Joseph, Son of David

Today we celebrate the feast of one of the Church's great saints and one of my personal favorites (as readers of this blog may recall): St. Joseph. Significant though he be, St. Joseph is one of the most enigmatic characters in Scripture. He is mentioned only a handful of times and speaks no lines. He was probably a humble man, a simple carpenter. He may have been one of the leading businessmen of the village of Nazareth, but Scripture gives no indication of this; more likely, he worked construction at the Roman resort complex at Decapolis, a short distance from Nazareth, which, we know from historical and archaeological sources, was a massive building project at the time. He probably carried his lunch pail to the building site each day, working alongside other Jewish laborers, piecing together instructions from his Roman superiors in broken Greek. But this is all speculation, and not based on biblical data.

But today's Gospel reading does provide us with one fascinating bit of information: the angel of the Lord addresses him as "Joseph, son of David." Here is this lowly man, about whom we know almost nothing, who speaks not a word in Scripture, but the Lord's messenger addresses him as one in the line of kings. If at first this seems incongruous, on closer examination we see just how fitting it is. In each generation a king teaches his son, the prince, what it means to be king; when he dies, the prince ascends the throne and in turn teaches his son to be king. But in the case of Joseph and his boy, the child is no mere prince, no merely human heir. Rather, this boy is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Who, then, is worthy to raise Him to manhood? Who can teach Him to be a king? Is Joseph, the carpenter, the one? Surely not, man would say. Indeed, he is, God answers. He is a son of David, not simply by blood, but in the fullest sense.

David was many things: a warrior, a poet, a king. Also an adulterer and murderer, a man with too much blood on his hands to build the temple. But apart from his successes and in spite of his failings, David was most importantly a man after God's own heart. So when the angel addresses today's saint as "Joseph, son of David," we should hear, "Joseph, after the Lord's own heart." Is it any wonder the Lord should choose such a man to be the foster father of His Son?

St. Joseph, patron of husbands, patron of fathers, carpenter of Nazareth, son of David, man after God's own heart: Pray for Us!

St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's day to all of you!

As I did last year, I'd like to show a few videos about Irish music. The first video comes from a 1972 documentary about Donegal fiddler John Doherty. Doherty was the last in a family who made their living by traveling from village to village in southwestern Donegal working as tinsmiths, but who were also accomplished storytellers and fiddlers. When he reached middle age, Doherty was discovered by various folklorists, such as Peter Kennedy and Allen Feldman. Due to this exposure, and a few commercial recordings, Doherty exerted a great influence on a new generation of Donegal fiddlers, such as Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh of Altan.

What I like most about this documentary is that it gives a glimpse, albeit a somewhat sentimental glimpse, into what Irish music and Irish peasant life was like not that long ago (something I tried to do, here and here).



The rest of the documentary can be found here.

For anyone curious in how the Irish language sounds, this next video is for you. It features singer Treasa Ni Mhiollain from the Aran Islands. I must warn you, though, that this style of singing is probably not what you usually associate with Irish music. This is an example of sean-nós singing, and will probably sound quite foreign to most ears.



And, if you have had enough learning for today and all you want is some good tunes, here are two jigs from one of my favorite young Irish bands, Teada.

Les Six éléments

The other day, while reading up on surrealism (as part of a quick study of Interwar culture), I happened upon this painting, Les Six éléments (The Six Elements), by Belgian surrealist René Magritte.

The work immediately reminded me of Martin Heidegger's "fourfold": earth, sky, divinities and mortals (see Building Dwelling Thinking). Magritte's work struck me as a sort of amalgamation of the ancient Greeks' four elements - usually earth, air, water and fire - with something like Heidegger's list. In the upper left is clearly fire, in the upper middle women (or perhaps humanity generally) and in the upper right earth (or vegetation). On the lower left we have a building (society?), in the lower center air, and on the lower right some thing I cannot identify, which looks like it might also be vegetative. This seems like an interesting list, though three problems came to mind:

(1) Where are the divinities?
(2) Is (wo)man's sexuality or primordial nature being distinguished from the human society represented by a modern building?
(3) Why two kinds of plants? Or just what is that in the lower right?

A quick search of the internet revealed no answers, only this odd little poem:

As of this
writing, there

are 137 Magritte
items available

on eBay. They are
mundanely pre-

sented—none of
the six elements

that Aristotle con-
sidered essential

for drama are
in the frame.

Imagining Communities

Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities is a very popular text in academia these days. The quick and dirty of his argument is this: nationalism does not exist in nature, but is something we create.

There are problems with this argument, of course, not least of which is language. Language carries culture - hence the reason I grew up reading stories of King Arthur instead of Roland or Siegfried, in spite of being of German ancestry and living nowhere near England. Nevertheless, Anderson's argument has certain strengths. We can, in fact, observe the historical process of certain people and institutions deciding that these stories or that composer or this social custom belongs to a "nation", whereas a decade before people might not have believed that. The Brothers Grimm are an excellent example of this process of collecting, selecting and disseminating cultural norms. (Yes, the same even happens with language, where certain constructions or terms take on a connotation of being more "American" or "German" or what have you.)

Historically, nationalism has a bad name. These imagined communities have often committed horrible crimes in the name of their superior "race" or "civilization". While the Nazis are perhaps the most glaring example of this phenomenon, they are by no means the only one. Thus, it comes as little surprise that there is a kind of condescension in the use of Anderson's term, "imagined communities" as if to say, "You invented this category of 'nation' and now you ascribe messianic qualities to it, committing great crimes in its name. How idolatrous!"

But why, I wonder, must it be that way? Could imagining a community be a good thing? There would have to be a certain honesty about it, of course. The imaginer must admit that this is indeed a creation and not something natural. Nevertheless, it might be done in such a way as to conform to Nature, as best we understand it. And just because we have imagined it need not mean it is evil, or ought not be made actual.

Imagining a community was, I suppose, what I was trying to do when attempting to flesh out a canon. Add to such a canon of literature some major composers, a few holidays, and you've got yourself a community (if not necessarily a nation). As with the literature, such traditions need not be invented; there are plenty of existing traditions to coopt.

If this all sounds a little too grand, let me point out that this project is - or ought to be - something all people interested in culture are seeking to do, though the terms above are rarely used. Those working in cultural fields seek to form good Americans or good Catholics or nuanced thinkers or sensitive human beings or responsible citizens. Moreover, there is almost always a communal dimension to this work, bringing such people into dialogue with one another. That is, in a sense, the task of this blog.


PS: I realize that one important aspect of nationalism has been ignored here, the tendency to define "us" over and against "them". This tendency has been at the heart of many of nationalism's moral failures. If we are to rehabilitate the notion of imagined communities, this is definitely something we should work to avoid. However, while excluding certain people on the basis of race or place of birth or the like is absurd, I think we might rightly place ourselves in opposition to certain ideas: we are not wicked, we are not unjust, we are not self-serving, we are not short-sighted, etc. As the theologians know well, sometimes it is easier to define what a thing is not than to define what a thing is.

Incongruous Music

Have you ever heard a song where the lyrics and music just do not match? (I know I have had this conversation with some of you.)

The song that first made me aware of this phenomenon is the Decemberists' Crane Wife 3 (which you can watch live here, or see with someone's cheesy slideshow here). The tune is really catchy stuff, and I have heard a Quincy living room full of young folks belt the chorus together. But the lyrics are actually quite depressing, a retelling of a Japanese folk tale (also developed in Crane Wife 1 & 2). As the narrator tells the story he confesses his guilt. That chorus, so exuberantly sung: "I will hang my head low."

Attentive readers, I have two questions for you: (1) Can you share other examples of this phenomenon? I know there are plenty more out there. (2) What explains this odd situation? Are the Colin Meloys of the world just sloppy? Is there some larger purpose at work here? Or is he (and those like him) just trying to be provocative?

Who Put Hitler in Power?

I am currently in the midst of the Dark Night of the Comps. My exams will be at the end of May, so my life between now and then feels like the finals week that does not end. But it's not as bad as all that...

In reading up on the Sonderweg debate and German history more generally, I was reminded of a couple maps which were posted to the comments section of a post last July. In light of my current studies, I think they are worth posting front and center.

On this first map you can see which regions of Germany voted for the National Socialist German Worker's Party (NSDAP or Nazi).

Put broadly, the northeastern portions of the country voted Hitler into office, with some support from the central areas. The regions of the country which most opposed the Nazis were in the south and west.

Now notice the distribution of Protestants and Catholics in German:

(Yes, the maps are from slightly different periods, the election returns from 1933, the religious map before 1918. But they're close enough.) The juxtaposition is startling. Which regions of Germany were most solidly Protestant? The northeast. And where were the highest concentrations of Catholics? In the south and west. Put baldly: Protestants voted Hitler into office.

This is not to say, of course, that all Protestants supported Hitler. Far from it. Some, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer were heroic in their resistance. Nor did all Catholics oppose the Nazis. But the electoral data is quite striking (and begins to push back some of the Hitler's Pope nonsense about the Church being in bed with the National Socialists).

Life in the Spirit: Addendum

Since writing three earlier posts, a whole host of unaddressed issues have come to mind or been brought to my attention. One of them is this:

Many Catholics (or other Christians), while acknowledging the authenticity of charismatic prayer, will argue that it is simply not for them. Some such people may be out of touch with their emotions, afraid to be the person God has made them to be, afraid of what others may think. But others are simply quiet, interior, introverted people, whose faith does not manifest itself it loud cries of praise. Is charismatic prayer not for them?

Here we must be intellectually rigorous. If the Holy Spirit acts through our whole person - intellect, emotions, passions, imagination - then we must accept the manifestations of those actions (within the bounds of orthodoxy, of course). So if one person is moved in an emotive way to shout the Lord's praises, so long as it be in the right context [cf. Paul], this is not to be discouraged. But, likewise, if another person has a very active, though interior imagination, we ought not discourage their spiritual odyssey within the quiet of their heart. Indeed, it was in the quiet that Elijah encountered God.

I think some charismatics, particularly those who are zealous and well-meaning but immature in their faith, sometimes miss this second possibility. Three quarters of the human population is extroverted, so for them the Spirit may indeed manifest Himself in song and laughter and tears and thunderous words of exhortation. But for those of another disposition, such worship might be inauthentic. We must not forget that the life of quiet contemplation can be intensely charismatic as well.

Let me suggest an analogy which may help clarify the point. (Or may not; you tell me.) The Franciscans have a charism of poverty, about which we can make an important distinction. On the one hand, this is a universal charism, something for all members of the Church. On the other hand, this is a particular charism for the Franciscans and those like them who are called to lives of austere poverty. For most of us, such radicalism is not compatible with our vocation - I am thinking here especially of parents - but we are nevertheless called to lead lives of simplicity and detachment, something the Franciscan adherence to more radical poverty helps reveal to us. But for those who are called to such a life, radical poverty is not simply a sign to others but also the means of their own sanctification. Perhaps a similar distinction can be made between the concept of charismatic prayer - an authentic and vibrant openness to the workings of the Holy Spirit in our lives, to which all Christians are called - and a particular kind of worship which generally goes under the name "charismatic" and is characterized by a highly-charged, extroverted and public expression of the Spirit at work in the lives of the faithful.