Upside-down world.

It's hard not to feel like the world has been turned completely on its head. We have a government in the United States that seems to despise its citizens, monetary policy that makes money worth less daily, militaries that can't win wars or defend the nation, government agencies intended to protect Americans that target Americans, fathers who abuse children and mothers who kill them, schools that teach everything but what they're supposed to teach, recycling programs that stuff landfills, and a ruling class that does not rule and has no class. Sometimes it appears that the airheads are all rising to the top by nature of their empty heads, because that's what seems to be in charge. And sometimes that's the optimistic view. The worse view is that only some of them are stupid; the smart ones are all evil. 

We know in our hearts that things are upside-down and have always been, even if it makes no rational sense -- if things always seemed wrong, why would we expect something better, something right? I find the supreme example of this inversion in the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, where we see that everything is a cruel funhouse image of what it ought to be. The religious class that ought to love God instead persecutes Him. He is betrayed by a kiss, a sign of love, and abandoned by His friends. The Roman authority tries to administer justice by scourging the man declared innocent -- I find no fault with this man, so we'll beat him half to death. The crown Jesus deserves is not the crown of thorns He gets; He is exalted, but by being lifted aloft on the scornful, torturous cross. Everything is a cruel mockery. 

It informs me that while life may get better in many ways, we just can't escape the grip of evil on our own. And now, in this utterly unprincipled era, we find less hope that there is anything to fall back on, any law on the basis of which we can hope for justice among men. 

But we have hope. St. Francis of Assisi, they say, saw the world upside-down, or perhaps right-side up by being upside-down. Writing in The Crisis, Michael Warren Davis notes: 

St. Francis called himself the Jongleur de Dieu—God’s court jester—precisely because his virtue was so absurd by the standards of our own convention. But to say that he looked foolish in the eyes of the world is an understatement. His charity gave as much offense as any sinner’s meanness. St. Francis’s spirituality demands such uncommon virtue it’s offensive to common decency.

The most famous take on the Jongleur in the English language must be from our old friend G. K. Chesterton from his book about the saint, who explains that the jongleur is not a juggler so much as a tumbler or acrobat, and Francis came out of the darkness of despair from his crushed dreams of being a noble knight as if he'd been turned on his head:

Francis, at the time or somewhere about the time when he disappeared into the prison or the dark cavern, underwent a reversal of a certain psychological kind; which was really like the reversal of a complete somersault, in that by coming full circle it came back, or apparently came back, to the same normal posture. It is necessary to use the grotesque simile of an acrobatic antic, because there is hardly any other figure that will make the fact clear. But in the inward sense it was a profound spiritual revolution. The man who went into the cave was not the man who came out again; in that sense he was almost as different as if he were dead, as if he were a ghost or a blessed spirit. And the effects of this on his attitude towards the actual world were really as extravagant as any parallel can make them. He looked at the world as differently from other men as if he had come out of that dark hole walking on his hands.

This may have given him a unique perspective:

This state can only be represented in symbol; but the symbol of inversion is true in another way. If a man saw the world upside down, with all the trees and towers hanging head downwards as in a pool, one effect would be to emphasise the idea of dependence. There is a Latin and literal connection; for the very word dependence only means hanging. It would make vivid the Scriptural text which says that God has hanged the world upon nothing. If St. Francis had seen, in one of his strange dreams, the town Assisi upside down, it need not have differed in a single detail from itself except in being entirely the other way round. But the point is this: that whereas to the normal eye the large masonry of its walls or the massive foundations of its watchtowers and its high citadel would make it seem safer and more permanent, the moment it was turned over the very same weight would make it seem more helpless and more in peril. It is but a symbol; but it happens to fit the psychological fact. St. Francis might love his little town as much as before, or more than before; but the nature of the love would be altered even in being increased. He might see and love every tile on the steep roofs or every bird on the battlements; but he would see them all in a new and divine light of eternal danger and dependence. Instead of being merely proud of his strong city because it could not be moved, he would be thankful to God Almighty that it had not been dropped; he would be thankful to God for not dropping the whole cosmos like a vast crystal to be shattered into falling stars. Perhaps St. Peter saw the world so, when he was crucified head-downwards.

We can rail against the upside-down world, but we ought to remember that in the end it is destined to be flipped and placed on a firm foundation as it ought to have been from beginning. That is the hope, that is the divine expectation. 

Get a Clue.

Miss Marple: "Oh, my word, one doesn't often see terrible things like poor Mr. Boddy in such dreadful condition, does one? My word no, no one even seems to know whether the poor gentleman was shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned, or what all. Well, naturally one ought to suspect that nice Miss Scarlet. Oh, dear, yes, it is clear that she and Mr. Boddy were more than just friends, you see. These things do sometimes end poorly. But I wonder if she was in the library at the time? Have you noticed the many candlesticks in there? Quite a few for an electrified manor in a room full of valuable and delicate manuscripts, don't you think?"

Sam Spade: "I don't like that Green guy, and that White lady looks a little too rattled for my money. Something is going on there, but no one's talking. But it's that Plum that looks the most shady. What's he doing in the kitchen all the time? Looking for something? I need to find out what room he's in. I'm sure he's got some connection to the university scandal. He'd probably fold like a cheap suitcase, but I don't want to get into the rough stuff yet. And what was that White lady saying about a missing monkey wrench?"

Sherlock Holmes: "Now look, Watson, we must be careful none of the suspects leaves these premises. I've noted when Miss Peacock arrived in her traveling suit the faint outline of a bicycle clip still in her trouser leg. Indeed, she has some small Tribulus terrestris burrs on her tweed jacket, which would indicate recent travel by that means somewhere far from this location. What I shall do is locate the bicycle and remove the air from its tires. Meanwhile, I request you locate Colonel Mustard and engage him in conversation. He claims service in the Afghan, but I'm certain you can determine if this is true from your own experience in that hostile land. I last saw him in the billiards room, examining the revolvers on the wall. Perhaps you ought to carry your own."

Father Brown: "A man enters a room and no one goes in; the man never exits alive. A very wicked entity has entered this manor, and that entity is devious and diabolical; more so as he or she is desperate. Boddy certainly fit the description himself, as no doubt the police will discover now, but where is the weapon that brought him to his earthly end? A pipe is missing from the kitchen; but more telling is that the wrench that sent it missing is itself missing. This manor is like the man who owned it, shifting and mysterious; but the hall is the least likely place for a wrench or a loose pipe, and I propose that these items then must be found there if either or both were used."

Nero Wolfe: "I do not wish to be involved in this case, and yet it appears once again I have no choice. I should never have left West 35th Street. Archie, you must get your mind off the Scarlet woman and focus on Green. Find his room and see what he has. There was a man named Chartreuse involved in the Founders Bank scandal who disappeared with fifty thousand dollars. As I recall, he matched Green's description. Meanwhile, I shall see what our Professor Plum finds so interesting in the kitchen. No, I am not simply looking for food! What? Plum is in the study now? How did he get there without our seeing him?'

Hercule Poirot: "You see, 'astings, 'ow Mme. Peacock smokes ze cigarette weeth no 'older? I suspect she eez not as 'ow you say 'upper crusty' as she would like one to think, n'est pas? And yet I do not think this make 'er our suspect. Use ze little grey cells, 'astings! M. Boddy, 'e make no noise when 'e is killed, oui? No gunshot is 'eard. No smash, no blood, eh? Ze rope, 'astings! We must find ze rope and see who could have used it to strange our 'ost. Quickly, to ze ballroom!"

Dr. Gideon Fell: "Archons of Athens! What seems to be overlooked in this case, and I do not think it presumptuous of me to say, is that Boddy was found in a room which was locked from the inside, the windows in the same condition. I have on many occasions disproved the idea that one can successfully escape up the chimney in such instances, so how did the killer escape, hm? Once we know that, and find the knife that has gone missing, we shall know the killer."

Little Stiiv (age 10): "It was Colonel Mustard in the Lounge with the Wrench."

All others (looking at cards): "Crap!"

Fred's Book Club: Good Things Come in Trees.

Welcome back to the Humpback Writers, the book club that takes place on a Wednesday even if that day is a major civil and religious holiday. Nothing stops us, not even Christmas!

But then again, Christmas is strongly involved with today's book. It's another child's picture book, the second since we started this feature last summer. And to me, it is a classic.

The Tale of Three Trees, as retold by Christian writer Angela Elwell Hunt, was first published in 1989 by Lion Publishing of Illinois. I believe it is still in print. Hunt says that the author of this tale is unknown; I'd never heard it before I read this book, and a brief look around the Internet tends to take me back to this book. I did see another version of it on the Bible.org site, not as well written and without Tim Jonke's terrific illustrations.

So is it a real folktale, or just something concocted in modern days? Beats me. I'm no folklorist. But it's a great Christian fable.

In brief, this is the story of three trees that have big dreams. One is dazzled by the beauty of the stars, and wants to be a great treasure chest; one wants to be a mighty sailing ship and cross the world on the business of kings; one wants to remain where he is and grow so tall that people look up at him and think of heaven.

Well, things don't usually work out the way we hope.

All three trees are cut down. The first tree goes to a carpenter's shop, but instead of being used to make a treasure chest, he is made into a hay box for a stable. The indignity!

But then (and pardon me for the bad stitch on the spread):

You can probably guess how things turn out for the other trees.

Hunt does a lovely job with the story, and Jonke's rich and evocative illustrations pair perfectly with it. I'd recommend it to anyone, but especially families with children getting a Christian education; they can learn about their faith, but they can also learn lessons that are so seldom seen in children's books these days, like hope and humility.

The book touches on a number of things -- rudiments of the life of Jesus, but also dreams being fulfilled when we least expect it and not in the way we'd hoped. I once knew a priest who worked in a college; he liked to tell the kids that we head on out with our Plan A (like Jesus's triumphant entry into Jerusalem) and we wind up running into Plan B (the Crucifixion) but we can be amazed by the way things turn out with Plan C (the Resurrection). Plans A and B are what men work, but Plan C is God's work.

Any Christian knows stories like that, of people with a plan for life that comes to nothing until after they fail, and then it's nothing like what they expect. This is seen in many of the great saints, like the bloodthirsty soldier and duelist, Íñigo, injured by a cannonball, converted to a real faith, and transforming Europe as St. Ignatius of Loyola. My old buddy G.K. Chesterton wrote about the similar transformation of St. Francis of Assisi, a spoiled, lavish youth, fanboy of troubadours and jongleurs, who went off to become an adventurous hero and wound up nearly dying in captivity.

Francis, at the time or somewhere about the time when he disappeared into the prison or the dark cavern, underwent a reversal of a certain psychological kind; which was really like the reversal of a complete somersault, in that by coming full circle it came back, or apparently came back, to the same normal posture. It is necessary to use the grotesque simile of an acrobatic antic, because there is hardly any other figure that will make the fact clear. But in the inward sense it was a profound spiritual revolution. The man who went into the cave was not the man who came out again; in that sense he was almost as different as if he were dead, as if he were a ghost or a blessed spirit. And the effects of this on his attitude towards the actual world were really as extravagant as any parallel can make them. He looked at the world as differently from other men as if he had come out of that dark hole walking on his hands. 

It's not that much of a stretch to see the same happening -- thwarted plans leading to miraculous lives -- in so many unknown "little S" saints around us, or even, fictionally, in a little tree. Things fall apart; God can put them together. That's what He came here to do.

Thanks for reading, and I wish you a most happy Christmas on this Christmas Day.

Saints not alive!

Yes, folks, all the stupid Halloween stuff is over, leaving me with a couple of pounds of un-tricked-or-treated candy and the obligation to go to church today. I'm not sure why they even have a Vigil Mass for All Saints' Day, as everyone has to be home distributing the goodies lest their home be egged.

But today is All Saints' Day. The Church's definition of a saint, according to a pretty good summary from the gang at the Dummies publishing imprint, is as follows:

The Catholic Church believes that saints are ordinary and typical human beings who made it into heaven. In the broader sense, everyone who's now in heaven is technically a saint. Saints are human beings who lived holy lives in obedience to God's will and are now in heaven for eternity.

We know there are many more saints in heaven than we have knowledge of, people no one ever heard of who lived lives of triumphant virtue. The reason it takes so long for the Church to determine if someone ought to be recognized as a saint is that the investigators strive to separate truth from legend and bad motives, and to make sure that a saintly countenance of the deceased did not conceal an ignoble heart. This takes a while.

It can be tricky to know who is a saint on this side of the tapestry, the side where everything is all threads and knots and nothing makes sense. Some people give off a real glow of holiness, they say; others are known to die a martyr's death, faithful to the end and unafraid. I wonder which is the harder path to sainthood?

The best essay I have ever read about death, and likely ever will read, came from Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, writing in First Things in 2000. In "Born Toward Dying," Fr. Neuhaus described, sparing few grisly details, his horrible ordeal with cancer that nearly killed him. In fact, it actually did for a short bit. He found himself sitting up while his body lay on a table, encountering two beings that had a message for him.

“Everything is ready now.” It was not in the form of a command, nor was it an invitation to do anything. They were just letting me know. Then they were gone, and I was again flat on my back with my mind racing wildly. I had an iron resolve to determine right then and there what had happened. Had I been dreaming? In no way. I was then and was now as lucid and wide awake as I had ever been in my life.

It's an amazing piece of work, a piece that has the ring of truth throughout. His terrible sickness, exacerbated by the incompetence of medical personnel; his determination while this mystical but brief incident occurred to make sure he would not allow himself the comfort of thinking it was a dream in the future by nailing down the reality in his mind while it happened; his terrible depression later as he climbed slowly back to health, while wondering how life can go on when it all ends in death.

I was bowled over when I first read it. I was sitting on a train, and I found myself staring out the window, thunderstruck by the certainty that everything he had been through and every word he had written was especially intended for me to read, as much as it was intended for him, and for everyone else who would read his essay. In other words, God is so great that not only do things happen for reasons, but things that happen to a number of us are still meant for each of us individually. I hope I am making some sense; I sometimes think the things that really make sense in life are things that, in Chestertonian paradoxical fashion, seem the most senseless at first glance.

 Fr. Neuhaus did recover, but sadly, the cancer recovered too; he passed on in 2009. I trust he was not afraid, because he'd seen the curtains, and he knew that everything was ready.

Fred's Book Club: Throwback Thursday.

The new Joker movie has been getting lots of accolades, but I don't particularly want to see it. Some people are calling it subversive. I can only approve of subversion in a true dictatorship, and even then I can never approve of the idea of someone killing for fun and glory. To hell with that, to the hell it came from. We saw it 18 years ago today, in spades.

Which is why this week's Fred's Book Club focuses on one of my all-time favorite novels,  rare in that I've read it more than twice, and every time through I love it even more. I mean G. K. Chesterton's thrilling, baffling, and wonderful The Man Who Was Thursday, first published in 1908.

My wife finds Chesterton a tough read, even though he never wrote long (my Penguin edition comes in at 184 pages), but I know what she means. He's an English writer of very contemporary observations, meaning that his universal focus is tied to the commonplace, that is, England of 111 years ago. He assumes his audience will understand all his references, but of course we don't. Even a simple word like "suburb" is rather different to a modern American than it was to him, let alone his comments on particular neighborhoods in the city of London that have changed tremendously. Furthermore, he was a philosophical writer, which means that a lot of what he notices are interior to the main character's point of view, which sometimes requires work to understand. He either grabs you and convinces you to follow him or not. Either way, this novel is a ripping good yarn.

What's the story behind that fantastic title? Without giving too much away: Our hero, Gabriel Syme (who looks a lot like that portrait of Herbert Everett used for the above edition), is enticed by a devilish modern to join his cause -- that cause being anarchy, the terrorist mission of 1908. Their secret headquarters is packed to the rafters with bombs and guns, and they are eager to destroy everything and remake the world. The anarchists are led by seven men, each code-named for a day of the week, and the leader is Sunday. Syme decides he must infiltrate the group, becoming the man who is called Thursday.

And then it really becomes strange.

The book's subtitle is A Nightmare, and indeed it has many nightmarish aspects; time and space are distorted; villains wear strange disguises; weather changes in unnatural ways; getaways are made with balloons and elephants.

The edition I have features a brief introduction by Kingsley Amis, which surprised me when I bought it, Chesterton having been a fearless Catholic convert and Amis a notorious God-hater. And yet Amis loved the book, calling it "the most thrilling book I have ever read."

Syme is a terrific adventure hero, ready to face every kind of danger, but human all the same. At one point he realizes the only way to stop a plot is to deliver a mortal insult to the wicked Marquis, a superior swordsman who will be bound to duel him, and Syme just hopes to prevent his own death long enough to stop the plot. The duel begins, and:

... he found himself in the presence of the great fact of the fear of death, with its coarse and pitiless common sense. He felt like a man who had dreamed all night of falling over precipices, and had woke up on the morning when he was to be hanged. For as soon as he had seen the sunlight run down the channel of his foe’s foreshortened blade, and as soon as he had felt the two tongues of steel touch, vibrating like two living things, he knew that his enemy was a terrible fighter, and that probably his last hour had come.
     He felt a strange and vivid value in all the earth around him, in the grass under his feet; he felt the love of life in all living things. He could almost fancy that he heard the grass growing; he could almost fancy that even as he stood fresh flowers were springing up and breaking into blossom in the meadow—flowers blood red and burning gold and blue, fulfilling the whole pageant of the spring. And whenever his eyes strayed for a flash from the calm, staring, hypnotic eyes of the Marquis, they saw the little tuft of almond tree against the sky-line. He had the feeling that if by some miracle he escaped he would be ready to sit for ever before that almond tree, desiring nothing else in the world.

You can read the book for free at this link, thanks to the noble volunteers of Project Gutenberg. Or you can get the Penguin edition. I like the one I have, with the Amis introduction and an article excerpt at the back from Chesterton about the novel, but I'm not too sure about the current Penguin edition. It has an introduction by author Matt Beaumont, who seems to be another bad fit for the project. He is also credited with "editing" the book. I should hate to see what a modern author would do to "edit" a book from 1908, and I fear the worst.

Living with the shadow of Islamic terrorism still stalking the world 18 years after 9/11, and with masked idiots running with impunity on our streets as some sort of fascist anti-fascists (a neat trick if you can pull it off), not to mention a popular culture that loves killers and bombers, we probably need a book like The Man Who Was Thursday now as much as ever. It's a crazy, wild, even hallucinogenic book, but in classic Chestertonian paradox, its nightmarish insanity brings us a stiff dose of clarity.

📜📜📜

P.S.: I suppose one possible benefit of the Joker movie is that the black-masked know-nothings who are disturbing the peace might be inspired to start dressing like clowns, an outfit that would be far closer to their true natures.

The perfect sign.

I've long thought that the perfect symbol for something momentous has got to be the cross, which Christians think is the perfect sign of the most momentous sacrifice in history. It works out so well that it's easy to see God's hand in it.

1) It's simple.

A small child can make a cross. It's even easier to draw than the ichthus, the fish symbol composed of two arcs, because you have to make curved lines -- straight lines are easier to draw. The cross is simpler than any sign of a supernatural faith -- the Star of David, the pentacle, the star and crescent, and surely every motif associated with Hinduism. It's simpler than secular signs like the hammer and sickle. It's even simpler than the Bass Ale triangle. Simplicity helps a message spread.

2) Its essence and scope are in the design.

It's not hard to understand the principles of the public torture and murder method known as crucifixion; once we do, we see it in those simple lines. It is also the post and beam that holds up the roof to shield us, the sail to move us. The cross also means a crossroads, a change of direction, and believers find that the cross is the ultimate change of direction for humanity. The cross is sturdy, as faith must be. In other words, the sign expresses so many things within its two lines, many that require no prior knowledge of crucifixion. G. K. Chesterton has a lot to say on this topic in his novel The Ball and the Cross. 

3) It speaks history.

The public nature of the cross is vital to the story; Jesus's death was a public event, witnessed by many. He did not go sneaking off somewhere before he died. You can't go sneaking off the cross; even if you could get off, the Romans would stick you right back up there. It is crucial (if you will) that we know that Jesus died, because when He was seen later, that was pretty significant. It goes to the faith as being tied to a definite event that happened in a definite time and place, unlike the legends of gods in other cultures. For all its cruelty, though, the cross leaves a body that is recognizable and not in pieces; not that God cannot reassemble pieces, but it would have just made Jesus seem more like a ghost on His return than the One who had defeated death. (As it was, He had to prove to the Apostles twice that He was not a ghost.)

The cross teaches us about cultures that used (and sometimes still use) the evil of crucifixion, meant to be a shameful as well as cruel means of death; in it we also remember the triumph of the faith. The cross was not used commonly as a Christian symbol until after Constantine. After that, it was seen on all the structures of Christianity through the march of the centuries. 

4) It works better than any other sacrificial sign you can think of.

Think of saints who were tortured to death or otherwise murdered in the course of God's work. Do we symbolize St. Paul or St. John the Baptist with the headman's ax? The answer is not usually. These would not put one immediately in mind of the victim. You might think St. Paul was a Viking if we used the ax. St. Lawrence, famously grilled to death, is often symbolized by the gridiron, but that's not a device normally associated with torture as the cross is. The Catherine Wheel is the closest sacrificial sign I can think of, and St. Catherine of Alexandria did not die on it; the spiked wheel shattered at her touch.

5) It works better than any other simple sign you can think of.

Think of other very simple things to draw -- line, square, circle, scribble. Do any of these suggest a means of fatal torture, let alone a high public one, let alone one that tells the story of God's sacrifice to reconcile the world to Himself?

6) It is easily embellished for related uses.

Catholics display the cross as a crucifix, with the body of the Victim on it. Most Protestants just leave the cross unadorned. Some saints have different crosses; the upside-down cross is a sign of evil in Hollywood and among other ignoramuses, but in truth it is St. Peter's cross, as tradition says Peter did not think himself worthy to be crucified in the same way as Jesus. St. George, St. Andrew, St. Brigid and others have variations on the cross. St. Florian's is well known as a symbol of fire departments. At its heart, it remains the cross.

7) It spells agony, and holiness.

And sometimes it appears as such in the most appropriate times.

Humility and glory.

"This sketch of the human story began in a cave; the cave which popular science associates with the cave-man and in which practical discovery has really found archaic drawings of animals. The second half of human history, which was like a new creation of the world, also begins in a cave. There is even a shadow of such a fancy in the fact that animals were again present; for it was a cave used as a stable by the mountaineers of the uplands about Bethlehem; who still drive their cattle into such holes and caverns at night. It was here that a homeless couple had crept underground with the cattle when the doors of the crowded caravanserai had been shut in their faces; and it was here beneath the very feet of the passers-by, in a cellar under the very floor of the world, that Jesus Christ was born. But in that second creation there was indeed something symbolical in the roots of the primeval rock or the horns of the prehistoric herd. God also was a CaveMan, and, had also traced strange shapes of creatures, curiously colored upon the wall of the world; but the pictures that he made had come to life." --G.K. Chesterton, "The God in the Cave," The Everlasting Man

Dreaming.

My thoughts this week...

You! Internet! All of you dreaming of a white Christmas! Down there in Miami, in Brisbane, in São Paulo! In Mexico City, in St. Croix, in Quito! In Austin, in Johannesburg, in Southern California, God help you! (Really: God help you.) All of you with visions of a December 25 covered in fluffy white blankets of snow....

KNOCK IT OFF! 

You're dreaming down there, but the snow keeps landing on me up here!

When I was a kid and we were all going to be killed by the Ice Age, I never, ever saw snow at Christmas. Just rain. My memory is a little wonky, but I think it rained every single Christmas from the time I was in kindergarten to two years after I graduated from college. Maybe I'm slightly off on that. 

But the point is, I don't live much farther north from the ol' hometown and it's snowed here three times in the last week. We basically get a white Christmas every year. Which means we risk acute myocardial infarction shoveling, take our families' lives in our hands to go visit Ma, and poor sanitation men have to be away from their own families to plow and salt the roads. 

If you live somewhere that never gets snow, I'm sure you'd like to see it at Christmastime. And then you'd go home. I'll be out there freezing with the dogs, or enjoying an acute myocardial infarction. You'll be back home at the pool. 

I know. It's festive. 

Festive.

I blame Irving Berlin and Bing Crosby, of course. After Bing sang "White Christmas" in the 1942 film Holiday Inn, the song won an Oscar, sold 100 million copies, and held the record as the best-selling single from 1942 to 1998 (and remains the best-selling single of all time). From them on, people all started dreaming wistfully of snowy Christmases. Thanks, Bing. 

"Bing" is also the sound you make
when you fall in the winter.

To be fair, snow and Christmas were old pals in western culture before Holiday Inn. Father Christmas was identified with snow at least as far back as 1854, for one thing.

As I thought more on it, I was reminded of the writings of my friend G. K. Chesterton, or someone I would have liked to have been friends with, in his book The New Jerusalem:

When Jerusalem had been half buried in snow for two or three days, I remarked to a friend that I was prepared henceforward to justify all the Christmas cards. The cards that spangle Bethlehem with frost are generally regarded by the learned merely as vulgar lies. At best they are regarded as popular fictions, like that which made the shepherds in the Nativity Play talk a broad dialect of Somerset. In the deepest sense of course this democratic tradition is truer than most history. But even in the cruder and more concrete sense the tradition about the December snow is not quite so false as is suggested. It is not a mere local illusion for Englishmen to picture the Holy Child in a snowstorm, as it would be for the Londoners to picture him in a London fog. There can be snow in Jerusalem, and there might be snow in Bethlehem; and when we penetrate to the idea behind the image, we find it is not only possible but probable. In Palestine, at least in these mountainous parts of Palestine, men have the same general sentiment about the seasons as in the West or the North. Snow is a rarity, but winter is a reality. Whether we regard it as the divine purpose of a mystery or the human purpose of a myth, the purpose of putting such a feast in winter would be just the same in Bethlehem as it would be in Balham. Any one thinking of the Holy Child as born in December would mean by it exactly what we mean by it; that Christ is not merely a summer sun of the prosperous but a winter fire for the unfortunate.

And then I decided that it was okay if it snows on me, okay if you want it to snow on you, too.

I hope we all keep dreaming of Christmas, whatever color you'd like it to be.

Lousy Lent.

I'm not gonna lie: So far Lent has sucked.

I tend to see Lent as a spiritual journey, and indeed it is often described that way in homily and song. But I never got off on a good foot this year. I had no directions, no ideas, no inspiration. Definitely no road map.

This actually would have been an improvement.

I feel like that first step dropped me into the Slough of Despond, and there I wallow.

Oh, sure, I had some plans, the usual giving up of this and intending to do that. Usually I make it a point to do some appropriate reading in Lent as well as Advent -- the Gospels, Acts, the Epistles, some of the more crucial prophets, books about the faith, as well as books by great Christian authors like Lewis and Belloc, have all been in my reading list at these times of year. This year it's been a failure. I decided to read G.K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man, which I probably last read close to twenty years ago. I got a couple of chapters in and I got stuck. It's not Chesterton's writing, which I love, or his arguments or anything else. I just would appear to be having some kind of revolt against books.

You probably know about these novels I've written; you may know that the bulk of my freelance work comes from editing books. I've been devoted to the written word since childhood. Now I want to start my own little book burning in the backyard. (With all my books it would rival the Texas A&M Aggie bonfire.)

It's true; the last book I finished with no one paying me to do it was John Delaney's A Woman Clothed with the Sun, my Advent reading. It's not a fun read. Yet somehow a handful of months ago I was able to get through that, and now I can't make myself read a book I love.

I fear I may be dealing with a case of depression. I've been diagnosed with major depression in the past, and submitted to counseling and medication for a while, but it has not reared up at me in a few years. Back then I was still able to read, although unable to write. Maybe because I was working in magazines at the time rather than books.

Even worse, I've come to a place where I can no longer trust my hunches or instincts at all. "Go with your gut" is pretty good advice -- but no longer for me. Nowadays if I have a strong conviction or inspiration, I guarantee you I will be proved wrong. If there is a bundle of primordial nerves that give us good direction when our higher brains fail, or if there is a guardian angel seeking to lead each of us to good decision and good action, I'm telling you I cannot get proper messages from either of them.

I'll grant you there's a lot of things going on right now, some of them frustrating or depressing, but whose life does not have challenges and even dangers? If my faith isn't helping me deal with these things, then there's something wrong with it or there's something wrong with me. Experience tells me to suspect first that the problem is sitting in my chair, typing on my laptop, right this second.

Worst Catholic ever.

Yes, now that's it Easter, I feel the need to unburden my soul. I am, as far as I know, the worst Catholic in the entire universe.

He's disgusted.

It may be a common feature among Catholics. There is a legend that when asked "What's wrong with the world?" G. K. Chesterton said, "I am." It's unconfirmed, but it sounds like him.

As Catholics, we are taught right from wrong; that ignorance of morals is a mitigating circumstance, but those of us who have received the blessings of the church must shoulder the full responsibility for our actions. So I may have better morals than Heathen Harvey, but his bad behavior may be the result of ignorance, while mine comes from stubbornness, selfishness, pride, greed, all the usual stuff.

Now, there may be plenty of lapsed Catholics who don't think of themselves as Catholic anymore whose behavior is abominable. They can't claim ignorance, but they have removed themselves from the church, so I can't count them among worst Catholics. (From the church's point of view they still are, unless they very specifically and officially renounce their baptism and demand excommunication, and very few do that.)

As for me, I suck. Here are some reasons why I am the worst Catholic ever.

1) I hate social justice. I hated it even before the Social Justice Warriors began using it as a rallying cry to commit despicable acts in the name of goodness. The French Revolution and the Chinese Cultural Revolution began their butchery the same way. There is no question in my mind that in the modern sense you cannot have any kind of "justice" without someone being punished. And yet the church and many Catholics love and embrace the term, as if it were not a well-trodden path to violence and societal collapse. The term may have come from a Jesuit in the 1840's, but is generally used more by people who want to burn and break than help and aid. Their interest is not so much in elevating the lowly as tearing down the high, a purely Communistic instinct. We should not be making common cause with Communists of any shade of red. Given the choice between ruining the rich and saving souls, they'll grab the guillotine every time.

2) I am a bad person. I get furious with God. I keep thinking I am receiving heavenly guidance on matters important to me while I am probably just listening to my own wishful thinking crap, and then I get my heart broken and I blame Him. He made me, but He didn't make me a moron. I do that to myself. And then blame Him.

3) The viper's nest of greed, pride, cowardice, and spite deep in my heart is nothing I have been able to vanquish. I can't get anywhere with it. St. Paul and C. S. Lewis said that becoming Christian naturally brings us to better things, makes new men of us, but try as I might I'm still the same old jerk. I have changed nothing about myself except out of the most dire and selfish need. This is progress?

4) I'm told to love God, which I still can't figure out how to do, and to love my neighbor as myself, and I'm not sure my neighbor would be happy if I did. As you can tell, I'm not always high on Freddy. Lewis knew he could be that way, and pointed out that even when he didn't like himself, he always loved himself, in that he wished he would be better and be happier for it. Maybe. Doesn't feel like the kind of love that moves one to action, though. And love without works is like faith without works.

5) All too often I wake up in the night with my faith in doubt, thinking about death. Oh, well, back to sleep! (Atheist Philip Larkin wrote about this in "Aubade"; his friend Kingsley Amis advised him to get up and do something, or "put the light on and read Dick Francis.") If I had the slightest solidity to my faith I am sure I would not have these nocturnal bouts of horror.

6) That leads to another issue, which is that I have the same amount of emotional control as a toddler. I'm not sure you can be a good adult Catholic and behave like a twit. I would like to be one who carries on with the light of faith burning inside through failure, heartache, sickness, disaster, straight to the door of death, but I'm a whiner and a dope, and I complain for fun.

7) I don't want to wash anyone's feet in Calcutta or anywhere else. There, I said it. I want to write a check once in a while to feel better about myself and not have to think about the poor and suffering and lonely and sick and otherwise miserable, that vast ocean of humanity that is worse off than I am. I don't want to meet them, I don't want them in my house, I don't want them on my lawn. Here's twenty bucks, sad people. Go away.

And that's why I'm the worst Catholic in the world. I can't see into anyone's conscience, so I can only judge me, and on that basis I have to assume I'm the worst.

So, if you're Catholic, deep in your sins, relax; you're at least one ahead of the rest of the world. And if you're poor, sick, and needy: get off my lawn.

Chesterton on Christmas.

There is no more dangerous or disgusting habit than that of celebrating Christmas before it comes, as I am doing in this article. It is the very essence of a festival that it breaks upon one brilliantly and abruptly, that at one moment the great day is not and the next moment the great day is. Up to a certain specific instant you are feeling ordinary and sad; for it is only Wednesday. At the next moment your heart leaps up and your soul and body dance together like lovers; for in one burst and blaze it has become Thursday. I am assuming (of course) that you are a worshipper of Thor, and that you celebrate his day once a week, possibly with human sacrifice. If, on the other hand, you are a modern Christian Englishman, you hail (of course) with the same explosion of gaiety the appearance of the English Sunday. But I say that whatever the day is that is to you festive or symbolic, it is essential that there should be a quite clear black line between it and the time going before. And all the old wholesome customs in connection with Christmas were to the effect that one should not touch or see or know or speak of something before the actual coming of Christmas Day. Thus, for instance, children were never given their presents until the actual coming of the appointed hour. The presents were kept tied up in brown-paper parcels, out of which an arm of a doll or the leg of a donkey sometimes accidentally stuck. I wish this principle were adopted in respect of modern Christmas ceremonies and publications. Especially it ought to be observed in connection with what are called the Christmas numbers of magazines. The editors of the magazines bring out their Christmas numbers so long before the time that the reader is more likely to be still lamenting for the turkey of last year than to have seriously settled down to a solid anticipation of the turkey which is to come. Christmas numbers of magazines ought to be tied up in brown paper and kept for Christmas Day. On consideration, I should favour the editors being tied up in brown paper. Whether the leg or arm of an editor should ever be allowed to protrude I leave to individual choice.

--from All Things Considered (1915), with thanks to Project Gutenberg

Hmm... Nah, no resemblance whatever.

Happy Christmas to all!