faith

The Second Third, Week 25: No News Is Good News

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

Blogger’s Note (unnecessary): This Second Third post was supposed to come before last week’s post. Last week’s post wasn’t posted until yesterday. And both are a slow build of sorts, toward a completely different post that needs more time and stewing. In my head, it’s going to be great.

I mentioned in “Less TV Is Good TV” that I used to love to watch This Week with Sam and Cokie. I used to devour news: I worked as a journalist, then as a media relations manager; I watched Peter Jennings (and sometimes Tom Brokaw); I listened to Morning Edition and All Things Considered and supported NPR with my ears and my dollars. I daydreamed about launching a Slashdot-style web site trafficking in political news and rumors instead of tech stuff. I even had a name and a URL at one time: Rabblerooster. Get it? Like a “rabble-rouser” combined with a rooster…wake up and smell the coffee!

I used to get emotionally wrapped up in the news. Still do, in fact. I get angry, or choked up, or joyfully buoyant based on things happening half a world away, to complete strangers. And that’s beautiful…to a point. But over time I’ve come to realize that A) we’ve got plenty of news and compelling stories unfolding right next to us, and B) nobody’s got the straight scoop, so nobody’s giving it. I’d get riled about stories that were only half true, and wonder what I could really know for sure about what’s going on in the world…then realize that the only thing I can really understand and influence is what’s going on with me, right here, and to a lesser extent, with my family, neighborhood, and community. As a result, I installed tighter filters and began to tune out.

The timing was perfect, actually. TV news is entertainment now, and there are so many faster, easier sources of information. I try to track a variety of online news sources enough to keep tabs on what’s happening out there, and when something catches my eye or interest, I try to read accounts from the Right and the Left, then make sense of it myself. And I ignore a lot more “news” that I once would’ve obsessed over. And my heart is at peace.

I rarely watch TV news at all anymore. (I did flip it on the other night; I was in bed, setting my cell-phone alarm, when a friend posted something on Facebook about Bin Laden’s death. My laptop was already packed up for the morning commute, so I flipped on the tube.) I still listen to the news on the radio — I’ve always been an auditory learner (hence my regular attendance of college classes and lack of reading) and love good radio — but today I balance my NPR with Relevant Radio and Garage Logic, and keep my filters clean. And sometimes I willfully secede from the news stream. On a beautiful spring day like this one, for example, no news is good news.

Three Disconnected Thoughts

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Every so often on my commute I surf the FM airwaves to hear what “the kids” are listening to. Not my kids, mind you — I brought them up right on The White Stripes and Ella Fitzgerald and Johnny Cash and stuff — but their classmates and friends. I discovered two things: 1) nothing worthwhile is going on above 100 on the dial (unless you get nostalgic for high school; then there’s Jack FM*) and 2) the five most requested songs in the Twin Cities (as compiled by KDWB) are brainless, heartless, soulless, and painfully repetitive. It’s like a free day in junior-high Phys Ed class, as scored by R2D2. Beeps and bleeps. Twits and tweets. A steady bass thud and random screeching. Whining and bravado. Cat-calls and wolf-whistles. Turns out I’d rather listen to death metal. Anyone can wear excess makeup and questionable clothing, jump around on stage, and not sing. But at least the metalheads play instruments and break stuff.

—-

Ever walk down the street and spot someone coming toward you whom you can’t quite place…and as she gets closer, her face breaks into the sweetest smile, and her eyes gleam, and you’re a bit embarrassed because you must have met her, but you just can’t remember…so you smile a little, sheepishly, and now she’s grinning, and gives a little wave, and you start to raise your hand in greeting, almost close enough to speak…and then you realize there’s someone walking about 15 feet directly behind you, and you don’t know this girl at all?

No? Okay, yeah, me neither…

—-

I did a little Easter shopping this evening at St. George Catholic Books and Gifts in Blaine. Wonderful selection of all things Catholic — like many such stores, it used to be in a tiny little space, but it has since expanded significantly. Nevertheless, every time I go in there, they have boxes of new stock on the floor and seem to be reorganizing; every shelf is chock-a-block with books, icons, statues, and keepsakes; the walls are lined with paintings and crucifixes…clearly they have everything, if they could just remember where they put it! I love the store, and always spend more than I intend. It occurred to me today that St. George’s is very like the local hardware: everything is organized just well enough that I feel comfortable browsing myself, and everything is in just enough disarray that by the time I find what I’m looking for, I’ve picked up at least two other items, as well. Savvy storekeepers?

—-

* Ever re-listen to the songs we were singing along to back then? Eesh. I had no idea.

Book Break: Three Little Books

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment
I’m playing catch-up on a few recently completed books, lest you think (aside from The Brothers Karamazov) I haven’t been reading in the past year. All of them are “little” books in one sense or another, but none are insubstantial; in fact, all three have Catholic or spiritual underpinnings and overtones. I shall write about them in the order that I completed them, though the last one I began reading even before Dostoevsky.

Parish Priest: Father Michael McGivney and American Catholicism by Douglas Brinkley & Julie Fenster is a short biography of the founder of the Knights of Columbus and an intriguing glimpse into the struggles of American Catholics in the nineteenth century. Fr. McGivney, like many priests of his day, died young, but nevertheless transformed the communities of which he was a part, and ultimately re-envisioned the role of Catholic men in America. The authors admit he left few personal papers or other items behind, and at times, it felt as though the material on Fr. McGivney was a bit thinner than the book. I was particularly struck by several points, however:

  • Fr. McGivney’s gifts as a parish priest, and his ideas behind the Knights of Columbus, first manifested themselves at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, Conn. Interestingly (to me, at least), when I was at Yale, this was a church I walked by on a daily basis, and when I met my bride and began (occasionally) to attend mass, it was at St. Mary’s. As a result, the book was full of names and places I knew and could envision from my college days.
  • Catholics in America were subject to discrimination; however, New Haven’s sophisticated liberal leanings made the community quite tolerant of its Catholic immigrants. On the other hand, when I was at Yale, the community’s sophisticated liberal leanings caused the students to look sideways at the priests and parishioners at St. Mary’s.
  • Fr. McGivney’s desire to start the KCs stemmed from the problems he saw in his Irish Catholic community, including poor widows, fatherless children, and men who wanted something more than their workaday lives, but were seeking it in the bottle and secret societies that separated them from their faith and their families. As they say, the more things change…
The book was a quick read, and especially for Yale Catholics and my KC brothers, I recommend it.
—
Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince is a grown-up fable masquerading as a children’s book. It’s a book I’ve seen often and have often wanted to read based on the whimsical illustrations alone, but until I recently heard an interview about the book on the local Catholic radio station, I’m embarrassed to say I knew almost nothing about the book or the author. I found a like-new, soft-cover, second-hand copy at The Sixth Chamber in St. Paul, brought it home, and did something I certainly haven’t done since Trevvy learned to read for himself: I began to read to the kids after dinner.

It’s neither overtly Catholic nor overtly religious. It is beautiful. I won’t tell you a thing about the story; I knew very little, and I found my voice choking with emotion throughout as I discovered my kids, and especially myself, in the characters in the story.* I will say only that it is worth reading and worth sharing. Everyone, from six-year-old Trevor to Jodi and I, loved the book. Gabe says it may be his new favorite. Our teenager said, “Will you pick another book, Dad? I really like this!”

If you want just a taste, my good friend Fr. Tyler wrote about The Little Prince, as well, on his Prairie Father blog. The excerpt he used is one of my favorites, too. Read this book!
—
Finally, the other night at Adoration I finished Introduction to a Devout Life, a Catholic spiritual classic written in the early 17th century by St. Francis de Sales. The copy I have is a pocket-sized hardcover; an undated old printing of an old translation, I suspect. The book is available for free in its entirety on several web sites; CatholiCity.com describes it this way:

Introduction to the Devout Life is the most popular Catholic “self-help” book of all time. First published in the early 17th century, it has proven its value as a daily spiritual guide and helpful reference for living an authentic Christian life. Written specifically for laymen, it began as letters from Saint Francis to a married woman who was seeking holiness amidst the distractions of her life of wealth and status. It contains treasures of wisdom for every reader, from eager beginner to lifelong Christian.

I came late to the Church and was confirmed as a young husband and father and an aspiring writer.** I picked St. Francis de Sales as my confirmation saint, primarily because he is the patron saint of writers. I read a bit about him and learned that he had a privileged education and upbringing, and he was looking for signs all the time…so it took him awhile to come to the decision to serve God. (That seemed appropriate.) Once he became a priest, he went into fairly hostile areas to convert people, and often used his writings to do so. These details, plus the fact that Francis is a family name on my father’s side, seemed like good reasons at the time. (I never even considered any of the numerous St. Jameses.)

It wasn’t until years later that I realized St. Francis de Sales was a doctor of the church and decided I should probably read my patron’s writings. I searched for a copy of the book and wound up with two (one in English, and one in French, which I don’t read or speak. I’ve been reading it a bit to a time each Monday night in the Adoration Chapel ever since. The sentences are often intricate, but the saint’s voice and genuine joy in serving God shines through. The book provides step-by-step guidance for increasing devotion and holiness in your life, and the saint’s suggestions, while intimidating taken in their entirety, are individually small, practical, and still relevant today. And every so often something strikes you as so profound that you incorporate it immediately into your prayer life. It is a challenge to anyone living in this world, but I suspect it rewards repeat readings.
—-
* Of course, I am an emotional guy…
** I’m still all of these things except young.

The Second Third, Week 19: A More Visible Faith

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment
Some of you might know that I have a peculiar love for ancient or seemingly outmoded codes of honor. It’s the reason I love Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog, in which Forest Whitaker waxes philosophical as a pigeon-keeping urban assassin who lives atop an abandoned building, listens to hip-hop, works for a mid-level mobster in a dysfunctional crime family on the verge of bankruptcy, and strictly follows the Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai. Two old, impractical (and completely implacable) codes of conduct crash headlong, and the result is a weird, violent, foul-mouthed, and (to me, at least) strangely compelling movie.

Film critic Roger Ebert opened his review of the film with, “It helps to understand that the hero of ‘Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai’ is crazy. Well, of course he is.” I, unlike Ebert, am not so sure. Here’s a man who grew up alone on the streets, with nothing to believe in and no one to look up to; who is nearly killed as a boy and is saved by a generally cowardly criminal in a moment of sudden grace; who finds a way (or in this case, a Way) to survive, to rise above his weaknesses, to earn respect, and to pay back the man to whom he, in a very real sense, owes his life. The way of the samurai is not easy, but I don’t see it as irrational. Self-sacrifice is difficult, but it can be beautiful, can’t it? Perhaps his obedience to this ancient Way is what passes for beauty in his broken world.

When I launched my old blog, Yield and Overcome, I was actually reading books like Hagakure and The Art of War. I was doing a fair amount of “kung-fu writing” and adopted the web handle “werdfu” to underscore my freelance avocation. But in the years since, I’ve watched our government and economy go dark, even as my own family and faith have grown bright as a beacon in the black. “Yield and overcome” seems too soft and passive a philosophy for tough times, too gray for this cold twilight. So in my Second Third (as promised), I’m unveiling a new look and name for my blog: Archangel Stomp. Sound like a dance, and it is, in a way: imagine a mosh pit with the Devil lying prostrate at the bottom. Most of the old posts are there, and I’ll still be fighting the Good Fight as best I can. Only this time, I’ll be doing so more intentionally as a Catholic and a believer.

Perhaps obedience to this ancient Way still passes for beauty in this broken world.

A Wee Bit Irish?

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Blogger’s Note: The soundtrack to this post is above. You can about imagine a bare-knuckles brawl a la The Quiet Man, can’t you?

It’s St. Patrick’s Day, which in the U.S. means wearing o’ the green and drinkin’ o’ the beer. (Unfortunately, too many folks are drinking green beer tonight, instead of the real deal: thick, black, and pleasantly bitter.)

I’ll confess that I’m wearing green today. Am I Irish? Depends on how you count. I’m half Polish (my mother’s side: Galubenskis and Koczwaras), and the rest is a mix. According to my late grandfather, Duane Thorp, we Thorps are English, French, Dutch, maybe a little bit American Indian, and Scotch-Irish or Scots-Irish, which, according to at least one account I’ve read, means I’m descended from some really ornery Scotsmen whom the English settled in Ireland to drive out the Irish Catholics in the 1800s. Even in the 1950s, when my father was a boy in the Thumb of Michigan, he recalls an older relative — a bare-knuckles brawler of some repute — having a few drinks and going looking for Catholics to fight.*

So am I even a wee bit Irish? Well, tonight I won’t be drinking green beer, or black stout, or golden Irish whiskey, because it’s Lent, and I’ve given them up until Easter. Instead I’ll be celebrating with the beautiful Lorica of St.Patrick. These Thorps are Catholic now — and more Irish than ever!

—

*Of course, the Poles in the area — including the Galubenski family who lived next door to Dad, and their daughter, whom he married — were Catholic.