Help Me Decide Which of These to Get For Rod Dreher

by Belle Waring on September 23, 2015

Hey, do you want a look at Vatican City’s hottest priests? Someone will totally sell a calendar to you. Right there next to the 10,000 other tackiest items for sale along the street that leads to St. Peter’s Basilica. It’s just black-and-white prints of photos taken on the streets in the Vatican during special days. Less appropriate sexy funtimes can be found in the Orthodox Church; the video is mildly unsafe for worth in that the camera ogles shirtless young men while they are laved from a font by a man wearing a chausuble, and that sort of thing, but the still photos are…wait, do you work in a cubicle? You don’t want to seem like this guy from the Key and Peele sketch as you’re surfing the Gaily Grind. I’ve gone tacky figurines and blessed amulets shopping there before, to buy things for Margaret, my granddad’s…maid, sort of? Housekeeper? She lived with him for more than 30 years. She was an adorable, tiny old Irish woman with a number of teeth fewer than is commonly seen, and would always fuss over how much you’d grown and make you (this was mandatory) “just a cup of tea and an English muffin with a bit of butter on it.” She planned to retire at 75. She didn’t actually know exactly how old she was, until my grandfather went to her hometown while in Ireland and looked her up in the parish church. She was older than she thought, a fact which pleases, as Agatha Christie notes, only those younger than 16 and over 80. Her three children put her in an old folk’s home as soon as she turned up. That was some King Lear shit. She called and pleaded with my grandfather to bust her out of this crummy place in New Jersey. And so she returned to her room next to the kitchen, with the old TV and the crucifixes, and the framed photos of Pope John Paul II, and performed increasingly light duties like making breakfast until she was in her late 80s or even early 90s and she needed nearby assisted living for real because she couldn’t manage the stairs. Mildly disjointly, I think the vast majority of the breakfasts my grandfather consumed during his life were brought to his bedroom on a tray and included fresh-squeezed orange juice. Sometimes he would go retrieve the prepared tray himself, but I count this the same. And WWII obviously dragged the numbers down a bit. This is a noble life goal to which we should all aspire.

Even then my grandfather would drive over to see her every Sunday. He would pick her up, take her to church, go to church himself which was shorter because he had the common sense to be an Episcopalian (though it seemed at times he actually believed, a thing likely to cause a furrowed brow among his friends) and then take her back. He didn’t even want to go to church in town! After she died he started to go to the closer Bridgehampton church he preferred, mostly IMO because they have a half-hour service at 8 a.m. without hymns, and one can get the whole thing over with and get a good tee time with leeway for a Bloody Mary, all quite early in the day. The hymns are the best part, though, so going to this service sucked. Also it was too early. Yet one felt obliged to go. But the priest there is a lovely person who married me and John and also baptized both our children. “But why, Belle, that seems like a lot of trouble to go through seeing as you’re not, in fact, a Christian?” Look, being Episcopalian is a social thing, like being a secular Jew, but with a bit more ritual effort required. Anyway it made my grandfather happy. That was the main point. Also, there’s this one awesome part where the priest anoints the kid with chrism and says “CHRIST CLAIMS YOU FOR HIS OWN.” One definitely gets the sense then that if the post-death regions exist and are not quite as one has imagined them, nonetheless one will be on firm ground. You should think of it as an excuse to throw a catered betting party with your friend-with-benefits Pascal.

{ 67 comments }

1

Ben 09.23.15 at 5:06 am

I’ve co-hosted a party with Pascal; trouble is he invites everyone he knows (on the presumption that if he later runs into anyone he didn’t invite he’d be morbidly embarrassed) and the motley crew that shows up is beyond social comprehension – the gamblers and Jansenists eyeing each other wearily, Pascal’s mad tinkerer buddies inevitably shouting at mathematicians, “It will work, and when I build it your so-called proofs will only be good for papier hygiénique” – the chaos is fun for awhile but pandemonium has its limits.

2

Meredith 09.23.15 at 5:08 am

Oh Belle, as a to-be-grandmother at last (this little one will be Jewish), as someone raised Episcopalian (in the North, where the Presbyterians and Methodists were more the lordly folks, for the most part — as I have moved further North, add Congregationalists), let me note a few things. The hymns are the best part (I have lectured my religion colleagues not a few times that the theology and love are in the hymns, not all the other mumbo jumbo), yes, but there is something supremely quiet and fine about the true matins. A nice place where Protestantism and Catholicism meet? Throw in a cantor. (My son and daughter-in-law, if they get around to it, will produce a secular Muslim or something. A person.) Anyway, being Episcopalian in the North was not a social thing. (My Texas/Oklahoma husband had the same ideas of Episcopalian as you suggest here — we all know about Baptists splitting North/South; more popular knowledge of other splits needed? Episcopalians, Methodist Episcopalians, Quakers — the last a lively area for discussion!).

3

Belle Waring 09.23.15 at 9:19 am

Oh my mom’s side of the family is as thoroughly Northern as my dad’s is Southern (though both branches are Episcopalian). My grandfather was born in the Southhampton hospital on Long Island, and though he lived in a variety of places, he served three terms in the House as rep. for the 1st district. This is why my grandmother was in DC; he dumped her rather summarily when he was swept out in the election in which Kennedy won the presidency. Since my mom moved to be near her mom after my parents divorced, I went to high school at the National Cathedral School for Episcopalians girls of all sorts. (One hour of chapel and one and a half of Cathedral service every week!) Episcopalians in the South are much likelier to care about Jesus IMO; there are even evangelical Episcopalians. My brother’s childhood friend Jefferson Lee H——–‘s mom was an evangelical Episcopalian, which seems crazy to me somehow. I mean…low commitment plus “smells and bells” is surely the main appeal of the sect?!

4

ZM 09.23.15 at 9:43 am

We don’t call the Church of England Episcopalian here in Australia, but Anglican. I usually go to the Roman Catholic Mass, but once a month I really love the Anglican one — although I am not an entirely regular church goer, and I go to the Saturday Evening Catholic Mass because the the hymns are accompanied by a mandolin, which is not the most pious way of choosing which Mass to go to.

Once a month the Anglican Church here has Upside Down Church. The ideas behind this date back to traditions of inversion in Medieval and Renaissance Christianity, which themselves date back to Roman times and Saturnalia. The Upside Down Church prioritises children and animals and other things that are commonly of low priority, as in the last will come first and the first will come last. Last month’s service was very beautiful as the Father wore a ceremonial outfit he had been gifted in Papua New Guinea which combines traditional Papuan textiles and designs, which are passed down matrilineally over generations, with formal Christian design for ceremonial garments.

The most beautiful church I have been in was a small one in Portugal in grounds that used to be the homes of Carmelite hermits but it is now a hotel, one morning I heard singing from the church in the middle and walked over and all the village women in black had walked to the church from the village (there was another bigger church in the village) for a sort of memorial day ceremony. The church walls were covered with drawings of miracles by people who had their prayers answered, and the man who owned the hotel showed me the bell which had been cast all the way back in 1777.

On the Catholic side of my family my grandparents were regular church goers, on the Presbyterian side my grandfather stopped going to church after returning from being a soldier in WWII — the rest of the family would go to church and he would stay home and cook a Sunday lunch for when they returned.

Due to experience I think there must be some sort of an afterlife. Horace wrote than not everyone has an afterlife, I think it is hard to say for sure what the afterlife is. My favourite thing to read about salvation in the afterlife is the end of Mandeville’s Travels where he asks everyone to share their good deeds, this seems like a good way of increasing not only your own but other people’s chances of being bound for heaven, I suppose this is really the idea behind communion, but it is put very nicely in Mandeville’s Travels:

Wherefore, I pray to all the readers and hearers of this book, if it please them, that they would pray to God for me; and I shall pray for them. And all those that say for me a PATER NOSTER, with an AVE MARIA, that God forgive me my sins, I make them partners, and grant them part of all the good pilgrimages and of all the good deeds that I have done, if any be to his pleasance; and not only of those, but of all that ever I shall do unto my life’s end. And I beseech Almighty God, from whom all goodness and grace cometh from, that he vouchsafe of his excellent mercy and abundant grace, to fulfil their souls with inspiration of the Holy Ghost, in making defence of all their ghostly enemies here in earth, to their salvation both of body and soul; to worship and thanking of him, that is three and one, without beginning and without ending; that is without quality, good, without quantity, great; that in all places is present, and all things containing; the which that no goodness may amend, ne none evil impair; that in perfect Trinity liveth and reigneth God, by all worlds, and by all times!

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!

[HERE ENDETH THE BOOK OF JOHN MANDEVILLE.]

5

Anderson 09.23.15 at 1:15 pm

I married into Lutherans, but as I’m not of German heritage, I sometimes think Episcopal church would feel more like the mainline English-heritage church. (Book of Common Prayer etc.) At least we ELCAs are in communion w the Episcopals, which helps in Mississippi as we are surrounded by Southern Baptists and their Methodist equivalents.

6

jake the antisoshul soshulist 09.23.15 at 1:36 pm

Raised in the Church of Christ. Not UCC, but fundamentalist evangelicals. Have moved from Apostate “Campbellite” to strong agnostic, with possible Deist leanings.

My problem with Pascal’s Wager is that whether eternal life in Heaven would be the win.
I have categorized it as a failure of the imagination, but I have not been able to envision a Heaven that was not just a slow form of Hell. Is it worth the small pleasures in life that often make it worthwhile to spend eternity with the likes of Kim Davis, Mike Huckabee, Jerry Falwell etc. Though hanging out with Pope Frank might be cool.

7

oldster 09.23.15 at 1:46 pm

“like being a secular Jew, but with a bit more ritual effort required”

Nah, we just make it look effortless. Labor celare laborem, as Hillel said.

8

ZM 09.23.15 at 1:48 pm

“I have categorized it as a failure of the imagination, but I have not been able to envision a Heaven that was not just a slow form of Hell. ”

When I was 18 I dreamed I met an angel and they asked me to go with them, and since I had a body we had to go in an angel car, this was really more pleasant than you might imagine as we could drive through everything we passed. So think about how you could just move around the whole universe passing through things, and you see it would be quiet pleasant. If you got bored of Earth you could visit Venus for a while or another solar system or something. You might have to do good deeds for people while you were dead though to get this pleasant reward though.

9

Lee A. Arnold 09.23.15 at 2:12 pm

Well, you can only report what has happened to you. I went from strong intellectual objections to Lutheranism, into psychedelic transcendence, into independent study of comparative mysticism resulting in a personal path of intentionality, into non-theistic stabilization in samadhi. The psychedelic transcendence showed the way to the stabilization. I recommend it. Pascal might have approved, because it’s scientific and open-ended. Also, all good melodies become hymns.

10

jake the antisoshul soshulist 09.23.15 at 2:21 pm

Actually that does seem quite pleasant. I suppose my imagination of an afterlife is too influenced by the descriptions of it I have heard. The concept of a Hell tailored to each individual is common, or like Dante, classes of sinners. I suppose a Heaven tailored to the individual might be interesting. As I mentioned above, other than eternity, the idea of interacting with people you don’t like does not seem like a reward for a “good life”.
I would not be so bad if there were a prohibition on “I told you so.” :-)

11

Anderson 09.23.15 at 2:34 pm

Is it worth the small pleasures in life that often make it worthwhile to spend eternity with the likes of Kim Davis, Mike Huckabee, Jerry Falwell etc.

Your assp. that they will be in Heaven requires support.

12

ZM 09.23.15 at 3:55 pm

“The concept of a Hell tailored to each individual is common, or like Dante, classes of sinners. ”

I just read a Dante-esque dream of Lou Reed in a sort of hell by Father John Misty, I don’t know if he invented it or really dreamed it

“Down inside the blob, I could see thousands of familiar faces and one of them was Lou Reed on a catwalk handcuffed to supermodels who had adopted babies handcuffed to them and Lou said, ‘Delete those tracks, don’t summon the dead, I am not your plaything. The collection of souls is an expensive pastime.’ Then I woke up”

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/23/father-john-misty-takes-down-taylor-swift-covers-after-lou-reed-appears-in-a-dream-and-tells-him-to

There was an exhibition of William Blakes illustrations at the national gallery here, with many from his series for The Divine Comedy last year. Some were pretty gruesome, but it made me want to read the book.

13

Henry (not the famous one) 09.23.15 at 5:16 pm

My mother was born a Congregationalist, but became an Episcopalian when my father’s income bracket reached that level. Which explains her favorite joke, which features a recently deceased sinner who is being escorted by Satan down a long hallway in hell. As he passes the first door he asks Satan “Who’s in there?” “Jews who ate pork.” “And behind that door?” “Muslims who drank alcohol.” “And that one?” “Catholics who ate meat on Friday.” “Then how about that one?” “Episcopalians who used their salad fork for the entree.”
צוֹם קַל

14

TheSophist 09.23.15 at 6:42 pm

Episcopalians can be dogmatic assholes as much as anybody else when the mood strikes them. My father is an episcopalian minister, who, after my mother’s untimely death, wished to get remarried. The episcopate (this was in Scotland) threw a self-righteous hissy fit because the woman whom he wished to marry was, sin of sins, divorced. They told him if he married her he would be thrown out of the church. Nary a thought for the man who was trying single-handedly to raise three young children (I was the oldest, and not yet a teen) or for the children themselves.

The ECUSA (episcopal church in the USA) had recognized that the 20th century had begun (this was the late 70s) and so, in the summer of my 13th year, my family upped sticks and moved from Dundee to….Missoula, Montana.

To add insult to injury, approximately a decade later the Scottish church changed its policy, whereupon one of the very bishops who had voted to exile my father married his divorced secretary. Scum. Sometimes I hope there is a hell, but one that only the religious are eligible for.

It’s easy to look at people like Dick Holloway (who’s not really even a christian) and Rowan Williams and see the Episcopal church as a bastion of liberalism and non-doctrinaireness. Not only is that not true, but they’ve never even been willing (except in private conversations behind very closed doors) to acknowledge the depths of their institutional small-minded susceptibility to moral panic, let alone take responsibility for it.

It seems to me that one of the following three propositions must be true, and I have never been able to find a cleric who will tell me which one.
a) The church’s policy and actions were wrong in 1977
b) They are wrong now, when the church wouldn’t exist without vast numbers of divorced and married to divorced folks in the clergy.
c) The church only responds to society in its moral policies, and therefore has no claim whatsoever to any moral leadership or authority.

15

Art Deco 09.23.15 at 7:29 pm

The point of this free-associating is precisely what? That you left some draft of a creative writing class submission in a drawer in 1982 and we all just had to see it?

16

Sumana Harihareswara 09.23.15 at 7:53 pm

Art Deco evidently has never heard of the Back button, or learned how to close tabs or windows they do not wish to look upon. A pity!

Belle, I enjoyed your musings. I grew up Hindu in a house where my parents prayed in front of the kitchen altar every morning. After I left home to go to college, my mother consistently gave me more and more paraphernalia — oil lamps, wicks, idols, incense, incense holders, kumkum powder, enough to outfit two or three altars in my opinion — and I never did set up an altar in my home. I have Ganesha idols and an illustration of Saraswati up, and a few of the oil lamps on the bookshelf, but most of the gifts stayed in a Rubbermaid container in the closet, accumulating familial guilt, a little Superfund site of bad-daughter emotion. Finally, the most recent time I saw my mom, I gave her back a bunch of the gifts, saying that I wanted them to be *used* by Hindus who actually wanted to use them to worship. She understood and was pretty laid-back about it; if I’d been less frozen up with anticipation of conflict I probably could have done this years ago.

17

Bill Benzon 09.23.15 at 8:03 pm

I don’t know that my father ever went to church, except with the family for Christmas eve services. That was at a Lutheran church, which was closest to our home. My mother was raised Episcopalean in Western Pennsylvania

When i was seven I decided that the world was a giant movie created for the enjoyment of the Baby Jesus, who must have been quite remarkable to have all this fuss over him. There was one thing I couldn’t figure out, though. Movies are obviously 2D. And we are obviously 3D. Couldn’t reconcile those two.

18

Art Deco 09.23.15 at 8:38 pm

Belle, I enjoyed your musings.

That’s self-indicting, sister.

19

oldster 09.23.15 at 8:45 pm

Art Deco, would you like to fuck off to somewhere else on the web where you like the writing better? No one makes you read posts here. If you don’t like them, then leave quietly. Now.

20

Art Deco 09.23.15 at 9:18 pm

Art Deco, would you like to fuck off to somewhere else on the web where you like the writing better? No one makes you read posts here. If you don’t like them, then leave quietly. Now.

She posted something rather repulsive. It’s not doing her any favors to pretend other wise. Since she’s raised the matter, it’s not doing SH any favors to pretend her sensibilities in good order. I might point out something about what your mode of expression says about you, but I’m wagering just about anything is a waste of pixels in your case.

21

Henry (not the famous one) 09.23.15 at 9:25 pm

@Oldster

We’re not allowed to be critical? Sure Art Deco’s comment to Sumana Harihareswara was snarky, shallow and condescending, but I don’t think we have to boot him out just for that. After all, he didn’t go all Richard Dawkins and accuse her of fabricating her appreciation for Belle’s piece just so she could . . . . you can complete the analogy.

22

oldster 09.23.15 at 9:25 pm

Would you like to tell us what the “something rather repulsive” might be? I assume you also saw something nasty in the woodshed, Aunt Ada?

And when someone posts something on their own blog that repels you, you think that gives you a right to be a jack-ass about it?

Dude, it’s her blog. You’re a visitor. Behave yourself or get lost.

23

Francis 09.23.15 at 9:52 pm

Mr Dreher’s most recent musings, on an article written by a self-confessed pedophile:

“Are there any grounds — other than consent — on which we can take a firm stand against [N’s] sexual desires, and tell him to deny what he desires in the deepest recesses of his brain, and that he considers to be an inextricable part of himself? We have made liberating the sexual self a virtue in the LGBT movement, and before that, in the Sexual Revolution. So where does that leave [N] in terms of finding resources with which to deny his sexual desire? If we simply say by fiat “children cannot consent to sex, therefore pedophilia is wrong, does that really take care of the problem?”

As between Belle and Rod being repulsive, it’s not even close. Belle has something called ‘humanity’.

24

js. 09.23.15 at 11:19 pm

“children cannot consent to sex, therefore pedophilia is wrong, does that really take care of the problem?”

What is this dude, a complete fucking idiot? Can someone point out to him that the answer to his question is in fact, Yes?

25

The Temporary Name 09.23.15 at 11:23 pm

What is this dude, a complete fucking idiot?

The answer to your question is in fact “Yes!”

26

Colin Danby 09.23.15 at 11:24 pm

Episcopalianism may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but “repulsive” seems just a little bit excessive.

27

js. 09.24.15 at 2:11 am

@TTN: Point well taken!

28

Belle Waring 09.24.15 at 2:30 am

My creative writing from when I was little was way, way more depressing than this, Art Deco. This is like a knitted heart cozy. Also, if I can’t post loosely connected personal reflections on my moderately-well-regarded academic blog, where else will I post them, I ask? Finally, everyone’s busy lately so posting is slow. It’s cake or death.

29

js. 09.24.15 at 4:22 am

My problem with Pascal’s Wager is that whether eternal life in Heaven would be the win.

You’re really underselling the awfulness of heaven here. I mean, isn’t it the case that you wouldn’t have a body in heaven? This would suck! You can’t put back some bourbon, fuck, or rock out to All Mod Cons. Why do I want this exactly?

30

JanieM 09.24.15 at 4:38 am

I mean, isn’t it the case that you wouldn’t have a body in heaven?

In the long run, you would. Christ will raise the dead at the end of the world.

Or something like that.

Google “resurrection of the dead.”

From a different angle, for those who dread heaven there’s the Hell scene in Man and Superman, where Shaw turns conventional notions of heaven and hell upside down.

Well, sort of.

31

Art Deco 09.24.15 at 2:21 pm

This is like a knitted heart cozy.

Only to someone damaged enough to fancy holding too old people up for the sneer treatment is ‘cozy’.

32

Art Deco 09.24.15 at 2:25 pm

Would you like to tell us what the “something rather repulsive” might be? I

One needn’t bother. Making fodder out of people this way is repulsive. You either get it or you do not. She puts up writing, and there is a comment board. It’s naive of her to fancy that all of the comments will be complimentary. (It’s peculiar of you to fancy you’re the mall cop of the comment board as well).

33

Art Deco 09.24.15 at 2:31 pm

As between Belle and Rod being repulsive, it’s not even close. Belle has something called ‘humanity’.

To anyone remotely familiar with Dreher, such a remark sounds unreal. Dreher’s signatures are exhibitionism, emotionalism, other-directedness, a tendency to react to social phenomena by making accusations, and a tendency to empathize with and give the benefit of the doubt to people in the newspaper business and allied trades (rather than lobbing accusations at them, which he does with everyone else). He has a talent for provoking discussions and a claque of seals in his comment boards as we speak; non seals like me got banned. He also has a long history of being regarded as an abrasive nuisance in the fora to which he has contributed.

34

William Berry 09.24.15 at 3:22 pm

Concern troll is deeply concerned.

One more BW thread that is shat upon by something that crawled from out of the woodwork.

35

Marshall 09.24.15 at 4:13 pm

My problem with Pascal’s Wager is that whether eternal life in Heaven would be the win

Spending eternity as Marshall seems to me an entirely horrible prospect. A few thousand years maybe I could manage if requested, if I could be useful, but I don’t think people grasp that eternity is a long time. My idea is that you get to try again, with the ability to fix like one tiny mistake (out of the multitudes). Like Groundhog Day, or Job 42. Thus there could be progress.

36

William Berry 09.24.15 at 4:24 pm

My religion back-story might deviate somewhat from the CT norm.

I was raised dirt-poor in a right-wing (term applied retro-actively; we didn’t know what that meant at the time), extremely Pentecostalist milieu. My father was a preacher and a pastor of churches that were smaller that some folks’ backyard tool sheds.

My father quit school in the eighth grade to go to work.* My mother quit school (seventh grade) at 14yoa to marry my father, who was seventeen at the time. This was in Mississippi in the 1940s.

I had fundamentalist crap crammed down my throat from day one.

I was basically an atheist by the ago of ten.

*Fortunately, he learned to weld and eventually became a successful contractor. He was, in the Thoreauvian sense, the founder of a family.

37

Art Deco 09.24.15 at 7:35 pm

Concern troll

That term does not mean what you think it means.

38

William Berry 09.24.15 at 8:14 pm

OK, deeply concerned troll, then.

39

js. 09.25.15 at 2:09 am

In the long run, you would [have a body]. Christ will raise the dead at the end of the world.

Wait, how does that work? Bodies can’t last for eternity—they’re just the wrong sort of thing to do that. Do you get a new body every so often? Do you get to pick!? Because that would be awesome!

40

js. 09.25.15 at 2:11 am

I’ve always wanted an extra few inches. If that’s a possibility in heaven, I might have to turn my life around!

41

JanieM 09.25.15 at 2:23 am

Wait, how does that work? Bodies can’t last for eternity—they’re just the wrong sort of thing to do that.

Once you believe in one impossible thing (Christ himself rose from the dead….performed miracles….etc.), you can believe in any impossible thing, right?

42

The Temporary Name 09.25.15 at 2:27 am

Nobody said heaven was pretty.

43

Belle Waring 09.25.15 at 2:31 am

js. It’s like you’ve never heard of the resurrection of the body. Do you even Christ, brother? Our actual bodies, perfected, forever, and it’ll no longer be wrong to have sex because all have been washed clean in the blood of the lamb! The sin of Eve has been struck from the red column in the ledger of The Lord!

44

Collin Street 09.25.15 at 2:31 am

Maybe they’re made out of bread.

45

js. 09.25.15 at 4:14 am

Ok, look. I get that God is all-powerful and all. But even God can’t go around fucking with logic like that. This is like voluntarism on crack! I mean, indestructible souls, sure–that’s at least conceivable. Indestructible bodies!? Is the resurrected body indivisible as well? That literally, and I mean that literally, doesn’t even make sense!

46

JanieM 09.25.15 at 4:21 am

Oh ye of little faith……

47

Meredith 09.25.15 at 4:23 am

Somehow, Margaret’s gotten lost in all of this. She’s the person who stood out most for me in the OP. RIP, Margaret, whatever awaits each of us on death (maybe, probably, nothing, but who knows? isn’t that what’s interesting about death? what’s interesting about being human?). Beat not the bones of the dead, sweet chucks. Margaret lived and breathed.

48

Meredith 09.25.15 at 4:41 am

A side note. My mother, not raised anything (though the family joke(?) was that her NYC paternal grandmother spirited her and her sister off to be baptized Episcopal — though that grandmother was first married to a Methodist organist, probably the son of a German Jewish musician? god, genealogy gets complicated fast) — well, I actually became my mother’s godmother. (My mother hauled the three of us children to the Episcopal church, figuring that we deserved to grow up in some tradition rather than the none of her youth. My high-heathen, midwestern Protestant father looked on calmly and distantly — but proudly — when I played the violin in church.) My heathen-turned-Christian mother worked tirelessly with Episcopal nuns in NJ for many years thereafter. That’s what I remember about my mother’s “religion.” She worked hard for others, with those NJ Episcopal nuns. (I think I am feeling a bit inspired by Francis.)

49

Belle Waring 09.25.15 at 8:07 am

Margaret WAS THE BEST!

50

Frank Stain 09.25.15 at 2:57 pm

I’d just like to point out that for all his weirdness, the thread conversation on the pedophilia question on Dreher’s blog is far more interesting, thought-provoking, and intellectually diverse than the inanity that usually goes on here. This site seems to have long ago descended into the usual in-jokes among the initiated and the usual failure to cultivate intellectual diversity that pretty soon makes lefty blogs unreadable. And I say that someone who is quite a bit of a lefty.
Yes, he’s a lunatic. But Dreher actually does a very good job in cultivating cross-cultural conversation. As you’ll realize pretty soon if you look on any number of threads on this site, conversations in which everyone from the same subculture pretty much agree on everything and have to manufacture petty disagreements about minutiae, are really not much fun.

51

ZM 09.25.15 at 3:52 pm

“I mean, indestructible souls, sure–that’s at least conceivable. Indestructible bodies!? Is the resurrected body indivisible as well? That literally, and I mean that literally, doesn’t even make sense!”

It depends what you mean by bodies. If you think of my dream I write about, I still had my body, it was just that since I was in an angel car I could happily pass through everything. I don’t think Angels really have cars any more than they really have chariots, but I guess they have to communicate with humans through our senses, so having angel cars and chariots can do that.

Thomas Aquinas’ idea is that resurrected bodies are glorified bodies which are immortal and don’t feel pain (I think they would feel pain if they passed through a person or animal in pain though, but I guess that is the pain of the creature), they are permeable and can pass through things, they can move as fast as thought, and they are clear and beautiful.

So you see the resurrected bodies in this conceptualisation do not have very much in common with living people’s bodies. Maybe this is due to body being a bit of a funny term, you can have bodies of matter, and bodies of water, and so on, and you say the church is the body of Christ.

52

js. 09.26.15 at 12:56 am

Thomas Aquinas’ idea is that resurrected bodies are glorified bodies which are immortal and don’t feel pain

That’s not a “glorified body”, it’s just not a body. Bodies—excepting simple bodies, like, say, atoms*—are divisible by definition. And anything that is divisible is destructible. This is an essential fact about matter. And what I’m saying here is a completely traditional view: it’s there in Descartes and Leibniz and all those other fun types. I am genuinely shocked that Aquinas of all people had some bizarre conception of a (non-simple) body that’s indestructible. Do you have a link for this?

In any case, JanieM is right that I am one of little no faith. An incorrigibly lost soul in fact!

*”Atoms” not in the sense of modern physics obviously.

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JanieM 09.26.15 at 1:22 am

In any case, JanieM is right that I am one of little no faith. An incorrigibly lost soul in fact!

I hope you know that I have just been teasing you, in part because I’m just the same! I was raised by a puritanical Catholic and a puritanical Baptist (puritan-ical: pun sort of intended), but I left all that far behind when I was about eighteen.

But also, I did get the feeling that you were seriously trying to apply logic to something that isn’t logical (at least from my POV), so I was a little bemused.

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js. 09.26.15 at 1:33 am

Oh yeah, I got that! But given that I used to be a philosophy grad student and, briefly, a faculty member, and very historically-minded at that, I’ve had to teach mind-body dualism, arguments for the existence of god (and arguments against those arguments), all that fun stuff! So, oddly, I have unusually strong views about what’s only obviously false when it comes to God’s alleged powers vs. what’s (almost certainly) utterly incoherent.

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js. 09.26.15 at 1:35 am

…Not that I take any of this seriously. Still can be a fun intellectual exercise. Maybe?

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JanieM 09.26.15 at 2:07 am

I’m glad you followed this:

So, oddly, I have unusually strong views about what’s only obviously false when it comes to God’s alleged powers vs. what’s (almost certainly) utterly incoherent.

with this:

Not that I take any of this seriously.

And I agree it can be a fun intellectual exercise. I have no training in philosophy whatsoever, but the angle I was coming from was that the distinction you’re making between “only obviously false” and “utterly incoherent” is irrelevant (or utterly incoherent :-) to (many of?) those of more-than-little faith.

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Belle Waring 09.26.15 at 4:16 am

Pretty sure that believing in the resurrection of the dead has been in the Nicene Creed for a billion years. Like, you must profess that pretty frequently.

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ZM 09.26.15 at 4:21 am

“I am genuinely shocked that Aquinas of all people had some bizarre conception of a (non-simple) body that’s indestructible. Do you have a link for this?”

Yes it is in Summa Theologia, except much lengthier. Descartes and Leibniz are later than Aquinas so I guess maybe that is the difference.

If you go to the supplement of the third part there is a treatise on the resurrection.

First there is a discussion on who will be resurrected and the integrity of their bodies, Aquinas notes some people say if you happen to get resurrected you won’t have any entrails, but he disagrees with this and says once resurrected the entrails will be filled of goodly humors – no doubt being probiotics which must get resurrected too.

Then he considers the quality of those who are resurrected, such as wondering what age they will be and so on.

Then he considers whether those who are resurrected will be impassable, which means not able to be hurt, and he thinks this must be so, mixing Aristotle with Corinthians : “Everything passible is corruptible, because “increase of passion results in loss of substance” [*Aristotle, Topic. vi, 1]. Now the bodies of the saints will be incorruptible after the resurrection, according to 1 Cor. 15:42,”It is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption.” Therefore they will be impassible. ”

The next topic for consideration is whether the resurrected bodies will be subtle – which means they can pass through things like in my dream – “On the contrary It is written 2: “It is sown a corruptible body, it shall rise a spiritual,” i.e. a spirit-like, “body.” But the subtlety of a spirit surpasses all bodily subtlety. Therefore the glorified bodies will be most subtle. Further, the more subtle a body is the more exalted it is. But the glorified bodies will be most exalted. Therefore they will be most subtle”

Upon concluding the glorified resurrected bodies will not feel pain and be able to pass through things Aquinas considers their agility – this means their speed , and he concludes they will be very quick indeed “It is written 3: “It is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power,” that is, according to a gloss, “mobile and living.” But mobility can only signify agility in movement. Therefore the glorified bodies will be agile. Further, slowness of movement would seem especially inconsistent with the nature of a spirit. But the glorified bodies will be most spiritual according to 1 Cor. 15:44. Therefore they will be agile.”

Next Aquinas thinks over whether the resurrected bodies will be of great clarity – this meaning light and beautiful – and concludes yes they must be : “It is written 5: “The just shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father,” and 6: “The just shall shine, and shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds.” Further, it is written 7: “It is sown in dishonor, it shall rise in glory,” which refers to clarity, as evidenced by the previous context where the glory of the rising bodies is compared to the clarity of the stars. Therefore the bodies of the saints will be lightsome”

This is my summary, there is more detail given

Source: http://www.summatheologica.info/summa/parts/?p=5&t=27

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Peter T 09.26.15 at 4:24 am

“Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all.” Philippians.

So there it is. Heaven is full of loincloth-glad Middle Eastern type males. You’d be glad to be gay.

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Ronan(rf) 09.26.15 at 12:10 pm

These are probably my favourite category of posts on CT, I have to say, and thankfully Rod Dreher only made a fleeting appearance! I was a little lost for the first few days as I seemed to recall Belle’s grandfather having a long term African American maid, and wondered why Margaret was working in the South but put in a nursing home in New Jersey. This is obviously the northern side of the family though, I’ve come to
realise?
I remember a history professor years ago in a class on US history who was trying to flesh out the subtle differences (subtle, rather than the elephant in the room) between the north and south, (and who used to regal us with personal stories) speaking about two history professors he had in Ohio in the 60s, one from a modest background in the South the other from a patrician background in the north, both from the same generation and deeply conservative (as was he, in a lot of ways) The fact that I cant remember much of the specifics mean this recollection is going to be not exactly useful, but one thing stuck was when he recalled that the southerner used to speak about how he could sit out on his porch of an evening and count his neighbours going to bed by the lights going off in the valley (although I might be misremembering this, as the rural south wasnt electrified until the New Deal?) Of course, coming from 1950/60s Ireland, generally, this shouldnt have been overly unfamiliar (but coming from middle class Dublin, as he often said, meant it was)
I dont know when having a live in maid/help stopped being a thing in industrialised countries/regions? My understanding was that in Ireland it was perhaps closer to the South, where it wasnt unusual for relatively (though perhaps not very) wealthy people to have ‘help’ (at least in the country) until the 60/70s at least, with a significant bit of that (although I dont really now the specifics, so am open to correction) labour being supplied by the Magdalene Laundries. My grandmother’s sister used to visit the institutions (afaicr hearing) maybe twice a month with chocolates and to say the rosary with the women. I regret not getting moreinformation form her about it when she was still alive.
All of that, I guess, is a long winded, tangential way of saying I look forward to the next biographical installment.

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Belle Waring 09.26.15 at 2:08 pm

When my southern-side grandmother was young they had houses in NYC and in Greenwich CT as well as Savannah, so my grandmothers were actually neighbors for a time, and indeed went to Vassar together. In this case I think class is the salient feature.

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F. Foundling 09.26.15 at 6:35 pm

>One definitely gets the sense then that if the post-death regions exist and are not quite as one has imagined them, nonetheless one will be on firm ground. You should think of it as an excuse to throw a catered betting party with your friend-with-benefits Pascal.

I wouldn’t be so complacent about the consequences that will ensue once it becomes mercilessly clear that the Zoroastrians were right all along.

@Meredith 09.25.15 at 4:23 am
>whatever awaits each of us on death (maybe, probably, nothing, but who knows? isn’t that what’s interesting about death? what’s interesting about being human?

I don’t know, I find the grammar of Classical Quiché and the behaviour of Virginian opossums fascinating, too.

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Belle Waring 09.27.15 at 1:58 am

Naw, man, it’s going to turn out Ancient Egyptian people were right all along, and Ma’at is going to weigh your soul against a feather in the scales of justice, and if you come up short you are eaten by crocodiles in the fens of death.

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Um 09.27.15 at 4:27 pm

Belle you always create the best comment threads. More, please.

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delagar 09.27.15 at 8:58 pm

Frank Stain: I will agree that Rod Dreher at one *point* was good at creating “cross-cultural conversation,” or at least better at it that most Right-Wing bloggers. It was why I read him for a very long time.

But (1) he bans anyone who challenges him too successfully and (2) since Obergefell, he has become totally lost the plot. His blog posts lately remind me of rantings from my uncle — the one who would whip out his wallet to show you the hidden messages on dollar bills. Only with Rod Dreher it’s all about Liberals and the coming persecution of Christians because sex. (And sex sex sex. Gay sex. The man can’t stop obsessing about gay sex for two minutes, unless someone distracts him with a story about how ghosts really are real, for reals.)

It’s sad. He used to be worth reading, fairly often.

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js. 09.28.15 at 3:07 am

ZM @58: Thanks for that. That is… strange. I mean, Aquinas’ argument re resurrection is, well, less than clear, let’s say.

Anyway, I guess I really did not at all understand what “resurrection” meant in Christian doctrine. In mitigation: I am not only not Christian, I’m not even nominally Christian, my parents weren’t born Christian etc.

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Meredith 09.28.15 at 5:05 am

Ronan, I am coming here too thrilled by an eclipse of the moon — she is back (as always)!!! — to be sane. But just to say, very middling people in the north had servants in the 19th century, many Irish, others German, others from “within” (so who knows whence — well, you can track them: from all sorts of places). They often had servants when they also had boarders — rents needed, especially by widows (of whom there were many)! Boarders, boarders everywhere, even when there were also servants or laborers (farm). People struggled, then as now, some from a position of more advantage, many more others from a position of less, many from a position of almost nothing, especially if Black. Just peeing and pooping were more difficult then, for everyone — can we get that straight? I think Belle tries to take us back to that milieu, trying to do honor to all.

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