Prayer Request

November 7, 2007 at 6:17 pm | In Family | 2 Comments

UPDATE: Mom is feeling much better now. The drug has been flushed out, the reaction is over. Thank you for your prayers, everyone!

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My mom has been having a rough time lately. She was taken off her prescription for a chronic condition because the specialist doctor thought she didn’t need it any more. Mom promptly demonstrated that a) some drugs you need to taper people off, and b) it’s a chronic condition, and only the prescription drug was keeping it away.

So she got put abruptly back onto the drug, which was equally rough on her system but at least stopped the problem. Then she caught that sore throat that’s going around, because her resistance was low. So she went to her regular doctor, received a prescription for a newish drug to stop the drippage — and suffered an allergic reaction. (Not anything too horrible, thank God, but still — scary.)

So if any folks out there would please keep my mother in their prayers, I’d sure appreciate it.

(And btw — St. Luke, Ss. Cosmas and Damian, and all you other medical doctor saints, I would really appreciate it if you’d put in a word about stopping the docs down here from experimenting with my mom’s prescriptions for insufficient reasons! I mean, sure, accidents happen, but this is turning into an episode of House, MD….)

James Rollins’ Greatest Jokes

November 6, 2007 at 8:08 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments

First off — James Rollins is a competent thriller writer who makes up some darned interesting plots and likeable characters. There’s nice scenery, too, and interesting use of equipment. A lot of his love scenes aren’t so great, but he actually left out the good guys having sex instead of doing their jobs — very unusual and groundbreaking in an adult action thriller! So in general, I enjoyed his book Map of Bones and hope to read more of his work.

But.

I did vaguely remember that bloggers had said there were some iffy history moments, and I was resigned to that; but at first, I didn’t need to be. What startled me was that, compared to most authors, he seemed to be doing so well. Mixing technothriller with medieval motives isn’t easy, and he seemed to be managing it. His portrayal of Catholic characters was realistic, and he even started off the book with a sympathetic look at Mass in a cathedral through a non-Catholic’s eyes. The action was harrowing, the characters generally failed to be stupid, and I was loving it.

And then….

There was this thing about “Thomas Christians” being a hidden faction of the Catholic Church, when there’s thousands of real Thomas Christians alive and well and living in India. (And not at all Gnostic, thank you.) There was this interesting speculation about manna which got dragged just a little beyond plausibility. Of course there were Knights Templar, and of course there were Masons. Wooooo, Masons. But best of all, there was (in a single scene!) the declaration that “levitate” was derived from “Levite” (as opposed to the Latin words “levitas”, lightness, and “levare”, to lift); and that the name of the Gothic architectural style was derived from “goetia” (the Latin word for black magic) as opposed to, say, an insulting name referring to the barbarian Goths (Visigoths, Ostrogoths, etc.).

I have seldom laughed so hard, or rolled my eyes so far up into my head.

Bl. Thomas Woodhouse — A Martyr to Remember

November 6, 2007 at 7:10 pm | In Church, History | 3 Comments

Blessed Thomas Woodhouse is a real character. I don’t recall ever hearing of him before last night, which is perfectly typical of the man. He was a real life Father Brown of Elizabethan times — sweet, humble, optimistic, likeable, determined to convert souls and make God’s point no matter what, and a lot sharper than people thought.

He was ordained during Queen Mary’s brief reign, and first appeared in history as an ordinary Lincolnshire parish priest and rector. He served there for less than a year before Elizabeth came in, and then ended up earning his bread as a tutor in Wales. He was arrested May 14, 1561, while saying Mass (under ‘Good’ Queen Bess that was a treasonous crime, remember?) and was sent to the Fleet Prison. He remained there for twelve years, living on charity. (You had to pay for your food and keep while imprisoned, or starve. Luckily, the jailers liked him.)

He was generally a model prisoner, but he consistently did as he thought best and could not be stopped. He converted his fellow prisoners to Catholicism. He said Mass for them regularly, despite rules and watchers. He wrote letters whenever it seemed good to him. He even preached to people outside the prison, by writing little messages calling people to repentance, then tying them to stones and throwing them through the windows or over the walls.

One nasty London year, the Fleet was evacuated to the head jailer’s country home, because of plague. It was during Lent, and Father Woodhouse got upset that the jailer was eating meat and not fasting on Fridays. He told the jailer sternly that he could not and would not remain in a house that did not keep Lent. The jailer thought he was joking; but the next morning, Woodhouse was gone. He remained missing until someone thought to check the empty prison. Sure enough, there was Fr. Woodhouse, quietly keeping Lent in his familiar cell.

Fr.Woodhouse kept up with current events, and it seems that he heard all about the good work being done in England by the brave Jesuit missionaries. He got so excited that he wrote to the French head of the Society of Jesus, asking to be admitted despite his obvious inability to fulfill the normal requirements at that time. Apparently, the Jesuits were touched by this, and sent him a letter back admitting him to their company. This made him very happy and proud, but he was too humbled by the honor to inform anyone but his confessor.

Not long after this, Fr. Woodhouse seems to have decided that it was time to step up his twelve-year campaign to get martyred. Obviously, the jailers were too nice. Someone else would have to be tried. It was time to get Ignatian. :) So he wrote a very kind, very earnest letter where he pointed out the obvious nullity of Elizabeth’s rule and all schismatic behavior. Then he hired one of the laundresses (whom he described in his famous letter as “a hot Protestant” and hence nobody to be punished or pursued) to deliver the letter to the house of Lord Burghley, Elizabeth’s treasurer, and then go right away again.

The letter got Lord Burghley’s attention, but mostly seems to have amused him. It seems probable that he only had Fr. Woodhouse called for questioning for amusement, or to see if he might name any other Catholics. But the interview deteriorated when the priest very nicely insisted on calling Lord Burghley by his surname, Cecil, because the noble title had been granted by someone who wasn’t really queen.

Father Woodhouse was on his way to a martyr’s crown, and nobody was going to stop him. There were some interviews designed to find him too crazy or stupid to kill, but Woodhouse quoted the Church Fathers and argued his theological points with great clarity. When the crowd on his way to Tyburn was a little too sympathetic, he sweetly went his own way by insisting on praying in Latin, and thus got them mad at him again. In the end, the executioners (who sometimes mercifully allowed a man to die of hanging before he was quartered) were so annoyed by his behavior that they insisted on keeping him alive, right up to the point his heart was ripped out while still beating. But cute, sweet, insignificant little Father Woodhouse died happy on June 19, 1573 — as the first Jesuit ever martyred in England!

The Fifth of November, by coincidence (or not), is when the Jesuits celebrate all their order’s canonized saints, as well as those named blessed or venerable. Some websites even forget to mention Blessed Thomas Woodhouse — which is entirely in keeping with his style! But I think he’s well worth recall.

Priest, confessor, martyr. Last minute Jesuit, occasional trickster, full time servant of God. Smart, simple, humble, and still under people’s radar.

Bl. Thomas Woodhouse, pray for us.

(Info in this post came from Lives of the English Martyrs (Vol. 2), edited by Dom Bede Camm. Another cool book by Camm is Forgotten Shrines, also at archive.org.)

Proof of Concept, or, Show Not Tell

November 2, 2007 at 6:24 am | In Uncategorized | No Comments

There’s a filker I know named Phil Textor, who’s been trying for quite a while (maybe since Joe Ellis first moved away? maybe since Simon Fairbourn played bassoon at his wife Talis Kimberley’s concert?) to advocate playing filk music on classical instruments. Preferably as a group, with actual sheet music arrangements.

But he didn’t have much success, until this year. This year, he wrote arrangements, emailed everybody who’d ever admitted in his presence to playing band instruments as a kid, and actually managed to convince four like-minded folks to rehearse and play. They weren’t great, but they were good enough.  As I watched, I could see the audience’s mental lightbulbs flicking on. It was obvious that the thing could be done, and reasonably well. So not only did Phil win his point and convince people to try for something bigger and better next year; he planted seeds in other people from other parts of the country, who now want to do something similar. (But better, of course! Everybody always thinks they can do it better, and that’s a good thing!)

I was reminded of this by a blog I ran across this morning. Somebody with some kind of foodie and dietetic interests recalls some good advice:

“We don’t need to try to convince people; we just have to seduce them with the food.“

This is one of the most significant passing comments I’ve heard in school so far. It’s really stuck with me. I made it the scrolling message on my computer screen saver at work. I find myself repeating it to myself silently…

I think seduction is always more convincing than argument. It’s about illuminating and unveiling something good and desirable instead of wielding carefully crafted arguments about the correctness of a course of action.

Could I give clients, friends, and family long, persuasive, informative lectures about why they should stop the 64-oz coke habit or add leafy green vegetables to their diets? You betcha! It’d be a damn good argument, too. But it wouldn’t work.

Here’s what works: Feed them. Shut up and feed them. This is the lesson I’m attempting to learn. Save the arguments (only use them if you’re asked for them) and bring them a plate of bulgur wheat and sauteed greens (all of it luscious, fresh, and flavorful)!

This seems to be an important principle of art and life. Arguments do have their place, but most of us are probably more likely to be convinced by showing us proof of concept or giving us a taste of what’s supposed to be so good. It’s not the artistic manifesto that wins support; it’s the art.

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