CLXXVII – Letter From The Editor

Good morning! It has been some time since last I wrote. Frankly I just don’t know what to say. Not because of the election–the election is doing whatever it is doing, and whatever the result you and I will have to make peace with it, and that will be true no matter what.

Life doesn’t slow down and so I’ve taken this brief hiatus to think about the various endeavors which consume my time. I’ve reached a point where the regular schedule I had been keeping was not necessarily lending itself to a quality of posts, and the desire to push output was overwhelming my desire to be thoughtful. The reason I write, of course, is somewhat therapeutic: I am processing things on my mind and which I have heard or read about elsewhere.

The thing that is on my mind the most these days is living my faith. I will probably write more on this subject but for now let me briefly note that it is difficult, and this is no one’s fault but mine. I am tempted in two directions at once, to pride and despair: Pride in thinking I know the answers and despair in realizing I really don’t. We are all, after all, prodigal sons, just trying to figure this life of ours out.

So in terms of content, I don’t necessarily want to commit to subject matter or timeline. But I will be pivoting to a quality over quantity approach. This will be good for my sanity and hopefully you will notice an improvement in the quality of my writing, and likewise I hope the insights which you have found worthwhile in this space so far will be found in even greater abundance, though in fewer entries.

God bless you all.

-Scoot

CLXXV – Pews Full of Prodigal Sons

The parable of the Prodigal Son is one of my favorites. When I first converted, contemplating it helped me move past any guilt or regret I had and reminded me that any Catholic Church is a place where I will always be welcomed home.

An illusion that I think is common is to think that there is anyone out there who is not a prodigal son. It is very easy to get caught in what I have seen described as a Holiness spiral, comparing oneself and ones faith life to the manifest holiness of another or the superficial holiness of another, and feeling inadequate. There certainly are some people out there who appear to have a gift. I am not among them, and my faith life has been, is, and will likely always be a struggle.

An image that came to mind one day was the idea of a Church whose pews were filled with prodigal sons. It struck me as kind of a funny image, like how satire takes things to a hyperbolic extreme. Rows upon rows of prodigal sons, returned home to a forgiving Father.

It kind of takes the wind out of any idea that someone else is ‘holier than thou’ or especially pious. It gives me the impression of a rag-tag bunch of sinners trying their best to work out their salvation with fear and trembling. Picking up tools we have forgotten how to use, following rules whose purpose we have forgotten, and going to work for the Father on land we don’t remember how we acquired. “Am I saying this right?” one prodigal son says to another. “That’s how I say it, so I think so.” he replies.

AMDG

CLXXII – Command Presence

I’ve been thinking about the mix of personal experience, expertise, and authority that make up what I will refer to in shorthand as “command presence”. Command Presence as I am thinking of it here can come in three flavors: Negative, positive, and neutral. A negative presence means, given no additional information, when you speak people will tend to disagree with, act contrarily to, or denigrate what you say. A positive presence means people will tend to agree with, act in conformity with, or approbate what you say. A neutral presence means people will neither agree nor disagree.

I’ve been thinking about this because I have found that I tend to desire a positive command presence. I don’t think I am alone in this but I am certainly only aware of my own inclinations. It’s natural for people to want a positive command presence. People like to be listened to and like others to defer to them. It fuels pride, to a certain extent. And why shouldn’t it? If I have spent the last twenty years working with widgets, when I speak about widgets I would hope people listen.

Hoping people listen is an expectation. When I, a career widget worker, speak about widgets, my expectation is to demonstrate a positive command presence. If a crowd of people responds as if I had a negative command presence, I would naturally be very frustrated. Even worse, if I speak about widgets and someone else also speaks about widgets, but speaks contrariwise to what I say, both of us will expect deference from the other and both of us will be frustrated by the unwillingness of the other to do so. What we’re talking about is personal authority and, to a certain extent, respect.

If we take the position that everyone wants deference, we could restate that by saying that everyone wants respect. Respect is a milder form of deference, but nonetheless it is an element of being human. Respect is not the same as a positive command presence. I can disagree with someone and still show them respect, and vice versa.

Personal authority only exists within command structures, and it is fallacious to think it extends beyond that. If a three-star General retires and goes to a restaurant with his wife, he will not expect that everyone present salute him. Authority exists within context. Authority is different from command presence in that it adds in the ability to make someone else do some thing.

Let me pause to avoid confusion with the terms to which I am adding my own definition:

• Command Presence – an individuals expectation of how they should be perceived
• Respect – polite deference
• Authority – An individuals ability, within a specific context, to effectuate some end either individually or through subordinates.

If I confuse command presence with authority, as I’ve defined them here, I might say “I am an authority on the subject of widgets, which gives me the ability to make you believe me.” The reality is that I expect you to believe me, and if we were at the Widget HQ, you would probably have to do what I say.

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A fact about me is that I am an anxious person. As I understand it, my disposition is better than others but not so good as those who do not describe themselves as anxious people. One aspect of how this manifests in my life is what I describe as social anxiety. As my family can attest, for most of my life the idea of crowds has induced an anxiety reaction in me, so from what I can tell this is an innate aspect of my personality. Part of the reason crowds concern me is that I tend to cultivate in myself a negative command presence, which is to say, the expectation that what I say or do will be disagreed with, contravened, or denigrated. With age and wisdom I have been able to learn to act against this preconceived perception. After I graduated I worked as an Auditor, and going up to strangers at their own work place and asking them for their own work product was an instructive experience for me.

It helped me overcome an element of that negative command presence. Auditors are not a beloved people. I learned in my time in that role first that as an Auditor, I had authority in that context to ask for something; second that most people are generally willing to give polite deference even to people they may be unhappy to see. Authority need not be exercised apologetically: As mentioned in the comments of an earlier article, leadership involves issuing commands as commands and without reservation or explanation. What this tells me is that a neutral command presence is the best kind of command presence. Entering a situation with no expectation as to how other people perceive you, while extending to them polite deference and expecting polite deference in return, is a recipe for social success.

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Everyone has some idea of how they would like to be perceived. Humility is the practice of acting against the desire to be perceived positively, and confidence is the practice of acting against the expectation of being perceived negatively. The end result is this neutral state.

The advantage of a neutral command presence is this idea from the Orthosphere, of “Spit no fire, eat no dirt”. If you don’t say anything you’ll regret, you won’t have to apologize for it later. Said another way, if you don’t have expectations then you’re never disappointed.

This most frequently comes up in discussions about religion. Naturally, religious conversations can get heated. No one acknowledges anyone else’s authority because the context is not academic; Everyone expects themselves to be deferred to and the others to defer, and no one does. If I enter these discussions with a new mindset, one of polite deference absent any expectation of deference for myself, not only will I spare myself some heartache but perhaps will have a more productive conversation, as the arms race of authority won’t begin right away. Or, if it does begins, I can be sure it won’t be me who has to eat dirt for it.

AMDG

CLXXI – That Colossal Wreck

I am a traveler in an antique land
Amidst a crowded square, I’m found
In the midst, an outstretch’d hand
from a towering statue, crown’d

He looks, with cold regard
On the people bustling below
On the base, inscription carved
says “Behold, victorious o’er our foe!

He who gave the iron law!
Look on my works ye mighty, and despair!”
None could name the man I saw
And no engraved name was there

The people bustle by this king of kings
another in a litany of forgotten things.

CLXIII – Viral Wilderness Rambles

I wrote what I called a COVID after action report back in April, optimistically thinking that all the action had ended by that time, and now here we are. At best that article could have been said to be in the “first quarter” of the game, which is technically true because if we count February as the beginning of all the lockdown measures, then it has been 7 months since then. More than half of this year spent in lockdown! It boggles the mind.

At the time I suggested COVID was case of Mass Hysteria. Some fear was drummed up and drove the people to drastic action without ever manifesting any threat. As an example of this, I gave the example of british townfolk burning the countryside in fear of a clandestine invasion of Irish which never materialized.

The thought occurred to me that maybe that was an uncharitable interpretation. The threat is very real, for some. I know of at least two people, related to acquaintances, who have died and many more who have fallen ill. There’s no doubt that the threat is real. For some.

Not everyone is at risk, and not everyone will get sick. I get the impression though that the powers that be believe that every single individual is a ticking time-bomb: if not for sudden and tragic death, for swift and deadly transmission.

I wonder if this could be described as a case of Munchausen by Proxy. The threat is very real, but practically speaking there can be targeted measures to protect the vulnerable. It doesn’t seem like it’s too controversial a claim to suggest that the risk does not fall evenly on everybody.

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I’m thinking about this today because one of the side effects of COVID is that most people work remotely. I live in walking distance from my place of work, so I’m still going to the office. But one consequence is that, on days like today, I am the only person in the office. It’s been like this for 7 months. My colleagues offices gather dust and occasionally I provide tech support, because their computers are their portal to remote work and occasionally needs a kick in the pants to allow access.

The hallways have been dark for a long time, and we’ve replaced in-person meetings with remote ones, and in greater abundance. The entire culture has had to shift–clumsily, at first, but repetition has worn down the new pathways which we navigated with discomfort back in February. We had to learn how to communicate via email, which was humorous, and eventually we will have to re-learn how to communicate verbally.

In HG Wells “The Time Machine” there was a race of Morlocks who lived underground and were the manufacturers and supporters, and a race of Eloi who were innocent and childlike and totally ignorant. I’m trying to figure out if being the only one in the office makes me a Morlock or an Eloi. Am I providing essential support that my peers need from their distant station, or am I ignorantly busying myself while the real work gets done elsewhere?

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I diagnosed, in some friends of mine years ago, an irrational fear of nature among some people who have never lived far from the beating heart of civilization. I can’t paint with a broad brush because I know that is not universally true, but I have observed it enough to be able to believe that there is a substantial population who have this irrational fear of nature.

I grew up in the rural reaches of a remote suburb, a family home ensconced in a thick forest. I spent a fair amount of time in close proximity to wilderness, and so I have a healthy respect for and understanding of how creatures found in the wild react to the presence of humans.

I was visiting my friends one day, those years ago, much closer to the densely populated metropolitan North of my state. We were walking around the apartment complex and came across a fox rooting around some trash. My friends immediately yelped and retreated. I like nature and I especially like seeing how close I can get to creatures found in the wild. Animals will always flee when you come within a certain radius–there’s a word for it, which I forget now, but it’s something akin to ‘safety bubble’. If they have nowhere to flee, that is when they will attack, but simply approaching slowly and non-threateningly usually causes them to run away to a place with fewer interlocutors. So I approached this fox and it ran off as expected. My friends admonished me for risking rabies and other hypothetical woes.

This observation isn’t to suggest that I am somehow brave or my friends were somehow cowardly. More to observe that proximity to nature breeds familiarity with nature, and distance from it breeds unfamiliarity. That anecdote sticks in my memory because there could not have been more different reactions.

I wonder if the COVID response can be traced to this. COVID is invisible and therefore scary, and home is safe. Therefore our leaders, who uniformly reside in cities just by nature of being our leaders, impulsively retreated and ordered all the populace to follow suit. Yes, it is prudent and safe, just like retreating from a wild fox rooting through trash. But that’s not to suggest the alternative is imprudent and unsafe. There’s a specific circumstance where COVID is deadly, and likewise a specific circumstance where happening upon a fox in the wild can lead to injury. Defending against those specific circumstances perhaps could have allowed less social disruption.

All of my predictions about COVID have been wrong, so who can say. All I know is when the book is officially closed on this chapter of our lives, the retrospective will be extremely interesting and informative.

AMDG

CLXII – Dispatches from the Field

-1-

I don’t want to write about politics anymore. This would be the next logical step in the evolution of this blog. Writing about politics is like trying to describe an optical illusion: I only see what I can see, I can’t see what you see. I can hold my views with conviction, but that doesn’t stop someone else from holding the opposite views with equal enthusiasm. Whatever will be will be. Politics is incidental to the human experience, and Truth can’t be voted on. So if I write about politics, it will be incidental to the Truth, which is my primary concern here.

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-2-

Absent politics, I should have something else to liven up my rotation. JMSmith’s recommendation nearly a year ago was (to paraphrase) that I should break up the content and avoid becoming a self consciously religious writer. I’ve avoiding writing anything overly personal because I don’t want to distract from the subject matter, and there’s no small consideration for security. I could also maintain my subject matter but alter my schedule, take some time to go in-depth. Every article I’ve written here has been off-the-cuff and with negligible (if any) research, because this is mostly a space for exploring ideas and arriving at truths. So I’ll have to think about how to invigorate my own writing and invigorate this space.

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-3-

History has always interested me, and an element of that shines through these pages. History is important to an understanding of Tradition, and so there is some synergy there. History does require an iota more of research to ensure History is retold correctly. I am mostly a collector of historical anecdotes, which are fun and informative but not necessarily useful to the mission. History rhymes with politics, though the two can be taken abstractly. Is this something I can integrate? The world wonders.

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-4-

Is what is missing a cogent mission? I started writing so that I could process what I was learning from the Orthosphere and Zippy. I’ve reached a comfortable level of understanding with them, and it has been very rewarding but leaves this space with a lot of fuel and nowhere to go. Perhaps I would be well served by having a mission or an objective beyond what I’ve got here. The temptation is to formalize and turn this into a business. That is not what I want, I neither desire nor need to monetize this space. I want what I write to be freely available, especially insofar as it pertains to Truth. Nothing I write can add value to the Truth, I only hope some people have seen a glimpse of it through my musings in this space.

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-5-

Please pardon what has been, so far, a meandering self-assessment of the Times Dispatch. I have a number of other matters outside this blog which occasionally draw my attention and energy away, and so my schedule falters. These things are to be expected. I really appreciate those of you who continue to read here. It means a lot to me that anyone would find something of value in my miscellaneous musings. God bless you all.

AMDG

CXXXIII – Day 91 of Exodus 90

Happy Easter, my friends. May the Resurrection fill you with hope and consolation. Alleluia, He is risen!

My Exodus journey has been an absolute failure. In a technical sense, at least. I got a lot out of this Lenten season and feel like it has changed me positively. But I failed to maintain Exodus for the duration. Actually, the last day I have bookmarked is Day 42, that was the last time I looked at the book.

So instead of a positive reflection on Exodus 90, this is going to be an After Action Report. What the heck happened. And i’m not going to talk about my Exodus 90 experience overall, I’m going to keep this limited to what happened, spiritually, with me. I have opinions on how it could have gone better, but at the same time, it went the way it went and I think there’s lessons to be learned here. Without further ado:

After Action Report

I began with a similar enthusiasm to the prior year, but I could tell something was different from early on. Enthusiasm doesn’t translate to motivation. I very much believe in the Exodus 90 model and my spiritual life was truly transformed the first year. But this time around–I couldn’t get into a rhythm. I felt alone. I felt like I was ingenuine. I was participating in a holiness spiral, a virtue signal. I was able to sustain myself long enough to write the 30 day entry and get a little beyond, but as is usually the case, the Desert killed me. I fell into despondency and despair. As I was trying to pull myself out of it, I realized: I could flagellate myself all I want, but if I don’t believe differently, my spiritual practice will not change.

Mark 9:23 I do believe, Lord; help my unbelief!

Pious practice means nothing without belief, and not one of us can be said to have the faith of a Mustard Seed which could move mountains. I do believe, Lord, but I can believe better: Help my unbelief!

This period of despondency lasted for a very long time. I went to confession but could not stir myself to take up this particular cross. Things began to turn around after a visit with my family. As I was driving back (a long drive, and thus good time for thinking and praying), a topic of particular focus and attention was my Vocation. This is an area that has given me a lot of heartache. Is the lack of clarity a divine chastisement? How will I know I’ve learned my lesson? Is my vocation something I’m unaware of? How will I know it if I see it? Did I take a wrong turn some years ago and now I’m permanently separated from my vocation?

These are the thoughts that swirled in my head while I was driving. But this idea came to me, which I have since verified as valid through a priest: God’s will for me is not fixed. It extends to what I am doing right now. God’s will is what is happening in my life today. It may change tomorrow. Tomorrow may look very much like today. Nevertheless, if I pursue my general vocation of Holiness, I will be living out what God intends for me today. My particular vocation can wait. When God calls me he will not be misheard.

This brought me peace, even though it came late in the Exodus 90 game. This understanding, paired with the earlier understanding that self-flagellation does not increase holiness in and of itself, I was able to content myself with not pursuing Exodus 90. Perhaps this part is a bridge too far, and I was selling lies to myself to rationalize laying down the pursuit. Maybe so: But I am at peace, I learned an important spiritual lesson, and I was able to recover consolation as a result.

With the Coronavirus imposed isolation from the Sacraments, I have been able to invest heavily in my prayer life, which is fundamental to all else: My relationship with God, properly ordered. I reached a point through this lent where I turned to God and said, “I have nothing. I can’t do this. Please help.” I remembered that I am a prodigal son. God will welcome me back, if I return to Him. But sometimes I have to learn (and re-learn) my lesson before I do.

AMDG

CXXX – Telling You What I Want To Hear

We’re going to be OK.

As a society, as a country, as a Church, as a civilization, as a species: We’re going to be OK. Everyone is bent to their megaphones trying to shriek as loudly as they can into the void. But first, and foremost, we’re going to be OK. Hear this and believe it.

Why should you believe it? Hospitals are closing! We’re on lockdown! Masses are cancelled! Stores are empty!

That’s fine. Maybe some of those things are partially true, maybe even wholly true. What else can we observe about our station?

First, that God has chosen us for these times. It’s true! You, reading this, and the rest of you, who aren’t: God has chosen you for these times.

“Well, who are you to speak for God? Why would God do this?”

I’m not one to speak for God. I can say that if God didn’t want you to be in these times you wouldn’t exist. That’s more an observation of the obvious than anything deep. Why has God chosen to do this? Who knows! As the prayer pinned to the top of my site right now says, it comes on by his wrath and leave by his mercy. May we remain ignorant of the cause of the wrath, may we pray heartily for his mercy.

Second, whatever will happen will happen. Think of your worst possible scenario. Eschaton? Better go to confession, and soon! Terror? Torture? Tyranny? Lets suppose any or all of those things are coming down the pipeline for us. It will happen. And then it will be over. God sent a rainbow after the Flood. This too shall pass! How great must the coming blessings be if the penance is so severe as this! We are powerless to control it, except to pray for God’s mercy. That is our only means of influence. May we pray for it early and often.

Third, do what brings you peace. Do as much as you can to stay healthy. Take sensible precautions. And live out your day responsibly. Are you doing everything you can? Are you practicing the virtue of prudence? Then there is nothing to worry about! You will be ok.

The worst thing about this is hearing everyone shouting from the rooftops how terrible it is, or how great were doing, or how superlative some other thing is. Now is not the time. We’re going to be ok.

Take care of yourselves. Go to confession. Be at peace.

Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam

-Scoot

CXVII – Day 30 of Exodus 90

This is my second go around the block for Exodus 90. In some ways, it’s easier than before. In others, it’s much harder.

Here’s a lay of the land: Last year, it was just myself and one other. This year, there are 6 of us, plus a spiritual director priest. Several wives-and-girlfriends are also doing an equivalent program (I believe the women’s version is called Fiat-90). Last year, when I started, I hadn’t been Catholic for a full year yet. This year, I’m a little more seasoned, spiritually. That is to say, I began last year without a weekly Mass habit; thanks to the intervention of a friend, that has been well resolved. Last year, I feared the confessional; this year I make frequent use of it.

So what has been easier have been the simple fundamentals of a spiritual life: My prayer life has matured somewhat, though I don’t pray as frequently as I ought and sometimes wonder if the substance of my prayer is what it should be. Therein lies the challenge: Whatever part of my spiritual life I improve, I learn more ways to grow. There is never a point of satisfaction, only constant striving.

I am keeping some of the other ascetic disciplines better. Cold showers have come easier this year, and I’ve been putting a lot of energy into eating better. But, as is ever the struggle, when Desolation comes around, it is very easy to be taken by despondency.

Despondency is a lazy resignation to despair. That poem, brought back to prominence by the movie Interstellar, pleads: “Don’t go gentle into that good night. Rage, Rage against the dying of the light.” This is the opposite of despondency. I could do with some improvement in the realm of how I handle it. I ought to refresh myself on St. Ignatius of Loyola’s 14 rules.

All this to say: I am very much in combat. There is always more to do.

God bless you all,

AMDG

CXV – On Seeing a Ghost

I graduated highschool nearly a decade ago. When I was in highschool, I did many of the things that highschoolers do, like socialize, chase after girls, and participate halfheartedly in recreational clubs. I didn’t do some of the things that many highschoolers do, like drink or smoke or go to parties. This last habit of mine meant I spent a lot of time with bookish types and misfits, and I was comfortable there.

The advent of Facebook during my educational years was a poor development. Facebook was deleterious to my health–or at least, the way I used it was. I spent a lot of time with my bookish types and misfits, and so my Facebook was initially populated by those. Then, as is the impulse, my circle there expanded to people I have spoken to at least once. It became a method of harvesting people who are loosely connected. This has the advantage of making one feel popular, and the disadvantage of making all ones actual friends (those bookish types and misfits) seem distant by association. My news feed swelled with other people doing fun things, like drinking, smoking, and going to parties.

I realized the problem at some point during this time. I read an article that talked about how it was impossible to have more than 150 meaningful relationships. I looked at my Facebook list of 300+ strangers and decided enough was enough. This is the time I became very sensitive and embarrassed about my past. When I was wasting time on the internet and using social media (which they would have us believe is called “socializing”), my favorite past time became taking content I had previously blasted into the aether and putting it down the memory hole. I began deleting past posts and removing Facebook connections. Over the next couple years, I got down to 150, then 50, then 28 connections. Then I deleted my Facebook.

I deleted it after using it in much the same unhealthy way through my undergraduate career. I contented myself after that point that I was in touch with everyone I cared to be in touch with, and this was true. I also believe it’s healthy: Facebook encourages both unrelenting connection to strangers and inordinate focus on the past, and neither of those I consider healthy personality traits.

My band of bookish types and misfits, I supposed, were in touch with everyone they cared to be in touch with as well, and we all contented ourselves with being in separate circles and not knowing what the other was up to.

These are all things that came back to me when I was eating brunch and playing cribbage with my friend after Mass in a quaint local coffee shop. I saw two of that number of bookish types and misfits from 10 years ago enjoying brunch together. I resolved to go say hello, and they just about fell out of their chairs. We caught up on what we are all doing these days, and I learned that many of that band of bookish types and misfits are living in and around my area. I explained why I probably seemed dead, and we exchanged contact information, and now it’s highly likely that, through them, I’ll reconnect with those bookish types and misfits whom I spent my time with as a younger man.

All this filled me with something like nostalgia. It made me very glad that time blurs details of my past self of whom I’m not particularly proud. It made me glad that I may be reconnecting with these folks after having become more settled in who I am and what I’m all about. Nostalgia means painful longing for home, that’s not quite what this is. Colloquially it’s “fond remembrance of times past”, and it’s not quite that either. It’s what I imagine it’s like to be looking down from Heaven, checking in on friends and relations from time to time to see what they’ve been up to; like returning to Earth as a friendly ghost to see what you’ve missed in the time you’ve been away.

AMDG