Shared Memory

While a novice at Holy Resurrection Monastery, I had the opportunity to meet a lot of people whose paths I would not ordinarily have crossed. The monastery attracted the mundane, the curious, the bizarre and occasionally the truly holy. The encounter with Obadiah that Arturo relates here is one of my most treasured memories from the monastery.

I remember being absolutely astounded by the thought of this man pedaling that ramshackle bicycle across 50 miles of desolate Lucerne Valley and up several thousand feet of elevation to Big Bear Lake. My spirits were at an all time low and I was just 3 or 4 months away from leaving the monastery. I knew at the bottom of my heart that my vocation, if it had ever existed at all, was on life support and I felt like a failure, that I'd let God down, that I wasn't keeping up my end of the deal. Life was miserable drudgery and I couldn't pray without weeping at the futility of it all. But as Arturo and I loaded the basket of Obadiah's bike with goods we'd baked and frozen burritos we'd microwaved, I knew that we were in the presence of something special and unexpected. To this day, I'm not sure if he was fool for Christ or an angel that we'd entertained unaware. But when I imagine what it must be like to be holy, I think of Obadiah - a man that you could see shining with the love of our risen Lord.

Great Questions of Speculative Moral Theology - Zombies

Like you, my sad and lonely reader, I find myself dwelling on the subject of zombies.

I am, of course, speaking of real zombies, not those unfortunate victims of Haitian voo-doo, doomed to a life of unending slavery and toil for their overlords, nor do I speak of those eponymous philosophical thought experiments, beings indistinguishable from normal humans but totally lacking qualia and conscious experience who exist solely to torment grad students. Real zombies... undead creatures (either by supernatural means or some virus that causes the dead rise), animated solely by their hunger for human flesh are what consume our thoughts.

Here are a few salient facts about zombies that I wish to place before us at the outset:

• A zombie will, without exception, attempt to devour the living.
  
• Zombie-ism is contagious. A person attacked by a zombie will, invariably, become a zombie. If the person was killed by a zombie, zombification will be almost instantaneous. Persons wounded by a zombie will take longer to zombify but will, in the end, do so.
• Zombie-ism is incurable.
  

Bearing this in mind, I would like to speculate on some moral questions.

First, would it be sinful to kill an attacking zombie, intent on feeding on your flesh? It is quite possible that this zombie attacker is simply a human infected with some viral or bacteriological agent that drives him to kill, thus making the zombie an innocent pawn, the unwitting victim of forces beyond his control. Fortunately, St. Thomas seems to have anticipated the question:

Accordingly the act of self-defense may have two effects, one is the saving of one's life, the other is the slaying of the aggressor. Therefore this act, since one's intention is to save one's own life, is not unlawful, seeing that it is natural to everything to keep itself in "being," as far as possible.

Let us now consider another possibility, which if zombie movies are to be believed (and I don't think we can assume otherwise), is a frequent situation in zombie attacks: That is, a companion has been wounded by a zombie. This unfortunate person's zombification has yet to occur, however this wounded fellow will, at any moment, turn into a flesh eating fiend. Is it morally licit to kill this person before they try to eat your brains? There are no easy answers from St. Thomas here. In fact, he is quite silent on the question. However, I think concept of double effect is in play. Were I to kill my soon-to-be-a-zombie friend in anticipation of his change in appetites, my intention is still to save my own life, not end that of my doomed friend.

A similar, but more difficult question, regards the licitness of suicide in the case of one's own impending zombification. Ordinarily, suicide is a shot that is not on the board of Catholic moral theology. But in this case, suicide is being considered to keep ones self from becoming a murderous fiend, an almost heroic action. However, as is apparent in many zombie movies, the unfortunate victim often considers suicide, not to save the lives of others, but to avoid the humiliation of becoming that which he would not. Here we may compare the case of Samson, who caused his own death and the death of many Philistines yet remains listed among the Saints, with the case of Razias, who takes his own life out of pride. Apparently intention is the key.

Finally, what responsibility does the zombie bear for it's actions? If truly undead, then its soul has presumably left for the here-after and is not responsible for the actions of his corpse. But if the poor soul is infected with some agent that controls his actions, the guilt for the murders committed while in this state would presumably fall under the category of involuntary sin.

Ochlophobist 451

When I first read this post I had what Owen would call "book egalitarian" reaction. Most of my adolescence had been spent in what I considered then to be an heroic battle against the forces of puritanism embodied by my parents. Certain books and records had been confiscated, various movies forbidden, MTV not allowed. In short, my parents were doing all they could to raise a son in what is surely one of the most depressing and soul destroying cultural milieus ever.

I could not see this, of course. Like many who read Bradbury's novel, I came away convinced that book burning, censorship, etc, were pretty much the worst things ever and they would be the first order of business if people like my parents ever got in charge. That it was the Reagan era and people like my folks already were in charge escaped me.

But now, with the perspective that only time can bring, I can understand what my parents were trying to do. If my child comes home with the 21st century equivalent of this or this
* you will find me in the back yard firing up the Weber.

* UPDATE: Originally, I included a link to this book by John Romanides to be among the items grilled on the Weber. A reader (I'd forgotten that I had any!) pointed out that this was perhaps not charitable. I stand by my assertion that the book in question is, for all practical purposes (except that of kindling) worthless, but it isn't fair to Romanides, who no doubt meant well, to include him in the company of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.

O Holy Night

Speaking of Bryn Terfel...

Terfel is the giant baritone.

Jussi Bjorling - Greatest Tenor Ever!

Jussi Bjorling singing the phone book is a thousand times more compelling than the work of any modern male vocal talent, save perhaps Bryn Terfel.

More Menotti

Here is Menotti in his own words.

Amahl and the Night Visitors

I'll be honest, Menotti is not my favorite composer. I've seen a production of "The Old Maid and the Thief", which struck me as inane (though not as inane as "The Barber of Seville") and I own a copy of "The Medium" (the mezzo on the cover of the linked recording, Joyce Castle, was my wife's voice teacher while she was earning her doctrate) which does little to move me.

Yet I find myself really liking "Amahl and the Night Visitors" despite the bitchiness of Amahl's mother and the preposterous aria "This is my Box". The first Christmas television special to become a traditional favorite, it aired on Christmas eve from 1951 to 1956 on NBC. A far cry from "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" and "Nestor the Long Eared Christmas Donkey!"

Pachelbel Rant

Amusing to see how pervasive this tune is!

The True Church (TM)

A week or so ago, I asked a friend to take a look at the Ochlophobist's remarks on the recent events at Ravenna. His first question to me, after reading the post, was "Are you going to 'dox'?" A mirthless laugh passed my lips. "I've given up trying to find the true church," I said.

Being an Eastern Catholic is often a depressing enterprise. In my few years as a communicant, I've seen a microscopic parish split in bitter internecine warfare. I've seen a vibrant monastery hounded out of its own Eparchy by a clueless chancery. I've seen liturgies where even the clergy seemed to have no idea of what was going on. Why, I often wondered, did I even bother showing up?

There was time, a few years ago, when the thought of dox-ing was attractive. No more nagging doubts about Popes. No more frustration with what I perceived to be lax praxis. No more re-arranging of the deck chairs on the iceberg. If I were Orthodox, I thought, I could just go to church on Sunday and not worry.

Sharing these thoughts with a trusted advisor, he recommended that I spend more time among the Orthodox. As I did so, I saw a mirror image of the Church I was already in... parishes obsessed with ethnic concerns from the old world, clueless celebrants muddling their way through liturgies, petty divisions. In the affair d'Estonia in 1993, I saw a hierarchy just as obsessed with power as Jack Chick's wettest dream.

It is only because of the vagaries of time and space that I even have the luxury of considering the question of the true church and where it might be found. There wasn't a "St. Joseph Catholic Community" down the street in some village in Asia Minor 1500 years ago or "Sts. Boris and Gleb ROCOR Parish" in the next town over in medieval France. Until very recently, nobody even had to worry about the question. You just went to church.

In the end I decided that I would just have to hope that God would not make my salvation contingent on unraveling a 1000 year old spat between East and West. I'm not smart enough to figure it out. I don't know who is. So, I've given up trying to find the True Church (TM). I shall fight no more forever. To paraphrase the monks of the Holy Mountain, Uniatism or death!