No going back

Well, our good old house on Scott Avenue was finally demolished. It happened on Holy Thursday - April 1st, 2010. The poor place had been empty since we moved out on December 19th, 2009, and had been looking more and more derelict with each passing week. First the scavengers hit it for what they could, and then the state-contracted salvage crews moved in and took everything of value. We'd drive by it once in a while, maybe every couple of weeks, just to have a look and see if there was any progress. I knew the end was near when I saw the windows had been removed (only the newer vinyl ones, though) - that was always a sign that the cranes would be moving in any day.

The last time I drove by, when I saw the windows were out, I stopped and walked around the old place one last time. The siding had been stripped, leaving the charcoal gray asphalt shingles that had lay under the siding. The rooms were open to the elements, window frames gaping holes and the back door missing. Even the lovely deck had been sawn off and taken away. I resisted the temptation to walk up the outside steps and enter by the upper back door for a last walk-through, reasoning that it might be unsafe with the house in the condition it was in. I did peek in one of the ground floor windows into what had once been a bedroom, in which the kids had slept and played, and the ordinary days of ordinary life had unfolded in that good old house. I felt a pang of loss then, a bit of the nostalgia that I'd been expecting much more of much sooner.

Perhaps expectably, along with it came flitting through my head something that hadn't even enough coherence to be called a thought -- an imaginative impulse, if you will. It cried as it passed, "Wait! We could still do something! We could... we could make some arrangements with the state, and get the house back, and fix all this up, and move back in, and live here again! This could be home once more!" The impulse turned my head, but only for a moment, before I shook myself and turned away, returning to the car to drive back to the lovely new home which was a gift from God and our children. But I thought as I drove, and I've been thinking ever since: from what part of me did that impulse come, and what does it say about me?

Needless to say, such an impulse hadn't the slightest connection to any kind of reality, but it's easy to understand why it would occur. After all, the house had been our home for over two decades, and we'd lived a lot of life within those walls. It's only reasonable to expect an emotional tie to the place, and the accompanying urges to preserve it, no matter how irrational. But the extremity of the circumstances, and resulting absurdity of the impulse, got me wondering: are there other things in this life which I cling to long after I should be letting them go?

One of the clearest things Jesus has to say is that this life is transient, full of temporary goods, and we shouldn't let things here distract us from the greater and more permanent goods of heaven. In a way, our lives on this earth, in which we invest so much, are like our family's last months on Scott Avenue: we knew we were moving, we even knew where we'd be going, we knew the old place would be coming down, that not only our days there but the days of its very existence were numbered. There was nothing further for us there, it wasn't even worth fixing the dripping faucets, it was time to move on to a better, more suitable house. Yet if I can feel an urge to try to cling to something like the old house, in the teeth of all reason, what other earthly things might I be holding on to long past the time God would have me move on from them? If my instincts to cling to the the passing good can make themselves heard even under such extreme circumstances, where else might they be governing my thoughts without my even knowing?

My spiritual reading lately has been an excellent book* summarizing and distilling the teachings of great saints like Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. One common thread in all their teachings is that the things of this world, even the very good things like familial love, pale in comparison to the goods which God offers us when we devote our entire life to Him. The writings of these spiritual giants makes me long for these great spiritual goods - or at least to long to long for them. Perhaps little incidents like the irrational impulse to try to resuscitate the stripped hulk of an old house to try to make it a home again are reminders to me of just how attached I am to worldly goods, and how far I have to go to attain true detachment.

I don't know - perhaps the days are coming when I'll be asked to give up all earthly goods to gain heavenly ones. Perhaps those days are sooner than I think. Perhaps I'm just being offered an opportunity for a little warm-up.

* The Fulfilment of All Desire, by Ralph Martin

A long hiatus - with some reason.

I may be many things, but a regular blogger is not one of them. Here it is, two full months since my last post, and lots of changes, but nary a word from me in this forum. My apologies, but more important things kept coming up, and posting here fell way down my list.

But I'm not going to give up on it - I have a bookmark on my browser, and I check my own blog from time to time, if only to remind me that I haven't done anything with it. I do get ideas for posts from time to time, but am rarely near a keyboard to take for action on them. Also, I've this compulsion to try to make posts perfect: thoroughly considered, completely addressed, and well written. It's a tall order to do that all the time.

One of the major things that has happened since I last posted has been the death of a dear friend. Fr. Paul Higdon was close to many in our community here, and he finally passed away at age 90 on Feb 20th, 2010. I was not only his financial power of attorney prior to his death but am the executor of his will. He was a dear friend whom I miss.

Though Fr. Paul had a lot of friends, a good measure of his practical care fell to me after he stopped driving in 2007. He'd call me for runs to the doctors office or drugstore, most of the time ending up with a good coffee at the cafe in the local bookstore. At the beginning, when he started calling me regularly for rides, I bridled a bit, wondering, "doesn't he have anyone else to call?" (Particularly because he'd call on very short notice.) I was careful to hide any hint of resentment, since he was hypersensitive to such things and would stop calling altogether if he thought he was imposing, but I did wonder. Then the Lord spoke quietly to me, informing me that this servant of His had sacrificed his entire life to the Kingdom, including a wife and the possibility of sons of his own. Now, in his waning days, I was to be the son he'd never had. I was to attend to his practical needs and insure he was never alone and ease the burden of his old age and close his eyes in death.

I didn't know that God meant that quite literally.

With that understanding, I welcomed the minor inconveniences that came with being Fr. Paul's surrogate son. Not that I was the only person who cared for him - far from it. He had scores of close friends who loved him dearly, and many would take him places and enjoy time with him. But nearly all of the others were women, and as dear as their friendship was, I think he appreciated masculine company at times. For one thing, he didn't like being fussed over, and unfortunately, even the most well-intended women can have mother hen tendencies. As a guy I instinctively understood that still being able to do a little bit for himself was important to him - so I let him do it as long as he was able.

His decline really began in late January. His care facility called me to give him a ride to the doctor's office for a respiratory condition. Though he was in touchy condition - gasping for breath and barely able to walk - he wanted to return to his apartment anyway. But it was too much for him, and the next day he was in the hospital. That stay lasted only the weekend (and, amazingly, he shook the respiratory infection), but then the doctor sent him home. The rationale was that he could get care of equal or better quality at the assisted living home as at the hospital. That was a message right there.

Fr. Paul stopped eating in the hospital - food just lost its taste for him - and never picked it up again. Despite encouragement, cajoling, badgering, and pleading, he didn't resume regular meals. He'd sip water and Ensure, and occasionally some bites of broth, but he didn't even eat the blueberry pie my wife and daughter made for him. Naturally, nobody can survive long under such conditions, least of all a sickly 90-year-old. He declined steadily, and was put under hospice care in mid February.

Two of his nieces came during his final week - one from Kalamazoo for the early part and one from Houston for the last days. We were keeping a nearly constant vigil with him during the last part of the week, only having a caregiver come in during the deepest midnight hours. Finally on the afternoon of Feb 20th, with myself and his niece Diane at his side, he breathed his last.

The archbishop said his funeral Mass and many of the community turned out to send him off. It was an honour and a privilege for me to be chosen to attend to him in his final hours. Now I'm attending to the disposition of his modest estate. He was a dear friend, and I look forward with hope to the day I might see his face again - this time unlined by care and unburdened by the long years of a hard life. Pray for me, Fr. Paul.

Where the heart is

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the Big Changes in life recently was moving out of our home of 25 years just before Christmas 2009. This was facilitated by the heroic efforts of our wonderful children, many of whom essentially gave up their own Advent time and Christmas preparations in order to get the new house ready and us moved into it. But that effort is now well over, and though the books need to be put back on the shelves and I've a list of petty tasks to polish off, we've been settled into the new place for over a month now.

Here's the odd thing: I consider myself a sentimental guy, with deep and lasting attachments to people, places, and things that have meant a lot to me. As such, I was bracing for a lot more emotional trauma as we moved out of the old house. It fell to me to make the final visits, to call to shut off the utilities and to be present when the workers arrived, and to make the final walk-through with MDOT agent to sign over the house. I was the last one in the family to see the rooms that were once filled with family life now empty, cold, and littered with debris.

Emotional impact on me thus far? Zero, as far as I can tell. Getting out of the old house, including those last sweeps for anything left behind and the final walk-through, were just items to be checked off the list. It's not like I was callous about the change, but there was so much to do, and closing out of the house meant we could get the ball rolling with MDOT for the moving payments, and I've still got that list of tasks on the new house, and so forth. Closing the door and walking away wasn't difficult in the least.

Oddly, part of me feels like a traitor to admit this. After all these years, and all that house has meant to us, I feel like I should feel more loss at leaving. Ellen hasn't been back, or even past the house, since we left in mid-December. A couple of my daughters have told me they don't want to go back at all, so they can preserve their memories of the house as a home, a live and welcoming abode of love. I can understand why they'd feel that way - I just can't figure why I don't. I've even driven past the old place a couple of times, and haven't felt a twinge of regret or homesickness. It stands empty in the middle of its empty neighbors, awaiting the spring when they will all be leveled. I certainly don't want to be around to watch that happening, but it surprises me that I don't feel more now.

Maybe I'm getting cold- or hard-hearted in my old age. Or maybe I'm maturing. I've always acknowledged that places and things are not as important as people and relationships, yet I've had this almost maudlin connection to things that carry significance from my past. Maybe my emotional responses are finally catching up to my understanding of things, and I'm able to detach from the things I should be detaching from so I can better cling to the things to which I should be clinging. Jesus is still the same at the new house as the old house. Not only is my wonderful family present in the new house, but they had a significant hand in turning it into our new home. At a practical level, the new house is a much better place. My reason recognizes this, and this time it seems my emotions are agreeing.

I don't know what the future will hold. Perhaps times will come when I'm swept with waves of nostalgia for the old place, especially after it is no more. Maybe part of me will yearn to come down the old steps and prepare coffee in the old kitchen just like I did thousands of times across the years. But maybe not - and if that does happen, maybe I'll have the wisdom not to nurture those feelings, wallowing in them as if that were something noble. The old house was a place, given to us for a time by God for His purposes. Now in His grace He's given us a new home. We were thankful for the old one in its time, and we're thankful for this new one as well. I hope that my thanks do not turn back in a perverse clinging to a mere thing after its time has passed.

Now, if I can only remember this lesson when it comes time to let go of the old "house" of my earthly life and move on to the "new home" the Lord has for me - whenever that move may be.

For Amelia, whom I never met

O Happy Interruption, O Beloved Intruder -
was it because you were so tiny that you were able to slip through
the barriers we had erected around our hearts?

How was it that your little hands, with grasp so weak,
were able to grip our hearts so tightly?

How was it that your quiet sighs and gentle laughter
could cut through the clamor of our lives
and bring us to a place of stillness?

How is it that one so small
could leave such a huge void by her departure?

You brought with you obligations and responsibilities,
chaining our lives to yours.
How then is it that your absence weighs so heavily,
and without you our days seem gray and leaden?

Had we known how things would end, would we have welcomed you?
Would we have opened our arms so wide
if we'd known they would be empty again so soon?
Would we have had the courage to love so deeply
if we'd known we would lose so much?

It must have been crucial, what you were sent to teach us,
for you were given so little time to say it;
a lifetime of love packed into three short months.

What can we learn from your brief time in our midst?
What can we learn from the severe lesson of your death?

Can love live again?
Is it worth the risk of loss?
Will we again retreat behind our barriers?
What will come into the vacuum left by your departure?

May love be your legacy, little Amelia.
May we grow in love,
and make you proud,
that you will not be ashamed to say of us:

“Those are the ones who love me.”

Three Deaths

My days since my last post have been incredibly busy and full of responsibilities, so I make no apologies for not posting. The holy days have come and gone, and brought with them much joy and many changes. Another thing the brought was an unusual (for me) number of deaths. These will make them memorable if nothing else does. I'll probably be writing at more length about each of them, but here's an overview.

One “death” was symbolic and sentimental, but a small death nonetheless: we moved out of the house in which we have dwelt for 25 years, the house in which we raised our family. This was not unexpected – in fact, it was so long overdue that we were getting a bit impatient for it to happen – but it was nonetheless a little death to close the door on the empty, emptied home and leave it forlorn, awaiting the crane and bulldozer. A couple of my daughters wrote their own eulogies here and here, and being the sentimental slob that I am, I'll probably have more to say about it in a later post, but for now it's enough to say that the end of 2009 brought with it the end of the Scott Avenue years, the main years of raising our family.

Another death was an acutal one, and though it was somewhat expected it was nonetheless a loss. An old friend and fellow pro-life worker passed away on January 2nd, 2010 and was buried on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6th. His name was Dan, and he was 90 years old and had suffered from several chronic health troubles over the years to which he finally succumbed. He was a hale and cheerful fellow, and while his health let him was a vigorous member of our Right to Life chapter. Even while his health failed he would still participate in whatever he could - daily Mass, Bible study, pro-life activities. He was a regular attendee at our banquets, and even this summer and fall I would at times see him with his rolling gait ambling along up the sidewalk near his home, getting his exercise. There was plenty of warning before his death, so his family had time to gather around him. His funeral was a true celebration of life - the life of Christian witness that he had lived, and the new life he entered into. My final impression of Dan Bradley is what I want said of me when I draw my last breath: he was found faithful at his post. God bless you, Dan.

But what cast a shadow over the whole holiday was the unexpected and tragic death of my grand-niece Amelia. I received a frantic call from my hysterical sister, Amelia's grandmother, on the morning of December 21st, just after we'd spent a busy and exhausting weekend moving into our new house. My sister had been called by her daughter, Amelia's mother, who'd gone in to get the baby for her morning feeding to find her lifeless in her crib.

Amelia was a precious child, dearly loved by her parents and relatives. Though I never had the chance to meet her, Ellen and I had plans to visit my sister that would have included visiting Amelia and her family. She was born in September and was to be baptized on Christmas day. Apparently the Lord wanted to take care of that personally, but her death left all of us devastated. Our prayers were with my sister and her family as they mourned their loss during the season which is usually full of joy.

So for me, this year's holiday season was marked by these deaths. I did a lot of thinking and praying, and will surely have more to say about them. But I did want to post a tribute to my little grand-niece, which follows:

Third Sunday - Rejoice!

The Third Sunday of Advent is called Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is Latin for “Rejoice!”, and this is the Sunday we light the more festive rose candle.

Long periods of preparation can be draining. If you've ever prepared a field for a crop, or a house for painting, you know that preparatory work can be tedious and discouraging. Jobs like stripping paint aren't the “real” work, so aren't directly rewarding, but they have to be done if the final job is going to succeed.

It must have felt that way for the Israelites. They were promised a Redeemer, and as more prophecies came in a clearer picture of Him emerged. This wouldn't just be the Savior of Israel, this would be the Savior of the whole world! What a high and noble calling! But as the centuries dragged on, and the Jewish people suffered many setbacks, it probably got discouraging.

Advent can feel like that for us, too. It seems to be all about discipline and preparation, and can feel like it drags on and on (especially for children!) It's like spiritual paint-scraping: no fun at all, and just when you think you're making progress, you spot another patch that needs cleaning.

This is why the Church says to take a break. The Third Sunday of Advent reminds us to rejoice – to step back, relax, and refocus on the goal. Spiritual life isn't only about discipline and reform. Those things are necessary, but only as preparation for The Main Event: the redemption, joy, the full spiritual life that Christmas celebrates. The cheery rose candle brightens the array of somber purple. The halfway point is passed, and our vigil will soon be at an end.

From this point on, the burning rose candle will remind us that we've turned the corner and the goal is in sight. Like runners in a race coming within sight of the goal, let's not slow down, or stumble, or give up. Let's redouble our efforts – the very image used in Scripture several places, like Hebrews 12:1. Let's get even more serious about cleaning spiritual house in preparation for the Coming Lord.

The most significant way to do this is to accept the grace of the Sacrament of Confession. Don't pass up this opportunity for grace! Rejoice, your sins can be forgiven in Christ!

Second Sunday

Second Sunday of Advent – 6 December 2009 – The Centuries of Anticipation

Jesus once assured His disciples that “many kings and prophets longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear the things that you hear, and did not hear them.” (Luke 10:24) These words are as true for us as they were for the disciples. We can easily take the Sacraments, Scriptures, Church teachings, and our rich Catholic heritage for granted. We forget that for thousands of years all mankind, especially the Jews, anticipated and longed for the promised Redeemer.

Prophecies of the Messiah are found throughout the Old Testament. These are important for many reasons, such as reassuring us that God is in charge no matter how badly we humans stray from His way. Here are some of the Old Testament prophecies that spoke of Christ:

Toward the end of his life, Moses spoke of “a prophet” that would come after him, whom all Israel should obey (Deuteronomy 18:15-18). The prophet Nathan promised that King David would have a son whose throne would be established forever (2 Samuel 7:12-14). Both these prophecies were partially fulfilled by other prophets and kings descended from David, but only Jesus perfectly fulfilled them both.

As the time of Jesus' coming drew nearer, the prophetic “focus” became sharper. The Holy Spirit spoke extensively through the prophet Isaiah about the coming Messiah: that He would be born of a virgin (Is 7:14), that He would come from the line of David, walk in the power and wisdom of God's Spirit, and govern a worldwide Kingdom of Peace (Is 11:1-14), that He would destroy oppression (Is 16:5), that He would be called from His mother's womb to not only restore Israel but save all nations (Is 49:1-6), and that He would be abused and suffer to redeem mankind (Is 52:13 – 53:12).

Prophecies regarding the Messiah also came to Daniel, who saw a vision of one “like a Son of Man” being brought before the Father to receive everlasting worldwide dominion (Dan 7:13-14), and to Zechariah, who foresaw that the Messiah would come to His people riding a donkey (Zech 9:9-10) – symbolic of His humility and gentleness, and fulfilled on Palm Sunday. Zechariah was also told of One who would be known as The Branch, who would build the Temple and reign over Jerusalem (Zech 6:12-13). The last prophet of the Old Testament, Malachi, spoke of the Messenger of the Covenant who would come to His Temple to purify it, that true worship might be offered there (Mal 3:1).

These are but a few of the prophecies regarding the Messiah that can be found in the Old Testament. It is important to know them because they shed light on Jesus' mission, and further explain what He came to accomplish. They also make clear that human history has always been in God's control; a control that continues to this day.

This Advent, let us study these Scriptures, so we can grow to appreciate the gift that we have been given: Immanuel, the God who dwells in our midst. We do not have to wait and wonder, anticipating the far-off day when the Messiah would be revealed. He has been revealed – at Bethlehem, at Calvary, at the Empty Tomb, and in every Mass we attend. Truly kings and prophets long to see and hear what is freely given to us every week – let's appreciate it.

I wrote these myself - honest!

Of late, my life has been consumed by the effort of finding, purchasing, fixing up, and moving into a new house - all in the span of just over three months. This while trying to make a living (with the emphasis on "trying"), stay involved in my parish, and keep the Right to Life involvement going. Needless to say, this has left little spare time for sharing thoughts here, though there has been no lack of subject matter.

So I won't let this effort totally languish, I'm posting a few articles that I threw together for a series on Advent which we're running in our parish paper. Though these weren't originally written as blog posts, I did write them, so I hope they count as content until I can get back to a more dedicated effort.

First Sunday of Advent – 29 November 2009 – The (nearly) Forgotten Season

Advent is a season which is easily be forgotten in our modern culture. It has largely been eclipsed by the commercial “Christmas Season”, which seems to start earlier and earlier each year. While Christmas music is heard everywhere and television is flooded with Christmas specials, all we might notice at Mass is different colored vestments and a wreath with colored candles. Some of us may remember Advent wreaths at home, and perhaps even “giving up” things for Advent, but even those practices have largely faded.

Meanwhile, many are concerned with “putting Christ back in Christmas”. One way to do this is by observing Advent, particularly in homes trying to raise Catholic children. In the Church Calendar, the Christmas season follows Christmas (the “Twelve Days of Christmas” begins on December 25th and ends on January 6th, the Epiphany.) The four-week season leading up to Christmas is Advent, which has its own rites and focus. One way to “put Christ back in Christmas” is to put Advent back into our lives

Advent is a major season in the Christian calendar. In fact, the Church Year begins with Advent, making the First Sunday the liturgical “New Year's Day”. The focus of Advent is not as much fasting (more appropriate for Lent), but simplifying and refocusing. While penance and self-examination is part of this, the themes of Advent are solemn but joyous anticipation and preparation. This can be hard to do amidst the press and bustle of the commercial “Christmas Season”, but it is worth the effort!

We'll be running a series of articles throughout Advent to assist with this effort. Here are some practical hints for families seeking to more fully celebrate this holy season:

• Get a home Advent wreath. These come with four candles – three purple ones and one pink (rose). These can be lit during dinner or other family times – one additional candle for each week celebrated, with the pink one lit on the Third Sunday. This simple observance can help the whole family focus on this special season.
• Another classic devotional tool is the Advent calendar. These colorful pieces of art count down through the days of Advent (usually beginning on December 1), with little doors that open and provide Scripture passages for the day. Some versions even have a little treat for each day! These are especially helpful with young children, but the whole family can enjoy them.
• Simplify and focus your life by setting aside perhaps 15 minutes of television, Internet, or video game time to read Scripture and pray. Readings for each day are found in the bulletin – perhaps you could clip them out and use them all week.
• Attend a parish or neighborhood Bible Study. Most area parishes sponsor them.
• Do something “devotionally different” - perhaps a family Rosary or after-dinner Scripture reading, or have a brief family prayer time in the evening.
• Encourage everyone in the family to attend Confession at least once in Advent.

As a parish, let's try to make Advent 2009 a special time of preparing for the joy of Christmas!

A national conundrum

America is having its national nose rubbed in the issue that it never wants to look at for very long. The issue of publicly funding abortion is forcing the injustice and moral contradiction of the question back into the public conscience - and people are already starting to squirm.

So long as abortion was privately funded, it could remain under most people's radar. If people wanted to pay for one - well, that was their business. Tossing a bone to pro-lifers in the form of the Hyde Amendment that prohibited any Health & Human Services (i.e. welfare) funds being used for abortion was pretty safe: abortions for welfare recipients was a bit of a touchy topic anyway (though some states still fund abortions with their own Medicaid funds).

But now the spectre of getting Federal funds involved in health care payment at every level is once again forcing the issue. When flat-out asked, most Americans - even those who have no objection to the procedure - don't want public funds paying for abortion. But public funding for abortions has long been the Holy Grail of radical gender feminists like NOW, NARAL, and Planned Parenthood. After all, as the largest for-profit abortion provider in the nation, PP could make a lot of money billing taxpaying American citizens for killing unborn American citizens. Pro-abortion forces are not going to easily surrender their long-sought goal, but pro-life legislators such as Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan and Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska have dug in their heels and refuse to violate their consciences by voting for public funding for abortion.

So the House and Senate face a Mexican standoff. Though the Stupak amendment made it through the House, knowledgeable observers of both sides say that advocates will not back down. Pro-abortion representatives who may have swallowed hard to vote for the health care funding bill with the Stupak amendment are determined to strip out that wording in conference. Pro-life legislators in both houses are determined to keep it in, or add equivalent wording to the Senate version. Without both parties on board, the bill can't pass.

Meanwhile, people are beginning to see through President Obama's smokescreen statements about how Federal law prohibits funding abortions. They're noticing that the Hyde Amendment was just that - an amendment, not a statute, that was tacked onto the HHS budget every year. There's no guarantee that it would continue to be tacked on - in fact, nobody was expecting the Pelosi House to do so. And it only applied to the HHS budget, which would not be the budget funding health care payments. (Of course, nobody knows what budget that would be, or where the money would come from, but that's another post.) And the proposed health funding reforms would reach far further than Medicaid payments. Also, Obama's on record as saying that paying for "reproductive health services" - industry code for abortion - is central to his plans for health care payments.

How this all plays out will be high drama. The longer it drags out, the more the media will be forced to talk about abortion - something they're very skilled at not doing. The more they talk, the more people will think. A man who doesn't want to look at the gross injustice of abortion can look the other way so long as it's "a personal choice". But when he is forced to pay for that "personal choice", he tends to look a bit harder. And perhaps this time he'll notice that abortion slaughters 1.2 million children each year. And maybe, just maybe, he'll ask his legislator to vote against funding that.

And maybe, just maybe, his conscience will move him to do a little bit more.

Seduced by illusion

Two interesting things happened recently. They seemed unrelated, but seem to me to share a common thread.

One was the selection of President Barack Obama as the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. There was much comment from many quarters on this, especially when someone put together that the nominations for the prize closed just two weeks after Obama's inauguration - far too brief a period in office for him to have done anything to warrant such an accolade.

The other thing was the results of a rather out-of-the way online contest sponsored by the online magazine AskMen.com, which is a digital phenomenon in the GQ/Esquire/Maxim mold (think Playboy lite). Apparently their annual online survey of "Most Influential Men" turned up an interesting result: the man in question was imaginary. That's right, according to those who voted in the poll, the most influential man was the character Don Draper of the television show Mad Men. This surprising result was so intriguing that Rabbi Yonason Goldson wrote a superb column for Jewish World Review that makes several excellent points far better than I could.

To me, the connection between the two events was obvious: in both cases, those making the selection had voted for appearance, not substance. That Don Draper didn't exist and had never done anything in the real world was irrelevant; the important point was that he appeared to be the kind of man that the voters wished to emulate. The same criteria influenced Obama's selection for the Peace Prize: at the time he was nominated, he'd done nothing but run a campaign (and had done a masterful job of it) - an event which is pure image in America's media-dominated culture. Even following the nomination announcement, the media was abuzz with commentary such as this column, which gushes about Obama's acceptance comments.

The gap here between image and substance is frightening. What is even more frightening is that few think it remarkable. Anyone who knows history is aware that a sharp intrusion of actual events can shred even the most artful and well-constructed image (just ask the builders of the Maginot Line). One has to wonder how a culture who elects illusory images as their leaders will respond when they are faced with an actual challenge - because it is at times like that that illusion will shred and evaporate.