A To-the-Point Dietary Guide for Lenten Fridays

Courtesy of Matt Swaim

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Video: ‘Thomas Merton, Spiritual Master’

A brief and thoughtful video on a great — and much misunderstood — spiritual writer of the twentieth-century.

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Wish You Could Read More?

“Lavery Maiss Auras” by John Lavery – http://kevinalfredstrom.com/art/v/paintings/Sir+John+Lavery_Miss_Auras_the_red_book.jpg.html. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lavery_Maiss_Auras.jpg#/media/File:Lavery_Maiss_Auras.jpg

Reading can open up a whole new world of adventure, knowledge, and inspiration.  But who has the time, right?

I recently came across blogger Brandon Vogt’s “Read More Books Now” video series.  Vogt, an avid bibliophile, shares the secrets of a “big reader” and shows us how to find time for reading in the midst of a busy schedule.

If you are a bookworm like myself, I highly recommend you check it out.  The series is totally free, but is being offered on a limited-time basis…in fact, only three more days.

Here’s the link: http://www.readmorebooksnow.com.

Image from Wikipedia

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Men and Women, What’s Hot and What’s Not…

Among the many instances in which we find, in popular media, a beautiful female either falling in love with or giving her affection to a comparatively unattractive and/or awkward male are the following:

We have the graceful and lovely Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones) and the nerdy, awkward Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) in the 2014 film “The Theory of Everything.”

Going back about 15-16 years to the short-lived but subsequently quite popular television series “Freaks and Geeks,” we find cute cheerleader Vicki Appleby (JoAnne Garcia Swisher) in the closet with lanky geek Bill Haverchuck (Martin Starr) after a game of spin-the-bottle.  At first she is perfectly beastly toward him, but she gradually warms up to him and, before their time is up, gives him a kiss.

And then of course there is the archetypal “Beauty and the Beast.”  Need I say more?

We tend to see and hear about situations like these, in which a man not blessed with physical attractiveness or grace is nonetheless blessed with the affection of a beautiful woman, and think to ourselves: “Wow — good for him.”

But let’s reverse the situation a minute.  Imagine a strapping, musclebound, suave, and extremely handsome young man lovingly courting a woman who is grossly overweight, wears glasses, has a retainer, and has nothing of what anyone would consider conventional attractiveness. We see something like that and we think: “Wow — good for him.”

See where I’m going with this?  When a woman looks beyond mere appearances and finds the goodness inside, we think very little in her favor.  We expect it of her.  But when a man does so, we seem to think he is “going the extra mile,” and to be heartily congratulated for it.

“Albrecht Dürer – Adam and Eve (Prado) 2” by Albrecht Dürer – The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH.. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_Adam_and_Eve_(Prado)_2.jpg#/media/File:Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_Adam_and_Eve_(Prado)_2.jpg

Granted, part of this may be due to a certain intuition about the nature of man and woman.  We read in Genesis 2 that Adam was created before Eve, surveyed all of creation in its manifold richness (rocks, trees, sea, animals, etc.), and could not find a companion suitable for himself; God then makes Eve, the first woman.

Don’t panic. Whether or not this is literally how events transpired is irrelevant.  What the Sacred Text gives us is a psychology of man and woman.  Through the person of Adam, we see that man’s initial purview includes merely things.  Granted, some of these are living things; but even these are not en-souled persons like himself.  The arrival of the woman completes his purview.

On the other hand, through Eve we see that woman’s purview from the very beginning includes persons.  This is perhaps fitting, since she is meant to bear life within herself for nine months.  It may be, therefore, that a certain nurturing spirit, awareness of beauty within, and gift of oneself in kindness comes more naturally to women than to men.

So it is quite possible that a similar insight explains why media portrayals of beautiful-woman-falls-for-not-so-beautiful-man are more frequent than the opposite.  Still, while it is true that our intuitions influence art and media, the reverse is also true.

Let me be clear: Recognizing that beauty is not only skin deep is good. To recognize a woman’s ability to see this is likewise good. But as a man, I am concerned that we do not hold ourselves to the same standard.  Discernment in romantic matters is no easy thing, and no one of either sex should have to bear this burden alone.

Image of Adam and Eve from Wikipedia; remaining images obtained through a Google image search

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Christopher West on Katy Perry

Everyone catch the halftime performance at the Super Bowl last night?  If so, you’ll understand why I timed this post as I did.

Christopher West is a Catholic apologist and, most likely, the foremost American commentator on Pope St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.  In this short video, which he made in 2008, West takes a very balanced and heartfelt look at the songs of one of our culture’s most beloved current pop icons.

Fair warning: West’s style may seem like a lot to handle at first.  Not that he is “preachy” in any way, but he is…well, rather colorful at times.

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On ‘American Sniper’ — Part Two: The ‘False Self’

For part one, click here

It is important to note that at no point in ‘American Sniper’ do we see our protagonist salivating at the opportunity to gun people down or gleefully exulting in the elimination of his targets.  On the contrary, it appears as if something in him dies with every shot.  Even when he takes out the infamous “Mustafa” (Sammy Sheik), we can see sadness in his eyes…perhaps even a sort of regret; not necessarily regret for having done the deed as such, but rather as if to say: “I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

As far as we can tell, the people against whom Chris and his comrades in uniform fight are quite definitely “wolves” (again, read part one if you haven’t already).  We even see some of them performing outrageous, heartless acts that have the strange effect of both chilling and boiling our blood.  So while part of us might ask how a Christian could bring himself to go to war, another part of us is more apt to ask, “How on earth could anyone feel any kind of sadness over taking the lives of such scum as these?”

“Saint Augustine by Philippe de Champaigne” by Philippe de Champaigne – [2]. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_Augustine_by_Philippe_de_Champaigne.jpg#/media/File:Saint_Augustine_by_Philippe_de_Champaigne.jpg

I think we can find something approximating an answer in the words of St. Augustine of Hippo:

Man and sinner are, so to speak, two realities: when you hear “man” – this is what God has made; when you hear “sinner” – this is what man himself has made. Destroy what you have made, so that God may save what he has made

(Quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1458)

Sin is something that separates us not only from God, but also (and for that reason) from our true selves, uniquely conceived and held in existence by our Creator.  Yet somewhere deep beneath the “false self” that every sinner — no matter how foul — manages to forge is this precious creation, this jewel in the muck that God the Father sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to save.

I think we can safely assume that Chris Kyle has a sense of this, and that in the aforementioned scene, this intuition finds an outlet in his eyes.

Let us think of this as yet another challenge facing our men and women in uniform — in addition to putting their lives on the line, and likewise for the sake of our freedom.  The former challenge demands no less bravery than the latter, and we must assume that those facing it are anything but “cowards,” contrary to what Michael Moore recently alleged.

And I think that’s a good place to stop.  Thanks for reading.

Movie stills obtained through a Google image search; remaining image from Wikipedia

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