Being! Or Nothingness

My, oh, Myanmar

Vaclav Havel has weighed in on the situation in Burma where thousands of Buddhist monks took to the streets last week to protest the destructive and creeping abuse that the military government has unrelentingly unleashed on it's saffron-clad citizenry and their monasteries.  The monks also protested the way that the government of Burma has increasingly become antagonistic to the freedom and independence of its citizens.

Friday in Rangoon, the capital of Myanmar (formerly called Burma), could be called nothing less than bloody as the strong arms of the junta beat, shot, and gassed themselves back into some sort of "control," that is to say fear, over the populace.

The London Times quotes Shari Villarosa, the director of the American Embassy in Jangon (Rangoon), saying:

“This is what’s kept people in line all these years — fear and intimidation,” she said in the air-conditioned cool of her office. “I’m amazed that people have been as brave as they have been. Maybe they’ll regroup. I don’t necessarily believe you can conclude it’s been put down . . . The force does not address the underlying sources of grievance. People have been successfully intimidated into keeping their head down — maybe. But it’s still a struggle to survive, to feed their families, to educate their families, to get healthcare.”

Havel has a sharp critique of the international community's response to the situation in Myanmar because, yet again, we are at a loss for how to react.  No one saw this coming.  Havel writes, "For dozens of years, the international community has been arguing over how it should reform the United Nations so that it can better secure civic and human dignity in the face of conflicts such as those now taking place in Burma or Darfur, Sudan. It is not the innocent victims of repression who are losing their dignity, but rather the international community, whose failure to act means watching helplessly as the victims are consigned to their fate."

And so today, in Burma, the streets stand nearly empty.  Maybe the monks will rise again.  Or maybe the lay citizenry.  Or maybe the junta has had it's day.  Maybe it has suppressed a peaceful revolution without having to kill thousands of monks like last time.

3:10 to Manhood

What does it take to become a man?  What is a man?  What does it mean to be a father?

Last Saturday I went with Vincent and Andrea to see the remake of the 1950's classic 3:10 to Yuma.  It's based on a short story by Elmore Leonard. 

The modern update was pretty good.  I remember watching the original with my grandfather (all of my best memories of my one on one time with him are of us watching westerns--and Murder She Wrote and Matlock--on TV together).  The original was more suspenseful, from what I remember, but the remake is pretty good.  It is heavy on the violence, and the Thermopylae-like ending with all the high powered shooting is just a little less believable than the more solemn original, but I would definitely recommend it.

When I left the theater, I was struck by one re-occurring thought:  What does it mean to be a man?  The plot of the movie is about a rancher who agrees to help take a captured thief and murderer across the desert to Contention, Arizona so that he can be put on the prison car that leaves for Yuma prison at 3:10.  Yet, the plot is driven by an overriding question:  Why would anyone risk their life, even for the huge prize of $200, on what seems clearly like a suicide mission?

The subtext is a rather intelligent discourse on what honor, courage, love, and witness have to do with becoming a man.  Evans (the ranch hand farmer) has suffered indignity after indignity to himself, his honor, and his family.  He has a chance to provide for his family, but more than that, he has a chance to demonstrate to himself that he has what it takes to be a man, a real man.

As the story unfolds, you see that his desire to be a true man, a living man (as Irenaeus would say), not only changes the man who desires it, but changes those who are witness to it.  Even Ben Wade (the outlaw prisoner), by the end of the movie is different, changed by his encounter with Evans.

I recommend the movie, and I suggest that, when you see it, you ponder this question with me.  What does it take to be a man?

Beginning again, and again, and again . . .

Every day it becomes more and more clear, that in front of all of my intentions, designs, hopes, plans, and desire for the day, it is impossible to make them happen.  I can have the best of intentions to keep the Question of the Day discussion down to 15 minutes, or to present the notes in a new and captivating way, or even to explain something that was unclear with a new and improved touch, or to not fall into this or that temptation . . . and by noon I forgot completely what I was trying to do.  No news there.

Yet, every morning when I wake up and say the morning prayer, these desires are back: back in front of my eyes, back in my heart, back in plans . . .

Fr. Giussani, when speaking of life, once said something to the effect of "the only thing is to begin again."   And this beginning again, what is it made of?  Is it made of my continual effort to plan and produce?  Maybe, at least in part.  I can't absolve myself from trying again to live my day better, to do my work better.  But I don't think we're talking here about some volunteerism.  It's not simply the American "I can do it if I try harder," mentality.

So, what is it?  I think it's the stuff that confession is made of.  Yesterday I did the things I did not want to do, and I did not do the things I wanted.  Absolvo te . . . and you begin again.  But this beginning again is full of an awareness, an awareness that I am not the one who can forgive himself and I am not the one who can heal himself and I am not the one who can do it.  At least, when I do it I do it because I have been changed by something, not because I have changed myself.

So I need the Christian event to happen again.  To happen each day.  To happen like it happened last Friday, with Ryan.  So that I can recognize, in front of my begging for his presence to come, that he comes.  In other words, that He is.  He is.  He really is.  He is real.

Happy Birthday Vincent, death is approaching.

Today is Vincent's Birthday.  He's all of 15.  I am only posting this because he is lazy and hasn't posted the two pieces he has been working on.  He's worried that he won't live up to the verve of his first post.  He probably won't.

As is with all blogging, the author's craft is only to get progressively worse.  I mean, it was only two years ago that this humble blog was named the "Best New Catholic Blog of 2005"  here we are a mere 730 days later and . . . well . . . maybe I've managed to breathe new life into it, maybe, but the stone has lost some of it's shine.

Achebe said that "Things fall apart."  Epictetus told us "I am a poor soul, shackled to a corpse."  The existentialists say that "Death is all that matters."  Sartre, "One lives one's death, one dies one's life."  We are repulsed by this notion, but, like Estragon and Vladimir, we are increasingly paralyzed in front of what we want. 

So, happy birthday? Yes.  Yes.  A million times, yes.  Happy Birthday. 

Who would really say this?  What kind of person could say "Happy Birthday" to another year of what many treat as a prison?  Giussani says that death is "the origin and the stimulus for all searching."  There is a positivity that has entered life, and in particular has entered our lives.  So we can say "Happy Birthday," and mean it.

I wonder, how did the Birthday celebration arise?

The Heart & The Teacher

So, as a follow up to my earlier post on what giving "new life" could mean, I wanted to provide some type of response to Tom about what I'm doing in my religion classes and what exactly it means to follow Fr. Rich.

The first thing, I guess, would be to begin with the Curriculum Meeting this summer in Connecticut.  Last year, the teachers in New York took a weekend together in the summer to work with each other and plan their classes for the following school year.  They found it such a help to their work that this year they repeated the event, inviting other teachers in the Movement, and their friends.  There were only eight of us in Connecticut this summer, but the entire three days were some of the most helpful events in my career.

The Curriculum meeting began with a conversation about what it means to use Fr. Giussani's method in the Risk of Education in our classrooms and various disciplines.  What emerged was a challenging and practical proposal of what it means to teach.  The conversation on this topic continued over the course of all our meals and was further developed by a presentation from Michelle Riconoscente on the fundamental principles and origins of constructivism in educational philosophy.

The part of the weekend which I found most helpful, however, was sitting down with Fr. Rich for a couple of hours and learning what he did with his students in Old Testament and New Testament.  I am teaching both of those subjects.

 

God Probably Hates You

I know that this isn't really news but . . . I've recently watched a video series on YouTube from a British documentary television show on the Westboro Baptist Church of Westboro, Kansas.  You've probably heard of them as the "God Hates Fags" protesters who demonstrate outside of churches and funerals of soldiers who have died in Iraq.  You see, God has killed them in the war because they are a part of the "fag supporting" U.S. Military.

What's really interesting is their definition of "fag."  It's not the typical derogation, but a rather broad definition that includes just about everyone who isn't righteous and holy and worshiping God correctly.  That is, everyone except the 80 or so members of the Westboro Baptist Church, of which 85% of them are related as children or grandchildren or spouses of the patriarch-pastor Fred Phelps.

These people remind me of Chesterton's definition of a lunatic in Orthodoxy.  They are perfectly logical in everything they say, perfectly logical in their own crazy little ice cube . . .  No one makes any headway discussing anything with them because any argument against what they think and do is outside their logic.  Their logic is air tight, so air tight that it is suffocating.

Ridare vita a . . .

Give new to life to . . . to what?  I have been teaching now for two and a half weeks in my new position as a Freshman and Sophomore religion teacher.  I decided to begin with the religious sense and have spent every class trying to provoke my students to take seriously their questions about life, it's meaning, and the origin of these questions.  And guess what . . . 14 year old kids can be pretty amazing in this regard.

These weeks have been very happy weeks and now that I begin the transition to the content of the class (Old and New Testament, and the Church) there is this mounting tension and I want to keep this tension turned up.  I have never been as happy as I have in these last two weeks, and I want the rest of my year to remain at this level.

But how did this come about?  Did I invent the perfect class on the Religious Sense?  Will I be making my own path through the desert?  No.  Quite simply, I'm just following Fr. Rich.  His ideas and experience in  teaching, brought to the table a method I could never have invented.  Yet, here I am, happier for following.

There must be something there that wasn't there before.

Two Turntables and a Microphone

It's where I'm at.

I have left the hallowed halls of Middle School and am now teaching at the lovely school pictured here.  I would say the name, but that seems a bit incriminating.

I am really happy to be teaching high school.  It has been a fantastic couple of weeks.  My classes are going well, my colleagues are great, and the administration is professional and participatory.  All in all, it's been great.  I could not have imagined that I would be as happy as I am.  My mentor teacher, "The Don," is great.  I know that God loves me, because of all the teachers who could have been my mentor, "The Don" is my mentor, and he's like me with 33 years of teaching experience and a heart that is authentic.  He knows what it means to be an educator, and I look forward to learning from him.

All in all, new things and I'm tired and working hard.  So, encourage Vincent to pick up my slack.

Good Morning America

After much deliberation and negotiation I have officially signed a two-year contract with Being! Or Nothingness as a junior author.  Although my writing stylings are much in demand, I felt a particular attachment to this blog and seeing as how its regular author is a lazy bastard, I thought I might be able to reinvigorate these pages.  Now, please be aware, I am only 14, but my acerbic wit will certainly challenge all of your low expectations.  I thank Stephen for this invitation and I look forward to many entertaining hours putting every single one of my most errant thoughts out in cyberspace. 

They say that when you are finally old enough to enter the work-force, your future employers will search the internet for any incriminating evidence that might preclude you from joining their elite staff of saints, heroes, and geniuses.  Consider this my attempt at future unemployment.  The name's Vincent P.  And you can put that in your internet filter and smoke it.