Some prose on life

Desiderata, Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself to others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let not this blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all it's sham drudgery and broken dreams; it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

The Easter Homily of St. John Chrysostom

If any man be devout and loveth God,
Let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast!
If any man be a wise servant,
Let him rejoicing enter into the joy of his Lord.

If any have laboured long in fasting,
Let him how receive his recompense.
If any have wrought from the first hour,
Let him today receive his just reward.
If any have come at the third hour,
Let him with thankfulness keep the feast.
If any have arrived at the sixth hour,
Let him have no misgivings;
Because he shall in nowise be deprived therefore.
If any have delayed until the ninth hour,
Let him draw near, fearing nothing.
And if any have tarried even until the eleventh hour,
Let him, also, be not alarmed at his tardiness.

For the Lord, who is jealous of his honour,
Will accept the last even as the first.
He giveth rest unto him who cometh at the eleventh hour,
Even as unto him who hath wrought from the first hour.
And He showeth mercy upon the last,
And careth for the first;
And to the one He giveth,
And upon the other He bestoweth gifts.
And He both accepteth the deeds,
And welcometh the intention,
And honoureth the acts and praises the offering.

Wherefore, enter ye all into the joy of your Lord;
Receive your reward,
Both the first, and likewise the second.
You rich and poor together, hold high festival!
You sober and you heedless, honour the day!
Rejoice today, both you who have fasted
And you who have disregarded the fast.
The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously.
The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.
Enjoy ye all the feast of faith:
Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness.

Let no one bewail his poverty,
For the universal Kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one weep for his iniquities,
For pardon has shown forth from the grave.
Let no one fear death,
For the Saviour's death has set us free.
He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it.

By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive.
He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh.
And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry:
Hell, said he, was embittered
When it encountered Thee in the lower regions.

It was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.
It was embittered, for it was overthrown.
It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.
It took a body, and met God face to face.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

O Death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?

Christ is risen, and thou art overthrown!
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.
For Christ, being risen from the dead,
Is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be glory and dominion
Unto ages of ages.

Amen.

Poet, David Whyte

THE OPENING OF EYES

The days I saw beneath dark clouds
the passing light over the water
and I heard the voice of the world speak out,
I knew then, as I had before
life is no passing memory of what has been
nor the remaining pages in a great book
waiting to be read.

It is the opening of eyes long closed.
It is the vision of far off things
seen for the silence they hold.
It is the heart after years
of secret conversing
speaking out loud in the clear air.

It is Moses in the desert
fallen to his knees before the lit bush.
It is the man throwing away his shoes
as if to enter heaven
and finding himself astonished,
opened at last,
fallen in love with solid ground.

Poet, David Whyte

Sometimes

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest

breathing
like the ones
in the old stories

who could cross
a shimmering bed of dry leaves
without a sound,

you come
to a place
whose only task

is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests

conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and

to stop what you
are beginning
while you do it,

questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,

questions
that have patiently
waited for you,

questions
that have no right
to go away.

Wojtyla on social ethics, capitalism

"The main task of the Catholic social ethic is to introduce the principles of justice and love into social life," Wojtyla wrote in the first volume, on politics.

He explicitly embraced Marx's essential theory that "the economic factor...explains, rather substantially, the different facts of human history.... Criticism of capitalism the system of exploitation of human beings and human work is the unquestionable 'part of the truth' embodied in Marxism."

"The church realizes that the bourgeois mentality, and capitalism with its material spirit, are contradictions of the Bible. According to the tradition of...monastic/religious life, the church also can appreciate the idea of communism.... Communism, as a higher ethical rule of ownership, demands from people higher ethical qualifications."

The entire tradition and teaching of the church is clearly opposed to capitalism as the socioeconomic system of life, and as a general value system.

Follow this link to the whole article

Maurice O'Sullivan on atheism, atheists

Maurice O'Sullivan writes in the Wall Street Journal:

Why should believers welcome this emergence of unbelief? Why not? We should be glad that there are people, even the devil's disciples, who take religion seriously enough to attack it, especially in these days when God seems to appear only in quarrels over holiday displays, during political campaigns or on the self-help shelves of Barnes & Noble. Should the primary goal of religion really be to fund municipal crèches, allow politicians to end every speech with the tag "And God bless America," or inspire works like "Tea With God: A Divinely Inspired Self-Help Book" and "The Christian Entrepreneur: How to Profit From Your God-Given Idea"?

In attacking the cloistered monks and nuns of my Roman Catholic Church, the brilliant, if occasionally logorrheic, John Milton wrote in his defense of free speech, "Areopagitica," that "I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed." And what will possibly make us exercise and breathe more fully than challenges by intelligent, thoughtful opponents?

Her hopeful optimism for atheism's effect on the general public's view of religion is questionable, though fundamentally positive.

Follow this link to the whole article.

FOCA

Amy Sullivan writes in Time Magazine how the Freedom of Choice Act is not as looming of a threat as it has been presented by Catholic and right-wing groups.

She writes,

The U.S. Catholic Church's crusade against the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) has all the hallmarks of a well-oiled lobbying campaign. A national postcard campaign is flooding the White House and congressional offices with messages opposing FOCA, and Catholic bishops have made defeating the abortion rights legislation a top priority. In the most recent effort to stop the bill, Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia sent a letter to every member of Congress imploring them to "please oppose FOCA."

There is only one hitch. Congress isn't about to pass the Freedom of Choice Act — because no such bill has been introduced in the current Congress.

Follow this link to the whole article

Kavanaugh mentions morality, Kant

John Kavanaugh, professor of philosophy at Saint Louis University, writes in America the Magazine about apparent "moral exceptionalism". This exception is not, "You're exceptionally moral," but rather, "Your morals are full of exceptions." He recalls the categorical imperative of Kant by writing,

It is this principle of universalizability that seems lost in contemporary discourse. About the only place it is practiced, at least ideally, is in sport contests—perhaps because it is only sport that we really take seriously. But in matters of the nation, the church, the economy and the world, moral exceptionalism holds sway. We seem unable to extend the rules we live by to others.

He cites excommunications of bishops who support women's ordination alongside the reconciliation of schismatic members of the Society of Pius X. America's request for Iran to refrain from nuclear armnament alongside the United States' stockpile of nuclear weaponry. Further, he mentions Tom Daschle not paying his taxes and President Obama not holding his line on bringing lobbyists into his staff.

On Psalm 62

I.
Only when my life, only when there is space within me for God to call out for me, do I find rest. Within me is no continuity. I change with the second, and my glancing vision leads me everywhere, though I am only here. My trust needs a point around which it can settle and find itself. My trust can only find stability in the ever growing and expanding point of God's presence. If I cannot find a place of trust within myself, if there is no room for God to dwell within me, then I am lost, doomed to bounce between thin foundations and poeple who would make me theirs.

II.
I cannot just wait for God. I must clear Him a space. I must prepare Him a room. Within me is room enough. I can hope in His coming. When He comes He will not leave. He can make a dwelling in my presence and fill me with His love. My great hope is Him, who trades His life for mine. Through Him I am granted life. I wait, then, and my soul begins to clear and prepare for his arrival.

III.
In His presence, the evils in my life are thing and lifeless; they seem dull and uninteresting. Without Him they control my person and destroy the love which I so desperately wish to give. God metes power and kindness, and His will invites me to share in both. With my Rock, my life roots deep in love. Without it, I am blown like dust without another life.

Finding the world in poetry

I had a hard time choosing only one of Billy Collins' poems to post. Collins served at the poet laureate for the United States from 2001 to 2003. His poetry introduces the reader to a more real experience of the life by moving through utterly fantastic situations and reflective thought.

Some photography.

Immaculate Heart of Mary Chapel, Kent State University Ohio


Cerro Grande, El Salvador


Kent, Ohio


Akron, Ohio


Brooklyn Bridge, New York


Akron Art Museum, Ohio


Aguacate Farm, Dominican Republic


Kendall Elizabeth Leigh, December 25 2008

Reflecting on a mission

This weekend I sat down to read a statement that is found in every building on campus and should hold some weight for the future and direction of the College. The Aquinas College mission statement, though profound and thoroughly pumped with otherwise nebulous value language, exhibits questionable combinations of mission words and vagacious phraseology.

Value language as exhibited in mission statements may be one of the only vocabularies that everyone can understand and, at the same time, interpret differently.

Aquinas College’s mission statement juxtaposes not-so-similar ideas such as “liberal arts education” and “Catholic Dominican tradition” with “career preparation.” I have never seen career- preparation/vocational training among the standards of liberal arts education, viz. learning how to think, how to critique, how to see things as a whole, etc. Stanley Fish, critic of this sort of utilitarian vocational training, notes the necessary inutility of higher education.

“Higher education, properly understood, is distinguished by the absence of a direct and designed relationship between its activities and measurable effects in the world.” By this he seems to imply that students of higher education should not find their reason for learning in anything beyond their continual edification, and though this view is challenged, it is the view of classical education that reigned for centuries and the understanding endorsed by Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Max Weber, and others.

Further, the noted scholar of higher education John Henry Newman wrote, “[The purpose of a liberal arts education is to] open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to enable it to know, and to digest, master, rule, and use its knowledge, to give it power over its own faculties, application, flexibility, method, critical exactness, sagacity, resource, address, [and] eloquent expression…” Nowhere does it hint at fostering job skills.

Though such an utterly deflationary understanding of education may be out of touch with the realities and needs of college students today, it may still raise questions as to where a university’s primary focus should land between activism, education and career preparation.

The mission statement continues to note how Aquinas College “fosters a commitment to lifelong learning dedicated to the pursuit of truth and the common good.” I cannot concretely see how this commitment is fostered, and although I like the sound of it, I think I am more concerned about the commitment to learning for the time when I am attending the College.

Another single word that has been inflated and twisted anyone’s wishes is “inclusive.” What does it mean to be an “inclusive educational community?” Does it mean that everyone is welcome to attend Aquinas College (ignoring the fact that welcome is equally vague)? Does it mean that I have to invite everyone to my study sessions? Does it suggest that I need to accept everyone’s ideas? Does it protect ideas from critique and evaluation?

If I could be so forward, I feel like the mission statement is missing something quite important, something each person should have at least considered when applying to any college. Where could the phrase “committed to offering the best education possible” fit? Though I understand that College administrations need to take numerous factors into account when making decisions, shouldn’t the quality of education be a prime consideration?

Unless I am dense to expect something so obvious, why aren’t we concerned about fostering these commitments?

Acknowledging that critiquing a text doesn’t exactly amount to a conclusive statment about Aquinas College’s state of affairs, I see how this really doesn’t matter. If high school seniors want a Catholic-liberal arts-vocational/career oriented college, then the administrative powers has the responsibility to balance fiscally running the College with providing the best education possible. If a college wishes to continue to exist it must offer a product that people want to buy.