Boy Scout Campout

Alan's troop went fishing in the High Sierras last weekend.  ("High" = 6,000 ft.)  We stayed in the Sequoia National Forrest.  By  mistake the local lake was stocked with twice the normal number of trout, but we did our best to help them get things back to normal.  Alan earned his fishing merit badge by catching, cleaning, cooking and eating a fish.

We fished by this tree for a few hours and I grew to love it.  It stands tall, seemingly scoffing at the forest fire that once scarred it.  The shape of the burn reminds me of the cathedral pattern in the grain of oak.  The picture doesn't show the bright sheen of the blackened area.

Alan was using a rod, although it is not seen here.  He pulled in four trout in about 6 hours of fishing.  I caught a few in a couple hours and then decided it was more relaxing just to watch the fish jump.  Our campground was about 50 yards from the shore.

Stephen: Tiger Cub

Stephen began his Cub Scout adventure this evening.  (His shirt still bears some of the patches earned by his older brother.)  He made trail mix, worked through the Bobcat badge requirements and started a scrapbook.

Vin Scully Misquoted

From Steve Dilbeck, an author for the LA Times:

Here’s [a story Scully] shared Thursday, on the final home game of the year, instigated by Tom Lasorda returning to the Dodgers dugout on his 84^th birthday and involving former Dodger Don Zimmer, when he was managing of the Cubs:

"One year we’re in Chicago to play the Cubs, and for some reason, we’re not broadcasting the game. And Tommy asks me if I’ve ever sat in the dugout for a game. I tell him 'no' and he says, 'You have to try it.'

"I said as long as it’s cleared by the umpires beforehand. I don’t want them throwing me out. So I put on a uniform –- spring training tryout No. 76, but not for Union –- and wait until almost before the game starts and walk through the Wrigley hallway, sit on the dugout and pull my cap down all the way to my eyes. I don’t want anyone to even notice me.

"After the Dodgers are retired in the top of the first, (first base coach) John Vukovich yells over at me, 'Hey, Scully!' And he throws me a baseball. I catch the ball and written on it is, 'If a fight breaks out, I want you.' And it was signed Don Zimmer.

"All the Cubs are in their dugout, laying down laughing."

**********************************************************************************

Well, obviously Vin Scully would not have said that, because it would not be correct to say "laying".  Instead he must have said "lying".  

There are two things that can be confusing about "lay" and "lie".  The first is that they sound similar but are distinguished by the first being transitive and the second intransitive.  Roughly speaking, that is the difference between an action you do to another and an action you do that does not affect another.  It is the same as the difference between "set" and "sit".

The second difficulty is that the past tense of "lie" is "lay":  "I lie down now", but "I lay down yesterday."

Now, the Cubs might have been lying down laughing.  They might have been falling down laughing.  They might even have been laughing while laying down their gloves.  But they could not have just been "laying down laughing".  Vinny would not have said that.

And that reminds me that another pair of verbs with the same distinction is fell/fall.  Can you think of others?  (No internet searches please.)  Leave them in the comments.

I kept Christ out of the classroom.

Or would have.

Usually it is those who support a vigorous separation of church and state who want to keep Christ out of the classroom, and their efforts usually reach only our public schools.  But when the pope's personal theologian drops in on your undergraduate classroom, you realize the potential for misspeaking could lead to some embarrassment.  You wouldn't want to say something that could start a process ending in ecclesiastical censure.  So I was ready to cut off any student who started to speak about Christ or the Trinity.  Fortunately, our class was on the pre-Socratics and nothing theological was said.

Fr. Wojciech Giertych* was at the College to give a lecture on moral theology.  It was an engaging lecture and quite intelligible, which is all too uncommon.  He even took a question from me afterward, which I appreciated, since he kindly admitted that some of his summary of St. Thomas's position was his own spin on what the saint actually said.

*I can't tell you how to pronounce his name without seeming to make fun, so I'll skip it.  If you have never heard of him before, that makes two of us. Perhaps Chrysostom knows him from the Angelicum.

Of course, speaking on theological topics in front of visiting ecclesiastical dignitaries can cause embarrassment  in other ways as well.  There was a time when a bishop was visiting one of our senior theology classes.  He listened as the students worked through some ideas and couldn't help himself from jumping in to clarify some points.  After leaving the class, the discussion continued and showed that the good bishop's ideas were identical to the heresy St. Thomas was refuting.  On the final exam, one question the tutor asked was, "What is the Bishop Z----- heresy?  How does St. Thomas use scripture and argument to refute it?"

Membra Jesu Nostri

Last night in a concert at the College, we were introduced to the piece "Membra Jesu Nostri," which is a mediation on various parts of our Lord's body as He hung on the cross.  The composer is Buxtehude, the famed organist that J. S. Bach walked 500 miles to study with.  The piece is complex and very beautiful.  The text, once believed to be written by St. Bernard, is very profound and could serve as the basis of many hours of prayer.  The piece is divided into seven parts, each dedicated to one part of the body: the feet, the knees, the hands, the side, the breast, the heart and the face.  Each part begins with a passage from the Old Testament and then continues with three five-line stanzas of Latin poetry.

Laurence was moving his head to the music at one point and gave it this compliment: "It wasn't that long."

The performers were Cammarata del Camino Real (not seen in the video above), which is made up mostly of students and alumni of the College.