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My Visit With The Pope

September 25, 2015 / C. S. / 1 Comment

My spiritual encounter with Pope Francis was circumstantial. I had decided to fly to DC because Frontier had 58$ tickets from Chicago and I managed to find an airbnb which was not gouging me. My accommodations turned out quite nice and I had a rather fine time on H street the night before, carousing with a fellow airbnb’er. The result was that I awoke far too late to get in line at 4am with the rest of the Papal viewers who sought out prime real estate for the brief appearance around the White House (the ellipse parade). In fact, I simply woke up and walked an hour and a half to arrive at a gate where people had congregated and within 3 minutes, The Pope showed up, and I saw him – albeit a block away – in all his celebrity excitement. My timing made me wonder if perhaps everything did happen for a reason – and this happy condition lasted well into the afternoon.

It was 2:45pm when I decided maybe I should really go to the Papal Mass at the Basilica after all. I had no tickets, but I hopped a cab and arrived an hour before mass was to start. Things looked promising as there was a designated gate at which all the fellow derelicts without tickets were supposed to grovel to get in. I waited there as people behind me of finer stock were picked from the crowd by secret service and escorted to the ticketing area. The rest of us humbly petitioned for entry well past the start of mass, when the TSA looking folks at the gate communicated to us that under secret service orders, we were not to be allowed into the mass. For all my impetus to call the lowly masses to arms and rebel against The Man in the name of a Pope of The People, I quietly resigned and continued my tour of H street bars, because everything did happen for a reason… I’m Catholic afterall, and not Baptist.

The Objectification of Women

September 25, 2015 / C. S. / 0 Comments

By this is typically meant the process by which a woman is evaluated based on their appearance, but to say that this is the objectification of women is to ignore the fact that if one is evaluated based on metrics of almost any sort, then they have been ‘objectified’ and this socially acceptable form of objectification even has a prestigious business name: Human Capital Management.

The real problems with objectification are not with evaluating people based on their appearance, which is a set of characteristics subject to objectification as well as any other. The real problem is treating people as capital, and that is just business. How to reconcile the need to objectify people while treating them as loving, feeling, breathing individuals, generally – that is our problem – and it applies to Vegas strippers as well as CEOs.

It used to be the men who treated people as capital in business, and women were a balance who treated people as loving, feeling individuals at home. Now it is an afront to women if they are not treated as human capital like everyone else, and you are ‘setting women back’ if you are a woman who does not treat people as capital in turn. Ahh progress.

This is not to say that women have no place in business, but it is to say that society has lost some of that balance, and men need to begin to treat people more as loving, feeling individuals to help regain it – Women, we need your help, so don’t lose your touch.

From the Heavy Hand to the Guiding Touch

September 22, 2015 / C. S. / 0 Comments

It was not so long ago that students complained of bloody knuckles from the ruler. This type of treatment was more the norm than the exception in eliciting Catholic guilt, and it did not stop and end at nuns trying to teach mathematics. The heavy hand extended rather clearly – among the initiated – to the pulpit and even prayer, in advance of the rebirth.

We are not fully reborn of course, but there is something to be said for Pope Francis’ light guiding touch that has made the wait and persistence of faith worth it. No longer do I feel quite so guilty for enjoying myself in ways visceral but victimless, should I also pay respect to what is truly good. No longer do I feel the need to hide from authority because they are bound to only see things in the light of what could go wrong as opposed to what could go right. A God merciful to the good of heart, despite a love of life – I have been waiting for it all my life and it is here.

Tomorrow it does not matter if I see the Pope, though I happen to be in D. C. I have already seen the good done in the faces of those estranged from faith and The Church. We have a Pope respectful of humanity and the human condition, in the face of historical demands made in the name of God, though not always true to His spirit. It is a good time to be a Catholic, and a good time for the world to rethink faith.

Why the Pope Should Give St. Maria de Alhambra To The World

September 13, 2015 / C. S. / 0 Comments

In this follow up to Should The Pope offer St. Maria’s of Alhambra to Islam, I want to consider what the Catholic church has to gain by offering St. Maria’s as an offering to interfaith worship.

The short answer is that The Church has peace to gain, with a start toward reconciliation among faiths, which need to come together rather than grow further apart. The long answer is that it is only through an unsolicited offer by The Catholic Church, in advance of pressure from outside events, that The Church can authentically make a gesture that other faiths can trust as an offering to peace. The act needs to take place prior to strife, for it to be clear that The Church’s hand was not forced in the matter – which it is not, but could seem so, should such an offering occur after an event of great distress. This means that it is the right moment for such an offering.

Open dialog between faiths is much needed, so that theoretical reconciliations can be reached, which promise to support a broader day to day acceptance of other faiths living together in the same community. There is no better way to reach a state in which reconciliation can be achieved than through a community of shared worship. Seeing and hearing and feeling those in prayer and worship inevitably makes the practice and people of other faith less alien, more akin to yourself and your own needs and fulfillment. And the setting at Alhambra is the most perfect given the history of intolerance in Spain and the history of Alhambra, not to mention its beauty.

Should the Pope offer St. Maria’s of Alhambra to Islam?

May 15, 2015 / C. S. / 2 Comments

On a plateau over Granada, Spain stands Alhambra. It is a grand palace and former settlement of the Moors. It is today well preserved in its full history, but its history is still alive.

Inside the grounds of Alhambra is a church. It is a nice church, in the renaissance style, but it’s history is not so nice. Alhambra was a Moorish palace and settlement, and where the church of Santa Maria de la Encarnacion stands once stood a mosque. That mosque was torn down and in its place was put the church. It was common practice throughout Andalusia, Spain to convert old mosques to cathedrals. The major cathedrals of Andalusia were once mosques. But tearing down this mosque and building in its place a church, on the grounds of Moorish Alhambra, was a clear show of power by Catholic rule, and no mere convenience.

In The Alhambra Trinity I address – in literary and indirect form – some reasons for turning St. Maria’s of Alhambra into an offering of peace. What I do not address directly – though it is an underlying current – is its historical significance as a symbol of religious struggle and the domination by Catholicism in Spain. As such it holds a unique place for potential as a symbol of peace as Spain enters an age of religious diversity and tolerance, but I do not believe the proper action is to convert St. Maria’s to a mosque. It should instead be made symbol of interfaith peace and not a symbol of triumph by one side over another – diplomatic or otherwise. A place where all people of faith are welcome, including those of the Jewish faith, who have a long history in the region of Granada, and also worked on Alhambra.

To that end I, a Catholic, suggest it be converted to a place where all faiths can practice together, though in a unique way. I realize that the suggestion of re-architecting a renaissance style church in Europe may fall on deaf ears. And some may look at this approach as opening a can of worms, but I look at it as the most supreme offering of peace that the Church can make. And peace should be the goal of all faith, Catholic, Islamic, Jewish or otherwise.

Why Our Presidents Must Be International Diplomats

February 16, 2015 / C. S. / 0 Comments

The Office of the President is the face of the nation and ours is a nation with a big footprint. That footprint extends well into other nations as we willfully take on the task of policing the world from at least the worst of its ills. That life abroad is occasionally neglected and occasionally abused by our Presidents, but it really can be neither if we want America at its best.

While the Office of the President is consistently fighting domestic political battles which make them more narrow-minded than we can afford our administrations to be, America is busy being America abroad, trying to defend what is right, while fighting the concurrent battle over the visage of America as domineering where it doesn’t belong.

It is the latter where our president can be decidedly understanding or standoffish and in the past they have been both, but in the interconnected world which America built, we cannot afford the latter when it is not overwhelmingly due. Our current president has done well with diplomacy, despite occasional botched communications, and we can’t afford anything less from our future presidents.

The presidents of the near future – born and raised before the rise of the internet – threaten to misunderstand a younger generation who are to make up America and much of the first-world, in short order. And it is a persistent and perpetrated misunderstanding, which is America’s greatest foe.

Why I am done being serious, seriously

December 11, 2014 / C. S. / 0 Comments

If you can’t always keep a straight face during mass, if you tend to laugh at political hearings because they are great theater, if you tend to think that Saturday Night Live’s Evening Update is better news than the news, then it is a sign that you suffer from irreverence. It is a condition known to afflict millions of people who nonetheless manage to survive, provided they conform to protocol.

The protocol for irreverence is that you can’t be serious. If you are not serious, you can be as irreverent as you like, as long as you don’t divulge too much. If you insist on being serious and you are nonetheless irreverent, you will be taken as a threat to the peace. If you are serious and reverent, you will be taken as a prospective political candidate or moral leader – in short a threat to the power of those with power. But if you are just not serious then you can be reverent or irreverent all you like – in short, you can live your life.

The trouble, you see, is not that I can never be reverent. It is that I can’t always be reverent. There are always those too astute observations of the absurd which strike my mind and no force of will can restrain me from comment because they are too funny. They are just funny and it’s not my fault. But they are enough for people to look at me askew…

So I have decided to relegate my seriousness to refined literary and unspontaneous text which need not absorb my life. In short, I have decided to live my life. It is by all accounts an absurd life and no one can take that away – but it is freedom to let that absurdity live in comedy and not insist on fighting the absurd with sincerity, because you will lose, seriously.

What I Learned from my Dad

December 4, 2014 / C. S. / 0 Comments

I was raised with an almost naïve lack of bias against anyone for their superficial qualities. It is “almost naïve” because it is in many ways the correct way to view people – treating each and every person with individual dignity may be exhausting once you come to note that discrimination and reverse discrimination do still exist, but thankfully I made it well into my 20’s without being well aware of any of it, and by then the way that I treated people was mainly fixed.

I did of course know that discrimination existed. I knew of the treatment of Jews and Gypsys during and before WWII. I knew of the impetus for the civil rights movement in America in the 60’s. I knew of racial slurs, even if I never heard them said in person and in earnest. But I never saw discrimination with my own eyes. My naïveté was preserved as a youth and therefore treating people with individual dignity was not exhausting, but feasible.

I am not perfect, but what interpersonal equanimity I have, I owe to my parents and I give special credit to my Dad. My Dad had to fight the wars, day in and day out. The wars of business, the wars of reputation, the wars of attrition and perserverence, and then he had to come home and not ruin us with his personal struggles, temporary as they were, however grand they may have been. Not that there were never negative repercussions, but they were always surmountable, because they did not strike at the core of what is good.

No one is perfect, but my parents had foresight. They saw quite clearly that the world would be a better place for me and everyone, if we did not judge by those superficial qualities into which we are born, but treated each as an individual as best we could. It is all the more impressive knowing that such was not the standard in the age into which they were born. And sadly, if this is the standard today, there are many, persecutors and victims alike, who are distinctly failing to achieve it.

Odyssey de Sevilla

November 23, 2014 / C. S. / 0 Comments

It started out like any other night, I would typically go out for a motadito and a cerveza and mix with the natives and tourists alike; but I learned that some people, namely tall white guiris, are an easy mark. I apparently made myself too friendly with the natives at one distinctly local establishment and after realizing that a barkeep lifted me for 20 euros in a phony-friendly encounter, I returned to the man, who insisted he never saw me at all.

Such slights I had previously found unusual in the friendly city of Seville, and after returning home, I decided I was a bit too punchy to settle in for the night. I stepped out my door to make the acquaintance of a black professional skateboarder originating from the Ghettos of Paris. He was an interesting and intelligent young man; I took the care making sure he did not drink too much before his European Championship in the morning. In reality, he did not have much a problem with it, but the idea gave me purpose, as I tried not to drink too much myself.

I did not drink too much, we parted ways early enough, and I was back in my room. Jonatan would go on to take third in the Freestyle the next day, and I would go on to lose every important thing I had in my possession.

In one fateful trip to the train station, I used my wallet to swipe my way in for the train, and when I had to swipe my way out, I could not – for my wallet was gone.

It is a strange feeling being in a foreign country with nothing to identify you and no currency at your disposal. You are simply a man in the world, without history or prospects. I found it liberating, but decided I really did not want to throw away my life.

With this I embarked on an odyssey – first to the train station office to put out a notice; then online to cancel all my credit cards, fighting with my bank to replace my cards (which they couldn’t because I did not have the password I set up five years earlier); then calling the embassy to put out a notice on my lost passport (yes my wallet was big enough to carry my passport and no its wasn’t a man-bag); then filing a police report on a lost (stolen?) wallet; finally arranging with my hostel to return there in the future, and pay at a later date, once I received a replacement credit card.

I went two days without money for food, while walking to and fro, but I managed to get myself wired 200 euros, which I promptly used to get to Madrid for the sake of a new passport. I had a scary moment when the Hostel in Madrid almost turned me away, late in the evening, because I had no ID, but luckily they could accept my story and the official copy of the police report. The next morning I filed for a new passport at the embassy, did some writing in the park, visited Sol (Madrid has done the absurd and given Vodafone the naming rights to the center of their city, so if you’re at the train station, it’s Vodafone Sol to you.) Then I decided I really should use the ticket to Alhambra I had purchased, well in advance, for the following day.

To get to Granada, I overnighted on a seven hour bus, and arrived, going directly to the grounds. After spending a beautiful day at Alhambra, I went to the bus station, where I was to take a late bus back to Seville. I realized, however, that I would arrive too late for my Hostel’s front desk still to be open, and would be without money to get another Hostel. I asked to change my ticket to an earlier bus, but there was a 2,40 change fee, and I had only 1,70 euros to my name by this time (passports aren’t cheap).

Needless to say, when they decided not to wave the change fee for my circumstance, I grew a bit irate, but to my surprise, after arguing for 20 minutes, a kind lady appeared out of nowhere, to give me two euros – though the man at information made me go back to the end of the long line, out of spite. While I settled down, a remarkably heavy downpour turned into a hailstorm, the likes of which the Granadan’s had not seen in years, as even the workers were leaving their post to snap photos.

I arrived late to Seville, but early enough for the front desk to be open, and there I found the front desk manned by the only person who did not know who I was. After fighting to get him to call the owner (poor guy) I finally got a room. When I entered the room, there came over me a curse, like I was inevitably going to be sick.

The next morning I was sick, but I received a replacement credit card, and sure enough, I was contacted by the consulate – they recovered my wallet, all intact but for 45 euros and an iPod (ok so what if it was really more of a European Carry-all. When in Seville…).

A Theory of Me