THE WONDERS OF THE WEBB TELESCOPE

The poet and the artist prepared us for the Webb Telescope images of the beginning of the universe.  

A copy of Van Gogh's painting of the restaurant at 

Arles, France by Matthew Lange, London.

The artist:

Van Gogh in his painting of the restaurant in Arles, France and the cosmos in the background. 

The poet: 

Nature and Incomparable Dignity of Wisdom

For Wisdom is mobile beyond all motion, and she penetrates and pervades all things by reason of her purity.

For she is a breath of the might of God and a pure emanation of the glory of the almighty; therefore nothing defiled can enter into her.

For she is the reflection of eternal light, the spotless mirror of the power of God, the image of his goodness. 

Although she is one, she can do all things, and she renews everything while herself perduring; Passing into holy souls from age to age.  she produces friends of God and prophets.

For God loves nothing so much as the one who dwells with Wisdom.

For she is fairer than the sun and surpasses every constellation of the stars.  Compared to light, she is found more radiant;

though night supplants light, wickedness does not prevail over Wisdom.
The Book of Wisdom Chapter 7, vs. 24-30
But our consciousness is also aware of:  

            "A voice was heard in Ramah, 

            sobbing and loud lamentation; 

            Rachel weeping for her children 

            and she would not be consoled, 

            since they were no more."

                                Matthew 2:18

 

Tasting the Nothingness of Our Times by Matthew Fox

 Part of the Via Negativa and the Dark Night of the Soul is a deep tasting of Nothingness.  I think many of us are tasting Nothingness today in the face of an unhinged Supreme Court beholden as it is to Opus Dei, the Koch brothers and the NRA. 

Gazing into the void of nothingness. Photo by Florencia Viadana on Unsplash.

We should not run from this encounter with Nothingness. Nothingness is part of the deeper spiritual experience.

On June 14 we devoted a DM to this topic, how Thomas Merton and Meister Eckhart both address Suffering and Nothingness while discussing the “spark of the soul.”   And Hafiz speaks of Nothingness in a poem we shared recently.  

Repeated blows from the unsupreme court decisions released in the past ten days bring up the Nothingness reality anew. 

One feels almost helpless in taking in decisions that give government rights over the bodies of women and girls—including the 10-year-old in Ohio who was raped and recently had to flee her state to seek an abortion—and throw out a 49-year-old constitutional right to do so. 

How many other similar mad stories will play out thanks to the witch-burning admirers on the supreme court who just signed off on a document that tells women and girls that they, six judges on the supreme court, have the right to demand girls and women bring all fetuses to term because they say so?  (Not because the Constitution says so—because it does not.)

The case of the 10-year-old girl forced to flee to another state for an abortion made headlines worldwide. WION, from India.

Or the radical decision to hasten the killing of mother earth, our mother, by gutting the EPA of its rights to challenge the industrial polluters and fossil fuel engines of our culture.  An advance of matricide therefore. 

The Koch brothers are rejoicing (one has already left earth and facing his maker as they say; Dante would have made a special place in hell for him) and other fossil fuel magnates will get even richer; maybe Joe Manchin and his coal-based business enterprise is rejoicing too.  But future children choking on bad air and responding to more drought and fires on the one hand and more floods and hurricanes on the other, and food shortages galore, not so much.

Or the arrogant decision to throw out a 111-year-old law in New York state that limits the rights of gun owners to carry their guns wherever they wish even in crowded cities, subways and the rest.  Sounds like an invitation to…you know what.

Leah Litman and Adam Serwer join MSNBC’s Mehdi Hassan to discuss Supreme Court plans to take up a case that could give state legislatures essentially unchecked power over the outcome of federal elections.

The “leader” of the new majority, the spouse of insurrectionist Ginni (“there are no rules in war”) Thomas, actually invited new lawsuits so that the current court in its infinite wisdom can challenge gay marriage and contraception on the same basis that they challenged Roe v Wade.  It seems this court sees itself as bedroom police rather than as impartial jurists.

The same court is eagerly committed to take up next year the topic of letting state legislatures decide national elections (just like the last president tried to do this year but failed).

Yes, there is lots of nothingness on our tables at this time.  

To be continued

Evil and the Deadly Sins of the (once) Supreme Court by Matthew Fox

 

DAILY MEDITATIONS June 27, 2022 Three judges who objected to the Dobbs decision called it embarrassing.  And it is.  And will be for all time.  An insult to the Supreme Court itself, to jurisprudence, to all the decent judges who created Row vs Wade 49 years ago and Casey as well.

It will unravel America, since our system depends on respect for jurisprudence and that includes the once Supreme Court.  Just as Hildegard of Bingen, as we saw yesterday, pictures the anti-Christ as five beasts (yes, five—as in five Supreme Court judges) gnawing at the ropes that keep society together.Let us examine the sins of the Dobbs decision using my method for examining and transforming evil, a method that blends Eastern and Western wisdom, honoring the 7 chakras named in the East and the 7 capital sins named in the West.  I employ this method in my book on Evil, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.   We have already made note of the seventh chakra which is about building community through sharing and building up of light.  The very tone of Alito’s document, as one historian has pointed out, is ugly to the core.  There is no attempt to reach out to others or make common ground or even to put out feelings that are positive.  Instead, the authors declare all past judges “egregiously” wrong—which is another way of saying only Alito is right. This takes us to chakra # 1 which is about Arrogance.  Arrogance oozes out from this document in its tone as well as its ridiculous arguments—that the word “abortion” is not in the constitution.     Neither is the word “assault weapons” or “AR-15”—but the same court has no problem putting such weapons in the hands of 18 year olds.  And in addition this week, nullifying a New York law of 111 years that forbids hidden weapons on the streets of New York and elsewhere.   Arrogance is what drives a once supreme court to dismiss the concern of 72% of American citizens (including 43% of Republicans) who do not want Roe overturned.    Arrogance is what drives a supreme court to refuse to cite women or listen to their stories of suffering when rape happens, incest happens, or miscarriages happen or circumstances are such that they cannot afford to bring another child into the world.   Arrogance is men telling women or the government telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies.   Arrogance is born of what Hildegard calls “drying up” and “carelessness”—not caring and ignoring the cries of others.  Ignorance born of lack of curiosity is a deadly sin of omission associated with arrogance.

Adultism and School Shootings of Children by the Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox

 

June 3, 2022

A psychologist offering advice in a time of school shootings recently advised parents to "Reassure the children that adults are there to take care of them."

But they AREN’T!  That is the problem.  Adult politicians with their priorities frozen have proven that they are married to the NRA no matter what happens to children.   Many adult politicians go into denial about murderers and their guns and instead talk on about mental health without a word about getting military assault weapons off the streets. Three days after the slaughter of childrenin Uvaldo, Texas, before the childrens' bodies were even buried, NRA held a gathering. Voiceover of Ted Cruz speech to the 2022 NRA convention, days after the Uvalde school shooting, with a montage of family photos with assault rifles and other guns. Tweet video by @CWebbOnline (you may need to turn on the audio).

Texan senator Ted Cruz spoke there and offered his solution to gun violence–purchase more guns—this time for teachers.  Nothing about limiting assault weapons available everywhere.  (Ted Cruz has accepted over $450,000 in donations from NRA over the years.) Many politicians are clearly not there to take care of the children.  Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who has received over $350,000 of donations from the NRA over the years, responded to the Texas massacre by criticizing the Miami basketball team for running an announcement to ban assault weapons!

Emma Gonzalez, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 people died in a 2018 mass shooting, calls out President Trump and the NRA by name at an anti-gun rally in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Report by CNN. Neither are senators McConnell, or Governor Abbot or 47 other senators there to take care of the children.  They are there to coddle and love the NRA for the sake of their adult ambitions.  They have made that abundantly clear.  Their one priority is that money not cease flowing into their political coffers.

Adultism reigns when adult agendas—”keep me as senator,” “keep me as police chief”–prevail over children’s lives.  Would banning assault weapons help?  When America banned such weapons in 1994, shooting deaths fell by 43% in the country.  When the ban was lifted ten years later, killings increased by 243%!  So it seems like politicians can offer more than “thoughts and prayers” after all–if they choose to.  But those in idolatrous relationships with the NRA do not choose to do so.

The health of Mother Earth is another case of adultism.  There too, many politicians prefer to turn their backs on children and on future generations to surrendering their cozy relationship to the fossil fuel industry that awards them as generously as does the NRA. The Earth is a children's issue since they live on it too and might one day have their own children to do the same. "You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,’" climate activist Greta Thunberg tells world leaders at the 2019 UN climate action summit. Guardian News.

But many are the politicians selling out the future of the Earth for the sake of filling their current political coffers.  Adultism compounded. In contrast, Jesus said, "do it to the least and you do it to me."  He also advised adults to "turn and become like children."I think he sensed the sacredness of children.  As opposed to the idolatry of adultist agendas.

The Working Catholic: Social Doctrine, Part Seven by Bill Droel

 There are scores of books explaining Catholic social doctrine. The outline for many of them is a chronology of papal encyclicals (from Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 On the Condition of Labor to Pope Francis’ 2020 On Social Friendship). Or the author might pick issues like peace, health care delivery, labor relations and the environment; quoting relevant official documents in each chapter.                                                                                             

The Church’s Best-Kept Secret by Mark Shea (New City Press [2020]; 16.95) is different. In 159 pages written for a popular audience, Shea reflects on four social principles, giving two chapters to each: the dignity of each life, the common good, subsidiarity and solidarity. The encyclicals are referenced along the way. However, Shea prefers to illustrate the principles with lots of Scripture, some quotations from the early church and citations from C.S. Lewis (1898-1963).                                                    

Ethical consistency is Shea’s recurring theme. Some Catholics agree with our doctrine on some issues but not others. Other Catholics, including some bishops, claim to be consistent but mistakenly say one issue has greater moral weight than another. And some Catholics disingenuously claim to support Catholic doctrine, but they only use it to oppose policies or politicians they don’t like. “If your focus is on abortion, fine,” Shea writes. “But do not pretend to focus on it while actually spending your time and energy fighting against the Magisterium…and in favor of policies that harm the environment, fighting against a living wage and in favor of laissez faire capitalism.” The tone of The Church’s Best-Kept Secret is easy-going, not technical. But, as this riff shows, Shea can hammer points as needed.                                                                                                          

There’s a difference between the world-as-it-is and “the way it is supposed to be,” Shea writes. Everyone has at least a dim notion of perfectibility, of a better situation, of the world as we hope it could be. He goes on to quote G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936): In the here-and-now people “do not differ much about what things they will call evil; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.” For example, some people justify torture during wartime (though doing so became harder in the United States after the publication of photos from Abu Ghraib Prison). Yes, says Shea, soldiers sometimes have to kill combatants in self-defense. But the moment an enemy becomes a prisoner, torture is absolutely forbidden “as gravely and intrinsically immoral.”                                

In the same way some people excuse abortion because in their calculus the unborn are less equal. “Hairsplitting arguments about when a fetus becomes a person are meaningless,” Shea says. Each person has a right to live “the whole of human life for the whole of life.”                                                                                                                                    

Over and over, Shea insists that a moral person cannot say that one issue must take priority over others. Concern over 20 or more issues does not dilute or fracture the brand. Yes, “there is plenty of room…for specialization and focusing on specific issues and ills.” But, to make one issue morally higher than another is to make some people in some situations more equal than others. A moral person cannot deliberately excuse evil.

There is obviously imperfection in the world-as-it-is. Yet the moral person retains a vision of a world as it is supposed to be and consistently strives to lessen evil and enhance good. At the same time, Shea concludes, one must refrain from becoming a justice warrior in the sense that they presume to create a perfect world. Such a person will likely be ineffective. Always “begin where you are, and not where you are not,” he advises. You are inside a family, inside a voluntary group, in a union, at a protest or rally. Then challenge yourself and others to move a step outside your comfort zone.                               

Shea is not the last word on social action, its history, its principles and its current applications. Most readers will quarrel with him on some pages; which is a sign of a good book. The Church’s Best Kept Secret is fresh, accessible and challenging.

Droel is the author of What Is Social Justice (National Center for the Laity, PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629).

The Working Catholic: Abortion Stereotypes by Bill Droel

  

One gets the impression nowadays that to be a member of the Democratic Party is to favor a woman’s autonomous right to unimpeded access to abortion, at least during the first six months of her pregnancy. Further, all Democrats supposedly favor the federal government as the guarantor of that right.

In fact, many members of the Democratic Party have a textured view of the abortion issue. Some Democrats support Consistent Life organization (www.consistentlifenetwork.org) which opposes poverty, the death penalty and abortion. There is also the group Democrats for Life (www.democratsforlife.org) which supports “whole life” Democratic candidates and office holders.

Back in the day, many pro-life leaders were solid Democrats and most were Catholic, details Daniel Williams in Defenders of the Unborn: the Pro-Life Movement before Roe v. Wade (Oxford University Press, 2016). These leaders drew upon the New Deal and upon natural law. They used “the same language of human rights [and] civil rights” as found in the movements for racial justice and equal opportunity for women. Further, these leaders, as Democrats, believed that government has a positive but not exclusive role to play in protecting rights and in delivering services to the needy, says Williams.

Not all Catholic Democrats were vocal about pro-life. But the pro-life list included Catholics like Sargent Shriver (1915-2011), Eunice Shriver (1921-2009), Thomas Eagleton (1929-2007), Edmund Muskie (1914-1996) and yes, Ted Kennedy (1932-2009) plus non-Catholic Jesse Jackson. Likewise in the old days, some Catholic bishops who supported progressive causes also spoke against abortion, including Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit and Cletus O’Donnell (1917-1992) of Madison. Meanwhile, some prominent Republicans were speaking in favor of abortion. And, in another surprise from Williams, “evangelicals largely eschewed the pro-life movement” prior to 1973. They were uneasy about associating with anything that felt Catholic and simply did not give much attention to social issues, focusing instead on individual faith expression.

The core pro-life Catholic Democrats gradually created a “bipartisan, ecumenical coalition” with mainline Protestants, Williams continues. Despite some setbacks, this coalition won victories at the state level and saw results from its educational efforts. To furnish one example, 10,000 people rallied in late 1972 in New York City against a proposed state law to extend abortion access. By 1972 the pro-life movement (still attracting liberals and Catholics) had defeated pro-abortion legislation in 25 states.

On January 22, 1973 the Supreme Court rendered its Roe vs. Wade decision. The argument that “women had an absolute right to choose not to be pregnant” took off, Williams details. In reaction to the court decision new pro-life alliances emerged, particularly with evangelical groups. And after January 1973 many liberals gave up the pro-life cause; some switched positions. The new pro-life movement after Roe spent little energy on retaining or recruiting liberals.

Many liberals today seem uninterested in listening to reasonable pro-life arguments. For example, one day after the January 20, 2017 inauguration of former president Donald Trump nearly one-half million walked in a Woman’s March on Washington. Nationwide total participation reached perhaps four million. Various groups had partnership status for this historic protest against the meanness conveyed by Trump during his campaign. A pro-life group from Texas was anti-Trump. However, after initial approval their partnership for the protest was revoked. A chairwoman of the march explained: “If you want to come to the march you are coming with the understanding that you respect a woman’s right to choose.”

o  Some Democrats who favor access to abortion think the Roe decision is flawed. Some think that in addition to the Supreme Court and the federal administration other entities have a stake in abortion policy.

o  Some Democrats identify as pro-life, though there are different approaches. For example, not all favor exclusive attention on the Supreme Court.

o  Some Republican office holders and candidates who identify as pro-life are insincere. Interestingly, the number of abortions has decreased during Democratic presidencies.

o  Some members of the Republican Party generally favor the Roe decision.

Whatever one’s position on abortion, it would be honorable and strategic to put away easy assumptions.

Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a printed newsletter on faith and work.