Aliens in This World

The Diocese of Oslo announced that, starting this fall, they will be starting a canonization cause for the writer Sigrid Undset.

Heh, not only deserved, but useful to the causes of other saintly Catholic writers.

I think I saw a double-crested cormorant today, over in the retention pond in front of the condo development. That is pretty far south of Lake Erie, but apparently the cormorants are known to have a breeding population near Columbus.

So I guess it is not weird to see one, given that a few seagulls often end up down here, every few years.

I always forget to take pictures of stuff, and I do not want to scare the bird away. But if I see him again, I will try to get photo documentation.

Now I remember why I hate doing live apologetics.

Got done, said goodbye, did not lose my temper the whole time….

Almost got physically sick from the adrenaline slamming into the low blood sugar. Heart racing, gut wrenching, the whole schmole.

Obviously not the worst or hardest thing God could ask of us, but maaaaaaan, I would so much rather sing.

On the bright side, obviously the Holy Spirit helped me with the emotions, because I lose my temper very easily in public.

This is an interesting group of readings. We have Jeremiah 20:10-13, in which Jeremiah complains about all the illwill he is encountering as a prophet, but explains his trust in God. Then we have Psalm 69:10, 14, 17, 33-35, about how people oppose the man who has zeal for the Lord’s house, but how that man also trusts in God. We then get Romans 5:12-15 on how death entered the world through Adam, but how Jesus is the second Adam and God Himself, Who rescues us. Finally, Mt. 10:26-33 has Jesus telling us how important it is that we testify freely and boldly, speaking out about the Truth Himself, even though we face hatred. By not being afraid of men, we win eternal life from God.

As usual, there are some connections between the readings that are not obvious in English.

The one that startled me was in Jeremiah 20:12. The lectionary translation is “For to You, I have entrusted my cause.” Which is a fine translation of the sense.

The Hebrew uses the verb “gala,” to open or uncover. “Rib” is a quarrel, or a legal dispute, or a legal case.

But the Greek shows the hidden connection very clearly. “Hoti pros de, apekalypsa ta apologemata mou.”

Yup, it’s the same Greek verb, “apokalypto,” meaning to uncover, to unveil, that we get in the Greek name of the Book of Revelation, the Apokalypsis of John.

So it’s literally “For to You, I have revealed my legal case,” and that’s also a good translation of the Hebrew.

God is acting as the Judge Who tests and examines the just, and Who sees the kidneys and the heart (with “kidneys” standing for the human mind, in this expression). Jeremiah asks God to let him see a just outcome during his own life, with his own eyes, that will match the just sentence that God is passing on evildoers that we do not always see.

Psalm 69 also has the Psalmist approaching the Just Judge for a just outcome, with confidence. This is shown more acutely by a verse we don’t sing today, Ps. 69:12, when we hear that “those who sit in the gate” are also being nasty. The elders who judge cases and disputes are the ones who sit at the gates of the town. So the local judicial system is also against the Psalmist, just as his male relatives and his own womb brothers, who should be his legal advocates and blood-avengers, are also against him.

The Alleluia verse also talks about this, from John 15:26b-27a: “The spirit of truth” (to pneuma tes aleithias) “… shall testify about Me” (martyresei peri emou), says the Lord, “and y’all also will testify.” (kai humeis de martyreite). This is primarily talking about testifying before the Father, but the Gospel reading says that this also applies to our troubles and testings on Earth.

(John says that Jesus says that “y’all,” the Apostles, will do this “because y’all have been with Me since the beginning,” which probably explains why the Apostles made it one of their criteria for choosing a replacement for Judas.)

So the Gospel reading starts out with Jesus continuing His cheery talk with His disciples about how they are to react to persecution, and how they need to be prepared to flee from city to city, or to testify and be martyred if they get arrested. (Although the Spirit of the Father will speak in them, so that they won’t have to prepare speeches.) And everybody is going to hate them. Yup, you can’t say that Jesus didn’t warn us of the job conditions.

So then, this Gospel reading starts off with something a bit cheerier: “Therefore, do not fear them.” (Me oun phobethete autous.)

And here comes the connection to Jeremiah: “Because nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,” (ouden, gar, estin kekalymmenon ho ouk apokalypthesetai) “or secret, that will not be known.” (kai krypton ho ou gnosthesetai.)

(Also it’s kinda funny to have the word “krypton” in a reading, when there’s a Supergirl movie out, but that’s beside the point.)

God is our Just Judge and our relentless, honest Advocate, and we can trust the entire Trinity to be arguing our case and saving us from injustice. He is merciful when we don’t deserve it, if we will just be honest with Him and trust Him. We can trust Him with our secrets, and the day will come when we will see everything He has done for us.

But we must also speak up for Him, and testify to His kindness and goodness. Maybe with our lives, and maybe with our deaths. But we must speak up when needed, with the freest speech we have.

Speaker Mike Johnson tells the story of ex-President John Quincy Adams’ long lonely fight against Congress, against slavery. He fought to the end and died in Congress still fighting.

Another great man who is downplayed in US history classes. More history between 1812 and the Civil War that was important and is never mentioned. I am starting to think that we need “between the wars” classes to be taught, especially since it turns out to be so relevant. Also because nobody in the US talks about the war with Mexico anymore, but obviously this affects Mexico still (and Canada, and Texas, and most of the southern border states).

But I also notice how, with as much as one hears about every aspect of Lincoln’s life, that I had never heard about him having a relationship with John Quincy Adams, or him having been a pallbearer for his mentor.

Why is this not in a movie? The gangly log-splitter from Illinois carrying the ex-President’s coffin, head and shoulders above other men?

Or why is this not in the young Lincoln movies? The European-educated son of a Founding Father, sharing his experience with a man who did figures on a coal shovel?

One hears very little about Lincoln as congressman. Why? Why are we supposed to look away? To make people forget that abolitionism had existed from the beginnings of the Republic?

Finally, John Quincy Adams seems to have been copying the Roman senator, Cato the Elder, in his actions. Instead of “Carthage must be destroyed” (Carthago delenda est), he set a higher goal: “Slavery must be destroyed.”

Thank you for your service, sir. I am sorry we forgot.

I spent today doing chores (desultorily) and acknowledging sympathy cards (slowly). After that, I delivered a thank you card by hand, in the rain, which was not really what I wanted to do. But now it’s done.

However, I also got to watch the family of geese and goslings that is spending large amounts of time on my parents’ street. Apparently they discovered the neighbors’ mulberry trees, and are cleaning up their lawns of any stray berries.

Of course, this also means that there is a lot of goose poop on the street, which one must try to avoid. But it’s a lively springtime event to watch.

Another neighbor has a huge, tall tulip poplar in his yard, which had an extremely big bloom year this year. People either love or hate the “mess” from tulip tree blossoms, and this one is auditioning to become a mallorn in Lorien. There are little bits of tulip poplar flowers all down the block, and that’s a vast improvement on green goose fewmets.

After my delivery, I went walking in the woods. Part of the woods and fields at the top of the street is now a tiny border around an apartment complex (and an entire plat of houses and offices). But the other half of the woods was turned into a town nature reserve, and is being used by current generations of kids in the same way we used to use it.

One nice discovery was a couple of young Northern Catalpa trees. The scientific name is Catalpa speciosa, or “beautiful catalpa.”

This catalpa’s leaves are huge and heart-shaped. The blossoms are fancy and look like white orchids or giant snapdragons. Usually catalpas are pretty tall, so I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen the spring blossoms before.

These catalpas are both squished into the middle of existing taller trees, so they must be volunteers. I would have remembered seeing them in the spring, if I’d seen them before.

I missed the rest of the spring wildflowers this year, as well as the mayapples and the fun of looking for morels. (Yeah, I’ve never found any, but I have hopes.) So catalpas were a nice surprise.

On March 25, 1913, and for the next two days afterward, nearly 4 trillion gallons of rain and snow flowed through the Great Miami River’s watershed. Flooding wreaked havoc throughout the area. People had to retreat to the attics or roofs of their houses, hoping that the foundations would hold. (And some didn’t.)

After the 1913 Flood, there was a huge fundraising effort to “Remember the Promises You Made in the Attic,” and set up a flood control system to protect most of southwest Ohio. They raised 2 million dollars.

The fund then was used to set up the Miami Conservancy District, and an inspired water nut named Arthur Ernest Morgan was hired to make a system that would last as long as humanly possible, and require very little human intervention once set up. Small fees from landowners inside the Conservancy District would pay for upkeep in the years to come.

The plan included five dry dams, lots and lots of retarding basins, keeping construction off all the important floodplains, improving levees, and deepening and improving river channels.

Construction began in 1918, and was completed by the end of 1922. With an abundance of caution, the end of the project was not declared until April 1923 (after the winter and spring flood conditions had time to do their worst), which was still a year ahead of schedule.

Throughout the years, the farsighted and over-engineered system, and its largely passive methods paired with some active components, have continued to keep those 1913 promises.

So far, the highest amount of water storage was in 2005, when 137 billion gallons of water was stored over the course of the year.

Over the last few days, from May 22-26, 2026, the flood protection system has stored 4.6 billion gallons of water at four out of five of the dams. (Lockington Dam is far upstream, and isn’t collecting as much rainfall water this time.)

It’s not trillions, but that is still a pretty respectable amount of water for four days!

Several of the parks which double as floodplains and retarding or storage basins are currently closed. All of them are in low-lying areas close to Dayton.

The floodgates leading to several towns downstream of Dayton are also closed. Everything’s doing okay.

Obviously people are advised NOT to do any fishing or boating or swimming in the local waters, at this time.

There was an incident today where two folks tried to go kayaking, and ran into trouble as well as being separated. (This was on Twin Creek up in Germantown, which normally isn’t a river. Normally.) Fortunately, one kayaker was rescued by a family who saw him from the banks, and the other managed to rescue himself and get out of the swollen creek. The county water rescue unit was just thankful that the kayakers wore lifejackets, and that they didn’t end up having to go into the water themselves.

In the footrace at the funeral games of Patroclus! (Iliad 23, 758-764)

“The son of Oileus raced ahead,
with godlike Odysseus really close behind –

“His chest as close, as a heddle rod (kanon) is close
to the chest of a nicely-belted woman
[btw, she’s standing up, histemi, at the loom, and btw, histos means loom,]
when she deftly draws it (tanysso) into her hands
to pass the bobbin (penion) along the warp (mitos).

“That’s how close Odysseus ran, his feet hitting Aias’ footprints
Before the dust could settle.”

“…. ὦκα δ’ ἔπειτα

ἔκφερ’ Ὀϊλιάδης: ἐπὶ δ’ ὄρνυτο δῖος Ὀδυσσεὺς

ἄγχι μάλ’, ὡς ὅτε τίς τε γυναικὸς ἐϋζώνοιο 

στήθεός ἐστι κανών, ὅν τ’ εὖ μάλα χερσὶ τανύσσῃ

πηνίον ἐξέλκουσα παρὲκ μίτον, ἀγχόθι δ’ ἴσχει

στήθεος: ὣς Ὀδυσεὺς θέεν ἐγγύθεν, αὐτὰρ ὄπισθεν

ἴχνια τύπτε πόδεσσι πάρος κόνιν ἀμφιχυθῆναι:”

“Shuttle” is “kerkis.”

Weaving a pattern or picture into a piece of fabric is the verb “empasso.”

This is pretty fun, because the heddle rod helps the weaver control which threads go into the pattern when.

In a lot of ways, this is a more satisfying connection of canon to kanon than the measuring stick meaning.

(Ian Johnston translation online; amended per Roller and Roller, “Penelope’s Thick Hand,” 1994.)

She passed away yesterday, of stage 4 pancreatic cancer. She received her Anointing before passing, and she will be buried next to my father.

She wanted to go quickly, after her affairs were in order; and her prayer was granted. It was a little too quickly for us, but it came out all right.

(I will say that the guesses of Hospice nurses and of aides who have seen a lot of deaths are very shrewd ones. They pointed out some of the visible medical signs to me, and it was eye-opening.)

(I think that people should be taught these things in school, at some point when kids are old enough to bear it. Attending the dying is something that most people will have to do sometime.)

The managers at work, and at my younger brother’s work, have been very understanding.

It is sad to lose someone before achieving total mutual understanding. But I was glad that I was able to do so much for her, even if I am not so great at caring for the dying. We got along better at the end than we ever did, because we were always too much alike in ways that rubbed against each other. When it came down to things I could do, it went better. When I couldn’t, it went worse. I was still learning how to help her, as her medical situation constantly changed.

My mom was somebody who tended to do very kind things, but speak in a sharp and prickly way. Sometimes she could not put across why she felt a certain way or how she felt, and so she tended to cover up her deep feelings. She was a very loyal person and liked people, but she often drove them away too. She hated being vulnerable and open, but she loved to teach and see people do well.

But in a world era of confusion and danger for children, she managed to bring us all up safely and with a certain amount of self-reliance and steady values. We all got a Catholic education and we all knew why we went to Mass. We all learned academic subjects well and deeply. We all learned to take care of ourselves and not fall for crazy worldly trends.

She was not a perfect mother, and who is? But she was brave in her final trials and her faith was strong. She was true to my father (and he to her) in an age of infidelity, and true to the Church when it wasn’t easy.

Please pray for her soul, and feel free to ask her to pray for yours.

She always liked to be busy and doing things, and her last illness made her rest longer than she ever had. So I expect she will be eager to pray for any and all of us.

“And though she be but little, she is fierce.”

I wanted to continue this series.

Somebody who did a lot of HEMA (I don’t remember who or where) pointed out this year that, when St. Peter cut off the servant Malchus’ ear – and yes, neither guy is named in St. Matthew’s Gospel – it was not something you’d do easily or casually. Slicing off a big chunk of tough cartilage argues a pretty sharp sword and a fair degree of strength and intent.

Now, a fisherman would do a lot of chopping and slicing stuff off fish, and that muscle memory and skill would translate to chopping and slicing with a sword. (And there’s a nice short called “What do you do with a shamshir?” that demonstrates the difference between chopping and slicing with a sword.)

Roman shortswords specialized in stabbing and chopping, but I don’t know what St. Peter’s sword looked like. Sometimes ancient swords were basically knives or butcher knives, just like some other weapons were basically yard tools for chopping trees, or for trimming branches off hedges.

Anyway… let’s continue with Mt. 26:57.

“So those who had seized Jesus (oi de kratesantes ton Iesoun) led him away (apegagon, from apo- + ago) to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled (synekhthesan, from the verb “synago”).

“But Peter followed (ekolouthei) Him….” (Mt. 26:58) The verb akoloutheo etymologically means something like “to join someone on the road” or “to travel the same road” (road = keleuthos). Hence it means “to follow down the road,” with all the meanings we have for that, including “to become and live as a disciple of somebody.”

This word gets used a ton, in all four Gospels and in Revelation. It’s also what Ruth does, in the LXX translation of Ruth 1:14; and what Abigail does in 1 Sam. 25:42; and what Elisha promises to do in 1 Kgs. 19:20. It’s also what various Gentile nations do in Isa. 45:14. But it’s much more an NT word than an LXX word, by a lot.

So far, so good, for Peter. But he follows “at a distance” (makrothen). This word is used in the LXX to translate Hebrew “rahaq” and “rahoq.” This is associated with stories of both faithfulness and the opposite, so it still doesn’t necessarily mean something bad.

So Peter goes in and sits with the servants (hyperetoun), which is an interesting word because it originally meant a rower on a ship who wasn’t the head rower. It can be used for any kind of servant who works with his hands; but in the NT, there is the implication that it’s an under-officer of some kind of court or Temple person of high office.

Mt. 26:59 tells us that the chief priests, the elders, and the whole Sanhedrin, were looking for false testimony (pseudomartyrian) against Jesus, that was sufficient reason to put Him to death, and that many false witnesses came forward. So it’s ironic that Peter is about to do some false testifying himself, out of fear.

Well, that’s about it for me. I was planning to work my way through the whole reading, during Holy Week, and obviously that didn’t happen. So I will leave things at that.