Catholic Faith, Exuberance, and Hope

I feel about Catholicism as G. K. Chesterton did—that it encourages an exuberance, a joy about the gift of life. I think my conversion was a natural growth. Even in the darkest hours of my childhood, I was an irrepressible optimist, always able to find something to fill me with amazement, wonder and delight. When I came to the Catolic faith, it explained to me why I always had—and always should have—felt exuberant and full of hope.

Dean Koontz

Rereading an old quote journal I came across this quote which reminded me of blogging days of old, when it was a new discovery that Dean Koontz is Catholic. This must be why his horror novels, though they may contain some very bad things indeed, have characters who are themselves full of hope and determination.

Worshippers of Moloch were members of a mature and polished civilization ...

There was a tendency to call upon spirits of terror and compulsion. There is always a sort of dim idea that these darker powers will really do things, with no nonsense about it. In the interior psychology of the Punic peoples this strange sort of pessimistic practicality had grown to great proportions. In the New Town, which the Romans called Carthage, as in the parent cities of Phoenicia, the god who got things done bore the name Moloch, who was perhaps identical with the other deity whom we know as Baal, the Lord. The Romans did not at first know quite what to call him or what to make of him; they had to go back to the grossest myth of Greek or Roman origins and compare him to Saturn devouring his children. But the worshippers of Moloch were not gross or primitive. They were members of a mature and polished civilization, abounding in refinements and luxuries; they were probably far more civilized than the Romans. And Moloch was not a myth. These highly civilized people really met together to invoke the blessing of heaven on their empire by throwing hundreds of their infants into a large furnace. We can only realize the combination by imagining a number of Manchester merchants with chimney-pot hats and mutton-chop whiskers, going to church every Sunday at eleven o’clock to see a baby roasted alive.

G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

What is terrible is that today we don't have to imagine Moloch worshippers being civilized the way Chesterton did. We've got abortion clinics all over the country.

The Medium and the Message

A colleague, Joe Keogh, wrote in the Ottawa, Ontario G. K. Chesterton Newsletter of a curious exchange between my father [Marshall McLuhan] and Toronto's then Archbishop Pocock. The good Bishop, it is said, once asked that given John's famous prologue to the fourth gospel, did this not indicate that Christ Himself is the archetypal example of the medium as message? He readily assented.

Introduction to The Medium and the Light by Marshall McLuhan

Isn't that just the best? I love the way this guy (and that bishop) thought. And the McLuhan book is excellent.

Lagniappe — Rudyard Kipling on Edgar Rice Burroughs

On Tuesday we saw Ray Bradbury's tribute to Edgar Rice Burroughts.

Here's another, and perhaps more surprising, author going on the record about Edgar Rice Burroughs. I like his generous attitude.

My Jungle Books begat zoos of [imitators]. But the genius of all the genii was one who wrote a series called Tarzan of the Apes. I read it, but regret I never saw it on the films, where it rages ost successfully. He had "jazzed" the motif of the Jungle Books and, I imagine, had thoroughly enjoyed himself. He was reported to have said that he wanted to find out how bad a book he could write and "get away with," which is a legitimate ambition.

Rudyard Kipling

Lagniappe — Ray Bradbury on Edgar Rice Burroughs

Edgar Rice Burroughs never would have looked upon himself as a social mover and shaker with social obligations. But as it turns out — and I love to say it because it upsets everyone terribly — Burroughs is probably the most influential writer in the entire history of the world. ... By giving romance and adventure to a whole generation of boys, Burroughs caused them to go out and decide to become special.

Ray Bradbury

This tickles me. And I agree!

Dogma

In truth there are only two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it and those who accept dogmas and don't know it.

G.K. Chesterton

Ain't that the truth!

Gifted Versus Believing

A man may be profoundly gifted, have a strong consciousness of self, undergo deep natural-religious experiences — until he has more than these, compared to the inwardness under discussion, he remains superficial. On the other hand, the man of strictly commpnplace natural gifts has that "dimension" in him when he believes in the God of revelation and loves Him. The point is such that interiority is not psychologically deeper, or spiritually nobler, but essentially different from any natural interiority; it is a gift of grace from the Spirit.

Romano Guardini, The Conversion of Augustine

So true.

I have sent — you. Will you turn aside?

“You want something. The gods’ tongues can grow quite honeyed, when they want something. When I wanted something—when I prayed on my face, arms out flung, in tears and abject terror—for years—where were You then? Where were the gods the night Teidez died?” [Ista said.]

“The Son of Autumn dispatched many men in answer to your prayers, sweet Ista. They turned aside upon their roads, and did not arrive. For He could not bend their wills, nor their steps. And so they scattered to the winds as leaves do.”

His lips curved up, in a smile more deathly serious than any scowl Ista had ever seen. “Now another prays, in despair as dark as yours. One as dear to me as Teidez was to my Brother of Autumn. And I have sent—you. Will you turn aside? As Teidez’s deliverance did? At the last, with so few steps left to travel?”

Silence fell between them.

Lois McMaster Bujold, Paladin of Souls

Am I one of those who turn aside? Or who go the last few steps, even when it is brutally difficult?

Masks and what is behind them

Having given up God so as to be self-sufficient, man has lost track of his soul. He looks in vain for himself. He finds masks, and behind masks, death.

Jacques Mauritain

There could hardly be a better summary of the modern condition. This, too, is one that is worthy of meditation during Lent. The path to the Cross is hard, no doubt. But what lies beyond is not death, but life.

Where do we cling to masks, where do we eschew the Cross, which is to say Christ's own sacrifice for us? It is these realizations that send us to Confession, which helps us see ourselves and God as masks are stripped away and soothing, healing light is let in.

God and dentists

What do people mean when they say, "I am not afraid of God because I know He is good. Have they never even been to a dentist?

C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Tea and Objectionable Practice

I have understood that it was, to the last, her proudest boast, that she never had been on the water in her life, except upon a bridge; and that over her tea (to which she was extremely partial) she, to the last, expressed her indignation at the impiety of mariners and others, who had the presumption to go 'meandering' about the world. It was in vain to represent to her that some conveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from this objectionable practice.

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

I always forget just how funny Dickens can be and how well he slips his jokes into the main narrative.

You can't shut out the world

Everything that happens ... shows beyond mistake that you can't shut out the world; that you are in it, to be of it; that you get into a false position the moment you try to sever yourself from it; and that you must mingle with it, and make the best of it, and make the best of yourself into the bargain.

Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins,

September 6, 1858

Amen. Amen.

Looking at books

... and he glanced at the backs of the books, with an awakened curiosity that went below the binding. No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on the shelf, like one who cannot.

Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend

I was really surprised to see the emphasis on reading and books in the early chapters of Our Mutual Friend. The way some people yearn after reading, like Mr. Boffin and Lizzie, mades me realize afresh what a blessing it is to have such a literate population. Even if much of it rarely cracks a book, they don't have to have someone else read them street signs.

Life is This Simple

Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true.

Thomas Merton

If you remember no other quotes, remember this one. I'm not especially a fan of Thomas Merton one way or t'other but he summed up my Catholic life right there. And when I remember this simple truth, which I can forget in busy everyday life just life everyone else ... when I remember it - my life is better and simpler and truer.

The Tall Horse and Mr. Winkle

Now whether the tall horse, in the natural playfulness of his disposition, was desirous of having a little innocent recreation with Mr. Winkle, or whether it occurred to him that he could perform the journey as much to his own satisfaction without a rider as with one, are points upon which, of course, we can arrive at no definite and distinct conclusion. By whatever motives the animal was actuated, certain it is that Mr. Winkle had no sooner touched the reins, than he slipped them over his head, and darted backwards to their full length.

Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

This made me laugh out loud. Dickens can be so very funny and, of course, The Pickwick Papers are loaded with his humor from beginning to end.

The quest for religious solace

Seen from the outside, the quest for religious solace looks preposterous. Soren Kierkegaard said that religion has a truth so purely interior that it approaches madness.

Judith Shulevitz, The Sabbath World

Yes. Like being in love, it's almost impossible to explain this to someone who hasn't experienced it.

Library books and the power of good stories

It had that comfortably sprung, lived-in look that library books with a lively circulation always get; bent page corners, a dab of mustard on page 331, a whiff of some reader's spilled after-dinner whiskey on page 468. Only library books speak with such wordless eloquence of the power good stories hold over us, how good stories abide, unchanged and mutely wise, while we poor humans grow older and slower.

Stephen King, 'Salem's Lot

You'd think this was written by Ray Bradbury instead of Stephen King. Or at least I would've. King tells his vampire story with a prose style that is direct and to the point, for the most part. However, every so often he veers off into a bit of poetic prose like this. Those are gems of captured image.

Pangur Ban: Praise of Cats in Ancient Poetry and Art

You don't have to be a cat lover to love this poem about writing and cats by an anonymous 9th century Irish monk. It's often thought that the monk was working on the Book of Kells when he made this poem.

He describes perfectly the striving and dedication all writers feel, as well our triumph at solving a problem in just the perfect way.

Pangur Bán

I and Pangur Bán, my cat
‘Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
‘Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill will,
He too plies his simple skill.

‘Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur’s way:
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

‘Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
‘Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our tasks we ply,
Pangur Bán, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.

Unknown 9th century Irish monk, translation by Robin Flowers

Cat catching mouse, illustration from Book of Kells

Louisia's idea for a TV show

He went to fetch more beers, and by the time he got back Louisa was telling Shirley her idea for a TV show, which would open with a view of Tom Hiddleston walking down a long, long, corridor, shot from behind.

River waited. "Then what?" he asked at last.

But the women had misted over, and didn't hear him.

Mick Herron, London Rules

What? Oh, sorry. I was mentally picturing that view of Tom Hiddleston and misted over.

Fire proves iron and temptation fires the just man

Fire proves iron—that's the kind of point Jesus son of Sirach liked to make (31:26)—and temptation fires the just man.

Often we don't know what we can do until temptation opens us up to what we are.

Stand sentinel in the intellect we must, before temptation strikes. Engage the Enemy at the earliest possible moment. In the chapel. In the dining hall. At the gate. On the road. In the field.

That's how temptation works. A simple thought enters the mind. A vivid imagination goes to work. After that it's a nudge, a wink, and a nod.

Right from the start you should resist strongly. When you don't, the Enemy bearing evils tiptoes in unawares and wins the day. And so it is every day. The slower your response, the quicker the Devil's step.

The Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis

Transl. William Griffin