Every Way We Ever Looked
It's been…let me check…four weeks now since one of my daughters, the only one of our children who lives nearby, gave birth to her second child. Though it's been a month now, and though this was not the first such experience, I still find myself thinking often of the strangeness of being the parent of a parent, the father of a mother. As I looked at her sitting up in bed and nursing her newborn son, I could–I can–see simultaneously the baby she was, the child she was, the adolescent she was. And as soon as she was no longer in my sight, all those images were equally present to me. Of course they're incomplete and represent only an infinitesimal fraction of the moments in that span of time. But they're all here, and they're all equally real to me.
Some time ago there was a discussion here on the question of what we would look like in heaven. I said I thought we might look every way we've ever looked, but I really had no idea what that could mean as an actual experience, or how it could be. I think that these images of my daughter, and of course my other children and other family members, and anyone I've known for an extended period of time, provide some insight into the possibility. Presumably God sees us all, and the entirety of our existence, in some way of which this is only a fragmented hint. And if we are to be like him, perhaps that vision will also be something of which we are capable. And which we will be for others.
Mercy and Mercy
I've always taken very much to heart the Gospel's admonitions that in order to receive mercy I must show it to others. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy" is the most direct of these. The parable of the servant who begged for mercy from his master but refused it to his fellow servant is another and very powerful one, one which I think of whenever I'm faced with a choice of whether to show mercy to someone. In my circumstances these are usually small, if not trivial, matters, but that doesn't mean they aren't significant spiritually.
On Wednesday, seven time zones from here, in Paris, my daughter-in-law gave birth to another grandchild. (Why Paris? It's a very long story, but suffice to say that my son and his wife move around a lot.) There were complications, and we didn't learn of the birth till early Friday morning. I usually try to pray during part of my morning commute, and of course I was praying for the baby. And so it seemed providential that there was a hitchhiker on the I-10 on-ramp.
There aren't that many hitchhikers on the road any more, and when I do see them I usually pick them up. I don't think at any time in the past twenty years or so any of them have been the sort of young wanderer who used to hitchhike a lot. Most of them are people who are, as the saying goes, down on their luck, and if they're at all forthcoming about what they're doing on the road it usually turns out that a good bit of the luck was of their own making. This fellow, for instance, said he couldn't drive because of a felony DUI conviction for which he had served 22 months in prison. I don't know whether the felony part was because an accident had been involved, or because his number of DUI arrests had passed a certain point. At any rate, his drunken driving hadn't killed anyone, and he thanked God that he had been sent to jail before that happened.
He was on his way to Texas, and I was only going to Mobile, so I didn't take him that far. But he was glad to be getting anywhere at all, because he'd been stuck for two days about ten miles east of where I picked him up. I let him out at the interchange of I-10 and I-65, where 10 continues west to Louisiana and Texas but I take 65 north to my job. He thanked me, but I think I was the more blessed.
I don't know whether my giving a guy a ride qualifies theologically as an act of mercy, but the opportunity to do it certainly felt like one to me.
Simcha Fisher Is Very Funny
And equally wise. I think I saw a note somewhere that she had been named Funniest Catholic Blogger; if so, it's well deserved. Here are a few of her recent posts, a couple recommended to me by Janet, one by my wife, and others I just happened across:
Bene, Bene, Bene. "I coo, and she rewards me with a smile of pure rejoicing, a gorgeous, ridiculous, blessedly naive smile of a creature who doesn’t know anything at all, but who can see that I love her. To receive the smiles of a baby who is just learning to smile—shut up, world. This is what is real."
To the Mother With Only One Child. "Dear mother, don’t worry about enjoying your life. Your life is hard; your life will be hard. That doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong—it means you’re doing it right."
Tired Pride. The most memorable image I've come across recently: "I staggered around the kitchen like a washing machine with too many wet towels in it."
Ten Reasons There Are No Women in Hell. Numbers 2-10: other women.
Still More on Downton Abbey
I'm beginning to think the reactions to this thing are as interesting as the thing itself. Here's one from an English conservative, and another from an American liberal. Interestingly, both seem to think that the treatment of class is the most important thing about the series: the former because Americans are fascinated by class but guilty about it, the latter because class is evil and the series makes us complicit in it. I disagree; I think by far its greatest appeal is that it's a good story.
Light On Dark Water 
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