Dealing with disappointment

When a child is disappointed--say, he doesn't make the cut for getting on the team--the parent vicariously feels the hurt. How can he help the child? Many parents would offer sympathy, might try to arrange something that could be a consolation, and would hope to counsel the child to grow from the experience, to learn how to deal with setbacks, to learn good sportsmanship, to be as graceful as possible even in disgrace.

Or they might use another approach.

Authentic perversion

In careless fantasy, and in most of the media, perversion is presented as enticing, glamorous, exotic, alluring. As depicted in pop culture, a typical man supposedly longs to be in a "threesome," and he is excited at the prospect of witnessing lesbian relations.

In fact, perversion is actually perverse. Think Jerry Springer. Perversion is ugly, sad, and tacky. If you tend to forget that, then let this news item serve as a reminder.

May God heal and bless these poor people.

Take heed lest ye fall

Nearly they stood who fall.
Themselves, when they look back
see always in the track
One torturing spot where all
By a possible quick swerve
Of will yet unenslaved--
By the infinitesimal twitching of a nerve--
Might have been saved.

Nearly they fell who stand.
These with cold after-fear
Look back and note how near
They grazed the Siren's land
Wondering to think that fate
By threads so spidery-fine
The choice of ways so small, the event so great
Should thus entwine.

Therefore I sometimes fear
Lest oldest fears prove true
Lest, when no bugle blew
My mort, when skies looked clear
I may have stepped one hair's
Breadth past the hair-breadth bourn
Which, being once crossed forever unawares
Forbids return.

~C.S. Lewis, Poems, "Nearly They Stood" (1933)

A friend died last week, at age 50. Only God is his judge, but from here it looks like 25 years ago, when he showed great promise, he took a turn (a turn for which the flaws in his nature had prepared him) that sent his life into a spiral of failure and misery. Another friend, much admired, made a serious lapse. Both were better men than I. "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." (1 Cor. 10:12.)

My prayer for Father's Day

Prayer of Parents for their Children

O Holy Father, Eternal God, from whom all goodness and blessing flow: I humbly pray to You for the children You have graciously given me....

Preserve them in your grace to the end of their life, and sanctify them, that your Name be hallowed in them.

Aid me also by your grace that I may bring them up for the glory of your holy Name and for the benefit of all mankind. Grant me the necessary means to this end, together with patience and fortitude.

O Lord, enlighten them by the light of your wisdom that they may love You with all their heart and soul. Instill in their hearts a fear of evil so that their way may be without sin. Adorn their soul with your virtues that they may prosper in holiness and grow in your favor. And, if at any time they should sin against You, do not turn away from them the spirit of contrition.

Give them the goodness of the earth and everything necessary for eternal salvation. Protect them from misfortune, anger, privation, and from the snares of the devil all the days of their life.

O Lord, grant me joy and happiness in my children. Enable me to appear with them at your awesome judgment, and there, without fear, to say: "Here I am Lord, with the children You have given me." That, together with them, praising your great goodness and eternal love, I may glorify your most holy Name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and ever, and forever. Amen.

From the Byzantine Book of Prayer

Missionary turf wars

Catholic priest friend complains of Evangelical Protestant missionaries in South America. Discussion ensues. Casualties mount.

When is a marriage good enough?

Here's an interesting article, recommending low expectations for marriage. It prompted a lively discussion on TitusOneNine, in which I made this comment.

"Haste" laid waste

Yesterday at the Anglican, ex-Episcopal church I attend, we sang the hymn "O Zion, Haste". We still use the Episcopal hymnal, however, and bumped again into the ECUSA's bowdlerization of the hymn texts. Our "O Zion, Haste" reflected two obnoxious ECUSA revisions:

1. The first stanza of the hymn actually says: "... That He who made all nations is not willing / One soul should perish, lost in shades of night." ECUSA's editor apparently couldn't bear to hint at Hell by referring to anyone "perishing" or being "lost," so the text we sang went something like "...one soul should fail to know His love and might." The original text alludes to 2 Peter 3:9 ("The Lord is ... not willing that any should perish"), but the ECUSA revision loses this--and thereby loses the chance to teach that, while Hell is a real threat, it is not what our loving God wants.

The ECUSA version had to leave out altogether, as irreformable, the stanzas that begin, "Behold how many thousands still are lying / Bound in the darksome prison house of sin" and "’Tis thine to save from peril of perdition / The souls for whom the Lord His life laid down". They presented an insuperable challenge to the revisers, and could not be forced into the universalist Unitarian mold. A reading of the entirety of this original text gives a sense that its author, Mary A. Thompson, simply had a different religion from the one that prevails in ECUSA, and that it was almost dishonest to include this hymn in the ECUSA hymnal, which would better accommodate "O Zion, Take Your Time".

2. The next-to-last stanza actually begins, "Give of thy sons to bear the message glorious; / Give of thy wealth to speed them on their way...." Anyone who has a son may well be arrested by this call--and should be. Mary Thompson wrote the text one night while sitting up with a child who had typhoid fever; and in that personal context the notion of giving one's sons is not at all abstract. 19th-century missionaries sometimes died (of typhoid or God knows what else) and were buried on the field, so a farewell to a departing missionary son had to be assumed a likely final farewell.

The ECUSA version, however, is sadly de-personalized, and says something like "Send heralds forth to bear the message glorious ...." I suppose this was done to make it gender-neutral and to make the daughters not feel excluded--but the cost to the text is too great, and somehow the evangelical churches that sang this hymn in its unrevised form for its first hundred years managed to send plenty of daughters to the mission field--perhaps more daughters than sons, in fact. I think most of those daughters felt that in a generic way they were included among the "sons", which of course they were.

But my favorite ECUSA revision came up a week earlier, on Trinity Sunday: The original text for "Holy, Holy, Holy" says, "though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see"--but the vigilant ECUSA editors rendered it, "though the sinful human eye Thy glory may not see." At this point in the hymn, I often nudge my wife and assure her, "Women are sinful, too." I'm happy to report that I think she feels included in the Fall.

Back from Boston & Beach

I've been away from my desk for 12 days. Maybe I'll think of something to write about.

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary

Dwight Longenecker has posted on his blog a couple excerpts from "Mary: A Catholic-Evangelical Debate"--one a complaint about a problematic prayer of Cardinal Wyszynski (and Dwight's reply), and the other a complaint about a problematic passage from Pope Pius IX (with Dwight's reply soon forthcoming)--and I've jumped into the discussion in the comments.

"Forgetfulness"

Maybe this is what Alzheimer's is like.

(Source: Mark Shea.)

"Dating"? Bah, humbug.

The irrepressible Dawn Eden made a post entitled "A More Excellent Way."

I've gotten involved in a discussion in the comments.