Subways

I spent several days at the end of last week traveling in the Chicago area -- from Columbus to Midway, then around town on the CTA, hence to South Bend, and then back again. Coming from a part of the country in which public transportation is, to the extent it exists at all, primarily a source for jokes about public services, such adventures are always, well, adventurous.

One of the most interesting things about them is that they provide opportunities to ride around very large cities. Large cities, and especially public transportation through large cities, are fascinating case studies in humanity. The array of building ranging from brand new to refurbished to falling down around one's ears, the shuffle of myriad people going this way and that, the various possessions that people find reason to prop up in apartment or office windows, almost everywhere you look you find something that contains a story about history or society. That's not to say that large cities are necessarily superior to their alternatives; indeed, I prefer open spaces and am firmly convinced that one can learn just as much, and live far more happily, in them than in a big city. But the metropolis has a story to tell. Much like a museum, it's full of information, but you wouldn't want to stay there once they turned out the lights.

You can tell the people who live in the city from the people who have come to visit. Those accustomed to the routine sit on the L and stare at the ground, or read, or fidget. They're tired, bored, and know how all of this works. They'll tell you where this train goes, but only if you ask. And they might not get it right. But the visitor peers out the window, hoping to learn what all the other passengers have already forgotten, as shop fronts and neighborhoods go clicking by. Who was Forrester? What did he do in that building with his name over the door? Do the architects who work in those drafting rooms now even know? If one had time and ability to get off the train and nose around, maybe one could find out. But I haven't time, and nobody else remembers even to care.

One of the particularly fascinating aspects of very large cities is the enormous number of churches. Even more excitingly, the traveler can infer that in a place like Chicago, a significant portion of them will be Catholic, and not merely the tv-dinner Protestant edifices that are stacked top to bottom in every Southern city and town. Of course, from the Metro you can only see the belfry, roof, or steeple of most of them -- sometimes one gets a glimpse of more, but not often. One inevitably finds oneself engrossed in an unwinnable game of guessing to whom each belongs. Baroque twin towers with bronze domes: surely Catholic; enormous pyramidal shingled steeple, vaguely German air: probably mainline Protestant, perhaps Prussian immigrant-built; chintzy imitation Baroque facade, no statues: American Protestant knock-off of real architecture; blocky cruciform structure with large dome over the central crossing: a long shot, but I called it for the Orthodox; Florentine-style belfry: again, surely Catholic; brown spires somewhat reminiscent of Sagrada Familia: Catholic.

Of course, without the accompanying foot tour, and never being close enough to read a sign, one is never able to verify one's score. The game ends, as does the little journey through the city, with a collection of new questions, but very few answers.

If you see it in the Sun, it's true

Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

Around this time every year, we can always expect a host of old conflicts to be drug out of the closet, like so many rusty crossbows with which to fling moldering bolts across the expanses of cyberspace, newspapers, and dinner tables. When to open Christmas presents? Whose family to visit when? Colored or just white lights? And most contentiously, does Santa Claus exist? I attended this afternoon the Central Ohio Symphony Orchestra’s annual Christmas concert, and something occurred to me that relates, unfortunately, to the last of these discussions. I remembered something that the bustle and inanity of college had caused me to forget.

I believe in Santa Claus.

Many people give good St. Nicholas short shrift. The calumnies piled upon his head seem to mount higher every year, and they grow so as to take on every nature of character. Childish, materialistic, deceitful, unnecessary, burdensome, foolish, dangerously secular, on and on. But Santa Claus, as we here in the United States have come to know the aged courier of Christmas cheer and gifts, is none of these things. I cannot speak for the sensibilities and beliefs of all peoples, but as a Catholic, I know that Santa Claus is a friend to myself and my traditions.

How, you ask, is Santa Claus my friend? No, I have not met him, at least not face to face; not yet. But we count many our friends with whom we have not conversed in person, be it ever or merely for many years. Take the saints as prime examples. I can know that Santa Claus is my friend because I can see the effects of the work he does. I see the Salvation Army ringers and their red pots filled with change. I see the delight and innocence on the faces of small children. I see the glistening lights, the jolly decorations, and the smartly wrapped packages – all surely human goods simply by virtue of their heartening aesthetic value if for no other purpose whatsoever. I see the trays and trays of cookies baked for his consumption, and the delight of all those among whom the “extras” are shared. I see the generosity of parents who can teach their children that gratitude should be directed not merely at certain individuals, but also to God, because good things are given to us in ways that we do not fully comprehend and from sources that we cannot fully identify.

But, objects the clausoclast*, children should be taught these things anyways; gratitude and enjoyment and generosity and happiness should not be dependent on silly and contrived human institutions; if we need traditions like these to understand Christmas, we don’t really understand Christmas.

I find such criticisms baffling. Man has never been capable of merely conjuring out of nothingness platonic virtues and divine graces. All of history, all of society, and most especially all of the Church’s history has been the story of man constructing ways in which to perpetuate and teach the truths that he knows to be true. And it has never been the case that man can do so using exclusively prescriptions revealed by God. The Protestant fears society, fears the natural proclivities of the people to tell their stories and live their lives and find happiness, because he has dabbled in Manichaeism and hates the flesh. He remembers that the spontaneous and organic celebrations of the masses were always the heart and delight of the Church’s popular piety, and he cannot abide anything similar. The Protestant, then, rejects institutions and traditions that are inadequately dour or not explicitly scriptural as pagan and impermissible. The Catholic, however, has a fuller memory, and recalls that the great institutions of Western society, the rites and rituals with which he has praised God for two millennia, are not in large part direct revelation, but are rather human creations, developed out of the timeless rites of ancient men and redeemed by their adoption by the Church and the infusion of the Holy Spirit. He recalls that the world and the Sabbath alike were created for man, not man for the world and the Sabbath. God has always permitted us to raise up institutions and customs with which to praise Him and pass on our knowledge, and He has blessed us greatly through them.

Santa Claus, or La Befana, or Pere Noel, or in whatever outfit you may find him anywhere around the globe, is no more inimical to the Catholic life than incense or chasubles or triptychs. He is one of the many mental and cultural tools to which we have recourse in our desperate attempt to preserve the mystery, happiness, and ethereal wonder of humanity’s existence. He would be a boon to mankind if he were never to bring another gift, as long as he could continue to bring to our hearts and minds a message of happiness and truth. Is he a replacement for the Christ child? No, nor would he ever accept such a title. Rather, he serves as one of the many messengers that Christ has sent out into the world to bring the message of His love, redemption, and mystery to mankind. The North Pole is really squarely in the world of fairyland, that Chestertonian realm in the twilight between human imagination and human understanding where we can most clearly glimpse the mysteries of God's mind.

Then there is the last, hopeless attempt: Santa Claus is lying. No, Santa Claus is not lying. A lie is intentionally to tell, to a person who has a right to know the information he seeks, a direct falsehood. As Francis Church argued 109 years ago, and as I continue to argue today, maintaining the existence of Santa Claus is not a falsehood, but is rather a metaphysical, not a purely ontological, assertion. Furthermore, the child to whom the existence of Santa Claus is proclaimed is not deprived of any knowledge he has any right to possess. Children do not need to know all things: a child does not need to know where babies come from, nor what certain words mean, nor what the human body looks like after being subjected to severe trauma or fire, nor etc. Children have a right, in fact, to be protected from such knowledge, because the time for their learning it has not yet come. They must learn joy before they learn to temper it with sorrow. You say that Santa Claus leaves avarice in his wake? No, sin leaves avarice in its wake, and you cannot assuage the power of sin by attempting to cast down the edifices that society has erected to insulate itself from sin’s power.

Do I exaggerate? No, I think not. Is there a Santa Claus? Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

*Yes, I made this word up.

Housewives You Won't See on Network Television

Being a stay-at-home mom is a good thing, to be sure, but whatever happened to emphasizing a woman's role as wife? Mrs. Alexandra of Homeliving Helper has a beautiful reflection on the subject here.

H/t to Elizabeth Foss.

Blindness and the Pecuniary Obligations of Charity

CNN doesn't seem to have it on their website, nor does Drudge, but I heard a rumor today from an ordinarily credible source that a 9th Circuit District judge ruled today that U.S. money is unconstitutional. No, it hasn't a thing to do with God -- Robert what's his name sat this one out.

It was because it's all the same size.

Apparently, a blind man brought a Federal suit (14th Amendment, I suppose . . . talk about the king of all unintended consequences) claiming that the absence of holes, raised type, or size differences in American paper currency constitutes a violation of his right to . . . well, do something (I would imagine the issue was framed as one of deprivations of rights without due process -- because there's a right to be able to identify things by touch. I guess.)

There's two sides to this -- on the one hand there's the risibly specious legal argument, that the Mint has to make money that every person can use and identify regardless of disability (what about people without arms or hands? They can't very well use the bills either -- should we have walking or self-spending money?). On a purely practical level, this is not an insurmountable problem -- hasn't someone told this guy about The Sand Lot? If you recall, James Earl Jones's blind character in the movie talks about how he folds bills different ways to keep them straight.

On another side, however, is there any sort of non-legal obligation on the part of the government to produce blind-friendly money? I look at this question in a number of ways. On the one hand, we have coins. Granted, the dollar coins continue to be a huge flop (although they're going to do a thing similar to the state quarters with every president -- even Benjamin Harrison), but they exist and can be gotten ahold of. They can quite obviously be distinguished by touch. On the other hand, I look less at the government's responsibility to provide friendly money and more to the responsibility of honesty and charity that individuals in society bear. if I'm a bank teller or a cashier, I have a serious responsibility not to cheat blind people. The degree to which that responsibility binds me is far greater than any similar responsibility the government may possess to make non-ocularly identifiable money.

I mean, to a degree I feel bad for this guy; society is capable of making it so that people can cope with blindness. But in some ways, I feel worse for the judge in this case: nobody should have to live with being that stupid.

Funny thing, that

It's a bit funny to see a sector of society that is held in an unusually tight deathgrip by adherents of the cult of progress continually pick back up the ideas they jettisoned years ago. You could point to a variety of examples, but I have the education system specifically in mind. First it was uniforms: "we have discovered,through cutting-edge research, that children will behave better when not dressed like hooligans." It's like the little cut-out man from the Guinness commercials: "not drinking 6 beers at one time? Brilliant!"

Now, it's single-sex education. High schoolers might learn better without the distractions of the opposite sex? Brilliant! Of course, this is something we've known for centuries. But hey, what do we know? We're just silly Catholics.