Unexpected Recollections of Old Lectures: An Essay in Honor of Fr. Thomas King, SJ: Part I

“Tell your neighbor what teacher said last time in class...”

-Father Thomas M. King, SJ

To my great pleasure and greater surprise, a number of situations in which I happen to find myself through no fault of my own, have induced me to nostalgia about a dear old teacher, Father King, SJ of Georgetown University. (I am not alone). A great teacher and even greater man, Father King simply mesmerized me time and again during my first semester of freshman year at Georgetown. The experience was captivating, eye-opening, and, without any hyperbole, life-changing. I remember my term paper from his class. I remember the questions on the exams he gave (What a fool I was for not knowing the name of Augustine’s mother!), I remember his mannerisms; the way his right hand would write beautiful cursive, a la Fulton Sheen on the chalkboard with his left hand resting on the small metal lip of the board where the chalk itself is kept, leaving him with the appearance of alabaster fingers and leaving me constantly wondering how many semesters it took him to be able to give lectures, his hands full of chalk dust, and not allow an atom of it on his jet-black clerical attire.

For the record, it was something like sixty semesters that he taught this class. Sixty semesters. I always laughed when any foolish freshman mustered the hubris to debate with him. “Surrender the point,” I always thought. “He’s been teaching this class longer than we have been alive.” Those sixty semesters were plenty of time for him to perfect his dry-as-the-Sahara sense of humor (I certainly had no idea what to think when he joked about doing experiments on little children—all for the purpose of demonstrating that humans have an innate sense of what constitutes evil—or when he obliquely referenced the fact that he may or may not have performed exorcisms on the sixth floor of Healy.), his iconic “tell your neighbor” or “Teacher says…”, and his simply enrapturing delivery of “The Grand Inquisitor” story from Dostoeyevski’s The Brothers Karamazov. More on this later.

I have my concerns about future classes of students at Georgetown; asinine education requirements that amount to nothing by a group exercise in missing the point of the purpose of a university, diversity requirements that will quickly become a punchline among undergraduates, and the humiliation of our president continuing to drive around campus in a faded blue minivan—all of these will factor into the Georgetown experience of future generations of Hoyas. Yet I am even more saddened for them for this reason: they will never have the inestimable privilege to be taught by the great mind of Fr. King again. Had I known how influential the class was to be in my formation, I would have recorded every lecture. It is a continued source of bitter regret that I did not. Nevertheless, because his legacy is worth being remembered, oh patient reader, here is a synopsis of Fr. King’s Problem of God (for the record, it was, I believe, Fr. King himself who orchestrated the institution of this class at Georgetown. He was one of the few who taught it well, realizing that the class was, in fact, something higher than merely a forum for professors to air their Problems With God.)

We opened the class with, of course, the taking of attendance. Father King had seen far too many students in his day to remember all of them, and thus he read the attendance sheet word-for-word every class period without ever looking to see which face corresponded to which name. The real substance of the course began, of course, with the classical proofs for the existence of God and for the famed debate between Bertrand Russell and Fr. Copleston. The first third of the course was an introduction to a logically-rigorous and almost rationalistic approach to the divine. It was here that he lectured at length about the Allegory of the Caves, and his chalkboard drawings of the characters will never leave my memory whenever I open the well-worn pages of my Plato. Then a midterm. 28 points, each one correlating to a point on your final grade. There were only ever 100 points available in the class. Miss a single question on any assignment, and you had a point deducted from your final grade. Education is a serious business, you see.

The second third of the class was much different; it was a more emotional and relational approach to God focusing on his interaction with humanity and our desperate need for Him. It was in this section, if my memory serves me, that he devoted an entire class period to the reading of Dostoevsky. I had never heard the passage before, and I was captivated. I do not know what I would pay to have a recording of that lecture. Then another midterm. Finally, the third part of the class focused on, among others, Pierre De Chardin, King’s intellectual idol.

(Yes, perspicacious reader, the quote emblazoned above the stairway heading toward the ICC auditorium is from Chardin. Yes, perspicacious reader, it was Fr. King who is responsible for that quote being there. And yes, gentle reader, I abhor that quote with everything in me, and I still count it as the one thing about King that I could never understand or approve of. But we are, for sure, sinners all.)

In this third of the class, Fr. King performed his greatest feat: a freehand drawing of the map of the entire world, used to demonstrate the idea of panentheism, the idea that God is in everything, not to be confused with pantheism, the notion that everything is God. Then the last class came. A recap of the entire semester. And on the board he writes:

1. God is knowable rationally, logically-understandable, and fulfilling to the intellect.

2. God is relational, able to sympathize with our weaknesses, and emotionally close.

3. God infuses everything with life and beauty, and everything about the world displays some aspect of his goodness.

Then, as the long hand of the clock makes its last sprint around the clock, Fr. King scans the class gleefully, turns to face the board, and next to each of the three aspects of God, writes: “Father. Son. Holy Spirit.”

Class dismissed.

Now, is this a convincing understanding of the Trinity, that eternal, divine, and concrete Thing the understanding of which Augustine compared to the emptying of the ocean with a thimble? Perhaps not. It does perilously approach modalism. Nevertheless, I miss Fr. King. Dearly. And as his memorable sayings come into my head these recent days, so close to the second anniversary of his death, they do fill me with joy and a hopeful expectation of conversing with him once again.

Of the Italian Bar

Fiesole, Italia

The Italian bar. It is a ubiquitous institution in the Boot. Part coffee shop, part watering hole, part restaurant, part gelateria, part convenience store: this is one-stop shopping, Italian style; a kind of conglomeration that is perhaps one of this country’s few efficiencies. This place might be the closest thing to Italian fast food. (I am purposely ignoring those golden arches that assault one exiting his train at Santa Maria Novella.) Yet, the Italian bar is, in reality, a bastion of a kind of ‘slow food.’

Any frenzy here is of a different sort. On entering, taking in the heavy smell of coffee and tobacco, one gets the sense that he should slow down just a bit to enjoy his coffee and his morning. Or perhaps the coffee is so eminently enjoyable that it demands a minute unto itself. There’s no rushing off with latte in hand, no drive through window. If any paper cups exist, they’re gathering dust some place and the management doesn’t know where that place is. Real porcelain cups reign supreme, complete with saucer and spoon.

So, take five and be an Italian. Order your cappuccino at the bar to avoid paying three times as much for table service. Only hipsters in Seattle have “grande” and “venti.” Here, there’s only one size: a perfect proportion of espresso and milk, probably not enough to qualify for a “kiddie size” stateside. If you’re really pressed for time, drink at the bar, otherwise grab an open table, and maybe a pastry, and linger for a while. The whole town is here: grandma, an old man reaching for a smoke, young maidens with the latest gossip, the parish priest, even the garbage men stop in for a caffe. Strike up a conversation with any one of these characters or just take it all in by yourself.

The scene is admittedly noisy, but in an exhilarating sense. Patrons shout coffee orders over already loud conversations taking place at a break neck pace (apart from driving, it seems that talking is the only thing done with any rapidity in this country). There is the constant clatter of cups and saucers and the hiss of the espresso machine. Attendants behind the bar, often clad in funny little hats, engage in a dizzying dance: taking orders, setting out saucers and spoons to be crowned with cappuccini, clearing away empty cups. The cycle repeats throughout the morning. Half of the fun lies in watching this little show. A certain order and civility emerges from this seemingly chaotic scene, a civility marked by the ability to stop for a moment and say hello to the guy making your coffee or catch up with a friend standing next to you. The bar is a neighborhood establishment; no chains or franchises here. The whole ordeal is very personal. In taking his coffee in the morning, one is actually forced to interact with those with whom he shares his daily existence. Heaven forbid!

This is real community, not in some contrived, politically correct platitudinous sense. Rather it is real people engaging each other, appreciating each other’s being in a kind of local context that is mindful of the human need for place. The Italian bar, then, represents a few moments of sanity in the craze of modern life. It remains a fixture of a more conscientious, slower life in a modern world that is all but devoid of such a thing.

On Doing Irrelevant Things

Having recently transferred to a new city, I am often greeted with the typical “and what did you study?” about three minutes into whatever polite conversation I find myself in. My ears perk up immediately, partly because I love discussing what I studied, and partly because I cannot wait to see the reaction of my interlocutor as the well-trod path of small talk suddenly shifts into unknown territory. "Why, I study (note the present tense, even after graduation) Political Theory." And without fail, my response of “political theory” never fails to elicit looks of confusion. For certainly—the average man supposes—people do not actually graduate with such degrees and maintain their functionality and relevance to society! What sort of hideous chimera must this be who can both quote Plato at length and also use an Excel spreadsheet? How does one interact with one who studies "political theory", the words falling from his lips with the same disgusted expression of a prima donna forced by cruel nature to remove some sort of lately deceased rodent from her sidewalk. What, to quote dozens of perplexed loved ones and friends of mine, does one actually do with that?

Dearly beloved, I gather you today around the casket of the Renaissance Man. While he had a good run, it seemed that he died of a tragic case of consensus—consensus that things deemed “irrelevant” because synonymous with things “contradictory” and “worthless.” And thus died the Renaissance Man, his epitaph reading “Here lies a contradictory and worthless old specimen who never could sufficiently specialize.” Yes, the Renaissance Man is dead, and whenever a doctor happens to mention that he is perplexed by the opera more than by an anatomical chart, or a lawyer betrays his love for latin, or a lone college graduate looking to pay off debts sheepishly pulls out Dostoevsky at his lunch break, someone will undoubtedly note the family resemblance to homo Renaissanus with bewilderment. If, they often wonder, it does not contribute to your future income, or fit neatly on a polished resume, or improve your sex life, then why, pray tell, would you have any reason to spend time on it? The funeral will be celebrated by refraining from all such pastimes and obsessing about weight, cars, mortgages, and, albeit infrequently, the romantic life of British aristocrats.

So today I make my declaration: I will forever be a political theorist. No matter how I make my money or which books I continue to read, I will throw my lot in with those who staunchly defend the virtue of irrelevant things and study them joyfully even if they cannot easily explain to inquiring relatives at Thanksgiving just what exactly it is that they “do” with them.

What does one do with so-called irrelevant things? I will tell you. He becomes a true human being. Dancing and smiling have naught to do with mammon and materialism, yet we do not therefore disdain them as “irrelevant” because somehow we know; the Dionysian daemon within reminds us that there is something about them that is truly and profoundly human. So also philosophy, literature, and political theory. Perhaps it is just those things that we ought to “do”, and leave the money-making as a hobby, a necessary evil to try to placate our bestial nature that clamors for physical sustenance, but certainly not how we define our identity as humans. It is given by God to the squirrels and the birds and the beavers and the snakes to concern themselves primarily with where their next meal will come from and whether it is served on a silver tray. But we men, the image-bearers of God, must have higher things to concern ourselves with—things whose connection to each other are as truly real as they are superficially untraceable, things uniquely given to man along with the Promethean fire of the gods, so-called “irrelevant” things to toil and fret about. This is what it is to be human.

On Strange and Foreign Bookstores

Wise and insightful minds monotonously and repetitively remind us that it is in poor taste to judge a book by its cover. Be that as it may, I have never received counsel against judging an entire city by its book covers, and therefore I will proceed with alacrity to do that. On Tuesday I moved from my home in Pennsylvania to work in San Diego. After my first day of work today, I decided to mosey (as I am wont to do) through downtown. As I was investigated the local temple to the god of materialism (read: Horton Plaza), I providentially came across a bookstore that was going out of business. (n.b. While the closing of bookstores is fortuitous for the poor bibliophile like myself, it is an unnerving sight to stumble upon and undoubtedly bodes very poorly for our future). I naturally jumped at the opportunity simultaneously to investigate the locals’ taste in literature while hoping to snag a bargain or two for myself.

It would not be inaccurate to describe myself as a bookstore snob. When in DC, I had a ranking system of used bookstores more detailed and intricate than that used by the NCAA when determining seeding for March Madness. This system is not to be trifled with, nor is it comprehensible to the uninitiated. However, the condensed and abridged version is both easily grasped and stunningly effective in judging the quality of a bookstore, and the cardinal criterion of quality (one observes my Baptist heritage in the alliterative cadence of that phrase) is this: what is the ratio of books that are more than five hundred years old to the number of mass market paperbacks?

Oh San Diego, how I longed to embrace your Plato and Augustine to myself as a hen embraces her chickens, but you would not! Indeed, I fear that all your writing is in vain, because for all of your printed words, the Golden State is heretofore devoid of a single golden word from the divinely-inspired quill of anyone who trod this humble ball more than a mere one hundred years ago! Indeed, the only exception to this proves the lamentable state of decay into which this one great republic has fallen. The lone herald of the ancients left in print here is Catullus, a sentry all too eager to permit debauchery and licentiousness to pass into the citadel of latin poetry. Perhaps it is a source of consolation for the “romance” novels (for indeed they are “romantic” in the sense of representing the very worst of Rome, that heart of viciousness which even now is not dormant in the souls of man) to have their original Romantic forefather on shelves not far away from their own images of scantly-clad vampires and werewolves, a phenomenon proving that the libido is too often the taskmaster of the imagination, and that when a culture creates boredom out of its own erotomania, it rarely fails to create new sources of titillation. The modern version of this is only quasi-bestial, a subtle enough play to allow millions of parents to foolishly allow their children to consume the rabble and teach them that there is nothing beautiful about words or romance.

Good Christian that I am, I would be remiss if I did not mention that the “religion” section did yield a small nugget of gold. I am the new owner of C.S. Lewis’ Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, the last copy on the shelf (the irrepressible optimist in me wants to believe that there were originally dozens of copies and that my fellow San Diegans were prescient enough to snatch them up quickly and are even now basking in the poetic prose of the English master. But while this find proves the Augustinian maxim that there is good to be found even in the most evil of circumstances, Augustine’s realism counsels me against hoping that I will stumble upon avid readers of the Inklings anytime soon in this city.

Let us therefore hear the conclusion of the matter. When the religion section is devoid of Augustine, Aquinas, or Calvin, and the books therein are outnumbered strongly by the so-called “Self-help” books, we betray ourselves, and like San Diego after the passing of the “marine layer”, the true god we worship is clearly revealed.

On hearing Mass at the Siena Duomo

Fiesole, Italia

It would be a feat on the order of Hercules to find the man who is not rendered mute at sight of the Duomo in Siena. It goes without saying that the imposing Tuscan gothic façade, Pisano’s pulpit, the intricate inlaid floor, the soaring, dizzying striped columns are all magnificent. Indeed, it is impossible to sum up in words the entirety of the thing. Put simply, everything about the duomo suggests something of celestial, supernatural importance…everything, that is, save the music.

Upon entering such a seraphic sanctuary, one might expect to hear seraphic sounds and indeed he does during those hours when the duomo functions more as a museum than a house of prayer. Throngs of tourists, tickets in hand, are quite enchanted by the experience of the duomo, set appropriately to the music of monks wafting up as if from some secret, holy place. Only a few notice the PA system, and fewer still identify the masterful 1959 recording of the Benedictines at Clervaux.

If only the experience at Holy Mass were so sublime! Far from enraptured in heavenly tones, one is left bewildered as his ears are acoustically accosted by the sound of guitars and folk hymns. To hear Mass in the duomo is a study in incongruity. The duomo, in all of its monumental and lofty intricacy, begs to be filled with the solemn sounds of Gregorian chant or soaring polyphony, music for which this temple was built. Yet, the visitor and devotee alike are perplexed, dare I say incensed, to hear vapid modernist hymns that rise not to the occasion but rather turn it into an exercise in the virtue of patience.

Looking about for something to distract (an act of desperation to be sure!), one immediately becomes aware of 172 pontiffs staring down at the whole scene, some dumbfounded, others ready to excommunicate the choirmaster. One sees Leo VI roll his eyes as Boniface III struggles to contain his laughter. If one is to retain his sanity, he is all but forced to find the humor in the glaring inconsistency that is before him. It is said that he who sings prays twice, though Augustine might recant were he to make it through the first verse of the opening hymn!

Is not the duomo more dignified than all of this? In the land of Palestrina is it too much to ask for even a selection from the Missa Papae Marcelli? It is not unreasonable to think that more seats at Mass would be occupied if the program of music were revised, if not for the sake of harmony with the architecture then for the sake of that divine action for which the grand edifice was built.

On tripe

Fiesole, Italia

Hot, dripping strips of slime. Ah! And the smell! Without a second thought you’d snarf down a link of processed meat product in Midtown, yet, somehow, this elicits hesitation.

This is the Florentine lampredotto sandwich, served from a cart on Via Dei Macci in a neighborhood devoid of tourists on the east end of town. On a beautifully ordinary Thursday morning, Florentines leisurely go about the day’s business on the street where Sergio Pollini has set up shop. As you learn that lampredotto is made with the fourth stomach of the cow, your own becomes a bit unsettled. What’s more, much to your alarm, it is revealed that some of that same bovine’s reproductive organs have curiously made their way into today’s batch.

Sergio is eager to offer you his succulent selection. There is a large pot a-boilin’ from which he extracts the finest innards. These he proceeds to chop mercilessly, a most merciful act as far as your queasy stomach is concerned. Onto a crusty roll goes the minced mess, bestrewn with salt, salsa verde, and hot chili oil. The top of the roll takes a quick bagno in the brodo and suddenly in your hand you’ve got Florence between two pieces of bread.

It wants you to eat it. Uno, due, tre…and…down she goes! Salty, spicy, slippery, the strips of stomach slink their way down your esophagus. Swallow. Perhaps a brief wave of nausea…but the flavor! It beckons another bite. (Admittedly, a swig of some libation, cold and strong, would have been ideal to wash it all down. It’s 5 o’clock somewhere, no?) The entirety of the stomach now in your own, you glance up to see a sly look of satisfaction and pride sneak up Sergio’s face.

Herein is your first taste, your first glimpse of the City of Lilies, a city that’s practical, rough around the edges, an acquired taste that you’ve acquired with a few bites. Will every experience in and of this new place be so terrible and so splendid? Perhaps, but you can’t say with certainty. What you do know is that you have found place: real people, real tradition, real food, real life on a real street corner. It is oddity. It is a thing divine. Perhaps a Deo gratias! wells up inside. This is the common man’s Florence, in a sense, the only real Florence.

We could all use a little bit more

http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/intelligence.html

from jvssj...

From the Front Porch

Jason Peters on pro basketball and pork tenderloin. Enjoy.


http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2011/06/indirect-heat-1-miami-heat-0/