I’m a Catholic, so this weekend I’m celebrating a particular series of events.
Seriously
Two millennia back, someone was tortured and executed. We celebrated, maybe “remembered” or “observed” would be a better word, that on Thursday and Friday.
Saturday — I see it as a day when we wait and review what led up to that execution and what happened later. The day’s readings this year are from Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah, Baruch, Ezekiel, Romans and Matthew.
“The Resurrection of Jesus Christ”, Piero della Francesca’s fresco in the Museo Civico di Sansepolcro.
Sunday, tomorrow, is the big celebration of our year. Calling it a celebration makes sense, since a few days after he’d been killed, Jesus stopped being dead.
By any reasonable standard, that’s a very big deal:
There’s a great deal more I could say about Easter, the Resurrection, and why Jesus matters.
But this household’s Internet provider is doing maintenance: which means I couldn’t be online as much as usual. Besides, I’ve talked about Easter and Jesus before. You’ll find a few links at the end of this post.
NOT Seriously: Easter Cards of Yesteryear
There’s a lot of history behind today’s greeting cards, starting at least when new printing technologies made mass producing the things practical. Maybe I’ll dive down that rabbit hole some day, but not this week.
Instead, I’ll share a few late-19th and early-20th century Easter-themed greeting cards I found, starting with one where I know who designed the thing: late 19th / early 20th century German illustrator Arthur Thiele.
Arthur Thiele’s “Fröhliche Ostern!” card. (1919)
One reason I don’t deplore my culture’s distressing failure to be steadfastly serious about the year’s great celebrations — is that I know a little history. Quite a little, actually. Including how folks responded to the Easter season. Besides, I don’t like hand-wringing.
A not-exactly-Easter card: apart from mentioning an egg. 😉 (Easter) rabbits juggling (Easter) eggs: a little more ‘Easter-y’.
A tip of the hat to whoever found the final three cards I’m sharing this year:
“The Milky Way pictured from the International Space Station in a long-duration photograph” (NASA (November 25, 2024))
Today’s Artemis II launch is a big deal, even if it’s not particularly “newsworthy”. As usual, my news feed has been packed with the usual direly dreadful distressful disasters: and that’s another topic.
I’m actually writing this Tuesday evening, but what I have to say matters: even if the launch is rescheduled.
Back to the Moon
“A full Moon is seen shining over NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) and Orion spacecraft in the early hours of Feb. 1, 2026, at Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.” (NASA photo by Sam Lott (February 1, 2026))
We’re going back to Earth’s moon. Not going for the first time, not landing, not sure to discover some totally cool new thing. But we ARE going back.
And this time the astronauts will be going farther out than anyone’s been before.
Whether that’s an important part of this test flight, something that’ll matter when landings resume, or is being done as a sort of bonus achievement: that, I don’t know. Either way, I think it’s a cool detail.
Looking Ahead, Thinking Back
“Trajectory for Artemis II, NASA’s first flight with crew aboard SLS, Orion to pave the way for long-term return to the Moon, missions to Mars” (NASA infographic (January 27, 2023))
I don’t feel about the Artemis program the way I did about the Apollo flights. That’s no surprise: I was a teenager then, now I’m an old man. But I still think humanity is headed for the stars. Eventually.
Tracy Caldwell Dyson in cupola of the ISS. (2010)
Going back to the Moon is just one step in a journey: one we started a very long time ago, when someone wondered what’s over the next hill — and decided to go and see:
Rockford, Illinois: Central Park Gardens Amusement Park’s roller coaster. (ca. 1930)
Quite a bit has changed since my childhood. Even more has changed since my father’s.
Human nature, on the other hand — how and why folks do what they do — details shift, but the basics don’t. Like kids taking crazy risks, and adults acting with dubious wisdom.
Background: The Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression
Good times, until they weren’t: 1920s.
My father was born in 1921 on the family farm, west of Rockford, Illinois.
Those were the Roaring Twenties: good times for optimists in industry, business, and the stock market.
Agriculture was another matter: high prices for machinery didn’t help, and neither did the occasional drought toward the end of the decade.
So my father’s family moved to Rockford in 1929 — just in time for the Great Depression. Then some guy at a construction site where my father’s father was working dropped a crane on many of his co-workers, including my grandfather.
Sorting through the mess, someone noticed a bleeding corpse — very uncorpselike behavior. It was my grandfather. Not all of him, but what was left was still alive.
A Roller Coaster, Some Kids, and Safety Concerns
Allegedly “low types”, left and right; a person of the “superior race”, center. (1899)
After the crane incident, my father was the son of a one-legged former construction worker, and Irish to boot. He was Irish before, of course; but you know what I mean.
It wasn’t all corned beef, cabbage, and dreariness, though. My father and his friends had an arrangement where they’d get free rides on an amusement park’s roller coaster. Until his mother found out. She told him that he wasn’t doing that any more, so he didn’t.
Reasons, Uncertainty, and Good Ideas
Central Park Gardens Amusement Park’s roller coaster, and a whole lot of people. (ca. 1930)
I gathered that she had nothing against amusement parks in general, or roller coasters in particular. She did, however, object to her youngest child being used as one of the weights in the roller coaster’s test runs.
Routine testing of roller coasters was starting to catch on around 1930, which would make the folks running Rockford’s Central Park Gardens early adapters. Getting details would mean diving down entirely too many rabbit holes this week.
The point is that the Rockford amusement park was safety-conscious, which I think is a good idea.
As for why the ride operator gave a bunch of poor kids free rides during the safety tests: that, I don’t know.
I like to think he was a good-hearted man who was convinced that the ride was safe, realized that these kids would never have the price of admission, and saw no harm in giving them free rides.
Other possibilities exist, of course. He might have seen them as better than sandbags for the required test, and unlikely to be missed if the test went badly.
But I’ll stick with my “good-hearted” paradigm. I remember when “paradigm” was a fashionable word in trade journals, and I’m drifting off-topic.
Finally, while looking for pictures of a roller coaster from around the time of my father’s free rides, I found this:
“…The wooden roller coaster at Central Park Gardens was designed by John A. Miller and built by Harry C. Baker in 1921. The Giant Coaster was named the ‘Jack Rabbit’ and then changed to the ‘Thriller.’ Some of Rockford’s Harlem Park’s most popular rides were moved here in 1928 when Harlem Park in Rockford was shuttered and demolished. Central Park would remain in operation until 1942, when it was sold for more profitable commercial use….”
I’ve talked about my dad, and living in a less-than-ideal world, before:
Stars in the making: Westerlund 2 in near-infrared light, seen in near-infrared light. (2015)
I take quite a few things seriously, including art.
I’ll be talking about that — art, I mean — along with attitudes, the Eighth Commandment, and whatever else comes to mind. But first, a quick look at how I see art, the universe, and God.
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament proclaims the works of his hands.” (Psalms 19:2)
Briefly, God is large and in charge. This universe is packed with beauties and wonders we’re only beginning to notice, let alone understand. Art is an important part of the human experience, but it’s not the only important part. And, finally, it’s all connected.
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” (John Muir, quoted in a book, article, essay, letter, or something by Terry Gifford. Possibly associated with Muir’s “My First Summer in the Sierra”. (1911))
A Serious-Minded Man’s Book, G. K. Chesterton’s Comments
I admit it. I like books. A lot. I like libraries and bookstores: particularly, in a way, used bookstores.
For one thing, used books were generally priced lower than new ones. For another, there was the chance that I’d find a title that’d never show up in, say, Barnes & Noble.
That’s probably why Dr. Alfred Kessler — don’t bother remembering the name, there won’t be a test — was in a used bookstore in San Francisco.
But I’m getting ahead of the story.
A little over a century back, Holbrook Jackson was a serious-minded man: both a socialist and a fan of Nietzsche.1
But I’ll give him credit for sidestepping pretension, or at least making the effort. His “Platitudes in the Making” starts with this:
“These thoughts were written down for my own pleasure. They are now published for the same reason.”
He published “Platitudes in the Making” in 1911. Or, rather, D. J. Rider of London did.
The book’s full title was “Platitudes in the Making / Precepts and Advices for Gentlefolk”. Like I said, he was a serious-minded man.
At some point, Jackson gave a copy to G. K. Chesterton,2 who read it and made the occasional marginal comments. Which, more often than not, were actually made between the printed lines: not in the margins.
Fast-forward several decades. Dr. Alfred Kessler — finally, I’m back to him — found a copy of Jackson’s “Platitudes” on the shelves of a used bookstore in San Francisco. It was the one G. K. Chesterton had written in. Since Kessler was a Chesterton fan, he bought it.
More time passed. Dr. and Charlotte Kessler let Ignatius Press publish facsimile copies of Jackson’s book with Chesterton’s comments. Then, almost three decades back now, I learned about the facsimile edition and got a copy.
I think “Platitudes Undone” is out of print, but you might find a copy in a used bookstore.
Art and a Boogeyman of Yesteryear
The end of civilization as we know it: as usual.
Jackson ended his “Platitudes” with a section about something that’s fairly important to me: art.
“In degenerate ages the arts are pastimes.” [Holbrook Jackson] “In perfectly putrid ages they are taken seriously. They are now.” [G. K. Chesterton’s comment, written in green pencil]
“In a beautiful city an art gallery would be superfluous.” [Holbrook Jackson] “In a real one it is an art gallery.” [G. K. Chesterton’s comment, written in green pencil] (“Platitudes Undone”, Ignatius Press (1997 page 91 (Prelude to Art)); facsimile edition of “Platitudes in the Making: Precepts and Advices for Gentlefolk”, Holbrook Jackson (1911))
Although we’ve got doomsayers in excessive abundance these days, terribly earnest discussions of decadence and degeneracy are pretty much off the radar. Even the best boogeymen don’t last forever.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, however, deliberating on the dire threat of degeneracy was all the rage.
Europe’s better sort, cross-pollinating the emerging social and biological sciences with their own attitudes, feared that society — nay, civilization itself — was on the skids. Due in part to the prevalence of people like me.3
Like pretty much anything else involving people, it’s complicated. Which is why I won’t try untangling that intellectual rat’s nest this week.
The Eighth Commandment, Media, and Art
Art matters, but it’s not all that matters. Not by a long shot.
Turns out that “art for art’s sake” is what “l’art pour l’art” sounds like in English.4
In the early 1800s, folks living in Paris who think a lot, and apparently wouldn’t let anyone else forget it, said that works of art shouldn’t connect with social values or practical uses.
By the time I started running into “art for art’s sake”, it sounded like the idea that art was and should be the only thing that really matters.
I thought art mattered, but I didn’t think it rated top spot when I was growing up, back in the Sixties. I still don’t. What’s changed is how much I know about why “art for art’s sake” set off my bologna detector.
Backing up a bit, God makes everything we see and everything we can’t see. And we’re made “in the image of God”.
“In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth — “God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. “God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good. Evening came, and morning followed—the sixth day” (Genesis 1:1, 27, 31) [emphasis mine]
Fast-forward to what we call the Ten Commandments: a summary of sound ethical principles, or pesky rules that keep us from having fun, depending on viewpoint.
I think they make sense, including this one that says we shouldn’t distort truth.
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:19) “You shall not bear dishonest witness against your neighbor.” (Deteronomy 5:20)
Exodus takes nine words in my language to express the idea that false/dishonest witness is a bad idea.
Drawing on experience recorded over several millennia, the Catechism of the Catholic Church discusses that idea in paragraphs 2464 through 2513.
“Truth, Freedom, Justice, and Solidarity”
Basically, truth matters.
Since I’m a Catholic, I should think that this is so, and act like I believe it. Even if doing so means experiencing unpleasantness.
There’s a section in the Catechism on social communications media (2493-2499) and another on truth, beauty, and sacred art (2500-2503).
They’re all part of the section looking at “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” / “You shall not bear dishonest witness against your neighbor” (2464-2513).
The Catechism’s discussion of social communications media focuses on older forms, but I think what it says applies to stuff I post.
“The information provided by the media is at the service of the common good. Society has a right to information based on truth, freedom, justice, and solidarity.…” (Catechism, 2494) [emphasis mine]
I don’t have a problem with that, although — arguably — that stuff about “truth, freedom, justice, and solidarity” cramps my style. Not much, though. I never did have a taste for emotion-drenched rants or panegyrics. Not once I calm down, at any rate.
A point I’m groping for here is that avoiding ‘dishonest witness against my neighbor’ is both a good idea, and includes a lot more than what I say about the folks next door.
Giving Form to the Truth of Reality
I thought I was going to talk about art galleries, architecture, and urban planning this week. Then I noticed that the Catechism talks about art in the context of the Eighth Commandment.
A point that jumped out at me was making art is one way we show that we’re made “in the image of God”.
“Created ‘in the image of God,’ man also expresses the truth of his relationship with God the Creator by the beauty of his artistic works. Indeed, art is a distinctively human form of expression; beyond the search for the necessities of life which is common to all living creatures, art is a freely given superabundance of the human being’s inner riches. Arising from talent given by the Creator and from man’s own effort, art is a form of practical wisdom, uniting knowledge and skill, to give form to the truth of reality in a language accessible to sight or hearing. To the extent that it is inspired by truth and love of beings, art bears a certain likeness to God’s activity in what he has created. Like any other human activity, art is not an absolute end in itself, but is ordered to and ennobled by the ultimate end of man.” (Catechism, 2501) [emphasis mine]
On the other hand, I don’t see folks who aren’t ‘artistic’ as having a smaller slice of humanity’s transcendent dignity. It doesn’t work that way. We’re not all alike, we’re not supposed to be, and I’ve talked about that sort of thing before:
National Weather Service forecast map: mid-afternoon, March 14, 2026.
Over the last 24 hours, the local forecast has gone from wind warnings, through winter weather advisories, to “Blizzard Warning in effect from March 14, 10:00 PM CDT until March 16, 04:00 AM CDT”.
Tonight and tomorrow, as the wind switches around to the north, we’ll learn just how much wind those new windows keep from getting inside. I’ll see that as good news.
I might be okay, getting to Mass tomorrow morning. On the other hand, there’s been a consistent mention of rain tonight. Not much rain, but at just-below-freezing, with snow on top it, I’m not confident about keeping on my feet.
Our parish community — that’s another topic for another time — has folks who bring Holy Communion to folks who are home bound.
That’s a good thing for my wife and oldest daughter. Or, rather, it’s usually a good thing. I checked with my wife a few minutes back. They called, and won’t be sending anyone out in this weather.
That’s not exactly a good thing, and I’m hot happy about it. But I think it’s a good idea. We’ll be experiencing the sort of weather that makes national headlines when it happens in places like New York. Out here, it’s the sort of thing we get this time of year.
Ricardo André Frantz’s photo: Bernini’s baldacchino in Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City. (2005)
Holy Communion, the Eucharist, is enormously important. So is using our God-given brains.
Something new each Saturday.
Life, the universe and my circumstances permitting. I'm focusing on 'family stories' at the moment. ("A Change of Pace: Family Stories" (11/23/2024))
Blog - David Torkington
Spiritual theologian, author and speaker, specializing in prayer, Christian spirituality and mystical theology [the kind that makes sense-BHG]
I was born in 1951. I'm a husband, father and grandfather. One of the kids graduated from college in December, 2008, and is helping her husband run businesses and raise my granddaughter; another is a cartoonist and artist; #3 daughter is a writer; my son is developing a digital game with #3 and #1 daughters. I'm also a writer and artist.
