Furthermore…

I’m wondering to what extent the social scientistshave created a rigorous model of the way people come to their decisions about who to vote for.  It doesn’t seem to hang to any great extent on party platforms or the answers to questions in debates. It used to be generally accepted that it hangs  greatly on physical appearance and how a person ‘handles himself’ in front of microphones and cameras, where  one gets ‘a feel for the person.’ It used to be said disparagingly that women voted for the most attractive specimen of manhood in the bunch, loosely defined. I suspect that there are reams of information on this topic, but I don’t think I want to dive into a swimming pool full of unscientific opinion, however well informed.

One nun to other, about another attacking pile of black clothing with her feet:

“Should we tell Sister Hyacinthia that’s not what is meant by kicking a habit?”

My main media medium is radio. There are a few Christian stations in my area, fortuitously lined up like ducks in a row on the FM dial in the 80 and 90 megahertz range. This makes it easy to try to find some talk or discussion amid all the dissonance they call Brays & Warship Music or some such moniker.  There is even some Catholic radio available.

The Catholic radio I catch most often offers some real good listening. But it sometimes irritates me quite a bit because it seems to be about 50% repetitive  ad spots I have heard fifteen times before, tooting their horn, asking for donations, mentioning miscellaneous housekeeping matters, or replaying nearly  unintelligible sound bites of highly accented voices from foreign sources such as Vatican radio. It’s like pulling in a net full of trash fish that have to be sorted through and thrown back into the drink, just to come away with enough for a decent meal.

Frowning people filing into Hell see sign:

THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW

Back in the 60’s I happened to have a chat with a priest in Syracuse N.Y. about various authors such as Aldous Huxley who took religious beliefs seriously but weren’t very much in agreement with the Catholic view.  He referred to them as “ninety percenters,” that is, largely worthwhile but not meeting the test of full Catholic acceptability.

Lately I happened to be in a discussion about the Holy Eucharist. People were commenting on whether or not they believed in the True Presence. One gentleman expresssed the opinion that Jesus is truly present to those persons  in the congregation who believe He is, and is not to those who do not so believe.

This is fascinating! It has a kind of flexible universality, as though everyone has a spiritual iPod and can either turn it on to catch the show or not.  It seems to parallel the belief that if one is truly sorry for one’s sins, they are forgiven, but if not, no dice (that isn’t Latin, is it?). I’ll have to think about this some more… 

At Last Supper, one apostle to other:

“I wonder what Judas will do tonight to get out of picking up the check!”

One of the temptations to sloppy thinking is having incomplete information. Whether telling a story, presenting a reasoned argument, or just trying to form one’s own opinion on a subject, it frequently is the case that gaps exist between those things known for sure and those things which can only be guessed at,  gaps that one can easily fill in with the ‘most likely’ supposition.

I used to sit and listen to my father, a raconteur of sorts, do this, filling in ‘probable’ explanations of how things happened, or how a principal got from point A to point B. In a certain sense, such explanations are arbitrary and serviceable, keep the story moving along, and aren’t the real point. In another sense, when discussing matters of morals or doctrine, all the leaps of logic need to be carefully scrutinized, and must be found to be more than merely probable.

For instance, if one is of a naturalistic turn of mind, it is tempting to explain away miracles by assuming that what ‘probably’ happened was surely fabrication, hallucination, or miscommunication. This brings along the benefit of preserving one’s naturalistic worldview, wherein all things fit into a simple schema  that precludes any serious consideration of mystery. 

Preacher:

“Salvation is a free gift from above. We will now take up a collection for the Shipping and Handling!”

We hear the phrase ‘no regrets’ pretty often. Frank (The Chairman of the Board) Sinatra sang “Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention”.*  For me, its “Many years, I’ve had them too, but then again, too many to mention!”

But as the years pile up, so too do the regrets. The unexpected part is that it’s not the sins and outrages I was aware of at the time I committed them (too many to mention), but almost forgotten instances of stupidity, insensitivity and stubbornness I was pretty much at peace with at the time I hatched them, thinking “Why not?” or “I’m only human” or “Anyone would do the same thing”, if indeed, I took much notice of them at all.

Maybe I can find some solace in another of Sinatra’s songs, “What Can I Say After I Say I’m sorry?”  

*in the song ‘My Way’

Kid to Mom:

“OK, Jesus did say ‘Let your yes be Yes and your no be No.’ But you never say yes!”