Teaser Tuesday (and an editorial from the NYTimes)

[alanajoli]

I decided to read the region section of the New York Times online yesterday between patrons at the library and encountered a delightful article about faith. The writer in question was raised Roman Catholic, and is raising her children in the same faith, but is far more convoluted in her own religious beliefs than strict dogma allows. The intersection of her faith in her own life and in the legacy she presents to her children is charmingly written, so I thought it worth passing along.

And now, a teaser!

Imagine if you will a small ball-room, modest in its construction, but with doors that open onto delightful gardens, letting in what breeze might be had in the muggy summer months. Partners dance to a fiddle, as has become popular in recent days, listening for the steps to be called as their fingers lightly brush those of their partner. Women and men all wear white wigs, ridiculous in the heat, and some have powdered their faces to a paler shade, in which can be seen the path of sweat droplets from the exertion of the dancing. Along one side, older men chat, discussing business and smoking cigars. Just beyond the open doors, young people gather to flirt, still inside the view of their chaperones, but at the edge of that vision, giving some semblance of independence.

It was that scene precisely that I stumbled into, after finishing a dance with my cousin Abigail's husband, who had been kind enough to be sure I wasn't standing alone. The evening was far too warm to stay inside, and there was conversation to be had on the patio.

Comments

[jeff-duntemann.livejournal.com]

One of the delicious ironies (and oddnesses) of the Roman Catholic Church is that for all its reputation for sternness and the 2,000-year accretion of dogma and other sub-dogmatic teaching that is still nominally in force, the Church does not take any action to ensure that every (to use a wonderful old phrase) jot and tittle is uncritically accepted by the laity. (For clergy and Catholic teachers, the situation is more complex.) The churches are large and (mostly) crowded, so Sunday worship is basically solitary and anonymous. There are no loyalty oaths, and if you don't say the Creed out loud, nobody looks at you funny. In fact, if you sit quietly in the back with eyes closed, you can meditate without challenge.

The unspoken truth here is that the Catholic Church as an ideais larger than the Roman Catholic Church as an institution, and the RCC is far more tolerant than people think of the "odd bits in the junk drawer" like me who reject the Filioque and both the Calvinist and Arminian views of God. (I embrace the only view that remains when those two are scratched off the list, though when I say it out loud, even people who implicitly embrace it look at me funny.)

Catholic culture is very compelling, and I have an intuition that many of the Catholic faithful are "faithful" in a sense that makes the Roman Catholic Powers uneasy: They are crafting a personal Catholic faith for themselves that resonates with their experience of a benevolent God, and simply waiting for the institutional Church to catch up. It's a long, slow process, but ultimately one that the faithful will win.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

It's a long, slow process, but ultimately one that the faithful will win.

I love this idea--both here and in other places I've seen you mention it. I think there's always been some divide between "religion" and "faith," and the way that you depict it--that the idea is larger than the institution--makes it feel less like there's a conflict of interests and more like there's the possibility of evolution, of change into something bigger and brighter that better reflects the relationship of the people to God. It's a remarkably hopeful notion (especially in the presence of the number of atheistic bestsellers in the publishing marketplace in the past few years...).

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That was an interesting article. It reminds the reader of the fact that the interior spiritual lives of people are much more complex and nuanced than the facts of their exterior behavior.

I loved your description of the ballroom and how your own experience made clear for you what that scene from an earlier era must have been like.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

Actually, the tense shift is still from the perspective of the character--she's describing her life to a very particular reader, so her style changes back and forth, more like she's writing a letter (which is the narrative frame) than a prose piece. :) But your interpretation is delightful! It makes me wish I *had* had the experience.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

hahaha! :D Powers of persuasive writing!