I Have Been... (Pt. 2)

This middle part is brief, and probably not as interesting as the first and last parts, but here is part two of my update (continued from Monday):

I have been...

Watching

I don't watch much TV.  Or at any rate, I don't watch much TV that feels like separate shows.  We frequently watch How It's Made, Restaurant Impossible (but not as frequently since it's all about the drama), Chopped (a great show), Phineas and Ferb (great children's programming!!)  But there's nothing that I have to see.  In fact, shows that require a commitment on my part (like Downton Abbey) simply don't work for me.  Especially dramas.  If I want a continuous plot, I'll take a book.  They wait for me.

Looking

At a computer screen.  10 hours a day.

Feeling

Caught between two worlds--university staff who used to be university faculty.  Full-time worker who would rather be home more with her kiddos.  Trainer who would rather be a teacher.

Conflicted about remaining in my current job vs. re-entering that abyss of misery, false-hope, and despair that is the academic job market, especially since I feel out-of-step with my discipline.  I don't think I share many values, visions, or ideals with academia--or at least, not the upper echelons.  But maybe what we do share is what's important...  Inquiry.  Desire to contribute to knowledge.

Also feeling like seeing myself as a seamless whole made of many different roles, threads, interests, and creative impulses is fine, but to base a blog on that concept is not possible because blogs need to have more focus, at least in my opinion.  There at least needs to be one aspect of identity ("Catholic," "Mother," "Academic," or "Catholic Mom") that shapes the other parts.  And I think that's why "Words, Words" has given over to other blog concepts.

Survey of Academic Blogger Moms

For all of you who have not yet seen or received this, I wanted to post a link to a study that is being conducted by a graduate student in Social Psychology at the University of Connecticut who is conducting a study examining the role of blogging in the lives of Academic mothers. From the email:

Your participation would involve the completion of an anonymous online survey. The survey contains a mixture of multiple-choice and open-response questions, and should take less than an hour to complete. The survey does not have to be completed in one session. You may stop at any time and return later to complete it.

If you know other women who might be interested in participating, please feel free to forward this message to them. Also, feel free to post the link to the survey in your blog.

There are several of you who immediately come to mind as valuable participants in this survey, and I was thinking about forwarding the email, but I thought this might be more efficient. I might still send an email to those who visit less often, so if you see this and plan to participate, could you leave a comment so I won't bug you again? Thanks. Now back to my crying child. . .

Caution: This thing requires a HUGE time commitment! (Though you can save & go back.)

Some Words about Not Allowing Comments

I like comments. Waaaay too much sometimes. I will sit on the edge of my seat sometimes and wait for comments to come in. Well, not really, but it feels that way. Especially when the comments don't come. I watch and wait for a day or two, then I gradually forget that I've written anything at all. With more controversial posts, it is a bit different. It's not the excitement of having someone contribute to a discussion, it's a morbid fascination--the proverbial train wreck. With anxiety, anticipation, and dread, I wait for the lashes. I do the same when I follow heated comments on others' blogs. I can't help myself. This leads to my not posting on certain topics sometimes, until the bottled-up thoughts come bursting forth. And then, the waiting, and the contradicting, and the endless explaining. And that takes up a lot of time that I should be using for other things. Like class prep. Or the job search. Or sewing. Or cooking. Cleaning. Taking care of my kiddos. (Not necessarily in that order. Sewing is first.) This might look like an attempt to avoid a fight. Well it is, but not the way you think. Had I an endless amount of time, and if I really enjoyed that semi-agitated state, I would engage cheerfully in the debate (well, maybe not cheerfully--that's part of the problem). But I don't. And so I was mulling this over, and I thought about something:

All of this commenting really underscores the differences between print and electronic practices of literacy. Some of the age-old accepted properties of written language have been its relative permanence, its separation from the human life-world, its separation from its creator and consequent inability to answer questions that are posed to the text with anything other than the words that were originally set down (with the possible exception of updated editions, but once updated, they are still silent and static). With online communication, much of this changes. Online communication is certainly not permanent. Content is ever-changing, sometimes according to the will of its author(s), sometimes not. I would suggest that in some ways it is still detached from the human life-world, which is one of the problems or dangers of online communication as well as one of its liberating qualities. When discourse is not taking place in real time with real people, one can disregard all of the usual constraints on the content of our discourses, but we also have the freedom to disregard all of the conventions of civility. People are not people online; we have the ability to treat them--individually or collectively--with contempt, disregard, and intolerance. But the most significant difference is that the author is not necessarily separate from the product of his/her literacy. When we imagine someone reading a book, we hardly expect the writer to be standing next to us, answering our questions and objections, tit-for-tat. And that's as it should be. Because if the author knows that anyone who has questions about his/her work will have only the work itself to consult for the answers, s/he has to be more careful about what s/he writes in the beginning. Unlike speech--when we speak, we usually don't have everything perfectly prepared, logically considered. There's a lot of "off the cuff" discourse in face-to-face interaction. Not so in written discourse. But that is changing. . .

When we visit blogs, we generally know that nothing but a computer screen and a semblance of anonymity separates us from the author--or the reader. The semblance of anonymity protects or exposes us, depending--protects us from being exposed personally for our thoughts or beliefs, protects us from being linked with our words; exposes us to the thoughts of others, for better or worse. The proximity allows access. As an author, I know I can be questioned. That I may be called on to explain myself, argue my position, hash out my beliefs. This can be a good thing. As a reader, I know that I can challenge a position, ask questions for clarity, make my alternate theory heard and demand recognition for my alternate theory. I am also free to support, reinforce, or acknowledge others' ideas. Or not. This can make me (or my counterparts) hesitant, aggressive, timid, bold, or. . . lazy. Discourse that can be questioned, after all, and from which we can expect a new answer, does not have to take itself quite as seriously, to be as complete, as refined, as polished. On the other hand, it can be more natural, more accessible (in multiple ways), more tentative, and more mutable--both in terms of its appearance and in terms of the ideas that are expressed, which might stand to change from contact with others.

So, you might ask, did I turn off comments in order to produce more refined, more complete, more polished discourse? Nope. But it made me think a lot about literacy in an online environment, and I decided to share.

What to Blog?

Okay, I'm having a blogging lapse. The world isn't presenting itself in bloggable chunks. And I've started worrying about my audience and my blogging persona. I feel like the persona I present is so fragmented that I just don't seem like one person, and I'm not sure that the part of me I'm representing at any given time is really worth representing. I mean, why am I so darned grumpy all of the time? It's not hormones any more. Those are feeling better than they have in years. When I have any "IDEAS," they are fleeting and usually occur in the car or bathtub and by the time I'm by the computer they just don't seem worth the effort to write down. I could blog about the job search, but who really cares about those anxieties? I don't even care much about them. They just surface and are replaced by more immediate concerns. And when I try to write critical observations about how I fit (or don't) in my discipline, I get in trouble for it, and really, tongue-in-cheek and hyperbole don't play well in blogs, and I really like tongue-in-cheek and hyperbole. I've got a family blog where I could write about family stuff, only I don't because it takes a huge time commitment to upload photos. I have a book blog where I'm supposed to be writing about things I'm reading, only I'm not reading much. I've missed the last two Saturdays of research in the sci fi archives because of toddler illness and a graduation celebration, and all of the Saturdays' worth of research I haven't blogged about is stale and it's hard to muster up the energy to blog about them. Classes have ended for now, so that's out. Spiritual stuff occurs to me sometimes, but I'm in such a serious dry spell that it's difficult to get really excited about anything theological right now. I feel like such a bad Catholic. A LOSER Convert. So when I think, "Oh, I'll post about the homily," I just feel like a phony. More often, however, I think about posting things about our new associate pastor, who seems to have some mental block against all things Trinitarian. 'Cause if there's anything to be said or done in threes, he messes it up. Case in point: "Through Him, With Him." The next Mass?: "Through Him, In Him." Also, "Christ have Mercy. Lord Have Mercy." Looooooooong pause. About the time he remembers that something is missing, the choir starts in. Nice guy, but with serious stage fright, it seems. Is that really something I should be blogging about? Probably not. I could blog about NFP, but I don't wanna. There's some family stuff going on--extended family stuff that's really uncomfortable & messy to deal with, but why would I want to subject everyone else to that? I'm uncomfortable as it is about giving everyone the impression that I'm, well, as crotchety as I probably am. So I remain quiet. Or post about what not to post.

New Post, Other Blog

At Booknotes from Literacy-chic: I've actually posted something!! Amazing! I'm also trying this out to see if the trackback feature really works. . .

Catholic Carnival 172

The Catholic Carnival is a collection of posts from various Catholic bloggers arranged by a host blogger. You probably know this, but it took me a while to figure it out, so I thought I'd give a definition! Sarah introduced me to the concept, and because she so often solicits submissions and gets excited about the results! So I submitted my mommy-reflections from a while back. And it was a super-colossal Catholic Carnival this week, hosted by the Organ-ic Chemist, with 26 submissions! (Mine is down near the bottom. . . Apparently, I was the third person to submit! Go figure. . .) Here is what the Organ-ic Chemist has to say:

Naturally, there was a wide variety of different topics, but there were some definite themes: Pentecost, Mother's Day, First Communion, Confirmation, book and movie reviews ... you name it, it's in there.

It's been a busy season liturgically speaking, with holidays sprinkled about, too! So go, read, enjoy! :)

New "About Me"

Thought I'd share my new self-description. The old one was getting stale...

Read it "Literacy chick" or "Literacy chic": I am a newly-minted-Ph.D.-packin' Orthodox Catholic Momma who reads sometimes, writes a lot, and thinks too much! My literary scholarship focuses on literacy: Does literacy affect consciousness? More importantly, do writers think that literacy affects consciousness? I love my husband and proudly wear his name (off-blog); I do my best to live the Catholic faith into which I was Baptized & Confirmed in October 2004. I am a Catholic academic, seeking what that means in my life. I believe that where there is life there is hope, and uphold Life on those grounds (and others). I think academics can afford to share many values with SAHMs, and I keep my children around whenever possible. I hold and express unapologetically many opinions of varying popularity, but what's a blog for, after all?

Sounds accurate, right? ;)

So THERE!

I've taken the post down. So all of you perverts who find my blog by doing Google searches for "sexy breastfeeding breasts," etc., can just go the heck away!!! I'm sure my number of hits will be cut in half now. But until then, shame on you!!!

Status Update with Random Thoughts

Things have been going well lately, but though I've wanted to sit down & blog (or at least answer comments from previous posts!) I can't seem to manage a whole post. I've got some partial ones saved, but that doesn't count. In fact, a bulleted list of random thoughts about things that have happened lately is more my speed right now, so here goes. . .

• A thought to add to Sarah's 40 reasons to have kids: Holidays are more fun when you have young children whose innocent delight reminds you of how to enjoy the trappings of the holiday!
• I have finally had success with a baby carrier! A pouch sling that I made from the directions on this web site. So now I want to make more for myself!!
• Things have been going much more smoothly with the toddler. She seems better able to understand what we want, and we are more able to communicate to her. Perhaps a breakthrough? (She's so sweet, I hate to sound as if she's trouble, and I hate to see her cry in anger, hurt, or frustration.) :(
• Newborn screenings are a pain. My baby has tested positive at the 2 week screening for a rare enzyme deficiency that only occurs in 1/60,000 infants. Yeah. She tested positive--along with 3 other 2-week-olds tested on the same afternoon at the same pediatric department at the same health insurance run clinic. Can we say lab error? Can we also say 4 sets of stressed parents??? Waiting for results from the retest. :(
  
• I did have some thoughts on discipline, but I have lost them now that things are better on that front. My brain can only hold one or two things at a time these days.
  
• My toddler is peeling off the little stickers on the back of breast pads and spreading the pads across the floor, but I'm nursing and can't stop her. And you know what? I don't care even a little! ;)
  
• Someone once told me that if you pray for patience (for example), God may not give you patience so much as the opportunity to exercise and so develop patience. I've thought about that a lot lately, like yesterday, when my toddler was trying to pour herself a cup of water out of the 1/4 full gallon jug. I went over to help her just as she inverted the jug, pouring water on the table, herself, and the floor. It was one of those slow-motion moments when you just can't seem to do anything. Soon, the gallon was empty, and she said, "Uh oh! Rain!" I laughed, sighed, and cleaned it up.
• Yesterday I managed to put both babies to sleep all by myself! Today, I managed to bathe & get dressed while they were both sleeping. Now, if I could only manage those two tasks on the same day. . .
• Another thing that having babies does is this: Children help their parents analyze and develop how they practice their faith (that is, when they aren't disrupting said practice of the Faith by driving the parents to distraction in Mass!!!) ;) In the coming weeks, we will begin planning for the baby's baptism. A thought that occurred to me is that, while I feel competent enough to teach my children the ins and outs of the practice of Catholicism, where I feel I am lacking is the ability to teach the love and awe--of the Church, of the Church as the Bride of Christ and of the Church as representative of the Body of Christ-- basically, awe and love of God through awe and love of the Faith that unites us. Is this something parents can teach? Likely. I frequently take lessons from Melanie and Bella (such as this one, and this one, and this one). I don't believe it has to be taught, but how wonderful if we could give something like that to our children! And if it begins growing in early childhood, hopefully the child will always have that as an anchor. But I don't know how to teach it. It is at these times that I realize that I am still new at this, and wonder where to go from here. . .
• I love Advent!! I love the decorations, the readings, the music--especially "O Come O Come Emmanuel," which I had never heard before I became Catholic. It is the time of the liturgical year when I most feel the awe and love--of God and the Church--that I mention above.
  

Hope to post more in coming days, if I can. I think the prospect of a unified post intimidates me lately, so I may stick with the bullet format.

A Breastfeeding Blog with GUTS and a little bit about me

I discovered the Black Breastfeeding Blog a few weeks ago, and I've been waiting for the right moment to introduce it. There's so much to like here, including the author's investigation into historical photographs of black women breastfeeding that are simply FASCINATING. But I was waiting for the one post that spoke to something close to my blog's world. . . And, well, this one struck a chord with me--a post with attitude by a woman who feels no need to be apologetic about the choice she has made to breastfeed, even though they are not the choices that other women have made. I find it odd anyway that promoting breastfeeding as the best (i.e. healthiest) choice for mother and baby should be so politicized and sensitive, as I've indicated before.

. . . . .
Posts are likely to be slim for a while, as my brain is occupied in many directions at once. I'm still keeping up with my class, thinking about dissertation work (and maybe inching closer to actually finishing that chapter). I'm feeling better than I should considering I gave birth less than a week ago, nursing is going great, and the toddler really does like the baby (she even threw a fit in the hospital because she thought the nurse was wheeling away OUR baby!!). There are little attention-seeking behaviors--she makes herself cry, for example, in a little squeaking "waaa"--perhaps because the baby gets so much attention when she cries that way! And she wants extra mommy-time (quite naturally). But overall, things are good. I don't feel like the world needs to stop & let me catch up, nor do I feel (as I did when the toddler was born) that I don't really want to catch up with the world anyway. The baby is beautiful, and I can't believe that a week ago I was still waiting for her. Blogging ideas are just slim, that's all!

A Metaphor for Blogging

Blog Policies (since it has come to this!)

For the record, snarky comments speculating which comments I will delete WILL be deleted. I don't need anyone to insinuate anything about how I moderate my site (which I don't moderate because I don't get much traffic, and most of the people who visit are well-meaning). I don't see my blog becoming so popular that I have to moderate comments, but if it ever does I will take it down. I don't have enough time or interest to play blog police. In the meantime, I don't need personal attacks from non-internet acquaintances that focus on how I run my blog!

So Much to Do. . .

. . .And so little time!

Blogging is likely to be limited in August. I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed knowing that the baby is coming in 13--that is, THIRTEEN--weeks, that the fall semester starts on August 27th--only 3 weeks away--that my son starts school on the same day the semester starts, that once the semester actually starts, I will have NO TIME AT ALL for baby preparations.

Monday I start childbirth classes. There are many worries associated with that. I have wanted a natural childbirth both times so far, adn both times I was optimistic. Unfortunately, both times I have had my water break (or leak) with no contractions, and had to have pitocin, which effectively eliminates the "natural" part. It is my opinion that to have pitocin (at least at the levels at which it was administered to me) necessitates the epidural. So my fear is, what if my contractions come naturally and they are just as bad as the pitocin and I've been fooling myself that the reason I couldn't handle the pain was because of the pitocin? There are plenty of reasons to think that the assumption that the reason I couldn't handle the pain was because of the pitocin is correct, but in the wise words of the nurse midwife (whom I decided not to continue to see for appointments), "Labor hurts." Gee, thanks. I thought all of that pain management stuff was just for fun. And after all, I've never done this before. But she felt the need to tell me that her labors were CERTAINLY as bad as a labor with pitocin. That's what you get from a midwife who is former military.

I've been trying to get a lot of things done that I "saved" for after the move and the summer semester. I made myself a baby sling (the type with rings). Yesterday, I finished a nursing top that was modified from a regular McCalls pattern--not sure how it will work; I may still need to adjust some things. I am working on a combination purse/diaper bag to coordinate with the sling, but the pattern is disappointing and I have to modify it to make it what I really want it to be. And there are more projects I would like to complete before the semester starts: a nursing "twinset," two nursing dresses, a dress for my toddler to coordinate with the twinset, a play quilt for the new baby, a maternity top I started ages ago but couldn't finish because I didn't have enough fabric (misleading directions). Sewing--especially modifying projects--takes a lot of mental effort. And when I get started on a project I'm excited about, it pretty much consumes me. Even when I'm not actually working on the project, it preys on my mind--thinking about the pattern directions, wondering the best way to accomplish any modifications I have in mind. . . It can really be absorbing!

Then, there are the other things I need to do: I need to register my son for school, procure a cello for him for the fall, figure out why financial aid hasn't posted my loan, finalize my syllabus, set up my course site on Moodle (once the darned administrator sets up the course for me) and oh yeah! finish a chapter on D. H. Lawrence. Whoopee!! Needless to say, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. I'm drinking more and more caffeine every day. At some moment--sometimes multiple moments--every day, I have to face this choice: drink caffeine to try to stay awake & get things done, or nap. Sometimes the nap wins, but not often.

Best not to think about it too much, though. The hormones kick in, and it's downhill from there! The dissertation is going O.K. these days. Steady. Not really satisfying work, but it seems that that's what "middles" look like--the inspiring part is over, and you just need to continue to plod through & make your case. I find plodding rather difficult. Oh well!

I guess we'll call this early nesting. I know I won't have time for it later, but such is life!

An Inspired Idea

Courtesy, once again, of Darwin Catholic: Lenten Mediations on the Divine Comedy. The idea is to rediscover the spiritual purpose of Dante's work. As I wrote in the comment section of this blog, the Commedia is one of two creative works that I credit with my own conversion--the other being Lord of the Rings. The Commedia is, at its root, an intensely, even tangibly spiritual work. It is also one of the first works that got me to think in a serious way about reading--in this case, misreading. The Commedia is as much a work about the Christian way of reading, which leads one closer to God rather than providing distractions--as opposed to the pagan way of reading represented by Virgil (though he is an enlightened, proto-Christian pagan poet)--as it is about spiritual salvation. As a poet, the joining of the two was essential to Dante (a man who knew his vocation!). I will be looking forward to this blog, as it is sure to be insightful!

Sometimes I hate this

What is it about blogs that draw me in? I think I will be taking a break for a while. I've been composing an entry that I call "Skirting the Issue" about people who narrowly define what is "feminine." It is in response to this post and, to a lesser degree, this post, which includes the following comment from a reader:

It's important to also remember that the Tridentine does not allow disruptions such as the laity hand-shake/kissy face/hugging fiesta, nor does it have the holding hands Protestant innovation during the Our Father, no musical instruments other than the Organ, only sacred music or Gregorian chant and polyphony; no women on the altar, kneeling reverently to receive Blessed Sacrament only on the tongue, no talking in Church, only reverent dress, no slacks for women, etc. (emphasis mine)

I have become caught up with thinking about the issue of traditionalizing femininity, especially in a Catholic context, and I am frustrated that, for one thing, so many of the blogs I am reading voice this opinion in one way or the other. I have become inarticulate about the matter. Luckily I know that the Church in no way endorses the attitudes that these bloggers/serial commenters represent. Rather, they are viewing the theology narrowly, for their own ends, and defending/asserting their claims with narrow-minded arguments and persuasive techniques (the type I teach my Freshman to analyze, then to avoid). This is not my last word on the matter, but I don't want to spend the time and effort on the response right now, as I am tired from a long weekend of caring for a sick baby, and I don't think my blood pressure can stand the stress. What I object to most are the personal attacks and misrepresentation--after all, if I disagree slightly, I am the enemy--emblem of all they are fighting against. This has ceased to be fun for me right now.

Blog Evolution, Genesis, and Science Fiction

One of the wonders of blogging is the ways that various streams of discourse merge and branch off again, merging, converging, flowing and continuing in other forms. Perhaps its a new version of the immortality that Shakespeare noted with the advent of print--then, the writer was immortal, but preserved in presumably changeless form (unless you consider the horrendous mistakes, printing and editorial liberties, rewriting, etc. that ran rampant in early printing history). In the blogosphere, the evolution of thought--how one influences another, how it continues in new form--creates that kind of monument to the original author, but in a less sterile manner, as the thought inspires creativity rather than existing for itself and the original author alone.

This rather circuitous late-night theorizing is occasioned by my decision to post in response to some thought I gleaned from DarwinCatholic's post on Coulter, Evolution, and Catholicism, which, in fact, I requested because of a post on Roman Catholic Blog.

In the course of explaining the compatibility of evolutionary theory and Catholicism, answering the question that I found most interesting, Darwin explores some of the oddity of Genesis--the items that complicate the traditional children's storybook version of Creation, namely, the presence of humanoid creatures and the question of who Adam's & Eve's offspring married. Darwin writes:

The idea of there being other human-ish creatures wandering the Earth at the same time as Adam and Eve doesn't fit well with the standard Sunday school version of the story, but the Bible itself is slightly odder than the children's version. Recall that at several point in the early chapters of Genesis people are mentioned as going off and interbreeding with other creatures (giants, 'the sons of heaven', etc.) Indeed, after the initial description of the time in the garden itself, one doesn't necessarily get the impression that Adam and Eve are alone in the world. (Why, for instance, does Cain fear that when he is banished people will kill him? He's just killed one of the four named people in the world up to that point, and the other two are his parents.) Rather, Adam and Eve seem to be described tribally: as the tribe of true humans, but not necessarily the only creatures on Earth. Now, the idea of early (ensouled) humans interbreeding with (soul-less) human-ish creatures is unappealing. But then, the idea of Adam and Eve's children having no options other than incest isn't exactly appealing either.

My knowledge of this part of Genesis derives from C. S. Lewis who, in the Chronicles of Narnia, makes reference to the "first wife" of Adam--Lilith, mother of giants and jinns and other human-like or half human creatures. (While Lilith is from the Kabbalah, my investigation of Lilith led to other discoveries.) Interestingly, in Prince Caspian, one of Lewis's characters states that while humans may be good or evil, human-like creatures, things that should be human, used to be human, but aren't, are always involved with evil. I guess that's why it was O.K. for Adam to divorce Lilith! In Out of the Silent Planet, the race of creatures is not humanoid; in Perelandra, by contrast, he creates a race of green (new? fresh? innocent? untested?) humanoid beings who succeed where Adam and Eve failed, and successfully avoid the Fall. This is not a C. S. Lewis post, but I was reminded of Lewis at several points.

Initially, as I commented on Darwin's blog, the intermarriage of ensouled and soul-less humans reminded me of a plot from Star Trek or perhaps the novels of Robert Heinlein--Methuselah's Children comes to mind, and not because of the Biblical allusion in the title! However, this concept was problematized for me by commenter CMinor, who writes:

Likewise I can see why we might find the thought of souled humans interbreeding with unsouled humans unsettling from our position in time, but I'm not sure it's a rational concern. As souls are not externally discernible, there's no reason to assume that souled and unsouled humans would be any different in any other respects, to include intelligence and behavior. The sole (no pun intended--really) difference could be that souled humans had a point of contact with God not available to unsouled humans.

I believe I was more comfortable with the idea of unsouled and souled humans (or human-like creatures, if humans are defined by the possession of a soul) interbreeding when I imagined the unsouled humans being somehow different--lower on the evolutionary scale, perhaps, to which CMinor also alludes by mentioning the evidence that Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens interbred (intermarried?). Considering the idea of humanoids equally intelligent as ourselves who merely had no "point of contact" with God--or maybe a different point of contact with God?--reminds me hauntingly of the destroyed planet in Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star," which (in the story) provided the light by which the wise men found the Christ child (sorry for the spoiler). The story is profound and beautiful, if in a profoundly beautifully troubling way. With the planet, an advanced humanoid race capable of artistic expression and technological development has been destroyed, presumably to provide the light announcing the Incarnation. The narrator and ship's science officer is a Jesuit priest who must decide, at the end and beyond the borders of the story, whether to reveal this calculation.

I once had a heated debate with a professor and a room full of undergrads over whether or not the story makes an ultimate condemnation of religion. Others maintained that in the context of the story, either God did not exist, or God was evil. I felt certain that there could be a theological answer to this that did not include either of the two aforementioned conclusions. Is this the answer?

Theorizing theological responses to science fiction, albeit theologically reaching science fiction, aside. . . What would be the implications of soul-less and ensouled humans (or humanoids, in the case of the former) marrying or interbreeding? In the Old Testament we already have the history of a people who were chosen by God as special, set apart from other people. In the New Testament, it is revealed that the Incarnation of the Son of Man is for all people (see my post on Epiphany!). So, then, is the ensouling of Adam and Eve the first "choosing" of God from among His creation? First, He chose a very select group, from whom we inherit Original Sin; then, He chose a race, the Hebrews, the Isrealites, from among those who interbred with the soul-less humanoids; finally, in a late stage of our development, He chose to give to all people the opportunity to choose Him (I would have to suggest that we already had the capacity to choose, but without knowledge of religious Truth, our Free Will--on which I am not the expert, see An Examined Life on Free Will--was not, perhaps, as relevant as it later became with reference to our spirituality).

Returning to science fiction, then, the planet in "The Star" is peopled with the non-chosen. By contrast, although his fantasy repudiates the humanoid as anthropomorphic evil, C. S. Lewis's science fiction "other worlds" are populated with ensouled beings--humanoid and non-humanoid alike. For Lewis, all are "chosen."

Does this bring us any closer to theological or evolutionary truth? Not really. But it does demonstrate the ways in which literature is a working out of various theories of the authors, and further demonstrates the beauty of reading, and the ways in which literate activity affects the consciousness, opening the psyche to the possibility of things beyond our narrow experience. Literature invites us to come in without wiping our muddy boots, allows us to muck around a bit, trying out our ideas in new context, or trying its ideas on for size. When we leave, we are invited to take what we want before moving on--or not. Now that's hospitality! (So much for the literacy plug!)

Finally, I agree with CMinor, who says that we must "let God be God."

Words Written, Sounds Heard

It is incredible the thoughts that seem worthy of writing when you know you have a venue for them.

This occurred to me the other day as I was driving and a car near me honked, I believe to let the car in front know that the light had changed. Of course, it could have been to tell the idiot in the car to pay attention. The result would have been the same--a beep or two on the car's horn. What made me consider this is my recognition of the complete inability to know whether the honk was intended as a gentle reminder or an impatient, irate admonition (at least, if the recipient of the honk could not see the facial expression or flailing arms). I must have been in a good mood, or I would have assumed that the gesture was meant to cause offense. Of course, it is easier to think of these things objectively if one is not on the receiving end.

Although the car honk is non-verbal, the issue is one of tone, as it is in written communication--notably, email. Arrangement of words alone is usually inadequate to convey the sense in which the meaning was meant. This comes across in the user profile of The Ironic Catholic, who writes, as illustration of her definition of irony, " I.e.:This is a joke, people." The words themselves do not necessarily communicate the tone of voice in which the sentence would be delivered, but since we are used to hearing this phrase, the ", people" provides sufficient indicator. Ignoring that context on the side of the page, one might take this humorous post literally--and did, until one realized the spoof in the middle of an email to me about the post. Hence, net culture has developed the smilies, and variations on the smilies, to indicate mood, or tags like "(ha, ha)" to indicate jokes. Or we fail to do either, and are misinterpreted.

I assume that I was misinterpreted by the blogger who deleted my comment on this post (link removed). Who knows? I was being sincere, but could not necessarily indicate it. Political posts get so nasty so fast; I usually avoid them completely. Even agreement can be taken as mockery.

The ability to change what you have said, or what someone else has said in response to you, rather contradicts my idea at the beginning of this post that thoughts have to be "worthy" of being written--an idea that can be traced to our cultural impression that writing has a privileged position, and that something, once written, is permanently fixed. With the blog, however, you can delete me, I can delete you, I can delete something that feels particularly vulnerable if I choose to do so. But does that really feel honest? Or genuine? Or do these things really matter, since blogs are, after all, "virtual"?

After the fact, I decided that I would assume "technology failure" from the deleted comment and not give the link. Further calling the permanence of writing into question. . .