Monastic Musings

College of St. Scholastica - history

2009-07-09T23:00:00.002-05:00

Well, our college has pulled together some interesting materials from their archives, along with the monastery archives, showing the history of Tower Hall, our first building. I suspect the upcoming 100th anniversary of the College of St. Scholastica has something to do with it...

Robert McNamara and The Fog of War

2009-07-09T10:41:00.003-05:00

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Robert McNamara, defense secretary under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, died on Monday. He was a complex man, one of "the best and the brightest" gathered by JFK to form his cabinet: the one whose name is forever linked to the war in Vietnam. Although he went on to work at the World Bank and contribute to the developing world, little of that is remembered.

McNamara was silent about Vietnam for a quarter of a century. By the time he published his memoir,In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam in 1995, an entire generation had grown up who would not really understand the mindset of the Cold War and the real fear of the Domino Theory - that all of Southeast Asia was poised to "fall to communism," needing only one country to start the cascade. He - and JFK and LBJ - were determined that it would not be Vietnam. When he did speak out, he said that he and his colleagues were "wrong, terribly wrong." His anguish comes through - deep sorrow and a sense of responsibility for the thousands of young lives lost, and awareness that Americans' deep cynicism and lack of trust in government has its roots in the mistakes and deceptions of the Vietnam War.

A decade later, he agreed to 20 hours of interviews with filmmaker Errol Morris, resulting in the movie The Fog of War - Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. It is a painful movie to watch. First, we see McNamara's involvement with General Curtis LeMay in World War II, and especially carrying out the fire-bombing of Japanese cities. His emphasis on scientific management was used in the war; he stated with accuracy that "In that single night [in March 1945], we burned to death one hundred thousand Japanese civilians in Tokyo. Men, women and children." Asked by the interview if he was aware this would happen, he replied, "Well, I was part of a mechanism that, in a sense, recommended it."

He said, "LeMay said if we lost the war that we would have all been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he's right. He... and I'd say I... were behaving as war criminals. ... But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?" His tone of voice was hard to categorize - in part, reporting facts, in part incredulous that an act could be acceptable for the victors but not the defeated, and just the hint of awareness of the unimaginable grief of 100,000 deaths in a single night.

In the film, he struggles to draw and express lessons - and many of those "lessons" seem valid in the present - our current world circumstances might be different had we followed them. Both the film and the commentary that we have heard since his death focus on the viewpoint and decisions of a few people - with McNamara and the presidents at the center. That view is accurate, but partial.

McNamara articulates the lesson to "know your enemy" - to know how the world looks from a different perspective, to understand the goals and motives of the person you are fighting. This realization, after Vietnam, was perhaps the first glimmer to Americans of what would become globalization. Up until that period in the early 1960s, much of the world was, in essence, seen as European: the nations of Africa and Asia were still in the process of becoming nations, not colonies, and Central/South America seemed like off-shoots from the European tree. The error was real, and tragic, but it was not McNamara's alone.

All of the discussion, and McNamara's own ponderings and anguish, do not fully contemplate the impact of the tools available upon the builder. The U.S. had won in WW II through military power, and had stockpiled newer and more technologically sophisticated weapons over the years of the Cold War. Not only did they think in terms of enemies and dominoes, the most obvious tools at hand were ones of war. The most obvious thing to do, when a group of people seem to threaten one's security is to eliminate them - usually by killing them. It is a lesson of multiple episodes of trying to kill off the enemy only to find that, in many battles, each death recruits more to the cause. The tools of diplomacy, of understanding the tremendous impetus in the less developed world to share the goods and lifestyle of the wealthy west: these were not yet fully developed and not yet on his radar screen.

I am not the one who will judge Robert McNamara's life; he has fallen into the hands of a loving and merciful God. Alongside his errors, I think God will also see his struggle to honestly see and express those errors, even at cost to himself, to try to prevent others from making them. His honesty and deep searching as he deals with the past are, perhaps, his best and most enduring legacy.

Robert S. McNamara, may you rest in peace.

Morris Dance comes to the big screen

2009-07-06T16:16:00.001-05:00

In my distant past, I was a Morris dancer - but it was never this exciting!

Paying to (seem to) have an education

2009-07-05T23:31:00.006-05:00

I'm spending my time this summer developing a new all-online statistics course. Most of my effort is going into developing the presentations and assignments, trying to use a variety of techniques that will help my students become competent at statistics without a teacher present.

When I found out about the web site "JustAnswer" I realized I needed to focus on the quizzes and homework with as much attention, for different reasons. Students are paying to have their homework and quizzes done. And bona fide academics are doing the work.

JustAnswers is something like eBay in reverse. People with questions - not only homework, but also medical, automotive, computer, legal - post their question and a dollar amount will pay for an acceptable answers. "Experts" can read the questions and accept ones that are "within their skill set." For instance, someone was willing to pay $14 to get some help with a math quiz. I decided to take a look at the quiz.

I was surprised to find that the quiz comes from MyMathLab, a popular online homework program. MyMathLab has built-in tutorials that step a student through a problem and a number of homework problems with hints. It usually includes an electronic copy of the student's textbook, and links back to it. In short, it's like having an excellent and patient homework partner. At the end of a unit, a teacher can have it generate a quiz that must be submitted. This person was asking someone to simply do the quiz and send her the answers - so I presume that, for whatever reason, she hadn't made use of MyMathLab's other tools.

Curious, I clicked on the document and found it was an MS-Word document with a meticulous screen shot of each of the questions on the quiz, which appear to be from a basic algebra quiz. I wondered how long it had taken the student - whose identity was protected by JustAnswer but immediately visible on the document he uploaded - to take each of those screenshots and create the document? She must really have trouble with math, if it was worth the time to do all of that work.

It was also immediately clear why "experts" would undertake this work. The "Math Experts" - one had an M.A. and taught high school and college math - could do questions like this at high speed. Even though this is material I don't often use, I was sure I could finish in under 30 minutes (for a $28/hr rate of pay) - and I bet the Math Experts could do it in 10 or 15 minutes, in their spare time.

I saw an interesting contrast, however - the one that prompts me to focus on the assignments I design for my online class. Someone posted a request for help with data analysis - my field - so I clicked on the questions. An expert named Elizabeth had looked at the question, which included a list of statistics that were to be provided, and asked the student, "Where is the data?" After a few exchanges - she pointed him towards MediaFire as an upload site for the spreadhseet - all of the information was available to her.

The assignment, though, linked to previous work, to examples, to lectures. It did an excellent job of challenging the student to pull together the knowledge of the chapter to do a practical piece of work. It also made it nearly impossible for the student to simply turn the work over to an expert - although he is still hoping someone with a different "skill set" will come along and take the question.

There is an aspect of this that is sad. The exchange between Elizabeth-the-Expert and the students revolved around organizing the material and coming to an understanding of the task at hand. It's exactly the sort of exchange that professors have with students - built into the cost of tuition - when they ask questions. So often, though, they don't want to look dumb to the professor - so they won't ask - and perhaps they pay someone to give them help they could get from their own teacher.

The people seeking homework help on JustAnswer - some even looking for their people to do their dissertations! - are probably students in regular face-to-face classes as often as online. Someone will say that students have always cheated, and I'm sure that is true, too. Paper-mills have been around for quite a while. The Internet, though, takes it to an entirely new level, creating a market in individualized answers and papers.

JustAnswer connects people to a source of advice about their cars, their health, and their legal affairs - knowledge they can use without passing it off as their own. The Experts who work in those parts of the site are really just expanding the boundaries of their offices or workshops.

The academic experts, though, are different. If Luz gets the answers to her math quiz, she will submit them as her own and - if she keeps up the pattern - walk away with a grade on a transcript that certifies her competence in handling numbers: competence she does not possess. A person who pays for legal advice does not get credentialed as an attorney, but someone who pays for a quiz is, eventually, credentialed as an academic at some level. The "experts" rob society of its ability to accept the validity of academic degrees as indicators of knowledge.

I hope the downturns of the economy do not have experts of higher and higher levels giving way to temptation and participating in JustAnswer and its ilk.

"Demographic Bomb" - Part II of "Demographic Winter"

2009-07-05T18:54:00.003-05:00

The film Demographic Winter was released about a year ago, not in theaters or to much acclaim, but as a documentary. For a short time, the entire film was available online - to be replaced by the trailer. It included appearances by many well-known scholars in the fields of demography and family sociology.

Demographic Winter's put forward a single piece of information, and examined it from a variety of angles. Beginning with the fact that the size of families in developed nations had shrunk below the replacement level - as low as 1.1 children per woman in some European countries - the scholars explored the impact on society. The first answer that comes to most people's minds is that the population will shrink - but that's not really the case, at first. As people live longer, and the Baby Boom generation ages, the population grows even as the number of children shrinks - but the growth is largely in the elderly. Demographic Winter explores the economic and social problems that occur in a rapidly aging society, and the social attitudes that spring up to support the new status quo.

The documentary makers said that Demographic Winter was "Part I" of their film project, and that Part II would be released a year later. According to the web site, Demographic Bomb: Demography is Destiny was released on July 1. The second film "deals with rapidly falling birth rates and their consequences for humanity in the 21st century," according to producer Barry McLerran, and "explores the history of the modern population control movement."

McLerran says they "uncover the roots of the crisis that has shaken the world's economies. [The first move] predicted the financial crash of 2008 to within 12 months. Demographic Bomb reveals how this is just the beginning," he explains. "[The second] shows what happens when countries comprising 80% of the world's economy have plummeting numbers of workers, consumers and innovators - leading to falling consumer spending, and too few workers to support the elderly."

I haven't yet seen the new film, but have watched the trailer online. I hope to see it soon!

The Mysterious Benedict Society - an adventure

2009-07-04T11:31:00.008-05:00

It's a rare thing for me to read fiction; I picked up The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Steweart from the recommendations of the (late) Brother Dietrich Reinhart, who was president of St. John's University in Minnesota. I was quickly captivated by the smarter-than-his-years Reynie and his tutor, and drawn in by the mysterious ad directed at children themselves, "Are you looking for special opportunities?"

The book IS the type I enjoy in young adult fiction: a subtle critique of modern culture, a positive focus on kids who would be called nerds or geeks, enough surprising turns of plot to keep me reading.

The exceptional aspect, for me, comes through in the strengths AND flaws that are revealed in each of the main characters' approach to the tests they undergo at the beginning. Each thinks she or he has found "the" way to deal with the difficult questions or puzzling situations - only to find that others also arrived at a solution they can recognize as valid, but entirely different. The flaws of two characters are very visible at the outset - Constance's unending oppositional personality and Sticky's pervasive anxiety - while the others are only hinted at; all show up eventually.

Cover via Amazon

Many young adult adventure books, I guess, hinge on the struggles of a motley crew to accomplish some lofty goal while finding out how to build on each other's strengths and work together in spite of each other's foibles. Stewart's novel adds the twist that, at least sometimes, the foibles reveal themselves to actually be the strength.

I am definitely enjoying this book. It's clearly not in the category of classics like the Narnia Tales of C. S. Lewis - but reading it provides plenty of opportunity to think about the nature of friendship and collaboration, the pervasiveness of media messages - and have fun at the same time.

Copyfraud - something I never thought about

2009-07-04T07:35:00.000-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

I was dumbfounded when I read the abstract for Jason Mazzone's paper Copyfraud: it dealt with a type of wrong-doing that had never before occurred to me. A quick perusal of the early sections of the paper made me realize that, in fact, I've been a victim of copyfraud.

All of us who work in academe are well attuned to the importance of avoiding copyright infringement. Every year, our institutions offer us workshops and guidance on the "fair use" of copyrighted materials in the classroom. Every time we post a quote or video clip, we consider the possibility of copyright infringement and the legal battles that can ensue.

As authors, we lament the academic journals that pressure us to sign away our copyright in order to be published, or seek to publish in Open Access journals that allow us to retain our copyright. In all these cases, though, we act on the presumption that the books, web sites, videos, and the like that bear the © symbol (perhaps accompanied by threats of prosecution or frightening descriptions of penalties for violations) are, in fact, asserting a legitimate copyright.

According to Mazzone, that assumption is false. There are all sorts of works that are, legally, in the public domain, but published with the © in a routine way. While differing standards apply to works depending on their date of publication, all works published anywhere in the world before July 1, 1909 are considered to be in the public domain within the U.S.A.

That would include Thorstein Veblen's classic The Theory of the Leisure Class, first published in 1899. A few years ago, I wanted students in my Conspicuous Consumption course - titled for Veblen's famous concept - to read sections of the book; I did not want to ask them to buy another book. The edition of the book that I had on hand had a very firm copyright notice. (The link takes you to Amazon, where you can "look inside" the Oxford Classics edition to see the notice about any form of reproduction.) That edition included some introductory material on Veblen and his ideas - certainly subject to copyright by its author - but the rest of the material was the original 1899 text. I found the book on Project Gutenberg - but did not believe its claim that the text was not copyrighted in the US because of the book in my hands with its prominent © mark. In the end, I put the book on reserve and students had to read my copy in the library.

But Project Gutenberg was right; my students and I were victims of copyfraud. And it does not occur only with moldy classics of social science. In the abstract to his paper, Mazzone states:

"Copyfraud is everywhere. False copyright notices appear on modern reprints of Shakespeare's plays, Beethoven's piano scores, greeting card versions of Monet's Water Lilies, and even the U.S. Constitution."

My students were not just inconvenienced. Most of them chose to make copies for personal study - acceptable fair use if the material HAD been copyrighted - but they paid 10¢ a page on the library copy machine. It would have cost them less to print out had I posted it online or copied it as a handout. In some cases, the perpetrators of copyfraud profit for their efforts:

"These false copyright claims, which are often accompanied by threatened litigation for reproducing a work without the owner's permission, result in users seeking licenses and paying fees to reproduce works that are free for everyone to use."

Mazzone's paper considers the costs of copyfraud to students when faculty -as they are urged to do by administrators - use the Copyright Clearance Center to obtain permissions for works included in course packets. He considers one short item:

"Fifteen cents to read a page of The Federalist may not sound like much, but it can add up to a mountain of free cash for the overreaching publisher who enlists the Center’s services. A professor unnecessarily purchasing a license to copy Madison’s Federalist No.10, which runs ten pages in the Cooke edition, incurs $1.50 in fees per course packet. For each class of one hundred undergraduates, the publisher receives $150 in undeserved licensing payments. One hundred college professors teaching one course per year in which Federalist No. 10 is assigned create an annual publisher’s windfall of $15,000."

There are other costs too: faculty may choose to use fewer images in class presentations, or to post their notes and presentations on the web. I often show a classic cartoon illustrating a Marxist view of social class, originally appearing in an IWW magazine in 1911 - but have resisted giving it to students because my source claimed a copyright which, under the law for items published in the U.S., it did not hold.

To be sure, many of the texts and images I use in my sociology classes are recently written and protected by law. Nonetheless, Mazzone's paper woke me up. Perhaps some more images from long-defunct publications will spruce up my lectures next year!

Mazzone, Jason, Copyfraud. Brooklyn Law School, Legal Studies Paper No. 40; New York University Law Review, Vol. 81, p. 1026, 2006. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=787244

Abbot John & Sister Ephrem at Monastic Institute 2009

2009-07-03T10:00:00.002-05:00

Abbot John & Sister Ephrem at Monastic Institute 2009, originally uploaded by Edith OSB.

On the last day of the Monastic Institute, we heard from Abbot John Klassen and Sister Ephrem Hollerman who was prioress at St. Benedict's Monastery for a decade.

Abbot John spelled out the way in which St. John's Abbey has approached the task of developing a more sustainable lifestyle, ranging from big ecological projects on their land through community-wide changes (reducing their fleet of cars and combining trips with other people) to small changes in everyday life, such as returning to the use of cloth napkins in their monastic refectory.

Like Professor John Carrol on the first day, he emphasized the need for ongoing conversion - that becoming more sustainable was not something done in a day. At St. John's, the emphasis has extended to the health of individual monks. They hired a trainer, out-fitted a really "decent" exercise room with excellent equipment and good ventilation, and have helped monks to develop exercise programs to improve their health. "How can we take care of the land," he asked, "if we don't take care of our health as well."

A third component of the efforts at St. John's Abbey has been on-going education, with videos, speakers, table reading, and a variety of other methods to help the monks grow in knowledge and remain mindful of their environmental ethic and efforts.

Sister Ephrem's presentation focused on building the spiritual dimension that supports an ecological lifestyle. She mentioned some of the specific aspects of the changes made at St. Benedict's Monastery, especially as the sisters now have a kitchen that prepares food only for themselves.

Considering all we have heard about sustainability, she identified some key themes:
* living within limits
* understanding the connections among people, communities, and the environment
* equitable distribution of goods
* a balanced state of "give and take" between humans and the earth
* a way of life that is about being God's guests on the earth.

She linked these general themes to six principles which are found woven throughout the Rule of Benedict:
* Care and reverence
* Common ownership
* Work
* Distribution according to need
* Frugality
* Concern for the poor

Her consideration of all of these drew her back to the 1980 statement by the American Benedictine Prioresses, Of All Good Gifts and its call to "see with the heart of Christ" in looking on the needs of the earth and its people. She quoted from the document:

"A monastic community ... seeks to create an environment conducive to mindfulness: awareness of God, self, one another, and the sacredness of creation. It values Eucharist, lectio, celebration of the Hours, solitude, silence, and leisure because these experiences enable the word of God to penetrate the heart and take root.... Dominion is God's and we are merely caretakers, obliged to use what we have for the good of all."

This spirituality is not easy! Sister Ephrem reported that decisions about land always bring out lively opinions, but that they have worked out a set of six guiding principles, including the central principle to "live simple and gentle lives."

Both Abbot John and Sister Ephrem pulled together the themes of conversion to a more ecological way of life, the science of sustainability, the methods of making connections with others who can help us and whom we can help.

And so, with a prayer service focusing on Psalm 104, the 2009 Monastic Institute concluded. While the topic has not been decided for the Institute in 2010, it will be the 25th Institute and plans are already underway for a celebratory program.

Monastic Institute 2009

2009-07-01T15:17:00.002-05:00

Monastic Institute 2009, originally uploaded by Edith OSB.

The topic of the Monastic Institute this year is Household Economy - taking up the issue of sustainable living from both an ecological and a spiritual perspective.

The first speaker, John Carroll, has written Sustainability and Spirituality. His address was powerful in describing the deep conversion that has to occur if we are to move from our current lifestyle which - while comfortable - cannot be sustained. Sister Mary Forman addressed the ideas of simplicity and "enough" as found in the Rule of St. Benedict, noting that he did not call for austerity for the sake of suffering, but for an honest appraisal of what was "enough" and what was excess.

On Tuesday, the Institute went to St. Benedict Monastery where we heard from pioneer community gardener Sister Phyllis Plantenberg and ground-breaking sustainable eating coordinator Sister Patricia Ruether. Each was inspiring, not only because of their infectious optimism, but also by demonstrating how it is possible to make changes - even big changes - through the combination of diligent mindfulness of the earth and the accumulation of many small changes.

Today, we saw Richard Bresnahan's journey - spiritual and vocational - through pottery into a love and concern for the land. His presentation demonstrating the possibility of a connection between the shapes, colors, and products of nature and the items that we can use - and return - to nature brought out the beauty of sustainability. Mary Ellenbecker Johnson, a science teacher, demonstrated the hidden connection between our choices of food and lifestyle and what the earth can - and cannot - support.

The Institute concludes with presentations from Abbot John Klassen and Sister Ephrem Hollerman tomorrow - look for the updates!

Photo collage of the Sisters

2009-06-30T13:28:00.001-05:00

Summer is the time when teachers re-tool and learn new things themselves. This summer, I'm participating in PBworks Summer Camp to learn to use wikis in teaching. Along the way, we learn - and need to experiment with - other online tools as well. Today, it was multimedia - and I used slide.com to make this album of sisters in our monastery.

Listening to Jenny Sanford

2009-06-24T20:11:00.004-05:00

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The news has been full of Gov. Mark Sanford's trip to Argentina for several days to see his mistress. Most of us have seen the news photos or heard clips from his news conference. I was relieved that he did not appear with his wife at his side. I still remember Silda Spitzer's tight, grief stricken face standing just slightly behind her husband as he confessed. It hurt to watch her, and to read the conflicting emotions on her face. I was glad that Jenny Sanford chose privacy.

Later, I heard about the statement that she released, and my admiration for this woman grew. While there is a lot of debate about what women in such marriages should do - "kick the bum out" or "stick by your vows" - it seems that she has, in essence, taken to heart the healthy and holy parts of both viewpoints. A few quotes:

I believe wholeheartedly in the sanctity, dignity and importance of the institution of marriage. I believe that has been consistently reflected in my actions. When I found out about my husband’s infidelity I worked immediately to first seek reconciliation through forgiveness, and then to work diligently to repair our marriage. We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong. I therefore asked my husband to leave two weeks ago.

You might think, "well, she tried for a while but then kicked him out." The rest of the statement shows, rather, a woman who is living out that razor-thin line of speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) and stands ready to bear the pain and difficulty of maintaining her marriage:

I believe enduring love is primarily a commitment and an act of will, and for a marriage to be successful, that commitment must be reciprocal. I believe Mark has earned a chance to resurrect our marriage.

Wow! To say that he has "earned" a chance is strong stuff - although it makes sense if the hints in the news reports that the trip to Argentina was the "break-up" trip.

Most of the commentators will focus on yet-another high-profile sex scandal, and many of us will wonder why the news doesn't go on to talk about events of national importance. As a society, we are intrigued with the details of the ways that marriages fail, but uninterested and unimpressed with finding out how they are repaired.

When I teach about this event in my Family and Society class in the fall, though, I'm not going to emphasize the rather commonplace event of marital infidelity: there's nothing there for students to learn from. No, I'm going to focus on Jenny Sanford - from which my students, many just beginning to think about how to find a marriage partner, can learn.

My prayers are with Jenny Sanford who (to use her words) "seeks the wisdom of Solomon, the strength and patience of Job and the grace of God in helping to heal my family."

Sister Bernadette Bergeron

2009-06-22T12:24:00.001-05:00

Sister Bernadette and Sister Charlene, originally uploaded by Edith OSB.

Our community will be celebrating Sister Bernadette's life - and her passage to eternal life - several days from now. She died on the evening of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart.

It was certainly not surprising: Sister Bernadette was past 90, and frail from a serious stroke a few years ago. Still, I will miss her quick wit, wry sense of humor, and unique way of smiling.

She was always fully involved in whatever she was talking about or watching - as you can see in this photo from a few years ago (she's on the left). For most of the time that I knew her, the topic was likely to be baseball, but she was also an avid reader and would recall details from books read years before. When I check out some obscure book from our monastery library, I often see her name on the short list as I'm signing mine.

The monastic way of life is one of the few places, in modern times, in which a person can just live out one's life, in the same setting and with the same people, until death. In the Pro-Life Movement, we use the phrase of protecting life "From the moment of conception until natural death." In the monastery, it's possible to see the beauty of the end of that phrase.

I was with Sister Bernadette at the hospital on the night she had her stroke, and seemed unlikely to make it through the night. She had to make a choice about using a respirator if her breathing got worse - knowing that the damage from the stroke would not be reversed. She chose, in her word, to come "HOOOO-MMMME" to the monastery infirmary. With care from the infirmary nursing staff and visits from her friends in the community, she continued to participate in the common life and in prayer.

I think we would have fewer people agitating for euthanasia if we had more options for the elderly to be part of a community - before they became terribly frail - that would cherish them until the end.

Claudia Schmidt

2009-06-20T01:43:00.002-05:00

Claudia Schmidt, originally uploaded by Edith OSB.

It's been many years since I first heard Claudia Schmidt at a Ten Pound Fiddle concert in Lansing, Michigan - and was captivated. When I chanced on the news that she would be singing in at the Red Mug Coffee House in Superior, Wisconsin - just over the bridge - I knew I had to go.

Most of the songs she sang were new to me - I haven't heard much new folks music in the 10 years since I came to the monastery - but I am still captivated. Claudia Schmidt's voice resonates like a bell, and she does simply amazing things with it. Her performance weaves together poetry, songs, and stories - some funny, others moving or whimsical. All of them are filled with her incredible energy and deep sense of joy and the celebration of just being alive.

She sang a few of her old songs, and many of us were singing "I'm coming home to you" right along with her.

The Red Mug is an intimate setting - seats for about 30 people close to the small stage - and they were filled. Their music schedule lists quite a few local performers for musical evenings. Specializing in Fair Trade coffees and locally baked breads and sweets, it's a friendly place - now that I've been once, I'm hoping to have a chance to go again.

Facebook as Public Speech

2009-06-16T15:12:00.003-05:00

I suffered an incident in grade school in which I told one girl about something that upset me about another girl. You guessed it: the one I spoke with told the other. It put the damper on my friendship with both - one didn't have much trust in me, and I didn't have much trust in the other. At the time, my Mom gave me a piece of advice that has stood me in good stead ever since: "Don't say something in private unless you could stand to say have it become public." Not that I don't sometimes say angry or uncomfortable things - but not until I've thought, "If I had to live through saying this to her face, could I do it?" If not, better to stay quiet.

It seems that people are having to learn a similar practice with regard to Facebook and all the other sites where one's casual words are captured and retained for posterity. According to an article in TIME, the venomous bites of bitter break-ups have turned into guerrilla warfare on Facebook - and courts now accept Facebook-based evidence from divorce lawyers and detectives. People have already harmed their job prospects when potential or actual employers saw them slack-eyed in drunken party-photos: now they stand the risk of losing custody of children as well. Others have stalked or demeaned their former spouse or lover on the walls of Facebook friends - to the discomfort of all.

Some in political and public life are part of The Civility Project, calling folks to deal with even strong disagreements from a standpoint of respect. The assumption, I think, is to bring the civility we show in our private lives into the public square. Perhaps this TIME article reveals that we also need to take the Civility Pledge in our homes as well as our polling places:

I will be civil in my public discourse and behavior.
I will be respectful of others whether or not I agree with them.
I will stand against incivility when I see it

My Mom was right - being civil to begin with sure beats having to scour Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and all the gazillions of breadcrumbs I've left around the internet. And saves on lawyer bills too.

Amanda Sneed - recent sociology grad

2009-06-12T00:45:00.003-05:00

I was delighted when one of the Honors students, Amanda Sneed, decided to do a sociology major even though the College of St. Scholastica does not offer one. Between independent study and a few courses taken off campus, she came through with flying colors. It's nice to see what she's up to for the summer.

Homeless teen shares her story

2009-06-11T11:26:00.007-05:00

I heard Valencia McMurray tell her story on Minnesota Public Radio this morning, and was stunned. She is one of 3000 high school students who are homeless in Minneapolis - and yet, with some help, she managed to graduate and get admitted to Augsburg College for the fall.

She describes how she came to be homeless - a sequence of family troubles one after another - and how a teacher noticed, reached out, and connected her to services that helped her get into a shelter and eventually transitional housing.

She is a bright student - she was taking AP classes at the time her family life fell apart.

Come the fall, she will LOOK like one more student sitting in the classroom - I wonder if her teachers will find out how much determination it took to get into that chair?

Stories like this are a great reminder to me that we can't fully understand what is going on in a student's life just by seeing her or him in the classroom.

You can read the whole story, and listen to Valencia, on MPR's page at Homeless teen shares her story

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Fr. Flanagan (Boys Town) on Ireland's Reform Schools

2009-06-08T23:21:00.006-05:00

Shortly after the release of the Ryan Report detailing the abuse of children - emotional, physical, and sexual - in Ireland's industrial or reform schools, Irish Central reported that Fr. Edward Flanagan, founder of Boys Town, had visited and excoriated the industrial schools of Ireland in 1946.

Born in Ireland himself, and famous (after the 1938 movie Boys Town was released) for his success with operating a home for homeless and wayward boys, large crowds flocked to hear him speak. But they were not prepared for what he told them. Not only was he appalled by the industrial and reform schools, he blamed the citizens for tolerating them:

Speaking to a large audience at a public lecture in Cork’s Savoy Cinema he said, "You are the people who permit your children and the children of your communities to go into these institutions of punishment. You can do something about it." He called Ireland’s penal institutions "a disgrace to the nation," and later said "I do not believe that a child can be reformed by lock and key and bars, or that fear can ever develop a child’s character."

In the last few days, I read the Executive Summary of the Ryan Report. Pope Benedict is reported to have been "visibly upset" when he heard the details of the report from the Irish Archbishops, and I can see why. Even the dry language of the report, describing the level and frequency of different types of abuse in different schools, is shocking. The matter of fact statement that the religious orders "acknowledged that some abuse had taken place but failed to accept any Congregational responsibility for such abuse" was the source of the problem.

This was not just a problem of the religious orders. In 1946, when Fr. Flanagan made his statements - and continued to make them after returning to America - the Irish Minister for Justice was questioned in Parliament about them. His replies, recorded in the public record, are revealing. He said

"I was not disposed to take any notice of what Monsignor Flanagan said while he was in this country, because his statements were so exaggerated that I did not think people would attach any importance to them."
"All I have got to say is that these schools are under the management of religious Orders, who are self-effacing people, and who do not require any commendation from me."

One of the primary elements of the many abuse scandals that have come to light in the last decade is reluctance of all types of authorities - in the Church, civil authorities, and the general public - to believe ill of those who are, in fact, abusing children. If they do come to believe that abuse occurred, they are quick to believe that it was an aberration, or the fault of the victims, or unlikely to occur again.

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The reports sound as though Fr. Flanagan did all he could to shine the light of public attention on the problem more than 60 years before the current investigation began. If anyone of that era had the potential to reveal the pattern of abuse, he would be the most likely candidate. A respected monsignor, his was not criticism from outside the Church. His expertise in successfully helping wayward and homeless children to find their way in life was irrefutable. Born and raised in Ireland, his love for his native country was also not in doubt. That the report of such a man could be so easily dismissed gives evidence that the systemic problem involved not only the schools and the Orders that ran them, but the society as a whole.

I watched the old movie of Boys Town recently, with a young Spencer Tracy playing Fr. Flanagan and Mickey Rooney the lead "bad boy." It's good to remember and celebrate - in the face of the horrific Ryan Report - the testimony of Fr. Flanagan's life of service and his own courage in speaking out against an abusive system.

Freedom Writers (movie)

2009-06-07T22:41:00.007-05:00

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There are probably dozens of movies about inspiring teachers; most have the same general story: an inexperienced or inept or shy teacher is assigned to teach a tough batch of characters. At first, she (or he) loses control of the class and seems poised to fail. Just when it seems all is lost, some incident breaks through the shallowness of maintaining roles, and both the teacher and the students have a moment of real encounter. And that changes everything.

Even though the plot takes the same shape, each one of these stories is different. Each teacher takes a different path, and each group of students has to overcome a different set of hardships. Based on true stories, the characters are real - and the hope that the story generates is, therefore, also real. So I was eager to see The Freedom Writers, based on the story of idealistic beginning teacher Erin Gruwell. I was not disappointed.

Assigned to teach freshman English to a mix-raced classroom in gang-plagued Long Beach, California, she is surprised at the fear and intolerance the students have for each other. They are are amazed at her clueless naivete; one says, "I give this one two weeks." Her attempts to connect through teaching rap lyrics come across as patronizing - especially as she mispronounces the name of the singer. Erin tries to teach, while the students do all they can to disrupt the pretense that anything of importance is happening. Until the day when Erin confiscates a note being passed around the class - and a real dialogue ensues. Both are beginning to find their voices.

While the movie revolves around developments in the lives of the students, and in the amazing resources Erin Gruwell pulls together for them, the dynamic of change in this class came from reading and writing. When she has a hint of the stark realities of their lives, Erin gives each student a journal - and requires that they write in it. Those journals were ultimately the source of The Freedom Writers Diary, a book containing both the story of the class and entries from the students' diaries. In combination with writing their own stories, the students read The Diary of Anne Frank and other accounts of young people in tough situations - and are drawn in.

Although these stories are utterly secular, with no mention of religion, they are nonetheless Gospel stories. The students at Woodrow Wilson High were labeled as failures and given up as lost. They had given up on themselves; one said it would be success to live until the age of 18. Erin Gruwell's first approach was to encourage them to climb up to where she was: not knowing that it did not seem either attractive or possible. Through the diaries, she instead went into their world, shared their suffering and fear, but without giving up hope or the beauty of the world beyond their narrow focus. Eventually, that light did enable all of them to graduate, and many to go on to college.

I guess the Paschal Mystery is the oldest plot of all - and The Freedom Writers puts it in a new setting. The opportunity to see new life spring up in a group of students sure gets to a teacher's heart every time - I'm glad to have seen it!

Roof Work in Progress

2009-06-04T11:23:00.001-05:00

Roof Work in Progress, originally uploaded by Edith OSB.

My room in the monastery overlooks our Garden Court. The flowering crab apple trees are in bloom, along with the tulips and spring flowers - usually a fragrant situation.

This year, though, the fragrance wafting in the window is that of molten tar. The roof on Stanbrook Hall, our oldest building, began springing leaks a few years ago, a trickle that grew into a flood, literally, last autumn. A careful study of the situation revealed that the roof was beyond patching. It had lasted 30 years, about a decade longer than its predicted lifepsan. So everything had to be pulled up and redone.

The work has finally reached the end of Stanbrook Hall opposite my window. I was pretty startled to look up yesterday to see a huge crane lifting supplies over the fourth-story and up to the roof. A trio of workers were busy hammering and sawing most of the day, and started again this morning.

Getting a new roof is certainly a huge expense - I hope we don't have to look at doing it again for a few decades. I'm glad that the need for it came at a time when construction jobs are in short supply, and that the cost of the roof will contribute at least a bit to the survival of our local economy.

Brother Nuclear Option

2009-06-04T09:39:00.001-05:00

BrotherNuclearOption, originally uploaded by Edith OSB.

Another for my collection of monk comics - so far, it's quite a small collection. Eventually, I'd like to do a study - but I'll need many more before then.

I am beginning to be able to see themes or archetypes - this one has the scary big burly monk. The humor must come from the juxtaposition of size (and threat of violence) with the posture of prayer and generally peaceful nature of monastics.

It's also interesting to think of the same drawing in a different setting. If these were, for instance, elementary school teachers, the joke would not work.

Being True to the Consistent Ethic of Life

2009-06-02T23:06:00.005-05:00

On Sunday, a lone gunman entered a Lutheran church to murder George Tiller, a well-known abortionist. His ex-wife reports that he had long-since expressed the opinion that it was justifiable to kill a person who performed abortions in order to save the lives of the babies. In his intense concern for the lives of the unborn children, he lost track of the basic tenet of the Pro-Life movement: that every human life is precious, and needs to be protected wherever it is threatened.

On a Sunday two weeks ago, President Obama spoke about abortion in his commencement address at the University of Notre Dame. He specifically mentioned the late Cardinal Be rnardin of Chicago, and his remarkable commitment to dialogue, to seeking common ground. The President's speech included echoes of Bernardin's Seamless Garment understanding of life: that concern for life must include issues of war and peace, of poverty and economic justice, of education and employment. The seamless garment, also known as the Consistent Ethic of Life perspective, expands the meaning of Pro-Life beyond the instants of birth and death. For some - and President Obama seems to be one - that expansion stretches the ethic. In stretching so far, thin places develop: two aspects of pro-life seem to come into conflict, and one must lose. This "ethic" misses the same basic tenet as Scott Roeder's actions: that all human life is precious.

The missing element is summarized by the word Consistent. Each person who takes up the Consistent Ethic position finds that it leads them to difficult and challenging questions. This really became clear to me when I contributed a chapter to the book Consistently Opposing Killing: From Abortion to Assisted Suicide, the Death Penalty, and War and came in contact with the research and experiences of people who had, in dangerous and surprising ways, followed the path of the Consistent Ethic when easier, softer ways were also available. Cardinal Bernardin himself knew this:

Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in a front-page interview in the June 12, 1988, National Catholic Register, said:

“I don’t see how you can subscribe to the consistent ethic and then vote for someone who feels that abortion is a ‘basic right’ of the individual.” He went on to say, “I know that some people on the left, if I may use that label, have used the consistent ethic to give the impression that the abortion issue is not all that important anymore, that you should be against abortion in a general way but that there are more important issues, so don’t hold anybody’s feet to the fire just on abortion. That’s a misuse of the consistent ethic, and I deplore it.”

Pro-Life activists are justifiably concerned that the views of the murderer will be attributed to the movement, contributing to the notion of "right wing Christian terrorists" described in a recent Dept. of Homeland Security Report. Pro-Life groups have been quick to post their condemnation of the murder.

The Pro-Abortion activists are facing the problem inherent in the stretched-too-thin version of an ethic of life. It justifies the losing of one life, a baby's, so that the lived-out life of another, the mother, is not made unbearably difficult. In so doing, it promotes the idea that lives can be evaluated and balanced, so that the most valuable wins. That kind of thinking enabled Dr. Tillman to end the lives of nine-month old fetuses before they could be born. It was the same kind of thinking that enabled a gunman to think it right to kill Dr. Tillman.

An ethic of life is not strong enough to warrant the name "ethic" if it does not have the power of consistency. When it does, it provides a clear and true guide through the murky waters of modern life.

I value President Obama's call for seeking common ground and dialogue around controversial issues. May he also come to appreciate the importance and strength of an ethic of life applied consistently.

ht to Kyle Eller for pointing me to an article contrasting Cardinal Bernardin's views with President Obama's.

Arranged (Film)

2009-06-01T18:58:00.007-05:00

It's a rare for me to see a film that I can simply say, "I recommend this." Many films present interesting ideas or a window into a different way of life or a story line that draws me in - but often in ways that seem to make the low points of modern society seem interesting. But Arranged, the 2007 film I saw today, was different.

The premise: in Brooklyn's multi-ethnic melting pot, two first year teachers become friends in spite of their differences. What differences? One is an Orthodox Jew, the other a Muslim. Coming from traditional families, with cultural traditions of modest dress, respect for the authority of parents, and a schedule that revolves around family obligations, the two women have more in common with each other than either does with the "modern" society - including a principal who tries to give them money so they could go get fashionable clothes and "fulfill their potential."

Why do I like this film so much? First, of course, is the fact that it is well done. Beyond that, it weaves together complex factors. Beneath the Jewish-Muslim tension is the dimension of prejudice and rejection even between members of minority groups (white Christian Americans are largely invisible in the film). It's "modern" culture that comes across as domineering and unable to accept diversity, rather than traditional religion. The plot line raises our anxiety that authority - that of the fathers - will be exercised willfully or without regard for others - but shows us, instead, a different face of authority.

At the heart of the film is the process of finding a spouse - in both cases, through the traditional patterns in which the family takes the lead in locating potential mates, putting them through a vetting process that's almost like getting confirmed by the U.S. Senate - and in which the young people seek and need the parents' blessing. It's the only film I've seen in a long time in which the process of finding a mate and getting married is portrayed as something that involves the whole family. If I'm able to show clips from the film in my family sociology classes, I'm sure this will be one of the most startling ideas the students will see all semester.

If you have a chance to see the film, I certainly recommend it.

A New Epidemic

2009-05-26T13:47:00.002-05:00

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It leads to "anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation" and it's endemic in colleges and high schools. Stories abound of normal, average young people whose grades suddenly plummet. They become distracted, can't seem to focus during conversations, lose their train of thought, are constantly anxious about the state of their relationships with their friends.

A new anxiety disorder? Substance abuse? No - simply the results of texting among teens, according to an article in the New York Times. With unlimited texting on many phone services, teens now send an average of 80 text messages a day, or one sent about every 12 minutes - there are no data on the average number received.

I was surprised by the numbers in this article. I watched one student text away the time in my college sociology class last semester - but even his sheepish look when he couldn't participate in discussions or answer questions didn't change his behavior. Other faculty say it's rampant in their classes as well. Just like the teachers in the NYTimes article, though, we don't know what to do about it. It's too difficult to police, and distracts from the process of teaching. But it's also distracting to try to engage students who clearly are not in tune with the activity.

The other surprising element is the link between texting and immaturity/failure to separate from parents. Looking back, I suspect that the advent of inexpensive cell phones contributed to difficulty young people have in becoming autonomous adults.

“Among the jobs of adolescence are to separate from your parents, and to find the peace and quiet to become the person you decide you want to be,” said psychologist Sherry Turkle. “Texting hits directly at both those jobs." She went on, “If technology makes something like staying in touch very, very easy, [becoming autonomous is] harder to do; now you have adolescents who are texting their mothers 15 times a day, asking things like, ‘Should I get the red
shoes or the blue shoes?’ ”

If a new street drug produced outcomes like this, we'd soon have a task force and treatment centers. Instead, most parents are unaware of the problem - and reluctant to act even when it comes to light. The reason? It's hard for parents to crack down on their kids' extravagant use of texting if they are often on their BlackBerry or iPhone much of the time themselves.

When cell phones first came out - do you remember the heavy bulky phones that required a small knapsack? - most of us said, "I don't need to talk to people all the time anyway." We had a sense of being in one time and one place. With a phone that rings or buzzes every few minutes, and the demand to look at a photo, soothe a feeling or share excitement, we lose the ability to have a train of thought.

Henry David Thoreau sought the quiet of Walden Pond to avoid the hubbub of an everyday life that did not include any electronic media - he urged us to live in such a way that we could have hours and days of solitude, to read and ponder. The intense concentration and focus that produced the great works of literature and brilliant discoveries of science is giving way to a diffuse attention that maintains dozens of conversations but, often, produces nothing.

Articles such as this one are, in essence, calling for a new asceticism. Not a fasting from food, but from constant contact and electronic stimulation. I wonder if we will produce a new round of Desert Fathers and Mothers, whose words of wisdom (160 characters or less) will urge us to rest our thumbs and sit in peace. Perhaps our monasteries will have to become "no text zones."

Pope Benedict at Monte Cassino

2009-05-24T23:07:00.003-05:00

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Last December, it was announced that Pope Benedict would celebrate Vespers on Ascension Sunday - today - at Monte Cassino, the burial place of St. Benedict. He asked the Benedictine abbots and abbesses to join him there. The Holy Father's special regard for St. Benedict and the monastic way of life is evident not only in his choice of name, but also in his many and frequent references to one or another aspect of monastic life - not only for those who practice it, but as a spiritual gift for the world.

In his message after Vespers to the abbots and abbesses, he said:

Monasteries have become, over the centuries, centers of fervent dialogue, encounter and beneficial union of diverse peoples, unified by the evangelical culture of peace. The monks have known how to teach by word and example the art of peace, implementing in a concrete way the three "ties" that Benedict identifies as necessary to maintain the unity of the Spirit among men: the cross, which is the very law of Christ, the book which is culture, and the plow, which indicates work, the lordship over matter and time. Thanks to the activity of the monastery, articulated in the three-fold daily commitments of prayer, study and work, entire populations of Europe have experienced a genuine redemption and a beneficial moral, spiritual and cultural development, learning in the spirit of continuity with the past, of concrete action for the common good, and of openness to God and the transcendent aspect of the world.

Vatican Television provided a video from his Regina Caeli message, offered earlier in the day at the Polish Cemetery. Monte Cassino was the site of a fierce battle in World War II; many war dead are buried there.

Catholic Social Teaching - a resource

2009-05-20T01:06:00.005-05:00

I just discovered the St.Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese's website on Catholic Social Teaching, put out by their Office for Social Justice. With theaters are full of folks watching a film with an utterly outrageous image of the Catholic Church, the best antidote is an accessible and accurate view of the Church's teaching.

What a blessing this one is! The selection of quotes from the major documents, a Teacher's Toolbox with a variety of models for presenting these teachings, and more. These will be a real help in my Social Issues and Social Change class in the autumn.

The most intriguing find, though, was the text "Everyday Language" version of Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II pastoral letter on the 100th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, taken from Joseph Donders book John Paul II: The Encyclicals in Everyday Language. While it removes some of the nuance of his philosophy, it certainly provides an inviting approach:

11. Expressing Jesus' and the church's "preferential option for the poor," Pope Leo XIII calls upon the state to do something about the condition of the poor, though he does not expect the state to solve every social problem. He insists on limits to the state's intervention. The individual, the family, and society should be protected by it and not stifled. The main point made in Leo XIII's encyclical and in the church's social doctrine is a correct view of the human person. Human persons are willed by God; they are imprinted with God's image. Their dignity does not come from the work they do, but from the persons they are.

I haven't seen this book, but I think I'll be on the lookout for it. At nearly 400 pages, it's clearly not trying to simplify and summarize Pope John Paul II's encyclicals beyond recognition.

Meanwhile - I'm going to enjoy exploring this new resource!