Stupid colonialist Britney Spears

I spent all day today reading Yokomitsu Riichi's book Shanghai, which is a really excellent novel about a couple of Japanese men in various stages of down-and-out-ness in Shanghai in 1925, when most of Europe and Japan were squabbling over who had the right to colonize China. The last fifty pages or so are rather intense and engrossing, which naturally meant that I tuned out everything but the book during that part; as I was nearing the end, though, I suddenly realized that the silence that had previously reigned supreme in my mind had been replaced by the unlovely strains of "Hit Me, Baby, One More Time," a song I haven't heard for at least a year. Despite my best efforts to supress it, my mind insisted on adding this one-song soundtrack to the last ten pages or so, even going so far as to swoop and crescendo in line with the plot.
Is my subconscious trying to alert me to the fact that Britney Spears is, in fact, a time-traveling siren sworn by demonic blood vow to colonize China in the 1920s, thereby providing her with a large population base she can exploit to produce vast quantities of low-quality evil that she can sell at immense profit to wealthier economies, possibly in the future?
If so, all I have to say to my subconscious is: Dude. I totally know. Who doesn't? I mean, it's obvious.

Historians just don't get it

Fortuna has spun her dread wheel such that I have been reading rather a lot of historiography on 17th-19th century Japan of late. Perhaps this is in some way connected to my enrolling in an English historiography of 17th-19th century Japan course, perhaps not; I'm not one to question the ways of Fortuna. In any case, late last night I was reading about the development of new class relations in farming villages during this time period, when I found this little gem of accidental double-entendre:

"What proportion of domestic industry was organized after this fashion under the putting-out system by the late Tokugawa period is impossible to say, but there is evidence of the system on every hand, in nearly every important industry."

This led me to imagine the folowing dialogue.

Historian A: Dude.
Historian B: What?
Historian A: Dude, I totally scored a date with Jenny for Friday night.
Historian B: WHAT? You lucky son-of-a - Man, I hear that she organizes her industry under the putting-out system fo' shizzle!
Historian A: Dogg, there is evidence of this system on every hand.

*Congratulatory high-five is attempted, but goes awry, causing both historians to giggle nervously before parting.*

fin

Comment issues

So I figured out that I was having a variety of issues with publishing changes in my blog that stemmed from the tabbing features of Firefox and how things are stored in the cache. Anyway, I think I've figured them out, so in the future I shouldn't have any more problems with comment pages not showing up. The reason that the comments weren't working is boring, but suffice to say it's related to the fact that I had to republish both posts I made last night again today in order for blogger to believe that they actually existed and could therefore have comments posted to them. To anyone who feels like posting anything, they are now ripe for the so-doing. Enjoy?

Fathers and Sons

I remember when I was a little kid that whenever I heard my dad walking down the hall with his heavy steps toward the room where my brother and I were, I would be overcome with a sudden and intense fear, not as of terror, but as of the shocking awareness of lessness, of the realization that somehow these footsteps and the man they accompanied contained in them more power and authority than I could ever understand. If I was in bed, I would yank the covers over my head and huddle as small as I could. If we were awake and he talked to us, I would spend the whole time trembling, even when he sat on the bed and hugged me and I could smell his end-of-the-day breath that meant everything was all right.


I don't think he ever knew how afraid I was, afraid that the footfalls in the hall would lead him to me, but also afraid that they would lead him away. I could never make sense of it, even at the time. I hadn't been doing anything wrong, and I knew it - further, I knew that he was just coming to check on us to make sure we were all right, or to tell us about a baseball game he knew we would like to see. And this fear never happened with my mother, even though she was the more likely to punish us when we did something deserving, a contradiction that perplexed me to no end.


I never really understood what it means to fear God, how a love that consumes my entire being can coexist with, and even give rise to, a fear that can be called holy. A couple of weeks ago, think on these memories, I feel like I began to understand.

The pope is pretty awesome

Irrespective of the degree to which you care, most of you probably know that the pope released his first encyclical a little while ago (two Wednesdays ago? I've been getting my days confused lately). The theme is simple, and spelled out in the title: Deus Caritas Est. To say the encyclical is dynamite doesn't do it justice, but I'll say it anyway: it's dynamite.


God is love. What could be easier or more difficult to understand? After all, the matter is so easy that children understand it, as any one who has ever seen a child singing "Jesus loves me," or one who has ever been that child. Yes, yes, yes, we say, of course - God is love. Of course he is, and the love I feel for him is a beautiful emotion that comes and goes, even though I know in some way or another that he is present whether I feel him or not. But what we adults forget is that we are called to love God as his children, as a child would. Love for children is not an emotion; it is deep-seated and absolute knowledge and trust that penetrates every aspect of the child's being.


Those who have been blessed with good parents will know automatically what I mean, if they make an honest attempt to remember what it was like to be six years old and love their parents. A child does not feel his love for his parents at some moments, and not at others; rather, children love with their whole beings at all times, even when their thoughts are radically far from their parents. A child sitting alone at a table drawing a picture and humming to himself is, at that moment, loving his parents with his entire existence. This boy does not know whence come the pencils and paper he is using; nor does he know that his parents have sacrificed their own needs to buy them for him because it makes them happiest to see him happy; nor does he know that this moment of peace is borne of their labor. What he does know with every piece of his being is that his parents provide. The trust that a child has in his parent's ability to provide for him is a permament awareness; it is not an emotion, although it can be accompanied by a physical sensation far deeper than most passing adult emotions. Rather, it is a certainty that comes from knowing no alternative: parents, and what they have provided, are literally the only things that exist. This is, as I say, a trait of perfect trust. Even at school, when far from parents and the comforts of home, the child knows that he is experiencing something that his parents have laid out for him. When things go awry at school and the child is, say, picked on, he cries and complains because he has been hurt, and he knows that being hurt goes against what his parents will for him: I'm going to tell my daddy on you, the child says, in perfect confidence that invoking the provider will restore peace to his life.


So why does this mean that the child sitting at the table drawing and humming is loving his parents with his whole being? Because before a child learns that when adults say 'love' they mean a certain mode of behavior, a certain way of addressing, touching, and treating certain people as opposed to other people, the child believes that all things have been provided for him out of love and that his parents want him to be happy because they love him, so anything he does in his innocence with what they have given him to make himself happy is actually an act of profound trust that stems from a perfect love.


Of course, children realize eventually that their parents are imperfect, that they only have wisdom and resources to provide for them up to a point, and that even their love can sometimes be tainted with weakness and self-love. When we say God is Love, then, we discover the true object of the love that was the very substance of our childhood. For this is what it means to love God: to acknowledge that his love is not something exterior to ourselves, but is in fact the very fabric of our existence - that it is only in him that we live and move and have our being. This is, I believe, the challenge and the joy that "God is love" presents us with: to acknowledge the love that already sustains us and trust in it so deeply that every moment will be a living prayer to God, whether our thoughts are on our grocery list, a paper that won't let itself be written, or the mystery of the Incarnation.