5/24/23

 Wednesday, May 24, 2023

In bed at 9:30, up at 5:15, on a blustery morning with a beach hazard advisory along the Lake Michigan shore with 5 to 7-foot waves forecast from 9 a.m. through the morning.  50℉ with a NNE wind at 15 mph gusting now up to 27 mph, later up to 38 mph.  High of 58℉. Sunrise at 5:20,, sunset at 8:51, 14+57.

A Little Niebuhr:  "In modern society the basic mechanisms of justice are becoming more and more economic rather than political, in the sense that economic power is the most basic power.  Political power is derived from it to such a degree that a just political order is not possible without the reconstruction of the economic order.  Specifically, this means the reconstruction of the property system.  Property has always been power, and inequalities in possession have always made for an unjust distribution of the common social fund.  But a technical civilization has transmuted the essentially static disproportions of power and privilege of an agrarian economy into dynamic forces. . . . Whatever the defects of Marxism as a philosophy and as a religion, and even as a political strategy, its analyses of the technical aspects of the problem of justice have not been successfully challenged, and every event of contemporary history seems to multiply the proofs of its validity. . .  The methods which must be used to achieve such a new property system raise the question of violence and the Christian ethic. . . .  a Christian's concern with the violation of the ethic of Jesus must begin long before the question of violence is reached.   It ought to begin by his recognizing that he has violated the law "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."  Out of the violation of that commandment arises the conflict of life with life and of nation with nation.  It is highly desirable to restrict this conflict to non-violent assertions and counter-assertions, but it is not always possible.  Sometimes the sudden introduction of a perfectionist ethic into hitherto pragmatic and relative may actually imperil the interests of justice.  The Christian who lives in and benefits from a society in which coercive economic and political relationships are taken for granted, all of which are contrary to the love absolutism of the gospels, cannot arbitrarily introduce the uncompromising ethic of the gospel into one particular issue.  When this is done we may be fairly certain that the unconscious class prejudices partly prompt the supposedly Christian judgment.  It is significant, for example, that the middle-class Church which disavows violence, even to the degree of frowning upon a strike, is usually composed of people who have enough economic and other forms of covert power to be able to dispense with the more overt forms of violence." Reinhold Niebuhr, An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (1935).

I picked up this book this morning as part of my project of clearing up the rat's nest around my tv room recliner.  I bought the book many years ago and it is heavily highlighted, underlined, checkmarked, and post-it-noted.  What caught my attention on the page (114) that flipped open was the sentence  "The Christian who lives in and benefits from a society in which coercive economic and political relationships are taken for granted, all of which are contrary to the love absolutism of the gospels, cannot arbitrarily introduce the uncompromising ethic of the gospel [i.e., non-violence/pacifism] into one particular issue.  It calls to mind the American Evangelicals and their embrace of Donald Trump, Trumpism, and right-wing Republicanism, but also my failures as one who by nature or nurture tends toward agnostic or atheistic Christian socialism.  How hard it is to be a Christian, indeed, how impossible it is, as reflected in the title of  Niebuhr's Chapter 4: "The Relevance of an Impossible Ethical Ideal."

Chronic pelvic pain, interstitial cystitis, etc.  In addition to Neibuhr, I also pulled out an old Walmart notebook in which I had written notes about the chronic pain I was experiencing back in March and April 2009 and I don't know for how long before that.  Partial notes from 3/26/2009: "intermittent pain during the night... received a call from Dr. Silbar's office to schedule 'a look inside your bladder' on 4/1.  I informed the caller of my bad experience at Froederdt with the urodynamics test.  I don't know whether trainee-nurse was particularly ham-handed or whether the intense pain was a result of my bladder-urethra-prostate-perinium-penis anatomy but I hope never to have a similar experience. . . By 2:30, the pain has increased to 5/6, L.T. and perineal, walking becoming painful. " There is also a note about zonking out on amitryptiline as I did several weeks ago again.   I think the CPP started 20 years ago, when I was still at The House of Peace.  The good old days.

Call from the VA.  A call from a nurse at the VA informed me that the covid-19 test I had scheduled on May 29 before my 'double dip' on June 1 was canceled because of the cancellation of the covid pandemic emergency regulations.  I asked if the 2nd bivalent covid booster vaccines were available yet and was told that they arrived yesterday.  I made an appointment to receive one this afternoon at 1 which I did.  Afterwards I took a slow drive through Wood National Cemetery, as I have so often done.  I thought volunteers or groundskeepers might be starting to plant flags at each headstone with Memorial Day just a few days away, but nothing was going on except two men on riding lawnmowers moving among graves.

A robin stands sentry duty atop a row of headstones

A shanda fur die goyim: Carmalite nuns sue their bishop!  Texas nuns have sued a bishop and the Fort Worth Diocese over an allegation that one of the nuns — who is seriously ill and uses a wheelchair and a feeding tube — broke her vow of chastity with a priest.  The Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Arlington have accused Bishop Michael Olson of waging an overzealous investigation into the alleged chastity vow violation, confiscating the nuns' phones and personal devices, "spying" on their texts and even personally showing up at their monastery to spend hours interrogating them.  The nuns' attorney, Matthew Bobo, said he believes that Olson has ulterior motives in levying such an allegation against Sister Teresa Gerlach.  "They're 72 acres in Arlington, Texas, on the Trinity River in the middle of the metroplex.  It's worth $20 million or so. That's what he's trying to do."  A representative for the Diocese said that Gerlach "admitted to violating the Sixth Commandment," which forbids adultery. The representative declined to comment further.  Bobo denied that Gerlach made such an admission. He said the Diocese has released no information regarding the alleged violation, such as when or where it would have occurred. Additionally, the nuns said in their court filing that Olson interrogated Gerlach immediately after she returned from a surgical procedure, in which she was put under general anesthesia, intubated, and given fentanyl.  Gerlach said in an affidavit that she is severely ill and requires a central catheter line, feeding tube, and intravenous drip for 10 hours a day. Yet despite her condition, she said Bishop Olson "forced himself onto our peaceful community" in late April, interrogated her and other nuns for several hours, and "threw a temper tantrum" in which he yelled that the monastery was shut down and no mass would be held.  Why is it so easy for me to believe the nuns and disbelieve the bishop?