Alexis de Tocqueville

So we just finished reading this really great book in seminar by Alexis de Tocqueville called "Democracy in America". Tocqueville was a Frenchman who traveled extensively in America in the early nineteenth century, and the book is a study of democracies generally, seen through the lens of American democracy. I want to quote some portions from it pertaining to various issues that I think are relevant today.

1. Religion

"One must recognize that equality, which introduces great goods into the world, nevertheless suggests to men very dangerous instincts, as will be shown hereafter; it tends to isolate them from one another and to bring them each of them to be occupied with himself alone.
It opens their souls excessively to the love of material enjoyments.
The greatest advantage of religions is to inspire wholly contrary instincts. There is no religion that does not place man's desires beyond and above earthly goods and that does not naturally raise his soul toward regions much superior to those of the senses. Nor is there any that does not impose on each some duties toward the human species or in common with it, and that does not thus draw him, from time to time, away from contemplation of himself. This one meets in even the most false and dangerous religions.
Religious peoples are therefore naturally strong in precisely the spot where democratic peoples are weak; this makes very visible how important it is that men keep to their religion when becoming equal." -Democracy in America, Volume Two, Part One, Chapter Five

"Legislators of democracies and all honest and enlightened men who live in them must therefore apply themselves relentlessly to raising up souls and keeping them turned toward Heaven. It is necessary for all those who are interested in the future of democratic societies to unite, and for all in concert to make continuous efforts to spread within these societies a taste for the infinite, a sentiment of greatness, and a love of immaterial pleasures.
If one encounters among the opinions of a democratic people some of those harmful theories that tend to make it believed that everything perishes with the body, consider the men who profess them as the natural enemies of this people.
There are many things that offend me in the materialists. Their doctrines appear to me pernicious and their haughtiness revolts me. If their system could be of some utility to man, it seems it would be in giving him a modest idea of himself. But they do not make anyone see that this should be so, and when they believe they have sufficiently established that they are only brutes, they show themselves as proud as if they had demonstrated they were gods.
Materialism is a dangerous malady of the human mind in all nations; but one must dread it particularly in a democratic people because it combines marvelously with the most familiar vice of the heart in these peoples.
Democracy favors the taste for material enjoyments. This taste, if it becomes excessive, soon disposes me to believe that all is nothing but matter; and materialism in its turn serves to carry them toward these enjoyments with an insane ardor. Such is the fatal circle into which democratic nations are propelled. It is good for them to see the peril and restrain themselves.
Most religions are only general, simple, and practical means of teaching men the immortality of the soul. That is the greatest advantage that a democratic people derives from beliefs, and it is what renders them more necessary to such a people than to all others.
Therefore when any religion whatsoever has cast deep roots within a democracy, guard against shaking it; but rather preserve it carefully as the most precious inheritance from aristocratic centuries; do not seek to tear men from their old religious opinions to substitute new ones, for fear that, in the passage from one faith to another, the soul finding itself for a moment empty of belief, the love of material enjoyments will come to spread through it and fill it entirely." -Democracy in America, Volume Two, Part Two, Chapter Fifteen

"Up to now, no one has been encountered in the United States who dared to advance the maxim that everything is permitted in the interest of society. An impious maxim - one that seems to have been invented in a century of freedom to legitimate all the tyrants to come.
So, therefore, at the same time that the law permits the American people to do everything, religion prevents them from conceiving everything and forbids them to dare everything.
Religion, which, among Americans, never mixes directly in the government of society, should therefore be considered as the first of their political institutions; for if it does not give them the taste for freedom, it singularly facilitates their use of it...When [men] attack religious beliefs, they follow their passions and not their interests. Despotism can do without faith, but freedom cannot. Religion is much more necessary in the republic they extol than in the monarchy they attack, and in democratic republics more than all others. How could society fail to perish if, while the political bond is relaxed, the moral bond were not tightened? And what makes a people master of itself if it has not submitted to God?" -Democracy in America, Volume One, Part Two, Chapter Nine

So there are several problems that religion will counteract in a democratic society. The first is inordinate love of material enjoyments. Tocqueville says that in democracies, where every man is free to make his own way in the world, and that where a lot of people will begin to experience material well-being for the first time, people will tend to get much too attached to these things and will become base and self-seeking. He also says that they will spend so much time looking after their own personal interests and trying to get as much wealth as possible that they'll want the government to take care of more and more other things for them, leading to a big centralization of power and eventually, despotism. Religion will help with this because it will turn people's minds away from material stuff and make them realize their duties towards other men as well. Also, religion will keep the majority from passing laws that will be hurtful to people. Funny, huh. These days, politicians will tell you that they keep their political life separate from their religious life. According to Tocqueville, religion is important precisely because it will help men to legislate correctly.

2. The role of women

"There are people in Europe who, confusing the diverse attributes of the sexes, intend to make man and woman into beings not only equal, but alike. They give both the same functions, impose the same duties on them, and accord them the same rights; they mix them in all things - labors, pleasures, affairs. One can easily conceive that in thus striving to equalize one sex with the other, one degrades them both; and that from this coarse mixture of nature's works, only weak men and disreputable women can ever emerge.
This is not the way Americans have understood the kind of democratic equality that can be established between woman and man. They have thought that since nature had established such great variation between the physical and moral constitution of man and that of woman, its clearly indicated goal was to give a diverse employment to their different faculties; and they have judged that progress did not consist in making two unlike beings do nearly the same things, but in getting each of them to acquit its task as well as possible. Americans have applied to the two sexes the great principle of political economy that dominates industry in our day. They have carefully divided the functions of man and woman in order that the great social work be better done.
America, among the world's countries, is the one where they have taken the most continual care to draw cleanly separated lines of action for the two sexes, and where they have wanted them both to march at an equal pace but on ever different paths. You do not see American women directing the external affairs of the family, conducting a business, or indeed entering the political sphere, but neither do you encounter any of them who are obliged to engage in the rough work of plowing or in any painful exertions that require the development of physical force. There are no families so poor as to make an exception to this rule.
Neither have Americans ever imagined that democratic principles should have the consequence of overturning marital power and introducing confusion of authorities in the family. They have thought that every association, to be efficacious, must have a head, and that the natural head of the conjugal association is the man. They therefore do not deny him the right to direct his mate; and they believe that in the little society of husband and wife, as well as in the great political society, the object of democracy is to regulate and legitimate necessary powers, not to destroy all power.
[This is also]the sentiment that the most virtuous women express: the others are silent, and one does not hear in the United States of an adulterous wife noisily claiming the rights of woman while riding roughshod over her most hallowed duties.
It is true that Americans rarely show women the ready attentions with which one is pleased to surround them in Europe; but they always show by their conduct that they suppose them virtuous and delicate; and they have such a great respect for their moral freedom that in their presence each watches his discourse carefully for fear that they be forced to hear language that offends them.
As for men, I shall not hesitate to say it: although in the United States the woman scarcely leaves the domestic circle and is in certain respects very dependent within it, nowhere does her position seem higher to me; and now that I approach the end of this book where I have shown so many considerable things done by Americans, if one asked me to what do I think one must principally attribute the singular prosperity and growing force of this people, I would answer that it is to the superiority of its women." -Democracy in America, Volume Two, Part Three, Chapter Twelve

This one pretty much speaks for itself. The only thing I have to say is, "Ah, for the good old days."

3. Big Government

"Equality produces, in fact, two tendencies: one leads men directly to independence and can drive them all at once into anarchy, the other conducts them by a longer, more secret, but surer path toward servitude." -Democracy in America, Volume Two, Part Four, Chapter One

So what is this path toward servitude?

"Men who inhabit democratic countries, having neither superiors or inferiors nor habitual and necessary associates [such as were the members of one's class in an aristocracy], willingly fall back on themselves and consider themselves in isolation...it is therefore never effortless for these men to tear themselves away from their particular affairs to occupy themselves with common affairs; their natural inclination is to abandon the care of the latter to the sole visible and permanent representative of collective interests, which is the state.
Not only do they not naturally have the taste to occupy themselves with the public, but often they lack the time to do it. Private life is so active in democratic times, so agitated, so filled with desires and work, that hardly any energy or leisure remains to each man for political life.
I have also had occasion to show how the growing love of well-being and the mobile nature of property make democratic peoples dread material disorder. Love of public tranquility is often the sole political passion that these peoples preserve, and it becomes more active and more powerful in them as all the others are weakened and die; this naturally disposes citizens constantly to give the central power new rights, or to allow it to take them; it alone seems to them to have the interest and the means to defend them from anarchy by defending itself." -Democracy in America, Volume Two, Part Four, Chapter Three

And what will things be like eventually when people, not wanting to be bothered with anything but their own private interests, have let the government take over everything common or public?

"I want to imagine with what new features despotism could be produced in the world: I see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve on themselves without repose, procuring the small and vulgar pleasure with which they fill their souls...above these an immense tutelary power is elevated, which alone takes charge of assuring their enjoyments and watching over their fate. It is absolute, detailed, regular, far-seeing, and mild. It would resemble paternal power if, like that, it had for its object to prepare men for manhood; but on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them fixed irrevocably in childhood; it likes citizens to enjoy themselves provided that they think only of enjoying themselves. It willingly works for their happiness; but it wants to be the unique agent and sole arbiter of that; it provides for their security, foresees and secures their needs, facilitates their pleasures, conducts their principal affairs, directs their industry, regulates their estates, divides their inheritances; can it not take away from them entirely the trouble of thinking and the pain of living?
So it is that every day it renders the employment of free will less useful and more rare; it confines the action of the will in a smaller space and little by little steals the very use of free will from each citizen. Equality has prepared men for all these things: it has disposed them to tolerate them and often even to regard them as a benefit.
Thus, after taking each individual by turns in its powerful hands and kneading him as it likes, the sovereign extends its arms over society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way to surpass the crowd; it does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them, and directs them; it rarely forces one to act, but it constantly opposed itself to one's acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd...in vain will you charge these same citizens, whom you have rendered so dependent on the central power, with choosing the representatives of this power from time to time; that use of their free will, so important but so brief and rare, will not prevent them from losing little by little the faculty of thinking, feeling, and acting by themselves, and thus from gradually falling below the level of humanity...it is in fact difficult to conceive how men who have entirely renounced the habit of directing themselves could succeed at choosing well those who will lead them; and one will not make anyone believe that a liberal, energetic, and wise government can ever issue from the suffrage of a people of servants...the vice of those who govern and the imbecility of the governed would not be slow to bring it to ruin; and the people, tired of their representatives and of themselves, would create freer institutions or soon return to lying at the feet of a single master." -Democracy in America, Volume Two, Part Four, Chapter Six

So there you have it, folks. Doesn't that make you want the government to keep taking care of everything for us?

Halloween

The Halloween Dance was, appropriately, yesterday evening. I'm not going to say a whole lot about it. The dancing itself was pretty fun, and the costumes were a blast, as always, but the food was not-so-great AND there wasn't nearly enough of it; also, the decorations were really so-so. A few small-ish murals, and really no 3-D props. 3-D props are what really make the decorations, and they can make the difference between a dance being perceived as not all that great or as utterly amazing. Everyone loved our Mardi Gras Dance last year precisely because we had lots of 3-D props. Canopies, pyramids, an oasis, and a marketplace were among them. It was really cool.

So yeah, if you couldn't tell already, I wasn't overly impressed with how the sophomores pulled yesterday's dance together. But that's not really the point of this post. Anthony and I dressed up as Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett, and it was a lot of fun! We had a couple of last minute emergencies, namely, the collared vest that I'd found for Anthony got lost, and Peter's tailcoat was more than one size too small...but we found another vest that worked pretty well, and Anthony, with great effort, and quite uncomfortably, I'm afraid, did manage to fit somewhat into the tailcoat. But even though that looked noticeably too small for him, everyone definitely knew right away who we were supposed to be. I think his cravat (excellently tied by yours truly) and the knee-length breeches with long white stockings were what really clinched the style. Anyway, here is a picture of us in front of one of the murals.



So yeah, we had a good time despite the drawbacks. Anyway, I now have homework to do, so I'll sign off for today.

I hate the L.A. Times

Yes, I most certainly do. Reading the front section infuriates me nearly every day, but even turning to the comic strips doesn't always provide relief. So many of them have blatant political overtones and openly mock conservatives and/or Christians. Anyway, I finally had my camel's back broken by the proverbial straw in the form of one of the editorials this morning, and so wrote a letter to the editor. I wonder what the likelihood is of its getting published...

My trip to the Sequoia forest last week was a blast! Anthony and I left campus around 6:30 a.m. and didn't get to the park till about noon. On the way there we had to drive on a road called Lovers Lane, and I could NOT pass up the opportunity to take a picture of Anthony and me in front of the street sign. ;) A little later on, we were driving down this two-lane road way out through the boonies, and got stuck behind a cattle drive. It was actually rather amusing, driving 5 mph behind a couple of guys on horses herding a bunch of cows down the middle of the road. Eventually they turned off and we got going again. So when we finally did get there, we had lunch and then looked at a couple of large sequoia groves. Those trees are amazingly huge; they completely dwarf all the normal-sized trees around them. On the way from Kings Canyon to Sequoia National Park, there was a lengthy stretch of road that was having some construction done on it, and they were only letting cars through every hour on the hour. Of course, Anthony and I got to the roadblock at 2:05. *sigh* So we had to wait for nearly an hour. Luckily there was a pretty good view from that point out over a valley of sequoias, so it wasn't all bad. We got done in the park at about 4 p.m. and then headed back to campus, arriving at around 9 p.m. It was a really fun day.

Thursday I spent almost all day reading seminar, and when I got to class that night there were only 10 people there. Yikes. We normally have 19 people in our seminar class, and most of the people who are the normal talkers were missing. So, I made the decision that even though I normally didn't talk, I had better do it that evening or there would be almost no discussion. So I did, quite a lot, and everyone was pleased with me. I think I should do it more often. :)

On Friday there was a formal dinner, and the seniors were seated with members of the college's board of governors. Anthony and I were together, and also at our table were our friends Hayley, Tim, Peter and Jeremy. There were three members of the board at our table, two of whom were a married couple, and they were a blast! They were so hilarious, always joking with each other and with us, and full of questions about TAC, classes, Don Rags, and the mysterious system of friendship and dating as it works on the TAC campus. Tim and Hayley, and Anthony and I, were quite equipped to inform them on that point. :) Anyway, it was quite a rip-roarin' time at dinner. I enjoyed the chardonnay they served. I think I'm beginning to develop more of a taste (and tolerance!) for alcohol. I can actually manage a whole glass now, as opposed to a couple of sips.

This morning I "thesisized", as they say, quite vigorously for three hours, and have now completed nine pages. I think I'm still happy with how it's going, though I have to keep on it, as it's due on November 30. This evening I'm going out to dinner with Anthony, and we're taking my friend Beth and her boyfriend, also named Anthony. It's actually quite amusing; two Elizabeths dating two Anthonys. Anyway, her Anthony is visiting her from Canada (his home) this weekend, and since she and I are good friends, we decided to go on a double date. So that ought to be fun. :)

Anyway, I need to go start reading my next seminar assignment, Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America." I hope everyone has a good weekend!

Don Rags

So FINALLY, I as a senior do not have any Don Rags this year. In other words, I don't have to be humiliated for 10 minutes by all of my tutors! But since everyone else still must undergo this process, I still get three days off this week. Nyeh, heh, heh. And I intend to make full use of them. In fact, I've already begun to do so. I worked on my thesis today, and managed to get into the eighth page. Yay! Tomorrow Anthony and I are going to Kings Canyon National Park (4 to 5 hours north of here) to see sequoia trees, and we're most likely going to be gone all day. Looking forward to that. On Thursday I'll probably (wait, no, definitely) work more on my thesis. Due date is November 30...

Anyway, I've gotta run now, but life is good. Have a good week!

Life with Hegel

Our last two seminars have been on Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's "Philosophy of History." The only book I've read that is more incomprehensible than this one is the other book by Hegel that we've been reading, namely, "The Phenomenology of Spirit." I am really hoping that our next few seminars will make me understand this stuff better, because right now my brain is short-circuiting around a sentence which contained the words 'bifurcation', 'self-otherness of the simple', 'abstract immediacy', and 'substantiality as the in-itself'. Whew. Someone take me back to Aristotle - he's hard, but at least he writes in English. ;)

We have finally arrived at the part of senior theology where we study the Trinity. It's extremely interesting stuff. So far we've said that there are two immanent processions in God, namely, that of intellection and that of will. The first is a generation and is the Son; the second is love and is the Holy Spirit. I really DO hope, along with many previous years' worth of seniors, that I don't accidentally write anything heretical on my final theology exam. :)

This weekend was rather interesting. On Friday evening there was a concert, the first one of the year. It was given by a group called L.A. Cantilena, and consisted of music by Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, and Telemann. That was quite enjoyable. After the concert was the annual game of Students vs. Tutors Trivial Pursuit, held in the coffee shop. The activities director asked for volunteers to be captain of the student team, and Anthony was the only volunteer, so the Official Student Microphone was handed over to him, he and I got to sit up front, and I rolled the die for the student team. Dr. McLean's pre-concert statement that the tutors would win turned out, unsurprisingly, to be true. I've attended the Trivial Pursuit all four years here, and the students have only won once. Oh well, it was fun anyway.

I had rather a bad morning on Saturday, but I won't go into that here. I worked on seminar and on my thesis all afternoon, and now have 6 pages of my rough draft finished. The draft is due on November 30, and only needs to be at least 20 pages long, so I'm feeling pretty good about it so far. I just got through a few pages which explain, both from common conception and from Aristotle, what it means to say that something is natural. After dinner, Anthony and I decided to go see the new Pixar movie "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs." That was one of my favorite books when I was little, and the movie was alright, too. I don't think Anthony was as much of a fan, though (except for all the horribly corny puns). Oh well.

Not a whole lot has been going on today as of yet. The choir sang at Mass, we ate brunch, I finished seminar and read a bit of theology, and now I've been wandering around for the last couple of hours trying to find something to do until dinner.

For those who don't know yet, Anthony is going to be visiting me for a few days during Christmas break, and I am VERY excited. :) He arrives on Tuesday, January 5, and we are leaving together to return to TAC on Saturday the 9th. I've made all kinds of wonderful plans for what to do during his visit, including but not necessarily limited to seeing all the sights of downtown Seattle, going sledding in the mountains, and hopefully meeting various friends and relatives. So anyway, it should be a lot of fun.

Well, according to my watch, it's now (finally) nearly 5 o'clock, which translated means, dinner time. SO, I will end this post and wish everyone a happy Sunday!

Senior Year

Well, I have returned to the sunny land of southern California for my fourth and final year at TAC. So far it's going great. Classes are all pretty interesting this year. In math we're doing calculus, and most recently learned how to find the volume of revolutionary solids via integration. Lab is way cool - we are studying light this year, and have been reading Newton's "Optics" as well as doing all kinds of experiments with prisms and lasers. In philosophy we have been studying Aristotle's "Physics" - the chapters concerning place and time. Next semester we get to do the "Metaphysics" which I am greatly looking forward to. In theology we are reading St. Thomas Aquinas's "Summa Theologiae" again. We've been focusing on some articles regarding how one would name God, as well as His knowledge and life, and we are very soon going to move on to study the Trinity. The Trinitarian articles will most likely be quite difficult - it is this next theology exam that each year's seniors always pray they will not write anything heretical in. :) My last class is seminar. I haven't really been enjoying it so far this year for various reasons, but at least the books are interesting so far. We've read War and Peace, The Wealth of Nations, some stuff by Kant, Emma, and now are working on Faust.

In place of a sixth class, the seniors write a senior thesis, which has to be 20 pages minimum, and which they defend orally before a board of three tutors during the second half of second semester. Everyone turns in a thesis proposal in the first month of the school year, which gives one's topic, thesis statement, and general plan of procedure for the thesis. I turned mine in a little over a week ago, and it was approved the next day by the dean and approval committee. Yay! I am finally doing what I said I would do a long time ago, if one were to read a post I wrote when I first started this blog; namely, I'm writing on why homosexual behavior is intrinsically disordered. I will be arguing primarily from natural philosophy, but I will also bring in the Scriptures and some papal encyclicals in the second half of the thesis. The topic has long interested me, but it was brought to mind again recently by the business concerning Prop 8 that was going on down here last November. Anyway, my proposal was approved, and I've written about four pages of my rough draft so far (it's due November 30), so I'm happy with the way things are going. :)

The senior-freshman beach day was this last Saturday. That was a lot of fun - the water was actually fairly mild, and the waves were great! I spent the longest time out in the surf just riding up and down on the waves. :) We also had a dance for the freshmen that evening, with lots of food and entertainment. It was fun, although I've decided that I'm not into dances quite as much as I used to be. They were fun and new freshman year, and even sophomore year, but they don't hold the same novelty for me now that they used to. Oh well, they're still pretty fun. :)

Anthony and I are still dating, and all is going well with that. He is coming to visit me for a few days during this Christmas break - January 5-9, and then we are flying back to TAC together. So there are lots of people who want to meet him, and lots of things to do while he's there. It should be a busy few days.

Anyway, I've got to get back to homework, so I will sign off for now. Hope everyone has a good week.

Alma Redemptoris Mater

This is a motet by Palestrina. It's one of our staples at TAC. (*while running around in panic mode 10 minutes before Mass* "What are we going to sing for recessional?" "Um, I don't know." "What about Alma Redemptoris? We just sang it two weeks ago, but everyone knows it." "Okay! Sounds good.") But despite the frequent usage, I positively love it. What's not to love? It is Palestrina, after all. ;)

Latin:
Alma redemptoris mater,
quae pervia caeli porta manes,
et stella maris:
succurre cadenti,
surgere qui curat, populo,
tu quae genuisti natura mirante,
tuum sanctum Genitorem.
Virgo prius ac posterius,
Gabrielis ab ore
sumens illud Ave,
peccatorum miserere.

English:
Loving mother of the redeemer,
who remain a traversable gate to heaven,
and star of the sea:
Succor the fallen,
Lift up the people, [you] who cures,
you who bore, with nature marvelling,
your holy Creator.
Virgin before and after,
from the mouth of Gabriel
taking that Ave,
have mercy on us sinners.

Photographic Reflections

This is one of my favorite pictures of Anthony and me. I don't like it just because it's cute (which it is), or because it turned out nicely (which it did), but because of something about it that happened purely accidentally. If you look just above my head and slightly to the right, you'll see a crucifix in the background. I didn't even realize that crucifix was there, much less that it was going to get into the picture (just a slightly different angle and it might not have been at all), but it IS in the picture, and pretty centrally located too, right by our faces. This caused me to stop and think about God's role in our relationship, and in relationships in general. We should be putting Him at the center of it, allowing Him to guide us as we proceed further and get to know one another even better. He is the one who gives the help and the grace necessary in a relationship, and finally, it is He to Whom we should be striving to bring each other closer, so that we may eventually be happy with Him in Heaven. That's why I like this picture so much: because for me it illustrates the necessary components, if you will, for a successful relationship - us, and God.

Summery Summary, '09 Edition

With the notable exception of my trip to Wyoming, it's been rather an uneventful last 3 months. Along with many other friends from college, I was unable to find a real job this summer, so my employment consisted of playing organ at my parish church now and then. The pay is pretty good for organists, luckily, so I'm going to survive senior year without going bankrupt. Another, much more unreliable source of income has been a few visits to the local horse racing track, where betting on the races earned me some $65 or so. This money was used largely for expenses incurred during the summer, such as airport food while travelling to WY, as well as a TLC package sent to a very worthy resident of that state a few weeks later. :)

Occasional weekend outings with the family were quite fun. Among these were a bowling expedition (at which I did the unthinkable and bowled 160, enough to earn me a free prize treat from Dairy Queen), a trip to the put-put golf course (at which I did NOT do so well), a drive through Mt. Rainier National Park, with lots of stops and hiking at both Sunrise and Paradise, and an interesting expedition to the Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. We drove down on a cloudy day, and we finally got all the way up to the observation point only to arrive in the middle of a real pea soup, which showed no signs of lifting anytime soon. The result was that, while we were able to observe some blown-over trees and a LOT of ash, the mountain itself simply could not be seen. At all. It was a little eerie walking along the edge of this big ridge, knowing that right out there across the piles of ash and mud and dead trees was a huge active volcano (it last erupted in 2004), the crater aimed directly at you, with nothing at all standing between you and it, and yet being able to see nothing but the ghostly whiteness. The thick cloud cover made it darker out than normal, and between that, the lack of visibility, and the ash and dead trees everywhere, it seemed quite ominous. On a clear sunny day, this is the view one would have from where we were standing.

On the way back down we stopped at one of the visitor centers and looked around for a little while, at which place I put a penny into one of those crank machines and flattened it into a picture of Mt. St. Helens erupting. So that was my souvenir from the day.

I've also had time this summer to see a few friends of mine. I made a short visit at a college buddy's house to drop of some things of hers that I had, and it was good to talk to her for a bit. I also saw one of my good friends from high school a couple of times, and we got a chance to catch up on each other's lives, which was nice. A week ago my family went to a barbeque at my uncle's house, so I also got to see my cousin and some other relatives.

The last week in July was punishingly hot this year. I guess that was to make up for the never-ending winter we had last December and earlier this year. We were visitors at the lake nearly every day, as it was impossible to cool down at all without either going to the lake for at least an hour or standing in the cold shower all day. Temperatures by the middle of the week were around 105 degrees, and the days leading up to and immediately following were up in the mid 90's. The humidity was pretty bad as well on some of those days. I quite literally felt like I was perpetually sticky. It was NOT a nice experience. At least California heat is dry.

And speaking of California, I get to return to that great land in 1 week and 5 days, on August 22. I am, as they say, stoked. Putting aside the somewhat terrifying prospect of a senior thesis, I am super excited to be going back, seeing friends again, having the wonderful chapel, liturgy and choir, pursuing truth, goodness and beauty, being with Anthony, and FINALLY being on the top rung of the hierarchical ladder. *I* am now the senior; *I* am now the feared and respected one. Hahaha!! :) Okay, I'm not actually going to be an evil domineering overlord. I like the returning sophomores and juniors a lot, and I'm sure the freshmen will be wonderful also. Once they figure out who's boss, that is. JK! ;)

The preparatory reading for this year's first seminar is "War and Peace". That book is HUGE. I remember looking at it on my Dad's bookshelf as a child, being scared at the sheer enormity of it, and hoping that I would never, EVER have to read that book. My edition (pictured at left) is 1215 pages, and I'm currently on page 987. But, no fears! I will definitely finish by the end of the summer, and probably by the end of this week. It is an extremely interesting and well-written book, dealing with such issues as the meaning of life, the individual's role in the great tapestry of history, fatalism, death and the afterlife, suffering, religion, and, of course, love - romantic love, familial love, love of friends, and love of enemies. And love of God. These themes are treated of through a large cast of characters from very diverse backgrounds and walks of life, who are all thrown into the same struggle against Napoleon and his eventual invasion of Russia. I am very eager to finish the book so that I can get a handle on it as a whole and attempt to better understand what Tolstoy is trying to get across.

Anyway, that's a flavor of what summer life has been like for me over the last 3 months. So now, having done what I said I would do in the last post, and seeing that it's 11:15 at night, I think I shall retire. I hope everyone has a good week, and God Bless!

Good Evening

This post is going to be a quickie. I just want to say that there will soon (within the next couple of days) be a longer post up, probably about the summer and what yours truly has been up to. (Don't worry, it's not much.) I'm going to end with a quote I found recently, which I think is very true.

"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius." -Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Nothing has convinced me more of this than my experiences in various choirs over the years, where it was always the unskilled singers who were eager to volunteer for every solo part, while the trained musicians were more hesitant.

A Common Spelling Error...

...that absolutely drives me up the wall is 'definate'. That's not how that word is spelled. It is as follows: d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e. Definite. Not 'definate' or 'defanate' or 'defanite', or anything else. 'Definite' is the only correct spelling. Thank you.

Title Change

As you probably noticed, I made a title change to my blog. The URL will remain the same for convenience, but I felt that a title update was needed, as the old title did not really reflect the content of the blog all that well. I decided to use what you might call the motto of my school, Thomas Aquinas College. So, here you have it: Verum ~ Bonum ~ Pulchrum.