“Song for Holy Saturday”
Following tradition, here’s a link to this poem by James K. Baxter.

“Enjoy the Silence: Triduum, sexual abuse, and the disappearance of the crucified”
Michael Iafrate:

It is truly difficult to hear the continued reports of children raped by priests and not be struck by the presence of the Crucified One there. But this presence is denied—“I do not know the man!”—each and every time church leaders and members alike remain silent or utter words of defensiveness that embarrassingly fill nearly every news story or ecclesial statement covering the abuse.

“Who’d win in a wrestling match, Lemmy or God?”
Not sure about the theology here:

(Very much looking forward to the Lemmy documentary.)

Here are some of the things I’m planning to read and watch. No real curriculum here, just what’s on one man’s shelf.

• The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky (also planning to read the recent thesis “The Sister Karamazov: Dorothy Day’s Encounter with Dostoevsky’s Novel” by Michael H. Hebbeler)
• Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by Hume
• The Gospel of Luke
• News reports on the Catholic church’s German child-rape scandals
• The Last Temptation of Christ (have not seen this, though I signed a petition against it when it came out, something I’ve some to regret)
• Jesus of Montreal (have not seen this in years, and have mixed memories)
• The Gospel According to St. Matthew (have not seen this)

If anything else comes in handy I’ll add comments or maybe a second post. Probably 2001 (my favorite movie) and Breaking the Waves (my favorite religious film, though not for everybody–I freaked out a friend yesterday just explaining the plot) will find their way onto my screen.

In the past 5 years or so, I have heard from time to time impatient proponents of a Green Senate, a committee for sustainability, a parliamentary chamber with a built-in long-term view and overriding power in favour of measures for sustainability. Famous proponents include Norman Myers, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and (most recently, this past Tuesday) John Strickland. I do not think such a constitutional arrangement would work.

First, who would we appoint to this Senate? Would they be 70-year-olds, having accumulated years of experiences and (one hopes) accompanying wisdom? Or would they be 20-year-olds, or even teenagers, who have a stake, with realistic interests, in the future? Or a mixture thereof? Then, what about the midlifers? Are they totally disinterested, and should only be shoved around by the young and the old?

And quickly you can foresee the second question: How would we appoint them? By popular election with pre-screening? By lot? Very soon I come to my main point, and I hope the reader gets it before I tell. With more than one person in the world, there inevitably comes politics. As much as we would like God to send edicts which we all equally receive with equal clarity, that is not the case.

Either we engage with politics, or we get apathetic and let others (the Pope, the King, the Prime Minister, the political class, etc.) run our lives for us. Politics cannot be circumvented or transcended. Or rather, the only way to transcend politics is to engage. There is no Enabling Act, no Guardian Council, no Workers Vanguard, that can deliver the Final Solution without real politics. There is no such thing as a system so perfect that people do not need to be good.

That means the only way to ensure sustainability is for those who care about sustainability to engage, to talk progressive talk with neighbours, to vote, to go to hustings and meetings, to agitate–educate–organize, to listen and learn, to run for political office and lose (sometimes), to win a few offices and use the power for good ends.

If you do not like the people running the system, aim to replace them. If you do not like the system, change it. But do not expect these to be once-and-for-all, straightforward, and clean. As much as there is no silver bullet, no single technological fix in environmental problems, the same applies to politics. It requires a collective change of mind, which will be messy and will take longer than we would like.

In the words of the prophet Bob Marley: ‘So you think you’ve found the solution, | but it’s just another illusion. | (So before you check out this tide,) | don’t leave another cornerstone | standing there behind. | We’ve got to face the day; | come what may: | We the street people talking; | yeah, we the people struggling.’ (So much trouble in the world)

And on the way, there will be setbacks, losses, defeats, wastage, betrayal, assassinations. (Though I hope the latter ones do not ever visit the present incumbent of the Presidency of the United States of America.) And what is the Christian response but to take these on with courage and hope? (Holy Martyrs, pray for us.) Was that not the way Jesus showed?

‘For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.’ (Romans 8:24,25 KJV)

There are no easy solutions: one can only go out to knock on doors and canvass. With this note, I relied heavily on the thinking of my friend Rupert Read, who taught that theoretical social studies in economics and politics are useless on their own except in praxis. He also demonstrated this brilliantly with his own life. ¡Hasta la victoria siempre!

Amendment after discussing with Rupert:

Yes, I think I should moderate my position.

To speak for the motion, a sustainability commissioner or committee only elevates the idea of sustainability in our constitutional architecture to the level that human rights already occupy. This is long overdue. To expand on the human rights mechanism: a minister certifies each Bill as compatible with the Human Rights Act; then there are enforcement mechanisms through domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights to induce revision of incompatible Acts of Parliament.

Then we might think what are the norms of sustainability to be enumerated? How do we articulate the remit of the Green Senate, the mandate for our commissioner? The bare ‘whether they like it and think it is sustainable’ may not be enough. For human rights, there is the European Convention etc.; this is along the same lines.

Even if we introduce such a commissioner or committee, we should still reserve the right to criticize it. We should stay vigilant and political. Our interlocutors would have no qualms hijacking a ‘Green Senate’, so we should feel free to criticize it if it becomes mere greenwash for expedient projects. I think I am preaching to the converted, as you, Rupert, are the leading critic of liberal neutrality! (A recent example of such a lapse has been pointed out by Chris Goodall: The Committee on Climate Change shouldn’t have answered the question it was asked [about Heathrow expansion].)

The best thing about entering a charity beard competition is telling people with a straight face: “I have entered a charity beard competition.”

Thanks to the organizers for raising money for the Worcester County Food Bank and giving us an excuse to stop shaving!

WINNERS: Burly Man – Derek Ring; Facial Topiary – Mike Benedetti; Fan Fav – Peter Mascitelli; Best in Show – Duncan Arsenault.

Luke 15:11–32 (Prodigal Son).

May I speak in the name of God: Creator, Christ, and Comforter. Amen.

A few years ago, I went to the National Theatre in London, to see Bertolt Brecht’s play The Life of Galileo, in a version by David Hare. With 20th-century hindsight, the German playwright Brecht retold the life-story of the 17th-century scientist Galileo Galilei. Today, on this Ash Wednesday, I want to talk about the nature and motivation of scientific pursuit: this play happens to provide some hooks for my thinking. So, at the risk of substituting a theatre review in the place of a sermon, here I go.

If you recall, Galileo championed the theory of Copernicus that the Earth orbits the Sun. The Church forced him to recant this view. The famous British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking says, ‘Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science.’ Is this modern science a good thing in the round? Was the Church right to slow Galileo down after all? Galileo’s 17th-century contemporaries did not have the benefit of hindsight and retrospection: They were riding the wave of the Renaissance, pregnant with the prospect of rationalism’s triumph in the 19th and 20th centuries.

But now, a few decades after Brecht, no one in our times can be so sure of the liberating promises of rational progress anymore. It appears we are about to destroy many of the existing species in our biosphere, and make life more difficult for most of our own species, through man-made climate change. We may soon run out of cheap energy in the form of fossil fuels, leaving a large fraction of us too unskilled to cope with fuel poverty.

The longest-living legacy of the human species is likely to be our radioactive waste. It would be good if a few pieces of paper in the desert and some stone carvings survive this. But that looks unlikely; even if that is the case, those that survive would be the so-called ‘atomic-heritage’ manuals, teaching those to come how to safely manage the radioactivity. (Yes, some scientists are actually planning for this.) This is not the worst case scenario actually. But these manuals are not as interesting as the works of Dante Alighieri, depicted in one of the chapel windows.

There are two survival strategies open to us, the Homo sapiens species. The first is advocated by the so-called transhumanist extropians. These are people trying to live in gated communities, walled countries, with large arsenals of arms to keep everybody else out. These are people trying to preserve their bodily selves – or rather, their (near-)dead bodies – in cryogenic suites. (But who is going to keep them plugged in and frozen when our energy runs out?) These are people planning to colonize the Moon and Mars. This is rationalist thought, carried to its logical conclusion.

The second strategy is that of (what we now call) ‘the poor’ and the ‘hippies’. These are resourceful people who are self-sufficient and resilient, who have not been too-absorbed into the globalized monetary economy. They are of all sorts, and more likely to emerge from (what we now call) the global South. ‘All sorts’ are the keywords here: ‘all sorts’.

Let me return to Brecht’s depiction of the dynamics between Galileo the scientist and the Church of his times. The conventional, rationalist wisdom blames the Church for trying to limit the progress of science, and counts it fortunate (or, inevitable) that reason’s march cannot be halted, if paused by the ‘martyrdom’ of Copernicus and the forced recantation of Galileo. ‘Traitor of science!’ they cry, against Galileo.

Brecht, a socialist, cannot bring himself to totally demolish this rationalistic paradigm upfront, but he still questions it as any thinking person in the 20th century has to. The present production at the National Theatre had images from the Visible Earth project for the backdrop, but equally appropriate, if anachronistic and less subtle, there could have been a mushroom cloud, an utterly disappointing scene for gung-ho believers of absolute rationalism.

Following Brecht, I would also not go so far as to say that the Church had it right all along, but rationalism and blind progress certainly did not have it right all along. No, the Church definitely cannot smugly say ‘I told you so’. Perhaps the Church did not express herself in quite the right way? Can we, both as Christians and as scientists, learn from history?

‘What are we for?’, Brecht’s Galileo asks: Are we scientists to be ‘inventive dwarfs for hire’, working for the highest bidder? Or can we have ‘science in the service of humanity’ (as often attributed to Marie Curie)? ‘human-scale science’? Is it possible for the scientist to work, not for fame or profit, not even for the gratification of gratuitous ‘curiosity’, ‘Reason’ with a capital ‘R’, or ‘science for science’s sake’; but as a bird makes a nest, as a tree bears fruit, as a beaver builds a dam, as bees make honey? Or is this one of the human activities where it bound to be more complicated than that? Is it asking too much? or indeed, too little?

What I am trying to ask is: whether the scientific pursuit can be without the alienation of labour, as in the Marxian analysis – after Karl Marx; equally in the Christian sense, can it be a vocation. That is to say, can a scientist say nowadays: I am doing this neither for greed nor for fear? The Prodigal Son, in our reading this evening, was first bound … spellbound by greed for the imminent inheritance; then bound by the threat of poverty; before finally finding his home again, where he started. Can a scientist say: this my scientific pursuit is where my deepest joy meets the world’s deepest need: this is truly my calling?

These questions are even more poignant nowadays. Giles Fraser, a radical Christian cleric from St Paul’s Cathedral in London, wrote in the Church Times last month: ‘As modern science is so extremely expensive to conduct, often even too expensive for governments, it becomes something done by pharmaceutical companies and those manufacturing weapons. These days, it is in places such as these that most scientists work, and not in universities. This means that science is now done mostly by big business and to make money.’ Some present in this chapel know well that even the research and teaching done in universities are now driven by the profit motive, by the drive for commercialization, by the requirements of UK plc, rather than driven by curiosity and education.

[Story about freshers’ first physics tutorial in Oxford – ad lib.]

I ask again: Can we, both as Christians and as scientists, learn from history? Almost ten years into the new century, I am still trying to understand the last one. (Can one speak of ‘coming to terms’ with the 20th century?) It is as if humanity, or at least a large part of it, after learning how to read, write, and take the square root, has now graduated from school and reached adolescence. This young man (allow me to be gender specific here, which is not entirely inaccurate) – this young man, he then proceeds to squander the inheritance which his parents and ancestors stored up, all in a very short time, spending it in a self-destructive way, however instantly gratifying.

Does this sound familiar? Perhaps, one day he will find himself down with the pigs and suddenly change his mind (μετάνοια) – change his mind – repent. I just hope it won’t be too late to go back to his dad. What would his brother, living in the South, out in the farm, say? ‘Dad, I have always worked for you, but you never cooked a little young goat for me. This chap, he spent all his money at the brothel, but now you give him all this bling-bling and throw a big party for him!’ Me – after thinking this through, I now know slightly better how the Prodigal Son will feel, upon hearing this.

If you remember the two strategies open to our species I mentioned earlier: which one are we to choose? Bob Marley sings in his song ‘So much trouble in the world’: ♪ ‘You see men sailing on their ego trips | Blast off on their space ship | Million miles from reality | No care for you, no care for me.’ ♫ Prodigal endeavours, such as space exploration, only become a legitimate exercise once we learn how to live sustainably, within the bounds of a planet. Rather than engineering ourselves to get out of this planet post-haste, we should first try to engineer ourselves to be able to stay in comfortably.

Maybe the Prodigal Son will eventually settle down, have a small family, and start thinking for his children. One can only hope. Amen.

Lent is the most DIY Christian season–you have to pick a vice or luxury to “give up” for the season, and plan how to add more prayer and fasting to your life.

This is my tenth Lent as a vegan. Most Catholics abstain from eating mammals and birds on Fridays during Lent, but that’s my daily routine anyway, so once again I’ll have to devise some sort of food-related Friday absinence. Years ago Adam suggested vegans give up soy; I’ll try that again.

This is the first Lent in years that I had a good idea of what luxury to “give up” far in advance. Oh, it’s so obvious to me. (I’m not going to talk about it ahead of time.)

Two years ago I spent Lent working for an end to the Iraq War, and last year I lived in DC, working full-time to close the Guantanamo prison. This year I’m looking forward to a quieter observance.

What are your Lenten plans?

Download the mp3 or see other formats.

Just wanted to note that this Lent has been a real time of learning and growth for me. I’m finally recognizing that when I’m uncomfortable, that often means learning and growth is happening.

Pie and Coffee classic: The Real Saint Patrick, starring the Duffy Bros.

Monday we went from our normal daily vigil to the Capitol Climate Action, the best organized large march I’ve ever seen. Seems like it would be tricky having a protest to get a power plant off coal to prevent global warming on a day with unseasonal snow after the people in charge of the coal plant have already agreed to get off coal. Sorta like running a project to close Guantanamo and end torture after the President’s signed an executive order to close Guantanamo and end torture . . . .

Sunday (not a day of Lent) I went to mass at the Church of the Nativity, our local parish here. Before the offering, we all got small crosses and put our names on them, then dropped them in a basket. Leaving the church, we each took one, and were asked to “carry the cross” of that person by praying for him or her that week. Never heard of this tradition before. My person (name obscured in this photo) is a 5-year-old; hope those prayers are working for you, kid.

In particular, there are lovely 18-foot-tall woven tapestries all along the north and south walls of the nave depicting the Communion of the Saints as a crowd of people, individually recognizable and identified, gazing toward the altar. These are truly moving — proof that people can still make great sacred art. The artist (John Nava) painted them using a realistic “old master” style, then digitized the images and programmed a computerized loom to make the tapestries, producing an effect that is both classic and very immediate.

If you click on “art” and then “tapestries” on the cathedral’s website, you can read more info and click on the thumbnails to zoom in on a couple of the individual panels.