A Modern-Day Saint

One of my favorite traditions in Roman Catholicism is the veneration of the saints. I think I love them for rather naive and for deeply spiritual reasons. On the one hand, I think they satisfy a certain fascination with all things supernatural. In many ways, they seem like the comic book heros of my youth (oh wait, "youth"? - let's just say my fascination with Marvel's favorite mutants has blossomed with the extra free time I've had since graduation): everyone has their favorite, they each have their own special "powers", yet they're guided by the same principles. Those principles are part of what draws me to them. Not only are they larger-than-life, they exemplify characteristics that are so attainable, the true source of their prominent place in the church. They are both human and something more. While superheros and saints exemplify some different virtues, they're all generally good ones, ones I aspire to.

This morning I listened to a story on NPR about Miep Gies, one of the Dutch women who helped hide Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis during WWII. She died this week. She preserved Anne's diary, which no doubt you've read. Years after the fact, this brave woman always insisted that her actions didn't involve any kind of extraordinary virtue. She said she didn't want people to believe that her actions would be insuperable if faced by you and me. As I heard the remembrance of her this morning, I could only think of how this woman was like a saint. She exemplified virtue in her actions, yet we can look to her as fully human. Not everyone will think the Roman Catholic saints exemplify the virtues that they hold most dear, but we undoubtedly have one of the most established traditions of remembering those who inspire us. Who is your favorite saint (canonized or uncanonized)?

Gies




This is a bit of folk art I created for David that I call "The Patron Saints of Scrabble":

More Fantastic Stuff

So strangely enough, this is the second blog I've written (out of six or so) that is tagged with "gothic literature". I just wanted to share that I'm so excited, because my Christmas gift came today. Well, it's the only thing I spent a bit of Christmas money on (supplemented with a gift card). And it is my two-volume set of American Fantastic Tales. I'm excited to curl up in bed and read one scary story by famous American authors each evening (I have to do something to disturb myself before bed, since we watched the last episode of the latest season of Law and Order: SVU a couple nights ago). I love reading.

Quote from the Introduction: "[Gothic and fantastic literature] emerged as an expression of the universal sense of loss, grief, and terror produced by the gradual replacement of the Enlightenment's orderly, rational, reassuring world-view with the unstable and untrustworthy universe that came into being during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." This is going to be a good read.

Just a Little Update

Okay, so the new blog is kind of off to a slow start. But that's okay. After all, I'm trying to relieve myself of some of the pressure I felt in my old blog to perform in some way. I hope after another post or two, to try to raise the readership by officially announcing it's presence on the web (right now it's hiding in the back of the virtual room, like a visitor to a new church, learning the rituals and language).

Part of my desire to "kick it in gear" as far as the blog goes, though, is that I need some more structured intellectual avenues. I found out that the position I was gunning for teaching religion at a local college was filled by someone else, and I begin today a second part-time job. While I'm thankful for the sources of income, I don't feel like my skills are being put to best use.

As an update: we spent the Christmas holiday back in Missouri, and it was a great time. Now I'm having post-MO withdrawal, feeling a little down, facing the fact that life in Atlanta has some challenges. David got to experience his first white Christmas, and Bump was a major hit over the holidays (and he got more human food than he could ever have dreamed of).