TWICE THE PRIDE, DOUBLE THE FALL

I just watched my favorite baseball team, the NY Mets, suffer what the statisticians say is the worst collapse of a baseball team in major league history. No team with a 7 game division lead in mid-September has ever lost their spot in the playoffs . Until now.

Interestingly enough, the Mets broadcasters - Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez, Ron Darling - said that part of the problem was "hubris." Anyone who's ever taken a literature class probably knows that hubris is defined by Webster's as "exaggerated pride or confidence." According to Cohen, Hernandez and Darling, some of the Mets were quoted this week as saying "Sometimes we're so good, we get bored." That statement reminded me of one of the only quotable lines in "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith," a movie not known for its sparkling dialogue. The line was "Twice the pride, double the fall." This is a fall that both the team and fans should remember for a long time. I know that whenever I get cocky, something happens that knocks me back to reality. The Mets have got 5 months to deal with that reality and hopefully come back smarter and better.

On a positive note, Cohen, Hernandez and Darling have become an insightful and entertaining broadcast team, and at this point, I will miss their work more than I'll miss watching the team play. I also admire them for not being afraid to criticize the team that employs them when it's well deserved. These guys will hopefully have many more years together.

I know many Met fans will hate me for this, but for the next few weeks, I'll be rooting for the Yankees. Sorry.

TonyRossiBlogger@gmail.com

WHEN DID THE HOLY SEE'S WATER RECEDE?

If you're dissatisfied with the way religion is covered in the mainstream media, here's an enlightening article from "Our Sunday Visitor" that does a great job at explaining why the MSM often get things wrong.

EXCERPT:
According to Raymond Arroyo, veteran journalist and host of EWTN's "The World Over," one of, if not the greatest, problem in the mainstream media's religion reporting is the reporters themselves. Many, he said, have little or no religious training, view faith as a mere curiosity and can't understand the significance of what they're covering. They also, he said, lack basic knowledge of religious history and doctrine.
Arroyo recalled one journalist for a major network approaching him at the papal conclave in 2005.
"He said, 'I know they call this the Holy See, so when did the water recede?' And he was being serious," Arroyo told Our Sunday Visitor. "Most journalists are stone dumb when it comes to theological matters. And this is a complex beat. You're dealing with thousands of years of history and laws. It's hard enough for me to get it right as a lifelong Catholic."
On top of that, Krista Tippett, who hosts the weekly National Public Radio program "Speaking of Faith," believes most journalists approach religion assuming that it's subjective and, therefore, not to be taken seriously.
"It's not that most people sit down and decide that," she said. "But the bias is there, which means journalists aren't taking the time and care to do the research and analysis they would for other stories."

LIGHT BLOGGING

My father's been in the hospital with pancreatitis since Saturday so I haven't had time for blogging. In the meantime, here's a link to an interesting blogpost about a popular book series.

EXCERPT:

Stephenie Meyer has taken the book world by storm. The first two novels in her Twilight series – 2005's Twilight and last year's New Moon – have over 1.6 million copies in print. Her highly anticipated third novel, Eclipse, was released on August 7 with a 1 million copy first printing and first day sales of 150,000 copies. Though billed as young adult, Meyer's books are a hit with teens and adults alike, evoking the inevitable comparisons to J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter. But what is it that makes Meyer's books so successful? The answer may surprise you.
Revolving around the relationship between human Bella and her vampire love Edward, Meyer's books have many elements of a successful YA novel: passion, danger, romance, rebellion (not to mention vampires and werewolves). But, despite the company they keep on the shelves, the Twilight novels mark a departure from the typical YA novels that have helped the category to explode in recent years, stirring up quite a bit of controversy in their wake. And understandably so, as many YA novels have strong sexual content even though they are targeted to teens and are of course being read by even younger readers. The popular Gossip Girls books, for example, have been described as "sex-saturated" by New York Times columnist Naomi Wolf, and recent YA titles such as Doing It, The Anatomy of a Boyfriend, and Restless Virgins make it clear what kind of content the books contain. Their age ranges? Fourteen and up.
But the overwhelming success of Meyer's books shows that both teens and adults may be growing tired of the constant stream of sex being sent their way, as the Twilight books contain no sex scenes or explicit content. In fact, they have strong abstinence themes, as well as quite a bit of chivalry and romance, with a twist of morality. And, to their readers, that makes them extremely sexy.

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON THE EMMYS

- I thought the presenters were great! Instead of the stilted, poorly-written, squirm-inducing presenter-banter usually featured during the Oscars, the Emmys presented funny bits by comedians or comic actors to introduce categories. From Brad Garrett and Joely Fisher to Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, these presenters were actually consistently entertaining to me as a viewer.

- Some people like to knock Ryan Seacrest but he's damn good at what he does. Hosting a live TV show - and making it look effortless - is no easy task. Ryan did a good job.

- One of my favorite acceptance-speech moments was Thomas Haden Church who won for the cable movie "Broken Trail" dedicating his award to David and Lynn Angell. For those who don't know, David Angell was one of the creators of the sitcom "Wings" on which Church got his start playing dimwitted mechanic Lowell. David Angell and his wife Lynn were killed in one of the terrorist plane crashes on Sept. 11, 2001. Invoking their names was a classy thing to do and a sign that Church remembers the people who helped him along the way.

- Sally Field could have had a memorable acceptance speech if she'd just stopped talking after making her point about mothers and war. But she had to keep going even when she couldn't remember what she wanted to say. It took away from her moment and turned it into heavy-handed sermonizing which got cut off on TV anyway. Sometimes public figures should be remembered that making a point and then being quiet can still be very effective.

- Hollywood worked Al Gore into another Awards show?

- And James Spader as Best Actor in a Drama?? Even he seemed embarrassed. I don't even watch "The Sopranos" and thought James Gandolfini deserved to win. (Kudos to Spader though for making a funny acceptance speech.)

- My favorite winner of the evening was Terry O'Quinn who plays John Locke on "Lost." His character has been compelling from the very beginning and he deserves this great recognition.

TonyRossiBlogger@gmail.com

THE STORM IS PASSING OVER

Becoming successful is a consuming passion for many actors. But “General Hospital” star Jason Gerhardt (Cooper Barrett) has a different set of priorities.

Jason’s original plans were to attend college and become either a politician or an investment banker. Though he did some modeling while in school to help pay the bills, he got a job with Sprint in Kansas City after graduation and planned to pursue his Masters degree. Then the acting bug bit.

As Jason recounted on the radio program “Personally Speaking with Monsignor Jim Lisante,” his reaction was somewhat unusual – “I prayed for God to take (the desire) away…but He never did. I wanted to make sure that my heart was right especially going into this kind of business. I’d…looked at it as kind of a frivolous profession. It’s just not me to go ‘hey look at me.’ Most of the people that I had met who wanted to get into this profession were more of those types of personalities.”

Since that desire never went away, Jason followed what he saw as God’s plan and became an actor. Though he ‘consulted’ with God on this major life decision, Jason wasn’t always so spiritually minded. That changed when he started attending the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Jason’s parents had gone through a nasty divorce while he was finishing high school so he arrived at college having gone through an emotional ringer. He joined the gospel choir, not because of any particular religious reasons, but because he enjoyed the energy and power of the music. One night, the choir was singing the hymn “The Storm Is Passing Over” when Jason was suddenly hit with an awareness of God and how much his life was in need of a relationship with his creator. While admitting he wasn’t a goody two-shoes during his college years, Jason found himself growing increasingly closer to God, and feeling the love, peace and joy He brings.

For Jason, living his faith beyond church walls is about being real. Regarding his evolution as a Christian, he said, “The more I’m centered in reading God’s word and praying, (I realize) it’s not that everything goes fine and that everything is beautiful and wonderful and all that. It’s that even amongst all the crap that might be going on in your life..., there’s always a sense of peace when you connect with the Father. It’s the joy and the love that he gives so abundantly even through all that stuff. You can always tap into it. It’s learning to tap into it more often rather than getting so busy and wrapped up in everyday life. That’s the maturity that continues to happen in my life.”

Jason also realized that others may be in a different spot on their journey of faith, and that it’s important to meet people where they are - “That’s the delicate balance in just sharing and understanding…Maybe (some people are) real ticked off at God because certain people have died in their life and they think God is to blame. So you’ve got to be sensitive to that and know that it’s okay. Sometimes that anger doesn’t mean they’re that far away from God. It actually means they’re closer, they’re thinking about it.”

Jason has a longstanding commitment to children’s ministries because he realizes that many kids today are motherless or fatherless or that they’re in families where they’re not taught that they’re children of a God who loves them and wants them to do wonderful things. His passion for helping kids only increased when he and his wife Chalae had their daughter Madyson. Jason notes that being a father has shown him the true riches of life. And fatherhood, he adds with a laugh, completely changed his idea of a good time on a Friday night. With a second child on the way in the Fall of 2007, Jason can look forward to many more of those good times.


TonyRossiBlogger@gmail.com

MORE ON HARRY POTTER

Mark Shea's blog has an insightful take on Harry Potter which, according to the blogosphere, is still stirring up significant controversy. Here's an excerpt from Shea:

One of the most common complaints about the books is that they seriously teach children a belief in magic and, in particular, introduce them to traffic with the demonic. A quick Google shows that plenty of ignorant Christians make fools of themselves leveling this charge (an activity that does much to persuade millions of normal people that the Church is, yet again, an island of irrelevance in an ocean of pain, bent on crushing one of the few joys that most people can agree on out of some perverse loathing of pleasure). As somebody who is involved in Catholic evangelization, I think this matters, not for the sake of the Harry books, but for the sake of the faith. When Christians run around shouting "Wolf!" and there is no wolf, it matters because sooner or later there will be a wolf and when he comes nobody will listen to us because we were the nutters who saw the hand of Satan in a Procter and Gamble logo and the killjoys who accused people of being dupes of the devil for the crime of enjoying a few diverting novels.

The simple fact is this: the books are not occultic. Magic is not real. The Latin doggerel spells don't work. There are no Blast-Ended Skrewts or giant spiders named Aragog. Ford Anglias don't fly and Whomping Willows do not exist. The book does not teach children to invoke demons. The magic of Harry is, as John Granger points out, "incantational", not "invocational", *exactly*, like the magic of Gandalf. You say the magic words and the door opens, whether it is the door to Moria or the door to the Gryffindor common room. No principalities or powers are invoked in Harry. Indeed, if any words are "invocational" they are the words occassionally uttered by characters in Middle Earth in which the Valar are called upon for strength and aid. Yet nobody accuses Tolkien of promoting the worship of false gods. That's because we understand Tolkien's fictional cosmos and it's rootedness in Catholic thought. I'm suggesting we trying to understand the same about Rowling's little cosmos too.

The reality is this: the use of magic in Harry Potter has exactly as much to do with the occult as it does in The Lord of the Rings or Narnia. As my friend Greg Krehbiel point out long ago, if your kid becomes involved in the occult because of HP, that's a comment, not on HP, but on the quality of catechesis in your home. That's not to deny that some people do use HP as an excuse for involvement in the occult. It is however to deny the next unjust charge: guilt by association.

THE MEANING OF ART

Flannery O'Connor is an acclaimed Catholic author whose Southern gothic stories ooze sin and salvation, grace and redemption. Follow this link to read about how O'Connor's faith made her art possible (and thanks to Jeffrey Overstreet at Looking Closer for originally highlighting this article):

EXCERPT:

O’Connor is concerned that many people treat art as valuable only for its propositional “meaning.” If we read fiction or poetry and we look for “the point” instead of immersing ourselves in the experience, we ruin our faculty for truly enjoying it. We will see or read or listen to great art and only think of it as a cipher to be broken. The pleasure of the art will be replaced by the pleasure of “figuring it out.” Sure, there is sometimes deciphering to be done, but that is not the point of a story or a poem.

Here is O'Connor's exhortation:

"I realize that a certain amount of this what-is-the-significance has to go on, but I think something has gone wrong in the process when, for so many students, the story becomes simply a problem to be solved, something which you evaporate to get Instant Enlightenment....

Properly, you analyze to enjoy, but it's equally true that to analyze with any discrimination, you have to have enjoyed already. (108)"

Fiction and poetry provide authors a unique way to glorify Christ that more overtly intellectual genres, like theology, simply can't. These genres that aim directly for the heart and soul—rather than aiming at the heart through the mind—do not argue for belief, they show what it looks like and make you feel it. Theology, devotionals, and other books in the “Christian Living” section of the bookstore talk about belief explicitly. Their goal is to explain truth as clearly as possible. Fiction and poetry, on the other hand, tell the truth, but tell it slant. They offer an author a way to give his beliefs flesh and blood by enacting them in the confusion of the real world. In fiction, belief is not what you look at, but what you look through.


TonyRossiBlogger@gmail.com

C.S. LEWIS AND MOTHER TERESA'S DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

A lot is being written about the spiritual and emotional disconnect from God that Mother Teresa endured for practically her entire ministry to the destitute and dying in Calcutta. Some writers who doubt the reality of God and relevance of faith have jumped on these revelations as proving their point - i.e. even one of the most devout Catholics of our age doubted the existence of God and heaven.

How should the rest of us who struggle to live by faith adjust to this news about Mother Teresa? I recommend the words of Christian author/theologian C.S. Lewis from his great satirical book "The Screwtape Letters." The book is composed as a series of letters from an older devil named Screwtape to a younger devil named Wormwood. In the letters, Screwtape offers Wormwood advice on how to lead people toward hell (and in turn shows readers how to avoid the devil's pitfalls). The following passage is particularly appropriate to Mother Teresa's dark night of the soul and how we can all view her struggles - and our own:

"(God) cannot tempt to virtue as we do to vice. He wants (human beings) to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there, He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks around upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."


TonyRossiBlogger@gmail.com

THE CULTURE OF LIFE & THE CHILDREN OF MEN

One of the Catholic Church's most debated teachings involves its opposition to contraception, even after a couple is married (a stance held by both Catholic and Protestant churches until the 1930's). Having read a number of articles about the reasons behind this teaching, it's still not an easy concept to grasp. But as I've often found, 'stories' - fiction or non-fiction - can clarify ideas much better than a sermon or article.

Such is the case with the P.D. James novel "The Children of Men." Most people will be familiar with the title because it inspired a movie version that was released in 2006. While the movie was good (even better in certain ways than the book), it unfortunately ditched many of the book's Christian social themes. "The Children of Men" is not churchy, preachy, or hit-you-over-the-head Christian. Instead, P.D. James - a devout Anglican - manages to seamlessly integrate Christian ideas into the story in a way that non-believers might not even notice.

The story begins in the United Kingdom in the year 2021 during an era called "Omega." Humanity is on the road to extinction because the world has not recorded one single childbirth since 1995. Though scientists worked tirelessly to discover the cause behind this sudden lack of fertility, they remain clueless 26 years later. Hopelessness and madness have spread throughout England reulting in a jump in violence and lawlessness. Under the guise of security, the British government has become so tyrannical and all-intrusive in people's lives that law enforcement has achieved what one character calls "a refinement of cruelty." And since the government would want to control any woman who might miraculously give birth, they subject all healthy females to time-consuming forced examinations of their fertility every 6 months.

Theo Faron, the story's protagonist, is a man detached from loving relationships of any kind. He describes himself as having ensured "that there are no unexpected visitors in my self-sufficient life." When Theo is called on to protect the first woman in the world to become pregnant in 26 years, he undergoes a moral awakening that leads him down some dangerous paths.

The film version of "The Children of Men" emphasized what happens to societies when civil rights are suspended. The book, however, focuses just as much if not more on the "life" issues involved.

Recalling the evolution of the infertility problem, Theo says, "We thought that we knew the reasons - that the fall was deliberate, a result of more liberal attitudes to birth control and abortion, the postponement of pregnancy by professional women, the wish of families for a higher standard of living...Most of us thought the fall was desirable, even necessary. We were polluting the planet with our numbers...When Omega came it came with dramatic suddenness and was received with incredulity."

Described in these terms, the story seems like an all too plausible scenario. In a society that has largely divorced sex from procreation, no one ever followed that attitude about reproductive choice to its logical if unlikely conclusion. Now, Omega has arrived and the despair is overwhelming.

There is a marked increase in suicides by middle aged people who would "bear the brunt of an ageing and decaying society's humiliating but insistent needs." Also, every reminder of children (schools, toys, playgrounds) has been removed from the public landscape "except for the dolls, which have become for some half-demented women a substitute for children."

People's attitudes toward sex have also changed in an unexpected way. Theo says, "Sex has become among the least important of man's sensory pleasures. One might have imagined that with the fear of pregnancy permanently removed, and the unerotic paraphernalia of pills, rubber and ovulation arithmetic no longer necessary, sex would be freed for new and imaginative delights. The opposite has happened. Even those men and women who would normally have no wish to breed apparently need the assurance that they could have a child if they wished. Sex totally divorced from procreation has become almost meaninglessly acrobatic."

The lack of children has also resulted in an inability to feel romantic love in its fullest and most meaningful form - "We need the comfort of responsive flesh, of hand on hand, lip on lip. But we read the love poems of previous ages with a kind of wonder."

In a culture like ours where sex is often viewed as purely recreational, this fictional world gives us points to ponder. Maybe there's more truth to the church teaching on sex as "mutual self giving" than people realize. Perhaps a greater openness to children would be a good and beneficial idea for our society.

I've always thought that the church's moral rules were ultimately designed to keep individuals or societies from engaging in behaviors that would ultimately harm them. The problem is that the church often does a lousy job of explaining the reasons behind those rules in an understandable, relatable way. With that in mind, "The Children of Men" should be required reading for anyone interested in how "culture of life" issues can affect our world.


TonyRossiBlogger@gmail.com

The Kingdom - Trailer

Being a fan of Jennifer Garner since her debut on "Alias," I wanted to highlight her upcoming movie which has been getting some good buzz and seems to return Jenny to butt-kicking mode.

PREPARE TO BE MOCKED

Comedian Bill Maher has long made it known that he pretty much hates religions of all kinds but especially Christianity. Now Maher and Larry Charles, the director of Borat, have traveled around the world filming a documentary that mocks religion. My problem with Maher and others like him isn't that he doesn't believe the way I believe; it's that he thinks he's smarter and better than me because he doesn't believe what I believe.

I am well aware that religions of all kinds attract their share of wackadoos and loudmouths. Plus, the religious spokespeople who make it on TV news reports tend to be the types who generate attention, not necessarily make intelligent, rational arguments. But I'm firmly convinced that the majority of people of faith are decent and loving. They are mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters who are trying to build a good life for themselves and their families. They demonstrate their love for God through personal prayer & practices, and are motivated to leave the world a little better than they found it. But Bill Maher ignores these people. His documentary, being a comedy, will of course focus on the freaks and present them as average, ordinary and typical.

I think people of faith need to be prepared to counter some of the negative publicity that will come with this film's release in 2008. It doesn't require screaming and boycotts because that will just prove Maher's point about how ridiculous and irrational religious people are. Instead, collect three stories about people whose faith has motivated them to do something positive for the world around them, who relied on God to help through difficult times, whose faith stories are worth sharing. Then when local newspapers start covering the film, send them your stories and request equal time. If they get inundated with these requests, attention will be paid. So give it some thought. You have months to prepare.

In the meantime, here's a piece reacting to Bill Maher's appearance on Larry King by Fox News commentator Father Jonathan.

If Judaism or Christianity actually taught even a fraction of the absurdities Bill Maher apparently thinks they teach, I would send him my resume and petition him to bring me on as a co-producer of his upcoming documentary, “The Absurdity of Religion” (title still indefinite), as announced last night on "Larry King Live." I, too, would want to reveal the fraud.

I suspect we would make perfect business partners — a publicist’s dream team. My work as an adviser on the set of Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ,” my role as an analyst for the FOX News Channel and the fact my home/workplace is a stone's throw from the Vatican might partially offset Mr. Maher’s reputation as being somewhat biased toward things religious. Together, we would laugh our way all the way to the box office and perhaps liberate a few paltry-minded believers along the way.

But there’s one problem: Not a fraction of Bill Maher’s statements about Christian and Jewish beliefs coincide with what, in fact, Christianity and Judaism say of themselves.

Unlike in Bill Maher’s world of comedy (where he truly excels), in theology, truth is not optional, opportunistic or malleable. Things are, or they aren’t, but they can’t be both.

Because Mr. Maher has decided to step out of his field of expertise and into mine, in a genuine spirit of dialogue, I would like to clarify a few things here that he has managed to jumble. You will notice that I am assuming the best — that Mr. Maher simply doesn’t know what Christianity really teaches.

• If Christianity really taught that God took out a pen, wrote a book for us, called it the Bible and dropped it from the clouds, I, too, would doubt. But Mr. Maher, Christianity doesn’t teach that. As history shows, human beings wrote the Bible and, according to Christian belief, their writing was divinely inspired. Christians don’t suggest they can prove such inspiration with material evidence (the only kind skeptics would accept), but they consider faith (the assent of the heart) capable of grasping some immaterial, spiritual realities — like this one. On another note, from a purely historical standpoint, I think you would agree that 2,000 years of continual belief should be given some weight. In all this time, nobody has proven the Bible is NOT inspired, and therefore, by the same standard of material evidence, we should all agree that nobody can say Christians are definitely wrong about inspiration.

• If Christianity really taught that the man in the jungle who has never heard the name of Jesus is going to be damned forever to hell, I, too, would doubt. But Mr. Maher, Christianity doesn’t teach that. We are responsible to God in as much as God reveals himself to us. Christianity teaches that the saving grace of Jesus Christ is bigger than our date or place of birth. Christians believe God gives all of his children, in ways often unknowable to our little brains, the opportunity to accept or reject his love.

• If Christianity really taught that God created cancer, child abusers and earthquakes to torture his own children, I, too, would doubt. But Mr. Maher, Christianity doesn’t teach that. The evil in this world is not willed by God. Christianity teaches both physical and moral evil is a result of a world that is out of wack as a result of the misuse of our own human freedom. Like a good parent, God allows us to make mistakes and to live with the consequences. And even so, he doesn’t abandon us. He promises to bring forth a greater good out of every instance of evil. Ask someone with faith who has suffered great pain or loss and they will surely tell you how God has made good on his promise.

• If Christianity really taught that God sometimes commands us to kill the innocent in his name, I too would doubt. But Mr. Maher, Christianity doesn’t teach that. This would go against the very nature of God as all-loving and all-just. I am equally as scandalized as you are when I see religious people, in our checkered past and present, mistake their own pride and ignorance for the voice of God and march off to holy war. As Pope John Paul II said, “War is always a failure of humanity.”

• If Christianity really taught that people with homosexual tendencies are all going to hell, or that somehow they are not God’s children, I, too, would doubt. But Mr. Maher, Christianity doesn’t teach that.

And the explanations about what Christianity says about itself, and how this differs from Bill Maher’s subjective understanding, could go on and on. I only hope that when he travels, as promised, to the Holy Land and to the Vatican with his team of investigative journalists to do “research” for his new documentary about the absurdity of religious belief (to be released, of course, in the Easter season), he stops by my place, or the place of any of the more than two billion Christians and Jews who will explain why his vision of their religion, is, well … rather absurd.

God bless, Father Jonathan

P.S. A personal note to Bill Maher: I spend quite a bit of time in New York City. In the case it doesn’t work out for us to meet up at the Vatican during your travels, let me know and we can work out something on your side of the Atlantic.

COUNTERING 'THE GOD DELUSION'

Here's a link to an interview with Oxford acholar Alister McGrath who counters the arguments Richard Dawkins sets forth in his best-selling book "The God Delusion." As atheist fundamentalists are rising in popularity, McGrath shares some insights worth reading.

Excerpts:

ALISTER McGRATH used to be an atheist. Now he’s an Anglican theologian.

And he’s taking on one of the most aggressive and polemical atheists of our time, Richard Dawkins, author of the bestselling book The God Delusion.

Like Dawkins, McGrath is a professor at the University of Oxford and a scientist. But unlike the zoologist Dawkins, he is an expert in historical theology, philosophy as well as molecular biophysics. It’s an expertise that led him to write The Dawkins Delusion?, published earlier this year.

In addition to lecturing on historical theology, McGrath also helps run the newly-established Oxford Center for Christian Apologetics, and is currently researching the iconic role played by Charles Darwin in atheist apologetics.
*******************
Q: The essence of this debate, between believers and atheists, is an old one, but how do you think this particular debate is different from those in the past?

A: That’s a very good question. I think the intensity is much, much greater. When you read The God Delusion, it’s extremely aggressive, it’s very dismissive, it prejudicially stereotypes those who believe in God, and I don’t see that in older atheist writings in the 1950s and ’60s. I see criticism but not ridicule. So there’s a change in tone but in terms of the arguments used, I have to say with great sadness that I’ve read The God Delusion very closely and it is a recycling of older positions, many of which are already discredited, and I find myself just astonished that it’s being done.

Q: Do you think it’s really a moneymaking exercise on the part of Dawkins, that he’s merely exploiting people’s current ignorance of religion in our secular age?

A: The God Delusion works as a piece of writing only if the reader is very ignorant or very prejudiced against religious believers. In other words, they don’t know what they believe and they don’t really know very many people [who believe], so they have these rather odd ideas of what people who believe in God are actually like. Those who are acquainted with the field, whether they are religious believers — or atheists — are very, very concerned by the book because it is so obviously dependent on misrepresentation, misunderstanding and so forth. Indeed, in North America, the most scathing reviews have not come from the religious commentators, who are generally disregarded as just being not worthy of serious comment. The most serious, negative reviews have come from atheists who feel that Dawkins is doing atheism a very bad turn, that Dawkins is portraying atheism as extremely ignorant and prejudicial.

A LIFE OF LEISURE

Sometimes a TV show can remind you of life's little truths. That's what happened to me while watching an episode of "The Andy Griffith Show" about what happens when Andy hires Malcolm, a visitor to Mayberry, to help Aunt Bea with her chores around the house. Aunt Bea, for those who don't know, is like a lovable grandmother who cooks, bakes, cleans and generally cares for her loved ones. Andy hires help because he thinks she's overworked and deserves to be a woman of leisure. As Aunt Bea's life of leisure progresses, we witness her becoming less joyful and ultimately losing her spark for life. While Andy meant for her to relax more, Aunt Bea finds she has lost her purpose. She lives to care for her loved ones and didn't mind all the seeming impositions. There's a scene where Andy's son Opie (Ron Howard) comments that Malcolm sings while he does his work. Malcolm responds that he sings when he works because it gives him purpose which makes him happy. Opie then says that Aunt Bea used to sing a lot when she worked but now she doesn't sing at all. Realizing that he has actually done a disservice by taking on so much work, Malcolm leaves Andy's household and Aunt Bea happily resumes her old routine.

This story resonated with me because Aunt Bea reminds me of my grandmother, Anna. Even when she hit her nineties, she was consumed with staying busy. She would cook for herself, my uncle, and sometimes for me and my parents. She was always dusting, sweeping, and washing the porch.

Much of her life had consisted of this kind of caretaking especially the many years when my grandfather suffered from Parkinson's Disease. We thought she'd ease up when she got older - and she did to a degree. When she hit 85, she stopped shoveling snow (though she did sweep the light stuff off the porch). I couldn't understand why she didn't take it easy more because she definitely didn't need to do as much as she did - and we, her family, always offered our help.

Then, years ago, I saw this episode of "The Andy Griffith Show" and it registered. My grandmother's work gave her life purpose. She had loved ones for whom she could do things and that made her happy. And she was stiil in surprisingly good shape in her nineties so this approach was obviously working. We, her family, definitely focused on helpign her out with things but never to the point where we took all her work away. That would have done more harm than good.

Even in the final months of her life when she was unexpectedly diagnosed with fatal leukemia, we let my grandmother continue to do some cooking because it made her feel useful. I tried telling her to relax so she could preserve her strength but that just made her angry. Her hardworking, independent streak remained with her until her final couple of weeks.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to do nothing. And for an occasional short period of time, it is nice to do nothing. But we all need some kinds of activities to give our lives purpose especially when those activities are geared toward people we love. It may require some hard work and sacrifice on our part. But sometimes that's a good thing regardless of how old you are.

(If anyone is interested, that episode of "The Andy Griffith Show" is "The Return of Malcolm Merriweather" on the Season 4 DVD box set)


TonyRossiBlogger@gmail.com

SING THE SONG STILL TO BE SUNG

(Portions of this interview originally appeared on BustedHalo.com in 2006)Photo by Kristen Barlowe

Grammy winning singer/songwriter Kathy Mattea has survived her share of personal and career challenges - from a broken blood vessel on her vocal chords that nearly ended her career to speaking out on behalf of AIDS victims when the Nashville establishment preferred she stay silent. In recent years, however, Kathy’s troubles seemed to reach an almost insurmountable level. In addition to a long separation from her husband which nearly led to divorce, she witnessed the slow deterioration of her father to cancer and her mother to Alzheimer’s. But as Kathy writes in an essay about the making of her album Right Out of Nowhere, “I have learned that when I am the most vulnerable, I am the most teachable if I can stay awake through the pain.”

In order to get through this dark period, Kathy was able to draw on a faith that was formed in a small Catholic church in West Virginia and that has always been a consistent presence in her life. Throughout her career, that faith has been reflected in her music. Her first album included the song “God Ain’t No Stained Glass Window” which dealt with the necessity of a relationship with God outside the confines of church walls and organized religion. Her latest album, “Right Out of Nowhere,” continues those spiritual themes with songs like 'Only Heaven Knows' and 'Give It Away.'

Though historically a country artist, Kathy Mattea’s music can’t be pigeonholed because it includes folk, celtic, blues and gospel influences. Her songs also have the ability to be reflective and insightful without sacrificing a catchy hook or melody.

Kathy took the time to talk with me about the Catholic upbringing that formed her adult faith, the challenges and blessings she experienced taking care of her ailing parents, the factors that led to a reconciliation with her husband, and how she practices the Christian ideal of service.

Tony: Let’s talk about God and faith because they play such a prominent role in your songs. Your father was Catholic and your Mom was Baptist. At a time when interfaith marriages weren’t that common, how did the 2 of them get together?

Kathy: My mom had lost a husband. She had two small boys. She moved onto a farm with her sister and brother-in-law. They would always play cards and stuff at night, and my dad would come over because he was friends with my uncle. My dad loved kids but there was some medical history that made him reticent about getting married and having kids. But he fell in love with the boys and eventually fell in love with my mom. And she actually went through the whole process of catechism and converting and everything. Then there was a big blow up with a particular priest. And – this was my mom’s way – she got so mad that she said, “I’ll show you” and she never joined the church.

Tony: I know you were raised Catholic but did your parents integrate both faith traditions in your home life?

Kathy: No. You had to sign this thing that you would raise your kids Catholic. And my mom didn’t really have a religion. She’d go to church on Easter and Christmas.

Tony: So your father was the primary Catholic in the house who taught you about faith?

Kathy: Yeah, and my dad was also a real thoughtful person. So we would have long discussions about the church and doctrine and insights that he had. He would say, “Hmm, I think this is good but I’m not sure I agree with this part.” At a certain point late in his life he said, “There’s a lot about the Catholic Church I don’t agree with but it’s the church I grew up in, it’s where I belong, it’s where my point of view is, and I can go with an open heart and be there.” You know he didn’t pretend but he didn’t have to give it up either. I just thought that was so beautiful.

Tony: You’ve said that you attended a “funky little Catholic church” growing up. (KATHY LAUGHS) Tell me about what that church experience was like.

Kathy: The church is not there anymore. They tore it down and built a bigger church. I love telling the story of my church because it’s so anti the norm of what you think of as the Catholic experience. We had a small wooden church in a small town right across the street from a giant brick Baptist church. If you rang the bell of our church, the steeple was in danger of falling off the church because it was so rickety. To keep people from ringing the bell, they tied the rope high enough so that people couldn’t reach it. So for my entire childhood, the rope to the bell hung through a hole in the ceiling in the back of the church tied in a hangman’s noose. (KATHY LAUGHS). And it was very much just a small town church instead of the big – you know, I think of Catholic churches as being sort of majestic – and this was just a funky little church. We had great music and in a lot of ways that really deepened my connection to the church. A lot of people who don’t consider themselves Catholic anymore have a lot of resentments about the Church. But I feel really lucky to have grown up in a church like that because I felt connected. I felt like I was able to glean all the good stuff.

Tony: When you were growing up going to that church, what was your image of God? Was it the authoritative, punishing God or the forgiving merciful God?

Kathy: I really felt like it was a practical God. And part of that was that I loved the way the homilies were. It wasn’t just “be good or you’ll go to hell” or all about fear. It was like “Here’s a mini theological lesson. You’ve got to understand this in context.” We did the gospel reading, and then the priest would say, “And in the other gospels, the story comes out like this. And here’s the history of John’s point of view and who he was and what he did and how he came to be an apostle. So here’s how we see the point of view of the lesson.” And it all got related back to your real life and I just felt like God was my best friend. God was benevolent. But it wasn’t all simple. I had to do the deal.

Tony: You had to put something into it to get something out of it.

Kathy: Exactly.

Tony: The music that was in that church – do you feel it inspired or somehow directed your own musical career?

Kathy: Boy I tell you there was something I felt when we were doing that music that was transcendent which is what music does for me. That, for me, is what art is in this world for. It wakes something up in us that is beyond words and gives us insights from the inside out experientially, and I definitely had that in that church. And I’ve had it in religious contexts and secular contexts ever since.

Tony: In your college and young adult years, did you drift away from God and faith like many young people do?

Kathy: I drifted away from the church but I’ve always had this sense of God as being real. But I would get lazy. I also had a lot of conflict about the balance between a personal relationship with God and a sense of a community relationship – in terms of church needing to be like a membership in a group. I had to work my way through that part as well. I went from believing in my own personal relationship with God and thinking church was too much about dogma no matter where you go. And then I would kind of drift the other way. I went back and forth. And I feel like in my life right now, I have a nice balance of those two things.

Tony: On your album “Roses,” you recorded a song called “Till I Turn To You.” I like the song because it takes a brutally honest look at the difficulties of doing things God’s way instead of our own way. In particular, there’s the line, “I know others fall down on their knees for mercy / But you may have to hurt me before I see the light.” Which type of person are you – the one who falls down on their own to ask for mercy or the one who needs a little convincing?

Kathy: Oh, it’s pain. But you see my point of view today is that that pain is not caused by God. That pain is caused by me staying in my own will. And a lot of times I have to - because I’m a stubborn cuss – I have to do it my own way until it hurts bad enough that I am willing to try something else and I’m willing to let that help in. And to me, that’s the nature of sin. It’s not “I do bad.” It’s “I’m blind.” If I’m doing things my own way, sometimes even if it’s painful, that is the known experience. And when I let go of the known, that’s where the rubber meets the road about whether God is real or not real – about faith. Many times that feels like free-falling off a cliff and I will hold onto the painful thing until I have no choice because I want the comfort and predictability of that misery. But eventually it hurts so bad that I have no choice but to surrender. And that’s my cycle.

Tony: So even though you know it in your head, you still wind up having to go through it all the time anyway.

Kathy: Yeah, because the stuff of life comes at you from a different angle every time like the stuff with my dad and watching him physically deteriorate. But he was wide open about it and we had great talks about life and God and what it’s all about and what he learned. He just always squeezed out his wisdom like a tube of toothpaste as he walked towards his death. My mother completely checked out. Her mind broke because she could not bear the idea. They were two different kinds of anguish. So it comes at you different every time. You think, I went through that with him but this is a completely different experience.

Tony: Were you able to find any blessings during the time of your parents’ illnesses?

Kathy: Oh my God, so many of them. You know there was this moment with my mother that was the defining moment of that concept you just brought up. It was about a year before she died and I made a driving trip to visit some old college friends. And on the way I stopped at my Mom’s house. And as part of this, I had ordered a guitar for a friend of mine’s kid and so I had it sent to my mom’s house in West Virginia. When I got there, it arrived. I thought I better check it out to make sure it got shipped okay, that nothing got damaged. So we’re sitting on the porch and I tune the thing up and I hit a chord and my mother starts singing “Love at the Five and Dime” (Editor’s Note: one of Kathy’s first hit songs). My mother, you have to understand, was tone deaf and would never sing. And she starts singing it. And I wasn’t singing, I was just hitting the chord to see if the guitar worked! And the caregiver looked up and she said, “Oh that’s right. She gets restless around dinner every night because she feels she should be doing something so we bring her in the kitchen when we cook dinner and bring the little boom box in to play your greatest hits record every night and she sings along.” So I got that record out and went through the titles in order and my mom sang every song with me. And she couldn’t make a sentence at that point!

Tony: But she remembered all the lyrics?

Kathy: She remembered all the lyrics and sang with me. And you know even as late as this summer when she didn’t know who I was and she didn’t remember why she was supposed to know me, she could still sing all the verses of “You Are My Sunshine” to me. And that is a picture to me of how deeply seated music is for us and how important it is.

Tony: And that is a moment you’ll carry with you forever.

Kathy: Forever.

Tony: Alright, let’s switch gears a little bit and talk about marriage. You’ve been open about the fact that you faced a separation from your husband Jon. But the marriage survived by evolving in some way.

Kathy: Yeah and it’s still evolving...So many times I think we make a decision to get ourselves out of the pain. But it’s sitting in that pain and hanging out with God that gives us the answer to the deeper questions in life. But our culture doesn’t encourage us to do that.

Tony: Some people’s problems with marriage have to do with forgiveness. Somebody did something wrong and they associate forgiveness with giving in. How have you learned to define forgiveness through your marriage?

Kathy: Forgiveness is between me and me always. I used to think that forgiveness was taking the high road and saying, “Okay, I’ll forget about this.” It was almost like this sanctimonious thing.

Tony: Like an ego boost?

Kathy: Exactly. There was a point in my marriage, as part of my spiritual exercise, I made amends to my husband for the things that I had done in the marriage to bring us to this crisis. At the end of that I realized that by sitting there and owning what I had done in this marriage, suddenly all the wrongs I felt had been done to me just didn’t matter anymore. I could see very clearly that I contributed as much to where we were as he had. So suddenly instead of forgiveness being about pronouncing him not guilty, forgiveness was really about not judging in the first place. So instead of it being about letting somebody off the hook, when you’ve really forgiven, there’s no hook to let somebody off of anymore.

Tony: So essentially in your relationship with your husband and your relationship with God, it’s when humility is there that the good stuff happens.

Kathy: Absolutely. God doesn’t see any difference between us. He loves us all just the same. We can’t make a mistake big enough for God to not love us. We can not forgive ourselves and therefore cut ourselves off from being able to see that love. That’s where the work is to me.

Tony: You mentioned before you did spiritual exercises. Was that anything specific you could talk about?

Kathy: Part of my journey has been becoming a 12 step person. I’m not addicted to any substance or anything like that. But it has been walking through those twelve steps – and I know colleagues who’ve done it; I know people who’ve done it through their church. I have a friend who lost her husband to cancer and she joined a support group at her church. As part of their exercises, they took a sort of Christian approach through the twelve steps. And if you do them, if you actually do them, they will change your life. To me that process has been like taking my glasses off and cleaning them and putting them back on. And suddenly it’s like, “There’s God. He was there all along. I just had all this crap in the way and couldn’t see Him.”

Tony: Did you ever feel overwhelmed by everything that was going on?

Kathy: I did but what I did differently this time is that I found a support system and I stayed more connected with other people than I have with some of the other challenges I’ve been through in my life. And I have a friend who talks about healing and community – that’s a big part of why we’re all here. That didn’t just save me, it didn’t just allow me to eke through. It gave me a new point of view about what the world’s really all about and what a gift this life is. And just like any difficult experience that you rise to meet, it does transform you. I think that it really transformed how I am in all the different aspects of my life.

Tony: I know the support system can be crucial because, myself, I’m good at giving help but not so good at asking for it. So the fact that you got to the point where you could seek support and accept it is a great step forward.

Kathy: Sometimes you get so broken that you have no choice and that’s when you really get humbled. Because I think that not being able to receive help has as much ego in it as giving with ego. There is this ebb and flow to life and there are times when I can’t do it by myself and I have to get humble enough to say “Help.” And then I have to remember to give from that same place. And then you really get to see that we’re all just schmoes in the room. We’re just all here in this life finding our way in this human experience.

Tony: Right. Somebody once said ‘when you’re broken, that’s when God comes in.’

Kathy: It’s true. You know that Leonard Cohen song? The chorus says “Ring the bell that’s still to be rung / Sing the song still to be sung / Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.” I’ve gone back to that so many times.

Tony: Is it tough sometimes to get yourself out of the way and let God do the driving?

Kathy: Oh boy, you think! (KATHY LAUGHS) That’s the lifelong struggle of being human isn’t it. If I could get out of God’s way, God could do amazing things in my life. But when I get scared I take the reins back. There’s this great little thing I put on my web site, I heard somebody say it one time: “Life is like a rowboat. If you row, God will steer. God will be happy to let you steer. But the thing is God doesn’t row.”

Tony: I know you continue to stay involved in AIDS charities and cancer charities. Who instilled that ideal of service in you?

Kathy: It’s been an interesting journey because there are many opportunities to do service as a public person and I feel like I’ve done pretty good with that. But there needs to be a sense of (service) in a personal way. And that’s what I’ve been working on in recent years. I started a tithing program for myself and just started trying to do a little bit of service work every day, even the smallest thing. And that’s been a real different kind of focus for me, and that makes all the pressure not be on doing it so publicly.

Tony: Since you’re getting immediate feedback from people, does that help you in a spiritual sense too?

Kathy: Yeah, I think that’s one of the really big lessons about life is that we think that love comes from outside of us. And when you do service work, you get to learn that love – when you give it – you get the energy going the opposite way and realize there’s this bottomless well of love in you. It is not a finite thing. It is an infinite thing. Sometimes you can only learn that by giving it. Someone told me a story yesterday. They are friends with this woman who spent a lot of time with Mother Teresa and she was talking about being at an orphanage and they had to catch a plane. And this was in India and they were leaving the country so it was imperative that they don’t miss this plane. And they were going out to the car and one of the nuns came out and said that there’s this dying baby. Mother Teresa turned back to go inside and this woman was saying, “We’ve got to catch this plane, we’ve got to catch this plane, you can’t go back inside, we’re going to be late.” And she said that Mother Teresa turned around to her. She said, “I have to go see this baby.” And she said, “I will come, I will come to the plane.” And she said the thing that astounded her at that moment was that Mother Teresa had as much compassion for her and her anxiety about the plane as she did about the dying baby. That deep of a well of compassion only comes from living it in every second of your life. I looked at my friend who told me that story and I said we have so far to go.


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Alison Krauss-A Living Prayer

Simply a beautiful song.