Safe Haven

 Fair warning: Tom Segura is a crude comedian, and he uses words I don’t even use in a flare of some passion. Nevertheless, I find him really funny. I think most people know who Joe Rogan is, but if not, he hosts the most popular podcast in the world. He’s also a commentator for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, UFC for short, which is the top level of mixed martial arts (MMA for short). It’s probably risen to prominence because of corruption in boxing. I digress. Tom Segura has a funny bit about the difference between watching his own sons, versus the two girls his cousin has. At the time, both sets of kids were the same age, 6 and 3. He says in part: “(OMG), what did I do wrong, to not get girls?…They’re like, ‘Hello, Uncle Tommy.’ And I say, ‘Hello to you.’…I could go in that room an hour later and they’re like [impersonation of little girls coloring and smiling]…My boys aren’t like that…real “he/hims”, if you know what I’m saying. Don’t worry, we asked them. [Segura kind of s...

 I feared this loss for some time now, because the stroke which limited his capacities was 14 years ago. I'm going to keep this brief. One thing we owe as a debt to every British subject and resident of the Commonwealth realms is the preservation of our English language, and how this heritage is the root of some of the greatest human stories ever told. Between the King James Bible and William Shakespeare, every entertainer who keeps our language and our greatest playwright's work alive is worth honoring. On the stage, Curry was a three-time Tony Award nominee, and a Laurence Olivier Award nominee for his turn as The Pirate King in the West End production of The Pirates of Penzance (1982). He was also a mainstay of American film and television. He stars in the film adaptation of Tom Clancy's The Hunt For Red October (1990) and acted in numerous films for children, starring in Home Alone 2, and FernGully, to take two examples. From what I could see, he was prolific as a perfo...

 If you’re not fortunate enough to leave the Earth way too soon—as I said, Billy Joel’s famous song isn’t totally wrong—you’re probably going to be around awhile. Besides your family, friends, and helping anyone else who needs help along the way, there will be some times of boredom, or slowness, or something. We watch sports, and TV shows and plays, etc. because as the comedian Tom Papa noted about marriage and its lulls and frustrations, “You’re here because you think, ‘Let’s have someone else talk for an hour.’” Celebrities of all kinds, if you think about it, are people that are uniquely gifted in one or a few things, in such a way that a bunch of people want to experience them do the thing they are good at, and are willing to pay for it. I hereby redact any forthcoming rant about the fundamental disorder of modern market economics. In any case, I promise not to canonize every celebrity who dies, if you can just let people enjoy things, and let any good words about people, provi...

 Some time ago, 60 Minutes had a reel from a story they did that you could see on Facebook. A young couple got married when the woman was 21. He was young, too. I think they had children. The husband was in a motorcycle accident; traumatic brain injury, the whole thing. He’s not even mentally the same person, and I guess they couldn’t have sexual intercourse. She found another man, got “married,” and in their alleged compassion, have become caregivers to this husband, as he’s now also in a wheelchair. Assuming he wasn’t impotent, lady, you’re still married, and you’re committing adultery on the regular. He didn’t die; he’s sick, as per the traditional vows. And maybe I say this with more passion as a wheelchair user myself, but this is wrong. 

 I am not currently employed in education, and maybe I didn’t log enough time (2.5 years) to have a valid opinion.  That said, I understood that a principal who oversaw a great deal of staff turnover would no longer be a principal.  Now, I know that there are bad executives all over the world. There is injustice all over the world. But should there be? Then again, I doubt anyone with any sense would say that Chesterfield County School District in South Carolina is competently run.

 I didn’t like the argument published at The Gospel Coalition (think Presbyterians and Calvinistic Baptists) some years back that we should judge the morality of homosexuality by a gag reflex. If that person had same-sex attraction, he wouldn’t gag. Personally, other than possibly being covered in my own waste, I am not grossed out by the very idea. It’s not a principled argument. I gag at mushrooms and peaches; other than saying that I won’t and can’t eat them, I would be a fool trying to argue that they are immoral because I can’t eat them. I just have to say that I know something about disordered inclinations and I have plenty of failures with respect to my own principles. Therefore, homosexuality and other errors don’t induce in me a sort of patronizing pity, something unimaginable and tragic. I’m not a priest, thank God. But I do love the people, like a priest should, like Jesus the great High Priest does. A person doesn’t have to believe me, but my horse isn’t very high. I do...

 I love Richard Marx, man. He’s written some great songs. Love songs. Story songs. Tons of songs. But I was listening to “Endless Summer Nights” just now, and I realized that he’s three wives past the woman he wrote this song about. Lionel Richie is another favorite songwriter of mine. Maybe the greatest love songs I know about. I don’t even want to elaborate on his personal life. Eric Benet. Kenny Lattimore. Babyface. Train wrecks. Suffice to say, I don’t think these people know anything about true love. I’ll be the judgy one, I guess. Maybe the most enduring love is beyond words.

 The best thing I can say is that her music was in my ears when I was small. I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t have some idea who she was. I was a little bit worried about this outcome when I saw a reel from her a few weeks ago, letting her fans know that she’d been in the hospital. Not to worry, she said. But then again, she definitely seemed like the sort of person who would look Death straight in the face and say, “I ain’t scared of you!” A couple years ago, I think there was a fuss about possibly removing an Andrew Jackson statue in Tennessee. I definitely thought, “Give Dolly a statue.” I think maybe they did. 400 years from now, nobody would dare protest. Dare to think how beloved someone would have to be, to be immortalized with a statue today, and not a peep of protest would be heard. Others will mention all her charitable works, and that is right and good. But I think a lot of people can say that her efforts in this regard fit with who she seemed to be, and ...

“Gay” as a word was coined by early activists and advocates for homosexuality. As you might know, the word already meant “happy,” “pleasant,” associated with warm feelings. It was a good choice for the goal. Let’s stop for a moment, and talk about the word “homosexual.” You can use it as an adjective, as a description of an orientation perhaps, but even now, it sounds a little dehumanizing as a noun. I’ve seen old documentaries and propaganda films, and using it as a noun sort of “others” people; it defines them by what they do. I’m naturally obsessed with words and their definitions. “Gay person” is clunky, and drenched in false sentimentality, but the phrase is intentional in that way. Smart people know that the very basis for human rights is the definition of personhood. Someone is hoping that the resonance of the second word in the phrase overrides any possible objections to the first. That’s why it works. It’s almost impossible to separate the dignity of a person from the quality ...

 Activism run amok creates in-group jargon, especially when it loses contact with reality. We’ll just do a little verbal exercise: “gay person.” Most people think they know what it means, probably because they haven’t thought about it too much. It could mean: 1. A person who engages in homosexual sexual activity; 2. A person who experiences sexual attraction to persons of the same sex; Or even: 3. A person advocating for the full normalization of homosexuality (and other activities) and possibly the eradication of the traditional family. He or she could be a part of (1), (2), both, or none. Some of the extremists have helped us out in a sense, by asserting things like, “Declaring the labels is a political act.” Well, not a surprise. Revolutionary and destructive activism doesn’t want debate and discussion; those people want power. If sentiment works—liberal white women, for example—they’ll use that. And for this power game, your uncle or cousin who generally doesn’t want to demand ...

 I don’t even generalize to “disabled people” like that. Our experiences are too varied. If some group of people want to advocate for something, presumably they have all agreed on what that thing is. Actual politics is about solving a specific problem or problems. Even to say “the civil rights movement” isn’t specific enough; we’re talking about legal rights of Black Americans to exercise rights enshrined in the Constitution. The nonviolent protests led by Dr. King and others were about the social acceptance of those rights exercised. Thurgood Marshall and others had won lots of legal victories against legal segregation, but if someone is legitimately afraid to exercise those rights by the threat or exercise of violence, those rights don’t exist in reality. It was the violence by segregationist forces exposed to the nation that compelled the federal government to act to enforce civil rights law in the South. It was nonviolence that revealed who the true Christians were, if I may sa...

 I was in Colorado in the summer of 2017, because my friends Greg and Cally were getting married in the mountains. I know it was 2017, because it was not long after I’d returned home from the hospital after being hit by a car on Easter Friday. If memory serves, it was also two visible solar eclipses ago, here in North America. Because I sat on Cally’s parents’ driveway to observe it. Later, I was at Red Rocks Amphitheater, in the museum. We couldn’t go into the theater, because hip-hop country (still an odd subgenre, in my mind) star Sam Hunt was doing a sound check for his performance there later that evening. He got himself off my Bad List when I saw him much later in St. Louis. Anyway, if you go into the museum, you’ll see clips of performances from Red Rocks over the years. And I saw the clip of Lyle Lovett singing the song which is the title of this post. I probably watched it 6 or 7 times in a row. It felt like the greatest song I’d ever heard. As a rule, I don’t like “indie”...

 Federer worked insanely hard. I’ve seen tape of workouts and practices. But in addition to being incredibly talented by a preternatural gift, he worked on his anticipation. It’s verifiable that he ran a shorter distance on court during a match than his opponents. On the one hand, a tennis player playing into his or her 40s was bound to happen, with a general awareness of nutrition and training improving and being utilized by most players. A tragedy involving the death of a beloved coach was the catalyst for the development of Federer’s famous emotional control. If you don’t waste energy with emotional outbursts, you have a great chance to win at the highest level. In fact, despite the fact that Novak Djokovic seems to be fueled by antipathy—for his own play, or a hostile crowd’s antipathy for him—Djokovic is actually a master at controlling his emotions on the court. (His infamous ejection from the US Open for whacking a ball that struck a ball person was a momentary lapse. Though...

 I love the old TV series "Columbo." There was a TV movie that aired all the way back in 1968, "Prescription For Murder," that essentially served as a pilot for the regular series that most people are familiar with however, from 1971 to 1978. Other Columbo TV films actually aired less frequently from 1989 to 2003. The great Peter Falk actually wanted to appear in one more Columbo film in 2009, when he began to exhibit signs of dementia before his death. Falk did other things, but like Gregory Peck who starred as Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird, you might want to escape an iconic character, but at some point, that isn't any actor's decision. In the great comedy drama The Princess Bride, Peter Falk appears as The Grandfather in the little frame scenes that lead to the story. He's absolutely doing his Lt. Columbo. I don't know anyone who was disappointed in that casting. Columbo isn't saintly in a sort of untouchable way like Atticus Finch, b...

 And I use “artists” broadly, like “creatives.” I think it’s the liturgy and the missionary impulse. In ancient and medieval Europe, the life of the parish was the life of the town. There is a clear rejection of three-dimensional religious art in Eastern Christianity, both among those who accept the Bishop of Rome’s universal jurisdiction, and those who do not. Nevertheless, the entire field of sacred art and architecture is rooted in the liturgies and theology of the apostolic Churches all over the world. In many respects, apostolic Christianity in the strictest sense succeeds where its liturgies are celebrated, notwithstanding scores of people who are adherents, but wouldn’t know Jesus from a hole in the ground. That is, Divine Liturgy/Holy Mass is the fruit of the missionary impulse. To say this is unpopular today, to say the least. That impulse is colonization and domination, in the minds of some. I have no desire to coerce anyone, but “Lord” in Latin is “Dominus.” I would add ...

 I was going to say, “not in that liberal white woman way.” Offense not necessarily intended, but not absolutely prohibited, either. On the other hand, even if the acronym and the description for “Affluent White Female Urban Liberal” describes a real thing, it’s a bit mean to go around yelling, “You’re the stereotypical AWFUL!” I digress. I love Ted Lasso. I love that it’s funny, but it has heart. Pathos. But I don’t “need” Ted Lasso. I’m gonna make my best effort not to buy any Ted Lasso merchandise. Have I been tempted to buy the coffee mug with a Venn diagram explaining the Roy Kent fan chant on it? (IYKYK) Yep. But I won’t. (Roy was written to have once been one of the best defenders/defensive midfielders in the relatively short history of the English Premier League.) I enjoyed seeing Brett Goldstein on Sesame Street. He seems like a genuinely sweet man (which is why only he could play Roy Kent). But having him sorta in character as Roy, AND making the letter of the day be “F” ...

 This will be heartfelt, emotional, and potentially embarrassing. Offer it up, Bryan! [The Catholic version of, “Suck it up, buttercup”!—ed.] When I first met this poor guy, he was picking me up for an Association of Hebrew Catholics lecture, the subject of which was justification and the Council of Trent. Even in 2009, I needed answers. The Reformation was unviable in my mind, even if another solution wasn’t readily apparent. By the way, many Catholics who convert from Protestant communities could tell a story like that, but you’re in a tricky place if you’re feeling and thinking that way whilst training to be a Reformed pastor. Fortuitously, Bryan once was doing the same thing for the same reason at the same institution. The ride/drive was perilous, I’ll say that. And Bryan made the “mistake” of asking me why I haven’t or wouldn’t become Catholic. I had two reasons: justification and Mary. Mother Mary. You know, Mary of All The Things. She just apparently shows up places, obvious...

 I love Linda Cohn. She's one of the reasons that ESPN isn't total garbage, even though they have been firing the people who made it great for about 20 years. Anyway, she says Caitlin Clark should be the MVP in the WNBA this year. She in general points out that it's not a stats award; it's about who is the most valuable to her team. In principle, I absolutely agree. But Wilson is like Tim Duncan. The whole Aces program turns on the axis of her leadership. Coach Hammon knows this, because she was there. Gregg Popovich isn't some strategic genius; he had the players good enough to win, but he inspired those players to work together, and in the latter days, to follow Timmy's lead. I look at the Aces roster, and I think, "This team is legit loaded." (Ditto the Fever and the Minnesota Lynx, especially.) But seriously: would the Aces roster be so deep if A'ja wasn't there? Not just her stats, which are distinctly better than Caitlin's. But every ...

 But the worst people think they are the best people. Dunning-Kruger works for ethics, too. I still say that making your own meaning is exhausting. That’s why all those existentialists killed themselves. It seems to me that we discover meaning in a similar way that we discover how the water cycle works, or why our sky is often blue during the day. Follow the science! Can I throw the punch and say that right now, the people who say this the loudest don’t actually do it? We know those people who are a “good person” because they tell us all the time. Let’s stop joking, and make the point: Most people would canonize themselves saints. Most people are quicker to see faults in others than in themselves, myself included. I can sympathize with the idea that a church is supposed to be more like a hospital than a country club. Jesus said the sick need a doctor more than the healthy do. That’s common sense. I just find it odd and sad that the heuristic for good and bad for so many people is w...

 I'm gonna start this in a weird place, but I don't like Foreigner that much. I've heard "I Want To Know What Love Is" probably 200 times in my life, and that's enough. I'm sorry. And the thing is, I don't inherently mind power ballads [You love power ballads, you mawkish clown.--ed.] or songs with slow verses and bold choruses. It's just this song. Frankly, every time I hear it though, I think, "How many out of wedlock conceptions happened with this song in the background?" There's a beautiful song written by Todd Rundgren that is the title of this post. It was the final track on the Oops! Wrong Planet LP from 1977 from his band Utopia. It got even more popular when it was recorded by England Dan (Dan Seals) and John Ford Coley in 1979. I don't know if Todd Rundgren identified as a Christian when he wrote it--I wasn't there--and I don't know if he does now, but that's a gospel song. In fact, Dan Seals said he "go...

 I had probably heard "I Won't Hold You Back" as a kid, a little kid. Probably my mom or one of my stand-in "parents" had the TOTO IV LP. It was everywhere. I found the LP in my stepdad Bill's stuff in the early to mid-2000s. Well, I don't know if Timothy Schmit of the Eagles is a tenor; I don't know music like a musician does. But he sure sounds like he's in the Steve Perry range on "I Won't Hold You Back" and Perry has been called a tenor. Do you think the Eagles ever did the song in concert because Timothy recorded it with Toto? For funsies? Vince Gill, who's with the Eagles now, could definitely sing the part. Speaking of Vince Gill, he sings so high that I don't know what a "falsetto" even means for him. You're not really exceeding range, if you just live there.  Anyway, it's a bloody great song.

 I can recall taking a canon law class for my Masters degree in Theological Studies (Ave Maria University’s Institute For Pastoral Theology). It was a lot of case studies of people doing less-than-ideal things, and us figuring out which part of canon law would apply. I had a great instructor who made canon law fun, which is an odd sentence to write. Moral theology inevitably is a part of those discussions. The study basically of what to do or not to do in particular situations, and also oftentimes the analysis of how morally culpable a person is or is not, based upon their knowledge and actions, is another aspect of moral theology. Professor Benedict Nguyen is a great teacher, and a great mind in the Catholic Church today. We got to talking in class, and analyzing a difficult situation, he brought this out as a principle: “When in doubt, do not act.” We weren’t talking about a more obvious situation where failing to act is a sin of omission. We weren’t dealing with anything that is...