Three sentences, 10 words.
Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
Simple and effective while being, of course, mysterious.
Simply sung at church, and yet instructive.
I went to parochial school through eighth grade and my wife tends to believe that makes my catechism, if not perfect, certainly better than hers. I confess only to having some schooling in it by skilled instructors.
You never know how skilled an instructor is until a lesson comes back, years later, in the most unexpected places, when you aren't thinking about it or anything related to it.
None of them had steel rulers, but you'd never think any of them had any subtlety.
Yet the whole curriculum was designed that way. I didn't figure out until I was a grown man how they had had done what they'd done, and there was indeed some subtlety to it. When the number 12 came up in a math class, we were reminded about the Apostles. Twelve could also be a lesson in subtraction (taking out Judas) and addition (putting back his replacement, maybe throwing in Paul as well, because the man himself said he was an apostle.
So it turns out the 12 Apostles can be at least 14 guys.
They did things like that, but you never knew, until later.
In late 2003, early 2004, I went to the funeral for the mother of a friend of mine up in the mountains of North Carolina. It was, I believe, a Presbyterian service. Despite being in the religious minority as a Catholic for 34 years in South Carolina, I have managed to stay away from many of the other Christian services over the years.
Despite a female minister leading the service for my friend's mother, it seemed similar in some ways.
They even had, I thought, the memorial acclamation, which comes in our services right after the Mystery of Faith.
"Christ has died," they started.
Wanting to participate as much as I could for my friend, I tried to go along. But couldn't.
"Christ HAS risen," they said. "Christ will come again."
That's not the acclamation, not as taught to me in an ENGLISH class at St. Raymond's.
It came up in English class because we were learning verb tenses.
"Christ has died," we were told, is past-tense construction. It is a historical fact., something that happened, happened once, something done and over.
They weren't telling us there were no implications from the Crucifixion, but they were putting an amen to the event itself.
You might sense then the chagrin I had at this funeral when they said "Christ HAS risen."
That's also past tense.
The teacher pointed out the acclamation says Christ IS risen. Present tense. It isn't something that happened. It is something that is still with us in a different way. It is happening, always happening.
And Christ will come again. Future tense.
It's just three sentences, 10 words. But it's important, I found right then without looking for it, in that it created a distinction between being a Catholic and something else.
A more recent turn I took with the acclamation, as constituted above, came as something I consider pure gift. One day, just out of the blue, my then 3-year-old son started stnging it.
He's got a nice voice and we love to hear him sing.
He has has an unfortunate integrity, however, which means will never perform on command. Those times when he kicked my wife while in the womb, she'd call for me to come over and feel for it. And thought we'd beg, he wouldn't kick again for daddy.
You can't ask him to sing most of the time. I don't quite remember when it was, but he just sang, "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again."
I'm sure it was close in the week to a Sunday, but I don't think it was on a Sunday.
He did it for a few days, then found something else to do. But he had obviously been paying attention at church and picked up on it.
But it wasn't recently, because I haven't heard THAT acclamation used lately. I've missed a few services for sure, but at the services I've attended, it's always one of the other, longer, clunkier "mysteries of faith."
"Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life, Lord Jesus come in glory," is the one I'm hearing most frequently. There are others. There's one the guitar choir uses at my mother's church that I seem to have a post-traumatic stress disorder block on remembering.
It may be that the acclamations go in and out of season, but to me, the acclamation has been, since I received what I thought was a pretty good Catholic education at an outstanding Catholic school, those three sentences, those 10 words.
My wife is editor of this paper, which will in the new year begin a series for Catholics in the diocese on the revisions they are making to the Missal and the mass. I hope one of the things that will be explained is why "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again," is not listed in among the acceptable acclamations we will recite in Mass.
I know there are some who are "opposed" to the revisions and the "new" missal. I know the counterargument is that Vatican II wasn't supposed to change what we say at Mass, just allow us to say it in the vernacular.
I only write this to say that those three sentences, those 10 words seem to capture the essence of the acclamation in plain, simple, language, language that a 3-year-old can remember and on his own sing, language that can be "multi-purposed" to have a dash of grammar along with a pinch of cathechism.
So I'd really like to know why it's going.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
The fierce urgency of now
This is an editorial I wrote when I was at The People-Sentinel in Barnwell S.C. a while back. Adapted and ran it when I was in Chester.
It's about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
"The fierce urgency of now"
Those are words buried amidst the speech Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave in Washington, D.C. People remember the speech he gave that day. He called it "The Dream," and it's a dream shared by many.
King ended his speech in rousing fashion, detailing his dream and his hopes, a vision of a society free of the sin that is the ignorance of racial bigotry.
He ended his speech looking forward. But in his speech, he did something important, and looked back. As American's forefathers did when they wrote the Declaration of Independence, King listed the wrongs suffered by black men and women at the hands of slavery.
Some would say it is dangerous to dwell too much on the past, but King answered that as well, and looked at the present state of his people.
He also listed the wrongs being done to black Americans at the hands of segregation.
"We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now," he said. "This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy."
Things were better, no doubt, for Dr. King than they had been for his forefathers. But better is not always good. Life for black men and women is no doubt better today than it was for Dr. King when he gave that speech.
But hatred and blind fear brought on by skin color still thrive in this society.
Every time you think you have prejudice defeated, it rears its ugly head somewhere else.
Decades have passed since that wonderful day when Dr. King shared with us his vision of the future, yet we are still trapped in the fierce urgency of now.
Some called King a prophet for justice. Others called him a troublemaker. Perhaps a prophet and a troublemaker can be the same thing. Whenever Samuel went to see King Saul or Nathan went to see King David, the kings usually were about to catch it.
The words of our most recent prophet stay with us, exposing the sin of inequity. We are still in the heart of the fierce urgency of now. We must learn to live with each other, and because he was indeed a prophet, King gave us a vision of the future to guide us.
"I have a dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character," he said.
"And when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and city, we will be able to speed up that day when all God's children — black me and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants — will be able to join hands and sing in the worlds of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.'"
Some grumble about taking just a day to honor a man who said such stirring things. We grumble about it also.
It doesn't seem like quite enough..
It's about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
"The fierce urgency of now"
Those are words buried amidst the speech Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave in Washington, D.C. People remember the speech he gave that day. He called it "The Dream," and it's a dream shared by many.
King ended his speech in rousing fashion, detailing his dream and his hopes, a vision of a society free of the sin that is the ignorance of racial bigotry.
He ended his speech looking forward. But in his speech, he did something important, and looked back. As American's forefathers did when they wrote the Declaration of Independence, King listed the wrongs suffered by black men and women at the hands of slavery.
Some would say it is dangerous to dwell too much on the past, but King answered that as well, and looked at the present state of his people.
He also listed the wrongs being done to black Americans at the hands of segregation.
"We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now," he said. "This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy."
Things were better, no doubt, for Dr. King than they had been for his forefathers. But better is not always good. Life for black men and women is no doubt better today than it was for Dr. King when he gave that speech.
But hatred and blind fear brought on by skin color still thrive in this society.
Every time you think you have prejudice defeated, it rears its ugly head somewhere else.
Decades have passed since that wonderful day when Dr. King shared with us his vision of the future, yet we are still trapped in the fierce urgency of now.
Some called King a prophet for justice. Others called him a troublemaker. Perhaps a prophet and a troublemaker can be the same thing. Whenever Samuel went to see King Saul or Nathan went to see King David, the kings usually were about to catch it.
The words of our most recent prophet stay with us, exposing the sin of inequity. We are still in the heart of the fierce urgency of now. We must learn to live with each other, and because he was indeed a prophet, King gave us a vision of the future to guide us.
"I have a dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character," he said.
"And when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and city, we will be able to speed up that day when all God's children — black me and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants — will be able to join hands and sing in the worlds of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.'"
Some grumble about taking just a day to honor a man who said such stirring things. We grumble about it also.
It doesn't seem like quite enough..
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
How the Jones ruined the Grinch
I love it when a book is adapted for a TV or a movie, if it's done well. If it remains true to the essence.
The Lord of the Rings movies were very faithful, recently. The original Dune movie was a travesty. The Dune TV miniseries on Sci-Fi Channel was very well done
For years I've been watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
A couple of years back, someone bought our son Stephen Christopher the book, and last year, I started reading it to him. It actually turned up in June and he wanted me to read it then, so I did. off and on. Now that it's Christmas, I've read it to him a few times. Yet I haven't watched the Grinch since I started reading it. I always thought it was a faithful adaptation.
I'm of course talking about the half-hour cartoon — narrated by the legendary Boris Karloff, directed by the legendary Chuck Jones of Bugs Bunny fame. Not the movie by Ron Howard, which was another travesty.
I know they had to add stuff to make a TV show. They added the wonderful "Mr. Grinch" song.
They added all the Seussian names of the toys and instruments and sporting toys of the Who girls and boys.
Trim up the tree with Christmas stuff
like dingle balls and who floo fluff
Trim up the town with goo who gums
and bizzle binks and wumms
like dingle balls and who floo fluff
Trim up the town with goo who gums
and bizzle binks and wumms
I get that.
They added the song that all the Whos, the tall and the small, sing with and without presents, one and all.
Fah who for-aze! Fah who for-aze!
Dah who dor-aze! Dah who dor-aze!
Welcome Christmas, Welcome Christmas,
Come this way! Come this way!"
Dah who dor-aze! Dah who dor-aze!
Welcome Christmas, Welcome Christmas,
Come this way! Come this way!"
I get that.
In the case of the cartoon, what they added, I thought, added to the essence of the original.
But this morning, I realized how wrong I'd been. Patricia caught the cartoon on the satellite and saved it on the DVR.
While I needed the sleep, Stephen woke me up,, so I put on the TV in our bedroom. We watched the Grinch.
Twice.
After the first time, I told him to get his book and to read along while I continued to snooze a bit. When I didn't want to watch it a third time. So I said, "Want to read the book?"
So we read it. And then I saw it. Read it. Stephen heard it, too, and noted it, immediately. Children note even the smallest change discrepency, distortion or bingle-macfortion..
And I wonder why they have to play with and RUIN the essence of something so quintessential.
Here it is. In the both stories, the Grinch, having completed his costume, needs a ride.
A reindeer.
The Grinch looked around.
But since reindeer are scarce, there was none to be found.
Did that stop the old Grinch...?
No! The Grinch simply said,
"If I can't find a reindeer, I'll make one instead!"
So he called his dog Max. Then he took some red thread
And he tied a big horn on top of his head.
But since reindeer are scarce, there was none to be found.
Did that stop the old Grinch...?
No! The Grinch simply said,
"If I can't find a reindeer, I'll make one instead!"
So he called his dog Max. Then he took some red thread
And he tied a big horn on top of his head.
We love Max, by the way.
Can you see the horror. That is the original, the true, the essential quintessential Grinch.
But ... I almost can't type this.
SEE!
Red thread.
But in the cartoon, the Grinch used black thread.
SEE!
Why do they have to mess with things? Why RUIN them?
I'm sure it was the black thread industry giving a "secret" donation to the project in exchange for the dialogue change.
So there you have it. I always thought the cartoon was a faithful adaptation. But it's a cop out. A sellout.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the cartoon, came out just before Christmas in 1966. It is as old as me. After 44 years, can it possibly be a sellout?OK, so I'm just joking.
The Christmas letter this year, I just wasn't up for it. I lost my job in June and was out of work until October.
I found a nice job, but it's a LONG commute.
It was a great year for Patricia. She switched jobs and is now editor of the Catholic News Herald. She redesigned it and is getting it a real website. It's an opportunity for her to grow in her faith as well as a job. I'm happy for her.
Stephen Christopher remains purely wonderful for all who know him. Harry and Annie are doing well
Have a merry Christmas. (E-mail still the best way to reach me. I check it every day.)
We love you.
Stephen, Patricia, Stephen Christopher, Harry and Annie
Happy New Year too.
The Trim up the tree song --
Trim up the tree with Christmas stuff
like dingle balls and who floo fluff
Trim up the town with goo who gums
and bizzle binks and wumms
Trim every blessed window
and trim every blessed door
hang up who boo who biks
then run out and get some more
Hang pantookas on the ceiling
pile pantpoomas on the floor
Trim every blessed needle
on the blessed Christmas tree
Christmas comes tomorrow
Trim you, Trim me!
Trim up your pets with fuzzle fuzz
and bliffer bloops and wuzzle wuzz
Trim up your uncle and your aunt
with yards of foofa flant
Trim every house in Whoville
from the cellar to the roof
Hang up a mile of bafflers
and three miles of snaffer snooze
Hang dang dongers on the bathtub
Trim the occuphant with floof
To every home in Whoville
and to every blessed who
Christmas comes tomorrow
Trim me, trim you!
Trim up the tree with Christmas stuff
like dingle balls and who floo fluff
Trim up the town with goo who gums
and bizzle binks and.... wumms!
Trim up the tree with bizzle binks and wumms!
like dingle balls and who floo fluff
Trim up the town with goo who gums
and bizzle binks and wumms
Trim every blessed window
and trim every blessed door
hang up who boo who biks
then run out and get some more
Hang pantookas on the ceiling
pile pantpoomas on the floor
Trim every blessed needle
on the blessed Christmas tree
Christmas comes tomorrow
Trim you, Trim me!
Trim up your pets with fuzzle fuzz
and bliffer bloops and wuzzle wuzz
Trim up your uncle and your aunt
with yards of foofa flant
Trim every house in Whoville
from the cellar to the roof
Hang up a mile of bafflers
and three miles of snaffer snooze
Hang dang dongers on the bathtub
Trim the occuphant with floof
To every home in Whoville
and to every blessed who
Christmas comes tomorrow
Trim me, trim you!
Trim up the tree with Christmas stuff
like dingle balls and who floo fluff
Trim up the town with goo who gums
and bizzle binks and.... wumms!
Trim up the tree with bizzle binks and wumms!
Welcome Christmas --
Fah who for-aze, dah hoo dor-aze,
Welcome Christmas, come this way
Fah who for-aze, dah hoo dor-aze,
Welcome Christmas, Christmas Day
Welcome, welcome, fah who rah-moose
Welcome, welcome, dah who dah-moose
Christmas Day is in our grasp
So long as we have hands to clasp
Fah who for-aze, dah who dor-aze,
Welcome Christmas, bring your cheer
Fah who for-aze, dah who dor-aze
Welcome all Whos far and near
Welcome Christmas fah who rah-moose
Welcome Christmas dah who dah-moose
Christmastime will always be
Just as long as we have we
Welcome Christmas, come this way
Fah who for-aze, dah hoo dor-aze,
Welcome Christmas, Christmas Day
Welcome, welcome, fah who rah-moose
Welcome, welcome, dah who dah-moose
Christmas Day is in our grasp
So long as we have hands to clasp
Fah who for-aze, dah who dor-aze,
Welcome Christmas, bring your cheer
Fah who for-aze, dah who dor-aze
Welcome all Whos far and near
Welcome Christmas fah who rah-moose
Welcome Christmas dah who dah-moose
Christmastime will always be
Just as long as we have we
Welcome Christmas
Fah who rah-moose!
Welcome Christmas
Dah who dah-moose!
Fah who rah-moose!
Welcome Christmas
Dah who dah-moose!
Welcome Christmas
While we stand
Heart to heart
And hand in hand
Fah who for-aze
Dah who dor-aze
Welcome welcome
Christmas, Christmas Day
While we stand
Heart to heart
And hand in hand
Fah who for-aze
Dah who dor-aze
Welcome welcome
Christmas, Christmas Day
Welcome Christmas, bring your light
Ooooooo…
(You can find that song online done by the cast of Glee. They change the lyric from so long as we have we to song long as we have glee. See? Sellouts abound.)
Here's a great link to some recapping of the behind-the-scenes stuff on "The Grinch."
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
"Are you John Lennon?"
The column began -- "That summer in Breezy Point, when he was 18 and out of Madison High in Brooklyn, there was the Beatles on the radio at the beach through the hot days and on the jukebox through the nights in the Sugar Bowl and the Kennedys. He was young and he let his hair grow and there were girls and it was the important part of life."
It was written in December, 1980.
The column ends,"Tony Palma said to himself, I don't think so. Moran shook his head. He thought about his two kids, who know every one of the Beatles big tunes. And Jim Moran and Tony Palma, older now, cops in a world with no fun, stood in the emergency room as John Lennon, whose music they knew, whose music was known everywhere on earth, became another person who died after being shot with a gun on the streets of New York."
Jimmy Breslin, still the best, writing about John Lennon's shooting. But he doesn't focus on the star. He focuses on a couple of beat cops.
And the gun. He focused on the gun.
Still the best. He was at home in bed at 11:20 p.m. when he got the call. He lived in Queens. He got dressed, went to the scene, found the beat cops, went to the hospital, then got back to the office to write this column by 1:30 a.m. He says in "The Wolrd According to Breslin, while admitting a mistake in a street name in the column, that he knows of nobody who can do that kind of work so quickly.
I've never come across anyone who could. I could do the bit about getting a call and springing into action. But I've not quite been able to get words so well done so quickly.
No one comes close.
John Lennon was shot dead on the streets of New York 30 years ago today.
It was written in December, 1980.
The column ends,"Tony Palma said to himself, I don't think so. Moran shook his head. He thought about his two kids, who know every one of the Beatles big tunes. And Jim Moran and Tony Palma, older now, cops in a world with no fun, stood in the emergency room as John Lennon, whose music they knew, whose music was known everywhere on earth, became another person who died after being shot with a gun on the streets of New York."
Jimmy Breslin, still the best, writing about John Lennon's shooting. But he doesn't focus on the star. He focuses on a couple of beat cops.
And the gun. He focused on the gun.
Still the best. He was at home in bed at 11:20 p.m. when he got the call. He lived in Queens. He got dressed, went to the scene, found the beat cops, went to the hospital, then got back to the office to write this column by 1:30 a.m. He says in "The Wolrd According to Breslin, while admitting a mistake in a street name in the column, that he knows of nobody who can do that kind of work so quickly.
I've never come across anyone who could. I could do the bit about getting a call and springing into action. But I've not quite been able to get words so well done so quickly.
No one comes close.
John Lennon was shot dead on the streets of New York 30 years ago today.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
It's on
The Gamecocks are fighting the Auburn Tigers today at the Georgia Dome for the SEC Championship. Some days, never thought this day would come.
Awesome, baby. Awesome.
4 p.m. on CBS if you want to watch what might be history.
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