The Spirit of Radio

Yes, I know that's the title of a Rush song. I like the song, and I would agree with it that the major downside of radio is the ads. But I actually just borrowed the title to talk about what I think about the radio.

I started listening to the radio the other day just for something to do. It was too quiet and I was tired of every note of music I own. So I fiddled with the dial and listened to pretty much everything that was on. Since then I've found a station I can live with, mostly, and let it rattle at me much of the evening.

Several years ago, I stopped listening to the radio because I didn't see the point. Full of ads and needless yammering from the hosts, when I just wanted to listen to music. Furthermore, they only played stuff I like less than half the time. Why shouldn't I just listen to my own music, which I know I enjoy?

I realized the other day that my feelings about the radio were largely based on my circumstances. Living at home, most of my life wasn't under my control. I had to interact with other people and make decisions based on what the family was doing. My music I wanted on my own terms. Familiar music I owned myself was perfect--something exclusively mine, which I could choose. I didn't want to listen to strangers talking at me, because my family talked to me plenty.

Now, living (for the present) alone, I suddenly can see why people would want to listen to the radio. Right now, my schedule is almost completely under my control. I have about three hours of tutoring to do a day. The rest of the day I arrange however I like. I make my own dinner, based on what I happen to feel like at the moment. I have the choice to read, or write, or take a nap--it makes no difference to anyone but me.

So, oddly enough, I find myself craving what I never used to--a world that is out of my control. I remember hearing in a theology class that the amazing thing about human relationships is that the other human being is completely independent of oneself. You can have a conversation with someone else who may say anything, things you haven't thought of before. We pay for this with a lack of free choice. We can't guarantee we're going to like whatever comes out of our friend's mouth. But that makes it so much more exciting when we do. A human companion is an unknown factor, which can go along with our ideas or sharply counter to them. The interplay of two people is so complex that an infinite number of good novels, each with a different plot, could be written with only two characters.

In my situation, then, I guess the ideal solution is to find another human being to interact with me. But Olivia's not arriving till the 14th. My next best choice is the radio. It leaves an element of uncertainty in my life which I'd been needing. Maybe it will play something I like, and maybe it'll just have a huge block of boring ads. But maybe--just maybe--it will play some song I've never heard but will love. Maybe it will play something that makes me laugh or cry. When I pull up one of my favorite songs on my computer, it's just a song. I hear it all the time, and since I have it on call all the time, it's not special. But the other day I turned on the radio and "Don't Stop Believing" was just beginning. I own that song. I listen to it all the time, whenever I want. Yet when I heard it on the radio, I was all excited. I didn't even think to want that song, and there it was beyond all expectations. A surprise, instead of just the same old song. It made all the difference.

Another time I was just sitting around, feeling idle, when a song I'd never heard came on. It was called "Hey There Delilah" and it made me cry. A song I've never heard can surprise me, prod my emotions in a way a similar song on my own computer can never do.

The DJ's and talk show hosts can be on the corny side, and they have a rather excessive obsession with giving away free concert tickets, but I'm still grateful to them. They say things I wasn't thinking of before, give me something to think of that didn't come from myself.

Life is best when I go off to the laundromat and exchange smiles across the langauge barrier with the immigrants using the washer next to mine, or trot off to the coffee shop (where I'm getting to know all the baristas and they know me) to say, thoughtfully, that I think I'm in the mood for iced tea and they accidentally give me iced coffee, or my mom calls me up just as I'm resigning myself to an empty evening, or a friend suddenly appears outside my living-room window after dinner, making me jump. All of these things are exciting, uncertain--that exchange with someone which can go in any direction. Even the accidental iced coffee is a thrill. It's a chance for me to cheer up the poor barista that gave it to me by smiling and saying we all make mistakes. It's a chance for me to enjoy the iced tea when I get it.

But when I'm not doing these things, the radio is good to have around. It teaches me that I don't own the world. I don't even want to own my little apartment. I want to share the airwaves with a stranger, even if a stranger from a hundred miles away in a soundproof booth.

Take a walk outside yourself
In some exotic land
Greet a passing stranger
Feel the strength in his hand
Feel the world expand ....
(Rush)

I desire mercy, not sacrifice

Last week's readings really got me thinking about a trend among Catholics today. Most Catholics nowadays do not have the problem I'm talking about. Within the more liberal sections of the Church, people tend to ignore rather that overrate the importance of sacrifice. But in the most conservative circles, perfection in liturgy or the advertising of a "Catholic way of life" which emphasizes public piety takes preference over values like mercy and charity.

What am I talking about, exactly? I'm talking about parishes with an absolutely flawless liturgy (whether "Extraordinary Form" or Novus Ordo) and no apostolic action--no Legion of Mary, no soup kitchens, nothing. They feel that the effort they pour into their liturgy excuses them from other Catholic activities.

I also have a problem with Catholic colleges that advertise the perfect Catholic atmosphere and yet are missing the most important Catholic virtue--charity. The most "pious" on campus feel they have a reason to look down on the others, to avoid them, for fear they will be "contaminated" with the less perfect attitude of those who don't go to daily Mass or who drink on the weekends. And the administration is so concerned with projecting a perfect image for outsiders that it is more likely to cover up problems than to fix them, if fixing them might hurt the public image. I'm not talking here about my own college specifically; I think this is a widespread problem, although of course there are movements counter to it in Catholic colleges as well.

To discuss the readings that got me thinking about this. The first reading was from Hosea, with the line "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice." The psalm helps to explain what God means by this:

“If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for mine are the world and its fullness.
Do I eat the flesh of strong bulls,
or is the of goats my drink?”

God does not need sacrifice. Those who are too concerned about the liturgy think that they are perhaps doing God a favor by giving Him a perfectly-performed Mass. Of course, when we put it in those terms, the absurdity of the viewpoint seems obvious. God asks us to put effort into worshipping Him for our own good, not for His. Although I'm the first to say that putting that effort into the liturgy is important, unless this helps us focus on God more and to act more like the kind of people He wants us to be, we're wasting our time. The Pharisees got in trouble for just this kind of hypocrisy. They thought if their piety was perfect, they were good to go. Christ actually was harsher on them than on the ones who didn't pray at all. Why? Because they were misusing the worship intended for God, making it simply a way to make themselves look better than others. The best things, corrupted, become the worst.

The Gospel was the call of Matthew. Christ befriended a tax collector, and these pious hypocrites objected. As always, those who think they're the closest to God are the first to criticise Him when He starts doing things they disapprove of. They think they know everything there is to know about God, so they're terribly offended when all of a sudden He does things they don't understand.

I wish some of our modern-day Pharisees could understand the saying, "Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do." In other words, the most impressively holy parishes, colleges, and organizations should be serving the greatest of sinners. Instead, see how quickly they abandon someone when they fail to live up to the code of virtue. I have recently found out that students of Catholic colleges who become pregnant are often expelled. Meanwhile, it's public colleges who earn praise from pro-life organizations for being welcoming to pregnant students. They realize that those who have fallen into sin once are fragile: they need to be treated with mercy and compassion to encourage them to come back to the flock, not with the rejection that might lead them to further sins, like abortion. It would be ironic to think that Catholic colleges encourage abortion, but it is not impossible that a frightened, pregnant student might take that path rather than face expulsion when discovered.

All in all, I'm frustrated. Even those who seem the best seem to have their hidden faults, so much so that one looks for communities with obvious imperfections--that way we know we won't be surprised. In the end, I would like to see prayer and piety united with a real interior life, mercy, and charity.

“Offer to God praise as your sacrifice
and fulfill your vows to the Most High;
Then call upon me in time of distress;
I will rescue you, and you shall glorify me.”

The Sign of Peace

I found this great article about the Sign of Peace today. I really find that this part of the Mass can be distracting. The exploration of its history really helped.

Juno

I saw the movie Juno last weekend. I really really liked it. Like Bella, which I also enjoyed, it seems more than most movies to talk about real life. In Bella, the city is not a glitzy place full of high-powered professionals, but a place full of dirt and graffiti and noisy kitchens. That way, when there's beauty found there, it doesn't seem fake--it's real beauty, in a place that looks like our own places.

Juno has that same feel to it. Juno's house isn't a suburban paradise with white carpets. It's an older house full of clutter, with overflowing window boxes and roughly cut grass. Juno doesn't dress in perfect trendy style; she's kind of off-beat and wears her own thing. She isn't popular. Her parents are divorced and don't understand her. She's more like you and me.

Some people I know will probably criticize this movie because of the language and crass humor. Personally, I thought that was part of the whole "reality" thing--that the movie wouldn't have been as real if Juno had said "fudge" when she was in labor instead of what she did say. It's part of the point of the movie that it covers nothing over. No one ever pretends it is easy to carry a baby to term in high school. Instead they go into gruesome detail about the physical suffering Juno goes through and the teasing she endures from people at school.

Another important thing about the movie is that it doesn't preach. The parts where the biggest moral issues are decided are a little ambiguous, so it takes a little thinking to see what the real tipping points for the characters are, why they made their decisions. But you see how they feel when they're making these decisions, and you find yourself rooting for them.

Most people I know agree that it's a good movie for the world today. The everyday teenager out there who's a lot like Juno needs to see her making a good choice. But I also think it's a good movie for people like me, people who aren't exactly mainstream. I don't cuss; my parents aren't divorced; I have the faith. But this movie helps me realize that virtue isn't the monopoly of conservative, religious types. It helps me open up to the people who aren't at all like me, but sometimes are doing heroic things I'd be afraid of doing.

I'm afraid it's too easy for me here, in a Catholic college surrounded by people like myself, to get in an ivory tower and dictate to everyone else what they should do. I imagine that no one could ever be virtuous without the perfect (more or less) environment I'm used to. We get scared of the world outside. But out there in the Real World, wonderful and beautiful things are going on. It's time for me to get humble and appreicate that.

Debate Club: Torture

One of my big activities this semester is debate club. It only meets every couple of weeks, on Sunday nights, but whatever topic we debate ends up the huge controversy for the whole week. I'm always getting into conversations about the topics.

Two weeks ago we debated whether torture could ever be morally permissible. Unfortunately, we didn't have one solid definition of torture. I liked the government's definition, which one person brought up, of "extreme physical pain or mental anguish inflicted for the purpose of extracting information." The only problem with it was the definition of "extreme." But I think we all could agree that certain things are extreme. I would say that extracting fingernails or electrocuting someone, both examples brought up in the debate, would count.

I was amazed to find that, even without arguing with this defnition, many people still thought torture was acceptable. Basically the argument was that if enough lives were in danger, it didn't really matter what we did to one person. Coming out of Catholics, Catholics who have received good theological instruction, the idea shocked me. Haven't we all learned that the ends never justify the means? Unless they could prove the means were morally good or neutral, they couldn't justify it for any reason, no matter how good. No one was able to do that.

An important question that was touched on at the debate, and brought up often afterward, was the guilt or innocence of the person being tortured. It seems to me that it is wrong to inflict harm on the innocent, just as it is wrong to kill the innocent even when there are circumstances where one can kill the guilty (capital punishment, self-defense). And it also seems you would have to have pretty strong proof against someone to be certain they were guilty of something.

But someone argued that withholding information from the legitimate authority of this country was in itself a crime and worthy of punishment. The punishment would continue until the crime ceased, i.e., the information was revealed. However, torture is not generally inflicted on American citizens, who one might argue should obey the government. It is inflicted on citizens of other nations, following the instructions of their nations. So, in this case, it would be a crime for them to obey our government when their own has forbidden them from doing so.

A rather outlandish argument I heard was an argument from the Church's allowance for capital punishment in certain circumstances. If someone is guilty of a crime, as argued above, they deserve death. If we can kill them in justice, obviously we may harm them in any way we see fit. They have renounced their human dignity.

That totally ignores recent statements on capital punishment, limiting it to circumstances when it is necessary for the protection of society. Capital punishment does not exist to satisfy justice, but to protect society. Even a criminal retains his human dignity. For the protection of others, we may remove him from society, but we do not treat him with cruelty. Our constitution specifies that we may not use cruel and unusual punishments. In Elizabethan England, thieves had their ears docked or their hands cut off. America does not work that way; it was founded on a basis of human rights. We must treat all human beings with respect.

I had two main arguments against torture which I presented at the debate. The first was that no one had been able to mark out a clear line between just and unjust torture. There seemed no specific point where a torturer would have to stop, if his subject did not break down. People stood up at this debate saying they had no idea where the line was, but that they were willing to torture someone for a good reason. That means that they would undertake an action without knowing whether they were on the moral or immoral side of the action.

It troubles me to hear people stand up and say that Americans torturing terrorists is okay, and that Vietnamese soldiers torturing American POW's is not okay, without being able to specify the difference except for the idea that "we're the good guys." Being the good guys is not enough. You have to actually be good. To stay the "good guys," you have to be able to defend exactly how your actions can be defined as good.

Without a clear line, you reach situations as happen in the TV show 24. (It was brought up much too often in this debate!) In the second season, Jack Bauer knocks out some teeth on a terrorist because he knows a bomb has been planted in Los Angeles and won't say where. By the fourth season, he electrocutes his girlfriend's ex-husband because Jack has a vague suspicion the man might know something about a conspiracy. There is no clear moral line where Jack knows he has to stop. And it seems he's addicted to torture, because he's ceased to believe he can gain information any other way. (For all Jack-lovers out there, I'm sorry. Jack is not God.)

My other objection to torture is simply its goal. The goal of torture is to break the will of the prisoner, so that he will go against his principles and tell you what he believes he must not. People say it is impossible to break anyone's will--after all, the early Christians were tortured and did not give up their faith. Well, the Christians had divine help. Apart from that, given enough torture, there are few people who would not deny their very soul. Read 1984. Under torture, a man agrees to say that four is five, and even "try to believe it." Can you be certain you would not do the same? The human will is strong, but not invincible. And it is the image of God in man. I cannot think of anything less in accordance with human dignity to say that I will break the image of God in anyone.

So, just my two cents. It was not listened to. The vote was 23 for, 7 against, and 7 abstensions. I was ashamed of my fellow students, that they would come to such a conclusion without even placing any limitation on torture. I comfort myself by saying most people like me, who looked at the poster and thought, "Torture? What's the point in that argument? No one will defend torture," probably didn't show up. I hope this is true. But I am beginning to see the dark underside of conservatism, which denies good things like mercy simply because the liberals support them. Many conservatives support torture without a second thought. But I cannot be persuaded to do so, no matter what was at stake.