Erin Manning: December 2008 Archives

As is our family tradition, we put up our Christmas tree this evening; we never do it before the weekend of Gaudete Sunday, and try to do it on that day or as soon as possible afterward. I once heard that a very orthodox Catholic priest gave as his strong opinion that Catholics shouldn't put up the tree, lights, or any other decorations until late afternoon or evening on Christmas Eve. When I heard this, I smiled, and thought that in the first place I was glad this was an opinion, not a law, and that in the second place only someone who lived in a house without children could think for a moment this was even physically possible to accomplish in the time between "late afternoon" and Midnight Mass (which probably begins at some hour other than midnight, these days) for most families.

We were all dragging a bit with our decorating until we noticed that with the seventy-degree plus temperatures here today the house was rather hot. It's insane to turn on the air conditioning for a bit to keep from overheating while decorating one's Christmas tree, isn't it? But it was either that or ransack the garage for all the girls' shorts and tee shirts which I foolishly packed away, believing that summer was finally over.

It will be tomorrow, though--forecast is for a high of 35.

Fortunately, Obama will solve global warming, and we won't have such temperature extremes anymore, right? He's got to get busy, too, according to this. If the survival of humanity really depended on how quickly consensus could be reached in Washington, though--well, let's just say I'm thinking a disaster film, with the working title "Death in Committee."

What I want to know is when the Democrats will commission a study showing the effect burning down Sarah Palin's church had on carbon emissions; in that way, if the perpetrators never end up being charged with a hate crime, we could see to it that they at least have to pay an environmental fine.

Meanwhile, in ugly political infighting it was learned today that the rumors that the Obama's eventual choice of dog breed might be influenced by unnamed Chicago politicians were sourced to Joe Biden's new German shepherd puppy, who is eager to seize "top dog" spot before the First Dog is chosen and arrives in town. The puppy had no comment, but a spokescat hinted at "training issues" and said the pooch would meet with a behavioral specialist.

And by all of the above facetiousness, I'm thinking you've already guessed that I'm signing out, and handing the wheel back over to the Crunchy Captain. As always, I've enjoyed blogging here tremendously--this is a unique place, and whether we agree or disagree there's always something interesting to think about when all is said and done.

That said, I'm done! See you back in the comboxes!

A man in Iran has been sentenced to be blinded as punishment for blinding a woman by throwing acid in her face:

Ameneh Bahrami refused to accept "blood money." She insisted instead that her attacker suffer a fate similar to her own "so people like him would realize they do not have the right to throw acid in girls' faces," she told the Tehran Provincial Court.

Her attacker, a 27-year-old man identified in court papers as Majid, admitted throwing acid in her face in November 2004, blinding and disfiguring her. He said he loved her and insisted she loved him as well.

He has until early this week to appeal the sentence. [...]

The three-judge panel ruled unanimously on November 26 that Majid should be blinded with acid and forced to pay compensation for the injuries to Bahrami's face, hands and body caused by the acid.

That was what she had demanded earlier in the trial. But she did not ask for his face to be disfigured, as hers was.

"Of course, only blind him and take his eyes, because I cannot behave the way he did and ask for acid to be thrown in his face," she said. "Because that would be [a] savage, barbaric act. Only take away his sight so that his eyes will become like mine. I am not saying this from a selfish motive. This is what society demands."

I obviously think that this punishment is wrong. The man should receive a lengthy jail sentence as well as being ordered to pay the woman's medical expenses; I'd support a civil lawsuit to recover damages as well. But coming at it from a question of Christian morality, which rejects vengeful punishment and preaches forgiveness, I don't think that it's a good idea to operate on the "eye for an eye" principle; in fact, I think it's evil to do so.

None of this means that I don't have great sympathy for the victim--it's just that my religious views don't permit this kind of punishment for crimes, which are excessively cruel and which speak more to a desire for vengeance than for mere punishment. And that's one of the reasons I reject the death penalty, too--far too often any legitimate concern about protecting society isn't even in the equation, and motives of vengeance and the desire for the criminal to suffer the pains he inflicted on his victim or victims is very present in the community which is responsible for handing down the sentence.

(Challenge below the fold:)

Evangelical churches may be seeing their populations growing in bad times, but one population may be shrinking: the population of Mexican nationals living in the United States, both those here legally and those here illegally:

Layoffs, dwindling job opportunities, anti-immigrant sentiment and the crackdown on illegal immigrants are forcing hard choices on many Mexican nationals in Colorado. Though not an exodus, some are returning to a nation they haven't seen in years.

"You despair. You think, 'I used to earn $600 a week and now I'm getting half of that a week?"' said Ramirez, 38, who lost his Denver construction job in August. He left last week, driving to San Luis Potosi in central Mexico.

Mexico's consul general in Denver, Eduardo Arnal, said more people like Ramirez are going home for good.

He cites a rise in applications for import tax exemptions by Mexican nationals bringing home their belongings. The consulate hasn't compiled statistics for 2008 but says it receives about three applications a day, compared to one per week in 2007. [...]

Nationally, remittances to Mexico are down, as is Mexican emigration to the U.S.

August remittances totaled $1.9 billion, down 12 percent from August 2007, Mexico's Central Bank says. It's the first drop since the bank began tracking remittances in 1996. [...]

Espinoza said the recession's onset took him by surprise. He'll be seeing his country for the first time in nearly two decades.

"I miss my country," said Espinoza, 34, who is returning to Guadalajara, Jalisco.

Vicenta Rodriguez Lopez lives in Severance, about 60 miles north of Denver. She's leaving for the Mexican state of Sinaloa after 15 years because her husband, who worked at a ranch dairy, was deported for being here illegally.

"He told me to pack up everything," Rodriguez, 40, said in Spanish. "We're not young anymore."

But some immigrants are making a different choice:

I'm so glad the Drehers have made it back safely--there's no misery quite like being sick while on vacation. Rod has graciously invited me to continue posting today, and as there are one or two little things of interest out there, I'm happy to do so.

An interesting article in today's NYT takes a look at how the economic decline impacts evangelical churches, which are thriving amidst all the bad news:

Like evangelical churches around the country, the three churches have enjoyed steady growth over the last decade. But since September, pastors nationwide say they have seen such a burst of new interest that they find themselves contending with powerful conflicting emotions -- deep empathy and quiet excitement -- as they re-encounter an old piece of religious lore:

Bad times are good for evangelical churches.

"It's a wonderful time, a great evangelistic opportunity for us," said the Rev. A. R. Bernard, founder and senior pastor of the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, New York's largest evangelical congregation, where regulars are arriving earlier to get a seat. "When people are shaken to the core, it can open doors." [...]

Many ministers have for the moment jettisoned standard sermons on marriage and the Beatitudes to preach instead about the theological meaning of the downturn.

The Jehovah's Witnesses, who moved much of their door-to-door evangelizing to the night shift 10 years ago because so few people were home during the day, returned to daylight witnessing this year. "People are out of work, and they are answering the door," said a spokesman, J. R. Brown. [...]

Part of the evangelicals' new excitement is rooted in a communal belief that the big Christian revivals of the 19th century, known as the second and third Great Awakenings, were touched off by economic panics. Historians of religion do not buy it, but the notion "has always lived in the lore of evangelism," said Tony Carnes, a sociologist who studies religion.

A study last year may lend some credence to the legend. In "Praying for Recession: The Business Cycle and Protestant Religiosity in the United States," David Beckworth, an assistant professor of economics at Texas State University, looked at long-established trend lines showing the growth of evangelical congregations and the decline of mainline churches and found a more telling detail: During each recession cycle between 1968 and 2004, the rate of growth in evangelical churches jumped by 50 percent. By comparison, mainline Protestant churches continued their decline during recessions, though a bit more slowly.

The sense of historic moment is underscored especially for evangelicals in New York who celebrated the 150th anniversary last year of the Fulton Street Prayer Revival, one of the major religious resurgences in America. Also known as the Businessmen's Revival, it started during the Panic of 1857 with a noon prayer meeting among traders and financiers in Manhattan's financial district.

Over the next few years, it led to tens of thousands of conversions in the United States, and inspired the volunteerism movement behind the founding of the Salvation Army, said the Rev. McKenzie Pier, president of the New York City Leadership Center, an evangelical pastors' group that marked the anniversary with a three-day conference at the Hilton New York. "The conditions of the Businessmen's Revival bear great similarities to what's going on today," he said. "People are losing a lot of money."

But why the evangelical churches seem to thrive especially in hard times is a Rorschach test of perspective.

For some evangelicals, the answer is obvious. "We have the greatest product on earth," said the Rev. Steve Tomlinson, senior pastor of the Shelter Rock Church.

Hmmm. I'm not entirely sure that salvation ought to be described as a product.

It's not that I disagree with the observation that bad times creates an opportunity, of sorts, for religion; I recall my Catholic parish being packed to the rafters in the weeks immediately following 9/11. It looked like Christmas or Easter for several Sundays in a row.

(More:)

Today is Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent. At Mass today the readings all speak of joy and rejoicing; we are called upon to remember that Christ is coming, and soon--not just long ago at Bethlehem, but at His glorious Second Coming, when the heavens and earth will pass away, and this vale of tears will be no more.

It is easy sometimes for believing Christians to look at the signs in the world, and to think that the end times will happen in our own day, before the natural ending of our own lives. Every generation of Christians since the resurrection of our Lord has pondered the possibility, as humanity has endured wars, and times of famine, and frightening natural disasters, sorrow and misery and pain, and the worst of it inflicted by the members of our own human race upon each other. The cry "How long, O Lord!" has gone up from many a heart, and the temptation to wish that the world might end while we are here to see it happen stirs at the news of every latest calamity, as we wonder how much worse things might possibly get, or if hearts hardened by so many external factors, so much division and distraction and dysfunction, will ever melt again under the glow of the all-pervading Love that is God.

But we are told that we don't know the day or the hour. We are told to pray, to work, to care, to give, to love, to forgive, to suffer and accept suffering with Christian resignation. We are told to hold on to hope, to remain steadfast in faith, to turn from sin and reform our lives, not just once, but daily, as we take up our various crosses and carry them with us with steps that falter because we don't know the length of the journey, and can't see its ending.

And in the midst of all of that, we are given a command: Rejoice!

Rejoice, because the Lord is near--not just at the end of time, nor at the end of our lives, but here, right now, with us. Rejoice, because His transforming love is at work in our hearts, making us new creations, every hour that we welcome Him, every moment that we turn to Him. Rejoice, because He has given us everything we need for the journey: our daily bread, our families, our good companions, holy men and women who have gone before us to show us the way, and above all of these things, His very Presence, Body, Blood, Soul, Divinity, in the Eucharist from which flows all of the graces we need to be nourished and strengthened for the weary road that lies ahead.

Restored, refreshed, we turn again toward our destination; we venture forth together toward the end of the world of this life, and the beginning of the great adventure of the next. We mourn those whom we love who manage to get there ahead of us, but even amidst our tears we hear the whisper, "Rejoice!" For we know they aren't gone forever, and that with God's great love and mercy we may yet see them again, when we, too, have come to the end.

No, we don't know when the world will end; it may even be in our own lifetimes, but it may be that God hasn't quite finished His plan for the earth and humanity as of yet. But our lives on this earth are fleeting, and though the exact hour when we will see God face to face is shrouded in mystery we know it will not really be all that long; the human lifespan is not measured in ages, but only in years, and seldom in even a single century.

So we are heading inevitably toward that journey that ends, or seems to end, in the grave. And yet--rejoice! Rejoice, for the One Whose birth we celebrate soon has conquered death. He came to save us from our sins; and because of Jesus' birth and death and resurrection the grave is no longer the end: it is the beginning.