collider at his disposal.

--Introduction to the New Testament: There’s a prominent theme in Scripture that portrays salvation as a re-creation of the world. Consider: in the account of creation in Genesis chapter 1, the waters are separated from each other--the ancients thought there was water above the sky as well as on the earth, and for them water often represented chaos and destruction; when God saves Israel from slavery in Egypt (Exodus 14), He does so by separating the waters of the Red Sea; and in Mark 4, Luke 8, and Matthew 8, Jesus calms the sea during a storm, showing that he has power over the waters. Neat, huh?

--Aristotelian Logic: Did you know that “is” does not always mean the same thing? If you think about it, you know it, but Aristotle separated out five different kinds of “is,” or five predicables. The genus tells us what group out of a larger set of groups that differ in type a thing belongs to, e.g. Man is an animal--apes and elk and elephants are also animals, but they aren’t men. The species tells us what group a thing belongs to, so that all of things in a species differ only in number, not in kind, e.g. Paul is a man, and Nick is a man, and David is a man. A specific difference tells us what sets a thing apart from other things, e.g. Man is rational—no other thing has that quality; it’s what sets man apart from everything else. A property tells us a characteristic that belongs to that thing due to its specific difference, so that only that thing has that characteristic, e.g. Man is able to make jokes (because he is rational). An accident is a characteristic that a thing can have that can be had by other things, i.e. Man is hairy, but so are apes and elk and elephants (a little bit, anyway). It can get a little confusing to apply these, because some of these are used in biology, but they don’t mean quite the same thing as they do in logic. Logic is about relations, how one thing relates to another, not as much about the things themselves. If I haven’t scared you off now, we’ll get into this more another time.

Orientation Week

Orientation began this week. Through a series of meetings and sessions and workshops throughout the week we'll be acquainted with all the people and places and things we'll need to know during our time here... and most likely forget a large chunk of it, and have to ask someone again later, or search the school's website. Maybe that's just me.

It's a bit like starting a new job. You go into the office on your first day, and you're not sure where to park, or which way the bathroom is, or which refrigerator you're supposed to use. You meet several dozen new people, some of whom already know who you are, and you have trouble keeping straight which one was Jack Johnson and which one was John Jackson, and you think one gal's name was "Sally," but it might have been "Hallie," or possibly "Sandy," and the only way you're going to find out is to try one of them, or sort of slur them all together: "Oh, hi... Sa-hal-an-dy...." The expectations for your performance goals for the first year are laid out for you, and you feel like maybe if you'd started three months earlier you might be able to get it all done. But the people are nice, and your cubicle faces a window so you can see outside, and you figure if you take things one crisis at a time, you'll survive with most of your limbs intact.

Seriously though, it wasn't too bad of a time. All of the staff I've met up to this point have been extremely friendly and helpful. The faculty have all been genial and interesting and demonstrated themselves to be exceptionally sharp. My own incoming classmates are an interesting bunch, meant in the most positive way: the lay students range from kids who just finished their bachelor's degrees to a white-haired medical doctor who somehow got himself into operating oil rigs all over the world for the past several years; we have people who studied classics and religion and bioengineering; we have a retired Marine aviation technician; and several Dominican student brothers (i.e. seminarians) who seem like quite the cast of characters (also meant in the most positive way). Quite the motley crew.

Our day yesterday ended with a very eloquent address from the school's president, Fr. Michael Sweeney, OP, on the importance of using philosophy and theology to engage the important social questions of the day, followed by a wine & cheese social that allowed us to cap off the day with some mingling and conviviality. There I ran into several of the current students I'd met when I visited the school (and my brother) back in April. A pleasant reunion it was.

Today featured a very important workshop on navigating the master's program. This session was designed to give students the necessary tools and tips to complete the program in a timely manner, and to get the most out of it. Helpful hints included things like: "The foreign language requirement is intended to help you develop a research tool, i.e. being able to read competently in another language--it's not just a hoop to jump through!" "Students don't come to talk with their professors nearly often enough"; "Plan on revising your thesis several times"; and "Use your electives to pursue and develop your interests." Sensible policies for a happier student body.

A note about the DSPT campus: it's a really small school. Like, really small. I think the plot of land my parents' house sits on is of a comparable size, not counting the wheat field. There are a grand total of 103 students at DSPT. Hmm... I think some basic facts about DSPT might warrant its own post. That will be forthcoming.

Nothing required on Wednesday, but Thursday I'll take a tour of the GTU library, and attend the first of two sessions of a workshop called "Gifted and Called to Study." Should be good. And, of course, Notre Dame kicks off its football seasons this Saturday against Navy, IN IRELAND! I'm going to have to find somewhere to watch it...