Before going heading off to campus today I glanced outside — it looked like rain for certain: overcast, gloomy. So I grabbed an umbrella and carried it along just in case. I parked a mile away from school and began my journey toward campus — I noticed that the leaves on a small tree in Van Cleve Park were orange, and that the lights in the bridge under the train tracks were greenish. I found this all very confusing, and then suddenly remembered that I was wearing sunglasses. I removed them and looked around: and it was actually a beautiful day. I briefly entertained the idea of wearing sunglasses everyday, as the world shines all the brighter when they are taken off.
As I walked across the Washington Avenue bridge I came across a Muslim woman playing some sort of stringed instrument and singing some esoteric sounding words in an extremely high key. I reached into my pocket, found some change, and dropped in it her coffer as I walked past. I suddenly had the urge to walk back to her, attempt to steal her headgarment and exclaim “No way! Kate Bush! Is that you under there?!”, but, I, of course, resisted the urge. That wouldn’t be a very nice thing to do now, would it?
I went to my Late Middle Ages history class. Had Professor Phillips take a looksee and okay some of the books I had found on St. Dominic and the Dominican Friar Preachers.
After class I walked over the Mississippi on the Washington Ave. bridge. Midway through the river a Green Peace guy stopped me and asked for contributions to get more people guarding oil rigs in the wake of The Eleventh, and begged me to become a member.
–I’ve no money, I said, the Muslim lady got to me first.
–Oh, that’s alright, he said, I know how that goes.
As I turned the corner after arriving at the East Bank I realised that Sisters Hayward and Garret had suddenly materialised and that I was about to walk headlong into their path. Oh no, I thought, and hoped that my sunglasses would mask my appearance and they would walk cluelessly on past. No such luck. Recognition immediately spread across their faces.
–Hello there, Sisters, I greeted.
–Hey!, they happily responded, overjoyed to see a familiar face that wasn’t going to hurl insults. Nice seeing you again!
–It appears I’ve caught you stalking me once again, I replied smiling. It’s very
odd — He seems to place us on the same trajectory about once a
month — meeting in this very spot, no less. And, of course, a guy from Green Peace tried to convert me not two minutes ago.
–Really?!, said the formerly taciturn Sister Garret, suddenly remembering the stories I’d related to them about all the cults that have tried to convert me at one time or another.
–You seem to have a face that everyone wants to talk to!, chimed Sister Hayward in a tone I couldn’t exactly interpret and that made me feel uncomfortable — I suddenly wanted to disappear behind my sunglasses.
–Hey! Was he cute?, asked Sister Garret in a surprisingly interested tone, glancing about the bridge.
–Ah, I said, and narrowed my shielded eyes trying to recall his appearance, which took a few seconds. Well, I suppose I did label him as attractive in some far inconsequential recess of my mind. I hadn’t thought about it, honestly.
Sister Garret’s eyes lit up and I realised she was way too excited for a dedicated Mormon girl.
–Hey!, said Sister Hayward. The Prophet is speaking this weekend, you should come!
–I, ah, have to work Saturday, I said, and I’ve watch of my little sister on Sunday. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it.
–Have you read any of the Book of Mormon yet?, asked one of the Sisters.
–I’ve been very busy and haven’t had a chance. I will one of these days, though. But, I actually must be on my way. I’ve some reading to accomplish. You ought to go have a talk at that Green Peace fellow, I said, pointing over the Mississippi with my umbrella as though it were a staff — Thataway! He’s, er, cute. If you hurry you might catch him and make a nice Mormon boy out of him.
–Good idea!, chimed Sister Garret, excited.
Sister Garrett immediately scurried in his direction, Sister Hayward glanced awkwardly from me to her, and quickly followed in her wake.
–Tell him the presbyterian sends her regards, I was about to say, but they had scurried fast and were out of range.
I walked away quietly heh, heh, hehing at my mischievousness and formed a plan to start a cult war. The cults would start fighting among themselves, kill each other off, and soon enough the campus would be rid of them altogether. What a brilliant strategy.
Read part of a book by Peter Levi (a former Jesuit) called The Frontiers of Paradise: A Study of Monks and Monasteries at the coffee shoppe between classes. Anthony Burgess actually has a comment from The Observer on the back praising the book. The book isn’t that great of a source — it’s mostly Levi’s snide and humourous commentary on monks and monasteries. On Aquinas:
At the age of thirty-four he wrote an extraordinary and almost convincing defense of Christianity against Islam and the Jews and the heretics, based on pure reason.
Right on. I am entertaining the idea of sending Mr. Levi a letter referring him to Van Til, but I cannot seem to figure out if he’s still alive.
There are more Dominican saints and worthies than I know the names of. My own favourite is Martin Porres, a lay brother whose lifework was comforting the slaves as they docked in America. He is also said to have raised a dead dog to life, which indicates a pleasant character. The Order was at its worst in Spain, where they became the watch-dogs and guard-dogs of an orthodoxy defined largely by themselves, and sniffers-out of everything unorthodox, from mystics to Jesuit theologians. In Rome they played a similar part, though without teeth, as lately as the present century. Teilhard de Chardin suffered from them, and so did numerous professors of Scripture. I was taught the rudiments of Hebrew by an old professor who remembered a time when every sentence in the account of creation in the Book of Genesis had to be taken literally, with the single exception that it might not have been an apple, it might have been a pomegranate. As late as the sixties, Catholic priests had to swear something called the Antimodernist oath before their ordination, which bound them among other details to reject socialism, and by a sub-clause to reject the opinion that Protestants expounded the Scriptures better than Catholics. It is probable that very few of them read through it.
Boy, it is sure tedious work to type with a bandaged right hand.
