Monthly Archives: September 2012

Wool

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Wool Omnibus Edition (Wool, #1-5) Wool is a series of five science fiction novellas by Hugh Howey. The novellas follow directly one after the other, and though they follow different main characters form one continuous narrative. I don’t know if you can get Wool as a paper book; I got the whole thing in Kindle format as the Wool Omnibus Edition: Wool 1-5.

The tales take place some hundreds of years in our future. The surviving remnant of mankind lives in an underground silo, beneath a burnt, sere landscape and an atmosphere filled with bugs and chemicals that will destroy an unprotected human being in minutes. The silo extends almost 150 levels deep; only on the uppermost level are there view screens showing the world outside. Over time the lenses of the cameras that feed the view screens get dirty; and every so often a criminal is sentenced to go outside and clean them. The assignment is invariably fatal.

Of course, we have lots of questions. Who are these people? Was the silo built for their protection, or is it a converted missile silo? Are they truly the only human beings left on Earth? What happened to the world outside? Will it ever be safe to go out? There are reasons to believe that those in power are lying….

Howey skillfully weaves the answers into the series so that we are always finding out more but generally know less than we think we do. The series is undeniably bleak, especially at the beginning, but curiosity kept me reading all of the way through.

Having finished it…well, it was an interesting ride but in the end I didn’t believe the answers. It’s the sort of book where everything makes sense as you go along, but then as you think it out later you start noticing how improbable it all is. I can’t give examples without spoiling the book. If that bothers you, give it a miss.

Bootstrapping the Interior Life: Service

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I’m going to step away from the Divine Office for a moment, and talk about something else.

The interior life is a life of learning to love and be loved by God. After all, we are supposed to love Him with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength. This makes the interior life sound kind of selfish: like it’s all me and God, and other people can go hang. Nothing could be further from the truth: in order to grow in the love of God, you have to grow in the love of those around you. More precisely: one of the ways in which we can best love God is by loving His people.

I’ve heard it said that we are like reservoirs for God’s love. God fills us up…but once we are full, the only way to receive more is by passing His love on to others: by going out of our way to love and serve them sacrificially, as Christ loves us sacrificially.

It’s not uncommon these days for people to focus on works of service to the exclusion of the interior life. This is a grave mistake; our whole reason for being here is to learn to love God. But it’s an equally grave mistake to think we can learn to love God without learning to love our fellows. The interior life should overflow in exterior service; and equally, service undertaken out of love of God is a great help to the interior life.

Bootstrapping the Interior Life: Divine Office, Part II

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Yesterday, I began talking about the Divine Office as a daily devotion. Today I want to go into some specifics.

Each day, the Divine Office consists of a number of distinct sets of prayers, the Hours. I usually pray three of them. I begin my day with Morning Prayer, also known as Lauds. After work, or sometimes after the kids go to bed, I will pray Evening Prayer, also known as Vespers. And just before going to bed, my wife and I will pray Night Prayer, also known as Compline.

The intriguing thing about the Divine Office is that it changes every day. There’s a four week cycle of psalms and canticles that you go through by default; and then there are particular psalms for particular feast days. In addition, there are other prayers and antiphons that change day by day.

All of this change is a good thing, because it means the Office is always new each day; and on the other hand over time all of the psalms become old friends. On the other hand, it means that getting started with the Divine Office is tricky. You need a book called a breviary, to begin with, and then you need to learn how to use it. In addition, there are websites and iPhone applications devoted to the Divine Office that will serve you the day’s prayers with no fuss.

The easiest Hour to start with is Night Prayer because it is the shortest and simplest. It operates on a seven-day cycle that repeats over and over again week after week; every Monday the prayers are the same as the previous Monday, and they are spelled out in full in one place in your breviary.

There are many on-line resources; my favorite at the moment is Daria Sockey’s blog Coffee and Canticles, which is all about the Divine Office. Alternatively, there may be a group at your parish that meets to say the office. At my parish, for example, there’s a group that meets for Morning Prayer right before the daily mass.

Next time, I’ll have a few things to say about my own experiences with the Divine Office.

Bootstrapping the Interior Life: Divine Office, Part I

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A few days ago I talked about the value of regular devotions to the interior life; and yesterday I talked about the Rosary. Today I’m going to talk about the Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office.

The Divine Office is a set of prayers based around the Psalms. It is called the Hours because there are different prayers for different times of the day, and if you read the kind of fiction I do you’ll recognize the older names for some of the hours: Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Nones, Vespers, and Compline.

It’s not quite correct to refer to the Divine Office as simply a devotion. A devotion is private prayer, while the Hours are a Liturgy, just like the Mass. The word “Liturgy” means a “public work”, and the Hours are part of the public work of the Church. When you pray the Liturgy of the Hours, you aren’t praying by yourself, even if you’re in your room with the door locked. You are praying with the monks in their monasteries and the sisters in the convents, with all of the secular clergy, and with the saints in heaven. More than this: a liturgy is a prayer of the whole Church, which is to say the Body of Christ. When you take part, you are praying with Christ Himself in His Intercessions with our Father in Heaven.

OK, that’s kind of scary. Let’s bring it down to earth a bit.

Even though the Hours aren’t simply a devotion, praying the Hours has all of the same advantages as any devotion: there’s a set of prayers to say, and a structure for saying them. You don’t need to be endlessly creative; the prayers are there for you. You know what to say, and you know when you’ve said them, and you can judge for yourself whether you paid attention to God or not.

(Don’t be dismayed if you have trouble paying attention to God. Remember that kitchen remodel! The real work is going on even while you’re floundering.)

The Divine Office is an enormous topic, so I’ll be spending another post or two on it.

Bootstrapping the Interior Life: Rosary

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I actually picked up the Rosary before I returned to the Catholic Church. A non-Catholic high school friend had gone on a trip to Rome, and since I was still Catholic then had brought me back a rosary from the Vatican. (He also brought back a photo of a statue of a pope that he and his sister thought looked like me. I have no idea who it was, really.) I didn’t pray the Rosary at that time; but in the year leading up to my return to the Church I pulled it out, and began to figure out what it was all about. I was doing a lot of business travel that year, and having the Rosary with me was a comfort.

The Rosary is probably the Catholic devotion; it’s also the one that non-Catholics look at and say, “Oooooh: vain repetition!” But that’s missing the point of the Rosary.

Yes, it’s a repetitive prayer: five decades (the usual daily allotment) has five Our Fathers, fifty Hail Marys, five Glory Be, a Hail Holy Queen, and a variety of other things depending on just how you do it, because there’s more than one way. But it isn’t about the repetition; it’s about the five daily mysteries: five scenes or periods from the New Testament upon which to the meditate. The prayers to Our Father and to our Blessed Mother aren’t just words; we mean them sincerely. But at the same time, they serve to give our bodies something to do while our souls are attending to the mysteries. And in addition to that, you can offer up your Rosary, or individual decades, for your prayer intentions.

So in one small package you get:

  • A devotion that takes a reasonably fixed period of time.
  • An opportunity for meditation upon the things of God.
  • A chance to intercede for your loved ones.

Which is to say, a way to spend time with God, that helps you focus on God, such that you don’t have to do all the work yourself, and when you’re done, you know you’re done. It’s the perfect antidote for planned spontaneity.

I won’t try to explain how to say the Rosary here; there are scads of websites and oodles of books, and frankly, though I’ve been praying it for years I’m no expert. But if you’ve not tried it, it’s well worth a try.

Bootstrapping the Interior Life: Devotions

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Last time I talked about how spontaneity fails, at least for me, as an approach to daily prayer. So what’s the alternative? If I’m not going to sit down and simply pray from my heart at the stated time, what am I going to do instead?

The answer is to cultivate a devotion: that is, a prayer that is meant to be said daily. Low-church Protestants sometimes have trouble with this kind of prayer; it smacks of “vain repetition”. But as I pointed out, trying to pray spontaneously every day led me to saying much the same thing every day anyway. Vain repetition isn’t simply reciting a pre-existing prayer; vain repetition is reciting the prayer without focussing on God, and expecting it to do any good.

Devotions have many advantages over spontaneous prayer, at least in this context. (As I said in the post linked above: if you feel moved to spontaneous prayer, springing from your heart, by all means go with it.) It’s hard for us to know how we’re doing in the interior life. Feelings are not a good guide. But when you’ve said a devotion, you know you’ve said it. You know you have devoted that time to God. That’s an objective fact, and doesn’t depend on feelings. Granted, you need to be trying to focus on God during that time, and if you’re like me you often won’t do that good a job of it. But again, choosing to focus on God is not a feeling, it’s an act of the will, and you can objectively ask, “Did I really try to focus on God, or was I going through the motions?”

Sometimes, going through the motions is all you can do. But even there, God knows that you could have done something else with that time; and He will honor that. He’ll be on the job while you are praying, even if you’re only half there.

The Catholic Church has oodles of devotions, most of which I’m not familiar with. The two that I have used most consistently are the Rosary and the Liturgy of the Hours (also known as the Divine Office). I’ll have more to say about them in future posts.

The Telmaj

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The Telmaj is a juvenile science fiction novel, aimed at 8-12 year-olds, just recently self-published by Catholic blogger Erin Manning. I’ve been reading Erin’s blog for years (though I comment only very occasionally), and I’ve got a novel in the works that I’m planning on self-publishing, and all things taken together I thought I should take a look at Erin’s.

Usually I read things that trusted readers have recommended, or that I happened to run into that look interesting. When I read a novel for any other reason, whether because someone pushes a review copy on me or because I’m however tangentially acquainted with the other, there’s this little voice I hear in my head as I open the first page:

This is probably crap. Gosh, I hope I’m mistaken.

In short, I don’t approach such books with enthusiasm, and I tend to read them much more critically than I might be inclined to do otherwise.

For the sake of Erin’s future readers, let me cut to the chase; it ain’t crap. The Telmaj strikes me as very much a first book, and I think it would have benefitted from the services of an experienced editor—not, I hasten to say, because of the prose, but because I ran into a number of events and explanations that struck me as a little too improbable, where just a little bit of lamp-shading would have smoothed it over. Also, while I’m being brutally honest, I thought the first couple of paragraphs of the book were klunky, and I found a typo on the first page of the e-book. This is really unfortunate, because I didn’t notice any typos or particularly klunky prose after that. If you get a copy, don’t let the first page put you off. (Erin assures me that the typo has been fixed.)

But let me talk about the story. The Telmaj concerns a young street thief named Smijj, who’s been living hand-to-mouth in the corridors of Celef Station for almost as long as he can remember. He’s a thief by necessity, rather than desire; he’ll do paid work if he can get it, even though it’s boring, but Celef is a rather hand-to-mouth kind of place for everyone who lives there, and good jobs are hard to come by. Smijj knows nothing about his parents, or where his family came from. Celef is all he knows.

Smijj also has this little quirk: sometimes when he thinks about a place, he finds himself there. He can’t control it (or he’d be much more successful as a thief); and since he doesn’t want people to know, he doesn’t have many friends.

One day, desperate for work, he manages to snag some under-the-table work unloading a small freighter…and shortly thereafter—shortly, in fact, after the freighter has actually left the station—he finds himself back on board. Smijj has got some ‘splainin’ to do….

On the whole, I enjoyed the book. There were a number of surprises, as well as some serious moral conflicts; and the last half kept me turning pages until I got to the end, where, to my satisfaction, Erin stuck the dismount.

Here’s the most important point, given Erin’s target audience: she doesn’t write down to the kids. The book is not without problems, but that’s absolutely not one of them. (If it was, I’ve have judged it one of those books not to be put down lightly, but rather to be hurled with great force, and no one would ever have known that I’d looked at it.)

So…not a masterpiece; not crap; kept me reading; worth watching. I’ve certainly read worse in the recent past.

On Having a Sense of Proportion

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lghtning.jpgWe really need to regain a sense of proportion.

On September 11th, I wrote a post comparing terrorists with vicious blog commenters: two groups trying to shut down their opponents without truly engaging with them. In order to make it clear that I was comparing the two but not equating them, I used the metaphor of the lightning and the lightning bug: there’s a similarity, but also a categorical difference. It’s obvious to me that these two things are not morally equivalent, and I would hope to all of my readers…and yet, I knew that if I didn’t make it obvious that I thought that, people would think that I was equating them.

The next day, on the pretext of a horrible little movie that virtually no one in the United States was even aware of, mobs attacked our embassies in two countries. I see today that it’s spread to Tunisia. And our public officials had the gall to apologize about the movie.

Now, I don’t believe for a moment that the movie was anything more than a pretext, though it might have helped the instigators whip up a mob. But even if it were the entire cause of the violence, it’s still the lightning bug.

Me, I’m deeply offended when an “artist” puts a crucifix, and image of my crucified Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom was made all that was made, is dunked in a beaker of urine and photographed. The appropriate response is prayer for the “artist”, and thanksgiving for the blessing of being reviled for Christ’s sake.

Folks, it’s unreasonable to call down the lightning in response to the lightning bug. It doesn’t matter how offensive the movie is. The lightning bug does not merit the lightning.

And it’s vile and cowardly to pretend that it does.

Redshirts

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Redshirts Redshirts, by John Scalzi, is a hoot.

Is there anyone on the web who doesn’t know what a redshirt is? Back in the day, when you didn’t need to suffix “Star Trek” with “The Original Series” to mean that ’60’s show with Kirk, Spock, and the gang, and our heroes sallied forth onto a planet’s surface, they always took along a crew member or two in red shirts. You only saw them once, because their sole purpose was to die horribly, amping up the dramatic tension. See, you’re paying a lot of money for Kirk, Spock, and the gang, and fans get invested in them, and so Rule #1 is that you don’t kill them off.

Well, not permanently, anyway.

And yet, there’s dangerous creatures! And dangerous aliens with bumpy foreheads! And people need to die! And hence, there are redshirts beaming down to the planet with our heroes.

John Scalzi has written a book about this, from the point of view of the redshirts. It doesn’t take place on the U.S.S. Enterprise; rather, it takes place on the U.U. Intrepid, flagship of the fleet of the Universal Union. Our hero, Ensign Dahl, is young, ambitious, and unless things go completely right, tomorrow’s dogmeat. What’s going on here? And why is the fatality rate for the Intrepid’s crew so much higher than for any other ship in the fleet? Why do the bridge crew sometimes pause dramatically, as though holding for a dramatic fade out? Why do some of the crewmen have backstories, while the others don’t? Who’s in charge, here?

Scalzi has written a delightful book that lovingly pokes fun at Star Trek while including a plot that’s wholly Star-Trekkian (if that’s a word), and that also makes us think about fate, free will, and taking charge of our own lives.

There’s some language, and a certain amount of what I guess I’d call sexual frankness, if that bothers you. And if you’ve never gone in for Star Trek, you might as well skip it. Otherwise, highly recommended.

(Actually, I’d like to register one tiny complaint. The window at the P.F. Chang’s at the Media Center Mall in Burbank most certainly does not look out at a parking garage.)

Bootstrapping the Interior Life: Spontaneity

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So far in this series I’ve focussed on things that have worked for me in my pursuit of the interior life. Today, I’m going to talk about something that hasn’t worked for me: spontaneity.

Don’t get me wrong. Spontaneous prayer is a good thing. If you feel moved to pray, to tell God what’s going on, or to ask for help, or to rejoice at a sunrise or the face of your child, go to it! Knock yourself out. As I said, when you’re moved to pray, God’s calling. When it happens, go with it.

But I’ve also pointed out that ultimately we need to make regular time for prayer. And while spontaneous prayer is a great thing when you’re so moved, it really fails as a planned activity.

I have gone through the following cycle of events more times than I can count. I resolve to pray for a certain time every day. The first day I sit down, and spend time talking with God, spontaneously. Often I’ve tried to use the “ACTS” framework—adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication—but within those categories I use my own words. And it works! God wants us to pray, and He’ll help us to get started.

By the end of the week, I’ve settled down into a pattern. The words are still mine, but they tend to be more or less the same day after day.

By the end of a month (two or three at most) I am thoroughly bored with my own words, and I get tired of saying them over and over, and I am unutterably weary with being SPONTANEOUS.

And as soon as there’s a reasonable reason to skip my prayer time, I do; and soon I don’t have a regular prayer time anymore.

As I say, this has happened to me any number of times over the last thirty years. It lasted up until late 2007/early 2008, when I ditched planned spontaneity and tried something new…and by God’s grace, I’m still doing it today. I’ll talk about that next time.