Thursday, December 27, 2012

I love "The Sound of Music."  I used to listen to the soundtrack for hours on my grandparents' 8-track player whenever I went to visit them.

Nevertheless, this is hilarious. 


Wednesday, December 26, 2012

USCCB Issues Statement on Newtown Tragedy

This was so good.  Emphases are mine.

"With regard to the regulation of fire arms, first, the intent to protect one's loved ones is an honorable one, but simply put, guns are too easily accessible. The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, in their document, "The International Arms Trade (2006)," emphasized the importance of enacting concrete controls on handguns, for example, noting that 'limiting the purchase of such arms would certainly not infringe on the rights of anyone.'
Secondly, our entertainers, especially film producers and video game creators, need to realize how their profit motives have allowed the proliferation of movies, television programs, video games and other entertainment that glorify violence and prey on the insecurities and immaturity of our young people. Such portrayals of violence have desensitized all of us. The massacre of twenty little children and seven adults causes each of us to reflect on our own understanding of the value of human life. We must improve our resources for parents, guardians and young people, so that they can evaluate entertainment products intelligently. We need to admit that the viewing and use of these products has negative emotional, psychological and spiritual effects on people.

We must also reflect on our own fears as we grapple with our prejudices toward those with mental health needs. Our society must provide health services and support to those who have mental illnesses and to their families and caregivers. As a community we need to support one another so no one feels unable to get help for a mentally ill family member or neighbor in need. Burdensome healthcare policies must be adjusted so people can get help for themselves or others in need. Just as we properly reach out to those with physical challenges we need to approach mental health concerns with equal sensitivity. There is no shame in seeking help for oneself or others; the only shame is in refusing to provide care and support."

The bishops' statement echoes what my own thoughts have been these past weeks.

Guns are too easily accessible.  It ought not be inflammatory to suggest that firearms be regulated.  Not banned - regulated.

Pop culture does have an effect on the lives that people choose to live.  American pop culture's presentation of acceptable masculinity is extremely limited.  In general, men are presented as weak.  When they are strong, they are strong because they are violent, even if they are the good guys.   Moreover, themes of the meaninglessness and absurdity of life abound.  These are negative influences and they affect people more than most of us realize. 

From a practical perspective, I'm not sure what the course of action ought to be in changing this.  I'm not a fan of censorship, and attempts to provide "wholesome" or "edifying" entertainment frequently end up feeling artificial and forced.  At the same time, however, I think it is worthwhile just to state the problem, to recognize and articulate the problem(s) with popular culture.

When I was young, my mom did not want me playing with Barbie dolls.  She objected to the attempt to sell glamor to young children.  She felt that Barbies presented an objectified view of femininity and indoctrinated girls into this view from the earliest age.  In spite of her objections, I had an enviable collection of Barbies, and they were among my favorite toys.  But I knew of her dislike of Barbies.  I knew from my mom's attitude that there was something "wrong" with Barbies, and I never thought of comparing myself with them.  I never had the body image issues that other girls had from comparing themselves with Barbies.  I was, in a sense, inoculated from their affects by my mom's articulation that there was something wrong with them.

It really bothers me when people say that popular culture is not responsible for the awful things that happen, when people argue, for example, that violent movies and video games don't cause people to do violent things.  Every person is responsible for his or her actions, but the development of the person is affected by what he or she experiences and how that experience is understood.  Popular culture is one of the things that forms the basis for understanding experience. 

There is enormous prejudice towards people who suffer from mental health issues.  I was dismayed to see how quickly many people jumped to mental illness as nearly the sole cause of the Newtown shootings.  Many, many people suffer from mental illnesses without being violent.  Many people commit violent crimes without being mentally ill. 

I was further dismayed to see some people blaming the medications used to treat mental illness.  For a person to admit that they have a mental illness is very difficult.  For them to take the step of taking a medication that will change the way their brain works is even harder.  Stigmatizing mental illness, stigmatizing medication, makes it more difficult for people to get the help they need. 

Mental illness can certainly be a cause of violence.  It may very well have been a cause in Newton, but the bishops are right in calling us to reflect on our own fears and prejudice. 

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Marc Barnes on zombies and the personal apocalypse.  On the eve of the Mayan apocalypse and with the weather changing here, it seems quite apropos!

"The fact of the Zombie Apocalypse has the tremendous effect of stripping away our obsession with comfort and convenience, forcing us to value life and the living of it. All that we truly want to discard, but in our weakness cannot, is happily discarded for us: Our stupid arguments with our siblings pale when the first window breaks. Our constant desire to just get a little more money, a little more pleasure, or a little more status is blown up with the zombie heads. Our constant, nagging questions — does life matter? Am I truly living? — are answered when life is threatened.
This is simultaneously the awesomeness and the sadness contained within our obsession over the zombie apocalypse. It is a dream of something being done for us, that in reality, we alone can do. We will not — in our weakness — shake the tyranny of convenience. We will not love passionately, forgive faults, see the world as beautiful, value human life and personal existence with profound reverence, live courageously, face death without whimpers, and otherwise rip ourselves from the state of boredom. Not unless we are forced to.
So have my prediction for the coming age: The more bored we become, the more convenient our lives, and the further we remove ourselves from suffering, the more zombie movies we’ll make, the more apocalypses we’ll predict, and the more we’ll speak — with happy smiles — of the destruction of all human existence. But if a man could live as if he knew not the day nor the hour; if he could, against all odds, live what human existence truly is — A Personal Apocalypse — then perhaps he could truly live.
Until then, we’ll be the walking dead."

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The Church and Hard Questions


 We have a thousand questions and you’ve given three answers! What are you doing swanking about with this…when children are being sprayed with bullets and our hearts are broken? Where is God, old man? Where is he, and what does he want from us?”  

In First Things this week Elizabeth Scalia asks the question, “Does the Church need to do better on big questions?”  She discusses the above tweet, addressed to Pope Benedict after the school shooting in Newtown.  She writes,

 “does the Pope (and the church) need to do better with the “hard” questions of faith that are now subject to New Media?

Or do we — and especially the non-believers who are pining for “big” questions — simply not understanding the depth of the answers?”

The truth is that the Church does, in fact, need to do better with the hard questions.  I don’t speak of the pope in particular.  The pope’s writings reveal that he is very much engaged with the hard questions – probably more engaged than most ordinary people are.  

And therein, to me, lies the problem.  The pope is engaged with the hard questions, but are ordinary Christians engaged with them?  Do ordinary Christians even recognize the enormity of the questions?  In response to Scalia’s suggestion that we may not be “understanding the depth of the answers.”  I would suggest that we aren’t understanding the depth of the questions.  

As I have watched reactions unfold since Newtown, it has become apparent that Christians all too frequently reach for easy answers.  

Why did this happen?

Most of us at this point have seen the internet memes that inform us that God allowed this to happen because he was mad about prayer being banned in public schools.  

Such statements represent a reaction that entirely fails to take seriously the question, “Why?” It jumps to the conclusion that we know God’s mind, that we understand this tragedy.  It makes the astonishing assumption that we can know why this happened.

When tragedy occurs, the questions that arise are tremendous.  Where is God? What does He want from us?

These are huge questions.  They are the right questions. They are questions that cannot be answered in 140 characters or less. They can’t even be answered in 140 pages.  These are questions that we have to carry with us, questions we have to live with.

It is hard to live with unanswered questions.  It is hard to live with an open question pulling at you, but I would argue that it’s essential to the life of faith.  These kinds of questions are not questions we pose to a void.   They are not questions we should pose to ourselves, seeking a theological or political answer.  When we, as Christians, take these big questions seriously, we are asking a person, “Where are you?  What do you want from us?”  

The pope, in his tweets, says, “Remember that he is always beside you.”  But we have to ask, “Where?” and we have to live with that open question so that we will look.  

The pope tells us, “Pray, always.”  Prayer asks these questions, “Where are you?  What do you want from us?” 

The pope is not offering easy answers, but he is offering a way.  Remember.  Pray.  Ask.

If Christians are responding to the “big questions” with easy answers (even if simply with nice, theological answers and not with internet memes) it is a sign that we have failed to take the questions seriously, that perhaps we have failed to ask them at all.  In this respect, the admonishments of atheists like the one quoted above should strike us to the heart.  He may not believe, but he asks.