Pro Choice?

"There's a difference between like and love, because I like my Sketchers, but I love my Prada backpack."
"But... I love my sketchers..."
"That's because you don't have a Prada backpack." - Ten Things I Hate About You

"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why do you want to marry her?"
"I love her, sir."
"But do ya like her?... When her mother and I were married, I didn't love her. I liked her well enough. Then, one day I realized I loved her." - Shenandoah

"Love is not an emotion; it is a choice." - Unknown (to me, at least... first heard it from Kathleen)

Ah, and that is the choice of which I speak. You thought I was talking about abortion, didn't you?

I apologize in advance: I'm delirious with fever and, though I have yet to take my Nyquil, I am also nursing a hot cider and brandy (and may nurse another one before I finish... I could use a maid to make these for me right about now... sometimes, a man just needs a maid).

As you can see, I'm liable to wander and wax poetic. Again, I apologize.

I think those quotes up there sum up some things quite nicely. There are, of course, different kinds of love. English has done a horrendous job of preserving these differences. Charity, which once meant Divine love (from Caritas), has come now to mean a corporal work of mercy, which is indeed an act of Divinely inspired love (or perhaps of human-inspired quest for reputation), but the word no longer describes the thing itself. Likewise, there has been a debasement of the difference between physical love and emotional love (indeed, the lines have blurred to the point where we could say that in many cases people assume the following: lust = love), and like Brick, we often find ourselves throwing the word "love" around without ever giving thought to its meaning.

Let me first talk about like, then. To like someone is to feel an emotional attraction to them. When we find joy in someone's presence, we like them. Sometimes this means that our own happiness comes to depend on the happiness of another, and we are natural friends in the Aristotelian sense. (I say natural, here, because in the Divine sense our happiness ought to depend always on the Divine Happiness of others, but more on that later).

One must not like another person, however, in order to love that person. Christ, certainly, loved the entire world, including the money-changers in the temple, enough to sacrifice His life. Yet certainly he did not display a liking for them when he drove them from the temple and overturned their tables. He did not need to desire their company in order to love them.

This is why, as Jimmy Stewart said in Shenandoah, it is important to like someone before you marry them. I can say I love someone, but in what way am I speaking? There are many people whom I love (I hope). They are family and friends, some of them are merely acquaintances, some are brothers and sisters in the faith and some are not. Certainly, I ought to love all men and women, but I am imperfect (again, more on this in a moment). Marriage requires not merely that one love another person, but ideally that you also like that person. You need not like that person all the time, but if you marry someone that you don't like from the outset, are you not playing the part of a fool?

That brings me to something Fr. Rick said at Theology on Tap in November. When asking his mother about her relationship with his then dead father, she told him, "You know, son, there were times I didn't even like your father, and there were times when I'm sure he didn't like me." The point being that, while it may be important to like someone, marriage certainly involves much more. Marriage requires Charity, in the original sense.

Charity is twofold. First, one must make a choice to love. Love is not first an emotion one feels, but rather a choice to do always what is in the best interest of another. Charity is also a grace. God loves us with his Divine Love, and he asks us, calls us, indeed begs us and requires us, to act with the same love towards others, and if we make the Choice to love as we are called, then God grants us the grace to do so with purity of heart and goodwill. We might be charitable without liking a person. Yet look into the eyes, and see the grace of God standing before you. You have been given an opportunity to sacrifice yourself for God - to lay yourself down, in however small a way - just as Christ laid himself down for you. Therefore swallow your pride and revulsion, and Love, as God has loved you.

It is a blessing to be with those whom we like, to find joy in their presence and to know that we are children of God. It is an even greater blessing to receive the grace to love when we do not like, to swallow our resentment, anger, and prejudice, and to do God's will.

There is one choice to make. To fail is to submerge yourself in selfishness. Do not succumb to the lie that what you want is the ultimate good. Sacrifice your life, whether it be for a child you did not want, for a person you do not like, for an enemy, for a friend. Lieg sich, gerne, vor einem Zug hin.

Then you will begin to understand the words:

True love will never fade
True love will never fade
True love will never fade

Potpourri

Open to Suggestions

I have few enough readers as it is, and so, in the interest of keeping them happy, I shall always remain open to topic suggestions. I like seeing comments, it feeds my vanity and makes me want to continue posting, so I might as well post on topics that you will find interesting enough to reply to. I have a few old xanga posts and facebook notes that I might recycle and update, but I'd like to put down some new thoughts. Help me with ideas.

Mood Music

All music is mood music, really. I don't mean that sort of mood music. What I mean is that music suits a mood, just as many other things do. There's happy music, break-up music, chill music, angry music, self-loathing music, party music, love music... I have rarely found myself in a mood where some sort of music did not appeal to me. This is why I have a hard time understanding people who rarely go outside of a specific genre. True, there is variation within each genre. I tend to prefer rock music - blues rock, folk rock, prog/art rock, hard rock, psychedelic rock, country/southern rock, post-grunge - they all have their place. Sometimes I want the blues of Layla, sometimes I want Linkin' Park, sometimes I want to lose myself in the swirling layers of Yes or Moody Blues, sometimes I want psychedelic lyrics of Cream, or the country twang and beautiful flute of Marshall Tucker Band, or the stripped down, roots rock of Tom Petty, or... okay you get the point.

Beyond rock, I often find myself relishing the calm beauty of classical. I like jazz, though I don't know much about it. I can listen to country, techno, and hip hop (though I'd rarely suggest them or spend money on them.

Coming Up (Whether You Like it or Not)

Reflections on why Obama won, the media bias, the uninformed voter, and the evils of informed voting.

Reflections on "like" and "love". Comments on the notion of a gentleman.

My generation: bad statistics, revivals, secularization, and hope.

And of course, suggested topics will be taken at my own whim.

November Rain

I actually set out to write this post with a purpose in mind. I was preparing some thought-provoking reflections on cultural trends in my generation and the uselessness of statistics when your sample set is rotten. Well, forget it, the night is too peaceful, and I am too mellow to be direct and serious. I feel poetical.

I'm sitting on my apartment patio, listening to the cold November rain as it falls softly around me. It's a peaceful night, not nearly as dismal as it could be. With a sweatshirt and slippers to keep me warm, my laptop in front of me, and a beer by my side, I find that I have nothing more to wish for. I have to look past my screen to see the halos that ring the yellow streetlamps. There are no stars out tonight... of course there aren't; it's raining; they are all hiding behind a dark curtain, guarding their modesty from the prying eyes of the falling drops.

Strange that the changing of the seasons brings a rush of nostalgia with it. Is it always so? Or is it merely that I have no memories of winter in this new town, and so the gray and rainy nights recall other years and other places. This is not the torturous nostalgia I have had before. The itch to get up and go is not there. A warmth and contentment fills me. Perhaps it is only the beer. Perhaps it is the grace of peace. Perhaps it is the time I have spent with friends, especially this past week.... it's probably the beer, but I hope those others each have a part in it as well.

Some pleasant reflections of times gone by float through my mind, and I think of the toast we created so long ago...

"To first times, last times, and the times we never had."

From the recesses of my mind comes a strange mix of poetry:

Nothing lasts forever
Even cold November rain

Where you lead, I will follow
Anywhere, that you tell me to

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to time
Reliving in our eloquence
Another Auld Lang Syne

Fortunate Son

"Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
Ooh, they're red, white and blue.
And when the band plays hail to the chief,
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, lord
...
Some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
Ooh, they send you down to war, lord,
And when you ask them, how much should we give?
Ooh, they only answer more! more! more!"

I know, I know, everyone is talking about the election. Well, I'm gonna get my tuppence in the old man's hat, so deal with it.

A lot of my Catholic friends are just appalled that Obama won. They're angry, and with good reason. Obama's stance on abortion goes against an issue that they hold to be of paramount importance (and rightly so, I might add - I certainly do not mean to equivocate on the issue of abortion). What mildly frustrates me is that most of them think McCain would have been better. Of course we can't know for sure, but in all my admittedly limited understanding, I cannot imagine that McCain would have done anything to stop or even curtail abortion in this country. He was for embryonic stem cell research, which is no more justifiable than abortion. Bush threw the pro-life movement a bone by signing the partial birth abortion ban the year before he was up for re-election, but we would have been lucky to get even such a gesture from McCain. McCain, like almost every other Republican politician (at least at the national level) merely pays lip-service to being pro-life in order to hold onto his "constitchency". He might - might - have nominated supreme court justices who opposed Roe, but I find it hard to believe. The Republican party, on the pro-life issue, has a history of doing just enough to fail, while still convincing people that they actually want to make a difference. You see, they need the pro-life votes to stay in power.

Both candidates were war-mongers. Both candidates were wrong for the pro-life movement. Both candidates supported the bailout. Both candidates were statists of the highest ilk. Both candidates held to the fundamental belief that The State is the thing. Therefore, while I am appalled at Obama's election, I would have been barely less appalled by McCain's. Abortion will remain an issue that comes out only at election time when politicians are scampering for votes, and the American people continue to lose whatever remnants of liberty they hold, while our brothers and sisters die in wars started by our government, for our government's benefit.

Now, devotion to the state and patriotism are two entirely different things, though politicians like to pass off devotion to the state as if it were patriotism. They've done it so successfully for so long that I am half-inclined to let them have their word, and simply to declare myself no patriot. If patriotism means a love of one's country, a love of one's home, a love of one's countrymen, then you might call me a patriot... you might. Then again, you might not. I've no special love for Americans over other nationalities. I mistrust all people equally, and love meeting people regardless of where they are from. If my countrymen are unjust to those who are not my countrymen, it pisses me off, just as it pisses me off when Europeans thumb their nose at Americans and spit on my countrymen, and spew their endless crap about American "cultural imperialism" (please, quit bitching about America - you're the one who decided to wear blue jeans and sandals, we didn't make you, so shut up, wear your blue jeans, stop wearing socks with your sandals, and MYOFB). Therefore, if you must call me a patriot or not-a-patriot, please call me not-a-patriot, to avoid any possible confusion. (Note: I like Europe; I like the Europeans I've met; some Europeans complain not about "cultural imperialism" but about America's tendency to not MIOFB and instead go around playing world police; I have no beef (dead or otherwise) with those complaints).

I have said this before, my loyalties are threefold: God and Church, family and friends, neighbors and the innocent. Beyond this, as Talia said, "This is not our home." And as Riddick said, "Me? I'm just passing through."

And so my reaction to the election is this - I voted my conscience, not the lesser of two evils, therefore my conscience is clear. I pray for God's mercy on myself, my family, my friends, my country, and the world, regardless of who is president. And I know that, regardless of who is president, of what oppression, violence, or horror we face, my duty is to serve God, and in that I find joy.

On the cynical side of things:

A politician's job is to convince you that you are going to like it when he screws you. Because power is about "who does what to whom." People in government like very much to be the "who", but they must first convince you that being the "whom" is a good thing. They do convince you, and so you vote for them, and then they screw you, and like a good scientist, you wonder "will they screw me every time?" And so you vote... again.

The Difference

Runaway Train

"Wisst ihr? Ich wuerde, fuer euch, mich gerne vor einem zug hinlegen."

This week has been strange in so many little ways. Beauty, sorrow, love, uncertainty, are all closing in around me. The swirling about of my life has not stopped, it has merely moved below the surface. I am surrounded by good things, yet the joys seem darker, more sinister, or at least more fleeting, as if I am standing on the verge of something awful. Danny Torrence is in the hedge maze again, but the bright, daytime sun is growing faint, and there are whispers of a coming storm, of darkness, and of fear. The maze is losing its appeal. I would like very much to be standing in the open again.

But what is real? Is the clear, open path flooded with sunshine and birds and pleasant breezes merely seduction? Is the enclosing forest that pricks our sides with thorns, that wraps itself around us and tries to suck us down into its foul stench merely fighting to keep us from the end? There are two ways out of here... the great escape is merely an illusion - it is the wrong way out.

"...um mich gerne vor einem zug hinzulegen."

Last night I went with my friends to a Latin Mass on the eve of All Saints Day. The solemnity and the reverence of the Extraordinary Form are always overwhelming, but were particularly so last night, with the dark outside the windows, the small congregation in the large church, and the small choir singing the ethereal notes. And I loved those around me. As we filed out of our pew to go forward and receive the Eucharist, I stepped aside to let the four girls who were with me go ahead. It is not much. I do not place much importance on what I did as anything gentlemanly or chivalrous. Only, as I watched my four sisters in Christ go past me, and as I stood behind them, I felt proud - proud to call them my friends, proud to call them my sisters, proud to be able to love them, imperfect as I am. And in that moment the world seemed right. And in that moment
the path I am on seemed light, if only I could walk it with my brothers and sisters, with my blood family and family in Christ. And in that moment I felt that for them, for these four and for so many others whose lives have touched mine, I would gladly lay myself down.

"Seems like I should be getting somewhere/ Somehow I'm neither here nor there."

I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what this year will bring me. My wildest imagination had never predicted what the past month has brought me. So I'll place my right hand on the wall and find my way through the maze. It will take time, but that's life, isn't it?

Hello, World

It is entirely possible that the distorted musings of my mind are not worth the time you are about to spend reading them. Then again, perhaps they are.

I am a cynic. I have not seen so much of life, but in my time I have seen evil, pain, ugliness, blackness, and hatred. There are many people whom I trust, but I do not trust people. We live in a chaotic and screwed up world, and if we do not recognize that then we run the risk of being sucked into the dark, whirling mass of ungood that surrounds us.

I am a lover. Through the fog of wickedness in which we wander, I have learned to see beyond, to see beauty, to see God, to see love. When I say I am a lover I do not mean in the romantic sense (whether it be literary romanticism or relationship based romanticism). I mean instead that I look around me and feel overcome with wonder at the blessings God has given us. There was a time when the cynic in me would have scoffed at that statement; perhaps the cynic is dying, but I think he is only learning. I love nature; I love people; I love my family, my friends, my Church. I love living, though it has its moments of great trial and pain, though it means that sometimes we must stare evil in the face and not back down, life is still a precious and beautiful gift.

A Warning: I am fond of quotes and allusions, and am likely to constantly be scattering musical or literary references throughout my entries. When people recognize them, I am overcome with joy, and when they do not, I remind myself that I am a pedantic ass, and so I am not downtrodden.

Also: I alternate between overblown attempts at poeticism, and blunt, coarse, direct language. Let the reader beware.

And so let the mind of a madman wander and muse, pondering the great evils in the world and rejoicing over the great beauties of life. I shall write whatever strikes me, and so we begin.