Christmas Oddyssey - Part II

Part I is in draft form, posted. Some of my family offline must be told before I can tell of these things here.

On Saturday, we left the cottage at three in the afternoon, ostensibly to get me to practice for my two church choirs that evening. Our real mission? To pick up a puppy.

My brother in law lost his dog six months after losing his wife. Living in the country as he does, the isolation and the loneliness have been very hard on him. He'd been talking about getting a dog for a while, but had dithered about the breed. He just couldn't make up his mind. The only thing we did know was what he wanted to call his next dog - “See ya!” (Not coincidentally, that is also how he bids adieu.)

So a month ago, we found a reputable kennel online, picked out a yellow Lab, and arranged to pick her up. And now were off to do just that. We had computerized directions from Google to get to North Augusta, and the lady at the kennel's directions, which assumed we would be coming from Ottawa.

The closer we got, the foggier it got. By the time we reached the spot where we expected the back roads directions to kick in, it was so foggy you could only see about twenty feet. The instructions spoke of an “immediate” turn to the left. We didn't see one. So we stopped at a farmhouse to see if they had heard of our kennel.

The man who answered the door hadn't, but tried to interpret them for us. An hour later, the fog allowed us to see only about five feet, and we were totally lost. We came across a lane. I suggested to my wife that she take it.

In tears now, she said, “What if we get stuck? Which way do I go?”

“There's a light up there,” I offered hopefully.

“Where?” She said in exasperation.

When we pulled in, I heard dogs barking. I hoped it might be the kennel itself. It was not, but an older couple told us to come on in to their house. The man set about interpreting the instructions we had and drawing a map to get there, while his wife comforted us. My wife tried to call the kennel. No answer.

Grateful for their help, we proceeded with the map he had drawn for us. We turned down roads, following the map he gave us as carefully as the fog allowed. We came up to a darkened house, and as well pulled into the laneway, a truck pulled in behind us. It was the lady my wife had spoken to on the phone. Their power was gone, so they'd gone for water. That was why there was no answer. In this day of cordless phones, even the telephone needs hydro.

They led us in to look at the puppy and pick up her papers. Their house was lit up in soft candle light, as they brought out the small, sleepy puppy. My wife was exulting in the fact that we had finally done this, but I was beginning to panic. The first choir was at eight - it was now quarter to seven. I was not going to make it, and it wasn't going to happen. I felt sick, because this isn't like missing some Sunday – this was Christmas Eve Mass.

And we didn't make it, not for that one. But when we got out of the car, my wife turned to me and said about getting Seeya, "I know you feel bad, but we have done a wonderful thing tonight. What we have done for him, he will be very grateful for."

When we got to the church at ten, I asked about the eight O'Clock choir. Apparently, it had been fine. At least I was on time for the one I was leading, the midnight Mass.

When I got to the piano room downstairs, one of my singers was there, and our trombone player arrived a minute or so later. Soon, everyone was there, and we went through all the material. I had written an Agnus Dei specifically for this Mass, but I had written it out a little wrong - I had been a bit hasty about scoring it. So while the piano player and I corrected it, the horns tooted away through their mutes.

I went upstairs, reasonably relaxed. The practice had been alright, and the music might go either way. But it was time to give that over to God. I went to the pews to meet my wife and friends. My parents spotted me from another pew, and came to sit with wife and daughter.

I said to my mother, “I will get to see you at Christmas,” and hugged her. It had been twelve years, and my eyes watered. Hers did too.

The music went well, I thought, and Father gave a beautiful homily on one of his favourite topics – intimacy, the idea that only rarely can you truly give yourself to another person, a vulnerability so eloquently spoken of by a baby in swaddling clothes. At the end of Mass, he gave me a rather extraordinary gift – a guitar. I am not normally speechless. I was this night.

Part III will soon follow.

Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah

They sort of fall on the same day today, so happy both of em! I have an adventure to tell, but today's not the day :-)

When the gel in the spotlight changes

I learned something yesterday that I cannot yet share here. There are people in my offline life who deserve to know first. But this is the most astonishing and sudden change I can think of... ever. Among other things, it means I must completely reevaluate who I believe I am and the way I think of myself. Because of when I learned it, I must, like Mary, ponder these things and treasure them up in my heart.

What kind of Superhero would I be?

Your Superhero Profile

Your Superhero Name is The Aqua Crystal Your Superpower is Accessorizing Your Weakness is Midgets Your Weapon is Your Rusty Wand Your Mode of Transportation is Flying Saucer

What's your Superhero Name?

The neverending

Yet my happiness was very tranquil, with an inward peace no earthly thing could touch. Night came at last to end my lovely evening, for darkness falls even on the brightest day. Only the first day of Communion in Eternity will never end. (St. Therese of Lisieux)

Most of us believe in the neverending.

For those who may not believe in God, but who believe in what can be infered from the visible universe, then some kind of existence is neverending - be it an unseen chain of universes in a multiverse. While the scope of creation is unimaginably vast, and this view of existence is not without beauty, I think that this view of the neverending lacks one thing.

For those who believe in heaven, the neverending is the stateless eternity of God. As St. Augustine said, Your years are but a day, and your day does not reoccur, but is always today. Your "today" does not yield to tomorrow and does not follow yesterday. Your "today" is eternity. God's eternity, the kingdom of Heaven, is as neverending as the multiverse, and beautiful like it, too. But it has one additional feature: love. "God is love," John tells us, and an eternity full of love is a far greater eternity, as impossible as talk of greater eternities may seem. Who could not wish to attain such an eternity?

Jingle bells

So my parents have been enjoying their stay with us, I think. It has been twelve years since we have had them here this time of year, and I have quite enjoyed being able to spend this time with them. Since they go south in October, it is normally many months before I can see them again. But seeing them at Christmastime is a special treat. And it is a thing that my youngest daughter has never known - she was only a month old the last time we were all together this time of year. Yesterday, my Dad took pictures of my daughter riding a horse at the stable. She is still in lessons, and won't take her helmet off until she gets home. :-)

We drank wine and ate roast beef at my brother's place on Tuesday, and we got into a profound meaning of life discussion. My brother lamented the fact that every year at Christmas, when we were young, we got five dollars from my grandmother.... but we spent it, and now it is gone. My mother noted how little she could afford to part with five dollars per grandchild. I said that I noticed the absence of the five dollars every year. I mentioned how my grandmother used to send me wallets, lots of wallets, and as my wallets kept falling apart, I'd replace them with a new one she sent me. I mentioned how I have kept one in check... so that I always have an extra wallet from my grandmother around. It helps me feel like she is still in my life, still a part of Christmas.

My father is writing another book. We discussed that, and it sounds interesting - a fictional narrative examining life, what it means, why we're in it. We're all over the map on that question in my family, going from the practitioner of a specific creedal system (me) to skeptical agnosticism, and apparently, all our views make their way into the story - I'm assuming in a Platonic dialogue kind of way.

I'm not sure how well my family knows my views and beliefs on faith and religion. They all know I have it, but I'm not sure if they realize how... intricate and complex a web of insights, fears, hopes, beliefs, and skepticisms my spirituality is. Of course, the same holds true in reverse. We've had quasi-religious discussions in our family, of course, but we hold such wildly divergent views that I don't think any of us has real insight into any of the others. My brother became something of a disciple of Nietzche in university, for instance, but I know his business has led him into contact with many Hindus and Muslims, and he takes enough interest in people that he now knows something of each. Has it affected his thinking?

I don't know. I've never asked.

I Confess

From The Ignoble Experiment:

I confess: When I was five years old, I stole a jellied candy from a shelf at the Dominion store. I knew I shouldn't have. People tell me that it was okay, I was only five and did not have a sense of right and wrong. But I remember - I knew it was wrong, and I did it anyway. It is the first thing I remember doing that I conciously knew was wrong.

I confess: I am neurotic, and it is genetic. It manifests itself in various ways such as singlemindedness, unreasonable fretting. These are indistinguishable from the way my daughter does these things. There are other relatives who do as well.

I confess: to being a procrastinator, and then worrying and stressing about it (see above.)

I confess: that I am far too often certain about things I should not be.

I confess: to being insufficiently patient.

I confess: to being easily offended, and being quick to judge the offender.

There - that is not everything of course, but these are things I am embarassed to admit, and where I wish I could improve my personal character.

In Heaven

What a brutal week. My wife, her friend, and I have been cleaning our brains out, as my parents arrived today for their first Christmas in Canada in twelve years. I snuck out with her to get the last of our Christmas presents. And now, we're done all the work. It is all done. Now we can just enjoy the holidays.

I read the question somewhere - "do you believe in Heaven?"

Most of the time I believe there is a Heaven. Belief is a thing you can struggle with all of your life. Even Jesus had his moment of doubt, exclaiming "Lema sabachtani!" So every once in a while I've had that chilling moment where you feel someone walking on your grave: a dreaded feeling of, "Well, what if there is nothing? What if it is all a cruel cosmic joke?"

On the flip side, there are moments when I know, I just completely know, that God has been walking with me. In church, in the Eucharist, I always feel him near. And in grief especially, I feel the helping hand of a friend who does not want me to suffer, or despair that a loved one is gone forever. He brings them near for me, and comforts and holds me.

It is hard to just "know." Sometimes faith is more valuable, because faith is a kind of trust, a hope tossed to eternity even without the assurance of absolute answers. It is trust that the glass that appears to be half full, is in fact entirely full - by half with what we can see, and in the other half, what we cannot yet.

Snowed in

We had a ton of snow dumped on us yesterday. 40 cm. I had a miserable day, but it ended well. Let me explain.

I set off for work at seven in the morning. I knew the buses would be running late, but my first bus wasn't too bad. When I got to Greenboro station I waited. The time for my bus passed. I waited some more. The O-Train arrived on the nearby train platform. The fellow next to me grumbled, "at least the trains are running on time." I sighed and wished that the O-Train went by my work (I think the new extension to Barrhaven will do so when it opens.) Route after route went by - some of them many times. While some buses were delayed, mine looked to be the only one ridiculously so.

Finally, after fifty minutes of waiting, a bus bearing my route number pulled up. Given the build up of an hour without the route in question, forty people spilled out of the station. The first twenty got on. In frustration, I shouted at the bus driver, "Is there another one soon? We've been waiting an hour!" He shrugged and said, "I'm the one from an hour ago."

When I finally was able to get aboard one, I went to my seat and found that half my transit ID was missing - the half with my picture had snapped off and fallen out. Almost in tears by this point, I ran up and down the bus frantically looking for it. But the bus filled up at the next stop, and I had to cease my search.

After leaving work, I pleaded my case with the bus driver, and told him I was headed straight to the OC Transpo office at the Rideau Center to get a new one. He smiled at me and let me on - thank God for small human kindnesses. At the OC office, I got my new ID, and bought a hard leather shield, one that will hopefully prevent my ID from snapping or falling out.

When I got home, everybody was in as bad a mood as I was. My wife and daughter were on their way to my niece's baby shower last night, along with my nephew's girlfriend. My wife was in distress about the condition of our house, so I got the vacuum out and fixed up the entrance hallway and stairs while she, my daughter, and an increasing number of people who were at our house straightened up the living room and kitchen. No longer able to bear the crowd of people in my house, I hid upstairs for a while. Then I hid in the basement practicing for Midnight Mass. My wife announced they were leaving, so I came up and kissed her goodbye.

When I came back upstairs, my older daughter looked shocked - then sheepishly admitted that "my friends are coming over." I leaned on the kitchen counter in distress. She was having a party, because she thought she had the house to herself. I couldn't bear this. What could I do?

It came to me. It had snowed. It had snowed a lot. I said, quite out loud, "I do know how to get the solitude I need!" I found my ski boots, put on my scarf, my ski jacket, and went out to the garage. I found my skis, but my heart sank when I could not find my ski poles. But with a bit of looking, they were there, and I reminded myself that the raincloud hovering over me was really one of my own making.

I walked over to Conroy Pit, where there is a huge toboggan hill and several forest trails. By this point it was ten at night, but in the city in winter, it never gets dark. The city lights bounce off the clouds, which in turn bounces off the snow, creating a feedback loop of light. To boot the moon was glowing behind the veil of clouds.

When I got to the tobbogan hill, I noticed that they've lit it up this year, just like at Green's Creek. So I climbed up the hill with my skis on... and about halfway up I realized just how huge the hill was. I said to myself, "This is stupid. I haven't done a hill this big on cross country skis in twenty years!" So I went down from there. I was fine - skiing is like riding a bike, you don't forget.

So I went all the way up, and went down. I have these superfast Telemark skis, so I bombed down the hill at super speed. But it was exhilirating. So I went up, down, up, down, carefully avoiding the two teenage boys who were there with a sled, doing jumps.

After starting to bore of this a bit, I went cross country into the forest. As I slid into the pine forest, I took a moment to appreciate where I was. The snow covered the pine boughs, the downed and hanging trees, and shrubs. Overhead, the moon cast down its light, and all around the snow glowed purplish-white in the soft light. I stayed and stood for an undefined period of time, one without real beginning or end, appreciating that I had been given the chance to snatch this out of the ruins of my day. Although I may not be a pantheist, I know God is present in moments like this. His snow has fallen on his trees in the moonlight like this for millions of years, and for a fleeting moment, I felt connected to every scene like this, across an eternity of winters.

How petty a thing is one day of small, trifling inconveniences on a canvas as large as the one I had been painted on.

Walking home with my scarf in my pocket and my coat unzipped, I knew my bad day was not quite done. I had a house full of loud nineteen and eighteen year olds to face. But I had been given my small moment of grace. I knew it was enough to carry me right to the end of things.

Buffy the Kuiper Belt Object

That'll put the marzipan in your pie plate, Bingo!

Universe Today - Buffy the Kuiper Belt Object

Rumsfeld vs. Yoda - who would win?

Well if you've ever seen a Donald Rumsfeld press conference, where he always gestures like the Emperor in Star Wars, then you know Rumsfeld will kick some green butt! See evidence below:



See? Told you!

The War on Christmas

Every year now, people get upset about the "war on Christmas." I even wrote about this last year. Now, apparently, it has become a left wing vs. right wing thing. Left wing sites like Buzzflash and DailyKos have taken up the defence of anti-SallyAnn Target stores and crecheless mangers, while Bill O'Reilly reports breathlessly on the alterations to Silent Night that weren't. But how did this get to be a right vs. left thing? Surely there are conservatives who celebrate Chanukkah and not Christmas, and left wingers who very much do the "deck the halls with boughs of Holly" thing?

I don't get why this would be a fuss. It is kind of stupid that governments would use the term "Holiday tree" to avoid offending people who are not Christian. They must think awfully little of non-Christians, to think that they are so intolerant as to be offended by the term "Christmas tree." I know I would be offended if somebody renamed a menorah just for me, because they thought I might take offense at the word "menorah." What kind of bigot would they think I am?

On the other hand, who cares if a clerk says, "Happy Holidays"? Gift giving is part of North American Channukah customs, even to the point that Santa Claus has a counterpart in Channukah Harry. Stores know there's a very good chance someone buying a gift may be buying it for Channukah, Yule, Winter Solstice, or for none of the above and somebody's birthday. Boycotts intended to force store clerks to utter the words "Merry Christmas" is an oppressive use of majority buying power that has nothing to do with the gentle arrival of a baby in a manger.

What I'd really like for is for the controversy to go away. Most of the celebrations we are having this year are about how, in the darkest times, light triumphed over the dark. Stuff about "peace on Earth, goodwill to all men." And anyone who wields "Merry Christmas" or "Happy holidays" as a weapon has totally missed, as some call it, "the reason for the season."

Owning Albert Einstein

There are a few figures of history everyone likes to claim for their own - a very few. Albert Einstein was certainly one of them.

Einstein was of course a physicist/mathematician of incomparable genius. Although his greatest accomplishments, the theory of general relativity and the theory of special relativity, were done by 1916, he remained a figure of great importance simply because of his eloquence. How many thousands of debates were won using the logical error of appeal to authority simply because the authority was Einstein?

One area where Einstein was a mess of contradictions was religion. Einstein (who was Jewish) has said so many different things on the topic, from "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind", to "I cannot believe that God plays dice with the cosmos." He also said, "The idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I am unable to take seriously."

Sadly, the great thinker did not leave us the "universal theory of everything" he spent half his life looking for. Many with a theological (or atheological) point of view tend to interpret his statements on religion as though they represented the same kind of consistent thinking he sought to develop in physics. Some atheists point to his comments about the anthropomorphic God as evidence that Einstein was in their camp (as if it mattered.) Similarly, many proponents of ideas like Intelligent Design take Einstein's enthusiasm for a spiritual outlook on science as proof that his comments endorse their view.

In reality, Einstein's expressed views come closest to what might be called pantheism - the idea that creation itself is the divinity, so to speak, one that might even be aware and sentient, if the divinity of his famous "dice" comment was more than a convenient construct such as Hawking's "imaginary time." But whatever his views, which seemed to blow with the wind, they weren't the mathematical insights of a physicist. They were the awe and wonder of a man who learned so much about the nature of the universe, that he could not help but be impressed with its grandeur and the sheer beauty of its design. Spirituality was Einstein's poetry - nothing he offered on the topic is a proof for anyone's specific point of view; just an eloquent testament to the beauty he bore witness to.

All I Want for Christmas....

...is in my PowerPoint file.

PowerPoint Slides: the New Puppy-Dog Eyes

Busy, busy

So it is a very busy time of year. Very busy.

Yesterday I composed music for the Agnus Dei (the Midnight Mass I did decide to do.) The one I have done is in Latin, the "Agnes Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi, miserere nobis" ordinary that is in the liturgy for the Pax.

The Gloria, I am thinking of doing as a plainsong chant. However, the Mass needs to be singable, too, and people don't tend to sing along for chant. So the other ordinaries and propers will be the most obvious things I can think of, the Celtic Alleluia, the "Mass of Creation" Sanctus, etc.

I have yet to do all my Christmas shopping. The worry is wearing on me a little. It is not my favourite thing to do, but I'm at least a little ahead. The one big gift for my wife is done, and the other, I know what it is.

Open for Christmas

You may have heard about this controversy - a number of large churches will not be opening on Christmas Sunday.

We certainly don’t have to worry about that in mine. I’ve agreed to do the music at the Midnight Mass, and I can’t really extract myself from the 8 PM Christmas Eve Mass either - our leader does not want to do it without me.

In the Time article a number of these churches will not be opening for reasons that sound…well… logistical and financial. The article notes, “Leaders at Willow Creek Community Church, a congregation in the affluent Chicago suburbs where about 15,000 people worship each weekend, said that attendance wasn't great…Across the country, hundreds of congregations… have decided that it's not worth it to marshal the resources to hold services on Christmas Sunday.”

The Didache, a catechism written around the same time as the New Testament, provides one of the earliest indications that church communities had begun, in the very age of the apostles themselves, to gather for liturgy and communion every Sunday, as a matter of obligation.

I’m as big a fan of Christmas morning as anyone. But I’m glad my family will start Christmas with the baby Jesus - at midnight Christmas morning, singing the ancient hymns of praise - the Great Gloria, the Kyrie - for a saviour who has given me every Sunday I shall ever have.

When the clouds cross the moon

In the city, the onset of winter is not particularly fun. Winter heralds bad driving conditions, salt ruined clothing, shopping mall congestion, the perpetual red glow caused by city lights reflecting up onto the low lying clouds - it is never bright and it is never quite dark.

Winter at the cottage is a delight. When I got up this morning, the sun was rising over the pines. An orange glow was casting out onto the snow, and the wind was blowing snow across the lake. Later, when I was barbequeuing dinner, I watched the clouds weave in front of the moon, as the wind sang on the lake.

Something to freak out about...

I went to the doctor for a physical on Thursday, along with my wife and my youngest daughter. She is now over five two. The nurse said, "I know where she gets her height from."

I'm not so sure. When they measured me, I am now only six feet one! How did that happen?! I've lost more than an inch in height!! I think I find this the most distressing part of growing older... let the hair fall out or turn grey, or sprout from nose and ears. But don't take my height away! :-)

Warrants for Torture

This is a bit of a followup to my last post. I really have wanted to do a more in-depth post of the kind I used to do, but I can't easily find the time for it anymore.

Shortly after 9/11, the reknowned human rights lawyer Alan Dershowitz began talking about "torture warrants." Many people thought that his thoughts on this matter meant that he was advocating torture, but he was always clear to point out that he did not. His remarks were very controversial, and I was almost offended when I saw him speaking in a similar way to that editorial on CBC Newsworld one night. But the events of the last few years have led me to believe there was a much greater wisdom to his proposition than I originally believed.

Dershowitz has argued that in "ticking time bomb" scenarios, law enforcement officials will torture - they just will, whether we like it or not - if many lives can be saved. As we've seen in the last few years, torture seems to be inevitable in the pressure cooker environment, even if lives are not immediately at stake. There've been the official interrogation techniques used by intelligence agencies, such as the simulated drowning effect caused by water-boarding. Then there are the "grey areas" - things like "rendition" where nobody publicly admits a detainee is being deported in order to be tortured in a jurisdiction that allows it, but where that is the tacit benefit. And then, of course, are the total system breakdowns, things like Abu Ghraib. In such cases, torture is the result of a "Lord of the Flies" breakdown of social order among troops, more than an official operation designed to accomplish specific goals.

Here, the Dershowitz argument begins to derive more force. What if torture was a part of the law agency toolkit, but only via a court ordered warrant? If it were operated out in the open and not concealed grey areas that are out of sight, public officials would then be subject to the normal public pressures of democracy. The actions could have consquences in terms of re-election hopes, etc.

I am opposed enough to torture that I could not support such a measure, not yet, at any rate. But at least I understand a lot better what it was Mr. Dershowitz was talking about. Contrary to the popular saying, democracy always does its best when it airs its laundry in public.

Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | AP Poll: Most Say Torture OK in Rare Cases

They don't show how Canadians polled on this - 'divided' does not really explain anything. I must say I am not heartened to hear this. I really believe that if our societies are to truly be worthy of saving from terrorists, it has to be because our morality is clearly superior to that of terrorists. This is one of those areas that, for me, does not have shades of grey. Torture is a place you just don't go as a society.

Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | AP Poll: Most Say Torture OK in Rare Cases

Signposts of Advent

Yesterday, at the end of Mass the group was standing quietly awaiting the benediction and dismissal. During the announcements, Father mentioned that if people wanted to attend the earlier evening masses, they would need tickets , “And for Midnight Mass, well I was going to ask [evolver] here about that.”

I sort of stammered and gulped. Later, I was saying, “well I am kind of honoured, but...”

Our deepest tenor interrupted and said, “Honoured? No. They're desperate,” and grinned. We all laughed.

Still, I spent half the night up about it. My wife liked the idea, because that would give us the whole day on the 24th to concern ourselves with our daughter, who turns twenty, and my brother, whose birthday it is as well. Still, I had a certain anxiety about not being part of my own music group (doing the Midnight Mass would mean leaving my group for the night, who are doing 8:00 PM.)

I kind of feel badly that this came up. Our group leader was not happy about the idea of me not being part of the regular group (my lead guitar and alto descanting are part of the group's sound.) So I think I've kind of folded on the idea of doing Midnight Mass for the benefit of the group, though I really would have enjoyed the opportunity.

Yesterday was a big church day. I spent the afternoon working as part of a Cursillo group (mandolin this time), and then headed in the snow over to my regular group. The young seminarian who preached last night preached on the theme of imagination, in a way that touched upon my Nouwen musings of the other day – eerily so – about how we fill our lives with expectations in a way that takes away from the possibilities of imagination, the possibilities inherent in the unexpected.

In the second week of Advent, the theme - “He's coming” accelerates. We begin to see that he is coming, not just in the sense of observing history, but that he's coming again. History is always in motion – pointing towards the Messianic age in the sense that we expect the culmination of history, in one respect, yes. But our history is in motion on a personal level, too. Is it a motion towards God coming into our lives, or does a Christian adherent simply repeat the same pattern, Christmas after Christmas?

Nouwen almost pessimistically suggests that we vary between poles in life – never fully getting there, often backsliding back to near the start. In a sense he is right – I struggle with things I had hoped to put behind me years ago. But I have to believe that the struggle is more than the struggle. It offers the potential for real victory: small triumphs in our lives that, if not making us saints, nonetheless represent signposts of real achievement that we can stop and admire for a moment... and then I hope pass, like Lot, without looking back.

Signs you've mattered

The warmth of your own blood, coursing with a hundred generations who have knowingly or unknowingly had you as their aim; The scar on your belly, where you were once attached to another; the lines on your eyes, the sign of a thousand smiles shared with others; the wear on your shoes, the fruit of walking a long road.

My own world

Last night, as I went to bed, I pulled out Henri Nouwen's "Reaching Out" again. The page I struck the book open to had him describing something that sounded very much like my reality. He says rather than living in things the way they are, we invent a world of abstractions, of preooccupations to fill in the spaces that are unoccupied in our minds. He says we prefer a bad certainty to a good uncertainty.

I have to admit that he is at least describing me. I think of Dr. Temple Grandin, the autistic woman who became a specialist in animal behaviour after realizing that autism's unabstracted pictoral thinking is comparable to how animals see the world. My cat does not see the world through a haze of overthinking it - he just sees the world, which is why his head turns for every movement in the room.

How do you free yourself from this? Nouwen asserts that in some ways filling the empty space with preoccupations limits our creativity. As I lay staring at the plaster on the ceiling, the tree branch outside the window, the light cast by the lamps outside, I tried to empty my mind of conclusions, of words, and lie there in wordless observation. I was able to do it, for a while. But I could not fall asleep that way - I had to retreat into my abstractions, the scenarios that rattle about my head, before I could fall asleep.

Firewater

I went to my wife's Christmas party last night. Now I don't do too well at parties, since I am painfully shy. So a certain amount of alcohol comes in handy.

It is really the only time I drink. I do not like to be any less than completely sharp mentally. But the phrase "social lubricant" is not without a certain accuracy. Thinking of this yesterday, I saw how easily a dependence on alcohol could form.

Not that I danced with lampshades on my head or anything. One beer provides only enough social lubricant to avoid hiding in the corner. :-)

Canada goes to the polls

As you may have heard, Canada's Federal government fell on Monday, and we are going to have an election in January. I do not plan on spending much time thinking of this. It is the holy season of Advent, and to be distracted by the unholy world of politics would not be good for me. There are already enough distractions, like Christmas shopping and arranging complicated "what relatives to visit when" plans.

I did see something that made me laugh, however - someone wrote somewhere that the contest in Canada is deeply depressing. Our choice - we can vote for the crooks, the commies, the traitors, or Stephen Dubya Bush! :-)

Teens-B-Gone

This is too funny. I wonder if I still hear those frequencies?

Buzz off! ‘Mosquito’ aims to drive away teens - Peculiar Postings - MSNBC.com

My wife sent me this

In the days when country doctors would travel half a day in the snow to see a patient, a sick man turned to his doctor, as he was preparing to head off into the bitter cold and said, "Doctor, I am afraid to die. Tell me what lies on the other side."

Very quietly, the doctor said, "I don't know."

"You don't know? You, a God-fearing man, do not know what is on the other side?"

The doctor was holding the handle of the door; on the other side came a sound of scratching and whining, and as he opened the door, a dog sprang into the room and leaped on him with an eager show of gladness.

Turning to the old man, the doctor said, "Did you notice my dog? He's never been in this room before. He didn't know what was inside. He knew nothing except that his master was here, and when the door opened, he sprang in without fear. I know little of what is on the other side of death, but I do know one thing... I know my Master is there and that is enough."

Other people's grief

It is seven in the morning, and the beginning glow of morning is taking hold. The ground is covered with white snow, and the cloudy sky is glowing with a slight touch of pink.

Last weekend, I played accompaniment and sang descanto at a funeral. Yesterday I went to the funeral of a childhood neighbour, and today I am doing the music at a healing service. Ive been surrounded by other people's grief, and I suppose I am having a brief taste of what that must be like for a priest. And it isn't as awful as I always imagined it to be.

While there are certainly no joys in watching people suffer, grief is a terrible but potent reminder that love is in the world. People may leave the world, but the love others have for them does not. It is a little different every time I see it. At the memorials we have had in my wife's family, there is always, amid the grief, a certain degree of silliness: my brother in law wearing a chicken hat, me inserting funny lyrics into one of the songs, my wife bringing her mother's ashes to chaperone us at family camp.

Yesterday, there was none of that, because people do not do grief the same way. Instead, there was a brother, broken up, delivering an eulogy off the cuff. He asked simple questions: "Who's going to make me laugh? Who's going to fix my car?" There are only heartbreaking answers for the moment.

Funerals are for us, ultimately. They help us begin to picture the rest of our lives and make sense of it. Although it is beautiful to send people off with all of our love and affection, they already bask in it in a way that is beyond all understanding. For those who leave us, every tear will be wiped away, and there is no more sorrow. There are many rooms in the Father's house, and a Father who has waited a long time to greet us Himself.

Even his mistakes were brilliant

Einstein once called his cosmological constant his "greatest blunder." I am sure he would be amused to discover that even in this, apparently, he was quite right.

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Supernovae Back Einstein's "Blunder"

Worst poet ever

I don't know if the man who wrote these particular "works" is the same Michael Newdow as that lawyerly fellow who worries about pledges and dollar bills, but whoever wrote this awful dreck has to be the worst poet ever. Worse than "William the Bloody Awful", a fictional bad poet from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Mr. Newdow perhaps embraces a worldview in which he has no soul. But from my perspective, I'd say it's more his poetry. :-) "In the sky a light quite meteoric?" Wow - I mean, that's bloody awful - there are no words for how grade four bad that is. He does have one funny line however. "I'm really not litigious
But now I'm in a bind. I'd like to just be kind," He writes, though I'm sure it is not intentionally ironic.

Michael Newdow Song Lyrics

These are a few of my favourite things

This comes from The Ignoble Experiment aka Live Dangerously!

10 Favorites
Favorite Season: I love them all, but summer tops it for me.
Favorite Sport: swimming, skiing
Favorite Time: Sunset
Favorite Color: blue
Favorite Actor: Robin Williams
Favorite Actress: Gillian Anderson; even when the X-Files scripts sucked, agent Scully always had a fascinating emotional and intellectual complexity, thanks to the presence Anderson gave her.
Favorite Ice Cream: Vanilla
Favorite Food: Raspberries, blackberries, green grapes, strawberries
Favorite Drink: Lemonade
Favorite Place: in the water

9 Currents
Current Feeling: melancholy
Current Underwear Color: Ain't nobody's business (to quote Billy Holliday)
Current Windows Open: None, silly.
Current Drink: water
Current Time: 9:06
Current Mobile(s): I lost my phone in the snow last winter. Second time I did it, so I never replaced it.
Current Show on TV: No idea. I imagine Regis is on somewhere. I don't watch anything other than news anymore.
Current Thought: That the TV show thing was a stupid question.
Current Clothes: Green collared button up shirt, black pants, my shoes, which I discovered this morning have holes in the soles.

8 Firsts
First Nickname: The Martian, because in my first public speaking exercise I gave a speech called “The Blue Planet,” which I announced I was from. I guess I was the only kid in the class to understand what allegory was. They called me that for years.
First Kiss: I think it was some girl in Saskatchewan we were playing bulldog with. But I'm not really sure.
First Crush: Not really sure. Infatuations came and went like dandelion fluff when I was a boy.
First Best Friend: Stephane, with whom I was friends from the age of four on.
First Vehicle I drove: My great uncle's Cadillac.
First Job: .I rode an ice cream bike. Some days, I ate all my profits. :-)
First Pet: Samuel Leonard Pussycat.
First Shave: Geez, I dunno. The first time I was tired of looking like Shaggy from Scooby Doo?

7 Lasts
Last Drink: I don't think I've had anything to drink yet. That bottle of water is just sitting there.
Last Kiss: My wife
Last Time I Drove: I drove my bike a couple of days ago.
Last Time Shaved: This morning
Last Web Site Visited: Google
Last Movie Watched: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Last Pill I Had: Lactase

6 Have You Evers
Have You Ever Broken the Law: No doubt. They have laws against just about anything. No felonies though. Just fineable stuff, as far as I know.
Have You Ever Been Drunk: Boy, I could tell some stories, but in short – yes. Don't drink much now, though.
Have You Ever Kissed Someone You Didn't Know: Don't think so. Maybe a few aunts' cousins' nephews' former roommates' great aunts at my grandparents fiftieth, but that's not what you meant, is it?
Have You Ever Been in the Middle/Close to Gunfire or Bomb Blast: Yes. At an airshow once, I am sure I was no more than a couple of hundred feet away from a huge explosion when some kind of fighter-bomber dropped some sort of incendiary device on a target. You could feel the heat. And I've fired a gun a few times – the last few times, hunting pumpkins in the fall (beats shooting coke bottles anyday.)
Have You Ever Skinny Dipped: Yeah. But not for thrills. We were camping, and I was too lazy to hang laundry.
Have You Ever Broken Anyone's Heart: Probably not, but then who can speak for another's heart?

5 Things
Things You Can Hear Right Now: industrial equipment, a fan, someone shuffling plastic things. My hands whacking keys on a keyboard. Papers shuffling.
Things on Your Bed: four pillows, a duvet.
Things You Ate Today: Two samosas, an orange, and a bowl of ramen noodles. I know that's only four things, but there has not been anything else.
Things You Can't Live Without: You can actually live without a lot, but who wants to? I can't live without food. You can't live without water. And you can't live without meaning.
Things You Do When You Are Bored: Make music. Sometimes I'll just bask in the boredom – as an archbishop of Canterbury once said when asked his greatest accomplishment, I am proud of learning how to do nothing at all.

4 Places You Have Been Today
Home. Greenboro park. The bus. Here.

3 Things On Your Desk Right Now
A bottle of water. A headset. A USB adapter.

2 Choices
Black or White: Black. Doesn't show when its dirty. :-)
Hot or Cold: Cold. I don't mind the cold, and it can be very peaceful.

1 Thing You want to do before you die

Visit the places I have never been.

How to lose a war without losing

It has happened. Consider Viet Nam or any other war that ended with occupation. If the locals were unwilling to be occupied, all they had to do was wait out the occupier while he suffered the proverbial death by a thousand cuts. This quote is worth considering:

It may be an apocryphal story, but it is told that after the American evacuation from Vietnam in 1975 an embittered American Colonel told a North Vietnamese officer, “You know, you never beat us in a single tactical engagement.” The North Vietnamese responded, “That may be true, but it is also irrelevant.”


Center for Defense Information

open book: In honor of St. Cecilia..

Amy Welborn asks In honor of St. Cecilia that people tell a memorable story of how music moved them.

Here is one, though I have many.

Not a church moment, but profound for me anyway. I was on my way to a theatre to see "The Gospel of John" film that Garth Drabinsky had produced. I was in a very dark place, and had been for days - perpetual rainclouds over my head regarding my own inadequacies.

Outside the theatre, I heard the echoes of a song I'd heard a few times on the radio, I think. But this time, I listened to the words - it was Josh Groban's rendition of "You Raise Me Up."

You raise me up
So I can stand on mountains
You raise me up
To walk on stormy seas
And I am strong
When I am on your shoulders
You raise me up to more than I can be.

Tears welled up as I realized this was exactly how I needed to feel. Of course, I could expect inadequacy in my life. But I also had a God capable of taking me past them. What a cathartic moment, brought by a lovely rendition of a simple song.

Catholic school teacher fired for... pregnancy?

I just can't understand this. If there is anything that singles the Catholic church out, it is the unwavering conviction that people who are not yet born ought to have the opportunity to make it all the way to birth.

Statistics have shown that economic reasons dominate among women who choose to have abortions. How, exactly, is this school board being pro-life when it is both rendering her unemployed and without health care, and also stigmatizing her as though she is a leper?

One assumes that the rule that teachers must not "violate the tenets of Catholic morality" has a certain amount of leeway. A lot of things violate Catholic morality, and most of us, in small ways, do some of these things every day. That is why we have confessionals.

This woman has made a difficult choice - to become a mother, even though her choice to do so jeopardizes her career and alters her future irrevocably. When confronted with the big picture choices (and not petty fix it in the confessional stuff), she is making exactly the sort of moral decision the church calls on her to make. For this, she is to be punished?

7Online.com: New York City and Tri-State News from WABC-TV

Bad habit

I have a bad habit of shouting at the news on television. I don't even know why I do it. The issue that really gets me going is war: I can't stand listening to saber-rattlers. I am thinking in part of the Iraq war, where here in Canada, we had people arguing we had to go along with that to preserve our economic interests - the most crass and callous explanation I have ever heard to justify war. And then there is the recent call by Iran for the destruction of Israel.

Now you, dear reader, may be well aware of my opinions on these matters. You may agree with them, and you may disagree with them. But you probably find them uncontroversial. What is odd, however, are the debates I have with the television. For all my clever heckling, it never seems phased by my outbursts.

For someone in Phoenix

I know you believe that you are not close to God. That absence can seem very real, and I know what it feels like. Sometimes in my own life, God has seemed absent. And sometimes, even worse, it feels like his absence is because I chased him away. But know that it is precisely in these moments, in fact, that God has drawn closest to you. He has never walked more closely by your side.

One of the most mysterious and beautiful passages of the entire Bible is found in Genesis 32. Here are the relevant excerpts:

And Jacob said, "O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who did say to me, `Return to your country and to your kindred, and I will do you good,' I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness which you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan; and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, I pray you, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, lest he come and slay us all, the mothers with the children. But you said, `I will do you good, and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.'"

...

And Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and Jacob's thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then the man said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." And he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob."

Then he said, "Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed." Then Jacob asked him, "Tell me, I pray, your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?" And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peni'el, saying, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved."

The sun rose upon him as he passed Penu'el, limping because of his thigh. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the sinew of the hip which is upon the hollow of the thigh, because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh on the sinew of the hip.

In the worst state of anxiety over his brother Esau, whom Jacob had once cheated out of Isaac's inheritance, Jacob had reached his lowest ebb in this place. Seeing another man, Jacob desperately sought out validation – I will not let you go unless you bless me – from another man. He fought all night for the man's embrace and acknowledgment. And only upon winning it and asking the man's name did he realize that a truth far more wonderful than anything he could have hoped for had unfolded before him – God himself had blessed him!

You are right to say that “God will know the details” as I pray for you. For my part, it is only necessary that I pray for you, and love you. And I do – both.

Hurray for Texas!!

A petulant and reluctant Sony, clearly resenting the circumstances, finally issued a recall on CDs that many technical commentators basically called spyware (such as the famous Mark Russinovich, the NT mag guy everyone admires.) The discs installed low level files in Windows operating systems designed to prevent CD copying and ripping, and then used some sloppy code to prevent the files from being detected.

So people who thought they were going to listen to music as they put CDs in their drive bay were instead installing a root kit without consumer's knowledge, and doing it in a way that hackers could come in and exploit. Meanwhile the program, according to EFF staff who've launched a class action suit, would be "spying on their listening habits with surreptitiously-installed programs."

The tactic is so bad that anti-spyware programs have been modified to detect and remove this incredible invasion of privacy. Sony's music discs are being treated like a leprous computer infection.

So Texas has decided to sue Sony for distributing spyware. Good for them! If Sony is unwilling to accept the chastizing of its own customers, maybe Texas can teach it some humility.

Texas Sues Sony Under Anti-Spyware Law

(Here's the technical description of what Sony did.)

Forgot to make this entry...

(wrote it about a week ago)

For the first time this year – at least, for the first time in such a way that it didn't melt right away – it snowed. The first snow is something I always greet with some ambivalence now. While I enjoy winter's many activities, the first things that occur to me tend to include:

• The salt will be out soon, and will ruin my shoes

• The snow is not going to go away for as many as six months

• Every day will be bright white, but in that dull winterly way that comes from lack of sunlight, for at least another month and a half.

• Trudging through the dark, making my way too and from overcrowded malls, is a large and looming part of my future.

But Advent is coming. Advent is a season where dim light begins to accrue in the dark, one candle at a time, and reminds me that hope always filters into the world. In the seasons. And in a small helpless child in a manger.

"Scotty, do you always multiply your repair estimates by a factor of four?"

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | TV and Radio | Space trip delay for Trek actor

Fading Things

On Friday night as we drove to the cottage, I was not in a good mood. It had been a difficult day full of workday challenges, and while I was looking forward to getting up to the cottage, this particular birthday had me dining on ashes, as I would later tell my wife. Half my life was now in my past. And why did it have to be the half that featured more vigor and better health?

When we got there, my mood changed instantly. My other brother in law was there, my sister in law, my niece. To see them smiling, happy to see me, reminded me why it is that life is worth living: it isn't how much health you have, it is how much love you have. That's never in short supply if you just share your best self with everyone you can. At midnight, my brother in law handed me a parcel to unwrap, something he'd prepared with great glee. I opened it – it was a “campfire song leader's kit”, and included, wrapped delicately, firewood, matches, kindling, kazoos, and lots of funny little items, including John Prine's “Dear Abby.” He had put great care and heart into this (not to mention humour), and I was quite touched.

Saturday was a normal day. Or rather, a normal day that happened to have perfect weather. The other boys worked on tiling the new bathroom. I cleaned the gutters, a job nobody else likes. I like doing it, if the weather is nice. Many people are scared of heights, but I rather like them. After spending the day on yard work and chores, my wife and the other ladies went shopping. One brother in law went onto the computer, and the other went to take a nap.

So I went out for a walk as the sunset. The wind had stilled and the woods took on a quiet stillness, though it was still warm. I walked over and down a lane of abandoned-during-winter cottages to a nearby beach. A number of logs lined the beach, and I took up a perch on one at the right edge of the beach. The sun was long past now, but the afterglow lining the trees on the far edge of the lake was a deep and burning salmon red. The woods were still – there were no birds singing or flapping, no creatures scurrying through the limbs, or bugs buzzing. All there was was myself, and the burning lake and sky.

There is no greater beauty than fading things, I thought perhaps God was reminding me.

Was it so bad that my life might slowly begin the journey towards fading? After all, what has been given to me over the years? In my youngest years, I had my parents, my brother, my grandparents, my best friend Stephane, the forests of Orleans and Green's Creek, and summers in Saskatchewan. When I grew older, I had received the gift of my own family – my wife, who is my partner, and my children. I gained the friendship of my brothers-in-law and my wife's family. I reestablished a connection with my own family that contained a new closeness I had not known before. And I had been given the opportunity to make music an important part of my life. If my life had ended right there on that beach, I should be perfectly content that I have been given everything any man could ever hope for, and even more.

In the dark, I walked home, back down the road towards the glowing amber lights of the cottage, a hearth of warmth and love. Some friends of ours arrived in their van with my older daughter, we had a nice big dinner, ate cake, I opened presents while my brother-in-law was also made to open his (his birthday is the day after mine,) and we lived another simple day. Could anyone ask for any more?

It Looks like...

...some variant on scenario #2. I'll fill you in later. :-)

Party (part ii)

The truth of Earthly existence is that we are in a sense alone. Alone in our heads. We can hear the words other people say, but for those words to reach our comprehension they must:

• originate as thoughts in his or her head

• Be formulated as words;

• He or she must then speak them

• The words must travel as pressure waves through the air

• We must render the pressure waves as hearing with our ears

• We have to interpret the sounds, as well as any accompanying body language and any contextual knowledge we have about about the individual, and try to translate them into simpatico thoughts.

In other words, it is a very long and indirect route from your mind to my mind. Henri Nouwen points out that we often are more appreciative of our friends when they are not around then when they are. When we have them present, we speak and are worried for how our words will be taken, we concentrate on conveying our real inner meanings. When our friends are not present, instead, we often bask in glowing thoughts about their decency, generosity of spirit, and any other good qualities they possess.

And so it is that I can be cavalier about whether or not I see friends or family this weekend. I am alone. They are alone. But I can appreciate that they have attempted to reach beyond their solitude and into mine. And it is true that I can often appreciate it more when I have solitude to contemplate it with.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone
though they quiver with the same music.

(Kahlil Gibran)

To party or not to party?

I am turning forty on Saturday. You don't have too many fortieth birthdays, and people often try and spring a surprise party on people who happen to turn forty. In this post, I examine the odds of a surprise party under certain scenarios.

Party at home, Friday Night

My wife wants to go to the cottage on the weekend. She said something on the weekend in exasperation about how tired she was by our busy weekend, and how she needed to be there next week to relax. So if anything is happening at home, it is likely on Friday night.

Pros: She took time off work and has been rearranging rooms, cleaning junk piles, going over the arrangement of furniture and shelves all through the house, top to bottom, all things she would do if she expected a lot of company soon. In theory this is happening because we are getting our windows changed this week. But why would workmen changing windows care about the arrangement and décor of our house?

Cons: She has been wanting to do these things for a while. Plus, she said the other day that we don't ever have company because she doesn't like our furniture, and it would be nice to change it so we could have company at Christmas. Also I recently spoke to some people I would have expected to be invited to any such affair, and the part of town I lived in came up – they didn't seem to have a clue as to which end of town I lived in, which certainly suggests they lacked knowledge about any party that would take place there.

Odds: 3:1

Party at the cottage, Saturday Night or Day

My wife does want to go to the cottage on the weekend. :-)

Pros: When we planned a birthday party for my brother in law in the past, she had the idea of having people 'just turn up' at the cottage until it dawned on him there was a huge crowd of people. She tends to repeat her modus operandi at these things. Also my sister in law called me today looking for my wife, which means she could be planning a trip over to the cottage. This would be a smaller gathering than the previous scenario, with more family but fewer friends, and so would be more manageable a party to throw. To boot, it is my brother in law's birthday the next day, so it would occur to her to try and combine the events.

Cons: Getting birthday party supplies up to the cottage would be hard to do and still escape notice.

Odds: even

Party at the Barley Mowe, Sunday Night

This is a pub on south Bank Street in Ottawa.

Pros: This would be the easiest way to gather church friends, for this is where they all go to drink.

Cons: My wife works very, very early in the morning the next day.

Odds: 5:1

No party at all

*sniff*

Pro: My wife has been very tired, and is quite busy with work. It may simply not be possible for her to organize anything.

Cons: I got her good three years ago with a surprise party.

Odds: 2:1

---

The surprise? I am finding myself struggling with containing disappointment at the possibility that this last may be true. Why should I care if nobody throws me a party? I'm often uncomfortable at them anyways, due to my painful shyness. I already know that there are some people who like me, some who do not, and the existence of a party has no impact on the likelihood of either. It all brings me back to Henri Nouwens solitude vs. loneliness... a question I will address in my next post.

Forgiveness

Is forgiveness always necessary? In my opinion - yes! It is not easy. It may not even be possible - each of us is only human, and some wounds are nearly impossible to heal. But forgiving is always an ideal to strive for.

Here is what forgiveness is not: forgiveness is not saying of an evil thing, "It's OK, that's fine." Forgiveness is discovering that there is something better in you - something divine, something not present in the act that you grant forgiveness for. Forgiveness is that theological virtue called Hope; hope that your love has power to make things better.

Pile of crap

MSN Tech & Gadgets

I am a musician, I have discs out of my music, and there are even artists who've covered my songs. I don't love the idea of file sharing and trading. However, I deeply regret the corporate push that is out there to limit fair use - technologies that limit how many copies you can make of a CD you buy, or restrict your rights to burn a CD of music you've downloaded. These things are often called "digital rights management" - but in fact, they aren't rights at all. The creator of music is NOT entitled by law to restrict the personal usage of home listeners, provided it remains personal usage.

Copyright is a limited granting of rights, entitled to foster creativity. It does not mean the author owns a work in that the same sense that they own property. Artistic creation was meant to eventually become the property of everyone, once the benefit no longer accrued to the original artist and their family. The US Constitution in fact actually outlaws perpetual copyright, a precept that the every-twenty-year Disney extensions break in spirit, if not in actual letter.

Patrick Ross hysterically proclaims that, "No sane business operator enters a contract in which one party has the right to disregard its terms at will, but that's what HR-1201 permits. That hated TPM would disappear from the market, as there's no reason to employ a lock if everyone has a legal right to the key. But as TPM leaves, so do the digital offerings that come with it."

Then tell me - how does he explain GarageBand?

The New York times once wrote about the coming of copyright perpetuity:

Artists naturally deserve to hold a property interest in their work, and so do the corporate owners of copyright. But the public has an equally strong interest in seeing copyright lapse after a time, returning works to the public domain -- the great democratic seedbed of artistic creation -- where they can be used without paying royalties.

In effect, the Supreme Court's decision makes it likely that we are seeing the beginning of the end of public domain and the birth of copyright perpetuity. Public domain has been a grand experiment, one that should not be allowed to die. The ability to draw freely on the entire creative output of humanity is one of the reasons we live in a time of such fruitful creative ferment.

Similar words could be said about the implosion of fair use.

River: Movies and Dreams

This is heartbreaking to read: Baghdad Burning: Movies and Dreams

BBC NEWS | Health | 'Nagging helped dad find cancer'

See? Nagging is good for something! :-)

BBC NEWS | Health | 'Nagging helped dad find cancer'

PCWorld.com - Sony Uncloaks Hidden DRM Code

It is pretty sad when putting an audio CD in your computer basically hacks your machine using computer virus techniques...

PCWorld.com - Sony Uncloaks Hidden DRM Code

First Stars in Universe Detected?

Let there be light.

The big bang did not bring into existence the universe as we know it. After the universe cooled enough for molecules to form, it became a "formless void" of hydrogen clouds. After a hundred million years, gravity began to concentrate the clouds until they began to coalesce into supermassive stars. The bigger a star is, the shorter its lifespan. These stars were so large that they lasted only sixteen million years apiece, flaming out as giant supernova.

But those giant supernova introduced the heavier elements into the universe - metals, carbon, oxygen - that the next generations of stellar objects would use as the universe began to take shape in a way recognizable to us today.

Accents

I have never entirely figured this out. My brother and I were raised in Orleans, just outside of Ottawa. We were actually at the edge of Cumberland, so we grew up hearing English spoken with a mix of French, Ottawa valley, and standard Canadian accents. For a time, my brother had the Ottawa valley accent, but I never did (I can mimic it perfectly, but I've never had it.)

I've never understood how I could have a different accent from my brother!

Fleeting Things

On Sunday, before pulling the motorboat out for the season, we took a spin around the lake. It was unseasonably warm, like a late September day. And although the leaves peaked two weeks ago, the oak trees have kept their leaves, and are still bright orange. The sky was blue, and the water shimmered in the bright midday sun. Little moments like that are as small blisses fallen from heaven.

Last night was one, too. My youngest daughter is almost twelve, and on the verge of being too old to be taken about trick or treating by Dad. And she almost did not want me to. But she did let me.

There are so many Halloween memories, my own, both daughters. They were so small in their first costumes, kind of clueless about how to say “Trick or treat” before and “Thank you” after, but they were excited, almost like Christmas. To take my much older daughter trick or treating is like a last wisp of connection to those innocent days, like the orange glow of oak leaves two weeks past their prime. Things are beautiful because they are fleeting.

CNN.com - Pastor electrocuted while performing baptism - Oct 31, 2005

Churches do not often consider health and safety issues in worship, but they need to. I remember last year during the SARS crisis in Canada, we Catholics had to modify the pax, which had become risky behaviour.

Touching electrical equipment while standing in a conductive fluid is a very bad idea. The immersion baptisms that baptist churches do should involve no microphones whatsoever. As a musician, I can't tell you how many times I have been shocked while touching my guitar strings and the microphone ball at the same time... and that was while totally dry!

CNN.com - Pastor electrocuted while performing baptism - Oct 31, 2005

CNN.com - Cheney's top aide quits after indictment - Oct 28, 2005

Well the other shoe dropped. From my perspective here in Canada, where senior bureaucrats seem to be charged in AdScam every other day, it doesn't seem like a very remarkable thing. However, I imagine it will be very much the topic of conversation down in the States!

CNN.com - Cheney's top aide quits after indictment - Oct 28, 2005

Loose Canon: Is Barack Obama a Spiritual Leader?

Poor Loose Canon at BeliefNet. She writes that she is not a "spiritual person" but believes in the Magisterium.

Loose Canon: Is Barack Obama a Spiritual Leader?

But how can you reconcile those two statements? Belief without spirituality is not faith. And it certainly is not authentic Catholic faith, which requires a conversion of heart every time one approaches the altar rail.

In the Bible, Jesus continually singles out the different, and puts them before the religiously-correct Pharisees to show them what authentic faith really is. Consider the Roman centurion who has been made immortal in our liturgy: "Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word..."

Of this man, probably a Greek pagan in Judaea, Jesus said that he had not seen faith like that in all Israel.

The Vatican II declaration NOSTRA AETATE, says on this:

In Hinduism, men contemplate the divine mystery and express it through an inexhaustible abundance of myths and through searching philosophical inquiry. They seek freedom from the anguish of our human condition either through ascetical practices or profound meditation or a flight to God with love and trust. Again, Buddhism, in its various forms, realizes the radical insufficiency of this changeable world; it teaches a way by which men, in a devout and confident spirit, may be able either to acquire the state of perfect liberation, or attain, by their own efforts or through higher help, supreme illumination. Likewise, other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing "ways," comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions.

She takes to task a 19th century writer named Higginson saying, "But I never for an instant have supposed that this concentrated moment of devotion was more holy or more beautiful than when one cry from a minaret hushes a Mohammedan city to prayer..." I think she may have been trying to make the point that we can't develop a mushy ecumenicalism in which we all merge our religions into a single ecumenical whole.

In that, I agree. However, I'm not sure this was Higginson's point, he was simply waxing poetic from his own perspective. He would not have been able to have those experiences without the fervent and specific adherence of each faith's own believers.

For those of us who are in specific religions, we do our best to immerse ourselves as fully as we can. But as in Nostra Aetate above, that can still include accepting there can be much that "is true and holy in these religions."

Idiotic despot calls for genocide

CNN.com - Iranian leader: Wipe out Israel - Oct 27, 2005

Woman sees husband off to war, gets fired - U.S. Life - MSNBC.com

Here's a story that will raise your hackles...

Woman sees husband off to war, gets fired - U.S. Life - MSNBC.com: "Benefit Management"

Which reminds me of a joke

Frankie wants to win the lottery. He wants to win the lottery so badly that he slips into the sanctuary at St. Anthony's every night, looks around, and if he sees the confessionals and pews are empty, he pleads at the altar rail. He says, "Lord, please, please, let me win the lottery! I just wanna catch a break in life!"

This goes on for twenty years, every night that exposition takes place. "Please, Lord!! Let me win the lottery!!"

Finally, a booming voice, shaking the pillars and stations, announces itself from on high.

"FRANKIE. MEET ME HALFWAY. BUY A TICKET!!"

Silly Greed

CTV.ca | Lineups long for tickets to $40M lotto jackpot

Whenever I go up to the corner store counter, the guy at the counter says, "You want lotto tickets?"

"No thanks," I reply.

"Why not? You know the jackpot is seventeen million?"

"What would I do with seventeen million dollars?"

The clerk usually stands there dumbfounded, as though they cannot comprehend my question. But I think it is a salient point - what would I do with that much money? Oh, I know the usual, pay some bills, go on a vacation, get various relatives out of debt, secure the kids' futures.

But you know what? Everything's going to be just fine without all that money. So why I do I need it?

In the link above, CTV notes the jackpot has gone higher than it ever goes in Canada, although this is quite tame by California lottery standards. Statistically, we should know the score. The more people there are buying tickets, the less likely you are to win. The higher the jackpot goes, the longer your odds go.

Consider the community center raffle - let us say they are giving away a toaster, but a really nice one. Now - if you buy a raffle ticket and ten others do as well, are your odds better or worse than if a thousand other people buy that ticket?

It works the same in a lottery. The bigger it goes, the longer your already long odds. And who really needs forty million dollars?

The Globe and Mail: Polluted reserve to be evacuated

This is totally inexcusable. A native community on the shores of James Bay has been without drinkable water for two years. The Federal government oversees aboriginal communities, and is responsible for native health and welfare. Unlike most other G8 countries, our government's coffers are bursting with cash. The federal government has been swimming in budget surpluses for seven years.

It is absolutely criminal at a time when they have money flowing like water, that they cannot be bothered to tend to the water of some of our poorest people!

Polluted reserve to be evacuated

A grim marker

Much as I oppose the war, I can spare more than a thought and a prayer for the American soldiers. Why we fix on big round numbers like 2,000 I don't know. Losing 1990 soldiers was a terrible tragedy for the families who lost the 1990th soldier. In turn the 1991, 1992, 1993 marks were just as final and tragic for other families.

Losing a family member to war is an experience most of us don't know directly, but even we in that number have some sense of it. Somewhere in our family tree is someone who did not come back from a war, and as children, most of us knew an aunt with a sad smile she saved for a picture on the mantle, or a great grandmother who spoke longingly of an uncle you never knew...

First Coast News | Top Stories - U.S. Death Toll in Iraq Reaches 2,000

Transit strike

The local bus and train drivers are threatening to reject the offer made to their union here in Ottawa. If they do reject it, they could be out on strike within a week or two. Now I am a public transit user - I take the O-Train and the bus a lot. But I began to kick my transit addiction a bit this year, as I started biking just about everywhere that I go. Biking is even better for the environment than transit. (Public transit could be called a glorified car pool with lots of stops and rather large cars.)

But I am a little bit nervous about biking in late October and November. If it rains overnight, the bike lane could be icy first thing in the morning. And snow is not too far away. I'd be terrified, even with pretty ridgy tires, of trying to ride in that. Also, there is not a lot of daylight right now, and there will potentially be even less when Daylight Savings kicks out.

But the exercise will be good for me. In the last few months of biking, I have paradoxically felt worse and better than ever: worse in that my knees and backside were always sore; and better in that I don't get out of breath much and feel healthier now. We have an old exercise bike out in the garage. I wonder if I should bring it in? :-)

I betcha this gets GREAT mileage!

Puts hybrids to shame, I bet. But the trunk space is likely limited.

Rice scientists build world's first single-molecule car | SpaceRef - Your Space Reference

CNN.com - 'God blogging' workshop spreads faith - Oct 17, 2005

This is an interesting quote: Some predicted bloggers could play a role in reforming the modern church by keeping televangelists and other high-profile Christian leaders honest. One of the ironies of blogging on religious topics is that the blogger can confront both rampant apostasy, and yet also rattle the cages of orthodoxy. While it is possible to do this without the Internet (think Ole Anthony), the Internet does more to blow the doors wide open. It serves perhaps as a uniquely 21st century spin on the prophecy that "There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known." (Luke 12:2)

No religious leader will be able to avoid the scrutiny of the flock in this day and age.

CNN.com - 'God blogging' workshop spreads faith - Oct 17, 2005

Grey skies

The sky in mid to late Autumn is always grey. This can be a very oppressive thing. I have at least one friend who has to be treated for the depression resulting from the lack of light.

One of the good things about the eventual coming of Advent and Christmas is all the candlelight. I imagine the same is true of Channukah. When the darkness surrounds, even one candle lit in hope has the power to put it out.

Ardeth Wood case

Two years ago, a woman using recreational trails that are all over the city of Ottawa was abducted and killed by an assailant whose sketch artist picture was on the cover of papers for weeks. The city was traumatized.

A suspect has been charged, one Christopher Myres. I've done some digging and found information about the North Bay incident that got the suspect into custody.

Here's the North Bay incident as announced in the North Bay police's news reports:

http://www.northbaypolice.on.ca/news_release_details.asp?Release_no=484

A North Bay blogger, Faith Love Dreams, has quoted a North Bay news story from that time period. It seems the woman who was assaulted was potentially saved from Ardeth's fate by a rescuer with a shovel.

blog.myspace.com/faithlovedreams

Hurricane Wilma

My parents just arrived in Florida. They say the weather is great, but needless to say, they are nervous about this:

ABC News: Wilma Roars Toward Yucatan, Southern Fla.

They're in the Gulf Coast, so hopefully they're going to avoid the brunt of this. Hopefully, everybody who is in the way of the storm can find a way to get out of the affected areas before the hurricane hits.

The way things tend to move on...

No sooner am I out of a music group when friends from church may have invited me to join theirs. Funny how these things just kind of happen. Part of the relentless movement of life from one phase to the next. This is a thing I think about a lot, as I have only four weeks or less to go before my fortieth birthday. How the heck did that happen? I was a young father not too long ago, and now my eldest is all grown up, and my youngest is a tween. :-)

NOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Stallone tries to regain eye of tiger

Yo, Adrian!! Where's my teeth??

Yes, it has been a while

The leaves have peaked. It usually all happens in a single weekend, and it did. We drove up to the cottage Saturday with a friend, and as we promised the oaks and maples looked like they were on fire. A heavy wind Sunday took many leaves off the limbs, undoing much of my work to remove them from the lawn.

My parents have gone down to Florida. They are undoubtedly there by now, and likely exhausted from the trip. I haven't blogged a lot lately. I have not really had a lot to say. And sometimes it is good to say little. A little listening, for a change, can go a long way. :-)

The music group I have belonged to since 1988 has, from what I can tell, finally folded. It ended on my door-step on Thursday, when the drummer returned my Fender Twin amplifier. He handed me an envelope, saying, “I think you should have this.” Inside were sheets of music, songs I had written long ago. “The horn charts,” He said, before turning around to help me get the amp out of the trunk.

So it is over. And an important part of my life is empty, right now. It is partly filled by my work with the folk group at church. But singing hymns that other people have written, as beautiful as they are, does not complete the picture for me. I have to be involved in creating. I have to figure out some way of breaking out of my shell, holed up in the basement recording studio. I have to learn how to make that connection again, and shed my hermit ways.

I was pleased with one thing, though. I wrote a song this weekend. And while I began it as a secular songwriting exercise, it quickly turned into another spiritual work. And I am grateful for that. I don't want my faith to dry up and wither, and I do worry sometimes that it might.

Tagged

I will shortly be doing this:

The Rules:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five other people to do the same.

....with the exception of #5. I hate imposing on people. So if anyone wishes to self-tag on this go ahead. I'm too.... well, deferential I suppose to try and make you. :-)

As to that sentence:

One of the critical elements of a stable government is (relative) security for its leaders - Iraqi "democracy" will not be able to survive attacks like this of any frequency - if Shiites start blaming Sunnis, or either look at the Kurds as agents of this sort of thing, the whole deal is off.

Funny how slowly things can change in the world. I remember once I cracked open a yearbook from 1969 or thereabouts. I did this for a school project in the 1980s. The first article I read was about world leaders being outraged by a coup in Libya, carried out by one Moammar Qadaffi. And of course, in the 1980s, world leaders spent a lot of time being outraged by Moammar Qadaffi, as at that point in time he was involved in quite a lot of mischief and terror. The headlines hadn't changed much.

So I can't say I'm surprised that my sentence reflects today, too, in a sense - in fact, so little has changed that maybe I am shown to be wrong. The effort to bring about democracy is still struggling along a year and a half later. Not truly succeeding, perhaps, but neither is the whole deal off.

God with us

I have a private miracle. It is the joy of the Eucharist, and it is private somehow even though it is in the presence of an entire congregation. It is the living flame of God's presence, real and made physically manifest through the accidental appearance of bread and wine.

Who could know that when Jesus said, when two or three of you gather in my name, I am there with you, that this is only the vaguest hint of how true that could be? Who could know that the saying that scared off so many disciples, who found it so disturbing and cannibalistic - my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink - reflects a grace of such profundity that it sends shivers and sparks up and down my spine to know about it?

Communion, the Last Supper, Eucharist: it is the alpha and omega of all Christian mysticism, and the true rapture. We are hoisted up to heaven for a moment as in our everyday skin we are lifted up to literally and actually touch God.

In memory of Mike Gibbins

Mike Gibbins, the drummer for Badfinger, a group I wrote about recently, died in his sleep October 6.

I met the man at one of their shows at Barrymore's downtown (the old Barrymore's.) He was a quiet man who did not say a lot, but a proud one. When I asked him and Joey Molland to sign my records, he took great care only to sign those records he had played on. What was remarkable was how well preserved they both were.

I had gone backstage between sets, and I noticed there were a number of hangers-on. I wondered how they felt about this, as various hangers-on, leeches, glory hounds, and siphoners had played no small part in their downfall. I remember one of the hangers-on claimed to be a "Rolling Stone" journalist. I didn't believe him, but what-the-hey. He intercepted me as I wound my way into the large backstage, anxious to meet my heroes. The guy said to me, "They like meeting their fans, but keep something in mind. The Apple days were the good days. Its a good idea to talk about the Apple Days. They won't want to talk about the other stuff."

I knew what he was alluding to. In 1973 Badfinger had switched labels to Warner Brothers as Apple collapsed. It was the beginning of the end of the good times for them. Mismanagement by their business managers, changing music tastes, embezzlement would soon cause problems. Guitarist Joey Molland would learn while staying in California that the whole industry knew the band was being screwed. He would leave the band after failing to convince Pete Ham of the problems. When Pete Ham finally learned it for himself, in April of 1975, he went into his garage and hanged himself. Tom Evans would follow over more band difficulties eight years later.

This was still fresh as I ignored the fake Rolling Stone guy and went back. The first person I met was the energetic and always smiling Joey Molland, though I soon spied Gibbins with the corner of my eye. They still looked exactly like the guys on the album sleeves 10-13 years later. Everything I had learned about the band, in these pre-internet days, I had pieced together from old newspaper reports, rock history books, and the scant details that could be gleaned from the albums – the songs and the album credits. So I asked Joey Molland about what it was like to work at Apple. And interestingly enough, he began telling me about the hangers-on. He told me about some guy who called himself “Dr. Magic” or something like that, and claimed to be an electronics guru/genius who could invent special special effects and sound equipment. He told me how the Beatles were just regular guys, and he'd see them around all the time.

My instincts were right about what I could ask. When I asked whether the medleys on “Wish You Were Here” were played right through or spliced together (recorded in 1974 as the dark times began inching towards their apex), he brightened up like I was asking a question he'd never been tossed before. In animated fashion he described how “Should I Smoke” had been welded to “Meanwhile Back at the Ranch,” going into great detail what happened in the studio.

Both he and Mike started talking about the medleys and how they'd done the vocals, and all the neat effects in them, (Mike Gibbins wrote half of the first medley.) It became clear that, whatever the problems, those times they made music and magic in the studio were always good times.

Mike's drumming was distinctive. Few drummers in the seventies worked harder at getting good drum sounds, and it is one of the reasons albums like 1974's “Wish You Were Here” hold up so well, as the drum sound is quite modern. Although Badfinger had the same melodic instincts as the Beatles, they were far stronger instrumentalists than anyone but Harrison – whom guitarists Molland and Ham could both go toe to toe with. Mike Gibbins played lots of fills and press rolls like Ringo Starr, but he knew how to groove and throw some power behind all that power-pop Ham, Evans, and Molland churned out up front.

Gibbins leaves behind a wife and three sons, who all appear to look exactly like him. Godspeed Mike. Look over your family from your new home...

BBC NEWS | UK | Wales | Tragedy-hit group's drummer dies

My other blog

Not updated since June... sorry about that!

The Gospel of John: John 1:41-51

Lord I am not worthy to receive you

It is no small coincidence that the person whose faith Jesus commends most in the gospels of Matthew and Luke is that of a foreigner - one whose cultural and religious beliefs were among the least like those of anyone else he met.

Who was this foreigner? By the accounts a Roman centurion, who was asking for Jesus to heal his servant. Jesus was prepared to yet again go out of his way and heal a person, but the centurion made clear he believed Jesus' had the power to simply make it so - without ever going near this servant. It is for this simple and trusting faith that he commends this Centurion through the ages to us as an example of how to believe.

Who we are is not defined by the accident of what race, gender, class, subgroup, or country we are born into. Who we are is what we do. And it is what we share. What we own up to. And how big our hearts are.

This makes no sense

Now I realize that the coalition is unhappy about how well the war has worked out for Iran - without lifting a finger, it has gained tremendous influence in Iraq. But this accusation, that Iran is helping the Sunnis, makes no sense. Why would Iran help:

- the ethnic group killing their co-religionists?
- the ethnic group that waged war on Iran and brought it tremendous death and misery?
- the ethnic group opposing its political allies in the Shia south?

I have to think Britain is just making this stuff up for the home front. Nobody who knows anything about the Shiite could easily believe such a fantastical thing - its the equivalent of that nutty French-originated conspiracy theory that Israel attacked New York...

The Globe and Mail: Iran called out

Home

We're in the middle of a heat wave. Now I remember many warm Indian summers. But this is actually a heat wave! I've been going around telling everyone that if this is global warming, bring it on!

This last weekend, we visited my parents on Quinte's Isle. They go south to Florida soon, and I'm always uneasy when they leave us and go out of range of travel for so long. The leaves in the County are starting to turn, but not on the very southern tip by the water where they are.

There it still felt like summer. In fact, with the good weather, I was determined I was going to take summer as far into October as I could. After starting a fire for my still sleeping wife and daughter Saturday morning, I got my water shoes, headed down to the water, and slowly, painfully eased myself, inch by inch, out into the water. After about ten minutes of doing this, I sunk myself in up to my neck, and shocked myself into acceptance. Then I dove under the water, and began swimming along the limestone cracks. It was summer again, briefly. I did this three more times on the weekend. The water, though cold, still had a summer look to it - normally the water goes darker and bluer. But it held its rich blue green colour. The trees on the limestone ledges were still green - those that were still standing from the big winds two days earlier. And down the bay, Outlet beach still shone with the bright white sand.

My parents threw me a kind-of birthday party - "kind of" because my birthday is still six weeks off. But it is a big one - four oh. I was touched. And even a little surprised - more surprised than I will be when the inevitable real surprise party comes.

When we left I had a long look at them - trying to memorize their features, their clothes, their stance. It will be a few months before I see them again. I have to hold onto that.

Yesterday, I saw another family member of mine. I was headed to Toronto on business first thing in the morning. I called my daughter from the airport, to make sure she was up. She mentioned that my brother had called looking for me - he hadn't seen me at the airport.

I looked around for him, round the back of the Tim Horton's and in the seats by the gate. I did not find him. I boarded the plane and took my seat. A newspaper whacked me in the head. I looked up, and he said, "My crazy brother!" I was relieved (the last time I was on a plane with him he announced loudly to the entire cabin that we were engaged, and headed to Ontario to be married.)My brother fiddled with his Crackberry for much of the flight, trying to arrange for a rental car at Pearson airport. We talked pleasantly about his business, his step-children, my daughter's horse lessons. My brother is usually hurrying from one priorityto the next, so it was good to have him captive for an hour.

There were no relatives on the flight home, but like my trip on the summer solstice, I flew home in the sunset. The haze from the heatwave blended the pink into the blue again, just like my site's background image does here. The orange glow of the deep sun drenched the rudders on the wing in warmth. Over in the distance, Quinte's Isle shimmered beautifully in the huge expanse of Lake Ontario. I looked up the sandbars, and found the point where Ihad been two days earlier. I considered how apropos this was. My moments of late have been filled with my family.

I touched the glass with my hands, and whispered softly, "Home."