Posts
Fellow Diners,
Even the Cultural Diner is subject to the occasional visit from the health inspector. You know those folks, right? Sent out by health department as a consumer advocate, to ensure food the public is consuming will be, if not tasteful, at least not poisonous.
It seems to me lately, however, that the health inspector might actually be a Diner employee. I can't prove this, just like no one can prove the media is a Democratic puppy dog, either.
Anyway, let me tell you what is on my mind. I know not everyone likes meatloaf, but I do. I like the way that no two meatloaves (sp?) are the same. Each franchise plays around with the ingredients, adds a pinch of this or a dash of that, and, voila! The secret, and perhaps, unrepeatable secret recipe. Now, the Diner undergoes a renovation every few years; the redesigns are usually nothing drastic, yet over time the place has become unrecognizable to some. Yet the management here is not stupid. They always keep a few of the traditional favorites on the menu, so as not to alienate the older, longtime customers still attached to tradition. Old habits die hard for the traditionalists, a customer base the Diner serves only grudgingly as the rest menu drifts further and further away from the old codgers' tastes. We all know, they'll die off someday anyway, and then we can remove meatloaf from the menu. To be replaced with some sort of "Iron Chef"-du jour, naturally.
Nobody really knows who was the first one to decide that steak and potatoes would go great together. Some claim that the two just sort of fell yogether on one plate by accident once. Others claim there is no good reason but prejudice that keeps two potatoes, or two steaks, from being on the same plate together; and we would still call it steak and potatoes. Hmmm. Something about that may not sound right to you. It didn't sound right to some customers at the Diner either. So when the health inspector told them the menu was going to change, they got together and petitioned for steak and potatoes to remain on the menu; and for steak and potatoes to remain, steak and potatoes. Problem solved, right?
Well, not so fast. Now the health department says those old codgers can't do it that way. It's unfair to the folks who want to order steak and steak; or potatoes and potatoes. This decision threatens to ripple through your local franchise of the Diner, too. So watch out.
_______________________________________________________
Yesterday, federal district court Judge Vaughn Walker overturned California's Proposition 8, which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
While the immediate impact is limited to the state of California, the consequences of this egregious bit of judicial overreach threatens to be nationwide.
Two years ago, the California Supreme Court ruled that denying same-sex couples the right to marry violated the state constitution. In response, supporters of traditional marriage followed California's legal and democratic process: They collected enough signatures to put a proposed amendment to the state constitution on the ballot.
After a hard-fought campaign in which they were outspent by the other side, Proposition 8 supporters, including many African American pastors, enacted the referendum. Having lost the democratic battle, the losers again returned to the courts, this time the federal courts.
They argued that denying same-sex couples the right to marry violated the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Throughout the 13-day trial, Judge Walker's sympathies were clear to observers.
He ruled yesterday that "moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians." Warming to the task, he added that "the evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason"—note that, "without reason"—"a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite sex couples."
Even though his ruling isn't surprising, his dismissal of the opinions of the people of California and five thousand-plus years of human tradition is breath-taking. Then again, inasmuch as Walker is one of the few openly gay federal judges, maybe his dismissal shouldn't shock us, either.
Let's be clear. What's at stake here goes beyond California and even beyond marriage itself. The reasoning that overturned California's law, that said that the right of gays to marry is a fundamental constitutional right, would, if applied nationally, overturn similar laws throughout the country.
As Catholics and Mormons, who led the Proposition 8 campaign, points out, it would be a mistake to think that the battle about the definition of marriage is only over marriage—disastrous as that is. A loss on this issue will have devastating consequences for our personal freedoms.
Catholics and Mormons point to the weakening of parental rights, of course the attack on religious freedom and individuals practicing their faith in public. People who oppose same-sex marriage will be forced to choose between full participation in public life and fidelity to their convictions.
So what comes next? An appeal to Ninth Circuit, the most liberal circuit court in America, and an expedited appeal to Supreme Court.
But my hopes are instead in the groundswell of public outrage and resistance. This is re-writing the Constitution of the United States and undermining the most basic institutions of civilized society.
This is why I have signed the Manhattan Declaration. You should come to http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/, and sign on and get your friends to sign on. It's time we took a stand. Millions of us have got to speak up and say, "No, we'll give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, never to Caesar what belongs to God."
And steak and potatoes will remain steak and potatoes.
Which way do I steer for my Cheeseburger in Paradise?
Omnivorously yours,
~Bill
Friday, August 06, 2010
Monday, June 07, 2010
An Apple a Day...
Dear Noshers,
I’ve never been there. It’s the little place across the street from the Diner. Actually, not so little anymore. Once, when both establishments were relatively young, it appeared the Farmer’s Market might even be overwhelmed by the Diner and put out of business. Surprisingly, though, its faithful customer base continued to frequent the location, boast about the quality of the fresh products they could buy, and continue to thrive along with their favorite food haunt. Not that the place has always been the ideal purveyor of healthy foods. At times it has even seemed to share recipes with the management of the Diner. Still, when a business does something good, I want to give them a cheer.
__________________________________________________
In the never-ending battle of the technological titans, score one for Steve Jobs. No, the CEO of Apple hasn't come out with yet another groundbreaking iProduct, at least not since the iPad.
But he's done something even more extraordinary—he's brought good values into the mix.
Jobs has made it clear that he wants to keep pornography off Apple products as much as possible. Obviously Apple can't control everything its users do, but it can make porn scarcer on its products, and it has done just that.
A British newspaper, The Guardian, reports, "So insistent is Apple [on this policy], many magazine publishers developing 'apps' for the new iPad . . . have had to self-censor."
As you might expect, this has triggered a frenzy among some critics. Ryan Tate, a writer for the Gawker website, sniped at Jobs about suppressing his customers' "freedom," prompting Jobs to respond, "Yep, freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom."
When Tate replied that he didn't want "freedom from porn," Jobs answered, "You might care more about porn when you have kids." In a correspondence with a consumer, Jobs went even further, speaking of his company's "moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone."
How refreshing it is to see someone who actually gets it—that yes, there are those of us who prefer to be free from the storm of smut that assaults us from every television, computer, and phone screen. The supply of pornographic material is so overwhelming that access to it is certainly not an issue of "freedom" anymore, if it ever was.
Jobs has pointed out that people who want to see porn on their phones, and who want easier access to it on their computers, can easily get all they want if they buy other companies' products. But as he said in a press conference, "That's a place we don't want to go—so we're not going to go there."
What Jobs seems to understand, and what his critics seem to be ignoring, is that there's so much more to pornography than just issues of economics or free speech. It shouldn't even need to be explained, but apparently for some people it does: Pornography is an ugly, poisonous, degrading business for everyone involved, whether they're making it, using it, or selling it.
New studies are demonstrating yet again just how dangerous and addictiveit can be. It tears at the fabric of marriages and families and of society itself. Its use is connected from everything to higher divorce rates to human trafficking to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
Aside from the occasional reference to protecting kids (which is enough), Steve Jobs didn't go thoroughly into the reasons for his policy. But for whatever reason, he truly is demonstrating corporate responsibility, the kind that we desperately need more businesses to show in this sex-obsessed society.
May he continue to stand by his principles, and may his tribe increase.
But even if they're good for me, I still won't eat brussels sprouts,
~Bill
I’ve never been there. It’s the little place across the street from the Diner. Actually, not so little anymore. Once, when both establishments were relatively young, it appeared the Farmer’s Market might even be overwhelmed by the Diner and put out of business. Surprisingly, though, its faithful customer base continued to frequent the location, boast about the quality of the fresh products they could buy, and continue to thrive along with their favorite food haunt. Not that the place has always been the ideal purveyor of healthy foods. At times it has even seemed to share recipes with the management of the Diner. Still, when a business does something good, I want to give them a cheer.
__________________________________________________
In the never-ending battle of the technological titans, score one for Steve Jobs. No, the CEO of Apple hasn't come out with yet another groundbreaking iProduct, at least not since the iPad.
But he's done something even more extraordinary—he's brought good values into the mix.
Jobs has made it clear that he wants to keep pornography off Apple products as much as possible. Obviously Apple can't control everything its users do, but it can make porn scarcer on its products, and it has done just that.
A British newspaper, The Guardian, reports, "So insistent is Apple [on this policy], many magazine publishers developing 'apps' for the new iPad . . . have had to self-censor."
As you might expect, this has triggered a frenzy among some critics. Ryan Tate, a writer for the Gawker website, sniped at Jobs about suppressing his customers' "freedom," prompting Jobs to respond, "Yep, freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom."
When Tate replied that he didn't want "freedom from porn," Jobs answered, "You might care more about porn when you have kids." In a correspondence with a consumer, Jobs went even further, speaking of his company's "moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone."
How refreshing it is to see someone who actually gets it—that yes, there are those of us who prefer to be free from the storm of smut that assaults us from every television, computer, and phone screen. The supply of pornographic material is so overwhelming that access to it is certainly not an issue of "freedom" anymore, if it ever was.
Jobs has pointed out that people who want to see porn on their phones, and who want easier access to it on their computers, can easily get all they want if they buy other companies' products. But as he said in a press conference, "That's a place we don't want to go—so we're not going to go there."
What Jobs seems to understand, and what his critics seem to be ignoring, is that there's so much more to pornography than just issues of economics or free speech. It shouldn't even need to be explained, but apparently for some people it does: Pornography is an ugly, poisonous, degrading business for everyone involved, whether they're making it, using it, or selling it.
New studies are demonstrating yet again just how dangerous and addictiveit can be. It tears at the fabric of marriages and families and of society itself. Its use is connected from everything to higher divorce rates to human trafficking to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
Aside from the occasional reference to protecting kids (which is enough), Steve Jobs didn't go thoroughly into the reasons for his policy. But for whatever reason, he truly is demonstrating corporate responsibility, the kind that we desperately need more businesses to show in this sex-obsessed society.
May he continue to stand by his principles, and may his tribe increase.
But even if they're good for me, I still won't eat brussels sprouts,
~Bill
Friday, January 22, 2010
"Give it to Mikey. He'll eat anything."
Fellow Noshers,
You remember the old commercial for Life cereal, don't you? People still use the old tag line: "Give it to Mikey. He'll eat anything." The thing is, though, we've gotten that line twisted around over the years. Originally, Mikey wouldn't eat anything. He hated everything. That is exactly the reason it was so surprising to the kids at the table, when Mikey gobbled up the Life cereal. It was as though Mikey's tastes had changed, his behavior was completely out of character.
But these days "Mikey" really does eat everything. Unlike the old Mikey, the "grown-up" Mikey does not discriminate. It is easy to understand his change in tastes, really. We know about foods that are an acquired taste. You don't like them at first, but after getting used to them you come to appreciate the distictive flavors and textures.
That's what happens here at the Cultural Diner. Initially, we may not have a taste for anything on the menu. But the Diner seems the only game in town; it's what we have to eat, if we are going to eat. And the first few times we may have to choke it down, but eventually we kind of start to...like it. Or, at least we don't complain anymore if our fellow patrons order it. So now that is what is happening to Christians when they come to the Cultural Diner.
_______________________________________________
Last night I had a disturbing dream. If you are anything like me, it is infrequent that you awake and remember your dreams, and even more infrequent that the dreams are vivid and have something of a storyline. When they do, I try to pay attention.
In my dream a mother had left her young infant propped up in a standing position (thought the infant itself was too young to stand independently) on, of all things, a church pew. She then walked away. Standing several yards from the baby, I was not quick enough to catch the baby before it tumbled to the floor, hitting hard. I looked around for the mother. She was nowhere to be found.
As I picked up the baby, I don't remember it crying, but I do remember it bleeding, profusely from the back of it's head. As I looked down to see the blood pooling on the ground, I was hysterical. And I couldn't find the mother anywhere.
Then, somehow, as dreams go, I was suddenly in the hospital with the baby, frantically searching up and down the hallways for a doctor or a nurse to help. Doctors and nurses loitered and moved about the hospital, completely unmoved by my frantic requests for help. Though I would speak loudly and, with tears thrust the child right in front of them, they would stare with blank and glassy eyes or simply go about their business. No one helped. The infant continued to bleed in my arms. And I knew the child would soon bleed to death.
Obviously, I awoke from the dream quite disturbed. Somehow, on the day of the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I can't help but think that the dream is symbolic of the public malaise on the issue of abortion. As I frantically searched for help and saw a helpless infant bleeding to death before my eyes, the real eeriness of the dream was in the absolute non-responsiveness of the crowd, the normalcy with which they continued to carry on their business.
______________________________________________
Undoubtedly many of the great evils of our times have been committed because the cries of the victims were not heard--not heard by those who sat by, comfortably ignorant of the horrors around them.
Today, there are victims whose cries of agony our ears will never hear. These are the unborn victims of abortion.
These things are uncomfortable to hear and to speak about. That is precisely the point. We should not be comfortable in a society where such crimes exist and where we would have the power to influence change, were our tastebuds not desensitized.
Were the owners of the Cultural Diner required to post labels and nutritional information on "choices" like abortion, as restaurants are legislated to do, perhaps the knowledge would shake us from the complacence of our booths.
Maybe we would at least fill out the comment cards.
The sign should read, "Millions and millions served."
Your Friendly, Neighborhood Food Critic,
~Bill
P.S. The patron who first ordered this dish, Norma Jane McCorvey, aka Jane Roe, has since become Roman Catholic and is a strong opponent of abortion. Pray with me that she receives God's mercy and still feels His love.
You remember the old commercial for Life cereal, don't you? People still use the old tag line: "Give it to Mikey. He'll eat anything." The thing is, though, we've gotten that line twisted around over the years. Originally, Mikey wouldn't eat anything. He hated everything. That is exactly the reason it was so surprising to the kids at the table, when Mikey gobbled up the Life cereal. It was as though Mikey's tastes had changed, his behavior was completely out of character.
But these days "Mikey" really does eat everything. Unlike the old Mikey, the "grown-up" Mikey does not discriminate. It is easy to understand his change in tastes, really. We know about foods that are an acquired taste. You don't like them at first, but after getting used to them you come to appreciate the distictive flavors and textures.
That's what happens here at the Cultural Diner. Initially, we may not have a taste for anything on the menu. But the Diner seems the only game in town; it's what we have to eat, if we are going to eat. And the first few times we may have to choke it down, but eventually we kind of start to...like it. Or, at least we don't complain anymore if our fellow patrons order it. So now that is what is happening to Christians when they come to the Cultural Diner.
_______________________________________________
Last night I had a disturbing dream. If you are anything like me, it is infrequent that you awake and remember your dreams, and even more infrequent that the dreams are vivid and have something of a storyline. When they do, I try to pay attention.
In my dream a mother had left her young infant propped up in a standing position (thought the infant itself was too young to stand independently) on, of all things, a church pew. She then walked away. Standing several yards from the baby, I was not quick enough to catch the baby before it tumbled to the floor, hitting hard. I looked around for the mother. She was nowhere to be found.
As I picked up the baby, I don't remember it crying, but I do remember it bleeding, profusely from the back of it's head. As I looked down to see the blood pooling on the ground, I was hysterical. And I couldn't find the mother anywhere.
Then, somehow, as dreams go, I was suddenly in the hospital with the baby, frantically searching up and down the hallways for a doctor or a nurse to help. Doctors and nurses loitered and moved about the hospital, completely unmoved by my frantic requests for help. Though I would speak loudly and, with tears thrust the child right in front of them, they would stare with blank and glassy eyes or simply go about their business. No one helped. The infant continued to bleed in my arms. And I knew the child would soon bleed to death.
Obviously, I awoke from the dream quite disturbed. Somehow, on the day of the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I can't help but think that the dream is symbolic of the public malaise on the issue of abortion. As I frantically searched for help and saw a helpless infant bleeding to death before my eyes, the real eeriness of the dream was in the absolute non-responsiveness of the crowd, the normalcy with which they continued to carry on their business.
______________________________________________
Undoubtedly many of the great evils of our times have been committed because the cries of the victims were not heard--not heard by those who sat by, comfortably ignorant of the horrors around them.
Today, there are victims whose cries of agony our ears will never hear. These are the unborn victims of abortion.
These things are uncomfortable to hear and to speak about. That is precisely the point. We should not be comfortable in a society where such crimes exist and where we would have the power to influence change, were our tastebuds not desensitized.
Were the owners of the Cultural Diner required to post labels and nutritional information on "choices" like abortion, as restaurants are legislated to do, perhaps the knowledge would shake us from the complacence of our booths.
Maybe we would at least fill out the comment cards.
The sign should read, "Millions and millions served."
Your Friendly, Neighborhood Food Critic,
~Bill
P.S. The patron who first ordered this dish, Norma Jane McCorvey, aka Jane Roe, has since become Roman Catholic and is a strong opponent of abortion. Pray with me that she receives God's mercy and still feels His love.
Friday, December 18, 2009
The Lion, the Witch, the Grand Canyon, and Christmas
One thing that stands out to me about C. S. Lewis' book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is the way Narnia changed because of the coming of Aslan. Remember? Prior to his arrival Narnia was a cold place, a dark place, a place where it was always winter yet never Christmas.
But after Aslan's coming, Christmas returns, and shortly thereafter, Spring arrives, the snow and ice melts, rivers start to flow and everything begins to bloom again. Birds sing, skies are blue, the days lengthen and warm. The wicked queen is vanquished and the four children sit on the thrones of their castle at Cair Paravel.
Aslan's coming changed so much about the world of Narnia. But Aslan's coming pales in comparison...
Think of the difference the day Jesus Christ was born, Christmas day, made!!! Christ's influence on the world was immeasurable. The story of Christ's birth is a story of promise, hope, and a revolutionary love. So, what happened? What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists. And when it's all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to pay off, and an empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want out of Christmas?
What if Christmas became a world-changing event again?
I think of the old pioneer who was travelling westward across the southern part of our great country. One day he came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the Grand Canyon. He stared, unbelievingly at the sight before him: a vast chasm one mile deep, eighteen miles wide, and stretching left and right farther than the eye could see! He gasped, “Something must have happened here!” What if, a stranger to Christmas, came upon our celebrations and observed our lives? Would that stranger gasp and say to themselves ”Something must have happened here!”? And would that something be something that changed the world?
We Catholic Americans lament the loss of a religious “Merry Christmas” to the lowest-common-denominator “Happy Holidays” as a greeting at this time of year. We may be disappointed when some forgo the expressions “B.C.” (Before Christ) and “A.D.” (Anno Domini—In the year of our Lord) in favor of “C.E.” (Common Era) and “B.C.E.” (Before the Common Era). We find the diminishing influence of Catholic values in American society disconcerting. Many are angered at the removal of the manger scene from public property.
I have come to wonder at the same time whether or not it also represents a kind of seismic shift in the foundations of our lives as Church. Have we Christians begun to cease reckoning time and history on the basis of the birth of Jesus? After all, have we not long since ignored what Jesus taught? What is the point of pretending that his birth is the center of history, if his teaching, particularly his teaching of non-violent, active love of friends and enemies, fails to occupy a central place in our lives, both individually or communally?
And yet, the point that I am trying to make is that something definitive, irrevocable, and extraordinary did happen on that night in Bethlehem. Human history is divided into time "before Christ" and time since his coming, and, we believe, history itself will come to an end with his second coming. The Incarnation is the critical point upon which the entire human story is bent, as a door opens and closes upon its hinges.
Do we Catholics continue to live with the same old fears that have haunted humanity from the beginning; have we have ceased to reckon our history from the perspective of the birth of Jesus Christ? Is it any longer the unique, decisive moment in human history for us and for the world, the moment in which everything changed once and for all? Our witness to hope and against fear has faltered. As a consequence, the rest of humanity is able to put Jesus on the shelf alongside other gods and heroes in its pantheon of powerless deities. And Christmas becomes just another of the "happy holidays" among all the others observed around the world.
Perhaps, however, Christmas can be different again, and perhaps we can make it so. We can make the difference of Christmas apparent to the world around us, to those whose lives touch ours. In order to do this, we do not have to join the chorus of voices that demand that Christmas and the Church be restored to the place of privilege and prestige that it had in American culture at one time. Still less are we under a divine calling to spend like crazy, as if the nation's economic recovery depended on whether or not we buy that flat-screen TV for Christmas. Nor does it do any good to lament the diminishing influence of Christian values in society, as if it were society's fault that the Gospel finds less and less of a place in it.
On the contrary, it seems to me more of the blame for that can be can be found in the fact that we, who know that we are called to become Love, cannot even cease waging war, practicing torture, divorcing, and aborting our children at about the same rate as non-believers, and committing the myriads of acts of violence and cruelty that spring from our own nature and fears. The fact that we sometimes attempt to justify it in the name of Jesus only serves to render him less credible to people everywhere.
Ultimately, it makes no difference to the Catholic Christian whether the world sees in the infant Jesus the source of all that is. It makes no difference to the Catholic Christian whether the world reckons its history from the unexpected miracle of His birth. It makes all the difference in - and to - the world, that you do, however.
To this end, may the Divine Presence be yours this Christmas Day.
But after Aslan's coming, Christmas returns, and shortly thereafter, Spring arrives, the snow and ice melts, rivers start to flow and everything begins to bloom again. Birds sing, skies are blue, the days lengthen and warm. The wicked queen is vanquished and the four children sit on the thrones of their castle at Cair Paravel.
Aslan's coming changed so much about the world of Narnia. But Aslan's coming pales in comparison...
Think of the difference the day Jesus Christ was born, Christmas day, made!!! Christ's influence on the world was immeasurable. The story of Christ's birth is a story of promise, hope, and a revolutionary love. So, what happened? What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists. And when it's all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to pay off, and an empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want out of Christmas?
What if Christmas became a world-changing event again?
I think of the old pioneer who was travelling westward across the southern part of our great country. One day he came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the Grand Canyon. He stared, unbelievingly at the sight before him: a vast chasm one mile deep, eighteen miles wide, and stretching left and right farther than the eye could see! He gasped, “Something must have happened here!” What if, a stranger to Christmas, came upon our celebrations and observed our lives? Would that stranger gasp and say to themselves ”Something must have happened here!”? And would that something be something that changed the world?
We Catholic Americans lament the loss of a religious “Merry Christmas” to the lowest-common-denominator “Happy Holidays” as a greeting at this time of year. We may be disappointed when some forgo the expressions “B.C.” (Before Christ) and “A.D.” (Anno Domini—In the year of our Lord) in favor of “C.E.” (Common Era) and “B.C.E.” (Before the Common Era). We find the diminishing influence of Catholic values in American society disconcerting. Many are angered at the removal of the manger scene from public property.
I have come to wonder at the same time whether or not it also represents a kind of seismic shift in the foundations of our lives as Church. Have we Christians begun to cease reckoning time and history on the basis of the birth of Jesus? After all, have we not long since ignored what Jesus taught? What is the point of pretending that his birth is the center of history, if his teaching, particularly his teaching of non-violent, active love of friends and enemies, fails to occupy a central place in our lives, both individually or communally?
And yet, the point that I am trying to make is that something definitive, irrevocable, and extraordinary did happen on that night in Bethlehem. Human history is divided into time "before Christ" and time since his coming, and, we believe, history itself will come to an end with his second coming. The Incarnation is the critical point upon which the entire human story is bent, as a door opens and closes upon its hinges.
Do we Catholics continue to live with the same old fears that have haunted humanity from the beginning; have we have ceased to reckon our history from the perspective of the birth of Jesus Christ? Is it any longer the unique, decisive moment in human history for us and for the world, the moment in which everything changed once and for all? Our witness to hope and against fear has faltered. As a consequence, the rest of humanity is able to put Jesus on the shelf alongside other gods and heroes in its pantheon of powerless deities. And Christmas becomes just another of the "happy holidays" among all the others observed around the world.
Perhaps, however, Christmas can be different again, and perhaps we can make it so. We can make the difference of Christmas apparent to the world around us, to those whose lives touch ours. In order to do this, we do not have to join the chorus of voices that demand that Christmas and the Church be restored to the place of privilege and prestige that it had in American culture at one time. Still less are we under a divine calling to spend like crazy, as if the nation's economic recovery depended on whether or not we buy that flat-screen TV for Christmas. Nor does it do any good to lament the diminishing influence of Christian values in society, as if it were society's fault that the Gospel finds less and less of a place in it.
On the contrary, it seems to me more of the blame for that can be can be found in the fact that we, who know that we are called to become Love, cannot even cease waging war, practicing torture, divorcing, and aborting our children at about the same rate as non-believers, and committing the myriads of acts of violence and cruelty that spring from our own nature and fears. The fact that we sometimes attempt to justify it in the name of Jesus only serves to render him less credible to people everywhere.
Ultimately, it makes no difference to the Catholic Christian whether the world sees in the infant Jesus the source of all that is. It makes no difference to the Catholic Christian whether the world reckons its history from the unexpected miracle of His birth. It makes all the difference in - and to - the world, that you do, however.
To this end, may the Divine Presence be yours this Christmas Day.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
This year I've just gotta start eating healthy...
In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 3:1,2)
Fellow Diners,
I'm just not going to go there anymore. But I'm probably not going to go there any less, either.
You know where I'm talking about: The Cultural Diner, of course. My mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health would certainly be a lot better if I could give up the regular table reserved for me. I want to improve my health, so this should be sufficient motivation to do it. Going cold turkey shouldn't be so bad. I can handle it...
First, I'll just turn off "The Bob and Tom Show" in the car on the way to work. Then I'll make Bible.com my home page, instead of MSN.com. Pass by all those People magazines in the waiting room. Newspaper, in the trash. No more Thursday appointments with "Survivor". No idolizing the "Idol". TV in general, out. The movies, out. Talk radio, out. Gossip, out. Brangelina and the Golden Globe's Best Dressed list, out. (Well, maybe I can make a little room for Angelina!).
Then the healthy stuff: Prayer, Bible study, other spiritual disciplines to fill the pantry and regrigerator. Exercise, plenty of rest, more time with the family, waiting on the cupboard shelf.
Aaah! This year is gonna be so good!
______________________________________
Probably a good many people in this fair land made sweeping resolutions for the New Year. Maybe even you did. Those resolutions will no doubt cover a broad spectrum of topics: lose some weight, get in shape, find a new job, learn a new subject, spend more time with my family, and so forth.
But there’s one subject I’ll wager very few of us have included in the list of things we resolve to do in the year to come. Repentance. “I resolve to repent of my self-centeredness.” “This year I’m going to stop lying to cover my backside.” “My New Year’s resolution is to give up always trying to be the center of attention and show a little more consideration for the people around me.”
Just doesn’t happen, does it? People simply are not given to repenting. And there are some good reasons for this. The first is that sin is our natural habitat. We are born into this world sinful and self-centered. It’s part of the original factory equipment of every human being. We spend all our childhood basically perfecting the skills of selfishness that, in adulthood, start making us inconsiderate, boorish, and mean. It’s so convenient just to be myself. It feels so right. Why try to go against my very nature?
There is a second reason that repentance is not high on most people’s list of things to do: sin can be downright pleasurable. We enjoy sinning. Delight in it. Try to get away with as much of it as we can, because, doggone it, sin is fun! Who’s going to give up all the fun that comes with those little flirtations, that carefully placed gossip, those indiscretions of this or that kind, that mean spirit that makes everyone cower in our presence, those exaggerations that easily bleed into lies? What’s wrong with a little fun? No harm, no foul. We simply like to sin. Repent? What will you offer me to replace the fun I’ll be giving up?
The third reason repentance is so unpopular today is because to repent means to admit wrong. If I’m going to repent from something then I have to admit I’m doing something wrong. I’ve made a mistake. I may have done a bad thing, or, heaven help me, actually be a bad person. In our “I’m OK, you’re OK” culture, we don’t want anyone to feel bad about himself, no matter what he does. Even in our churches we don’t like to talk about repentance, because we want people to be smothered in “feel-good-about-me-ness” when they’re in our midst, so they’ll be sure to come back next week.
So how’s this for a resolution—New Year’s or any time: Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. You'll not likely practice the discipline of repentance if you're ignorant of the law of God. You'll not likely practice healthy eating if the health food store doesn't advertise and educate.
Finally, you will be greatly aided in your practice of repentance by maintaining some kind of accountability. Be willing to be confronted, rebuked, and corrected by those who love you, and you’re on your way to a fruitful life of repentance, and a healthy meal at the wedding banquet. Share your needs for repentance with those who love you; seek their prayers and support. Repentance will become more a part of your life in the kingdom of God if you have a diet buddy to help you along the way.
For reflection: How could society be different if our churches were more faithful in teaching about repentance?
Cultural Nurse-in-Training,
~Bill
As John the Baptist said, "Bear fruit in keeping with repentance." Matt.3:8.
Fellow Diners,
I'm just not going to go there anymore. But I'm probably not going to go there any less, either.
You know where I'm talking about: The Cultural Diner, of course. My mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health would certainly be a lot better if I could give up the regular table reserved for me. I want to improve my health, so this should be sufficient motivation to do it. Going cold turkey shouldn't be so bad. I can handle it...
First, I'll just turn off "The Bob and Tom Show" in the car on the way to work. Then I'll make Bible.com my home page, instead of MSN.com. Pass by all those People magazines in the waiting room. Newspaper, in the trash. No more Thursday appointments with "Survivor". No idolizing the "Idol". TV in general, out. The movies, out. Talk radio, out. Gossip, out. Brangelina and the Golden Globe's Best Dressed list, out. (Well, maybe I can make a little room for Angelina!).
Then the healthy stuff: Prayer, Bible study, other spiritual disciplines to fill the pantry and regrigerator. Exercise, plenty of rest, more time with the family, waiting on the cupboard shelf.
Aaah! This year is gonna be so good!
______________________________________
Probably a good many people in this fair land made sweeping resolutions for the New Year. Maybe even you did. Those resolutions will no doubt cover a broad spectrum of topics: lose some weight, get in shape, find a new job, learn a new subject, spend more time with my family, and so forth.
But there’s one subject I’ll wager very few of us have included in the list of things we resolve to do in the year to come. Repentance. “I resolve to repent of my self-centeredness.” “This year I’m going to stop lying to cover my backside.” “My New Year’s resolution is to give up always trying to be the center of attention and show a little more consideration for the people around me.”
Just doesn’t happen, does it? People simply are not given to repenting. And there are some good reasons for this. The first is that sin is our natural habitat. We are born into this world sinful and self-centered. It’s part of the original factory equipment of every human being. We spend all our childhood basically perfecting the skills of selfishness that, in adulthood, start making us inconsiderate, boorish, and mean. It’s so convenient just to be myself. It feels so right. Why try to go against my very nature?
There is a second reason that repentance is not high on most people’s list of things to do: sin can be downright pleasurable. We enjoy sinning. Delight in it. Try to get away with as much of it as we can, because, doggone it, sin is fun! Who’s going to give up all the fun that comes with those little flirtations, that carefully placed gossip, those indiscretions of this or that kind, that mean spirit that makes everyone cower in our presence, those exaggerations that easily bleed into lies? What’s wrong with a little fun? No harm, no foul. We simply like to sin. Repent? What will you offer me to replace the fun I’ll be giving up?
The third reason repentance is so unpopular today is because to repent means to admit wrong. If I’m going to repent from something then I have to admit I’m doing something wrong. I’ve made a mistake. I may have done a bad thing, or, heaven help me, actually be a bad person. In our “I’m OK, you’re OK” culture, we don’t want anyone to feel bad about himself, no matter what he does. Even in our churches we don’t like to talk about repentance, because we want people to be smothered in “feel-good-about-me-ness” when they’re in our midst, so they’ll be sure to come back next week.
So how’s this for a resolution—New Year’s or any time: Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. You'll not likely practice the discipline of repentance if you're ignorant of the law of God. You'll not likely practice healthy eating if the health food store doesn't advertise and educate.
Finally, you will be greatly aided in your practice of repentance by maintaining some kind of accountability. Be willing to be confronted, rebuked, and corrected by those who love you, and you’re on your way to a fruitful life of repentance, and a healthy meal at the wedding banquet. Share your needs for repentance with those who love you; seek their prayers and support. Repentance will become more a part of your life in the kingdom of God if you have a diet buddy to help you along the way.
For reflection: How could society be different if our churches were more faithful in teaching about repentance?
Cultural Nurse-in-Training,
~Bill
As John the Baptist said, "Bear fruit in keeping with repentance." Matt.3:8.
Sunday, October 05, 2008
How do you eat an elephant?
Answer: One bite at a time.
Fellow Noshers,
As I watched the other customers' order being delivered, my appetite really revved up. Sizzling plates, delightful aromas, silverware clinking greedily on their plates...
That's why I was so disappointed when the waitress got to my table. I tore into the steak before she had a chance to walk away...and it was COLD!
"Excuse me, miss, but this steak is cold."
"That's okay, sir. Usually people like their steak hot, but it's okay if you want it to be cold. We don't mind here."
"But, it really is cold. I'm not making this up. I don't want it cold."
"If you don't want it cold, then just drink some ice water. The difference in the two will make the steak hotter. Glad I could help, let me know if you need anything else."
So there I sat, not knowing what to think. Was I really the reason the steak was cold? ________________________________________
Try a little experiment: Next time you grow weary of the vapid chatter about the price of gas, the latest guest on Oprah, Trump and Rosie, and the merits of cable versus the Dish, try this the next time you’re in a social setting: Ask, “Who believes in truth?” After the room revives from the dead skunk you’ve tossed on the carpet, continue, “No, really; who believes that truth exists and that it is knowable?”
(In my experience, whether you do this with co-workers, neighbors, or church members, the conversation will proceed something like this:)
"You’re talking about absolute truth?"
Yeah, that’s what I mean.
Depends on what?
"On your viewpoint. Have you seen that sketch—the one that looks like a hag or a beautiful girl."
Yeah.
"Well, which is it—a picture of a girl or a hag?"
"Exactly! It all depends".
Can we get off this gerbil run? Depends on what?
"Okay. We’re all products of nature and nurture which causes us to see things differently. As to the sketch—I may see a hag, but that gives me no right to claim that it is a hag, or that others are wrong if they see something else. In the end, who’s to say what it is, or if it’s anything but a poor artist’s scribbling?"
The responder reflects the prevailing sentiment of the day: truth is not an objective, overarching statement about reality; it is personal perception shaped by our genetic makeup and experience. Among sophisticates and intelligentsia, such relativistic thinking is all the rage. Yet few realize that their fashionable ideas are really quite old.
Like the modern-day hag/girl drawing, a favorite illustration of yore was the parable of the wind: One person feels the wind as cold, while another feels it as warm. And since the wind can’t be both warm and cold, it’s the individual--not external reality--that determines its properties. In fact, maybe it’s the individual that determines the very existence of the wind.
Maybe.
Relativity theory and quantum theory form the backbone of modern relativism. Together, they validate the “truth” about truth that the Eastern mystics had been telling us all along: objective truth is an illusion.
Then East met West in “The Blind Men and the Elephant.” In the famous fable, six blind investigators examined different parts of a pachyderm to conclude that it is like a tree, a rope, a wall, a branch, a fan, a spear. The lesson? They were all right. The application? We, too, are blind men with no privileged position to judge the perspectives of others. The conclusion? If all we have are the experiences of our diverse fumbling in the dark, practically speaking, there is no elephant!
But if truth cannot be discovered and, in fact, does not exist, it is our creation.
Even better than creating the new "truth", are the reasons we've created for giving up on the old "truth": “We don’t know the whole truth” (So I guess we just make something up?); “It’s good to raise questions” (Maybe we should also question whether 2 plus 2 really equals 4?); “It stimulates critical thinking” (About as much as wasting thought on Holocaust denial theories). But my personal favorite, the American Bandstand answer, is: “It's a catchy, hip idea, with a cool soundtrack.” That oughta do it.
Resist the siren song of the modern-day Relativists: Truth is independent of us. Truth is true regardless of our perceptions or beliefs no matter how sincerely we hold them. Neither is it something we invent. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, “We can no more create truth than we can create a new law of nature, like the law of gravity.”
Busy creating my own truth,
Your Friendly Neighborhood Infidel,
~Bill
Fellow Noshers,
As I watched the other customers' order being delivered, my appetite really revved up. Sizzling plates, delightful aromas, silverware clinking greedily on their plates...
That's why I was so disappointed when the waitress got to my table. I tore into the steak before she had a chance to walk away...and it was COLD!
"Excuse me, miss, but this steak is cold."
"That's okay, sir. Usually people like their steak hot, but it's okay if you want it to be cold. We don't mind here."
"But, it really is cold. I'm not making this up. I don't want it cold."
"If you don't want it cold, then just drink some ice water. The difference in the two will make the steak hotter. Glad I could help, let me know if you need anything else."
So there I sat, not knowing what to think. Was I really the reason the steak was cold? ________________________________________
Try a little experiment: Next time you grow weary of the vapid chatter about the price of gas, the latest guest on Oprah, Trump and Rosie, and the merits of cable versus the Dish, try this the next time you’re in a social setting: Ask, “Who believes in truth?” After the room revives from the dead skunk you’ve tossed on the carpet, continue, “No, really; who believes that truth exists and that it is knowable?”
(In my experience, whether you do this with co-workers, neighbors, or church members, the conversation will proceed something like this:)
"You’re talking about absolute truth?"
Yeah, that’s what I mean.
Depends on what?
"On your viewpoint. Have you seen that sketch—the one that looks like a hag or a beautiful girl."
Yeah.
"Well, which is it—a picture of a girl or a hag?"
"Exactly! It all depends".
Can we get off this gerbil run? Depends on what?
"Okay. We’re all products of nature and nurture which causes us to see things differently. As to the sketch—I may see a hag, but that gives me no right to claim that it is a hag, or that others are wrong if they see something else. In the end, who’s to say what it is, or if it’s anything but a poor artist’s scribbling?"
The responder reflects the prevailing sentiment of the day: truth is not an objective, overarching statement about reality; it is personal perception shaped by our genetic makeup and experience. Among sophisticates and intelligentsia, such relativistic thinking is all the rage. Yet few realize that their fashionable ideas are really quite old.
Like the modern-day hag/girl drawing, a favorite illustration of yore was the parable of the wind: One person feels the wind as cold, while another feels it as warm. And since the wind can’t be both warm and cold, it’s the individual--not external reality--that determines its properties. In fact, maybe it’s the individual that determines the very existence of the wind.
Maybe.
Relativity theory and quantum theory form the backbone of modern relativism. Together, they validate the “truth” about truth that the Eastern mystics had been telling us all along: objective truth is an illusion.
Then East met West in “The Blind Men and the Elephant.” In the famous fable, six blind investigators examined different parts of a pachyderm to conclude that it is like a tree, a rope, a wall, a branch, a fan, a spear. The lesson? They were all right. The application? We, too, are blind men with no privileged position to judge the perspectives of others. The conclusion? If all we have are the experiences of our diverse fumbling in the dark, practically speaking, there is no elephant!
But if truth cannot be discovered and, in fact, does not exist, it is our creation.
Even better than creating the new "truth", are the reasons we've created for giving up on the old "truth": “We don’t know the whole truth” (So I guess we just make something up?); “It’s good to raise questions” (Maybe we should also question whether 2 plus 2 really equals 4?); “It stimulates critical thinking” (About as much as wasting thought on Holocaust denial theories). But my personal favorite, the American Bandstand answer, is: “It's a catchy, hip idea, with a cool soundtrack.” That oughta do it.
Resist the siren song of the modern-day Relativists: Truth is independent of us. Truth is true regardless of our perceptions or beliefs no matter how sincerely we hold them. Neither is it something we invent. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, “We can no more create truth than we can create a new law of nature, like the law of gravity.”
Busy creating my own truth,
Your Friendly Neighborhood Infidel,
~Bill
You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose...
The old joke ends,"But Dr. we really need the eggs."
Fellow Diners,
Well, it may finally be time to send for the guys with the white coats to wrap me up and cart me off. (I know, I know...)
It had been a while. Probably a month or so since I'd last visited the Diner, and that's just wrong. Not only did it feel good to get back in here, in a way it is good, for the body and the soul. In the same way our immune system needs exposure to pathogens to generate and maintain resistance, so our value system requires the occasional irritation or poke in order to remain strong and vigilant. But this didn't strike me as right.
The service is normally superb here. They bring you anything you want, and I mean anything. Don't misunderstand; the staff here knows the meaning of suggestive selling. In fact, they invented it. This time was different, though.
I ordered the chicken. So you would expect, they bring me the chicken, right? The waitress smiles, calls me "Hon'", refills my drink, and unveils a plate full of...roast beef!? Not wanting to be rude, I say this must be a mistake, I ordered the chicken. And what do you think she tells me? Most minimum wage servers working for a big tip would be right on that one, whipping the incorrect meal back to the kitchen, returning with the right vittles and an apology for the inconvenience. So imagine my surprise.
"No, that's right sir. I know it looks like roast beef. But the chef really wanted it to be chicken. In fact, the whole time he was cooking it, he kept thinking that it was chicken. So now, it must be chicken."
Hmmm. Times they are a changin'.
___________________________
It used to be, in the old days, that the biggest decision new parents had to make was the name of their baby. The one thing they didn’t have to decide was the kid’s sex—that decision had been made for them, all they have to do is take a peek. That would be that.
Well, not any more, at least not in New York City. You see, under a proposed Board of Health rule, “people born in the city would be able to change the documented sex on their birth certificates.” They would need only to provide “affidavits from a doctor and a mental health professional laying out why their patients should be considered members of the opposite sex.” They would also have to promise that “their proposed change would be permanent.”
The proposed rule isn’t aimed at people who have had “sex-change surgery.” They are already permitted to do this. Instead, it’s directed at people who “had lived in their adopted gender for at least two years . . . ”
Read those words carefully: adopted and especially gender, instead of sex. It is a big hint that there’s some major postmodern mischief at work here. “Sex” is what scientists call “binary”: You either have an XX (that is, female) or an XY (that is, male) chromosome.
But, if nature can’t be twisted and shaped to suit our ideological predilections, words, especially in the hands of postmodern vandals, can be. If the goal is to separate anatomy from what it means to be a man or a woman, then the use of the word gender is a must.
You see, transgender activists can get away with saying that gender is just “socially constructed” and more than “the sum of one’s physical parts” because gender is a word that most people don’t regularly use. Substituting an obscure word, in this case, gender, for the more common one, sex, is intended to confuse and obscure. It’s the kind of verbal tactic George Orwell would be proud of, akin to a squid squirting ink to confuse its predators.
Of course, what makes this squirting necessary is the denial of the obvious: “Living as a woman,” whatever that means, no more makes you a woman than hiding a pot of gold makes you a leprechaun.
These verbal parlor games may wow them in the faculty lounge or the counter seat at the Diner, but nature is unimpressed. They remind me of the hoax perpetrated by physicist Alan Sokal. He submitted a paper to a leading postmodern journal filled with postmodern gibberish like “physical ‘reality’ and physics. . . is at bottom a social and linguistic construct.”
After the paper was published, he revealed the hoax, that it was all gibberish, adding that those who believe that physics really is a “social construct” should test their beliefs from his twenty-first floor window.
Christians should not be shocked at any of this. Romans 1 tells us that God’s truth is made plain in creation, and to deny this truth—in this case, “male and female created He them”—is to exchange the truth for lie, which Paul illustrates by an example of men lying with men, in other words, rejecting their God-given gender, which is a challenge to God’s created order. Well, today we have renewed that old lie—that we can create ourselves the way we want, and peeking doesn’t make any difference.
I don't know what I just ordered. Do you?
Your Friendly Neighborhood, Puzzled, Still Hungry but Willing to Give Them Another Chance, Because I'll be Hungry again, Maybe I Should Just Shut Up and Eat What They Give Me, Apatheist,
~Bill
The NY Times covered this all very well Nov. 7, 2006.
Fellow Diners,
Well, it may finally be time to send for the guys with the white coats to wrap me up and cart me off. (I know, I know...)
It had been a while. Probably a month or so since I'd last visited the Diner, and that's just wrong. Not only did it feel good to get back in here, in a way it is good, for the body and the soul. In the same way our immune system needs exposure to pathogens to generate and maintain resistance, so our value system requires the occasional irritation or poke in order to remain strong and vigilant. But this didn't strike me as right.
The service is normally superb here. They bring you anything you want, and I mean anything. Don't misunderstand; the staff here knows the meaning of suggestive selling. In fact, they invented it. This time was different, though.
I ordered the chicken. So you would expect, they bring me the chicken, right? The waitress smiles, calls me "Hon'", refills my drink, and unveils a plate full of...roast beef!? Not wanting to be rude, I say this must be a mistake, I ordered the chicken. And what do you think she tells me? Most minimum wage servers working for a big tip would be right on that one, whipping the incorrect meal back to the kitchen, returning with the right vittles and an apology for the inconvenience. So imagine my surprise.
"No, that's right sir. I know it looks like roast beef. But the chef really wanted it to be chicken. In fact, the whole time he was cooking it, he kept thinking that it was chicken. So now, it must be chicken."
Hmmm. Times they are a changin'.
___________________________
It used to be, in the old days, that the biggest decision new parents had to make was the name of their baby. The one thing they didn’t have to decide was the kid’s sex—that decision had been made for them, all they have to do is take a peek. That would be that.
Well, not any more, at least not in New York City. You see, under a proposed Board of Health rule, “people born in the city would be able to change the documented sex on their birth certificates.” They would need only to provide “affidavits from a doctor and a mental health professional laying out why their patients should be considered members of the opposite sex.” They would also have to promise that “their proposed change would be permanent.”
The proposed rule isn’t aimed at people who have had “sex-change surgery.” They are already permitted to do this. Instead, it’s directed at people who “had lived in their adopted gender for at least two years . . . ”
Read those words carefully: adopted and especially gender, instead of sex. It is a big hint that there’s some major postmodern mischief at work here. “Sex” is what scientists call “binary”: You either have an XX (that is, female) or an XY (that is, male) chromosome.
But, if nature can’t be twisted and shaped to suit our ideological predilections, words, especially in the hands of postmodern vandals, can be. If the goal is to separate anatomy from what it means to be a man or a woman, then the use of the word gender is a must.
You see, transgender activists can get away with saying that gender is just “socially constructed” and more than “the sum of one’s physical parts” because gender is a word that most people don’t regularly use. Substituting an obscure word, in this case, gender, for the more common one, sex, is intended to confuse and obscure. It’s the kind of verbal tactic George Orwell would be proud of, akin to a squid squirting ink to confuse its predators.
Of course, what makes this squirting necessary is the denial of the obvious: “Living as a woman,” whatever that means, no more makes you a woman than hiding a pot of gold makes you a leprechaun.
These verbal parlor games may wow them in the faculty lounge or the counter seat at the Diner, but nature is unimpressed. They remind me of the hoax perpetrated by physicist Alan Sokal. He submitted a paper to a leading postmodern journal filled with postmodern gibberish like “physical ‘reality’ and physics. . . is at bottom a social and linguistic construct.”
After the paper was published, he revealed the hoax, that it was all gibberish, adding that those who believe that physics really is a “social construct” should test their beliefs from his twenty-first floor window.
Christians should not be shocked at any of this. Romans 1 tells us that God’s truth is made plain in creation, and to deny this truth—in this case, “male and female created He them”—is to exchange the truth for lie, which Paul illustrates by an example of men lying with men, in other words, rejecting their God-given gender, which is a challenge to God’s created order. Well, today we have renewed that old lie—that we can create ourselves the way we want, and peeking doesn’t make any difference.
I don't know what I just ordered. Do you?
Your Friendly Neighborhood, Puzzled, Still Hungry but Willing to Give Them Another Chance, Because I'll be Hungry again, Maybe I Should Just Shut Up and Eat What They Give Me, Apatheist,
~Bill
The NY Times covered this all very well Nov. 7, 2006.
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