Ben Shapiro vs. Barbie: The Movie, Part 2 with John Fugelsang

 

Errare humanum est, perseverare autem diabolicum - More Confessions

I REMEMBERED that I'd called Rufus Jones "Rufus Fox" right after I went home from posting one of my recent pieces and then forgot to fix it when I got around to posting again.  I seem to do that a lot, one of the few down-sides I've found to not having internet in the home, anymore.  I was going to have it put in again but I'm getting so much more done offline than I did when I had it right there.   I guess embarrassment is the price I pay to not waste time online.  I hadn't even heard about the Peruvian aliens until my sister told me about them, though I don't know what I'm supposed to do about it even now that I've seen the smudgy looking pictures of them now that I have. 

I'd thought I'd gotten another name wrong after leaving the place I go to go online and couldn't check it but that one was OK as posted.   I don't want to get too casual about it but don't want to get obsessive either. 

Those "aliens" I'll believe it when they're shown to have a different physiology than earthly beings.  I'll be a real hard sell if they've got DNA, for example.    Absent a conclusive conclusion that aliens with DNA are proof of God's design of life,  it would be too stupendously improbable for that to have evolved earth-like in two places in the universe independently. 

From The Confessions Of A Thought Criminal - Peter Brown On Wealth, Work and the Holy Poor: Early Christian Monasticism between Syria and Egypt

I HAD NOT paid enough attention to the great late-classical historian Peter Brown because I'd been turned off to him by a review I read of one of his books from around the turn of the millennium.  I'd gotten the wrong idea from reading the review in one of the lefty publications that Brown was the kind of dismissive disciple of the "enlightenment" who rejected Christianity in that most modern of intellectual follies, believing that anti-Christians from some suburb of the all encompassing megalopolis, "modernism," could see Jesus and his followers and the later development of early Christianity better than those who lived it.  That review couldn't have been more wrong about that.  

It was lazy and stupid of me to not go to the bother of reading Peter Brown's scholarship because I'd been given an entirely wrong idea about him and his work not even second-hand but through the ideological filter of an enemy of Christianity.  I've recently started on Brown's work through listening to his lectures and will soon go to the books as I have access to them and have found that that secondary level view of his work is a complete distortion of him.  That's a good example of what's wrong with the typical modern scholastic view of early Christianity and the times and, so, world it arose in.  If I could get a seriously wrong view of a scholar who lives at the same time I and the reviewer does, who lives in roughly the same world from the filtering of a typically modernistic, as I recall academic scribbler, how much more wrong will they get texts and the People who wrote them or spoke them from two thousand years ago?  

That's not to say that modern scholars aren't at a considerable advantage from those of that decisive period in the development of the "enlightenment," as Peter Brown points out in the lecture I'm posting here, today's scholars have an enormously larger corpus of primary source material than even the greatest scholars of the past had available to them.  He specifically mentions the iconic "enlightenment" interpreter of late Classical history, Edmund Gibbons.  Not only is his still influential writing obviously deficient through his lack of knowledge of the   enormous troves of previously unpublished manuscripts discovered preserved in desert sands and in ancient monastic libraries but also in having more direct access to enormous amounts of material that have been published.  The scope of his knowledge was severely limited by the scope of his focus and it's blindingly obvious that his scholarship was led by his prejudices and biases.  

It's bizarre that so much 18th and even 19th century scholarship is still the basis of the common received non-wisdom about things like that.   I think it was Luke Timothy Johnson who pointed out that a student right now, with access to the internet has available to them enormously greater amounts of published materials, primary documents, not only printed and published but also legible imaging of manuscripts which only those with access to the greatest libraries of the early 20th century might have had.  And I'd doubt that any library of ink on paper before the internet could have competed with what's available for free, now. I will point out that what's less available is the published scholarship of the recent past which is generally behind pay-walls.  Unless you have access to the largest of university libraries, most of that is sealed off of any would be scholar or student without the ability to access it.   I would add to that the enormously useful tools of word search and immediate access to a text on the screen that it would have taken many minutes if not hours of time to track down in the stacks, in the series, in the individual volumes, even when those were well indexed that you can find in seconds.  Those hours and minutes and seconds really add up fast when you're doing research - I still remember the days I spent pouring through PDFs of a Victorian Anthropological journal only to find out that Darwin had lied about what another scientist had said.  I wish all old journals, at least, were fully digitized. 
 

Unfortunately, I can't provide a free link to a printed version of this lecture which is behind a pay wall.    But the lecture itself is a revelation about the differing relationship to real work in Egyptian and Western monasticism and the rejection of labor for monks in Eastern Christian and other monasticism.  It's really astonishing how much of Christianity is sealed off from most of the minds of most Christians and, far more so, those who think they know something about Christianity from the outside of it.  It's a temptation to try to transcribe it but I'm not ready to do that yet.  The questions and answers are almost as important as the lecture, itself.  

I have found that Peter Brown is a far better and far more honest a  scholar than the reviews had led me to believe and one with a really welcomed sense of humor.  I will point out that several times in the lecture his severe stammer comes out but it's more than worth it to wait for him to continue.  I'm glad he had the courage to give lectures despite that.   This is one of the best historical lectures and one of the best lectures on early Christianity and late antiquity that I've yet heard.  He is a great historian and a great scholar and I suspect a real Christian.   

Catholic Women Preach - September 10, 2023

 

 Jacobs, MSW, Ph.D.

"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

Several years before my aunt died, she spoke of the need for family healing. She was the matriarch who carried family secrets and negotiated disputes. I remember her saying she was tired of this mediator role and that before she died, we needed to find ways to dialogue and to forgive one another, not just once but every time there was a need.

I asked a friend whose background was in family counseling and spiritual direction to facilitate a family meeting. Her opening prayer invited the Holy Spirit to be present in our time together. The session was one of compassionate listening and reconciliation. My aunt was at peace with the outcome and reminded us until the day she died of the importance of family prayer and dialogue.

Years later as I thought about the African philosophy of Ubuntu, I am because we are, I remember the coming together of my family who represented different religious traditions in the spirit of oneness of family and all of humanity held together by the Holy Spirit’s presence.

There is a healing power for those gathered in prayer who trust that God is in the midst of them. While we may share hope for a specific outcome, we must remember that line of the Lord’s prayer where we ask for God’s will to be done. Trusting in God, frees us to hear the Holy Spirit’s guidance, not just our own desired outcome, for in the midst of the community and in our hearts as we become open to new ways of hearing the other, we realize that whatever the outcome may be, we are not alone on our journey. We are in the family and community where God calls us.

In Pope Francis’ catechesis on discernment, he said that the Bible reminds us that God’s voice is one of peace. Be silent, witness what your heart is feeling. At that moment, the Lord’s voice comes to us individually and collectively.  Nothing can hinder the love that comes from being in contact with the Lord. The Holy Spirit who is present in us makes the Word of God come alive, suggests new meanings, opens doors that seem closed, indicates lifegiving paths where the road seems to be dark and, filled with loss and confusion.

Discernment is the process of listening to God during our journey. A praying community is important for the journey. We find that we are blessed with the joys and sorrows of family, community, and our world. While we may not have received the companions we want, we will always receive the companions we need.

Blessings coming during the sorrows of the covid pandemic may have resulted in being drawn to companions in new ways as zoom communities developed for prayer and sharing. They may have meant expanding networks in local communities for food deliveries and wellness checks. We were invited to create new ways and include others as family as we found creative ways to gather in God’s name. As the restrictions of Covid pass, we may choose to continue those gatherings virtually or in person to acknowledge the gifts of those who have now become members of our extended family and to discern how God is calling us to be in community and to serve one another.

Being at peace with God’s presence in our life allows us to be open to other ways of serving. To remember that each day when we hear His voice, our heart is not to be hardened from past experiences, for God invites us to come to the present moment with forgiveness, thanksgiving, love, and joy.

The challenges of our church and our world are invitations to continuous discernment of how to dialogue, to forgive, and to be obedient to the urgings of the Spirit. We live in a time when we need to step out and invite others to prayer, dialogue, and action. We need to trust the Holy Spirit to guide us. For the challenges invite us to become open to our personal and collective vulnerabilities in creating and nurturing communities of faith that are inclusive. To remember that we are not alone, that we are because others exist in the world surrounding us.   We trust that whatever challenging circumstances or people we meet on our journeys, we are called to listen for God’s voice as we gather in groups of two or more and hold in our hearts the love of our neighbors as ourselves.