A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

More of an Idiot: "I have read the beginning and the end of this book several times before, but have never made it all the way through. Until now. In case you don't know, the novel follows the story of the French Revolution through the lens of Dr. Manette, who is released from the Bastille at the beginning of the novel; Lucie, his daughter; and her eventual husband, the French aristocrat, Charles Darnay. Dickens also spends a good deal of time in France, among the peasants, who are simultaneously oppressed and bloodthirsty.

I found Dickens's narration of history very hard to get through, both because it is dense and wordy and because I am not much of a history person. I wanted to take a pen and slice out a third of the words he used. Especially when he went on about kings and aristocrats and massacres and politics. Again, though, that is in part due to my interests. On the other hand, I fell in love with his good-hearted scoundrel character (a tendency of mine), and, in general, enjoyed the plot lines and the way Dickens wove them together. Mostly though, I just feel better read for having actually worked my way through the entire novel at last."

A Visitor!

So there was this time I worked at Yosemite National Park. Actually, in a round-about way, that was how this blog started. I served on a ministry team out there. I haven't seen most of the team for three years. However, a week ago Saturday, I had a guest : one of my teammates from Yosemite came down from Pittsburgh with an Ultimate team that she coaches! We walked through the 'burg and had a slumber party, and in general enjoyed each other's company. And that's all there is to that story.

Where from Here?

I can't believe I'm still playing catch-up! Now, I am at a week ago Wednesday.

Most (if not all) of my loyal readers know me in real life, so most (if not all) of my loyal readers know that I organized CCM's first-ever career fair. We have a strong CCM at the College, but one place we have to grow is in the transition from CCM into the Real World. In all honesty, the transition from college to life is hard. For many college students, the pre-scripted life path ends with graduation from college. We've gone from elementary school to middle school to high school to college, because, well, that's what we do. After graduation however, our future opens up into one frightening blank. No matter what we do in CCM, I don't think we can make that step overarchingly easy. That doesn't mean we can't help.

I had the idea at the beginning of this year that we should educate CCMers about what one can do within the Church. A "job fair" setting seemed logical, so I reserved a room and began sending out email after email to groups I thought should have a presence. Then I started searching various resources to discover new groups. Then I started hearing back -- a lot of "no"s, but often with suggestions of more contacts. I went for everything : graduate schools, service programs, justice and peace groups, charitable organizations, religious vocations, lay ministry... Ultimately, about a dozen people came representing all these categories.

Once I had enough "yes"s from groups that I knew we would have more guests than a handful of wonderful Sisters, I started worrying that no students would come. I advertised on Facebook, got into the campus listserv, hung flyers, and reserved a poster space in the student center. It became every third sentence out of my mouth when talking to our Board.

Students came. They came from the College, as well as from one east and one west of us. (Those schools brought their campus ministers too, who liked the program!) Some good conversations were had, both at the event and at the dinner afterward. I learned some details to change, and I will leave notes from my replacement, because I want it to happen again next year. I can see this event growing and becoming something bigger and better as time goes on.

Incremental Steps

"Even this narrow exception of condom use, however, is an acknowledgment by the pope that the journey to holiness is usually a long-term process...[I]ncremental steps, which may or may not withstand moral scrutiny on their own, can reflect long-term moral growth in the context of a greater path to holiness." ~John Mattras, of Busted Halo (my emphasis)

Pope Benedict XVI's comments on condoms and AIDS have been all over the news, overshadowing anything else he spoke about in his recently released interview-book. Here is the official news from the Vatican on that book. If you've been anywhere near the internet for the past three or four days, you have heard the uproar from all sorts of people in all sorts of forums. The Busted Halo article on the subject talks about gradations of morality -- that some sins are graver than others -- which stays in line with Catholic teachings. If you want a more official perspective, the Vatican clarified what the Pope meant. And did it again, in a shorter form, if you don't have much of an attention span.

From what I understand, nothing the Pope said is horribly revolutionary, though it certainly is a new addition to the conversation about AIDS. As I commented yesterday, society likes to lose track of what things are. A condom is not objectively evil. A condom is a thing. Things in and of themselves have no moral weight. The way in which something is used has moral weight. Now the Pope distinguishes between manners of using things and surprises everyone, because even most Catholics have come to think that condoms are evil.

Pumpkin Pie

A week ago Wednesday the Freshmen Outreach team held one of CCM's most awesome events of the year: Freshmen Pie Night (made of real freshmen). In preparation I had two pie-making occasions. Tuesday night, I aided two CCM guys (a grad and a law student) in pie-baking. They contributed an apple and a key lime pie, respectively.

Monday was mine own pie day. I took one of the pumpkins that we had purchased for CCM's Halloween party and proceeded to turn it into food. By which I mean, I gutted it, pulling out the seeds and cleaning them. Then I chopped it into pieces and steamed it. After steaming it, I took the peel off and stuck it into the blender to end with pumpkin puree. I baked the seeds and used the puree to make a pie. I had gone from round, Jack-o-Lantern-to-be to FOOD!

Now comes the point where I wax metaphorical. As I was turning pumpkin into food, I was listening to beautifully twangy country music and musing over the fact that I was getting food from a pumpkin. Almost every year as a child, I helped pick out a pumpkin, and we carved it into a jack-o-lantern. In fact, every time I have purchased a pumpkin or witnessed the purchasing of a pumpkin, it has been to create a jack-o-lantern. At the same time, I have eaten pumpkin pies, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin muffins... you get the picture. Yet never had I seen the process of transformation from round, orange gourd into pulpy puree. Pumpkin to carve is a gourd. Pumpkin to eat comes from a can.

We have divorced the meaning of the food pumpkin from the plant pumpkin. This divorce is a wider problem in our society : we forget what things are in our quest for convenience. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with canned pumpkin. Having turned a gourd into food, I now have about half a gallon of pumpkin that I need to use, and the process took a long time. Next time I cook with pumpkin, I will probably get a can -- after I use what's left of this pumpkin, of course. However, we rarely consider what our food is. When was the last time you thought about the cow that gave you your milk? The plant on which your coffee beans grew?

This approach to food might explain at least a part of America's health and obesity problems. The implications of the divorce of meaning go far beyond food, however. Most of the evils in the world can be traced back to this lack of understanding. Consider abortion. Our society can tolerate abortion because it denies the reality of what the unborn child is -- a child.

Other interpersonal evils -- the way we treat each other -- comes back to the same idea. We don't think about what our sexuality is; so we use each other. We pay no attention to our waste; so we destroy our planet. We don't think about who we are; so we accept less than what we deserve. I know it's pretty deep to go from a pumpkin, but all that was baked into the pie.

Day-Maker #13

I walked into the office this morning, having had both a birthday and a day off yesterday. My floor was covered with balloons, including a set that (when I put it together) read: "Happy birthday, Beth"! I also had a lovely card, signed by much of CCM and a glow-stick magic wand with a star on top. I'm thinking it's for board meetings.