The winds have come up the last couple of nights, and there’s dust everywhere, a pleasant little legacy of last month’s fires. The last several mornings, there’s been a brown-tinged haze hanging over La Crescenta. Alas, my sinuses are not immune.
Category Archives: Daily Life
The End of an Era
But also, the beginning of something new.
Today, the congregation of St. Luke’s of the Mountains Anglican Church worshipped in their old stone sanctuary for the last time. The court battle is over; the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has won. What they’ll do with the historic building is anybody’s guess; it’s not at all clear that they can scrape together a large enough congregation to pay the bills.
It’s a sad moment. Jane and I were married at St. Luke’s and went to church their for the first twenty years of our marriage; our children were baptized there; and Jane grew up there.
Meanwhile, the congregation is looking ahead. Next Sunday they’ll be gathering for worship at a nearby chapel, and after services this Sunday they went down to take a look at it and have Coffee Hour, courtesy of a taco truck.
What are they leaving behind? The property, the old stone church, the stained glass, the pews, the prayer books, the dishes, the office equipment, the pencils, the crayons, the boxes of kleenex and rolls of toilet paper…and a message. This morning, the church sign at St. Luke’s quoted the 10th chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews:
You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.
I wonder how long it will take the new owners to get the words on the sign changed.
False Dichotomies: Peter, Paul, and Mary
My eldest son is in 7th grade this year, and he’s taking world history. And he delights in bringing his teacher’s statements home and asking me what I think about them. The other day he told me that his teacher had said that some think that Peter was the most important of the apostles but that Paul had more influence on the course of history.*
And I said, “Well, no…it’s more complicated than that.”
As stated, it is a false dichotomy. It suggests that we must choose either Peter or Paul; which is rather like saying we must choose the heart or the lungs. Frankly, I’d hate to lose either one. It also suggests that there is a single measure of importance, and that all historical figures can be precisely ranked using it.
I remember my CCD teacher asking the class, “Which is more important: Christmas or Easter?” I raised my hand and answered the question: “Christmas!” She told me I was mistaken; Easter is more important. She’s right of course; but she was also wrong. She no doubt assumed (as you probably did) that I thought Christmas was more important because I liked Christmas presents better than Easter eggs. In fact, I thought Christmas was more important because it’s logically prior to Easter: if Jesus isn’t born, He can’t die on the cross. She was saying that Easter is more important due to its immediate effects.
There are multiple ways of looking at things. When you make a judgement like, “Paul is more important than Peter,” you need to define your standard of importance.
How is Paul important? He spread Christianity through much of the Roman World, and the churches he founded had a lasting effect. And he wrote most of the New Testament, and that had a lasting effect. He was undeniably influential, and certainly essential.
How is Peter important? He was the chief of the Apostles, and was given pre-eminence throughout the early Church, as is clear just from a reading of the New Testament. He was the first Pope, the guardian of the deposit of faith. The Christian Church was founded upon him, as Christ himself says in the Gospel of Matthew. He was undeniably influential, and certainly essential. He wrote less; but that’s not the only measure of a man’s influence.
I used the metaphor of the heart and lungs above; and it’s like that with Peter and Paul. You need both…as the Church recognizes. July 29th in the calendar of saints is the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. They are always celebrated together.
Oh, and Mary? Without Mary, no Christmas. Without Christmas, no Easter. Without Easter, no Peter and no Paul.
* I paraphrase; and I’ve no idea whether this is what the teacher actually said, or whether it’s simply what my son understood.
9/11/01
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them; and may their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.
Amen.
Back From Vacation
There ought to be a rule: don’t blog when you’re tired. But I’m gonna break it anyway.
We’re back, just this afternoon, from a week spent in sunny, steamy Washington DC, Jane and I and all four kids. We did as much as our combined energy levels would allow, and still didn’t see half of the things we would have liked to see. Here are a few notes.
First, the weather was hot and extremely humid, but not as bad as I’d feared. I thought it would be like the time I went to Suffolk, Virginia one August on a business trip, and every time I stepped out of doors, my glasses immediately fogged up. Instead, it was unpleasant, but didn’t really stop us from doing anything we wanted to do. And despite rumors and predictions of thunderstorms, we only got rained on a couple of times. Since we were usually travelling about by foot and the Metro, that was no bad thing.
Second, the Metro: if you go to DC, find a place to stay near a Metro station. The Metro is seriously cool. It works.
Third, we had a great time. We asked the kids today what one thing they especially liked, and they all had different answers. Then we asked what one thing they thought was a waste of time—and there was dead silence. Too cool.
We arrived very late last Saturday evening, and had a lot of fun getting to the place we were staying. Google Maps is OK for the grand scheme of things, but is lousy for the last mile: when dealing with the peculiarities of small local road networks, its directions are confusing and sometimes just plain wrong. We went to bed at about the normal time, California-time, which wasn’t helpful for getting acclimated.
On Sunday, consequently, we all slept in. After grocery shopping (we rented a townhome in Alexandria) and lunch, we spent some time wandering around Old Town Alexandria, and then caught the Metro to the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for the 4:30 mass. The mass was a bit lugubrious for my taste—insufficiently joyful—but the Shrine itself more than made up for it. It’s absolutely gorgeous. We spent a little time exploring after mass, and if I’d been on my own I’d gladly have spent another hour or so. I’d have gone back if I’d been able to carve out the time. They have an excellent bookstore as well.
The Shrine is on the grounds of the Catholic University of America (CUA) which I’d not heard of, and still know nothing about, except that the campus is covered with beautiful old stone buildings.
Monday morning we took the Metro to the National Mall and went to the Smithsonian. We did the Air and Space Museum, with a brief detour over to the National Gallery for lunch with an old friend. I’d have dearly loved to spend more time there, but the kids rebelled, and there was more to do back at Air and Space. One of the neat things about the Smithsonian is that it’s free, so hopping back and forth is no big deal.
My eldest son has a thing about pandas, and so on Tuesday we took the Metro to the National Zoo. Nice place; we saw all three pandas, along with elephants, orangutans, and so forth. Then a quick lunch; and then we hit the American History Museum in the afternoon.
Wednesday was Mount Vernon, which was seriously cool. We toured the mansion itself, and spent hours in the museum, which just went on and on. We’d have covered most of the grounds as well, like as not, but a serious rain began to fall and drove us on home.
Thursday was the Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center, out by Dulles Airport, another time when Google Maps was good for getting us to the right general vicinity and lousy at the last mile. Not to worry; we were a little early, and spent some time learning that as a family we despise Dunkin’ Donuts. The Udvar-Hazy Center’s a neat place; we saw the Blackbird, the Space Shuttle Enterprise, the Enola Gay (!) and a lot of other neat aircraft. We also got to meet Barbara Curtis and a few of her kids. Nice lady; I didn’t get to talk with her or her kids as much as I’d have liked.
Everybody was pretty tired, so we had a late lunch and went to see Miyazaki’s new picture, Ponyo. (Capsule review: more like My Neighbor Totoro than anything else of his I’ve seen; great for the little ones, but we all loved it.)
Friday was the shortest day, for most of us. We went to Arlington National Cemetary to see the Tomb of the Unknowns and the Changing of the Guard; and after that it was clear that little Mary was Done. The boys were pretty wiped as well, so I took Mary and the boys back home, and Jane and Anne went on to see the Natural History Museum and the National Gallery. They had a great time, evidently; I’m slightly envious.
And then, this morning, we came home.
In short, we did none of the major monuments, nor did we go see the Capitol, or the Supreme Court, or the White House. But what we saw was all worth while. Wish we could go back.
An Amazing Thing
Sherry and I share the same birthday. (Though, to be fair, she had it first.) She’s also feeling more creative today than I am.
My Thanks
Thanks to all who have written, commented, etc., in response to my extremely brief post of Wednesday morning. Here’s a little more information.
Dad was 83, and not in good health. He had Alzheimers, and a number of physical ailments, so his passing was not a complete surprise.
And yet, somehow, it was. We knew he was unlikely to be with us for more than another year or so, if that; but at the same time we weren’t expecting it to be this week, or this month. And at that, he surprised us—instead of dying from any of the ailments we were well aware of, he had a massive heart attack, and it was over, just like that. All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to go.
Dad was a life-long Catholic; and if (as I’ve remarked elsewhere) we weren’t Holy-Day-Of-Obligation Catholics, we were at least Every Single Sunday Catholics. Dad kept that up his entire life. I’m grateful that I returned to the Catholic Church when I did, as we were able to bring him with us to Mass every week, and he got to sit with his grandchildren. I think that was his favorite time of the week.
I’m looking forward to seeing him again one day (not too soon, I trust)…and I rejoice, knowing that when I do he’ll once again have his wits about him.
In the meantime, life goes on. My two boys are performing tonight as the youngest (male) cast members in a production of 42nd Street down at the high school auditorium. They’re in the chorus; they also get to be bodyguards for a mob enforcer. (This is what we call “comic relief.”) I went and saw the show on opening night, last night, and it was a delight all the way through. Jane’s watching tonight; and tomorrow we’re going to take the girls and Jane’s mom to the matinee. Aunts and Uncles are going tomorrow evening, and I just hope the boys have anything left by then.
It’s still hard.
Passing
My father passed away last night. Prayers for all, please.
Nix on Windows Live Writer
Windows Live Writer has now crashed or locked up my netbook at least twice. That is, I think it was Live Writer’s fault. This machine has been rock solid, but it crashed hard today, while invoking Live Writer, and then froze completely ten minutes later while I was using Live Writer. Dunno what to make of it.
Anyway, do any of you Windows users have a desktop blogging program that you like? Or do you just use the web interface? Inquiring minds and all that.
Windows Live Writer Nuisance
OK, I’ve identified one nuisance in Windows Live Writer: if you cut and paste text from a web page, there seems to be no way to get it to paste the text without the formatting coming along. There’s supposed to be a way; the Edit/Paste Special… dialog lets you specify that it shouldn’t include formatting. But it does anyway. And there doesn’t appear to be anything in the WLW help on it. Sigh.
The View from the Foothills 