The word 'critical" has three meanings which are dangerous, important, and disapproving. The purpose of this blog is to examine important or over-looked cultural, political, artistic, or historical issues of our time. Also, this blog is intended to be educational.
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Should We Pray For Donald Trump? - A Dialogue Between A Parishoner And A Priest
This is a authentic dialogue between a parishioner and his priest.
The parishioner wrote:
My wife and I greatly enjoyed the Christmas Eve
service but we were upset, bemused and somewhat confused. We were asked to pray for
President-Elect Trump and Pope Francis. My question is why?
What exactly are we praying for in Trump's case?
Should we pray that Trump stops lying, or stop being a bigot, or stops
appointing racists to his cabinet, or stops his plan to increase our nuclear
weapons, or stops saying that he won in
a landslide, or stops being in bed with Putin, etc. You and I both know that
those things will never happen.
I think that it is much better to pray for the
victims of Trump's and his follower's hate- like the African-Americans, the Mexican whom he
wants to send back to Mexico, the Muslims he wants to make leave the country, or
the women he has insulted and/or maligned, or the Native-Americans whose sacred
lands he wants to take away from them, or not wanting to stop the one-percent of the population (of which he is a part) from
having more money and power than the other ninety- nine percent, or his inability
to accept the fact that there really is global warming, or his being anti-gay, etc.
So, for what exactly are we praying?
When I studied Political Science in college, I
learned that when a nation is in decline or just feels it is in decline, it looks
for scapegoats. For example, take Germany between World War I and World War II.
The people looked for a savior who would recreated the "good old days". They elected a Fascist who promised to make
"Germany great again".
Hitler was a Catholic whose symbol was a twisted Catholic
cross. He exterminated or got rid of his "undesirables" - the Jews,
the Gypsies, gay people, the mentally retarded, liberals , communists, artists,
and yes, even some Catholics who opposed him. The Catholic Church under Pope
Pius XII could have said something but it never did.
Pope Pius XII
Why did the Pope remain silent? It was because he
approved of what Hitler was doing. Millions of people suffered and died because
the churches remained silent or a majority of German Catholics and Lutherans
prayed for Hitler. Does all of this sound familiar?
As to Pope Francis, I like him. But, why was he
singled out for prayers? After all, he
does not share any of the Catholic Church's enormous wealth for the poor. Why
not for a true man of peace, the Dali
Lama? Or, why not pray for the Coptic Pope, Pope Tawadros II, whose flock is
being killed and persecuted. My opinion is that
they deserve our prayers much more than the current Catholic Pope does.
Pope Francis
I am really not comparing you to the World War II
Germans and I am not comparing you to Catholic priests of World War II. I just
want to address some issues that have
been on my mind, have confused me and that grew out of my attending the Christmas Eve service.
______________________
The Episcopal Priest's Response:
Merry Christmas.
It was great to see you both on the eve. And thanks for your email.
Below in no particular order are a few thoughts, hastily pecked out on my
phone, because the issues you raise are important ones.
As regards praying for
the president elect, yes, those are exactly the sorts of things that I hope we
are praying for for him! Perhaps a softening of the heart like Pharaoh.
(I'm sure the Israelites in Egypt would agree with you that there's a fat
chance of change there, but, well, at the end of the day, God's justice and
mercy prevailed for them. I must trust that it will again.) We
always pray for the president, and now for the president elect.... As a
colleague reminded me, Jesus said to pray for our enemies.
I am as concerned as you
are about the upcoming administration. As Jesus said about a particularly
hard case, 'This one comes out only by prayer.'
As for Francis of Rome,
we also prayed for Bartholomew, patriarch of the East. This wasn't a
commentary on their theology or authority but a recognition that we are praying
for unity of the church on this most holy night that we all celebrate
together. It's not a political statement at all. And we probably
should have a longer list there. (We are praying for the Copts--what
horror--see below. And ECCT, for what it's worth, called at convention
for prayers for Christians in the Middle East.)
Bartholemew, Patriarch of the East
We do need to pray for
the people that Trump has called to persecute. And I think we are but we
could be more specific. Let's think of how to do that more
intentionally. And we are praying for those persecuted in faith.
Christians threatened with violence -- as the Copts are -- have been
prayed for at every mass since before I came. As for Pius, well, that's
complicated and for the history books at this point, but I believe Francis, as
imperfect as he is on so many things, is standing against the sort of dying
false hegemony that is Trumpism. At least that's my take. And I
have no comment about Hitler's faith except to weep a bit. (Have you seen
the new book about the use of amphetamines in the 3rd Reich? Only deep
hatred and perhaps altered consciousness could perpetuate the kind of evil that
government visited. Lord have mercy.)
What you have to say is
heard and appreciated. For what it's worth all those petitions were
requested by parishioners (even the ones concerning Francis and Bartholemew). ..... I believe strongly in prayer. After we have voted,
protested, advocated, and the like, all that is left is to pray. God's
reign of peace and justice will prevail--if the resurrection can teach us
anything. (And yes, I believe the Dalai Lama is probably
involved in God's peace and justice in ways I don't even yet understand!)
Know, as I believe you
do, that all those made at risk by Trump's recklessness are in my prayers and
on my heart.
Glad to hear from you as
always. Let's catch up in the New Year.
This one can come out
only by prayer.
Yours in the love of
Christ.
The Origins of the Dropping of a Ball on New Year’s Eve
Times Square, New York City, on New Year's Eve
On New Year’s Eve,
Americans may turn on their televisions and have a ball watching a sparkling
orb be lowered from a flagpole at the top of One Times Square. The conclusion
of the ball drop has become the annual signal that the clock has struck
midnight on the first day of the year. But, while the Times Square
tradition dates back to the early 20th century, the idea of using a
ball drop to mark time is much more than just a fun holiday activity.
The first “time balls” were built in England,
in the Portsmouth harbor in 1829 and at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich in
1833, according to Alexis McCrossen, author of Marking Modern Times: A History of Clocks, Watches, and Other
Timekeepers in American Life and professor of history at
Southern Methodist University (SMU). (The Greenwich one still exists.) These
devices were large enough and high enough to be seen from the harbor or port,
and they were designed to help ship captains keep accurate time. For Britain,
the maritime power of the day, the question of the time was an important one:
at sea, without landmarks to determine longitude and without a stable surface
on which to rest a pendulum, it can be hard to tell time precisely. Ship
captains would look at the time ball to set their chronometers, a type of clock
without a pendulum for seafarers, which had been invented by the carpenter and
clockmaker John Harrison.
Engraving taken from the Illustrated London News. A master clock, verified each day by stellar
observation, sent electric impulses to clocks throughout the country via the
growing network of telegraph wires providing for public and railway use. The
time ball at the Strand received the impulses hourly from the Central
Telegraphy Station of the Electric Telegraph Company
Though they were designed for mariners, the
time balls became major attractions. At around a quarter to noon, large crowds
in the area would go outside to get a glimpse of the timekeeper. “These balls,
covered in black or red canvas, would be hoisted up to top and at the exact
moment of noon, it would float down,” McCrossen says, “and you could check your
time keeper.” By 1844, there were 11 such balls worldwide.
In 1845, the U.S. Secretary of the Navy
ordered one built atop the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. but
the American version of the time ball sounds a little bit less organized than
its cousins across the pond. After someone gave some kind of oral signal, it
would be thrown by hand, land on the Observatory’s dome and roll to the roof
below. John Quincy Adams is said to have enjoyed strolling by to watch the time
ball fall while he was a Congressman. Between 1845 and around 1902, time balls
were erected at locations like San Francisco’s Telegraph Hall, to the Boston
State House, as well as less famous towns, like Crete, Nebraska, U.S.A.
“The vast majority of clocks were put up by
government entities to assert their right to control the time,” McCrossen
argues. But, this method had quite a few kinks. “They were constantly
malfunctioning,” says McCrossen. “They were dropping at the wrong time; a
notice would be put in the newspaper to indicate the ball was erroneously
dropped before or even after noon. They were covered in canvas, so on a windy
day or a day when it was raining, the (method]) didn’t work.” Eventually, the
invention of the telegraph allowed for the transmission of time signals across
the wires, which allowed the dropping of a time ball to be somewhat more
automated. For example, the time ball built in 1877 on the rooftop of Western Union Telegraph’s New York City headquarters near
City Hall received a signal from the U.S. Naval Observatory. Still, by the late
19th century, the impractical devices were mostly on their way out, or at least
reduced to a more decorative or symbolic role.
Once time signals could be sent to people’s
clocks through wireless transmissions, fewer and fewer time balls were
manufactured, so by 1908, “their time had passed,” McCrossen says (no pun
intended).
Yet, when a 1907 fireworks ban forced the New
York Times to
find a new celebratory way to ring in the new year during its annual New Year’s
jamboree, the paper’s owner Adolph Ochs, inspired by the Western Union
Telegraph’s time ball, arranged for an illuminated seven-hundred-pound iron and
wood ball to be lowered from the flagpole of the Times Tower.
“The great shout that went up drowned out the
whistles for a minute,” the paper reported at the time. “The
vocal power of the welcomers rose above even the horns and the cow bells and
the rattles. Above all else came the wild human hullabaloo of noise.” And. that
is one New Year’s tradition that has remained the same, even as our ways of
keeping time have changed.
Peparing for the Ball Drop on New Year's Eve
* * *
Images of the Ball Drop in Times Square
Monday, December 26, 2016
Sunday, December 25, 2016
How Christmas Became a Holiday in the U.S.
Thomas Nast's 1880s interpretation of Santa Claus
Although Christmas is not technically a national
holiday in the U.S., but it still played an important role in American history
The custom of celebrating the birth of
Jesus Christ is not exactly a new one for Christians around the
world: the holiday is believed to date back to December. 25, 336 A.D.,
in Rome. But in the United States, Christmas was not officially a federal day off from work
or a break from mail delivery until 1870.
In fact, though the term
may be used freely, Christmas isn’t really a “national” holiday in the United
States; rather, it is a federal holiday and a holiday in the states. Neither
the President nor Congress exercises the power to declare a holiday that would
apply to everyone in all of the states at once, the Congressional Research
Service points out.
Still, that doesn’t mean
the U.S. has historically been unenthusiastic about Christmas. The Puritans banned
Christmas celebrations, but by the time the holiday was made a legal
one in addition to a religious one, Americans were already a notably
Christmas-celebrating group.
Several older, highly
industrialized states declared Christmas a legal holiday in the mid-19th century.
Massachusetts makes a good case study: With burnout rates skyrocketing during
the Industrial Revolution, one state legislator argued that the lack of leisure
time was literally killing workers. So, though Massachusetts had had a
state-supported church until 1833 and it’s likely that many workers in the
predominantly Christian society would have taken the day off anyway, the effort
to pass the law came from commercial lobbies rather than religious groups.
“When that legislature declared Christmas to be a legal holiday, they
included a proviso that, when Christmas happened to fall on a Sunday, the
following Monday would become the legal holiday. They did the same thing with
Washington’s Birthday, which had never been a holiday before,” says Stephen
Nissenbaum, author of The Battle for Christmas: A Social and Cultural History of Our Most
Cherished Holiday. “Opposition to the bill focused on the Washington’s
Birthday provision, presumably because it was politically easier to attack.”
Finally,
on June 28, 1870, towards the end of the legislative session, President Ulysses
S. Grant signed into a bill designating Christmas a legal, unpaid holiday for
federal employees in the District of Columbia.
President Ulysses S, Grant
The
legislation also included holidays like the Fourth of July and New Year’s Day.
Such holidays were later extended to federal employees outside of D.C., but a
provision making sure they got paid on those days didn’t exist until 1938.
According to Congressional records, the 1870 law was instigated by area
“bankers and business men” who wanted certain holidays to be formalized. Though
it might have stood to reason that such a bill might provoke debate about
hot-button issues like the separation of church and state, there was no notable
debate on the bill in committee. (“One could
argue that giving federal workers the day off, which is all the federal holiday
does, does not ‘support’ any religion—it doesn’t require anyone to do anything
religious, it just says the office won’t be open,” says Douglas
Ambrose, a professor of history at Hamilton College and an expert in
Christianity in early American history.)
But, some
historians argue that Christmas in the U.S. isn’t really about any law at all. Rather,
the idea that Christmas is a national American holiday may have been a matter
of the widespread appeal of certain practices that spread in the 19th century,
such as writing Christmas cards, decorating Christmas trees, a custom from
Victorian England that was introduced to Americans by popular magazine Godey’s Lady Book and telling children about
Santa Claus, who was depicted by the era’s famous political cartoonist Thomas
Nast in Harper’s Weekly. Though some have
theorized that the law was meant to unite North and South during the height of
the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, the Northern publishing houses
that produced Christmas imagery and circulating the latest customs and traditions
led the charge for the holiday, argues Penne L. Restad, author of Christmas in America: A History and a senior lecturer at the
University of Texas at Austin.
While a
day off from work was important, that wasn’t the only purpose of Christmas
during that rapidly changing time. Christmas customs encouraged a sense of
community and unity at a time when urbanization, industrialization and the
memory of the recent Civil War had made many people feel more unsettled than
ever, says Restad. Unsurprisingly, Thanksgiving’s place as a federal holiday dates to the same era. During that time, people across the
nation sought to impose order on a confusing world, from time zones to
department stores. One result of that effort was an expanding sense of what
America meant.
“This idea of creating a nation becomes important,”
Restad says. And. Christmas was part of how the nation came to be.
_________________________
Other Christmas Images by Thomas Nast
Saturday, December 24, 2016
Neglected Important Artists, No. 36
Piero di Cosimo
Piero di Cosimo (c.1462-1521?). Florentine painter, a pupil of Cosimo Rosselli, whose Christian name he adopted as a patronym. There are no signed, documented or dated works by him, and reconstruction of his oeuvre depends on the account given in Vasari's Lives. It is one of Vasari's most entertaining biographies, for he portrays Piero as a highly eccentric character who lived on hard-boiled eggs, `which he cooked while he was boiling his glue, to save the firing'. The paintings for which he is best known are appropriately idiosyncratic - fanciful mythological inventions, inhabited by fauns, centaurs and primitive men. There is sometimes a spirit of low comedy about these delightful works, but in the so-called Death of Procris (National Gallery, London) he created a poignant scene of the utmost pathos and tenderness. He was a marvellous painter of animals and the dog in this picture, depicted with a mournful dignity, is one of his most memorable creations. Piero also painted portraits, the finest of which is that of Simonetta Vespucci (Musée Condé, Chantilly), in which she is depicted as Cleopatra with the asp around her neck. His religious works are somewhat more conventional, although still distinctive, and Frederick Hartt (A History of Italian Renaissance Art) has written that `His whimsical Madonnas, Holy Families, and Adorations provide a welcome relief from the wholesale imitation of Raphael in early Cinquecento Florence'. One of his outstanding religious works is the Immaculate Conception (Uffizi, Florence), which seems to have been the compositional model for the Madonna of the Harpies by his pupil Andrea del Sarto.
* * *
Works by Piero di Cosimo
The Visitation with St, Peter and St. Anthony
Saint Mary Magdalen
Portrait of Semonetta Vespucci
St. John the Evangelist
The Finding of Vulcan on
Lemnos
The Death of Propero di Cosimao
The Incarnation of Mary
Untitled
Allegory
Young St. John the Baptist
Perseus Frees Andromeda
Venus
A Young Man
The Discovery of Honey by Bacchus
The Adoration
Madonna and Child
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)