Christmas Memories: Upon a Midnight

(Although I'm posting this later, I wrote it in the wee hours of Christmas morning.)

It's past midnight here, and I'd call it partly cloudy.

I went to midnight Mass, though. Always a good thing to do, especially when y0u are feeling somewhat ... uncertain ... about Christmas.

It is strange the odd assortment of Christmas memories I have. I remember the magic of seeing a bunch of packages and some new bikes piled around the tree. I remember most fondly that special wonder of seeing that in the middle of the night, when the world was dark except for the lights on the tree. I remember, later, when I was too old to believe in Santa but my little brothers were starting to question the whole thing, my mom started a tradition of all of us kids sleeping together, and it was the job of us older ones to get the little ones to go to sleep without trying to catch Santa in the act. I remember listening to the radio those nights. We would always find some station that was tracking Santa's progress and playing Christmas carols, and we'd listen until we fell asleep.

Later on, there was all the joy of being home from college at Christmas, and the crazy year that I spent the two weeks before Christmas on a trip to Israel, which was wonderful. But I spent half of Christmas Eve on an airplane from Israel, half in O'Hare airport trying to get a flight to Texas, and my bonus 6 hours on a bus to South Bend, where I was living at the time. Somehow, they had an easier time getting me out of South Bend than O'Hare. I remember the eerie silence of the Notre Dame campus, devoid of all signs of life that still, silent night. I remember how much I appreciated the Christmas humor of the pilot the next morning. I also remember it as one of the strangest Christmases ever, not simply because of my travel, but because my mom had been sick. Between that and not being quite sure when I would get there, they decided we would go out to eat, but it turned out nothing was open. We finally found a Denny's that was open, but it turned out that they were out of food. We eventually found an IHOP that had about half of their menu available. Strange Christmas.

This year is my eighth without my mom and my fifth without my dad. Usually, since my mom died, I spend Christmas with my brother Joey and his wife and daughters. Christmas Eve is the big-deal part, at my sister-in-law's parents' house, with all of her cousins and folks, and they always make me feel included.

I generally sneak out early, for midnight Mass, which the parish there oddly schedules for 9pm. My dad and I used to go together. I decided this morning that I was going to midnight Mass. And I did. And in the quiet, just before it started, I suddenly remembered something very strange. I remember sitting with my dad at that early midnight Mass the year before he died. We had to get there early to get a seat, and as we sat there, he started to nod off. And he just looked so old to me, and I wondered how many Christmases we had left. Strange that I wondered that on what turned out to be his last Christmas. Strange that I remembered it tonight.

Living "alone"

So, I live alone, now ... theoretically. Paul has, of course, moved on and moved out. Theoretically.

So, this afternoon, my doorbell rang. And, as you have certainly guessed by now, it was Paul.

Me: "What's up?"
Him: "I need to take a shower."
Me: "I thought you didn't live here anymore. Shouldn't you shower where you live?"
Him: "Danedy, please. I had an accident."

Well, you probably don't need the rest of the details of that conversation. But I let him take a shower. And make himself a sandwich. And have tomorrow's cigarettes early.

But I don't really feel like I have the house to myself yet.

Cereal and cigarettes

So, Paul is settling in to life in the homeless shelter. Actually, he corrected me this morning, it's called a rescue mission.

The new routine for me and Paul, as far as I can tell, is this. Every other day, I give him a pack of cigarettes. Since the rescue mission kicks him out at 6am, he wakes up, gets his act together, gets on the bus and comes over here. My doorbell rings about 6:45, maybe 7 if I'm lucky.

I try to make him talk to me a little before he goes away again. I worry about him. So, when I asked him today what is going on with him, I got three interesting answers.

First, he told me that he's trying to line up some day-labor working construction or something. So he went to a place and applied. Me: "That sounds promising." Him: "Not really. I failed the psychological exam." He looked at me with a sort of sad smile and said "I always fail psychological exams." And then he sort of laughed. It was the sort of thing that, if you didn't know better, you would almost think he was throwing the exam, trying to fail. Strange.

Then he says: "But Jesus is really looking out for me now." I asked him how and/or why he believed that to be the case. He reminded me that he has to listen to an hour long sermon about Jesus everyday. He didn't really have much sense of what they are saying about Jesus, but Paul knows that Jesus cares about him.

And, finally, almost randomly, I asked him if they served him a hot breakfast in the morning. No breakfast. I guess maybe they think that you'll look harder for work if you take on the day hungry. Maybe they never heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I find it somewhat strange that they don't feed these guys.

So, I suspect that this is my new life for a while. Every other morning, Paul is going to stop by for cereal and cigarettes.

Brother Update

I know some of my readers like to follow this storyline. So, by popular demand, the Paul update.

I went out of town for 4 days just before Thanksgiving. When I came back, Paul had a regularly-scheduled check-up with his psychiatrist, who decided that he wasn't doing that well and that she wanted to switch his meds. She decided to hospitalize him for what turned out to be about two weeks, so that she could make the adjustment in a stable environment. After that, he was back at the house and everything was as it always has been.

Until two days ago.

When I came home from the office on Monday, having finished all of my end-of-semester grading responsibilities (yea!), there was a note from Paul saying that he had been drinking and decided to stay at the Rescue Mission (i.e. the homeless shelter that he stayed at before).

That was the last I heard until this morning, when my doorbell rang about 7am. It was Paul and he wanted cigarettes. (Right now, he gets a pack every two days, and he was due.) Well, we chatted a little and I gave him the cigarettes, but apparently he wants (yet again) to live at the homeless shelter.

I don't really know what to do about that, so I decided to blog it, and then forget about it and get back to work. I don't think it's what's best for him, but I don't think I can really stop him.

Sigh.

Letting Christ Play

One of my most faithful readers sent me his Christmas letter. It was inspired by this blog, and does much better than I usually do at naming some of the places that Christ is playing in this world. And one of Jim's great gifts is in sticking with the hard things long enough to see the grace breaking through. And I'm humbled by and grateful for the way he sees Christ playing in my life. Here's his letter:

Christ plays in 10,000 places
Lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins

Dear Friends all,

This Christmas letter is a record of places I went and people I met in the hope of seeing for myself Christ "playing" in our midst.

First, there was the pretty fourteen-year-old who was raped. She held her own against her parents, grandparents, a $400 abortion doctor and just about everybody she knew. She told me she knew the baby inside her was a gift from God. I argued with her father. I never prayed so hard in my life. I got to be there when the little girl was born and I was the first to hold her. I was there when she confronted the rapist in court to ask him what she had ever done to him that he would take her virginity away from her. And I get to see her go back with the baby to day care at the school she attends. Christ plays in that place.

Then I tagged along to Jeanne's Peace Corps reunion. 40 years ago, Americans; Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Mormons - tossed everything aside, careers, family, money, to go to Malawi to help some beautiful African people. These Americans taught, nursed, sang and played with the friends they made. They came back to America but were never the same. Now they were even more generous, more fun. I got to see them being Christ to the Malawians - and to each other.

And then I met some Jesuit Volunteers who went to work at an AIDS hospice after graduating from a Jesuit University. They could have made big bucks. Instead they saw the face of Christ playing in another place. The motto of the Jesuit Volunteers is "It will ruin your life." And it did. No longer can they go back to making money. "No longer at ease here, in the old dispensations."

I have a friend who teaches Theology. She got her Ph.D. the hard way, after helping both her parents through their final illnesses. After her father died, she took charge of her schizophrenic brother. She lets him live with her. Have you ever lived with a schizophrenic? Christ plays there.

A friend from 50 years ago asked me what heaven would be like. I told her I hadn't a clue but I didn't want to go there if she wasn't there. Her 6 children and 10 grandchildren are going to miss her. They stopped her chemotherapy months ago. Now she lives on morphine and is all swollen and ugly. But it is in her face and in her life that her children and grandchildren, and I, have seen the face of God.

After another friend wrote to me that he had Alzheimer's, I went to see him. When he answered the door, he apologized for not recognizing me. He said that the Alzheimer's is really hard. He can't drive any more because he gets lost. I will take him to lunch this week. He was always Christlike in his dealings with others. He is my ideal of what a social worker should be. It's not hard to see Christ gently taking over the life of this once brilliant man.

At an intersection on my way home, a car was stalled. The old lady behind the wheel looked terrified as cars honked and the traffic piled up behind her and passed her. From out of nowhere and from four different directions, came burly young men, some tattooed and ear-ringed. They pushed her car to safety and saw that she was okay. They made her smile. Another place Christ played.

There were actually 10,000 such places. I just didn't notice them all.

Merry Christmas.

Thanks, Jim, for the reminder to keep looking, and to keep letting Christ play in our eyes, in our limbs, in our lives.

Currently Reading

I was reading Catholic Peace Fellowship's most recent newsletter and I followed up on a couple things and found my way to a great book that I've read half of today. (Yes, I know I should be reading papers and writing a dissertation.)

If you like thoughtful cultural criticism, if you want a glimpse into art (especially film) and violence, and especially if you're a fan of Flannery O'Connor, order this book and read it. It's called A Good War is Hard to Find: The Art of Violence in America. It's by an ND grad named David Griffith. It is inspired by the question of what made the photos and abuses of Abu Ghraib possible. I'm thinking about adding it to a syllabus or two next semester.

Trying to blog again

OK, I admit that it's shameful how little I've been blogging in the past couple of months. What have I been doing instead? Well, mostly grading papers, but also dealing with some stuff with my brother who was hospitalized for a couple of weeks, going to DC to give a paper at a conference, struggling to stay a page ahead of my students. Gosh, it doesn't even sound like that much, but it has seemed pretty hard!

Classes are over. I still have about 40 papers to grade and then I'll have 50 finals to deal with, then I'll finally be able to focus on my dissertation.

No rest for the wicked. Or the weary, either.

Something else to do

Well, my to-do list just got longer. My niece and I were chatting online earlier today. She told me that she is being confirmed this year. At church, she specified. Then she asked me if I knew what that meant. I asked her if it meant that she's going to start taking church as seriously as I do. (She is generally mystified by the strange desire I seem to have to go to church every week.) Her response to that was "I don't know yet." Fair enough.

Then she sent me this email (unedited, except that I removed her teacher's name):

Hey Danedy, My language teacher, Mrs. S., taught me something i didnt know!(well i guess that thats a givin) but still, she taught us something i didnt know about something i would have figured you would have told me!!! :) well anyways one of our Lit Vocab words was allegory and she sais that The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe was an exzample of an allegory because....Azlan stands for like Christ(i knew that part) And that the four kids stood for the disciples Peter, Paul, Luke and John(i think thats what she siad...Im not TOTALY sure i mean cummon Language is 6th period hehe). AND this is the part i bet u didnt know CS Lewis wrote this for his NIECE(hint hint)when she was being confirmed. Ok Well im gunna talk to u now :)

So now, I apparently need to write a book for her. I asked her if it would count if I dedicate my dissertation to her. No such luck. She wants a book she'll want to read.

I think the best hope is that, at some point, we'll meet in the middle. Maybe I'll we able to write a not-so-academic work and she'll grow into an interest in my field.

Paul's little adventure

Well, the prodigal brother has gone off and returned again since last I blogged.

On Wednesday, Paul didn't come home. I worried, but what else can I do? He called me about 12:30 the next day and let me know that he was fine, but that he had been hanging out with a friend, had a drink or two, and decided that it was best he stay somewhere else, so as not to come home and make a scene. (Translation: he didn't come home so that I wouldn't make a scene.) The same friend who shared the alcohol with him introduced him to a homeless shelter where they had both stayed on Wednesday night. And Paul would be able to stay there for 28 days, so was it okay if he went to the house and packed his stuff and moved out?

Well, this is a strange question for me, because, in a certain way, one of the constitutive components of the good life as I currently envision it is not having Paul living in my house. But this particular possibility for that just doesn't feel right. He's a little too enthusiastic about this place. Or is his enthusiasm about the friend with the alcohol? And, okay, I admit it, I was a little hurt by the idea that he would rather live in a homeless shelter than with me. I mean, I'm not THAT bad a housemate.

So, I go teach my class and then meet him at my house. We try to talk a little about it. My refrain was "Well, it's your decision, but I can't imagine that you'd rather live in a homeless shelter." He kept coming back with "I need to be on my own," "I'll be able to work during the day if I live there," and, my personal favorite, "they have a sermon every day, so I'll get back in touch with my spiritual side."

I tried to point out that I didn't think I was holding him back, that I certainly wasn't requiring him to stay in the house and sleep every day, and he wasn't even willing to go to church with me once a week. But whatever. He was already packed, and he left.

And he was back when I got home from work today. His refrain today: "what was I thinking?" I asked him to tell me about it, and he had three main complaints. He had to wait for almost an hour through the sermon before he got dinner. Then, dinner was tuna, which he hates. And, my favorite: "All the people there were like ... homeless people."

Me: "Well, Paul, it was a homeless shelter right?"

"Yeah.... What was I thinking?"

Prodigal brother

And just to keep the Paul status up to date: he's in trouble.

He went into my room (at least twice now, actually) and stole some change off my dresser. In some ways, no big deal. But it really had to be dealt with, so I kicked him out.

OK, I kicked him out for an hour and then let him back in. But the new rule, which won't last long, is that he isn't allowed to be in the house when I'm not here.

This turns out to be very difficult to enforce. For instance, last night when I went to some friends' house to watch the last 3/4 of the football game, Paul was asleep. Was I really going to wake him up and kick him out? (I didn't.) But what about tonight? I'm watching a movie with my students (Fog of War) tonight at 7, and will probably go up to my office first about 6:30. Should I kick him out?

I guess I'm hoping 3 days of being kicked out has taught him his lesson, exhausted him, and prepared him to be in the house without stealing.

And yes, I'm trying to take temptation out of his way.

And one completely other note. Any of you to whom I mentioned that I was locked out of my garage, that's no longer the case, thankfully. But that's another story.

Accidental Ebay

OK, so I know a couple of my loyal readers are Ebay enthusiasts, Ebay experts even. To you, this might sound strange: last night, I accidentally bought a dining room table on Ebay.

OK, accidental is strong. Everything connected with my placing the bid was, strictly speaking (and I am beginning to consider myself something of an expert on this), an intentional action. But I didn't exactly mean to do it.

Here's the thing. I've only actually bought one other thing on Ebay, and that was a heart rate monitor. I tracked several of them for days to see what they were going for. I researched them on and off Ebay, online and in actual stores. And when I knew what I wanted and what it was worth, I started making bids, knew what my max was, and got a more than fair (but not outstanding) price.

I played around a little back then -- this was maybe a year ago -- and put some ridiculously low bids in. Most of the time, other buyers, like me, were informed, and their bids would automatically bump up to the "reasonable" range. And the first bid was never reasonable.

But, you see, that made me less wary than I should have been. Because I THOUGHT I knew what I was doing. I searched some tables, saw one I really liked the look of, and saw that there had only been one bid on it. So I just barely outbid him, convinced that on the heels of my "bid confirmation" email, I would have a "you've been outbid" email.

(All this, by the way, was going on as I was getting incredibly depressed watching the Irish lose horribly in the first quarter against Michigan St. Shopping is such a great distraction. Sigh. The evils of consumerism.)

Anyway, it didn't come. And after about 5 minutes of poking around, I realized that the auction was going to end in half an hour and I was going to own the table.

The good news: I got a decent price, and I really do like the look of the table.

The bad news: the delivery charge is a bit steep (I really should have checked that before bidding). Especially considering that, I'm paying more than I wanted to pay.

The great news: I'm going to have a dining room table that I think I'm going to love in less than a week! And I can stop shopping and start doing the things I need to do.

But I still can't believe I just randomly bid on it and got it.

Mission accomplished

Well, I really accomplished something today. I fixed my toilet.

This was my first major adventure in one of those little things that I would have called in to the landlord if I had one, but I had to take care of it instead. Or suck it up and call either a man I know or a plumber to come and take care of it. I was reluctant to do either of those.

The problem was that the toilet wouldn't flush. I easily removed the top of the tank and looked around and found the problem. What it looked like when I first looked in there: the stopper-thingy got disconnected from well, that, other thingy. The "other thingy" moved when you depressed the lever as if to flush. But since the stopper-thingy was disconnected, it stayed in place and there was no flushing.

After 2 visits to Home Depot, here's what I saw: my flush valve actuator system was disconnected from the actuator disk. Bad news: you need a whole new system. Good news: system costs just under 10 bucks. Great news: I figured out how to install it and did so successfully within about 10 minutes.

Paul and I can flush again, which is a good thing.

But I admit it was sort of tempting to keep making Paul hike to the toilet in the basement. That would be one way to keep things upstairs smelling better.

Anyway, it made me feel like I really accomplished something today, even if it wasn't getting ready for class, writing a dissertation, or grading the papers that got turned in Friday.

Ah well, I suppose we have to take the successes where we find them.

Five years later

September 11th is clearly going to be a strange day for the rest of our lives.

I've caught a couple of articles and a couple of shows recalling the heroes/victims of that day. And I've found myself in or near tears a couple of times. There's just no shaking the terrible losses of that day.

But now I've also heard what President Bush had to say about it. Apparently, we're against radicalism. Our fathers and grandfathers fought "radicalism" in Europe and in Asia. And now it's up to us to fight it in the Middle East.

Radical--as I learned from Dorothy Day--has to do with getting to the root of things. She was a radical. So was Jesus. I find it hard to be against radicalism.

I liked it better when we were against terrorism. Is it just me or did an already vague enemy just get vaguer?

And why do the losses have to be answered with more violence? I wonder if we could ever see ourselves not necessarily as the solution but as part of the problem?

Embarrassing moment?

So, I think I may have had my first embarrassing moment as a faculty member. I had my biggest class (25) today. I called roll and then grabbed my notes to do the walk around and lecture thing. I looked down and noticed that my second-from-the-top button on my blouse was wide open.

Well, I pretty seemlessly (I think -- but who knows how long it had already been open?) covered my chest with my notes. And I'm thinking ... I can't make it through the whole class like this. Eventually, I may need to look at these notes, and I'll certainly need to open my Bible. So, somehow, I managed to keep talking and just button the thing with one hand while continuing to hold my notes in front of the whole operation.

But of course none of them said anything or indicated in any way that they noticed. It's very strange. You sort of want some acknowledgement -- gee, you handled that gracefully. Or even "oh my gosh, I can believe you just went on talking like that!" Even -- "hey, so was that your bra or another shirt we were seeing?" Because you wonder just how subtle you are, and it would be nice to know, even to know that you weren't. And you also don't know if you should feel embarrassed, or how much.

By the way, it was actually an undershirt. I'm actually not sure why I wore it. I think maybe I had some issues with this shirt before. I think maybe that's what kept me from panicking. I mean, I was still decent.

Of course, one does wonder what they were thinking, especially since one of the texts we spent some time with was Jesus' denunciation of lust in Matthew's gospel. At least my shirt was buttoned before we got there.

Great line, great feeling

I thought I'd pass this on, because I think it's a great thing to say to the new tenure-track faculty member on her (or his, but in this case her) first day of class: "So, how was the first day of the rest of your life?"

The folks here keep giving me the impression they want me to stick around for a while. And that's a great feeling.

Glad to be where I am

I love my colleagues.

It has come to my attention that some people think that many of them are sexist pigs. Actually, I mostly know this because one of them pointed it out to me. He and I have been joking about it a bit now. But he turned to me tonight, and for the second time now, said to me something to the effect of, "Look, we're joking about this, but also I do know that we're painfully inadequate sometimes and we just don't know how to include women well. Please let us know what you need from us or if there's anything we can do better. We're really glad to have you here."

And all this happened at a Labor Day BBQ where people also very graciously included my brother.

I'm really glad to be here.

Labor day?

Can anyone tell me anything about Labor Day that would make me think it's even really a patriotic holiday, let alone one that churches should support?

I bring this up because the closing song at Mass this morning was "America the Beautiful." I always get really nervous about these things. Since I believe that participating in the Mass through singing is important, and also that one should really sing songs like that in Mass, I'm always quite conflicted. I did something today that sort of surprised me. I hit my knees and prayed silently for our country to repent of the wars we're waging, and thus to live up to the beauty the song was acclaiming.

I don't think anyone noticed. But that's okay.

No more tears

I cried twice today. So far.

This has nothing to do with teaching. It has to do with state inspection stickers.

The lovely little state I've moved to requires a "safety and emissions test" once every two years. This is the fifth state I've lived in. Most such inspections are annual, but they take 10 minutes and basically just make sure all your blinkers and windshield wipers work.

Not here. The test takes an hour and a half. And, after that 90 minutes or so, it turned out my car had failed due to too much wear on the brake pads. They could, of course, replace them for me. Since they had them in stock, it would take an hour. Two, tops. I look at the time: about 10:15. Two hours and 45 minutes until my brother has his evaluation scheduled, the one that will really get the ball rolling on the plan for his long term care and for housing. The one that's been on the books for almost three weeks now. OK, go for it, but I really need to be out of here in 2 hours, tops.

About 11:45, I'm getting really restless and I ask the guy for a progress report. It turned out they didn't have the parts in stock. I explain that I really have to be somewhere by 1:00. He says he's sorry, he'll try to expedite the parts and then, as soon as the parts get here, it will be like 20 minutes.

Now, at this point, I start making phone calls. Annoyingly, I can't call Paul because I don't have a home phone. I call his social worker. Not there. I will call him 8 times in the next hour, but only leave 3 messages. And the main thing I want is for him to let the front desk know that we're running late, because I have two major fears. First, of course, is that it will take us a month to get another psych evaluation scheduled. Second, I'm vaguely recalling all these threats about what will happen to you and your firstborn if you miss an appointment without calling. I'm wondering if Paul will ever be allowed to receive psychiatric services again, in any state.

I try to think of who else to call, but, you see the bind, right? Being new to the area, how many people can you call and say, "Look, I need a big favor. Go to my house, walk right in. Go upstairs. Paul will probably be asleep. He will probably have clothes on. Wake him up, get him dressed if necessary, and get him to this appointment at a place that I can find and can give you an address, but can't really tell you how to get to. Oh, you'll also need to find his meds and his cigarettes and bring them with you." I mean, it's a lot to ask.

At 12:53 they tell me that the car will be ready in 5 minutes. OK. It'll take me about 15 or 20 to get home to grab Paul and then get to the appointment. That's not so late.

And then the guy went into the garage. And didn't come back for 20 minutes. Seriously. I was going crazy. I actually had the thought go through my head "If we miss this appointment, I'm going to check whether I can sue to make them pay for Paul's psychiatric care." Then I remembered that I didn't believe in that sort of crap. But it's hard to remember who you are when you're under this sort of stress.

Then they told me that the computer was broken and they couldn't print my inspection sticker. Everything was ready, but for some reason they couldn't account for or fix, it wouldn't print. And I was stuck, or at least illegal until it did. That's when I called the social worker with message #2 ("looks like we won't be there at all"). Then my car pulled up and they let me pay for the brake job and leave without the sticker, but warned me I was driving illegally and encouraged me to call and check if the machine was fixed and come back to get my sticker.

Well, Paul and I got to the place at 1:45. And he had completely missed the appointment. They wouldn't reschedule. They would let him see a doc to get meds to get him through the weekend, and they set up an appointment with his nurse on Tuesday to evaluate and consider rescheduling the other. My heart just fell. And all of a sudden, you realize how much you've hung your hopes on something. I've been telling myself to hang on until Sept 1, because then he'll get the psych eval and we'll begin to move forward. And then ... no.

So, we sat there waiting to be called for the meds. I went to the bathroom and cried. I was just so frustrated I wanted to kill somebody. Well, hit somebody. Hard. I decided I was focusing too much on my anger (much of which was directed at myself) and I decided to say Hail Mary's. That's one of the great things about being Catholic. When you're too angry to really pray, you can just ask Mary, over and over again, to pray for you. It generally calms me down.

And because God (and Mother Mary!) are good, an incredible thing happened. We were still sitting there waiting to see the doc for meds at 2:25 and the woman at the front desk called me up there. "The 2:15 psych eval hasn't showed yet. If you guys can stay another hour, and that person doesn't come in the next 5 minutes, we can see him." "Absolutely."

About 15 minutes later, they called him back. I still didn't quite dare believe it, so I asked, "I'm sorry, did he get called for the full eval, or just the meds." The full eval. Thank God.

I cried again. I couldn't quite believe it. All the stress, all the hopes, all the frustrations, and he got in.

Of course, it turns out the psych eval isn't magic. He'll file a report and we have a follow-up appointment in 10 days. But we're moving forward.

The one remaining loose end was that I was a bit worried about driving to Boston to pick up my friend Kyle in my illegal car. I was also worried that all this would make me late to get him. But his flight was delayed and the computer got fixed. My car is legal, and braking better than ever, and should be in Boston in plenty of time to get him.

Sigh. Hopefully, no more tears. Not today.

Legal, moral, mission?

Yesterday, I sat through a 3 hour workshop run by "college counsel" for new faculty called "legal issues." I want to be clear that this was "legal issues," not "moral issues." And let me also admit that the summary below of course loses a lot of the nuance of the three hour session and leaves a couple of the topics completely untouched.

But here's my summary: sure, we're a religiously affiliated school, but legally, you can sleep with anyone you want, as long as you don't have sex with anyone over whom you have direct power nor they over you. But NEVER, I repeat NEVER EVER, violate copyright law or student confidentiality. Perhaps we need to sort out our priorities.

And there's this odd edge, right, one that I've heard about from several theology folks around here, of wanting new faculty not to feel as though the religious commitments of the school are a big deal. And of course, there is a tension here. A colleague of mine told me a story about how, at her new faculty orientation session on the "ministry and mission" of the school, the veteran faculty members leading her group's breakout session basically told them that they should nod and give lip service to the mission-talk when administration or friars asked, but then ignore it for the rest of their professional lives. She just asked the question "But what about those of us who came here because we want to give our lives to that mission?" Apparently, they didn't have much response. They weren't sure she was serious.

Boys' Night Out

The “boys” in my department and the other department which shares our building started going out for “boys night at the movies” several months ago. In an unprecedented bending of gender lines, they decided to invite me along for this week’s feature film, Nacho Libre.

If you know nothing about Nacho Libre, this will get you through: it’s by the directors of Napolean Dynamite and stars Jack Black (of School of Rock and Tenacious D) as a monk at a Mexican orphanage who moonlights as an amateur wrestler. I loved Napolean Dynamite and School of Rock, though I confess that I have very bad associations with Tenacious D (associations that I imagine some of my faithful readers who are former housemates may share). Regardless, I figured 2 out of 3 isn’t bad, plus it’s a good idea to embrace unprecedented opportunities for bonding with the boys.

The movie was horrible, though it was well worth the 2 bucks we each paid for it for the following five reasons.

5. “The brothers don’t think I do, but I totally know a buttload of crap about the gospel.”
4. “I don’t believe in God, I believe in science.”
3. An awesome song done as only Jack Black can, monk-to-nun, involving lyrics along the lines of “If I’m going to break my vows, I want to break them with you.”
2. The pre-wrestling match locker room baptism scene.
1. Street fight: knife vs. corn-on-the-cob. Corn wins.

Plus, it was good to hang out with the boys. I think they either think I’m crazy, or that I really liked the movie, or both. I was in a mood to have fun with it, and I had a lot of training one year learning to enjoy really stupid movies (Bubba Hotep?) for the sake of building relationships, or trying to.