It’s Holy Thursday of Holy Week, the day we celebrate and remember the Last Supper: when Jesus established the Eucharist and washed the feet of his disciples.
It’s a big deal, and I didn’t get to Mass today.
I’m not happy about that.
What happened was a scheduling problem and — more basically — an exercise of balancing immediacy and priority.
A week ago yesterday I noticed a drop of blood on my lower left leg. A few days later it had grown into an open sore. Yesterday my wife and I decided that since it wasn’t healing, I’d better go to the local clinic.
Two Trips to the Clinic
Good news, I could get in that afternoon.
An RN evaluated the sore, took a photo — while putting two paper rulers near it — to start a visual record, and had me pick up an antibiotic at a pharmacy. What I’m dealing with is, apparently, in medical-speak, a venous ulcer.
The antibiotic was a new one to me, but — more good news — I’ve exhibited no allergic reactions to it.
I was back at the clinic’s ‘Wound Care’ section this morning.
Most of this morning. Getting more data about my sore wasn’t what took time.
Something else was going on, so I had an opportunity to relax in one of those tilt-back chairs for maybe an hour.
Don’t know what the ‘something else’ was. Or why a Life Link helicopter was revving up its engine as entered the clinic.
Might have had something to do with a massive gathering of law enforcement, medical, and other vehicles a block north of where we live. Then again, maybe not. That sort of thing is unusual around here, and I’m drifting off-topic.
Helping my Body Heal
Anyway, I finally got home, with instructions on how to make it easier for my body to deal with that sore. I’ll be back at the clinic in two weeks.
The working assumption now is that the MRSA infection — it resurfaced my lower left shin several years back — flared up.
I’m not happy about that, either. But the odds are very good that this infection will get cleared up. Or driven back into hiding, at any rate.
More good news: what my wife and I had started doing a couple weeks back, putting an antibiotic on the sore and a bandage over it, was a good idea.
It’s what we’ll keep doing, but now with a more effective antibiotic. Two antibiotics, actually. One working on the infection from the outside, one from the inside.
So, on balance, good news.
Getting back to Holy Thursday and what I did today: Mass is important. The Eucharist is very important.
But taking care of my health, within reason, is also important. And an open sore that wasn’t healing is a rather immediate concern.
I’ve talked about life, health, faith, and using my brain, before. Along with why and how I’ve learned to ask questions and think about medical treatments:
“The Exhortation to the Apostles/Recommandation aux apôtres”, James Tissot. (ca. 1886-1894)
Father Mark Botzet talked about changes in our diocese last week, let me have a copy of his text/transcript: and added footnotes, all of which I greatly appreciate.
One of those footnotes included the URL of an overview page that includes a video from Bishop Neary, links to a “guiding change document”, and — well, here’s that link:
Apart from adding headings, I’ve kept Fr. Botzet’s homily text/transcript as I received it: including punctuation and capitalization. I figure that helps retain the sound and feel of what we heard at Our Lady of the Angels last Sunday.
Last weekend both Fr. Tim and I shared with you the first two guiding principles1 of Missionary Discipleship and the Sacramental life.
Our Last three guiding principles that I will cover today are:
Engaging the Laity,
Listening as a way of being church,
Prudent Stewardship.
This is part of the All things new pastoral planning process that deals with the future of our diocese.
Something New
Today we hear these words from God.
“Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see I am doing something new!” (from Isaiah 43:16-21)
St. Paul Writes,
“Forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling in Christ Jesus.” (from Philippians 3:8-14)
It is clear that God has a new plan for his Church.
“The people whom I formed for myself, that they might announce my praise.” (from Isaiah 43:16-21)
If God is forming and shaping us so that we can worship him.
That means we are going to be involved with God’s plan.
Engaging the Laity
As a church, God is calling us to Engage the Laity in this planning process.
Because, God has given each person a unique set of gifts and charisms to live out their individual vocation.
Through revitalized prayer and formation opportunities, encounters with family, friends, co-workers and neighbors, we can welcome new faces into the fold.
We are guided by our strengths to stimulate renewal in the Church.
Called Forward to Embrace the Future
We might see this renewal or
perceive that it is occurring.
But, God makes it clear in our first reading that He has the power and ability to make things happen.
God is reminding us to not hold on to the past.
See I am doing something new!
We are being called forward to embrace the future.
St. Clement of Alexandria tells us that —
The Word of God says to, Look,
I am doing something new, which no eye has seen,
No ear has heard,
No human heart has felt.
The new plan that comes from the Holy Spirit,
is to be seen,
heard, and grasped by a new eye,
a new hearing
and a new heart when the Lord’s disciples speak, listen and act with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.2
God is wanting us to pursue the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.
The Diocese has made it clear they do not have a plan. That means we are going to have to embrace the next guiding principle of Listening as a way of being the Church.
You see, the Holy Spirit calls us to pray, listen and discern together what God is asking of us today.
By listening to each other,
We are guided by learning to best respond to the spiritual needs of all people in our diocese.
Prudent Stewardship
The last guiding principle is Prudent Stewardship.
God provides, we do not rely on ourselves!
It is clear at the end of our first reading
that God makes use of all his resources when he puts his plan in place.
God teaches us that He puts water in the desert …
“… and rivers in the wasteland for my chosen people to drink.”3 (from Isaiah 43:16-21)
It is clear that in dry places God provides abundant waters of rebirth.
Water of our faith that gives us life.
Giving our Diocese hope for its future.
God makes use of all our resources —
human, structural, financial
Because they are gifts from God.
With a deep sense of gratitude,
We are guided by the use of our resources to achieve the shared mission in a healthy and responsible way.
Embrace the Upward Calling of God
My brothers and sisters in Christ,
God is calling us to consider everything as a loss because our supreme good is knowing Christ Jesus our Lord.
Bishop Patrick points out in his letter to us faithful.
Something that he learned from Cardinal Francis George.
That the early Christians had neither church buildings, school buildings, yet they managed to convert half of the Roman Empire to the Christian faith before Christianity was made legal.4
We as Catholics are to embrace this upward calling of God.
We are not to think about all the actions we have already done.
Thinking that we deserve to obtain something from them.
We should not sit in our unawareness and do nothing about the situation at hand with the Church.
Instead God is calling us to seek the new tasks that are placed in front of us.
Because the master plan is the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus.
God is calling us to Engage the Laity,
Listening as a way of being church,
and being prudent Stewards of our resources.
As we deepen our faith to know God’s plan for us.
We share in the sufferings and are conformed to his death.
Coming to a greater understanding of the power of His resurrection.
[A big thank you to Fr. Botzet, for letting me post his homily here — Brian H. Gill.]
Passing Along the Deposit of Faith: Two Millennia and Counting
Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay, near the Cloud Forest. Google Street View.
Father Botzet’s homily isn’t an impassioned plea for a return to yesteryear. Maybe that sort of thing is out of fashion, which I wouldn’t mind a bit.
Given my memories of folks who sincerely didn’t like changes in the status quo, I thought maybe I should explain why I, as a Catholic, am not shocked and appalled at the very idea of “being called forward to embrace the future”.
Partly, it’s because I never lost a youthful notion that change could be for the good. Better, at any rate. And mostly, in this context, it’s because I’m a Catholic.
That’ll take a little explaining, and I’m running out of time, so this’ll be brief. For me.
Things have changed over the last two millennia; a notable number of these changes happened since I was a teen.
Small wonder that at least some tight-collar Christians — Catholics included — act as if ‘we’ve always done it this way’ is a core value of our faith.
Particularly since, as Catholics, we’re supposed to take Tradition seriously.
That reminds me — I haven’t talked about tradition and Tradition for quite a while. They’re not the same thing.
Very briefly, there’s a huge difference between “tradition” — habits of thought, action, or behavior — and Tradition with a capital T.
Tradition with a capital T does not mean desperately trying to live as if it’s still 1954, 1969, or some “good old days”, as seen through nostalgia-tinted shades.5
I’m a Catholic, so I think Tradition with a capital T, the Bible, and all, matter. A lot:
“BIBLE: Sacred Scripture: the books which contain the truth of God’s Revelation and were composed by human authors inspired by the Holy Spirit (105). The Bible contains both the forty-six books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament (120). See Old Testament; New Testament.”
“HOLY SPIRIT: The third divine person of the Blessed Trinity, the personal love of the Father and Son for each other. Also called the Paraclete (Advocate) and Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit is at work with the Father and the Son from the beginning to the completion of the divine plan for our salvation (685; cf. 152, 243).”
“MAGISTERIUM: The living, teaching office of the Church, whose task it is to give as authentic interpretation of the word of God, whether in its written form (Sacred Scripture), or in the form of Tradition. The Magisterium ensures the Church’s fidelity to the teaching of the Apostles in matters of faith and morals (85, 890, 2033).”
“TRADITION: The living transmission of the message of the Gospel in the Church. The oral preaching of the Apostles, and the written message of salvation under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (Bible), are conserved and handed on as the deposit of faith through the apostolic succession in the Church. Both the living Tradition and the written Scriptures have their common source in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ (75-82). The theological, liturgical, disciplinary, and devotional traditions of the local churches both contain and can be distinguished from this apostolic Tradition (83).” (Glossary, Catechism of the Catholic Church)
Basically: nostalgia isn’t a cardinal virtue, change happens, and being Catholic involves listening to what the Church has been passing along for two millennia.
That barely starts filling in the blanks, but it’s what I have time and energy for this week.
More about being Catholic, and acting like it matters:
2 Clement of Alexandria, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture Isaiah 40-60.
3 St. Cyprian “God provides abundant waters of rebirth for the Gentiles” Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture Isaiah 40-60.
4 A word on the Pastoral Planning process from our shepherd. By Bishop Patrick Neary, CSC. The Central Minnesota Catholic March 2025 Volume 7/Issue 2. Page 7. And see:
Ying wasn’t the most nervous cat I’ve known. That’d be Twitches, a cat my oldest daughter had, some years back now. She tells me Twitches was even twitchy in her sleep.
My folks got Ying at the pound in Fargo. This was many decades back now.
We’d decided that we wouldn’t get a male cat, since they’re even more prone to kidney problems than their female counterparts. We wouldn’t get a Siamese, given that breed’s reputation for being loud. And we wouldn’t get a longhair because of all the shedding.
That’s the day we got Lady: a big, quiet, calico cat. She’d been at the very back of her compartment, tucked into a catloaf. We might not have seen her, if she hadn’t been so large and had so much long white fur. As it was, I could only tell which end was her head— because that end had a nose.
We also got Ying: a male Siamese. He had a crew cut, the last bit of his kitten coat — and was at the very front of his compartment, reaching out to us through the mesh. He was exactly the sort of cat we’d decided we wouldn’t get.
What can I say? My mother was the most cat-aligned member of the household, but my father and I also liked the critters. And we’re all quite sentimental.
Once we got them home, Lady calmly set about making herself familiar with the house, while Ying — no, I’ll leave that for another time.
A Siamese Skedaddle, a Petrified Pooch, and a Musical CLANG!!
Time passed. I had Ying out, wearing his harness and leash. I wasn’t so much taking him for a walk, as accompanying him on an inspection of the front yard. We were at 1010 by that time, and my folks had decided that letting cats out unattended wasn’t a good idea.
At any rate, I was out by the shrubs at the front of 1010. Ying was a catloaf, facing north, parallel to the street, and — for Ying — quite calm.
I don’t know what happened.
Maybe a blade of grass rustled more loudly than was its wont, maybe an insect in the shrubs took flight.
Whatever the instigating event, Ying’s leash whisked its handle off from around my wrist and followed the high-velocity cat around the corner of the house.
I pounded after the leash, and Ying.
I’d reached the back corner of the next house when Ying’s clarion “RYA!!!” confirmed my guess that he’d been running across the neighborhood’s back yards.
Ying made a sharp right past me and back toward the street. Several yards north, I saw a medium-size stiff-legged dog standing like a small furry sawhorse, facing the now-vanished cat.
By the time I made it back across our front yard, Ying was tearing toward me again, crossing the back yard of our next-door-south neighbors.
A slightly-musical CLANG-RATTLE, heard as I was crossing our front yard, accounted for his change of course. A chain-link fence marked the back of our neighbors’ yard.
Judging from the sound, Ying ran into the fence at full speed. He probably hadn’t noticed it until his head stopped moving. Much of Ying’s behavior makes sense, given the assumption that his eyesight was very sub-par.
A Slightly-Twitchy Tranquility Restored
I finally caught up with Ying. Or, maybe more accurately, Ying finally decided that the crisis was over. At any rate, at some point I managed to match my position with his.
That was good news.
More good news: Ying was being, for him, fairly calm when I approached. I somehow got hold of the leash again, and — eventually — brought the two of us back inside.
I’ll take some credit for getting Ying back. I had the good sense to approach slowly and from the side.
In any case, being human, I probably made so much noise that he had no trouble hearing me coming. Plus, I figure Ying was at least as good as I am at identifying individuals by the sound of their walks. And I was talking to him. Calmly.
A Pedigree Cat: in a Pound??
Something that occurred to me while writing this was that finding a Siamese cat in a pound doesn’t make sense. But we did.
I haven’t priced Siamese cats, but my guess is that we’d have paid a fair amount of money for a ‘breed’ cat. Maybe Ying got away from an owner who hadn’t thought of checking the pound: or, more likely, he wasn’t ‘really’ Siamese. Not at the time.
Ying’s face didn’t have that stretched look that Siamese cats were supposed to have, and the rest of him wasn’t particularly gangly.
These days, I gather that some cat fanciers have decided that Applehead Siamese — aka Thai cats — are okay, too.
Makes sense to me, since that’s apparently what Siamese cats in this country looked like, before someone decided that making them resemble Twiggy-era fashion models was a good idea.1
That’s another topic or two.
I’ll wrap this up with a very quick look at why I don’t have a problem with ‘loving animals’, within reason, and what I think our “dominion” over this world involves.
The Importance of Acting Like Humans
“The Monitor” — hydraulic mining in California. The Century Magazine (January 1883) Impressive, effective in the short run, and emphatically not a good idea.
Basically, I think humans are people, animals aren’t,2 and that mistreating animals is a bad idea.
More to the point, that’s what the Church has been saying:
“…2415 The seventh commandment enjoins respect for the integrity of creation. Animals, like plants and inanimate beings, are by nature destined for the common good of past, present, and future humanity. Use of the mineral, vegetable, and animal resources of the universe cannot be divorced from respect for moral imperatives. Man’s dominion over inanimate and other living beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbor, including generations to come; it requires a religious respect for the integrity of creation.
“2416 Animals are God’s creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory. Thus men owe them kindness. We should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals.
“2417 God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image. Hence it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure. Medical and scientific experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable practice if it remains within reasonable limits and contributes to caring for or saving human lives.
“2418 It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. It is likewise unworthy to spend money on them that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. One can love animals; one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons.…” (Catechism of the Catholic Church) [emphasis mine]
We’re pretty hot stuff, “little less than a god”, as Psalm 8 says. But “little less than a god” isn’t God, putting it mildly, and one of the bottom lines is that our power and authority comes with scary responsibilities.
I’ve talked about animals, being human, and making sense — even when cultural norms don’t — before:
2 Another snippet from what the Catechism says about being human:
“…356 Of all visible creatures only man is ‘able to know and love his creator’. He is ‘the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake’, and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God’s own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity:
“‘What made you establish man in so great a dignity? Certainly the incalculable love by which you have looked on your creature in yourself! You are taken with love for her; for by love indeed you created her, by love you have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good.‘ [St. Catherine of Siena’s “Dialogue”, 4,13 “On Divine Providence”]
“357 Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. And he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his stead….” (Catechism of the Catholic Church) [emphasis mine]
“The City of Brooklyn”. (1979) Currier & Ives Inset: Stephan Van Cullen White’s observatory is in the center of the lower right quadrant. (It’s a real word!)
I’m a huge fan of science, but by training I’m an historian. Or a historian.
Either way, as it turned out, the closest I came to being a professional historian was working as a researcher/reporter for a regional historical society in the 1970s. For a few months. And that’s another topic.
My background and interests help me appreciate the excitement experienced by a grad student who was focusing on the history of science.
A Scrapbook and the First American Astronomical Society
She’d been (metaphorically) digging through the old Hayden Planetarium library when she found a thick scrapbook: that hadn’t been catalogued.
That is why I prefer having physical access to archives.
Catalogs are handy, and I’m grateful that today’s information tech gives me limited access to a fair number of catalogs. But there’s no substitute for getting into the back stacks and going through everything: including what dropped through the cracks.
Anyway, this scrapbook “was stuffed with newspaper clippings, typed meeting transcripts, draft manuscripts of talks, and letters dated from 1883 to 1890….” (Trudy E. Bell, Sky & Telescope (April 2025))
She figured the odds were good that it wasn’t the only scrapbook documenting the 1883 American Astronomical Society, since “the first volume seemed to end simply because it ran out of pages.” (Trudy E. Bell, Sky & Telescope (April 2025)
Fast-forward to early 1979. Paul W. Luther, an astronomy antiquarian bookseller, called Bell. He said he might have the second scrapbook.
This one showed up in an estate sale. It covered the Brooklyn Institute Astronomical Department’s first six decades: from June 1888 through 1948. That overlaps two years of the first scrapbook. Again: GOLD.
Archives and Attitudes
Finding a record of what someone said someone else said is good.
Finding the record of what someone else said, made by that particular someone else: that’s really good.
I’ve noticed that what ‘some guy said he heard’ doesn’t always line up with ‘what I said’: and both may be at odds with what the ‘what I said’ person wrote down before and after.
Those discrepancies — often, I hope, honest misapprehensions or the same idea approached from a different direction — are one reason I dig into what I can find while writing my more research-intensive posts.
Another reason I do the digging I do — besides my incurable curiosity about pretty much everything — is that articles and summaries leave out details that didn’t matter in that article or summary.
Which is what I’m doing this week — leaving out many details — since this isn’t a particularly research-heavy post. And besides, I’m focusing on something other than the first American Astronomical Society.
“Grandiose” Amateurs With “Considerable Pretensions”?
Enlightenment-era folks reading Voltaire in Madame Geoffrin’s salon, as imagined by Lemonnier. (1812))
This isn’t the America, or the world, I grew up in.
I’m not happy about everything that’s changed. But in some ways — many ways — I like living in ‘the future’.
For one thing, science and scientists have become a great deal less stuffy.
Take how serious scientists and historians saw the first American Astronomical Society, for example:
“…Its apparently short-lived existence was known to 20th-century historians but largely dismissed. Richard Berendzen wrote in Physics Today (December 1974), ‘Almost predictably, the effort failed, undoubtedly in large part because it was not led by the only persons who could make it succeed, the professionals…’ In Social Studies of Science (1981), Marc Rothenberg added, ‘The grandiose name obscured the reality that this was simple a local amateur’s [sic] organization with considerable pretensions.’ (“The First ‘American Astronomical Society'”, Trudy E. Bell, Sky & Telescope (April 2025))
Well, some serious scientists and historians have loosened their collars, at any rate.
That said, I can, in a way, see their point.
Resources, Research, and Citizen Scientists
Someone who’s paid to use state-of-the-art equipment that costs more than most folks will see in their lifetime can observe, record, and organize a great deal of data: and make significant contributions to humanity’s knowledge and understanding.
A professional scientist like that will out-perform someone putting in a few hours each weekend with equipment that’s paid for by a household’s left-over cash. On the other hand, there’s something to be said for folks who’ll be curious: even when nobody’s paying them to use their brains.
A flip side to the professional/amateur comparison is that there are many more curious amateurs than more-or-less-well-paid experts.
And many of those amateurs will, arguably, know a great deal more about what’s going on in related fields than the highly-focused professional.
Researching the demographics and history of “citizen science” is more than I’ll try this week: or maybe ever.
I didn’t run into the “citizen science” phrase until a decade or so back, and don’t know how much it’s been studied as a part of humanity’s efforts to figure out how stuff works.
Maybe someone’s dug through paperwork that’s accumulated in archives, found enough scrapbooks, traced citations in the back of science journals — and written a comprehensive history of citizen science.
Some ‘citizen scientists’ are professional scientists who retired and finally have time to do their own research. Others are folks who enjoy paying attention, thinking about what they’ve noticed, and telling others what they’ve seen and what they think about it.
The good news is that today’s tech lets them get in touch with each other more easily. Even better, professional scientists — astronomers, at any rate — are now taking them seriously, and collaborating with them. Openly.
This is not the world I grew up in.
The First American Astronomical Society
“The City of Brooklyn”. (1979) Currier & Ives panoramic map.Detail, “The City of Brooklyn” (1879): Stephan Van Cullen White’s observatory, right of center.
I did a little checking: today’s American Astronomical Society (AAS) operates out of Washington DC. It’s been in operation since 1899 — and gets treated as the one and only ‘real’ AAS.
There’s no mention of another AAS. Not, at any rate, in resources I found after an exhaustive Google check: that lasted all of maybe two minutes 😉 — I did, however, find a bit about Stephan Van Cullen White’s observatory.
“…Its original owner was Jacob Campbell, a banker living in Brooklyn Heights, New York, and it was one of the largest privately-owned telescopes in the world. Mr. Campbell built a garden observatory in 1854, where he used the telescope until his death in 1864. The house, observatory and telescope were purchased the next year by Stephen Van Cullen-White, a lawyer. Disappointed with the views produced by the telescope, in 1867 he contracted Alvan Clark & Sons, the premier American telescope makers of the later nineteenth century, to refigure the objective lens. Mr. White became a very successful broker, banker, and U.S. representative, and he made the telescope available to local amateur astronomers and school classes. One teacher taking advantage of Mr. White’s generosity was Miss Sarah Whiting of the Brooklyn Heights Seminary who, in 1879, would come to Wellesley College as a physics professor….” (“Fitz/Clark 12-in Refractor” , Whitin Observatory, Wellesley College. Wellesley, Massachusetts) [emphasis mine]
I’m mentioning Cullen White’s observatory because he’s one of the thirteen not-real-astronomers who started the American Astronomical Society — the one “with considerable pretensions” — in 1883, 16 years before the other one.
“On Monday evening, January 22, 1833, thirteen men gathered in the Brooklyn Heights mansion of Wall Street stockbroker Stephan Van Cullen White and formed what they called the American Astronomical Society. The Brooklyn group was the first astronomical body in the nation created purely to share knowledge rather than to establish an observatory….” (“The First ‘American Astronomical Society'”, Trudy E. Bell, Sky & Telescope (April 2025))
According to her, the only known image of Stephan Van Cullen White’s observatory is in that 1879 Currier & Ives panoramic map.
She also said that the American Astronomical Society, the one founded in 1883, kept the name for about five years. Then, in 1888, it became the Astronomical Department of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. Time passed, and now it’s the Brooklyn Museum.
When the ‘pretentious’ AAS became the presumably-respectable Astronomical Department of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, its organization didn’t change.
The same not-real-astronomers were running it.
But a whole lot more folks got involved.
Respectability does have advantages, and that’s yet another topic.
Participation and Pigeonholes
I’d been planning on writing about something else this week. Instead, I’ve been participating in a family activity: being slightly sick.
Nobody’s got a high fever, which suits us just fine. I don’t even have that: my temp has been a trifle below normal. I never did do ‘conformity’ particularly well.
And that’s yet again another topic.
The point of this week’s post, if it has one, is that I don’t see folks in any of my culture’s pigeonholes as having a monopoly on brains and curiosity.
And I’ve been glad to see so many folks who did manage to make a career out of being curious loosen up a bit about others who use their brains just for the fun of it.
Which isn’t to say that we’re now living in a perfect world.
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
Petrified Forest National Park, near Blue Mesa Scenic Road. (Paul P/Google Street View)
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
“Jasper Forest follows an old roadbed into a wonderland of geology and petrified wood.” (NPS)
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
The Grand Canyon, seen from International Space Station. (March 25, 2014)
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)
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.
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
Marco Bauriedel’s “Cityscape”. (ca. 2016) used w/o permission.
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.
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))
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.
I live in Minnesota, in America's Central Time Zone. This blog is on UTC/Greenwich time.
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Blog - David Torkington
Spiritual theologian, author and speaker, specializing in prayer, Christian spirituality and mystical theology [the kind that makes sense-BHG]
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