A Catholic Citizen in America

The Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, and Meteor Crater aren’t on the obvious and shortest route from San Francisco to the Upper Midwest.

But in 1979, with no reason for staying in San Francisco — that’s another topic, for another time — and good reasons for returning to Minnesota, going out of my way to see them seemed like a good idea.

On the South Rim: a Beard, a Cap and an Unresolved Puzzle

It’s been nearly 46 years since I was at the Grand Canyon. It hasn’t changed much.

On a geologic timescale, 46 years is a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ interval. The South Rim Visitor Center is another matter. I can’t even be sure it’s at the same location now.¹

At any rate, I’d been thoroughly enjoying myself on the south rim. While living in San Francisco, I bought a topographic map of the Grand Canyon. It wasn’t big as a tablecloth, and that’s yet another topic.

I’d spread out the map at intervals, seeing what I was looking at, and take photos.

I was flattered, and surprised, when two tourists from Thailand asked me if I was Jewish. I explained that I’m a gentile — I don’t remember my exact words.

We chatted a bit, which is how I learned they were from Thailand. Then I went back to enjoying the magnificent views.

I hadn’t asked them what suggested that I was a Jew. That remained and remains a puzzle. A minor one, but a puzzle nonetheless.

After mulling it over, I strongly suspect they’d noticed that I had a full beard and never took my cap off.

Quite a few gentiles in America wore caps indoors and out at the time, and still do: but not many American men have a ‘haven’t shaved in years’ beard. The plain black jacket I wore probably helped, too.

I enjoyed being mistaken for one of my Lord’s closer relatives. But my ancestors are about as gentile as it gets, west of the Urals. They probably hadn’t even heard of Abraham or Isaac until missionaries arrived, and that’s yet again another topic.

Norwegian, But Not Nordic: a Digression

A fair number of forms I’ve filled out over the years have asked, in general terms, who my ancestors were.

I’m a Euro-American with roots in southern Norway and the northern British Isles, so I generally check off whatever the current euphemism for “white” is.

Getting more specific than that might be tricky, particularly if I needed to be both precise and accurate.

Family records don’t say, but my Norwegian ancestors almost certainly lived near “Nordic” folks: those tall, pale, blond Europeans who fit my culture’s “Norwegian” pigeonhole.

Now, I’ve got blue eyes, and the congenital melanin deficiency common to northwestern Europeans.

But I’m like many of my Scandinavian kin: short, with black hair. We’re not, as far as I can tell, Sámi. I’ve no idea “who” we are, or if anyone’s gotten around to cataloging our particular stock. On the other hand, maybe we have been cataloged: as folklore.

Flyby at the Petrified Forest

I got a quick look at cinder cones in the Painted Dessert while I was at the Grand Canyon’s south rim. Exactly where that was, I don’t know.

Nothing at the Visitor Center looked familiar when I virtually visited the place this week, using Google Street View. Hardly surprising, since I was only there once, in 1979.

The same goes for Petrified Forest National Park. I’m guessing that they’ve re-engineered the park entrance. And relocated it, too.²

When I was there, the entrance — the one I used — was on what may have been a dry river bottom, with low buttes on either side. Or maybe they’re called mesas.

Either way, I’d stopped and was going through a ‘getting into the national park’ process which involved having my car’s window rolled down and talking with someone at the checkpoint.

We were interrupted by a loud roar, and a very brief glimpse of a military jet flashing across a gap in the buttes ahead. It must have been turning, since the pilot had its wings almost at right angles to the ground.

I said ‘looks like one of ours’, or something of the sort. I know; but I’m a guy, and was in my 20s.

The park ranger was still holding the binoculars he’d grabbed, and sounded irritated.

A short but informative conversation followed. Seems that Petrified Forest National Park is between two air bases, and that pilots would try flying between them without being identified. That’s how I remember it. Again, it’s been almost 46 years.

Joyriding? More Likely: Training

What I’m certain of is that I saw and heard that jet, and that it must have been flying as low as the top of that badlands’ high ground. My guess is that whatever was going on, it wasn’t simply joyriding.

How official those ‘try and spot me’ flights were, I don’t know. But it does strike me as the sort of exercise that would be very good practice for pilots whose job might include staying off the radar.

I’ve tried piecing together what sort of jet it was, and which two air bases were involved. Given time, maybe I could narrow it down to a few strong possibilities. Maybe.³

Then again, maybe not. It’s been a long time. I only got a quick look at the wings: and, although I’m curious, I’m not that curious.

The Big Picture

Recapping, I met tourists from Thailand at the Grand Canyon, and saw a low-flying military jet in the Petrified Forest.

The contrast reminded me of — well, quite a lot, actually. But I’ll wrap things up this week with points that I’ve talked about often: but not recently.

I’ll start with the obvious. We don’t live in an ideal world, and we’re not perfect people.

But God doesn’t make junk, and we’re not the Almighty’s big mistake. That should, arguably, be obvious: but I’ve run into folks with — interesting — ideas.

So here’s a quick look at how I see life, the universe, and everything:

This universe was, and is, basically good. We were basically good. We still are: we were, and are, made “in the divine image”. (Genesis 1:27, 31; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 31, 299, 337-344, 355-379)

Something, obviously, went wrong with us. But God did not hit us with a ‘bad-stick’ and change what we basically are.

Our nature has not changed. We were and remain wounded: but we are not corrupted. (Genesis 1:27, 31, 3:1–19; Catechism, 31, 299, 355-361, 374-379, 398, 400-406, 405, 1701-1707, 1949)

Free Will, Living With Consequences, a Good Idea, and Very Good News

The account of what happened, in Genesis 3, is figurative, “…but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man….” (Catechism 390)

The first of us decided that ‘I want’ mattered more than God’s ‘you should’. (Catechism, 398)

I’m not personally responsible for that bad decision, and human nature did not become all bad. But, like everyone else, I’m living with consequences of humanity’s bad start. (Catechism, 390, 396-406)

That’s the bad news. The good news is that hope is an option.

We “…all need salvation and that salvation is offered to all through Christ….” (Catechism, 389, 405, 407-412, 1701-1707, 1811, 1949)

Putting it another way — God loves us, and wants to adopt us. All of us. (Matthew 5:44–5; John 1:12–14, 3:17; Romans 8:14–17; ; Ephesians 1:3–5; Peter 2:3–4; Catechism, 1-3, 27-30, 52, 1825, 1996)

So: how come God didn’t swoop in after the first of us made that profoundly ill-considered decision, and make everything better?

It boils down to free will. Each of us decides to act, or not act. Each of us lives with the consequences of our decisions, and the consequences of decisions made before we came along. (Catechism, 344-404, 1730, 1951)

Making good decisions matters, a lot. Happily, we’ve got rules: and they’re quite simple.

I should love God, love my neighbor, and see everyone as my neighbor. (Matthew 5:43–44, 22:36–40; Mark 12:28–31; Luke 6:31, 10:25–27, 29–37; Catechism, 1789, 2196)

I said the rules are simple: not easy.

But loving God and neighbors, and seeing everyone as a neighbor? It’s still a good idea.

The Danger of War, the Civilization of Love

Ideally, visiting the Grand Canyon from anywhere in the world would be simple: apart, maybe, from the economic angle.

International borders would be open, with checks on who’s going where limited to the equivalent of mail forwarding.

The analog of today’s armed forces would be more like our fire and rescue departments.

That’s not, putting it mildly, the world we live in.

Something I like about being Catholic is that the Church shows anyone who’s interested how we could and should act. And tells us that we should use our brains. It’s like Pope St. Paul VI said:

“…As long as the danger of war remains and there is no competent and sufficiently powerful authority at the international level, governments cannot be denied the right to legitimate defense once every means of peaceful settlement has been exhausted….”
(“Gaudium et Spes” , Pope St. Paul VI (December 7, 1965)) [emphasis mine]

Deciding where and when peaceful settlement stops being a reasonable option — that’s among the reasons I don’t yearn for high office.

So much for the world we live in today.

I’ll wrap this up with a something another pope said, a bit of poetry, and how I see a very long-term goal.⁴

“…The answer to the fear which darkens human existence at the end of the twentieth century is the common effort to build the civilization of love, founded on the universal values of peace, solidarity, justice, and liberty….”
(“To the United Nations Organization” , Pope St. John Paul II (October 5, 1995))

Looking Forward

Building a civilization of love will take time and effort on an epic scale. Even so, I think it’s a good idea.

I also think we’re closer to that goal than we were when Tennyson wrote “Locksley Hall” and “Locksley Hall — Sixty Years After”.

Not much, mind you: but turning good ideas into practical realities takes time.

“…For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;…
“…Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
“There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.…”
(“Locksley Hall” , Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1835)) [emphasis mine]

“…Gone the cry of ‘Forward, Forward,’ lost within a growing gloom;
Lost, or only heard in silence from the silence of a tomb.
“Half the marvels of my morning, triumphs over time and space,
Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage into commonest commonplace!
“‘Forward’ rang the voices then, and of the many mine was one.
Let us hush this cry of ‘Forward’ till ten thousand years have gone.…”
(“Locksley Hall – Sixty Years After” , Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1886)) [emphasis mine]

Tennyson was born in 1809, which would make him about 77 when he wrote “Locksley Hall — Sixty Years After”. I’m 73: not all that much younger.

So how come I don’t endorse his view that we should put our cries of “Forward” on hold for ten millennia?

Tennyson was a poet, an Englishman, and lived during the 19th century.

I’ve written the occasional poem. But I’m a writer, an historian, an American, and was born in the mid-20th century. I’ve also had a rather more — miscellaneous — life than England’s Poet Laureate.

Waiting Ten Thousand Years: Not an Option

I was a teen in the Sixties, and remember the unreasonably optimistic expectations many of my elders had for ‘The Future’.

Then, when electric can openers and color television failed to end poverty, abolish ignorance, and carry us into a shining utopia — equally-unreasonably pessimism came into fashion.

I never quite lost the idea that new technology gives us new opportunities.

How we use those opportunities is up to us. We’ll be centuries, cleaning up the mess made by bungled opportunities made in Tennyson’s day.

“…Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales…
“…Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range;
Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change….”
(“Locksley Hall” , Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1835))

Again: how come I’m not sitting here in central Minnesota, wringing my hands, bemoaning the futility of it all, and saying that Tennyson was right — that we should stop “the cry of Forward! Forward!” for at least ten millennia?

Basically, it’s because I’m a Catholic: accepting the status quo is not an option. Neither is giving up because we’ve made mistakes.

Like it or not, we have “dominion” over this world. We’re stewards, or maybe ‘foremen’ is a better word: tasked with making reasoned use of this world’s resources for ourselves and for future generations. We have the authority to do what we see fit: and the responsibilities that go with that authority. (Catechism, 16, 339, 356-358, 2402, 2415-2418, 2456)

Cleaning up the mess left by earlier generations, and not repeating their mistakes? It’s part of our job.

The same principle applies to how we treat each other. It’s putting that ‘love God and neighbor, and everybody’s our neighbor’ thing into practice. Social justice, the kind that makes sense, is a good idea: and part of being a Catholic (Catechism, 1928-1942, for starters)

If we lived in perfect societies — we don’t, so another part of being a Catholic means at least suggesting that moving forward makes sense.

Long-Haul Projects

I very strongly suspect we’ll have the mess left by Industrial Age blunders cleaned up in the next several centuries. Maybe sooner. It’s a fairly straightforward physical problem, and we’ve been learning a great deal about how Earth’s systems work.

Cobbling together a reasonable facsimile of St. John Paul II’s civilization of love: I’d like to think we could get something in working order in the next few centuries.

But I very strongly suspect that’s a seriously long-haul project. Humanity has a massive backlog of unresolved issues. It may take more than ten millennia.

But building a civilization of love is something we can work on now. And something we must work on, if generations who won’t be born until today’s problems and Sargon’s inventory reports seem roughly contemporary, will live in a better world.⁵

That’s why I keep suggesting that justice, and acts of charity — along with respecting humanity’s “transcendent dignity” — make sense. So does working toward a society where justice, charity and respect are the norm. All this starts in me, with an ongoing “inner conversion”. (Catechism, 1886-1889, 1928-1942, 2419-2442)

Finally: doing what I can do, with what I’ve got, makes sense. It’s worth thinking about.

Sound familiar? Maybe you’ve read these:

• “Liberal? Conservative? Republican? Democrat? No: Catholic”
  (July 27, 2024)
• “Science, Religion, and Saying Goodbye to the 19th Century”
  (May 25, 2024)
• “Doom, Gloom, and Dystopias: But Hope is an Option”
  (January 20, 2024)
• “‘Christmas Sermon for Pagans’: Viewpoints, Nature; and Hope”
  (December 23, 2023)
• “Appearance, Ancestry, and Me at the Grand Canyon”
  (February 12, 2022)

¹ Just a few links:

• Wikipedia
  • Grand Canyon
  • Grand Canyon National Park
• National Park Service
  • Grand Canyon National Park Arizona

² A few more links:

• Wikipedia
  • Painted Desert (Arizona)
  • Petrified Forest National Park
  • Sunset Crater
• National Park Service
  • Petrified Forest National Park Arizona
    • “Get off the Beaten Path at Petrified Forest National Park” News Release (January 26, 2024 )
  • Sunset Crater National Monument
  • Sunset Crater National Monument, Geology

³ If I had to guess, the two bases would be Luke, Gila Bend, or Davis-Monthan in Arizona, and maybe Hill in Utah:

• Wikipedia
  • List of United States Air Force installations
  • List of former United States Air Force installations
  • McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II
  • McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle
  • Northrop F-5

⁴ The idea, and phrase, has been around for a while — Pope St. Paul VI mentioned “the civilization of love and of peace” in 1970:

• Vatican
  • “Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church“, Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (May 26, 2006)
    • Conclusion: For a Civilization of Love
      • Building the “civilization of love”
  • “Educating to fraternal humanism“, Congregation for Catholic Education (for Educational Institutions) (April 16, 2017)
    • 35
  • “Gaudium et spes” , Pope St. Paul VI, Second Vatican Council (December 7, 1965))
• I’ve talked about this before
  • “Hamas, Harvard, Ukraine and Alaska Air: Looking for a Bright Side ” (October 28, 2023)
    • A “…Competent and Sufficiently Powerful Authority….”
    • Poetry, Future Generations, and a Very Long-Haul Project

⁵ Keeping records matters (so does putting things in perspective):

• Wikipedia
  • Akkadian Empire
  • Sargon of Akkad
• “4,000-Year-Old Clay Tablets Show Ancient Sumerians’ Obsession With Government Bureaucracy”
  Sonja Anderson, Smithsonian Magazine (March 19, 2025)
• Learning from past mistakes is an option
  • “Homer, Hegel, History and Hope” (May 12, 2018)