Monthly Archives: August 2012

On Controversy

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I am not a controversialist. I seem not to have the “happy warrior” gene that animates people like Leah Libresco; she can argue vigorously about deep matters with those that deeply disagree with her without apparently losing charity with them. And then, the few times I’ve tried to give someone else’s post a righteous fisking I’ve always repented of it later. It simply doesn’t seem to be my calling to tell people how wrong they are. So I don’t engage in controversy on other people’s blogs, and I don’t spend my time blogging about the latest scandal.

And then, I tend to avoid blogging about my own views on controversial subjects, for two reasons. First, it attracts controversy, which means I need to tell people who disagree with me why I think they are wrong, and second, I hate being misunderstood, and to avoid being misunderstood on a controversial topic you have to watch absolutely everything you see and be particularly careful to nuance everything properly, which makes me succumb to nuance fatigue before I even get started. And then, of course, people read right past the nuance, and tell you how evil and bigoted you are without taking time to understand what you said.

At least, people don’t usually do that to me, because I’ve already succumbed to nuance fatigue and so haven’t written anything controversial, thus not giving them a target.

However, the afore-mentioned Leah Libresco has written some posts on same-sex marriage recently that have gotten me thinking. I could respond in her comment box; but hey, I’ve got my own blog, and I’d rather do it here, especially since my thoughts are somewhat tangential to the point she was trying to make.

If I say that I support traditional marriage (which I do), or that I oppose same-sex marriage (which I do), I expect to have people tell me that I’m a homophobic anti-gay bigot. Leah doesn’t do that—as a happy warrior, she avoids the ad hominems—but she notes that those living in stable, loving, same-sex relationships are liable to think that I want to break up their families. I don’t, in fact; but I’ve decided that it’s worthwhile for me to work out, in detail, just what I do mean when I say that I support traditional marriage and oppose same-sex marriage, and just what effect I think my views should have (if any!) on said stable, loving, same-sex relationships.

I hesitate to say that I’m starting a series of blog posts, because when I do that I tend to write one or two posts and then never come back to the topic again. On the other hand, there’s a lot more to be said than I can fit into a single post. So what I propose to do (and feel free to hold me to this) is to post a number of reflections, all exploring aspects of the issue, rather than trying to post a connected linear series of arguments. We’ll see how it works out.

A few comments on comments, although it’s probably a waste of time. I welcome comments; however:

  • If you are rude, insulting, abusive, or obscene, your comment will not see the light of day.
  • If you are egregiously off-topic, or try to ride your own hobby-horse rather than my own, I may suppress your comment. If so, I’ll try to tell you why I’ve done so.
  • I especially welcome requests for clarification.
  • I find it hard to express myself about complex matters in the comment box. If your comment requires a lot of thought, I’m more likely to try to work it into a subsequent post than deal with it in place.

Not that I usually get that many comments…but controversial topics seem to bring commenters out of the woodwork.

On Distractions and Detachment

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Julie wrote a post today that jibed with something I’ve been pondering, and nudged me enough to actually write something about it. In her post, she’s talking about taking time for prayer, and recognizing that that time for prayer is supposed to be a time of rest.

As a Lay Dominican, I pray the Divine Office every day (Morning, Evening, and Night Prayer, also known as Lauds, Vespers, and Compline). I like the Divine Office, because I don’t need to be with it. Some days I really enjoy spending time in prayer; and other days I’m tired and distracted. If I’m not with it, I still know when I’ve said my prayers that I’ve spent time with God…and the fact of the matter is, my feelings about my prayer time are a very poor indicator for the quality of my prayer time.

Still, even if I’m not with it it’s still necessary to focus as best I can. And that’s where distractions are a problem. It’s way too easy to sit down to the Office with a sense of rush: I want to sit down and do this so that I can move on to something fun. And so even as I pray, my mind is on what I want to do next. (For some reason this is especially a problem on weekends, when my time is my own and there’s nothing that I particularly have to do next.)

So it occurred to me the other day…a big part of the growing in the Christian life is detachment. I’m not expert in this, but detachment, as I understand it, is all about putting God first rather than second. There should be an order in our loving and our desires, and in particular we musn’t love the things of this world more than their Creator. Detachment is the process of learning to put God first.

And just maybe, just perhaps, the things that distract me from God during the Office are the things I’m in danger of loving more than Him. Not all of them; some of the distractions are duties and obligations that I really have to attend to. But many of them: the computer game I want to go back to, the book I want to keep reading. You know—the stuff I like.

Joy, he said, somewhat sardonically.

The Far West

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Over the last week I read the family Patricia C. Wrede’s latest, The Far West, which is the third (and, apparently, final) volume in the series that began with The Thirteenth Child and Across the Great Barrier; and we all enjoyed it thoroughly. I read the last fifth of book on Saturday evening, and my voice was beginning to go as we got to the final pages.

So the main point you should take away from this is, this is a darn good series and you should go read it. It’s probably the best set of new fantasy novels I’ve read in ages: both smart and funny, but with a serious core, and with a deep understanding of how people and families work.

I always have trouble reviewing the later books in series, because I don’t want to spoil the earlier books; consequently, I’ll just say a few words about the Frontier Magic trilogy as a whole. It takes place in an alternate United States, circa 1850 or so, but this is a world in which technology is magically based. More than that, human beings never made it to the New World, here called North and South Columbia, until the first Avrupans (Europeans) came. At that time, the continents were still the home of a vast variety of wildlife, including mammoths and saber cars, and also stranger things: magical creatures like spectral bears, swarming weasels, and steam dragons. It made colonization rather difficult, until Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, working together, managed to cast the Great Barrier spell—a magical boundary that runs up the Mammoth River from New Orleans to the end of the St. Laurence Seaway, and thence to the Atlantic. Wild animals can’t cross the barrier, and once the more dangerous fauna were dealt with the eastern territories were safe to settle in.

But that leaves the Western Territories. When Eff Rothmer is five years old, her family moves to a new town just beside the Mammoth River, where her father will teach in a new college. Settlers are moving out into the western territories despite the danger, and the college is intended to train them before they go. Eff’s father teaches magic, which is essential for safety in the territories. Eff’s father is a seventh-son; and her twin brother, Lan, is the seventh son of a seventh son, and consequently gifted with great magical power. Eff, herself, is a “thirteenth child”—and what that means, for good or ill, is one of the things you’ll need to read the book to find out.

Wrede’s web site definitely refers to The Far West as “The final book of the Frontier Magic trilogy,” so the whole story is available now; go read ’em all. Me, I hope she gives in and writes another.

Jack McDevitt: The Alex Benedict/Chase Kolpath Series

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The second of Jack McDevitt’s series that I’ve read a few of is the Alex Benedict/Chase Kolpath series, which has a very different feel than the Academy series. It also concerns archaeology, but as it is set 9,000 years in our future, and other intelligent species are scarce, it pretty much all has to do with traces of past human societies.

Alex Benedict, the narrator of A Talent for War, is not, in fact, an archaeologist; rather, he’s an antiquities dealer, the sort of person that makes Indiana Jones scream, “That belongs in a museum!” However, he does spend a certain amount of time following leads and tracking down finds; the easiest way to make a lot of money in the antiquities business is to obtain your own supply of antiquities. He hires a pilot, the beautiful Chase Kolpath, to help him hunt down a mystery that his uncle had been chasing when he died, and that other people clearly want him to give up on.

In the subsequent books (I’ve read Polaris, Seeker, and The Devil’s Eye, but there are two more I’ve not gotten to yet), Chase is the narrator. She’s become Benedict’s assistant and sometime pilot, and makes a fine Watson, thank you very much. And that’s important, because every single one of the books is a mystery, and the fun is in watching Alex and Chase track down the clues while managing not to get killed by the bad guys. There are plenty of chases and narrow escapes—Alex and Chase have had to cope with sabotaged air cars on at least two occasions, and I might be forgetting one—but in general the entire series is much more human scale than the Academy books, and I find I like it better. Not that planetary catastrophes are unknown; but they are handled rather differently.

I’ve noted McDevitt’s even-handedness with respect to religion before; I’ll note that the first book, A Talent for War, opens in a Catholic monastery. Catholics don’t seem to be all that common, mind you, but it’s delightful to see the Church as a going concern 9,000 years down the road. (It’s what I’d expect to happen, of course…but one doesn’t expect science fiction authors to see it that way.)

Anyway, good stuff; and I expect that I’ll read the two remaining books in the series before too much time goes by.