Diogenes' Quest

Paul starts his beautiful letter to the Phillipians with a greeting "To all the saints [holy ones] in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi . . ."

I read that rather than thinking of a saint or holy one in terms of "a destination to which a person of moral perfection arrived," Paul says, 'No, Sainthood is not a destination. It's a journey. You were called to be saints.' . . . [A saint is] a baptized person with a vocation." Karl Barth comments: "'Holy' people are unholy people, who nevertheless as such have been singled out, claimed and requisitioned by God for his control, for his use, for himself who is holy. Their holiness is and remains in Christ Jesus." Both from Dwelling With Phillipians, p.8.

I saw the 1973 movie Serpico yesterday, and it reminded me of this definition of holiness. Serpico is the true story of Frank Serpico, a NY City cop who refused to take bribes, refused to work corruptly in a corrupt "system." He was a "little guy" who tried to survive but wanted even more to live a morally correct life. It almost did cost him his life, but in the end his struggles helped clean up the corrupt NY police culture. (For more information about the movie, go here: Serpico.)

That a life of holiness (the only "meaningful" life) is not an "outcome," "not something realized only after history, time, and human experience have run their course," is a central idea of Levinas. He says that our "call" to holiness, involves a 'perpetual duty of vigilance and effort that can never slumber . . . the incessant watching over the other.'" In other words, the "call" to holiness comes, as Christ's call comes, not in the future, but now, and is lived now. Christ's coming, his call, "is a matter of living every moment of life in a certain way, with compassion and concern for others." From"Time, History, and Messianism," in The Cambridge Introduction to Emmanual Levinas, by Michael Morgan, p. 170.

The holy ones, the saints are found in the present, in the struggle despite setback to find righteousness, to help bring it about for others, to hear and try to respond to a calling nobler (greater, higher) than me, myself and I. When making the movie, Al Pacino asked Frank Serpico why he did what he did. He answered, "Well, Al, I don't know. I guess I would have to say it would be because ... if I didn't, who would I be when I listened to a piece of music?" This is our "call," our responsibility, and only here is meaning in life found. For more on Frank Serpico's life, click here.

So for me, Frank Serpico is a saint, a "holy one" like Thomas More, and others, who day by day choose to struggle to live a life of integrity in a world whose common denominator is low, where the m.o. is graft and compromise; a person who responds to an inner (transcendent) call to be just, to treat others right, not counting cost to himself. I commend his story and movie as an image of this calling, and a tribute to its importance for each of us and for our world.

If the Incarnation means anything, it is the ever re-birthing of the call of the perfect God to each of us to be part of a holy people, to be perfect as he is perfect, in Christ: ("Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. "Mt. 5:48.) It is to be called and "claimed" by God, "set apart" like the prophets of old, to accomplish God's will. It is Jesus' "gentle yoke," his cross. And, judging from my own experience, it requires every particle of our ongoing attention to answer this call.

Listen to the lovely, elevating theme from Serpico, composed by Mikis Theodorakis

Listen to Same with shots from the movie.

Listen to "I'd love to Change the World" by Ten Years After with scenes from Serpico.

Listen to Mikis Theodorakis' "Adagio for Solo Flute"

Vaulted Cathedrals

I attended a friend's mother's funeral yesterday at St. Wenceslaus' Church on the west side of Chicago, just south and west of the Kennedy as it arcs into the loop. The church commemorates King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia.

The church was awesome in the word's proper sense: large, vaulted, with arches lifting one's gaze to the great crucifix at the center, amid gold patterns interlaced with wood, and many stylized symbols of the workmen and culture of pre and post-war Polish life. The church was quiet and reverent, formal and stolid -- a fixture in a now-changed neighborhood, its catholic school rented to the City of Chicago, its long aisles empty and silent on this funeral morning Tuesday, its pews polished and shiny, with Polish-language missals neatly stored. The left-hand altar boldly proclaims, "Cor Jesu sanctissimus miserere nobis," and atop the crucifix, "Introibo ad altare Dei".

I thought, why would anyone want to leave this church, and move to the the suburbs!

This, I thought, is how a church integrates a culture, how it draws the city into a meaning larger than the city, into a City of God! (see attached photo by Scott Mutter, Church Aisle from his Surrational Images.) The microcosm united with the macrocosm.

Listen to "Good King Wenceslaus"

The lyrics of "Good King Wenceslaus" show how Christianity embraces the city in its care.

Valuables

A common prejudice is that facts trump values. "The fact is . . ." The reason is that value is commonly placed in the world of opinion, and fact in the "real" world. But it doesn't take too much imagination to realize that values are "facts" in the "real" world too. But are they just opinions?

It seems we all can agree that we choose the higher value item if we can identify it. When shopping for a flat screen TV, we try to get the largest screen, the most vivid, crisp colors for the money we spend. We can usually tell why the $5,000 item is priced more than the $500 item.

I think it is fair to say that a higher value item is more truly real. To dis-value something is to treat it as other than it is, as less real. Plenty of us choose fools gold rather than real gold because we can't tell the difference. How do we get into such a pickle? Because value often is not on the surface. Diamonds have to be mined. The homely girl may make the best wife. Goodness is usually seen in time, not immediately. To experience value we need to listen better, to see better, to live better. Often our tangled lives, sinfulness in other words, hobble us.

Some philosophers have pointed out that values are more primary, more elementary, than knowledge. Nicholas Rescher, for example, has proposed that value may play a crucial role in the world, not as an "efficient cause" like the principle of cause and effect, but as a filter, letting more optimal values emerge and preventing less valuable outcomes. One might wonder which is the better way to explain the fact of man's appearance in this world, the blind outcome of genetic mutation, or the realization of great value?

To Christians, fact and highest value are found together in Christ's incarnation, an event or "fact" in the world, laden with value for all. Christians believe that Christ is the best and final revelation of God to man, and that living as he lived, we experience, as real, the highest value. What is that value? Ultimately, I think, it is the joy of living, of being created, of having a Father, and brother, and mother, and children, and friends. To experience these we must strive to love, and to be loved.

As valuable as these insights are, better yet is the fact of living them!

Listen to Enya "Fairytale"

Listen to Enya "Listen to the Rain"

Here we Come a Caroling!

A few days ago a group from our company visited the local nursing home to sing Christmas carols, an annual ritual we have been following for a number of years. The experience was wonderful for us and for our hearers, many of whom mouthed the words to the songs along with us. I reflected that Christmas carols in this Christian country of ours are our folk songs, a common possession that helps to bring us together as a Christian community, no matter how much our intellectual betters deny it.

Christmas carols date from the early days of the church. My memory of caroling goes back to childhood, and I enjoy taking part in caroling today, as I did with our Burmese friends last week. In our company's caroling, we sang in english, german and spanish. I recommended to our Laotian Mung employees that they prepare some Mung songs for us to sing next year. They informed me that Christianity among the Mung tribes in Laos dates from the French missionaries of the 1950's, and that their Christmas songs are the same as ours.

The creche, caroling, all the trappings of Christmas celebration, are the center of our national experience, no matter how secular they have become. Intrepid atheists have only "negative ads" to offer, and so their "gifts" fall on deaf ears. I and, I think, all of us, will keep coming back to the rich, lovely music that celebrates God's gift of his Son, in love, to us, living in this hurting world, longing for hope.

Have a Merry, a happy, hopeful, joyful, prayerful, Christmas!

Listen to Sinead O'Connor sing "Silent Night."

Listen to John Denver singing "Little Drummer Boy"

Listen to "O Little Town of Bethlehem."

Listen to Celtic Woman sing "Oh Come All Ye Faithful."

Listen to Vienna Choir Boys' Adeste Fidelis.

Listen to Celine Dion "O Holy Night"

Another version of "O Holy Night" by a seven year old!

Another version of "O Holy Night" by Susan Boyle.

Listen to "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night."

Comfort Ye!

Handel's Messiah puts to music Isaiah Ch. 40, which begins "Comfort, give comfort to my people."

And so the meaning of the birth of Jesus is brought home to a people burdened, oppressed in sin and darkness.

As Giussani observes in "How We Become Christian," the word "comfort" comes from "con" "forto" or with strength, and united in strength. Comfort comes to us because God joins with us, in his Son, to give us strength in our desolation, to offer "comfort" and consolation in his strength. So, let us joyfully "unite" with Him in this Christmas celebration of His incarnation, his love and mercy for us, who need his comfort, his strength, and the goodness, truth, and justice he brings, as an "echo of eternity" in our world of today.

Listen to Handel "Comfort Ye"

Listen to Handel "Unto Us a Child is Given"

That Sheep May Safely Graze

The Fourth Sunday in Advent's first reading from Samuel recounts God's promise to David that He will remember this shepherd whom He "took [] from the the pasture and from the care of the flock to be commander of my people Israel." 2 Sam. 7:8.

Geoff Wood (Living the Lectionary, Cycle B, p. 10) points out that Israel was concerned from the crime of Cain (Cain the city maker killed Abel the herder of sheep) and from Abraham, a nomad and keeper of sheeps and goats, that the spirit of the shepherd be maintained in a nation that had moved into cities. For that reason "Israel's holy men . . . insisted that, if the Israelite tribes must unite into a kingdom under a monarch, that monarch should be a shepherd."

"Shepherding was symbolic of freedom, mobility, flexibility, a hankering after wide-open spaces and starry skies where one felt closer to God. It also said something about gentleness, concern for things vulnerable, a willingness to protect the weak and confront the ravenous elements of this universe. These were qualities worth remembering and maintaining, especially when the pressures of urban life and royal politics might tempt Israel to become like so many other nations: hard, polarized, aggressive, even lethal like Cain." When Israel's monarchy failed, its prophets naturally looked to Bethlehem, birthplace of David, for a pastoral king to renew its prospects as a nation. (Cf. Micah 5:2 "But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.")

We are close to our anniversary of remembering that our longed for promise has been kept, that our shepherd has come and is here, a "good shepherd" whose yoke is light" (Mt.11:29), who "leadeth me beside still waters," who "restoreth my soul" (Ps. 23). Our shepherd shows us all the way to a nation of peace, a nation concerned with the "rest" of its citizens, a nation happy in its role to bring about happiness in the world.

May this remembrance, renewed as real in our life today and on Christmas Day, bring us joy and comfort!

Listen to Bach "Sheep May Safely Graze"

Another version (Stokowski).

Sheep may safely graze
where a good shepherd watches.
Where rulers govern well
we may feel peace and rest
and what makes countries happy

Text (German):
Schafe können sicher weiden,
Wo ein guter Hirte wacht.
Wo Regenten wohl regieren,
Kann man Ruh und Friede spüren
Und was Länder glücklich macht.

"It's All about Agape Love"

In his book, Knowing Christ Today, Dallas Willard describes behaviors that he believes will bring us closer to knowing Christ: humility, inward rightness, obedience, solitude and silence, fellowship. He concludes, "It's all about agape love."

"Love means that we humbly and simply devote ourselves under God to the promotion of the goods of human life that come under our influence. We live to serve. We do this expecting God to intervene with us to produce an outcome that is beyond all human ability, and we it do it knowing that God is the one 'watching our back.' We cast all our 'care' on him, knowing he is the one who takes care of us (Ps.55:22; 1 Pet.5:5-7)." Knowing Christ Today, 155.

As we await Christmas, traveling with the Holy Family to Bethlehem, we try to imagine Mary and Joseph's anxieties and their expectations, and we try to imitate them in building a "holy family" of our own.

If the Holy Family is the example par excellence of agape love, the following tragic counter-example serves to underscore the crucial importance of agape love, which is "of service," self-sacrificing and life-giving.

A Gift

The boy comes to the back door of the parish,
bearing he says, "A gift."
A crib, its mattress, and a baby bearish
quilt. "I hear you people stand for life."
What came between them, what could cleave a rift
and birth such sorrow?
Girlfriend or wife,
she gave her child no chance for a tomorrow
but left a young man sobbing in despair
on the chipped flagstones of my pastor's stair.
--Timothy Murphy

From First Things, Jan. 2012, p.32.

We, sinful and sorrowful, can learn from the Lord of Love what love means.

Listen to Chrissie Hynde sing (with the Pretenders) "I'll Stand By You"

Same, live performance.