I Sense A Growing Undercurrent

This Week's Lesser Feasts

March 7: Perpetua [181-206] and her Companions


From the original edition of Lesser Feasts and Fasts -

Early in the third century, the emperor Septimius Severus decreed that all persons should sacrifice to the divinity of the emperor. There was no way that a Christian, confessing faith in the one Lord Jesus Christ, could do this. Vibia Perpetua was a young widow, mother of an infant and owner of several slaves, including Felicitas and Revocatus. With two other young Carthaginians, Secundulus and Saturninus, they were catechumens preparing for baptism. Perpetua and her companions were arrested and held in prison under miserable conditions. They received baptism during their imprisonment. Felicitas, pregnant when arrested, bore her child in prison.

In a document attributed to Perpetua, we learn of visions she had in prison. One was of a ladder to heaven, which she climbed to reach a large garden; another was of her brother who had died when young of a dreadful disease, but was now well and drinking the water of life; that last was of herself as a warrior battling the Devil and defeating him to win entrance to the gate of life. “And I awoke, understanding that I should fight, not with beasts, but with the Devil…So much about me up to the day before the games; let him who will write of what happened then.” At the public hearing before the proconsul, she refused even the entreaties of her aged father, saying, “I am a Christian.”

Perpetua and her companions were martyred for their faith in Christ in the year 202 or 203 on March 7.

O God the King of saints, you strengthened your servants Perpetua and Felicitas and their companions to make a good confession, staunchly resisting, for the cause of Christ, the claims of human affection, and encouraging one another in their time of trial: Grant that we who cherish their blessed memory may share their pure and steadfast faith, and win with them the palm of victory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

I Always Thought Of Schools As Theatre Of The Absurd, But C'mon Now

High School Student Disarms Gunman…Gets Suspended

and

7-year-old suspended for biting Pop Tart into gun shape

To be fair, it was the teacher who thought it looked like a gun; the kid was trying to shape it into a mountain.

More Great Moments In Higher Education

The Problem of Males on the Feminized Campus

This Is One Of The Reasons Comments Are Not Supported On This Weblog

The other reason is that, for now, the weblog host can be liable for the comments made on his/her weblog, regardless of how remote from topic, inane, combative, or violent they may be.

New York Times:  This Story Stinks

I've often regarded comments on online news stories rather like the trail of slime that follows a snail.  I try not to read them, then regret it when I do.  A telling anecdote: At a former parish, a member used to complain frequently that I didn't permit comments on The Coracle.  He never directly mentioned his complaint to me, however, nor ask me why I had made that choice.  Instead, he complained about it on his weblog.

This, Apparently, Is News

Washington Post: For some, lessons of boyhood include learning to shoot and hunt

Well, it's news to people who have their world interpreted for them by The Washington Post and New York Times.

Great Moments In Higher Education

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will conduct unannounced inspections of classes to confirm that they exist, following revelations about decades of fraudulent classes involving student athletes and the African-American studies department.

Now That's The Islam I Remember

A religion that was fair and intellectually honest:

Muslims Supporting Anti-Islam Activist

Scratch An Atheist, Find An Angry Former Catholic

Although, in the case of Richard Dawkins, find a big chicken, at least when it comes to a religion that takes great umbrage at being criticized:

In a recent Al-Jazeerah interview, Richard Dawkins was asked his views on God. He argued that the god of "the Old Testament" is "hideous" and "a monster", and reiterated his claim from The God Delusion that the God of the Torah is the most unpleasant character "in fiction". Asked if he thought the same of the God of the Koran, Dawkins ducked the question, saying: "Well, um, the God of the Koran I don't know so much about."

He doesn't know much about Chrisitianity or Judaism, either, but that hasn't stopped him before.

Please Don't Listen To The Vice-President

What is it about vice-presidents and shotguns?

I was raised to respect, if not the individual, then at least the office they hold, especially if that office is defined by the Constitution of the United States, a document I once publicly promised to support and defend.  So, I won't say that Joe Biden is a gibbering near-idiot in need of some serious psychological evaluation or at least remediation about gun laws in the United States.  I'll simply state that he should not be the one to represent any serious examination of gun control at the federal level.

In recent weeks, he has informed us that no one will take away his [very expensive Italian-made] shotguns, that he has told his wife, "Dr." Jill Biden, to stand on their balcony and fire into the air if she feels threatened by villains outside of their home [a practice that is illegal, by the way, as a Waterford, Connecticut man learned just last month when scaring a coyote out of his backyard], and, now, to simply fire through a door if one feels threatened.

Some pungent observations come to mind.  Namely, does the Vice-President and his family not have Secret Service protection, or is the SS now only disseminated to countries with a lively trade in the world's oldest profession?  What advice does Joe Biden, gun defense expert, have for those of us without balconies?  Finally, would he be willing to speak with a strict Freudian about his constant need to talk about "shotguns"?

I could go on and on about this, but I leave it to a former student of mine to address:

Every single bit of gun advice Biden gives will get you arrested

Hiram Bingham

Once upon a time, when I studied archaeology, my world was divided into two distinct groups: Diggers and Squints.

Squints worked in laboratories with elaborate machines that were known by esoteric terminology and were so complicated that they looked like something from one of Jack Kirby's nightmares, or sparky whirligigs from old Universal Pictures "Frankenstein" movies.  Squints would take items of great antiquity, place them in their infernal devices, and then tell us, with rather smug precision, how old the piece was, what it was made from, and whether or not it was important enough to study further or place within the museum's permanent collection.


Courtesy of the estate of Jack Kirby [click to enlarge]

Diggers, on the other hand, were those in the field who, sometimes at great personal peril, found the remote treasures of the past using the eldest tools of the human race: shovels and trowels.  Diggers were at turns historians, contractors, linguists, soldiers, diplomats, and detectives.  Those talented in the sciences tended to become Squints; those less easy to categorize favored the ranks of Diggers.  Naturally, I, and everyone I knew, wanted to be a Digger.


A typical Digger

The archetype for the Diggers was a thin, oft-bespectacled son of a Presbyterian missionary named Hiram Bingham III.  Born in Hawaii in 1875 while his parents were on an extended mission to the Sandwich Islands, Bingham was educated at Philips-Andover, Yale, Berkeley, and Harvard.  He then became an instructor at Princeton working closely with the university's president, Woodrow Wilson.  He was lured away to the history department at Yale in 1907. 

It was while on an official trip to a science conference in Chile that Bingham heard of the existence of a remarkable lost city somewhere in the jungles [oops, now they're "rain forests"] of Peru.  Thus, he did what any well-trained academic would do.  He did some research, wrote some letters, interviewed some experts, and then plunged into the Peruvian jungle to search for an Incan city that disappeared sometime around the 15th century reign of Tupac Inca Yupanqui [whose nickname in English is something like "Tupac the Keeper of His Enemies' Skulls"].

In the summer of 1911, after an arduous climb through thick foliage and at an insane altitude, Bingham and his party came across the most complete and unmolested city ever yet discovered, Machu Picchu. 


Oh, you mean this lost city?  It's been here for years.

One of the most compelling scenes in popular entertainment is the moment the intrepid explorer comes over a rise and gazes upon that which has not been seen by modern eyes.  It is so compelling, it has been overused to the point that it is now cliche.  Bingham and his party were the first to actually experience such a moment in modern times and the discovery transformed the study of archaeology, turning a rather staid field of inquiry into something much more exotic and desirable by young academics.

There was much intrigue and diplomacy that was involved in the story of Bingham and Machu Picchu, not to mention some derring-do.  A good source for further research would be Bingham's own story, Lost City of the Incas, or the sensationally-titled, but very competent, Cradle of Gold: The Story of Hiram Bingham, a Real-Life Indiana Jones, and the Search for Machu Picchu.

Bingham's explorations would be interrupted by World War I, during which he would serve as a decorated officer in the Army Air Corps.  He would marry into the Tiffany jewelry family and continue to serve his country in public office, chiefly as a two-term senator from Connecticut.  [In keeping with the noble tradition of Connecticut senators, he would even be censured for financial hanky-panky.  No, the Christopher Dodds pere et fils aren't the only ones.]

There have been times, when toiling away in some humid climate, shielded from a brutal sun by a ridiculous hat, that I have day-dreamed of looking through a phalanx of mangrove trees or field of elephant grass and finding some massive example of a lost world, or even an artifact that completely altered the accepted view of the ancient world.  Because of Bingham, we can still dream of such things and imagine that there are still, even in this world of Google Earth and thousands of cameras in orbit, places waiting to be discovered.

Also, because of Bingham and his peers, we can climb ancient pyramids just for fun.


Actually, going up was the easy part.  It was coming down that presented the challenge.

Civilization Reaches Full Flower

Black police officer faces charges for not investigating racial taunts against himself

Actually, This Seems Pretty Normal For Clarksdale

Homicide suspected in Mississippi mayoral candidate's death

For those who don't know much about American music, Clarksdale, Mississippi is the birthplace of the "blues".  Not only did a number of significant blues musicians come from the Clarksdale area, it is also where one may find the crossroads of Highways 61 and 49 where Robert Johnson was given his guitar-playing talent by Satan himself.  It's a good story.

Eddie Won't Go [This Year, Anyway]

For surfing aficionados only, especially as there are more surfing fans who read this than members of my parish.

The Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau 2012/2013 is a "No Go". Again, the Hawaiian winter didn't deliver the necessary extra large to giant swell.

Maybe I spoke too soon. Sorry, all, but I've picked up some virus and am laid rather low. No Adult Forum tonight.

Rumor Control

For some reason, some folks have been told that I'm not around this week nor will I be in church on Sunday.  I'm not sure how that came about, but please know that I am in the office as I write this, will be present for Adult Forum this evening at 7pm, and will be in church on Sunday.  As ever, I am available for all parish business and pastoral calls.

Mainly, I Got Through School By Ignoring The Teachers

Reuters:: Stereotyped as "naughty," boys quickly learn that they are thought of as dumber and more trouble than girls. And that has consequences.

I did manage to read the great works of literature, along with some Marvel Comics, at my desk while the teacher was explaining something to the class, so it wasn't a complete loss.  It wasn't until I went to school overseas that I realized what education was all about.

Of Course

Cuomo Announces Plans To Modify Gun Control Law To Exempt Film Industry

Still no comprehensive exemption for law enforcement yet.  As ever, when it comes to "control" laws, some animals are more equal than others.

Some Legitimate Observations About "Crisis Counselors"

I've often wondered if these therapeutic rescuers might be driven by unrecognized wishes to play the hero in post-trauma dramas. In these scenarios, the objects of rescue are enlisted to play the sick role. Some will need help, but being pushed into the sick role isn't good.

I've had similar doubts about huge school events and the deployment of armies of grief counselors when a student dies. Kids who didn't even know the deceased end up cast in the role of distraught mourner.

Wakes and funerals already exist to serve the immediate needs for mourning and recognition of the loss. Participation in normalizing rituals is probably far more helpful than therapy in the immediate aftermath of such a loss.
 

This is why it's called "trauma tourism"; from time to time I've found the practice creepy and weird.  Also, all it takes to shut down the whole "crisis counsel" experience is to ask a secularized therapist, "What happens when you die?  Where do you go?"  If the counselor is a person of faith, they are constrained from answering by law; if they are non-theistic, then their role in the grief process is worthless.

Relax, Let The Police Control Guns

LAPD Officers Sold Guns to Civilians and Gun Dealers, Threatened Whistleblower Who Exposed the Scheme