If we'd just give each other a little personal space.

Lúcia Santos (left) with her cousins
Jacinta and Francisco Marto. They claimed
to see Mary six consecutive months in 1917
in Fátima, Portugal (Wikimedia Commons)

I've been listening to some books on church history and have been confused by "Our Lady of Fatima," "Our Lady of Lourdes," etc. I thought these were all different women, but they are rather appearances of the same Mary, the mother of Jesus, in those places.

(I suppose a Protestant can be forgiven the error, since each of these apparitions look quite different.)

The Fatima appearance is a fascinating story, even if only (and perhaps especially if only) a shared illusion, as it affected up to 100,000 people at the same time and in the same place.

[2012-12-01]

And now for something completely different…

This is the best article I read on the Zombie Parade accident, assuming the details are true...

Comic Con Zombie Walk Turns Violent Woman Hit By Car When Crowd Goes Berserk >

2009 Moscow Zombie Walk
(Wikimedia Commons)

A more traditional news story from NBC San Diego:

Passersby Struck by Car Amid Comic-Con Zombie Walk >

I'm reminded of a similar event a little while ago where a family fled some aggressive motorcyclists:

Bikers terrorize family in high-speed chase >

Sad events like this remind me that without notice, ordinary people can find themselves in circumstances where instincts take over and people can get hurt.

If we'd just give each other a little personal space, this wouldn't happen.

[2014-07-28]

c0

I am constantly amazed at the erudite and thoughtful pronouncements of athletes.

Andre Reed signing autographs on the US aircraft
carrier USS Ronald Reagan (Wikimedia Commons).

"Who the f--- is Johnny Manziel?" >

--Bills Hall of Fame receiver Andre Reed

“Man, f--- Bon Jovi… Now, I ain’t gonna lie to you, one year I went up to Toronto, and man, I had a good-ass time up there…. LeBron ain’t your guy! You’re not ‘Johnny Football.’ You’re ‘Johnny Rookie B----.’ ”

c0

There was a time, when I was a kid, that parents and teachers could trust Sports Illustrated to have a little more discretion.

I'm sure athletes cursed just as much then as they do now, we just had a more refined sensitivity and left it in the locker room.

But those competing to be edgier, especially in sports and entertainment, always seem to find new ways to dull our senses.

And more's the pity.

[2014-07-30]

c0

Why Disney is getting male villains wrong.

Top to bottom: King Fergus in Brave,
Hans gets ready to kill Elsa in Frozen,
and Angelina Jolie as Maleficent.

Why Disney is getting male villains wrong...

In Brave...

Merida begs her father, King Fergus, "don't hurt my mother!" when her mother has assumed the form of a bear and Fergus is about to plunge a sword into her.

There's no indication prior to this that King Fergus is violent towards his family, nor is Merida at odds with her father. It simply emerges and subsides for no reason aside from a writer or producer wishing to cast Fergus briefly in an abusive light.

In Frozen…

Hans turns on Elsa with no warning, and in the climactic scene, as in Brave, is about to striker her down with a sword.

In Maleficent…

King Stefan brutally cuts the wings off Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) as she sleeps. When she awakens, she sobs alone and is metaphorically raped and naked.

c0

Disney men lately are either dimwits who don't know how they are being perceived by women, or they undergo out-of-character changes that have no subtext and can't be anticipated.

Disney had thousands of years of Western tradition to draw on for evil stepmoms, and only a generation or two to integrate male villains.

They'll get it right eventually, but in the mean time, Disney men are just mean for no reason.

[2014-06-15]

c0

The most difficult thing I am struggling with regarding early church practice.

What's the most difficult thing I am struggling with regarding early church practice?

Brain scans while the subject was speaking in tongues.
Credit Dr. Andrew Newberg, University of Pennsylvania,
but taken from a site sympathetic to tongues,
 Spiritual Gifts >.

You may think it's the primacy of Rome, Marian veneration[1], confession, or something like that.

Nope, it's speaking in tongues, and it was part of the religious experience of the early church.

Now, we can ignore it by saying (as many fundamentalist evangelicals do) that this gift ceased with the closing of the New Testament and the ministries of the Apostles.

But whether we (Protestants) like it or not, up until the time of Luther, the church was everyone's church, including many of the niggling traditions we debate today.

Brain scientists who've measured brain activity during sessions in which subjects were speaking in tongues will tell you that in these instances the frontal lobe (which lights up like a Christmas tree when we're talking) goes dark, and of course, recordings of these events are never identified as any real human language.

My struggle is probably obvious: Tongues was a real 1st Century phenomenon, and appears to have been a little out of control.[2]

I'm tempted to regard it all as nonsense, as everything I've ever heard is just a talent for creating believable babbling.

But since the neither Jesus nor the Apostles ever said this gift would be "turned off" (1 Cor 13:8 notwithstanding) I'm left wondering; and imagining that some early churches more resembled lunatic asylums.[3]

Lonnie Mackley Speaks in Tongues

(A random Youtube example)

If someone finds this practice liberating and helpful in fighting addiction, good for them.

But I recall also that traditional accounts of possession have the afflicted speaking in languages they never heard. I'm not conflating the two; counterfeits very closely resemble the real thing, I'm just not sure there is a "real thing."

If anyone can document utterances in a language the speaker doesn't know and are correctly interpreted by another, you'll convince me.

c0

[1]

Marian veneration began very early >

[2]

"But if no one is present who can interpret, they must be silent in your church meeting and speak in tongues to God privately." 1 Cor 14:28, NLT

[3]

Later fathers like Augustine did say tongues had ceased.

c0

Herring a la Erronée

Recently I was having an online debate with someone and we took it offline and batted counter-arguments back and forth until it became painfully obvious that we could find no common ground.

Nearly every time I've done this, it's ended this way -  unable to find even one significant new point on which we could get a foothold to continue a journey one logical step at a time.

If we can't find common ground on issues that live mostly in our heads and hearts, how can we ever hope to cure social ills that are dehumanizing and killing people every day?

I can only assume that those disagreeing with me see the weakness of their positions and don't want to debate them logically, but I'll never know because few are unwilling to give even a qualified yes/no to fundamental propositions.

[2014-06-21]

c0

What will the world look like a million years from now?

We will all look like Weebles
a million years from now.

A million years from now, if we don't blow ourselves up, get blasted into atoms by an asteroid, or die off from plague…

• Only the elite and educated will be able to read. This skill will be limited to those who practice law and science.

• There will be three classes: The elite, the non-elite, and those who find ways to exploit both.

• Oral communication will continue, but non-aural communication will be entirely pictographic.

• We'll be so good at anticipating each others responses, an entire conversation will take place instantly once the context is understood, including social faux pas and conflict resolution.

• We will be avatars to everyone but those who live with us.

• The only taboo will be observing taboos.

• 99% of us will occupy 1% of the planet's surface. The rest of the planet will either be polluted or devoted to industrial farming and fishing.

• Only the very wealthy will eat meat. Synthetic meat will be available but expensive.

• Everything we need to live will be delivered to our homes. Food and air will become a utility, like electricity and gas, which can be turned off.

• Most of us will have small but efficient hydroponic garden that utilizes recycled waste.

• Everything will be wireless, from information to energy to transportation of inorganic material; machines will fabricate 99% of our tools and environment, including companionship.

• Travel will be the privilege of a few. Everyone else will work from home and experience everything outside their home through virtual reality; this is because there will be no room and no "outside" to go to.

• "Home" will be a windowless solid cube; the walls will provide light and scenery to suit individual taste.

• There will be no physical currency.

• There will be no armed citizenry.

• The government will be totalitarian and world-wide.

• All religions will serve the needs of the world government.

• Euthanasia, abortion, sterilization, and capital punishment for misdemeanors will be universal and compulsory.

• Our eyes will evolve to twice their size to utilize lower light in the wake of strict energy conservation.

• Our legs will atrophy and become like our appendix.

[2/10/14]

c0

RIP, Streckfus. August 25, 1984.

This is the Truman I remember.

A lost kite that flew too soon toward heaven.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_capote >

If you read only one book of his, read Music for Chameleons.

c0

Channel surfing with Mother and Dee Dee.

Mother Angelica on her 80th birthday.

I recently had a wonderful and entirely unexpected moment with Dee Dee on the couch while watching TV.

Mom was putting down baby Mimi, which usually takes a few minutes, and as I was flipping through channels, Dee Dee and I stopped on the last couple decades of the Glorious Mysteries with Mother Angelica.

I asked Dee Dee if she could identify the figures in the Renaissance art that was passing on screen, and she did quite well with most of them (and asked why angels look like chubby babies and why Jesus was giving his mom a crown).

It was like reading the bible together, which, in fact, is what beads and prayers and paintings are all about.

[2014-07-15]

c0

My attempt at kitchen sink science: Faucet stream lifts egg.

An egg in a kitchen sink demonstrates the principle of aerodynamic lift.

When I was a physics major in college (an adventure that didn't end well for the physicist in me), Prof Griffioen said that if you blow down through a funnel over a ping pong ball, the ball will not fall out of the funnel. He said he never had the courage to try it in front of a classroom, but it does work and demonstrates the same principle that provides lift to airplane wings.

(Airplanes rise because the pressure above the wing is lower than that below.)

Now, I make eggs and rice for my wife for breakfast each each weekend, and one of the steps I go through is first giving them a warm bath before putting them in the pot, then a cold bath afterward before I shell them.

I noticed nearly each time that a single egg in flat-bottomed bowl settled under the stream of water I was using to fill the bowl, and there it would stay until I turned off the tap and it rolled away to the side.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to observe it, but here it is, in all its wonder: the fundamental principle of flight in my kitchen sink:

[2014-07-19]

c0

Why I'm not a physicist.

Did you ever sit in a classroom and have the sudden, deep, empty realization that you didn't know what the heck the professor was talking about?

So you listen closer, and study harder, and it only gets worse, as though there was some little detail in a lecture or book you missed that would have unlocked it all if only you'd been paying attention.

That was my experience in Multivariate Calculus and eventually Physics. I asked for help from classmates, but it came in tepid dribbles that announced with each drop of advice, "This is elementary and I don't have time to explain this to you."

And so I returned to my first love, words, and became an English Major, which is where my heart had been all along, and why the measured and metered Milton and Pope (Alexander) appealed to me more than Newton and Einstein.

I love science to this day and consume enormous amounts of it, but I wouldn't have been an insightful physicist.

Insights into literature, language, and philosophy come easily to me. When I'm tempted to privately celebrate myself, I recall the times when things did not come so easily.

[2014-07-15]

c0

New technology introduces the need for new rules of etiquette.

There's not much more annoying than finding a private spot in a public building to use your cell phone and having someone plunk down beside you and listen to everything you're saying.

There's not much more annoying than having to ask someone using their cell phone in a public place if they wouldn't mind moving out of the way while you use the stairway (or kitchenette or elevator or meeting room…)

Good old fashioned rudeness never goes out of style.

[2014-07-15]

c0

Overheard

Real things I really heard in real meetings:

"Oh, youre exacerbating." (I think they meant exaggerating.)

"If we're not careful, the problem will grow excrementally."

"Breast practices."

[2014-08-19]

c0

My wife hates my long hair. It's a constant source of irritation for her. Yesterday while we grocery shopped she said I was an embarrassment and that others were looking at me in disgust. She just about finally had me convinced that what I saw in the mirror was not what others were seeing, until she added: "I wish I had your hair," and all the sudden, I saw years of personal grooming debate in a new light.

[2014-07-27]

c0

Dr David Jeremiah (one of the good guys)

Dr David Jeremiah

I've devoted not a few posts to criticizing fundamentalist ministers. I'd like to credit one that has struck me as intelligent, sincere, and probably more ecumenical than he lets on: Dr David Jeremiah.

I don't agree with him on everything, but I do on enough of the right things that I stop on the dial when I run into him.

There's a different sort of response you make to someone you connect with: it first passes unnoticed like the right amount of salt on your french fries, or a subtle movie soundtrack during a rousing scene. But upon reflection you realize, "Wow, that was so fitting I didn't even realize it at the time."

I might listen to John Hagee or Benny Hinn out of a cathartic need to cringe in disgust, but I listen to Dr Jeremiah because he's genuine.

I'm not crazy about the publishing and promotional aspects of today's evangelism, but if you can ignore that, there's something good under it here:

DavidJeremiah.org >

[2014-08-18]

c0

I'm Staying out of facebook for a while, but you can still follow me this way…

How to follow Clarence by Email

I'll be staying out of Facebook for a while, but I will still be writing and posting.

If you don't feel like visiting me here, you can always sign up for email.

I can’t see who's subscribed, so you can enjoy me anonymously (and delete with impunity).

I'll also be staying away from news and entertainment, and instead spending time with the Apostolic Fathers and Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators.

I thank you for spending a few minutes with me when you can.

I have friends I don’t even know, and that is a pleasant thing to consider sometimes.

Alfred made a cameo on the covers of the early hardcover stories.

[2014-08-18]

c0

Boxhead

How can you resist a kitty cat in a cardboard box? Photo credit:
http://lovemeow.com/2011/09/tiny-cream-kitty-found-in-a-barn/ 

A man sits at his desk in an office. He has a box over his head. The box has holes cut out for his eyes and mouth.

The man’s boss comes over. “Okay, Montgomery,” he says, “take it off.”

“Nothin’ doin’,” says Montgomery. “There’s nothing in the dress code that says I can’t wear a box over my head.”

Boss, rolling his eyes, sloshing his coffee: “Okay, Montgomery, I’ll bite, why are you wearing a box over your head?”

“I was feeling boxed in and I thought this was a suitable metaphor to convey my anxiety.”

Boss: “Alright, point taken, take it off.”

Montgomery: “No.”

Boss, shouting while dozens of workers turn and look: “Take if off!”

Montgomery slowly removes the box and squints in the bright office light. As his eyes adjust and he fluffs his hair flattened by cardboard, we see that Montgomery looks just like his boss.

The end.

[2014-03-04]

c0

I wrote this before I moved to a new area and reporting structure, but I truly had no one in mind; I actually pictured this guy while writing….

c0

Odds 'n ends.

You Can't Go Home Again, from NorthWorks Photo >

Long before Facebook, I began reaching out to a few early childhood friends, and the response has been tepid. I was at first a bit confused, and a little hurt, but now think I simply have a connection to the past most others don’t.

Maybe all writers do.

[2014-02-14]

c0

If you laugh your opposition to scorn, don’t be surprised if, when they get the chance, they return the favor.

[2014-01-12]

c0

Being nice to the wrong people often results in private character assassinations that further cast us as ignorati who can't see spite when it bites us in the butt.

We are called to be nice anyway.

[2012-12-20]

c0

Want to be a writer? (Get used to…)

Want to be a writer?

It won't matter what you write, if you're working with words you will be every day like a teenager in love for the first time.

But if you like working under the hood, you're going to get greasy. If you like cooking, you're going to soil your apron. If you like gardening, you'll want to get used to insect bites and digging dirt out from under your nails.

And if you're a writer, get used to...

• your work being referred to as "text," "verbiage," "romance copy," "fluff," "filler," and other benign but unintentionally uncomplimentary terms.
• everyone changing your work, sometimes making it worse (making you feel unappreciated), and sometimes making it better (making you feel unecessary).
• guarded exchanges at the watercooler because you might write about what you're hearing.
• having 99% of what you write ignored because the headline or first sentence wasn't relevant.

But you will write no matter how many people read you, and even if no one reads you, because it's not entirely about being read, it's about desperately wanting to be read, about entertaining with words.

It's ancient, primal. It's telling a story around the fire.

The glowing monitor in my cloistered office is like the fire of an ancient village and I am a neanderthal raconteur.

[2014-04-30]

c0

A different kind of "left behind."

I just finished Almost Catholic: An Appreciation of the History, Practice, and Mystery of Ancient Faith, by Jon Sweeney.

I made the mistake about halfway through of reading reviews and then visiting Sweeney's blog with the same title and premise as his book.

I learned that he has since stopped blogging there; here is an excerpt:

After 20 years as an evangelical, and 21 years as an involved Episcopalian, in 2009 I became a Catholic on the feast day of St. Francis. My primary congregational involvement today, however, is Jewish… I started this blog because I called myself “almost Catholic”–at that time I was an evolving Protestant … Now I am actually a Catholic, but that doesn’t really define me. In many ways I’ll religiously and spiritually always be “almost.” Source >

HIs candor casts some of his more moving accounts in a new light, especially how meaningful some things had become to him, like praying the Stations of the Cross alone and outdoors.

It's not my place to judge, but as I am myself on the outside looking in, I felt a kinship with him.

I finished the book - it's very good, candid, a joy to read  - but instead of ending at Rome, it only made a rest stop there, which is not to disparage Mr Sweeney (who is an honest spiritual seeker and deserves an enormous amount of credit for being open about his journey), but rather to say I thought I'd found a kindred spirit, and at that moment while reading his blog, I felt a loss, and continued to the end on my own.

[2014-08-06]

c0

csc

I thought this was very interesting. Those who know me will make the connection.

Large Photo	Detail

"CSC" in this case means "Curtain-Side Carriers," a trucking company owned by American Wood Moulding. I'm not sure why the British spelling, or how curtains figure into it (hyphenated yet).

Alas, American Wood Moulding in Hanover, MD is closed:

[2014-08-05]

c0

Trump tweets his ignorance (on Ebola and health science)

Donald Trump tweet on Ebola. This tweet reads: "The U.S. must
immediately stop all flights from EBOLA infected countries or the
plague will start and spread inside our "borders." Act fast!"

Donald Trump's tweets are a topic on Today >

Other Trump tweets on Ebola:

"Ebola patient will be brought to the U.S. in a few days - now I know for sure that our  leaders are incompetent. KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE!"

"Stop the EBOLA patients from entering the U.S. Treat them,  at the highest level, over there. THE UNITED STATES HAS ENOUGH PROBLEMS!"

"The U.S. cannot allow EBOLA infected people back. People that go to far away places to help out are great-but must suffer the consequences!"

"The fact that we are taking the Ebola patients, while others from the area are fleeing to the United States, is absolutely CRAZY-Stupid pols"

c0

I shouldn't be surprised (though I really thought he was brighter than this).

But he's a politician, and both courting a segment of America that agrees with him and just being The Donald - obnoxiously ignorant and releasing a few puffs of self-importance (which must become painful when held for too long).

The only way to cure diseases is to study them in a controlled environment with the latest technology.

I'll bet big pharma is all over this, though they don't care about the victims for a different reason than Mr. Trump.

c0

Just an observation, but you can tell how hard television is searching for relevance when they feature tweets as news segments.

[2014-08-05]

c0