Less is More

Thanks again Jose for sending me the book on St. Francis. The first 30 pages were so good that I couldn't stand to keep writing down quotes and thoughts on stitcky-notes and decided to head to Borders to buy a copy for myself. Really, I can't stand to read a good book without writing in the margins, underlining, etc. and G.K. Chesterton's life of Saint Francis of Assisi is one of the best books that I've come across in a long time - well worth the purchase.

In other literature-related news, I went down to the library today and checked out the book club pick for this month: "My Life in France" by Julia Child.

Chapstick, Chapped Lips, and Things Like Chemistry

G.K Chesterton says of St. Francis "His life was one riot of rash vows," and that "Never was any man so little afraid of his own promises."

That courage of resolve comes from a dedication to honesty, that few are manly enough to seize with surety. We have already wronged so many. We are all so in debt already, how could we ever just decide to become men of our word? I know I'm in debt to nearly everyone I know, for so many things that even if I tried to remember them all I couldn't. So what hope is there?

The only hope is to be so completely transparent and so ready with your charity that others see in you a consciousness of universal debt. We owe each other more than we can say, so whether you get your philosophy of charity from St. Francis, or from the movie Pay It Forward, or from Barrack Obama's words at the DNC this week:

"This country is more decent than one where a woman in Ohio, on the brink of retirement, finds herself one illness away from disaster after a lifetime of hard work.
This country is more generous than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment he's worked on for twenty years and watch it shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news.
We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty; that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes."

It all amounts to the same thing: as individuals we are better than our baggage. Now you may not agree with the way that someone else says it, but the choice we have is simple. Whenever we decide to we can clean up our act and start acting like Christ. And what's beautiful about that is that Christ was the most human person ever to live. He did humanity right and in him is every true aspect and characteristic of every individual that will ever live.

To sum it up: the Truth of humanity is so incomprehensibly big and so incomprehensibly a part of who God is that I am confident that in heaven we'll experience everything that we find true and good and beautiful on Earth.

This all struck me last night as I walked down a side-street after dark listening to the song "Ants Marching" by Dave Matthews Band. I realized that there is something about this song that reveals an aspect of humanity that was previously unstated or at least never stated so beautifully. And because of that unalterably true aspect of that song, I'm sure that a part of the adoration of Truth in heaven, whatever that ends up looking like, will include what is good and beautiful about the song "Ants Marching".

I love literature because it always attempts to say more clearly and more beautifully what we already know. Music is the same. There's something that always gets me about the song "In The Belly of the Whale," which is a children's song from the Veggie Tales movie about Jonah and the whale. The story of Jonah is one of those stories that captures a certain aspect of humanity better than it has ever been captured before.

Now, Jonah is by no means a long story, but when the Veggie Tales song sums it all up in the lines "got outta dodge, sailed on a bon-less bon voyage, you said North, I headed South, tossed overboar,d good Lord that's a really large mouth," I can't help but think that as silly as it is, it's incredibly pleasing to God.


And if all that bored you:

Brought to you by an unusual propensity toward rodentia on the part of Productivity 501, here are some tips on how to live your life from rats:
1. When you want to learn a skill, sleep a lot.
2. Too busy or tired to exercise? It's probably because you aren't exercising.
3. And finally: don't be influenced by preconceptions, otherwise your preconceptions will influence others.

Apathetic Way to Be

Dear clipboard guy,
If you can't hear yourself talk over the sound of Blue Oyster Cult's "I'm Burning For You" blasting out of my ear buds, then chances are I can't hear you either. And to answer your question: Have I registered to vote? Nope. Will I register to vote? Yes. Will I wait to do it until that cute girl with the clipboard that I saw here last week is back? Absolutely.

Last Sunday at Divine Redeemer there was no homily. Instead a deacon read from a document recently issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops entitled "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship." After church I picked up a copy and the next day I gave it a thorough reading and determined that, to some degree, I would use it as a guide by which to measure McCain and Obama in the upcoming election, and to find out where I stood politically in relation to The Church and to the candidates.

This resolution has turned out to be a lot more difficult to follow through with than I imagined.

After figuring out that Obama had a campaign headquarters less than a mile from my house I decided that I couldn't really have any better shot at learning about his policies than going right to the source. And I did. The first time I stopped by Obama-central I did so at 11 o'clock at night with a carload of passengers who had no idea why I was making this random pit-stop. I decided just to make a quick stop to pick up campaign literature. When I entered the door I was greeted by half a dozen of the most friendly, young, clean-cut Democrats I've met in this town. It really would have been great to sit down and talk to them, but I was just there to get some background reading. Turns out all they had was a biographical pamphlet that read like an obituary and a copy of Obama's "More Perfect Union" speech.

I was disappointed with the lack of reading material, but I went over the speech as carefully as I could and prepared myself for what I thought would be the first interview session in a series, addressing key issues like abortion, gun rights, universal health care and Obama's immigration policy. After reading an article in Newsweek about Barack's upbringing and incredibly diverse faith-background, a review of the speech already mentioned and the speech itself, I was geared up to hear more and to try to raise some challenging questions to some of his most avid supporters.

What I got was a waste of 45 minutes of my time and what Obama got was strike one.

At 8pm the main office of Barack's barracks was manned by two paid employees. One was a woman in her early 40's with the voice of a secretary and the political drive of a butterfly. After welcoming us and asking if we wanted the volunteer all we heard out of her for the rest of our visit was this: "Well now, that was just the nicest man there on the phone. He was a McCain supporter, but he was just so nice. Told me upfront that he was on the other side of the fence and said that I sounded so nice he wished he could change. What a nice man."

The other employee was a younger girl, probably fresh out of college, who, at an average of 4 words per minute, and while welcoming interruptions whenever she could, managed to tell me NOTHING about Obama except that he had a really sweet website. And to her credit, he does. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi there, I'm Zach, I was just wondering if you might be willing to talk with me for a bit about where Obama stands on some key issues (my intent was to talk about some life-based issues like abortion, stem-cell research, the death penalty and euthanasia).
Probama: Umm.... are you from a Newspaper? Uh... or T.V. or something.....
Me: Nope, just want to be informed.
Probama: ....Uh...Cuz you have to tell us if you are from...the uh...media...
Me: Nope.
Probama: (Turns to a person leaving the phone bank room) Uhh...did you...put in all your...uh...data? 'kay... Uh...huh... Haaaaaaaa.... (that's her laugh). (Turns back to me) So...have you checked out the uh...website?

That's pretty much how it went. She told me nothing. She refused to give me any information (she called someone to get ahold of voting records once, but they didn't pick up). In the end all she ended up doing was e-mailing me Obama's "Blueprint for Change," which, despite the fact that it is the most important document of campaign literature Barack has put together, she neither had in hard copy, nor had she even downloaded it before I asked for it. She couldn't even find it on that darn website that she talked up so much. This, might I remind you, is a paid campaign coordinator.

I'll probably head back there this weekend sometime when I'm pretty confident she isn't around, but having my first visit in earnest to Obama headquarters go so poorly put a serious damper on my enthusiasm for this project.

P.S. Tomorrow is movie-review Saturday. If you've got a pick go ahead and leave me the title of the flick and a spoiler-free blurb about it in a comment and you'll probably see it reviewed in the near future.