"You know what else there is to hate about Canada?"

".... most of the mustard in this country is exported from there!"

That sort of discourse is why dinner with my family is such an adventure.
No wonder Himself is on pins and needles all the time.

"Be Certain, Not Right"

OMGosh, it's like they were SPYING on my childhood!

(This has long been the family motto, if you can't be right, be wrong at the top of your lungs.

We, the Louds, are, as the skinniest Loud brother say, pronouncers of "TRUFAX," things that sound vaguely correct, but of which the speaker has no actual knowledge; or opinions and guesses expressed as if factual.)

The Evil Futurists' Guide to World Domination: How to be Successful, Famous, and Wrong

You want to be a futurist, but you're afraid of being wrong. Don't worry. Everyone has that concern at first. But here, I've brought together ideas drawn from a number of books and articles that will help you succeed without having to be right. All you have to do is follow the simple principles laid out below.

Be certain, not right. People love certainty. They crave it. In experiments, psychologists have shown that "[w]e tend to seek advice from experts who exhibit the most confidence – even when we know they haven’t been particularly accurate in the past." We just can't resist certainty.

Further, confidence and certainty aren't things you arrive at after logical deliberation and reasoning: as UCSF neurologist Robert Burton argues in his book On Being Certain, certainty is a feeling, an emotion, and it has a lot less to do with logic than we realize. So go ahead and feel certain; if other people mistake that for being right, that's their problem. But before too long, people who listen to you will become invested in believing that you're really an authority and know what you're talking about, and will defend your reputation to salvage their own beliefs.

So no matter what you do, no matter what you believe, be certain. As Tetlock put it, in this world "only the overconfident survive, and only the truly arrogant thrive."...

Claim to be an expert: it makes people's brains hurt....

No expertise, no problem...

Get prizes for being outrageous, (I really like that one)

One of my sisters, though well into her fourth decade, is still a Brain in search of her own Pinky...

Mother Theresa vs. Yoda

I'm with my brother, or, as a member of a mega-family I should say, I am with one of my brothers.
He likes to scold people who have not given him as definitive an answer as he has sought, in a voice and rhythm he learned from Star Wars, "Is no try; is only do or not do."

But Blessed Mother Theresa said, "God has not called me to be successful. He has called me to be faithful."

The title of the post looks like an episode of Celebrity Death Match, doesn't it?

So, always interested in "..... Superman or mighty Mouse?" type arguments, (Welcome to the Louds! Why have a discussion when you can have an argument?) I hereby voice my opinion:

Mother Theresa in a knock-out!

St. Bernardus Prior 8

My brother, loudly opinionated but always right one, has introduced me to a new beer, a Belgian beverage, compliments of the Trappists, I think: St. Bernardus Prior 8

Rich and dark and a little sweet, and as satisfying and comforting as a perfect bowl oatmeal.

Mmmmm....

Dear Donatus:

It's a bad world, Donatus, in which we live.
But right in the middle of it I have discovered a quiet and holy group of people.
They are people who have found a happiness that is a thousand times more joyful than all the pleasures of our sinful lives.
These people are despised and persecuted, but it doesn't matter to them.
They are called Christians.

A well-written reflection by Basilian Father, Thomas Rosica. How invaluable a resource is Zenit!

I remember attending Divine Liturgy at a Byzantine church on Epiphany once with my Mother, and how taken aback we both were by the Kings not being the gospel story. Oddly, I remembered Epiphany, before it's being shoved to the nearest Sunday, as having been a Holy Day of Mass obligation, but I am told I remember wrong. (Well, it was a Loud family holiday, so we made it obligatory...)

I am, in concert with my continual whinging about the liturgical calendar intrigued by these words of Fr Rosica's:
The feast of the Baptism of the Lord seemingly brings an end to the Christmas season, although, in reality, it is the feast of the Presentation of the Lord on Feb. 2 that marks the great conclusion of the Christmas season.

"In reality?"
What reality? I, since I have had my own domicile, have stubbornly and sometimes petulantly insisted on keeping the decorations and the festivities, (and the notion that it is a sort of "vacation" time,) going until February -- because that is what our family always did despite the trees and wreaths at our church being kicked to the curb immediately after Epiphany.

But I have always been told that, well, that's old fashioned, OFFICIALLY, we are out of the Christmas season.

But, are we? "Officially"? The Vatican leaves the creche up until the Feast of the Presenation, I believe I learned last year.
Hmmm....

This entire church-follows-the-mall's-timetable mindset of the modern American Christian burns my aspidistra. Fr Rosica says:

A great tragedy of Christmas is that for many, it is a religion of one night, however lovely and shining it may be. The Incarnation of Jesus is reduced to mere sentimentality, tradition or a cultural feast.

I think this emphasis on a (not very spiritual) build-up to an ephemeral moment is bad catechesis, contributes to the Liturgy-As-Entertainment aspect of many a Midnight Masses, encourages holiday depression, and produces as shallow and sentimental a view of what should be seen as great Holy Day as possible.

(Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it also causes athlete's foot...)

Why do so many parish organizations have their Christmas parties in Advent? And parochial schools their concerts? and priests and musicians make every liturgical celebration after December 25 feel like an after-thought?

Big mistake, BIG mistake...

Fr Phillip's blessing of the "House of God" was a real tonic last night.

(As was, not to change the subject or anything, not so much my confession, although it was wonderful, but Himself's transfigured countenance and elevated gait [I really think he left the earth's gravitational pull] after his confession. It has been a hard habit for the not-so-long-ago-protestant to get into. It's a hard lesson for us all, that is is a sacrament, it is about GRACE, not about, as the Ephemerists who discourage it would have it, "Catholic Guilt," or "Patronizing Clericalism.")

I want to be a man...

Okay, not really, although I certainly did when I was younger, I wanted to be a priest so badly.
Which of course is how I should have fulfilled a role requiring such labor -- BADLY. I am too lazy, (not to mention, not in possession of the requisite genetic equipment,) to have been a priest.

But now, who would NOT want to belong to an organization so yclept?


The Argument of the Month Club, it would be be a fitting name for my birth family, "the Louds," as we now call ourselves. Several of us have lovely samplers bedecking our walls, saying

Welcome to the........ (Why have a discussion when you can have an argument?)

Anyway, this group, the AOTM, is hosting the famous Fr Z.

When Himself and I were Nomads, we spent a certain amount of time in the city where this will take place. he wasn't catholic yet, but I had the devil of a time, (apt expression,) finding a well-celebrated, well sung, reverent Mass.
It was a problem all over the country.
If only I'd been a bit more savvy about the internet, and its capacity for helping one find like-minded co-religionists.

Ah, well, think of the funny(/sad) stories I wouldn't have in that case...

But back on topic, that would be an wonderful group to which to belong (and I like their "manly menu," as well, brats, beer-cheese dip, rosti with bacon... what can I say? my appetite for food has never been lady-like.)

Feelings, nothing more than feelings...

In looking for that pastoral letter from Bishop Morlino on liturgical music I came across a contentious and far ranging thread on the topic.
It is old enough that I felt no urge to refute some of the worst cant, misinformation nonsense and uninformed opinion expressed --- among the howlers is the commonly voiced notion that a church musician's preparation consists of so small a commitment of time and his skill is acquired so easily that he should no more be paid than the volunteer RE leaders who takes care of a class every week.
But that sort of failure to recognize what another's work consists of is common as dirt, - a five minute sermon takes five minutes to write, so what the hell does a priest do with all his free time; a SAHW, or M with kids in school must get to lie on the couch and watch Oprah all day eating Hot Pockets; you call that art? my five year old could do that; an actor earns a weeks salary for putting on a costume and make-up two hours a night; etc., etc. You know the drill, you know my attitude, hardly worth the trouble to contradict, (unless of course it is put forth by a pastor, finance committee, parish council member...)

But this error was what struck me:
If the music being played at Mass does not express what the people are feeling, then it's dead, dry and meaningless. It doesn't serve the purpose of what music is to be for.

There's your root mistake, buddy, there's where the whole system started to go wrong..
Liturgical music is not to express our feelings, not your feelings, not my feelings.
It is to express our Faith, and our Faith is not a "feeling," it is not an emotion.
Still less than it is to express them, is the purpose of liturgical music to generate or stir up emotions.
Appropriate liturgical music may do so incidentally, it may, particularly if it is GOOD music provoke a great range of emotion, but when it is ordered to that purpose it is likely, among other problems, to be very one-note in the emotional responses it seeks, and we are cursed with the Liturgy-As-Pep-Rally model that has damn near lost two generations of souls.
And for that one out of twenty moment when instead of Happy All the Time, the contemporary liturgy makes a concession to reality, and as a worshipping body we are instructed to portray "sad," the Pep Rally gives way to the Therapy Session.
That is why the contents of the GOH Hymnal* published by WnF is not just so ineffective to its proper purpose, but has proven so actively destructive to the practice of the Faith, and to the Church.
It has been said, in very simplistic terms, that the major difference between Classical music and Romantic music is that the latter tries to manufacture in its listeners that of which the former more diffidently calls them to recollection.
Which may be why the latter is often more accessibly "fun" the former is probably more likely to be suited to the Liturgy. But that is another topic.
Anyway, as the thread went on, (and on, and ON...) the proponent of expressing his feelings changed, you'll forgive the expression, his tune, and with it the parameters of the discussion.
Ah, music, as it was an "art," was therefore meant to express thoughts and feelings.
And the "feeling" it is most meant to express is "love" of God.
There's the second great error, and it has worked toward the destruction not just of the liturgy, but of society.
He, and perhaps most people think Love is an emotion, a feeling.
It's why the institution of marriage is in shambles, it's why the idea of commitment is alien to a large and growing segment of society.
If "love" is primarily a "feeling" - and feelings by their very nature are inconstant and unprincipled and uncontrollable - rather than an act of the will, if Romantic Love is the primary meaning of the word, then humanity has tried to anchor one of it's bedrock institutions, the Family, in quicksand.
I think sometimes that the greatest value in growing up in a larg--- in an ENORMOUS family is that one learns, not as outsiders guess, "to get along with all types," but that one needn't like someone to love him.
Job knew what Love was, he knew how to love God, even when he wasn't exactly moony about the Almighty.
When the bloom was off the rose, so to speak.
(The Office of Readings seems to have been designed especially for me, and where my thoughts are wandering at this moment in history, I sometimes think.)
(*THAT little snark, on t'other hand IS an expression of both my feelings AND my faith. WAF, only my feelings. My feelings. My feelings about feelings.... woa-woa-woah, feelings.)

Sober Inebriation

A blog, new to me, dense and rich as a good fruitcake.
(About which confection I will brook no petty insults or cruel japery, the subject seems risible to the foolish only because a good fruitcake is as rare as truffles -- but it is worth its weight in beluga, it is one of the pinnacles of the culinary arts, and since, as artists and their admirers know, it is in the great acts of creativity that we approach most closely the Divine, I would say that my Mother, the baker of a very fine fruitcake indeed, is that much nearer to...but I digress.)
Good thoughts and good culling of others thoughts...give it a read.

http://soberinebriation.blogspot.com/

(Given its title, it amuses me that what brought me to it was Belloc's poem in praise of wine-- well, after all, the good Lord did not provide milk for the wedding guests,did He? nor make running water the matter for the Blessed Sacrament? He chose wine as the accident of His most Precious Blood, thereby ennobling all wine, no?)

Look at me, look at me!!!!!!!!

H/T to the New Liturgical Movement http://thenewliturgicalmovement.blogspot.com/2008/02/ideas-and-their-import-for-liturgy-and.html for this article http://www.catholicculture.org/library/view.cfm?recnum=8000.

It speaks to the notion that rather than letting bad "Spirit of Vatican II" ideology bear all the blame for the far too common Ugly-As-Sin-Modern-Catholic-Church, we need look into the rancid (not his word,) concepts already running amuck in architectural circles.
Read the entire thing if it interests you, but two MINOR points struck me -- the first made me laugh, a reference to my personal bete noire, the fetishization of "eye contact."

A liturgical architect, engaged in the popular sport of convincing people they want what they don't want, said, "There was a very lengthy and difficult process as we worked through a Vatican II Diocese and a Pre-Vatican II Mission Church. The parishioners just wanted their church back and could not understand what inflecting the pews to insure eye contact had to do with being a good Catholic....It was a grueling process."
(Poor baby.)
I personally have no problem with eye contact, (I may be an introvert, but I am a loud-mouthed, confrontational introvert... you didn't know there were such people? well, now you do,) but I am sick and tired of the attempts to enforce it as an absolute and universal value. (I am not saying the architect in question did this, although notice he did not put it, "to insure eye contact WAS POSSIBLE.")
When I cantor a psalm that is addressed to God, (yes, some of them are,) why am I instructed to try to make eye contact with as many members of the congregation as possible?
When a priest says, "lifting His eyes to YOU, Almighty Father...." in addressing God the Father recounting what God the Son said to his disciples, , why does he, in mid-sentence, switch to pantomiming the Last Supper, casting the congregation as the disciples?
Why are some EMHCs trained to wait until the communicant, who may prefer to be looking at the Body of Christ, looks them in the eye before pronouncing "The Body of Christ..."?
This ideology spills over into Confession, of course.
And it does not allow for the fact that many can hear better, can concentrate on sounds best with our eyes closed.
There is no place for the Publican in most modern Church buildings. Oh, there's room, there's space, All Are Welcome -- but it is space guaranteed to make him uncomfortable, aggressively lit.
No shallow end to dip your toe in to test the water, as it were.
Modern churches try to turn us all, regardless of inclination into That Family That Always Sits In The Front Pew. (We, the Louds, were such a family... no cry room in those days!)

This is too long, I'll address the other notion that struck me in another post. (or maybe I won't.)

The Perils of Double Dipping

I should preface all this with the fact that I am an inconsistent and illogical germophobe.
(Though of course not in the same league as K., who as a child would refuse to eat off his own plate if someone else reached past him at the table, thereby causing even a small portion of his arm to invade K.'s plate's "air space." And in a great cosmic joke, HE married a woman who, without a second thought, would walk into someone else's kitchen, stick her finger in something cooking on the stove, lick it off and go for seconds. If that wasn't evidence right there that he was making a mistake, I don't know what is. And we've all been proved right, haven't we? ... but I digress.)
As a Catholic I have always ardently consumed the Precious Blood from the communal communion cup, though I am often loathe to shake hands, and not only from the pain it often causes me.
Though while the thought of a stray bacterium or two on the lip of the chalice held no terrors for me, (and let's face it, an EMHC making a swipe with a purificator or whatever it's called is in the same hygienic league as your friend blowing on a piece of candy you've dropped on the movie theater floor -- "convectiventilation," I think the technique is called,) I admit to have inwardly shuddered at seeing, and worse, hearing serious slurpers in front of me in line, attacking the spoon at an Eastern Rite church.
And when my best friend was dying from AIDS, although I myself seldom caught colds and was never debilitated or even laid up very long with various flus and bronchitises making the rounds, I was paranoid about picking up and passing on even a minor cold that could have been devastating to him.
I seem to be sick all the time now, but I am in contact with no one delicate, and since my main task is not vocal, (although laryngitis or a bad cold during what I think of as "high Ave Maria season" could be devastating economically, I suppose,) I don't give as much attention to the way the rest of the world conspires to give me germs as I used.
Himself is a different matter, and to my shame I admit I try not to but carp at him a bit, about washing hands, about not spilling the entire contents of a pill bottle into his hand and pouring the ones he doesn't want back, about not swishing a knife used to cut raw meat under some water and wiping it off on a hand towel and calling it clean, .... again I digress.
I was never a big Seinfeld watcher (if I want to spend a half hour with unpleasant but invasively funny people, I've got an enormous family, right?) but everyone is probably aware of how one episode gave a name to the pervasive and pernicious practice that has been on display at probably every party one has attended during the now winding-down holiday season, and will be out there in spades this coming "Super Bowl" weekend, (I asked, as we planned a meeting for this coming Sunday and someone opined that turn-out may be sparse because of the Bowl, "And that is...? some sort of sporting event?" I do it every year, but I think it is good for my friends to have something they can rely on about me.)
The NYTimes reports on an actual study of the possibility for germ transfer via "double dipping."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/dining/30curious.html?ref=style
[Researchers] instructed volunteers to take a bite of a wheat cracker and dip the cracker for three seconds into about a tablespoon of a test dip. They then repeated the process with new crackers, for a total of either three or six double dips per dip sample. The team then analyzed the remaining dip and counted the number of aerobic bacteria in it. They didn’t determine whether any of the bacteria were harmful, and didn’t count anaerobic bacteria, which are harder to culture, or viruses.
There were six test dips: sterile water with three different degrees of acidity, a commercial salsa, a cheese dip and chocolate syrup.
On average, the students found that three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from the eater’s mouth to the remaining dip.
Each cracker picked up between one and two grams of dip. That means that sporadic double dipping in a cup of dip would transfer at least 50 to 100 bacteria from one mouth to another with every bite.
The kind of dip made a difference in a couple of ways. The more acidic water samples had somewhat fewer bacteria, and the numbers of bacteria declined with time. But the acidic salsa picked up higher initial numbers of bacteria than the cheese or chocolate, because it was runny. The thicker the dip, the more stuck to the chip, and so the fewer bacteria were left behind in the bowl.
Professor Dawson said that Timmy was essentially correct. “The way I would put it is, before you have some dip at a party, look around and ask yourself, would I be willing to kiss everyone here? Because you don’t know who might be double dipping, and those who do are sharing their saliva with you.”
Guacamole, anyone?

The Detecting Singer

I look like a leper. (Bad time to be emulating the hopefuls at a casting call Dennis Potter mini-series.)
This is my first day all week without at least two rehearsals and/or services.
I'm exhausted, I'm losing my voice and I'm tired of explaining my medical condition to people when we need to be working on entrances. (I'm kind of liking the wrist bandages I've made from old sweat socks, and even after the eczema clears up, I may continue wearing them as a fashion statement... :oP )
I don't know how any of this is going to turn out.
Can't we change the date of Christmas this year??!?%?#?
I really was recharged by the visit to the lake.

Ah-ooooooooooooooo! werewolf of Milford...

Withdrawing

I'm in an odd place.
With certain family issues, the possibility of relocating earlier that Himself and I had envisioned has reared its head. We had already been divesting of possessions, (he, much more assiduously than I,) or at least considering and acknowledging the necessity, and discussing it.
Because of minor but necessary repairs whose needs had suddenly made themselves known we were taking bids on somewhat more major renovation, also something that would need to be done in advance of a sale to prepare for the move.
And now, for various reasons, I am finding the impetus to withdraw from entanglements and activities emotionally, which will make withdrawing from them in fact all more easy.
Should casting go as I expect, this will be a good show to go out on.
The summer music has been successful, (I suppose, on balance,) but deeply unsatisfying. The MM is unpleasant and inefficient to work with, unprepared, irresponsible and egocentric. He obviously finds our very existence a nuisance, does not really want to devote any time or effort to us and will not provide others with the tools they need to put the time and effort into it in a timely fashion.
I understand that he would prefer, perhaps even is used to a higher level of competence, but it is what it is. He knows it and knows that things need a longer lead time than might be convenient.
Last week, I sat out the number he had waited until the last minute to apprise me of the key changes and cuts of. Why should I make an ass of myself trying to transpose into G flat? His reply to my ( I thought perfectly bland, and certainly civil,) third request, received a reply telling me not to be "catty."
I was going to show the exchange to the producer, among others, but decided it was not worth the bother. It benefits no one to stir up trouble, and I don't need to justify myself.
I can truthfully say that I have not the the time nor the energy for further collaboration and will leave it at that.
I will not abandon the eponymous schola, but obviously I cannot work with them from fifteen hundred miles away, so this will be our swan song.
The church is a different matter.
I shall have to warn Father that I do not know the day nor the hour, but I am not sure I will be any sadder than they. Ms Peters, from the love of OCP to manner may be a better fit for them, anyway.
So I won't be leaving them comfortless...
And mirror, numbers, and Mike on the marble can all be forgotten.
All will make the transition easier.

The choir on the other hand....
That will not be easy.

The Louds

Well, the Loud family, (yes, Mrs. Smug's maiden name was Loud,) is playing to their "strengths." (Or rather, doing what is to be expected....)
TheBri used to call the Irish twins Mrs. Budinksi, and Mr. Weisenheimer, and indeed, their personalities were firmly established when they were so nick-named at the age of 4 (and 4.)
I'm thinking we may be aristocrats, with hyphenated moniker, ya know?

The "Budinski-Louds" perhaps?
Yeah, that seems about right....

The dynamics of dealing with the immediate health concern and the chronic one is so complicated, I'm just going to bow out of offering opinions.
Everyone now knows what the parameters are, and I think we'll come through the first happily, and muddle on with the other.Well, was that oblique enough?
Sorry.

But the final point is, anyone reading this, if you can find the time, offer a prayer for families?

Stanx...

Please pray...

My Mother has had a stroke, please, anyone who is reading this, offer up a prayer for Rose.

Update: all is well, (all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well...,) it was a very minor incident and some adjustments in medication are all that seems necessary.

I am reminded of a friend who asked for prayers on his blog, and then expressed dismay at the fact that while the counter showed that people had read the thread, no one had actually post their prayer intention.
Art the time, he acted hurt and I thought it rather odd, but now I think I know what he was feeling.

Mike

Interesting, looooong talk with the Biggest brother.
Not as much of a mess as usual, but even TheMom admits he is what he is.
But the ecclesiastical stuff, (where did I just read that word? "ecclesiANTICS"?) was enlightening.
He is brighter, and more informed than most.
And HE doesn't know.
No wonder John and Mary Q Pewsitter don't.
And that was when I realized that at cantor practice this e'en I needs must explain to them WHY I am adding invocations to (English language) settings of the Kyrie already in the repertory.
I was glad I had.
One, who I consider far and away the most liturgically astute of the bunch, didn't know that there was a three year lectionary cycle for Sundays.
What am I say? I didn't know there was only a two year for weekdays until three or four years ago...
Anyway, I am going to try to inform more people of more things.

By neglecting to do what I assumed would be patronizing, I have failed utterly.

I love my brother...

As you know, foolish catch-phrases are the life blood of the Loud Family (I was Miss Loud, before I became Mrs. Smug.)
Well, Brian Loud has specifically requested (this seems wrong to me, I think catch-phrases should spring up organically, like "You've made Fred sooo heppeh!", or "I apollayize...",) that I add one to my list.

So, fair warning -- from now on, if I am angry with you, I shall call you a "blasphemous spawn of a hair-ball!"

Just so you know...