Today, July 31 is the Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits. The Jesuits are often associated with excellence in education and with a progressive charism. As a member of one of the few Jesuit parishes around, I have learned a bit about St. Ignatius and gained an appreciation for the order and for their spirituality, based on The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. We parishioners have been blessed with wonderful priests over the years who have shared their gifts with us and have accompanied us through times of great joy, great sorrow, and the many days in between. The following excerpt by David Fleming, S.J. is a modern paraphrase of The First Principal and Foundation of the Spiritual Exercises, certainly worth reflection.
The Goal of our life is to live with God forever.
God, who loves us, gave us life.
Our own response of love allows God's life
to flow into us without limit.
All the things in this world are gifts from God,
Presented to us so that we can know God more easily
and make a return of love more readily.
As a result, we appreciate and use all these gifts of God
Insofar as they help us to develop as loving persons.
But if any of these gifts become the center of our lives,
They displace God
And so hinder our growth toward our goal.
In everyday life, then, we must hold ourselves in balance
Before all of these created gifts insofar as we have a choice
And are not bound by some obligation.
We should not fix our desires on health or sickness,
Wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or a short one.
For everything has the potential of calling forth in us
A deeper response to our life in God.
Our only desire and our one choice should be this:
I want and I choose what better leads
To God's deepening his life in me.
Happy feast day to all members of the Society of Jesus.
I often thought the old "kids needed to pick crops in the summer " line seemed a tad daffy, but was not aware of the various shift in school calendars in the earlier centuries. Interesting, but not particularly earth shattering. I think I'll go out and tend to the crops, now.
I came across a photo essay of Phillipe Petit's many high wire performances published in Time Magazine around the same time as the release of the documentary Man On Wire.
I've read so many outstanding books lately, I need to slow down to savor them. Otherwise they'll simply disappear---like fine meals lingered over among friends - as we share memories, tell stories, laugh, enjoy each other's company. The outline of the premise remains, the memory of a compelling and emotionally powerful experience remains, but the details fade. It's not the 50something forgetfulness alone, rather the increasing desire to take it all in, freeze moments in time, appreciate the now.
I've stopped three quarters through Let the Great World Spin by Colum McAnn to prolong the experience a bit. I'm just not sure how long I can hold out. What a story.
The setting is New York, August 1974. The central event and organizing feature of the novel is the Phillipe Petit's (famous tightrope guy) piece de resistance as he hovers, dips, dances, and walks across a wire suspended between the Twin Towers, not yet completed -- stopping New Yorkers in their tracks. Note the little black blip between the two T's on the cover--- clever typographic symmetry. [For the backstory of the famous high wire hijinks, I recommend Man on Wire.] But back to the book.
Unique, engaging characters I've come to care about appear in each chapter, most telling their stories in first person, all in some way connected to the book's precipitating incident. The authenticity of the different voices floors me. Sometimes I must stop, read, and reread -- as transfixed by McAnn's prose as were those 1974 onlookers by Petit's daring walk.
New York in the seventies was not the New York of today. Rent a few Charles Bronson films if you need visual proof. I consider seedy an apt description; raw, gritty, moribund will do as well. Fortunately, McCann is far better than I at depicting our great city and its denizens in all their squalor and glory.
I remain curious about how and whether all the characters intersect. I wonder what comparisons might be drawn to New Yorkers 27 years later, again stopped on their way to work on a beautiful, clear morning, their eyes, hearts, and minds drawn to the towers as they witnessed the terror and tragedy that has come to be known simply by its date.
The last time I bought a bike, it was about 3AM, and I woke up on my living room couch to a QVC employee hawking a "gearless" or "shift free" bicycle. Probably 10 years ago or so. I watched as attractive middle aged people cycled away, looking fit and lovely in their outfits, helmets, and their shift free bicycles. So, what's a person to do? Buy the bike, of course. I rode it for about six months before it found its way to the land of Mary's misfit exercise paraphernalia.
This time is different. I swear. I conducted research. I took several test drives. I haggled. And I am now the proud owner of a Dahon folding bike: 20" tires, 1 speed, pedal brakes, and one hand brake. Perfect for cruising around, getting some exercise, and folding up and leaving in my car or toting around with me if needed (bus, train plane). The folding bikes do look a little funny, especially if you have never seen one, but they grow on you.
Boot camp continues to go well, but I need to add a little more aerobic, thus the bike. Let the cycling begin.
The unanimous Declarationof the thirteen unitedStates of America
hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
And if you got this far, you deserve to watch the following video:
Watching the show Intervention on A&E sometimes leaves me feeling embarrassed as I witness such deeply personal and painful family interactions. I feel like a voyeur. Addiction, in whatever form it takes, time and time again is shown to devastate families, especially the parents and children of the person with the addiction. Yet I am often profoundly moved by their courage and dedication as they face their own failings and fears and willingly participate in the emotionally grueling "surprise" intervention. At the end of each episode, viewers are given an update on the patient who has accepted the help offered and gone to a treatment facility. Invariably there are setbacks and relapses, but often there are successes, too. Nothing is sugarcoated in Intervention. Sometimes parents and spouses go back to enabling addicts, and sometimes addicts get themselves thrown out of rehab. Recently the Library of Congress announced that it would begin to collect and catalogue Twitter messages, i.e. "tweets" as a snapshot of our American culture in this its second decade into the 21st century. Maybe a catalog of best selling nonfiction and fiction and self-proclaimed "reality" TV shows could add some depth to the portrait. Intervention reveals brutal truths in black and white with shades of gray.
hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.