"Happy" versus what makes us most beautifully human

This is long but do read it all.

“Presume competence,” said the disability advocates, and so I did. I learned to discard “normal” and embrace “possible.” It wasn’t easy. My daughter needed 10 times the support of a typical kid. It also felt like the truest, most human work I could do: to love someone into whomever they would become.

I was learning. Meanwhile, the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins tweeted that it was immoral for a pregnant woman to knowingly carry to term a child with Down syndrome because, according to him, disabilities decrease happiness and increase suffering. I was appalled.

When Fiona reached kindergarten in 2016, I fretted: Would her teachers think the same? That her life wasn’t “worth it”? At a standard public school, among kids twice her size, would she be dismissed as incapable, rejected as less-than?

I couldn’t know that in one year, her gross motor confidence would climb. ... I couldn’t know that in the company of typical, talking peers, my daughter’s verbal language would explode.

On her first day of kindergarten, I couldn’t know any of this—just as I couldn’t know that, on the day I learned of my daughter’s diagnosis, I was being handed a gift: the knowledge that the point of life isn’t to achieve things. It also isn’t, as Richard Dawkins implies, to avoid suffering. It isn’t even to “be happy.” ... This belief in the virtue of the “happy” and suffering-free life sterilizes and shrinks us, minimizing what makes us most beautifully human.

The point of this human life, I believe, is love. And the ridiculous and brave and risky act of love turns my heart into taffy, stretches it across the broad spectrum of human feeling. I hurt, I long, I exalt, I rejoice. And yes, my chest sometimes aches from the work of raising a rare girl. But the ache in my chest is a cousin of joy.

Heather Lanier

The Real Work of Parenting a Rare Girl

Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2020

I was so touched, especially looking at Richard Dawkins' eugenics stance (carefully couched as kindness) versus Heather Lanier's hard earned joy which reaffirms the point of life and power of love.  It is also a good reminder that there is so much we can't know when we try to see into the future. Sometimes what we find there is great beyond our ability to imagine it.

Shichi - Go -San ( seven - five - three )

Shichi-Go-San, via Calligraphy in the View

Do click through to see more photos of these adorable children in traditional dress. 

Shichi-Go-San is a traditional rite of passage and festival day in Far east.

For three and seven year-old girls and three and five year-old boys, held annually on November 15.

Shichi-Go-San is said to have originated in the Heian Period (794-1185) amongst court nobles, who would celebrate the passage of their children into middle childhood.

Hello Kitty Shinkansen (Bullet Train)

Hello Kitty Shinkansen, Calligraphy in the View

I think we can agree this is the best of all bullet trains, especially if you happen to have any little girls around when you're on it.

Green Book

Based on a real story. When Tony Lip (Mortensen), a bouncer from an Italian-American neighborhood in the Bronx, is hired to drive Dr. Don Shirley (Ali), a world-class African-American pianist, on a concert tour from Manhattan to the Deep South, they must rely on “The Green Book” to guide them to the few establishments that were then safe for African-Americans.

Confronted with racism and danger—as well as unexpected humanity and humor—they are forced to set aside differences to survive and thrive on the journey of a lifetime. Winner of Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Ali).

I rewatched this recently before an upcoming discussion at A Good Story is Hard to Find. I found myself falling in love with it all over again. More than anything it is a buddy road movie. They aren't buddies at the beginning but we recognize all the famiiar beats. The joy of the movie is in seeing the way those beats are hit in order to reveal the two men.

The strength of the two main performances buttressed by a strong supporting cast, were wonderful. And the main story, spotlighting the power of personal connection, was highly enjoyable. It deserved the Oscar - this is the sort of movie Hollywood seems to have forgotten to make anymore.

If you haven't seen it the you're in for a treat. 

A Gorgeous Bouquet

Anna Stanchi, Still Life with Flowers, c. 1643

Notes on Mark: A Parable About Seeds

Jesus scattering seeds of faith, Peter Pöppelmann
Dresden-Strehlen, Christ Church

MARK 4:26-29
This parable about the seeds is so familiar that I never realized it is only found in Mark. Of course we have all heard interpretations of the many meanings within it but I haven't ever heard this one by St. Gregory the Great.

An agricultural parable found only in Mark. Jesus compares the mystery of natural, organic growth to the expansion of the kingdom of God. The kingdom will visibly mature like grain, but the spiritual forces behind it will remain invisible. The parable of the Leaven in MT 13:33 elucidates the same mystery.

Morally (St. Gregory the Great, Hom. in Ezek 2, 3), the maturing grain signifies our increase in virtue. First, the seeds of good intentions are sown; these gradually bring forth the blade of repentance and ultimately the mature ear of charitable works. When established in virtue, we are made ripe for God's harvest.

The Gospel of Mark
(The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible)

A note for reflection adds what we already know about this parable's larger meaning, but what is good for me to remember.

Despite the many seeds apparently sown in vain, God is at work to produce what will finally be revealed as a stupendous harvest. The parable illustrates the "mystery of the kingdom" that Jesus mentioned in 4:11. The reign of God will not come about through unmitigated success and uninterrupted growth. An unexpected but necessary part of the plan is the setbacks and failures that give Jesus' disciples a share in the mystery of his own suffering.

The Gospel of Mark: Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture

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Sources and Notes Index  

Julie and Scott take a road trip through the South. They both like fried chicken but Scott won't let Julie play her Indian movie music.

In episode 344 of A Good Story is Hard to Find, we discuss Green Book, starring Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen.

Pug Dog in an Armchair

Alfred Dedreux, Pug Dog in an Armchair, 1857

Yes, I also like that painting of dogs playing poker. So sue me. It tickles me that this was painted in 1857.

Just Plain Fun Reading — Dragon Heist by Alexander C. Kane

Birdie Binkowitz is just a little bitter. As a young actress, she was the toast of Hollywood, definitely destined for greatness. Then the dragons had to rise up from their thousand-year slumber, take over Earth and ruin everything. Twenty years later, Birdie is living her worst life in her hometown of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, working at her father's Seed and Feed (and Bagels).

Then, the world's smallest dragon mysteriously appears in front of the store seeking her help. He’s got a bone to pick with his fellow dragons–and he wants to hit them where it hurts.

This book was mildly entertaining during the first few chapters of set up. But I definitely cracked up when Jim (the Dragon) announced that in order to accomplish their goal, they were going to have to get a fighter, a thief, a giant, and a mage. Hey, that's dungeons and dragons quest stuff! All in modern-day Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Then it started to get fun and imaginative. My favorite character was the thief, Dottie Three Hands.

As the story went on, I became more curious about the goal of looting a dragon's lair. There seemed to be more at stake than simply getting treasure. As it turns out, that was correct and the twist was predictable but not disappointing for all that. I thoroughly enjoyed the team getting through the puzzles at the gates. I also really enjoyed Birdie's talent being that of annoying people beyond their ability to keep their minds on what they were doing.

All in all, this was a perfect summer read and I'd love it if there is a sequel.

Do not free a camel

Do not free a camel from the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.

G.K. Chesterton

The Shocking Behavior of a Speedy Star

The Shocking Behavior of a Speedy Star, NASA on the Commons

 I didn't know there really are such things as rogue stars. The red arc is what happens when it runs into things as it speeds through the Milky Way. More from NASA:

Roguish runaway stars can have a big impact on their surroundings as they plunge through the Milky Way galaxy. Their high-speed encounters shock the galaxy, creating arcs, as seen in this newly released image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

In this case, the speedster star is known as Kappa Cassiopeiae, or HD 2905 to astronomers. It is a massive, hot supergiant. But what really makes the star stand out in this image is the surrounding, streaky red glow of material in its path. Such structures are called bow shocks, and they can often be seen in front of the fastest, most massive stars in the galaxy.

Bow shocks form where the magnetic fields and wind of particles flowing off a star collide with the diffuse, and usually invisible, gas and dust that fill the space between stars. How these shocks light up tells astronomers about the conditions around the star and in space. Slow-moving stars like our sun have bow shocks that are nearly invisible at all wavelengths of light, but fast stars like Kappa Cassiopeiae create shocks that can be seen by Spitzer’s infrared detectors.

Incredibly, this shock is created about 4 light-years ahead of Kappa Cassiopeiae, showing what a sizable impact this star has on its surroundings. (This is about the same distance that we are from Proxima Centauri, the nearest star beyond the sun.)

The Kappa Cassiopeiae bow shock shows up as a vividly red color. The faint green features in this image result from carbon molecules, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, in dust clouds along the line of sight that are illuminated by starlight.

Delicate red filaments run through this infrared nebula, crossing the bow shock. Some astronomers have suggested these filaments may be tracing out features of the magnetic field that runs throughout our galaxy. Since magnetic fields are completely invisible themselves, we rely on chance encounters like this to reveal a little of their structure as they interact with the surrounding dust and gas.

Kappa Cassiopeiae is visible to the naked eye in the Cassiopeia constellation (but its bow shock only shows up in infrared light.)

Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

Lateran Basilica — Major Papal, Patriarchal and Roman Archbasilica Cathedral 

of the Most Holy Savior and Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in Lateran, 

Mother and Head of All Churches in Rome and in the World

This has never been a feast that made sense to me. A feast for a church in Rome. Granted it is a very old church and the Pope's seat as Bishop of Rome. Okay, fine, but nothing for me here in America to get excited over (just to be provincal about it!).

Then I read this.

A church's walls do not make one a Christian, of course. But a church has walls nonetheless. Walls, borders, and lines delimit the sacred from the profane. A house makes a family feel like one, a sacred place where parents and children merge into a household. A church structurally embodies supernatural mysteries. A church is a sacred space where sacred actions make Christians unite as God's family. Walls matter. Churches matter. Sacred spaces matter. Today the Church commemorates a uniquely sacred space, the oldes of the four major basilicas in the city of Rome. The Lateran Basilica is the Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Rome and thus the seat of the Pope as Bishop of Rome.

That really hit me where I live. I love my church building. And the people in it. It is home and they are my family. During the pandemic shut-downs we yearned to be able to gather together with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

This feeling was strengthened when I read today's devotional meditation in the Special Feasts (vol. 7) of In Conversation with God. It talked about the history of the temple, beginning with the Tent of Meeting in the desert where Moses spoke with the Lord as to a friend. It wasn't a temple, of course, but it was the place where man could meet God. I loved that connection going so far back in salvation history. 

There Christ nurtures us from the Tabernacle as he used to care one by one for those who came to him from all cities and villages. We can present him with our deepest desires to love him more and more with each passing day, and entrust to him our preoccupatoins, our difficulties and our weaknesses. We should cultivate a profound reverence forour churches and oratories since the lord awaits us there.

Today the world would be considerably different if Christ had not wanted to remain with us. In front of the tabernacle we can draw strength for our interior struggle and leave all our worries in his hands. On how many occasions have we returned tothe hustle and bustle of ordinary life with renewed hope! We cannot forget that the Sacrifice of infiinite value which the Lord offered on Calvary is renewed each day in our churches so as to draw down upon us form heaven innumerable graces of divine mercy.

Okay, I finally get it!

Choir and apse of the Lateran Basilica

White Lilies

Anders Zorn, White Lilies
via Wikipedia

Just gorgeous. And that's enough reason to put it here to look at.

What We Deserve

It is always a terrible thing to come back to Mott Street. To come back in a driving rain, to men crouched on the stairs, huddled in doorways, without overcoats because they sold them perhaps the week before when it was warm, to satisfy hunger or thirst — who knows? Those without love would say, "It serves them right, drinking up their clothes." God help us if we got just what we deserved!

Dorothy Day, On Pilgrimage

"God help us if we got just what we deserved!"

Yes. That would indeed be a terrible fate.

Can I visit it upon another? There is justice, to be sure, and it is much needed in this world. But justice must be served up with mercy. That is the delicate balance with which we all struggle.

Portrait of Mlle Brissac

Portrait of Mlle Brissac (1863). William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825-1905)
via Books and Art

I love Bouguereau anyway but this really stands out for me. It's as good as photograph. Better, in fact! Look at it close up (click the portrait) to see just how realistic everything is.

And the Winner Is — 1934

 Our family is working our way through Oscar winners and whichever nominees take our fancy. Also as they are available, since these early films continued to be hard to find.

Also the Academy was still sorting out what years the movies had to be made in order to qualify. So there are some from 1932-33 in here.

WINNER

A cavalcade of English life from New Year’s Eve 1899 until 1933 is seen through the eyes of well-to-do Londoners Jane and Robert Marryot. Amongst events touching their family are the Boer War, the death of Queen Victoria, the sinking of the Titanic, and the Great War.

Our least favorite of the Best Picture winners so far. (Oh wait, now we've seen The Life of Emile Zola from 1938. Turns out Cavalcade isn't as bad as we thought at the time.) It isn't terrible but it also isn't great. It just kept going and going. I did enjoy Diana Wynyard and Clive Brook's performances a lot.

 NOMINEES

A World War I veteran’s dreams of becoming a master architect evaporate in the cold light of economic realities. Things get even worse when he’s falsely convicted of a crime and sent to work on a chain gang.

How do you not get excited about a movie with this title? And it paid off. Paul Muni was really effective in the role and, amazingly, the over-the-top story was very close to the autobiography that inspired it.

The book and film were both influences in publicizing the horrors of what life was like on the chain gangs and getting them abolished. So it was both a gripping story and social change maker. We're glad we watched it.

This was our favorite of the three movies we could find for viewing, beating She Done Him Wrong and Cavalcade in our personal awards.

New York singer and nightclub owner Lady Lou has more men friends than you can imagine. One of them is a vicious criminal who’s escaped and is on the way to see “his” girl, not realising she hasn’t exactly been faithful in his absence. Help is at hand in the form of young Captain Cummings, a local temperance league leader.

This is part of our cultural history almost 100 years later as evidenced by the fact that "Come up and see me sometime" is still a known line. Also, of course Mae West's image lives on in the cliches that she herself exploited to great effect.

We liked it well enough as an iconic film and for the funny double entendres as the plot zipped along with a seemingly endless stream of men entering and leaving West's bedroom.

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All the Oscar viewing is here.

Millie Finch

Milly Finch, James McNeill Whistler, c.1884

I don't love lots of Whistler's art, but I do love this.

Notes on Mark: Plowing the Soil

Tomb wall painting in Thebes of plowing the land

MARK 4:1-20
I have always heard this talked about as if the type of soil cannot be changed. However, this commentary gave me much food for thought just by looking at Palestinian farming customs.

In first-century Palestine, it was common for farmers to sow their seed first, and then go back and plow the soil. In this way, the seed could be mixed in with different types of soil, and some hard or rocky patches of soil could be broken up and softened, helping the seed to bear greater fruit. While some of the soil may not be the most fertile at the beginning of the process, by the end, it has a far greater chance of supporting the life and fruitfulness of the seed it has received.

In a similar way, none of us should think that because we see hardness or difficulties in our lives now, that we are beyond hope of change, or that it's too late for us. God can "plow" us up at any time, making us more receptive to the work he has sown in us and more able to bear the abundant fruit that his seed is capable of producing. We should always keep our eyes and ears open, looking for ways that God may be trying to work a greater softening in our hearts, a greater receptivity to his word.

Mark: A Devotional Commentary (The Word Among Us)

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Sources and Notes Index 

Involuntary versus voluntary penance

St. Angela of Foligno said that penances voluntarily undertaken are not half so meritorious as those imposed on us by the circumstances of our lives and cheerfully borne. ...

Most of us have not the courage to set out on this path wholeheartedly, so God arranges it for us.

Dorothy Day, On Pilgrimage

You know, that never would have occurred to me. It provides food for thought about how I live my life. For one thing I am terrible about taking up voluntary penances for the improvement of my soul. It is a comfort to think that God provides anyway.

Not that I love inconvenience or hardship, but we can't escape it so this is just one more way to orient myself toward the good that can come (and is intended) from it.

Francisco Goya

Vicente López y Portaña, Portrait of Francisco de Goya, 1826
via Wikipedia

I was looking for pieces of Goya's art. Funnily enough, the painting I liked best was by someone else of Goya. He's unexpectedly stern looking considering the surreal feeling of some of his paintings. Apropos of nothing, I love his neckcloth.