I'm not sure why this didn't occur to me before...  I read recently another brief article about the negative impact of email on productivity the other day, so I was thinking about a way to deal with it that didn't involve, e.g., closing Outlook and maybe even setting an "I'm not available by email until 3p today" out of office type message--seems a bit extreme, and it would also preclude my getting meeting reminders. 

It occurred to me that what usually happens is I get the nifty little toaster popup notification while doing something, almost always click on it for more detail, and then get drawn into a distraction over it.  Similarly, I was using one of those Gmail Vista gadgets that would highlight when I had Gmail waiting, or I'd leave it open and minimized and see the Inbox count in the taskbar.  The problem was not (for me) so much getting too much email as having the regular interruptions that were occasioned by these terribly useful notification mechanisms. 

Having isolated the problem, i.e., having framed the question correctly (which usually the most important part of solving a problem), I asked "How can I make these notifications go away?"  And the answer was immediately apparent: turn them off. :)

To that end, I went into Outlook advanced email options (Tools -> Options -> Email Options -> Advanced Email Options--who knew notifications were advanced?!) and deselect all the notification options:

I then removed the Gmail notifier gadget, and I close my Gmail when done with it.  The magic is that I still get my task and meeting reminders, but I don't get the regular interruptive notifications.  This had an immediate noticeable effect--I could work through to a good stopping point on the thing I was working on, i.e., a point I'd normally take a break, and then I'd check my email.  Wow!  Who knew something so simple could make such a difference?  I figure if it is critical, somebody will call or come knocking on my door. :)

As a complimentary technique to that, I have taken my Inbox strategy to the next level, following a bit of advice given by Mark Hurst (who wrote a book on Bit Literacy [that I haven't read]).  One of his suggestions to avoid information overload is to keep your Inbox empty.  I previously already worked to do that because I used my Inbox like a to-do list (and don't like having a long to-do list), but Mark's advice is precisely not to do that--use it as an Inbox and get stuff out of it immediately. 

Having not read the book (in which I'm sure are tons of helpful little tidbits), I take that to mean act on it immediately if possible, file it if need be, or set up a task to do something with it later.  I was already doing the first two, but I've found this additional third technique to be a nice add.  There is a distinct satisfaction (for me anyway) to having an empty inbox--maybe it's my personality type. :)

I hope this maybe helps others out there in the same boat.

Thanks to Mark Hurst over at Good Experience for blogging this one.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  My favorite: "Procrastination is playing imaginary computer games with your furniture."  I laughed out loud in public..

Now I'm going to try my first embed; let me know if there are problems.

I was just reading the sermon Pope Benedict gave today in the Bronx.  The following struck a cord:

The Gospel teaches us that true freedom, the freedom of the children of God, is found only in the self-surrender which is part of the mystery of love. Only by losing ourselves, the Lord tells us, do we truly find ourselves (cf. Lk 17:33). True freedom blossoms when we turn away from the burden of sin, which clouds our perceptions and weakens our resolve, and find the source of our ultimate happiness in him who is infinite love, infinite freedom, infinite life. "In his will is our peace."

Real freedom, then, is God’s gracious gift, the fruit of conversion to his truth, the truth which makes us free (cf. Jn 8:32). And this freedom in truth brings in its wake a new and liberating way of seeing reality. When we put on "the mind of Christ" (cf. Phil 2:5), new horizons open before us!

I've thought about this seeming paradox on a few occasions--that real, radical freedom is found in truth and living in conformity to that truth. 

Loss of Freedom?
There's a common perception that morals, ethics, and religion in general limit our freedom--that we're sacrificing freedom for some greater good.  But we're not actually sacrificing freedom--we're still free to choose to think and act otherwise, however, we are using our freedom, choosing to live in accord with what we believe to be true.  It's a different way to think about it, one that puts it in the right perspective.  I think it is put in a negative perspective so often because we focus on the things we're not supposed to think or do instead of on what we are freely choosing--positively--to think and do.

The funny thing that I've found is that in choosing to align my beliefs and actions with Catholic doctrine, I feel far more at peace and far freer.  I think it is because if we're constantly struggling with the basic (but important!) questions of life, such as our origins, the existence of God and our relationship to the Divine, as well as our right relations with others, we never get off the ground, so to speak--we're always stuck in an infinite loop, wondering and (maybe) worrying, if we are conscientious. 

But if we settle all that, we're free to move on and explore new horizons.  Not only that, I think we are better equipped to explore those new horizons, because we are aligned with truth, with reality.

Mental & Conceptual Models
This reminds me of the idea in psychology of mental models and conceptual models.  My understanding, based on Donald Norman's The Design of Everyday Things (a.k.a., The Psychology of Everyday Things), is essentially that there is a conceptual model that designers create and use when they design and build things.  This is the actual and correct model.  Then there are mental models that users of the design form and use when perceiving and interacting with the design.

The trick in design is to sufficiently express the conceptual model (through a variety of design mechanisms like affordances, feedback, "knowledge in the world," etc.) so that users will form the correct mental model--one that closely aligns with the design's conceptual model.  The reason this is important is that it empowers the users to use the design effectively and not spend undue time and energy trying to figure it out, dealing with frustrations and inefficiencies that come from having a wrong mental model.  You could say that having the right mental model makes the users more peaceful and more free to explore other things because they don't have the frustrations and aren't wasting unnecessary time on it.

Applied Mental Models for Freedom and Happiness
Now map that to how we think and act as human beings.  Imagine that there is a correct conceptual model that specifies how best we human beings can think, act, and relate to others.  This model can be discovered through a variety of the Designer's mechanisms such as nature (e.g., affordances in biology), reason, experimentation (use & feedback both personal, scientific, and historical/anecdotal), and even revelation (documentation, as it were).  Now if we form the correct mental model, one that most closely aligns with the human conceptual model, it follows that we'll be more at peace (less frustrated), more efficient, more effective, and freer to explore other things.  In short, having the right mental model would give us the most radical freedom and happiness.

Wouldn't we be crazy not to use the human design in accordance with the right mental model, once we figure it out?  I think so.  For instance, once we figure out that our door key is inserted into the key slot in a particular way that gets us through the door in the least amount of time, we'd be silly--bordering on insane--to keep trying to use the key in ways that don't match that mental model.  We'd be wasting time, getting frustrated, and getting stuck outside!

No, once we discover the right mental model, the only sane thing to do is to keep using it unless someone comes along and demonstrates a model that seems to work better.  Doing this--adhering to this mental model--is not "blind faith," as many liken the faith of Christians (and others) to be.  On the contrary, adhering to a mental model that seems right  to you is pure sanity, absolute reason; doing anything else would be idiocy of the first degree.

Sharing Your Mental Model - The Right Thing to Do
It also follows that if you see someone standing outside a door, fumbling with a key, unable to figure out how to use it, that what else could you do but walk over, show, and explain the right mental model--the one that you've found is the most effective and least frustrating?  Would it be kind of you to just say "well, whatever that person believes is fine for them" and just leave them stuck and frustrated?  (I'd suggest not.)

So it is with those who share their faith, their mental model about life, the universe, and everything.  They think they've found the right mental model, the one that is most aligned with the ultimate human conceptual model, the one that if applied will provide the most peace, satisfaction, and happiness.  It is an act of kindness, an act of caring, indeed an act of love, to take the trouble to share such a mental model with others.  Correspondingly, it would be an act of meanness, selfishness, even perhaps of hatred, to not share it and try to help others to understand and use it.

So to those who think having faith is ignorant, blind adherence and loss of freedom, I'd suggest they reconsider.  Using the analogy illumined here, it seems clear that such faith is actually the opposite--it is wide-eyed, reasoned, experiential, and ultimately more radically free and more likely to provide lasting happiness (which is a goal I think any sane human being can agree upon, no?). 

Similarly, perhaps the most popular philosophical adage of our age--"what you believe is okay for you and what I believe is okay for me"--is not in actuality the most humane, reasoned, or livable approach.  On the contrary, it seems far more humane--even positively caring--to try to show each other why we think we have the right mental model.  It's something to consider, anyways.

I finally gave in and bought a graphics tablet.  My budget being as huge as it was, I opted for the Wacom Bamboo, which retails at $79, but ANTOnline (via Amazon) had it for $50 plus shipping ($58 total).  I haven't been this tickled to get a new gadget in a while.

The whole experience thus far has been grand.  I placed the order at about 10p on Tuesday night.  I got an email Wednesday night saying it had shipped, and when I opened it Thursday morning and clicked the tracking number, I was informed it was out for delivery--and I paid for standard shipping.  Awesome.

I got the box later Thursday morning, and opened it to find a sleek box wrapped in tissue paper, as if it were a gift.  After sliding it out of the tissue paper, here's what I saw:

Not bad styling.  Let's open 'er up:

"This is your Bamboo.  Use it to get more out of your computer.  Let us know how it goes..."  In many languages.  Then it is signed by, presumably, the creators.  Very nice touch, I thought.  I felt like a proud owner already.  Then you lift up that insert, and there's the tablet in all its beauty.  Grab it out--there's the cord, the pen, the pen holder.  Great.  Simple. Obvious.  Beneath that is another tissue wrapped gift, a stylish little black box that has some simple instructions on getting going and the DVD.

Just opening the thing was a pleasure.  Honestly, these folks know what UX is, and this is just for an $80 graphics tablet. 

I plugged it in, and it immediately just worked.  Having read a comment somewhere, I just went to the Web site to download the latest drivers.  That was easy.  Install.  I had to try twice; it got hung up for some reason, but then, I did have 30 apps open at the time and they did suggest closing them all. :)

I immediately opened OneNote and went to town.  I started drawing the simple stuff as Dan Roam suggests in his new book, The Back of the Napkin.  (I attended his session at Mix and liked it enough to buy the book.)  Then I really went out on a limb and drew a self-portrait:

Not bad, eh? 

Well, it was a first shot.  I tried writing and realized just how bad my penmanship has become over the years.  Trust me; it's bad.  Nice thing is that maybe I'll get some of it back and improve it now that I have this (who knows?). 

I'm now on Day 2 of using my Bamboo, and I really like it.  My wrist, which had been hurting more as of late, has been loving me.  One of the reasons I tried this was to see if it'd be better to avoid "repetitive strain injury," and I noticed an immediate difference.  The other reason was because I get so tired of being constrained by drawing programs in terms of what I want to represent visually.  SmartArt in Office really, truly (as cool as it is) only goes so far. :)

So my first real use was to start diving into my Agile UX Design Process diagram to replace a particularly painful slide (Slide 19) in my Building Good UX talk.  It (both the drawing and the process) is a work in progress; just trying to visualize some of my thinking about it right now.

If you look hard, you can see my chicken scratch compared to the nice, free Journal font I picked up.  The point of this diagram is to show how to integrate UX pros into an Agile process.  Not saying this is all fleshed out or perfect, but it's a start. :)  One important point is that even if you don't have the pros, you can start doing the UX stuff yourself.

A Few Tips Using Bamboo (thus far)

1. Use Mouse mode.  When you install the driver, it switches to Pen mode, which tries to map your screen(s) to the tablet.  Even though Wacom recommends this mode (even provides exercises to get use to it), I found it frustrating when trying to draw on my right screen--I felt too close to the edge for comfort. 
2. Disable acceleration.  While it can be a nice feature when using it literally like a mouse, it messes you up when drawing.
3. Switch to the dreaded single-click mode in Explorer.  Back when the single click mode was added (XP?), I tried it out and was disgusted.  But double-clicking w/ the pen is just not easy, and actually, the single-click mode feels really natural with the pen.
4. Switch to scroll on touch ring. I don't feel too strongly about this, but honestly, I don't use zoom (the default) enough to have it as a top-level feature on the tablet.
5. Upgrade to Vista?  I think that you must not get ink in Office 2007 w/o Vista?  I can't figure it out, but it's not there for me in XP.  The Wacom site mentions Vista explicitly, and my searches haven't turned up anything useful.  Folks talk about "Start Inking" as if it is just always there, but it may also have something to do with Tablet PC.  I'll let you know if I figure it out.

It is taking some getting used to, of course, but so far I think it's a big improvement.  Ask me in a few weeks. :)

And now for the gratuitous signature:

 

 

 

 

Nice.

I just had a remarkable experience (hence I'm remarking on it :) ).  At work, I park way out at the edge of our parking lot, which backs up against some undeveloped land.  I do it because I figure I gotta get some exercise somehow, but today I got an unexpected and delightful surprise.

As I was sitting there in my truck, finishing my yogurt and rosary, I took note of a group of red-breasted robins hopping around.  Robins are cute, but I don't find them remarkable in themselves.  But then I saw a male cardinal.  I think those are one of the most beautiful common birds with their striking red feathers.  So I was enjoying watching it, musing about its etymology, as one, two, then three blue jays flitted into view, which is another beautiful bird in my book. 

At this point I was thinking, wow, this is really cool.  Then a squirrel showed up and started chasing one of the robins around; I guess the bird snatched something he had his eye on.  I see squirrels all the time around here, so that wasn't particularly notable in itself, but it was just like slapping on extra gravy to the full on wildlife experience I was getting.  At this point, I was feeling like St. Francis. :)

But it didn't stop there!  I looked to my left, where a robin was eyeing me suspiciously, and something else caught my eye, flitting around on the ground.  When it paused to take a breath, I realized I was looking at a chipmunk!  Talk about brother sun, sister moon!  I don't think I've seen a chipmunk in the wild before.  Cute little boogers.

So I finished my stuff and was just about to step out of the truck when an iridescent black bird swooped in to roost right in front of my truck.  Icing on the cake, my friend.  Robins, cardinals, blue jays, a blackbird, a squirrel, and a chipmunk--right there around me all together.  Who needs a zoo!?

Now, nobody better start parking out there with me after reading this!  (For those of you not from around here, yes, this really happened--in New Jersey!)

Given that tomorrow (Ash Wednesday) begins our season of Lent¹, it seems appropriate to me to comment on the Dominican "colors" of black and white.  The friars habit (their outfit) is black and white (well, you might say white and black, depending on your perspective).  The Dominican cross' most distinctive mark is its alternating black and white, and many other derivative insignia use those two colors.

So what's up with these colors?  Were they picked just because they look good together, have great contrast, or what?  Well, they have a meaning.  The black represents penance, and the white represents joy. 

What an odd combination, eh?  After all, isn't penance about being truly sorry for one's sins, turning away from those sins, intending to not sin again, and even doing things to try to make things right (reparation)?  How can you have joy if you're penitent?

The thing is, that penance is really an act of faith, an act of hope.  Without faith and hope, it doesn't make any sense.  If you don't believe in a transcendent, objective Good (i.e., God) from whom the nature of good flows, it is hard to know, concretely, what evil is (essentially a negation/privation of good).  Sin is a moral evil; that is, it is an act that is not in accord with the transcendent, objective Good and thus in some way negates and loses that Good. 

Penance is an act of hope because without hope of forgiveness, of restoration of the good we've deprived ourselves (and sometimes others) of, there'd really be no point in penance.  Why even bother trying to make things right if there is no hope that they can be made right?  It just wouldn't make sense to do that; it'd be a waste of time and energy, and instead we'd just waste away in despair.

But for those who have faith and hope, penance makes a lot of sense.  And its precisely that--that faith and hope--that makes penance essentially an act of joy.  We can take deep consolation and joy in penance because we know that we are making things right through God's grace.  The good that we've lost is restored and then some, and that's where the joy comes in.

So tomorrow starts what we call the penitential season of Lent, about forty days of observing a spirit of penance prior to celebrating that greatest of all days, when God made it possible for us to get things right--Easter.  Tomorrow we get ashes to remind us of our fragility and mortality: "remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return" echoing the words of God spoken to Adam as the consequence of that original sin. 

But the story doesn't end there; if it did, we may as well just do as Job's wife suggested--curse God and die.  No, the story goes on to the redemption of humanity through the Incarnation and atonement that makes it possible for us to restore that original good and in fact to go beyond that to become partakers in that transcendent, supreme Good, that Divine nature. 

So we can with true joy be sorry for our sins and do concrete acts of penance (fasting, abstaining from meat, giving to the poor, visiting the sick, and many others) because we have the end in view; we know the story doesn't end with our screwing things up if only we accept in faith and hope the grace made available to us to make things right.

So I hope that Christians will join me in joy as we celebrate this season of penance looking towards the resurrection of our Lord.  And maybe those who are not will better understand why it is we do what we do. :)

Notes
1. The word "Lent" is from earlier English and Germanic words for spring (because it's around springtime).  "Easter" is another one of those where the Church co-opted an English word for Church use; good symbolism, though--the east, the rising sun, the celebration of the rising of the Son of God.

One of the questions that gets asked and re-asked over the generations is "how can a good, all-powerful God exist if there is so much evil in the world?"  There's even a specialized term that's been created for dealing with that question--theodicy.  Needless to say, as many times as it has been asked, there have been answers given.  For some, these answers are sufficient, but the fact that it keeps being asked indicates that for some the answers are not sufficient.

I'm not about to say I have found the answer to silence the question, and even if I had, very few people will ever read this. :)  But I do think the correct answer is what has been offered by others, which is that evil exists so that greater good may come of it.

This answer is hard to swallow when we can't see the greater good, when we're being brought face to face with great suffering and the terrible things that people do to others or even just the suffering of the poor, those afflicted by natural disasters, and those who suffer as a result of accidents.  I think some would argue even that "natural" death itself seems to be an evil.  It can be very hard to see the greater good because these things stand out in stark, ringing, painful contrast to what we think of as the good life we want for ourselves and hope for others.

What is Evil and From Whence?
Tied up in this question is the deeper question of "just what is evil, anyways?"  If I recall correctly, St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the great Christian philosophers and theologians, proposed that evil is the negation of good.  Depending on how you take it, this may be a good definition.  A friend of mine once suggested he thought that evil wasn't just the negation of good but that it was the twisting, or perversion, of good, but I can see that falling under St. Augustine's definition in that if you are twisting or perverting something, you are refusing it as it is and changing it into something it is not, which I think is essentially a negation.

On this question, I tend to hold with St. Augustine, as his definition seems to be a simple one that really does encompass the meaning of evil, and it reflects even our common understanding of evil--as inclusive of human suffering and death as well as the rejection of God, the ultimate good.  I do think that human suffering and death are, taken solely in themselves, evil, though not absolute or unconquerable evil.  I think that such evil can be overcome by good.

To reinforce that suffering and death are evil, apart from it seeming obvious common sense, we also see in divine revelation that we humans were not made for suffering and death.  God made us and our world and said "it is good."  Our sin, that is, our turning away from the God who is the source of our life and joy and our turning inwards on ourselves, introduced the possibility for death and suffering.  I think the curse of Adam is not so much an external punishment inflicted by a seemingly vengeful God than it is an affirmation and explication of the natural consequence of our willful separation from the source of all being and happiness.

The Transcendent Good that Overcomes Evil
But God foresaw this and, from the foundations of the universe, planned to redeem us from our turning away from our natural end, which was and is eternal sharing in God's goodness, his love, his joy, and his peace.  He planned to come down to us and become one of us, taking on our whole human nature, purifying it, restoring it, and further dignifying it by infusing his own complete divine perfection. 

He thus empowered us to turn back to him and to receive from him again that which was our natural end to begin with--that complete human participation in the perfect divine goodness.  By becoming human, taking on our whole humanity, he not only restored us to our status as "good" creatures of God, he adopted us as his children.  Through Jesus, the only, eternal Son of God--through his incarnation and sacrifice--we can now truly become children of God.

The redemption of humanity through God's becoming man and atoning for our sin, in itself, is almost an infinite good.  As far as we humans are concerned, I think it is the most perfect good, and its goodness overcomes (is greater than) pretty much all evil throughout all human history, including the supreme evil of our turning away from our source of life and happiness, which is what got us into this mess in the first place.

By joining ourselves to the incarnate Son of God, we can come to share in this unspeakable goodness.  All suffering pales in consideration of this goodness, and in fact, we can take consolation in our own suffering by uniting it to the suffering of Christ.  In offering our suffering in such a way, we make that suffering a loving act, a gift, for our own sake and for that of our fellow human beings.

Through his overcoming of death by his own resurrection, he enables the rest of us humans to do likewise.  And that is why death, for a faithful Christian, is not an evil, but a good.  We know that we have eternal life through Christ.  We know that in death, we come to share more fully in the infinite perfect goodness of God.  This is why the Psalmist can say "precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his saints."

Now this is not to say that suffering isn't real by any means.  This is not to say that suffering and death are not evil.  They are.  Suffering and death is the natural state of humans separated from God; it is a consequence of our original turning away, which has created a real physical and spiritual corruption of the good human nature that we were created with.  Suffering and death are very real, and they are very painful.  When speaking of good overcoming them, we are not minimizing them; in fact, I'd say that the very reality of these is a stimulus to make us more aware of the incomparable goodness we receive from God through Christ.

Why Freedom?
Given all of this, the question remains, though, of why God would have allowed us to turn away from him in the first place.  Why grant us such freedom in the first place?  After all, we human parents restrict our children's freedom in order to protect them from hurting themselves.  Why didn't God keep us from hurting ourselves by turning away from him and entering into a state of suffering and death?

It is a fair question.  I think the answer is essentially the same--so that a greater good could come of it.  In this, I see two greater goods.  The first is the incarnation of God--God becoming human so that we humans could become more like God.¹  This is why the original sin is known as the "happy fault" according to our ancient liturgy.²  Our original damaging of our nature occasioned God's joining himself to us and elevating our human nature, not just restoring us to our original state of human goodness but elevating us to be true children of God, more fully able to participate in his infinite goodness.

The other greater good is wrapped up in this:  Our freedom enables us to truly love.  Love, the free giving and sharing of ourselves with others, is the greatest act of good, and God desires for us to share in that goodness.  Without freedom, we cannot love; we can only mimic the act of loving.  We would be marionettes in God's great play.  In granting us freedom, however, God enables us to experience this supreme act of goodness, which is love--love of him and of others.

Eventually, we parents must let our children strike out on their own.  We must let them learn from their own mistakes and make their own decisions.  Only in doing so will they fully become their own selves, more fully human, and not an extension of us.  Loving parents will do what they can to protect their children, but they will also let their children develop into independent human beings.  Loving parents will teach their children the best path for them to walk in life, but they will also be there when their children choose to stray from that path and hurt themselves.

So it is with God.  In wanting us to be fully independent, to share fully in the goodness of love (that is, to become fully human), he grants us freedom, even freedom that we can use to harm ourselves.  He teaches us the right path to go.  First, in creating us, he imprinted upon our hearts a knowledge of the right path,³ then he reinforced and further illuminated this through his revelation of Himself--directly to Adam and Eve and later to Abraham, then through the Mosaic Law and the prophets, and finally in becoming human himself, teaching the Apostles, and through their writing and oral teaching, directing the Church with the Holy Spirit.  So he gives us freedom and shows us the best way to use it, but he also foresaw that we would not use our freedom wisely, so he planned from the beginning to pick us up and heal us from our fall, much like a loving parent treats the scraped knee or helps us recover from other, larger mistakes.⁴

So we see that God can be truly all powerful, perfectly and infinitely good and loving, and yet still allow evil to exist.  Evil exists both as a result of our freedom but also as an opportunity for good to abound, as a thing that spurs us on towards the good and to overcome with good.

The Ordinary Good That Overcomes Evil
Yet I realize that there are those who may be unable to perceive and appreciate the transcendent goodness of God in his creation, his giving us of our freedom, his revelation to us, and in his Incarnation and atonement that effects our redemption.⁵  Even so, for those, there is more to offer here.  I would suggest that even the ordinariness of human love, especially familial love, from a strictly proportional perspective, far outweighs all the evils in human history.  Think of it this way.  Almost every human being that has ever existed has experienced some, probably a lot, of just ordinary human love--love of parent, love of sibling, love of children, love of friends, and (for many) love of God. 

One could say that throughout our lives, the average human is surrounded by a swirling sea of human love that we never recognize because it is so ordinary and mundane.  It is not heroic.  It's just all those everyday experiences of kindness and sacrifice that are so small that, in themselves, they are not noticed.  But taken as an aggregate, I would suggest that these far outweigh the more shocking instances of evil in our history.

I would further suggest that especially when we see evil, some notable and notorious evil, the everyday human reaction is sympathy.  Think of 9/11, the tsunami, Katrina, earthquakes, floods, genocides, war.  For every great human evil, there seems to be a corresponding outpouring of ordinary human love.  In fact, it is often noted that such tragedies bring people together who would otherwise not be sharing with each other.

And so I think we should not wonder at the existence of evil.  Even in a purely human perspective, it seems to me that there is far more love in this world than evil and hate.  The fact that we seem to take more notice of evil strengthens this view because, as a rule, we humans tend to notice the out of the ordinary more than the ordinary. 

When you add on to all of this ordinary love the transcendent, infinite love and goodness that God has wrought in human history, all the evil pales all the more and we become truly thankful and at peace while enduring and witnessing evil because we know that there truly and actually is a greater good all around us every day, often increased in response to such evil, and we Christians have the firm hope of sharing in the eternal infinite goodness of God, leaving behind the evils of this present world and realizing the fullness of our human potential for good.  In light of all this, rather than wondering why evil exists, should we not be pondering why God created such a world in which love is so ordinary and yet so transcendent?

In pain, sorrow, and distress, suffering and death, let us not lose heart.  Let us cry out in our humanity with the Psalmist "O Lord my God, deliver me!", but also "I love the Lord, for he has heard the cry of my appeal."  For we know the trials of this life, however painful, are already answered through the work of Christ.  Let us not forget the ordinary love that surrounds us each day, and most of all, let us put our trust and hope in Him for "those who put their trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, that cannot be shaken, that stands firm forever."⁶ 

--
Given on the Memorial of Blessed Andrew of Peschiera, O.P.

Notes
1. St. Athanasius put it this way: "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God," which is to say that we might become partakers of the divine nature.
2. From the Exultet, an Easter Vigil hymn of praise.
3. This is what we call "natural law," which is essentially an inherent human capability to know from reason what is the best way to live.
4. Let's not presume, though, that God models his actions on ours; it is the opposite.  We understand something about God's fatherhood through our limited understanding of what good fatherhood is here on earth.  But that's part of the beauty of God's revelation--he meets us where we are, teaches us through humans, through words, actions, and the image of God that we have received from him that has been perfected in Jesus Christ.  When we try to understand God's paternal love, we must keep in mind that we do not judge him by our understanding of paternal love but rather use paternal love as a means to better understand his actions in human history, including our own history.
5. It is worth noting, however, that given our presuppositions about God and his revelation and action in human history, we Christians can make a pretty good account of why evil exists.  A person's inability to appreciate it, which is understandable for those without faith, does not change the fact that we can make an account for why God allows evil to exist. 
6. From Psalm 116 and 125, respectively.

"How many kids do they have??" asked the bemused co-worker upon hearing that someone is having a fifth child.  I am similarly bemused why so many people seem to feel negatively towards those with large families.  I guess that people may not really think about it or, if they do, maybe they really don't know why anyone living in the 21st century would want to have more than the popularly accepted family size of two, maybe three.  The best I can do is offer why my wife and I are choosing to have a large family.

You see, I did not grow up in a large family.  I have one brother and for most of my childhood, my mom was single.  Nor did any of my immediate family or even my friends have large families; I think the largest family had three kids.  I recall it as being a mostly happy childhood--I'm not complaining.  I only mention it to say I did not inherit or learn by example how or why to have a large family; it didn't come naturally. 

For my wife, Christiane, and I, it wasn't a decision to say "we want N number of kids" at some point or other.  Early on in our engagement, we did toss around the idea of four.  Christiane grew up in a family of six (that's four kids for those counting), my mom has three siblings, and so it seemed like a good number somewhere between two and some unthinkable number beyond four. :)

But as we progressed in our philosophical and spiritual journey, we became convinced that setting some artificial limit up front just didn't make sense.  Yes, we became Catholic in this time period, and yes, Catholicism has a rather radical teaching on this matter.  The essence of the Catholic perspective on children is that they are a blessing, a gift from God, and that we should remain truly open to these wonderful gifts.

Despite some Catholic caricatures, this does not equate to being irresponsible and just having as many children as you possibly can.  For example, the most recent authoritative Catholic teaching on the subject, Humanae Vitae, specifically speaks to the issue of responsible parenthood, saying that couples can decide to avoid conceiving "for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts."¹  And in doing so, we're supposed to use the most effective, safe, mutually respectful, character-building, and morally commendable means when doing so--abstinence during fertility.²

There's obviously no one-size-fits-all family size. Some couples are infertile.  Some couples find the wherewithal to have a dozen or more children, even while relying on remarkably limited income.  In considering the question of how many children to have, there are a number of common concerns that need to be addressed.  Since this is a short piece, I can only touch on some of them, particularly those that seem to be the most common, and offer some positive reasons to have children.

What Do We Value?
For us, the question is not so much how many kids we should have.  I think the question is rather what do we really value in life?  Some time ago, Saturday Night Live had this series of crazy fake commercial where this couple were blatant cheapskates when it came to their children but would lavish luxury on themselves, advertising a fictitious online store for such parents--cheapkids.net.  It was ludicrous, but it is poignant.  I think this caricature speaks to those who, by their choice, remain infertile and yet enjoy a lavish or even just a very comfortable life as a married couple.  This satire portrayed a couple who at least had kids, even if they were cheap with them, but it seems to me that those who refuse children or limit them artificially and frivolously might want to ask themselves if they are denying life to potential human beings in order to live in relative luxury.  Are those things more valuable than human life?

Of course, I do not speak here of those who live in poverty or who truly would endanger the lives of their family by having more children.  I speak here of those who, like me, live in relative luxury compared to most of the humans in this world.  People who are not hardened have their guts wrenched by the poverty of many in this world (and rightly so), but there is another kind of poverty that goes unnoticed--the poverty of life, the poverty of being denied even the opportunity to exist solely so that another can live in ease and comfort.⁴ 

From this consideration, it seems that the original perspective (of bemusement or even distaste or disgust at having many children) should be turned on its head.  The question becomes, instead, how can so many otherwise nice, well-meaning people deny so many more the chance to exist?  Perhaps folks should not respond with puzzlement or condescension to those who remain open to life but rather respond with admiration and respect.  We all know that kids, though they are indeed the most amazing and wonderful blessings we can naturally receive, are a handful to say the least, and so I think people should be a tad more reticent when criticizing those who have many.

Why Limit Family Size?
Are there good reasons for regulating birth?  Obviously.  Even beyond the grave economic reasons, I think there are others.  Perhaps there is real psychological concern for the mother or father.  Perhaps there is a physical or mental condition that a parent or child has that would make further growth of the family unwise.  Perhaps there is a real threat to the mother's health.  I'm not writing to address every conceivable circumstance; I'm writing to address popular notions concerning children that my wife and I have had to think about (and are often confronted with) in our own working out of how we live out what it means to be responsible parents wanting to live in the best way possible, trying to have the most perfect family we can.

Before moving on considering the common reasons given to limit family size, it is worth noting that the decision to have children should flow from a lifelong commitment.⁵  Just like there are not so good reasons to limit family size, there are not so good reasons to have children.  Having babies seems to be a pastime for celebrities these days.  It should be obvious that getting more attention/publicity, trying to save a marriage, keeping up with the Joneses, extending the family tree, etc. are not so great reasons.  Children are human beings, having the full dignity of human beings, to be treated and loved as such; they are not accessories, trophies, or any other means to an end--they are end in themselves, and we should be just as careful about our motivations for having them as we are in our motivations for not having them.

Education
The most common concerns we hear are monetary, the top being about the rising cost of sending kids to college.  I, for one, did not get a dime from my mom to send me to college--she didn't have it to give.  I made good enough grades in school and fared well on the ACT, getting a decent scholarship to a private school, and then worked for and borrowed the rest.  I have known many others, many of them my friends, who have similar stories.

We all want the best for our children, but is the "best" sending them to a good college?  I think that a good, liberal arts education is deeply valuable in itself.  I have a degree in history and humanities, but I worked my way into software.  I am glad of my education even though its credentials don't mean a lot in my occupation; I value it more highly than had I spent the same effort on a technical degree. 

But a degree, even from a good university, only goes so far in life.  Ultimately, it comes down to an individual applying himself or herself with the talents and desires he or she has.  You can teach a child a good work ethic for free at home that will do more for them in the long run than any degree would.  And I'd suggest you can teach such an ethic more easily in large families where mutual help from all members is a necessity. 

You can teach a child to be a lifelong student, to enjoy learning and to think critically, for free at home, and that, too, goes further than any degree.  You can teach a child values of honesty, integrity, commitment, kindness, charity, compassion, and other virtues for free at home that simply are not taught at university, and these as well far exceed the long-term value of any degree.  And I'm not talking about home schooling; I'm simply talking about setting an example, teaching, and encouraging your children in addition to any regular, formal schooling.

I'm certainly not opposed to college or formal education in general, but its value has been way overemphasized in our culture.  The purveyors of formal education have much to gain from this, as do lenders and investment companies who help you invest to save for your child's education.  I think we need to be careful not to be blinded to the economic realities involved in all of the marketing about education and simply recognize formal education for the value it does have.  It shouldn't be the ultimate deciding factor and choice in parenting.⁶

There are affordable alternatives for higher education, and if it is important to the child, he or she can make an effort to realize such goals.  Furthermore, I have no doubt that a large majority of parents who at some point use this reasoning actually end up not saving or investing properly or find themselves in a situation later where the investment was truly needed for other reasons.  In short, I tend to think that a vague concern about "sending my kid to a good school" is not a viable reason to limit family size. 

Expense
Apart from higher education, there seems to be a general consensus that children "are expensive."  I'd like to suggest an alternative to this maxim.  Children can be expensive.  Just as with higher education, you can choose to spend more money than you need to on each child, but it is a choice, not a given.  And it is on this point, more than any other, that we see the rubber meet the road in terms of a challenge of values.

If we are given over to our contemporary culture, children are indeed expensive.  If each child needs his or her own expansive room, if each child needs new, brand-name clothes on a monthly basis, if each child needs more toys than he or she could possibly enjoy, if each child needs his or her own car, then yeah, they can be very expensive.  But lets not stop with the kids.  If mom and dad need a brand-new car every few years; if they have to have new clothes every month, new jewelry, new perfume, new golf clubs, new computer, Playstation, or Xbox games, if they need to go to plays or other high-culture events regularly, and if the family has to eat out every day, then definitely, a large family is "too expensive."

Put simply, if one is a purebred consumer, yeah, a large family costs too much.  Doesn't it speak volumes that our primary concern and objection about large families is economical?  Doesn't it drive to the very heart of the matter if that is the chief concern?  Ultimately, doesn't it say that we truly do value things, comfort, and luxury more than we value people?  In short, doesn't it imply that we're just plain selfish?

What's truly sad about this is that we are deceiving ourselves.  I can attest from experience that all of these things don't really last--the return on investment just isn't there.  In fact, all these things actually "increase our sorrow" because they increase our worries and consume our mental and physical energies (in working for, acquiring, securing, insuring, storing, moving, caring for, and maintaining them).  Not only do we tend to get bored with new things; they tend to have a net negative effect on our lives that we've become blind to.  No, we're not really blind--we recognize the deficit they produce, but like a dog returning to its vomit, we try to ladle on the salve of more things, which only exacerbates the problem.  We're blind to the remedy; we're not blind to the effects of the problem.

The Common Good
There is another common concern that is not economical (at least on the individual scale), and it seems to be less pronounced these days than it was for the previous generation--that of the concern about overpopulation.  For Christiane and I, this has always seemed to be more of an excuse than a reason.  It seems that an uncertain, future concern about one day overpopulating the world is not a compelling reason to overcome the more sure, immediate positive reasons to have children.  Even so, it is a common enough concern to warrant addressing. 

A good deacon friend of mine put it another way that gives this concern a bit more weight.  If everybody in the world decided to have ten children, what would that mean for the common good?  He suggested that we may just be lacking in imagination to think how we'd address such a situation, and maybe so--we humans tend to get pretty inventive when we need to.  No doubt we'd figure something out.  But I have to say I am not suggesting that everyone have ten children.  I don't think that would be responsible for many, perhaps most of us.   Being truly and actually open to children does not necessarily equate to having ten.

On the other hand, I tend to think the larger problem, as it is with most of these life issues, is our generally selfish culture.  We're so busy looking out for number one that we accumulate for ourselves far more than we need in order to have a good and happy life.  I'm not advocating socialism or any kind of enforced equal distribution of goods; I am advocating charity as a core cultural value.  If we, the human race, shared this core cultural value, I tend to think that concern about overpopulation would be a moot point.  And in any case, it remains that it seems to be a rather vague, unsubstantiated reason to limit family size.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving
It seems to me that people, especially children, are truly a gift that keeps on giving.  If we lavish our care on them, they tend to give back in equal, if not greater, measure.  That's the funny thing about authentic love.  It's like investing in a sure thing--you give and you'll get back, well-measured, shaken and packed down, and running over.  It may not even be the recipient giving back.  That's another odd thing about authentic love; it tends to be its own reward--there is joy in the act of loving itself.

We often think that children are just a big hassle.  In Stumbling on Happiness, the author suggests, based on subjective surveys, that children do not in fact make us happy, that it is, rather, a big, consensual lie that we tell each other.  It is claimed that the people interviewed said they were happier after their children grew up and out of the house than they were when they were in the house.  Despite the author's disclaimers, I think this really takes a shallow view of happiness and does not account for the deeper happiness that is satisfaction, which results from seeing effort come to fruition.  These parents experience, naturally, a certain happiness and lessening of difficulty at having reclaimed time for themselves once children are out of the house, but they also share in the abiding joy of having their children "all growed up"--their investment, as it were, has come to completeness.

The survey also does not, I think, account for the consideration that perception is a large part of reality.  Because our culture sells us a bill of superficial bull about what makes us happy (i.e., things, comfort, entertainment, and luxury), our perception is deeply skewed and we see children as detracting from our attainment of these things (taking us back the the monetary objections discussed above). 

Indeed, it makes perfect sense, and I've seen it in my own life, that when my children cause me the most "trouble" and frustration is when I am turned in on myself (being selfish in some way).  They are taking me away from what I want to do or they prevent me from getting something I want, so I perceive them as a nuisance.  Usually, though, when I am in the right frame of mind, I see their activity for what it is--exploring the world, learning to function according to all life's little rules, or maybe simply just wanting to spend time with you because they are infatuated with you.  This latter dies away as they age I suppose, but wouldn't you agree, if you're being honest with yourself, that a large bit of the friction between parents and kids comes in the first two?

The point is that it is generally those times that we are most frustrated that we are being the most selfish.  In other words, it is not that the kids are the problem--we selfish parents are the problem.  If we change our perspective (which takes practice, I can promise--I'm still working on it), and learn to not fight for our selfish impulses against our children but instead indulge in authentic love (self-giving) towards them, we will find one of the greatest joys in life--shared, familial love. 

Once Christiane and I recognized this, it seemed almost a no-brainer that we'd want to increase this joy as much as we can.  We saw that instead of thinking how few children can we have, we think how many children can we responsibly have?  This way of thinking is, we think, the best not only for us but especially for our family as a whole. 

When we are considering when to have our next child, we do try to be responsible.  We think about how this new person will fit in our home both logistically and socially, and we consider the psychological impact on the other members of the family.  In the end, we try our best to err on the side of openness and only choose to delay for what seem to be good, unselfish reasons.  We're not perfect by any means, but this seems to us to be a big step on the the path toward a more perfect family life.⁷ 

--
Given on the Feast of the Holy Family in the Year of Our Lord 2007

Notes
1. At this point, my darling 1-year-old, Brendan Patrick Irenaeus, toddled over to me with one of my house shoes.  Thanks, Brendan!  My feet are freezing... now where's the other one?
2. Without digressing too much, let me briefly touch on this subject which is so awesomely opposed to our popular culture these days.  My wife and I practice what is called Natural Family Planning (NFP).  You can read about all the details elsewhere; let me just add my own personal testimony.³  For a brief time early in our marriage, we did use artificial birth control, but for the vast majority of our 8.5 years together, we've practiced NFP.  I can honestly say that you don't die by not doing it; you can be just as happy and fulfilled.  (And trust me, this is coming from a very red-blooded, American male, if you get my drift.)  

Based on our experience, I do feel that mutual abstinence does indeed build character, build mutual self respect for each other, increase understanding of the way God's made us, increase affection for each other, and help you appreciate even more the times when you don't abstain.  Plus, not using artificial birth control (or rather, being truly and actually, not just hypothetically, open to the creation of life) does enhance our relationship and our intimate time together.  In short, we find the practice of natural family planning to be a significant positive influence on our marriage.  And it does work!
3. Now John, my three-year-old son, is yanking at my arm and climbing on me (took a while to type this); ah, tickling is a good deterrent.. now the other two are attacking.. :)  Bridget, my six-year-old daughter, is dancing around and tweetling (best onomatopoeia I could come up with for it).
4. This touches, of course, on the sensitive topic of abortion (and indeed the desire to have few to no children is directly related to abortion), but that's not the focus here.  Here I'm speaking in a more generous sense of even those who would otherwise never consider abortion, and yet make the regular, conscious choice to refuse the potential life of another human being for less than serious reasons.
5.  This comes from the understanding of the true good and beauty of marriage discussed in "On the Good and 'Right' of Marriage."  See particularly the section entitled "The True Good."
6. Besides, we've all seen and heard stories of parents' painstaking planning being tossed to the wind by children who have other plans for their lives.  There's no guarantee that even those who save and have money for their children's education will see that money go to good use. 
7. And thus we see that the teaching of the Catholic Church (as is actually true of all Catholic doctrine when you truly understand it in all its beauty and truth) is a positive prescription on how to live the good life to its fullest, that is, how to have abundant life.  And I have to admit, we've inherited this from our Jewish siblings.  Scripture, especially the Psalms, regularly laud the blessing that children are, and it is not talking about them being a help on the farm, i.e., large families are not only good in agricultural societies!

Today marks the 791st anniversary of the official establishment of the Dominican Order.  It's so cool to be a part of this ancient order, being fraternally connected to the many Dominican saints, blesseds, and regular folk like me.

Happy Birthday, Order of Preachers!  May you have thousands more!

 

Of course, just being a member of the Catholic Church, the "one continuous intelligent institution that has been thinking about thinking for two thousand years,"¹ is pretty dang cool, too. :)

Notes
1. From G.K. Chesterton's "Why I Am a Catholic," circa 1926.

Coming up on three years ago, I wrote "What is dotNetTemplar?" to explain the name a bit.  It briefly touches on why I chose to associate myself with the Knights Templar.  It doesn't really give an answer to who I am or what this blog is about.  After over three years of blogging here, I figure I should put up something to this effect.  I am writing this not in vanity but as a service for those few who may be curious about what and why I write on this blog.

A Bit of Personal History
I am Joshua David Ambrose Little, born just Joshua David Little.  Those who knew me prior to 2001 will doubtless have known me as Josh, except for those folks who knew me during college at Oral Roberts University, where I was known as Iain.  All these names deserve some explanation, and I'll get to that.  Born in Little Rock, AR, I moved to Tulsa, OK when I was almost three, and I grew up there, attending various public schools, but mostly Victory Christian School, of evangelical (charismatic) Protestant persuasion, from which I graduated in 1996.

On to University, or, My Life as Iain
I went across the street (literally) to Oral Roberts University the following fall.  I considered the University of Tulsa as well (had scholarships to both), but decided on ORU.  The choice came down to whether I intended to pursue engineering of some sort or something in liberal arts, and when I decided on liberal arts, I decided on ORU.¹

As I waited in the registration line at ORU, I pondered what major to go with, and when I reached the front of the queue, on the spur of the moment, I declared history to be my major.  A day or so later, still during orientation, I realized just how many Joshes there were at ORU, and decided to choose a nickname to go by so I didn't have to look over my shoulder every 15 minutes when someone yelled "Josh."

I decided to go with Iain because I was still in my Scottish phase at the time, and recently a well-known piper and member of the Scottish Club of Tulsa (SCOT), Iain MacPherson, had passed away.  Going to college seemed like a good time to make the change.  Thus I became Iain Little to folks at ORU.

Iain remained only a nickname, and sometime during my senior year, I decided that I would ditch it after I graduated.  So when I went to work for InfoTech in Tampa², during the summer of '98, I went back to Josh.  InfoTech was the first software job I got by just saying "give me a couple weeks and see if I catch on"; it was my first real foray into professional software development, even if it was in a rare language/platform called PROGRESS.  [Of course, I, like many in our industry, had toyed with computers and software since I got my Commodore 64 as a lad, but this was the first real software job I took on.]

So I was  Josh at home and at work, but still Iain at school (it would've been too much trouble to change that for the last year).  I was on track towards becoming a professor when I got married in May of '99.  That summer, I attended a Pew Younger Scholars Program at Notre Dame, which was a three-week graduate seminar, and it was there, after many long phone convos with my new wife, that I determined that professional history was probably not the best choice for me.  I found it to be a little too tedious for my tastes; you pore over sources for years just to argue the case that X is true.

Beguiled by Software, or, The dotNet in dotNetTemplar
With renewed interest in computers and software, I started researching what the best path would be.  I pretty much knew it wouldn't be PROGRESS, and at the time, it seemed that Visual Basic was the hottest thing out there.  After buying NT 4.0 and VB 6 at the university store (thank God for academic pricing!), I dug in that summer, and in October of '99, I applied to Fireant (later to be known as XOR) for work. 

They asked me if I knew what ASP was, and I had no clue, nor did I know what SQL was, but I told them to give me a chance.  After a technical screening just to make sure I knew basic programming concepts, they let me on for a probationary period.  Thankfully, ASP and SQL were super easy to pick up (at least well enough during those heady days of the dotcom boom), so after two weeks, we came to an agreement, and I started with them officially.

I went full-time there (as Josh) before graduating in 2000, and that launched me onto the career path I'm in now.  Since then, I've had the good fortune to work at numerous companies: BOK Financial, Verizon, GTE Federal Credit Union, ASPSOFT (for angryCoder), BST Global, and now, happily, for Infragistics.  In the meantime, I've written a few technical books, many technical articles, spoken at numerous technical events, and I am honored to have been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for six consecutive years.  I keep track of my professional details on my MVP Profile, in case anyone's curious. :)  Also, feel free to connect³ if you like.

So that's where the "dotNet" in "dotNetTemplar" comes in.  I'm something of an expert in Microsoft's .NET technologies (picked it up in 2001 and haven't looked back!), and a portion of what I blog about here is technical, usually related to .NET, though these days I tend to be a bit more architectural in my blogging than technology-specific.

Beguiled by Truth, or, The Templar in dotNetTemplar
But that's only the half of it.  Where does the "Templar" bit come in?  I already alluded to a post I wrote a few years ago on that, but there's more to it.  As I commented recently in reference to why I joined the Lay Fraternity of the Dominican Order, I have been enamored of truth for a long time.

As a result of my pursuit of truth, I ended up joining the Roman Catholic Church on Easter Vigil 2001, at which point I took the confirmation name of Ambrose, after St. Ambrose of Milan, a 4th century bishop, Father, and Doctor (formally-recognized great teacher) of the Church.  There were many things that drew me to St. Ambrose.  Mostly, it was his love of learning (he is the patron saint of learning) and his tenacity for truth--in his writings and in resisting the Arians and great political powers of his age, but also his love for life⁴ and for the poor.  In short, I consider myself a man after his own heart, and of all the saints, I feel inexplicably close to him, and that's why I took his name.

My conversion to the Catholic Faith was significant enough to me that I decided to not simply take Ambrose as a confirmation name that is only used at the confirmation ceremony.  My conversion was the result of a long wrestling with truth, even a wrestling with God in a sense.  Because of my upbringing, I was unconsciously suspicious of and prejudiced against Catholicism (though not outright anti-Catholic), so it took a while for both me and my wife to come around to joining the Church.  Even though I overcame my intellectual objections earlier, we didn't feel comfortable becoming Catholic until 2001 (after a few years of being Episcopalian).

So like Jacob wrestled with God and received the name Israel, I had wrestled with God and received the name Ambrose at my confirmation and reception into the Catholic Church.  To mark the significance of this event, I took on the name legally, choosing to go by it going forward, and anyone who didn't already know me as Josh or Iain now knows me as J. Ambrose Little (but just "Ambrose" in person).  I hope to at least faintly do honor to that great name.

As I hope is obvious, my faith is a fundamental part of my life.  And that's where the "Templar" part of dotNetTemplar comes in.  This blog is a blend of my musings on software and technology as well as my philosophical, theological, historical, and general thoughts on life, the universe, and everything. 

What can I say?  It's a personal blog; it's dotNetTemplar; it's who I am and what I care about.

What Do You Care About?

Everything [Subscribe] - Of course, I'd love for you to subscribe to all of my mental meanderings!

That said, out of consideration for those who may only be interested in one half of the dotNetTemplar, I set up two basic categories for you:

• Technical [Subscribe] - For my technical/software-related musings.
• Non-Technical [Subscribe] - For everything else.

There are more focused categories, but since this is the basic divide of topics on this blog, I thought I'd make it easy on folks.

Notes
1. I also had a better scholarship and had more friends going to ORU. :)
2. My mom had moved to Tampa at the end of the summer of '97.  I like to say I went to college, and my parents went away, since it's more usual that one goes away from parents to college. :)
3. LinkedIn, Facebook, Plaxo, MySpace, and last but not least, Live Spaces.  Phwew! 
4. Pope John Paul the Great quoted Ambrose's argument against capital punishment in JP's encyclical Evangelium Vitae (Gospel of Life).  For me, that was the most compelling argument against it, and what else I've read of Ambrose has a similar clarity, earthiness, and vitality.

In my last post, a co-worker of mine commented on my saying "they may as well be Protestants."  It didn't occur to me at the time how this might be interpreted by, of course, Protestants.  The point, in that context, was directed at those who think themselves to be "true Catholics" (those traditionalists who, above all, would not want to be identified as Protestants) but who end up being, by their protestations of the last ecumenical council, the Second Vatican Council, end up becoming Protestants themselves. 

You see (I've thought about this a fair bit, being a convert from Protestantism), I think the thing that truly separates a Protestant from a Catholic is a basic mindset, the mindset that sets itself up as the final arbiter and authority on truth.  In other words, it is a manifestation of the original sin of pride based on the original temptation for us to "be like God who knows what is good and what is bad," (Gen 3:5) that is, what is true and false.  Such a mindset, even if well-intentioned, is at the heart of all Protestation of God's authority, from Lucifer to Eve to Adam to us.  Of course, it is for God alone to judge our hearts, to impute, and to forgive our guilt, and he is a just and merciful judge.¹

This post is a kind of expansion on how this mindset relates to being a part of the Church.  I have no delusions that these musings will "convert" anyone.  Just take them as my own personal reflections for what they're worth.  They revolve around my meditations on one of the mysteries of the rosary.  It's written to Christians, so I am writing from those presuppositions.

Introit

    Weaving a crown out of thorns, they placed it on his head, and a reed in his right hand. And
     kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, 'Hail, King of the Jews!'  -- Matthew 27:29

The third sorrowful mystery is the crowning with thorns.  Lately while meditating on this mystery, I keep having the idea of the Church (the invisible, spiritual body of all Christians) in my mind.  The Church is a wonderful thing; it is sometimes called the body, sometimes the bride, of Christ.  It is a thing that honors and proclaims the majesty and dominion of Christ, the King of the universe.  In that way, it is a crown, which is a symbol, a proclamation of regal authority and power.

But I think it is a fractured crown, broken into many pieces, divided asunder by the arrogance and pride of many.  There is the Great Schism that has divided the eastern church from the west, and of course there is Protestantism and its many divisions.  But even before that, since the beginning (as attested to by the letters of St. Paul), there have been those who sow discord and cause division--even those who think they are doing the right thing and truly think they are following God's will.

So I see this fractured crown that we call the Church, a thing that despite itself is indeed a herald of Jesus' Kingship.  I see Jesus the King, bloodied, beaten, and scourged, being crowned, but instead of the crown being the thing of beauty and awe that it should be, it is this broken thing, disjointed, full of jagged edges and being driven down onto the head of the King of the universe, the splinters biting deep into His skin, tearing it, and scratching against His skull. 

Rather than being an occasion for joy, the crowning is an occasion for sorrow because what should be whole, smooth, unified, and undivided, is instead shattered, jagged, split, and divided.  This is the image of the Church today--the crown of thorns.  It is still a messenger of Jesus' kingship, but it is not the thing of beauty and awe it should be.

Jesus prayed four times to the Father (in St. John's Gospel, chapter 17) that we (the Church, Christians) would be one.  But through our arrogance and pride, we have utterly failed in this, from the earliest of times.  It seems clear, based on just this prayer alone, that unity in the Church is of supreme importance to God, and it is a perfect unity--the same unity that exists between the Father and the Son--that God desires for us. 

Jesus said "that they may be one as we are one" and prayed that we "may be brought to perfection as one," so we see that it is not a superficial unity or a unity only in "essentials" (a common term by ecumenists who try to glaze over real and important differences).  There is NO division in God, and this is what God wants for the Church.

Similarly, when Jesus founded the Church upon St. Peter, he promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against it.  Here, a few interesting things stick out to me.  First, Jesus specifically grounds the Church he is founding as something on earth.  He gives the keys of heaven to Peter, saying that what he binds and looses on earth will be bound and loosed in heaven.  It seems to me this is a foundation of a visible (earthly) Church that Peter would lead with real binding power both here on earth and in heaven.

The Church is indeed the mystical body of Christ, but it is also an earthly body.  Like us, you could say, it has a body and a soul, but the two are fundamentally one thing.  When Jesus founded the Church, he established an earthly (bodily) existence with Peter at its governor, giving him the power to bind and loose, as well as a heavenly (spiritual) existence, also governed by Peter.

Jesus, at this institution of our mutually earthy and heavenly Church, promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against it.  In other words, the powers of hell, the domain of Satan and the fallen angels, are going to try to prevail, but they won't.  The Church will be under assault, but it will remain forever, and being a unity of body and soul (earthly and heavenly, visible and invisible), this means that the Church will stand firm on both earth and heaven under the delegated governance of Peter and that the visible Church (as well as the invisible) is inextricably and directly linked with the headship of Peter.

Since St. Peter was not to live here on earth for eternity, yet we see from the Word of God that the Church remains forever on earth and in heaven under Peter, it follows that God intended for this headship, on earth, to pass to St. Peter's successors, whom we know as bishops of Rome, popes.  Thus the visible, earthly body of the Church is that Church which is under the headship of Peter and his successors, what we know today as the Roman Catholic Church.

Now we return to the prayer of Jesus.  If it is God's will (as it is clearly revealed in St. John's Gospel) that we believers be perfectly unified (absolutely no division in body or soul), and it is God's will (as seen in St. Matthew's Gospel) that there be a perpetual Church under Peter on both heaven and earth, it follows that this perfect unity is to come about in that Church and no other.  It follows that we are to place ourselves under that headship, subordinating our personal druthers, opinions, and reasoning to the leadership that Christ established and endeavor to eliminate anything in us that damages that perfect unity that Christ so strongly desires. 

Doing this is not only an act of obedience to the King of the universe, it is an act of love.  Seeing how strongly Jesus desires that we be truly one, we should desire, if we truly love God, to fulfill his desire.  Just as a lover infatuated with his love has no other desire but to please his beloved, so we  should desire to please God.  We should be that perfect, shining, unified crown upon the head of Christ the King.

We should also, therefore, be ashamed, truly sorry, and saddened, however, that we are instead a crown of thorns.  As long as we selfishly and proudly put our own opinions, desires, and reasonings ahead of our love for Christ, our fulfillment of his desire that we be one, we will remain this crown of thorns.  It is for this reason, in part, that I have joined myself to the Church of Christ under Peter's headship.  It is not blind faith; it is wide-eyed, ferocious love for Christ that compels me to do so.  Protesting against this Church, creating division upon division against it, is not only injurious to those souls who are driven from Christ by our divisions, it is an injury to God himself.  How long will we remain this crown of thorns?

--
Given on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in the Year of Our Lord 2007

Notes
1. Update: In other words, I'm sure there are plenty, probably most, who do not even recognize or intend this, but it seems to me that it is at the heart of the protestant approach to the faith, even if wholly unconscious.  I tend to think that God will have mercy on those who are not aware of it (inculpably ignorant), and in any case, I don't make such judgments on individuals myself! (cf. St. Matthew's Gospel 7:1ff.) 

This is an open appeal to anyone interested in having the traditional Latin mass in the Princeton, NJ area.  The traditional Latin mass (TLM) is also known as the mass of Blessed John XXIII, the (now) extraordinary form of the Latin Rite, the Missale Romanum of 1962, Tridentine mass, and more.  With the publication of Summorum Pontificum (I know; I'm a bit late), I'd like to get in touch with anyone in the area who feels attached or maybe just is interested, priest, lay, religious, old, young, st