Kittens in the Mist

My wife, known popularly as la Caterina, is a particpant in the New York City Feral Cat Initiative, a program which " is committed to solving NYC's feral cat overpopulation crisis through the humane, non-lethal method of Trap-Neuter-Return, or TNR for short." TNR is just what it says--you trap the feral cats, get them neutered, vaccinated, and checked out, return them to a sustainable habitat. You slow the breeding, stabilize the local population, and the cats take care of most rodent problems. The program provides low-cost veterinary services, as well as straw (for shelters), sometimes food, and advice. Sometimes cats prove to be friendly enough to place in homes (we have found several homes that way, including our long-term boarder, now resident, Ninja Kitteh, pictured below).

We also helped find a home for one particularly sweet cat, Sanders, who had lost an eye, but not his sunny disposition. The blog Balloon Juice featured Sanders, and we placed him thanks to them.

Not to mention this little chap, who la C found in our backyard:

Now, La Caterina's colony started as a small one in our LIC backyard (we called it the "Dutch Kills Orchard and Cattery", since we had fruit bearing trees as well). Now, though, she is co-proprietor and Chief Cat Wrangler of a colony that takes up the undeveloped portions of the Brooklyn Navy Yard and is also welcomed by some of the businesses situated there. So, she and her fellow cat-wranglers share the duty with the occasional drafted husband/significant other.

Where is, of course, where I come in.

I'm a sucker for animals. Always have been. I wouldn't have chosen this as a long term project, but I'm found of the little devils now, and go more often than not with her on the weekends. They greet us and the friendliest let us pet them, we dish out food, check their water, clean their water, etc.

Winter's the hardest, and we're gearing up for what looks like a cold one. In the wake of Sandy, though, the Ballon Juice folks raised money for la Caterina and her colleagues (I'm just the help) to restock supplies and do clean up. We did, and are now in pretty good shape for the winter.

Anyway, here are a few shots of our Navy Yard friends (click too embiggen, as they say):

Here's JJ, who's very affectionate. (His eyes water, and you can see that if you look closely, but not to worry, he's being treated.)

Here are several of the gang--the gentle-faced, slightly cross-eyed tuxedo cat on the right is Chauncey Gardiner, who is especially good natured--after feeding time today he came over to me just for affection:

Same group, the handsome chap on the right here is G. Bernard Pshaw, better known as "Bernie":

Finally, here's Buddy, eating where he can keep an eye on us:

Sometimes the work gets a bit dirty, but it's hard not to enjoy the company of these little guys.

The Paradigm Case

The Church of England's General Synod, this past Tuesday (November 20, that is), rejected draft legislation that would have allowed the consecration of women as bishops, and thereby precipitated a crisis. The rejection was by a razor thin margin; the legislation secured the necessary two-thirds majority in two of the three synodical Houses, passing in the House of Bishops and the House of Clergy, only to fail by six voted in the House of Laity. In the days since, the depths of the crisis has become increasingly clear. The day after the vote, Prime Minister David Cameron condemned the Church's failure in withering terms, saying:

The Church has its own processes and elections. They might be hard for some of us to understand, but we must respect individual institutions and the decisions they make. That does not mean we should hold back in saying what we think. I am very clear that the time is right for women bishops—it was right many years ago. The Church needs to get on with it, as it were, and get with the programme, but we must respect individual institutions and how they work, while giving them a sharp prod

Prime Minister Cameron's evident reluctance to force an outcome aside, his evident impatience with the result, and his willingness to administer a "sharp prod" were only the beginning for the C of E.

On Thursday (November 22), an Urgent Question posed to Second Church Estates Commissioner Sir Tony Baldry (the other Church Estates Commissioner being the PM) led to a debate on the outcome in which members of all parties--Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Labour, and SNP--roundly condemned the Synod vote, and intimated a Parliamentary response--whether disestablishment, deprivation of the bishops's 26 seats in the House of Lords, passing the measure themselves, reforming the procedures by which members of General Synod are elected or reinstating more active Parliamentary review of episcopal appointments, taking back the quantum of independence ceded the C of E in 1987, or removing the C of E's immunity to anti-discrimination law. The debate is especially interesting in that the most pro-Church speakers oppose forcible intervention and/or clipping the Church's wings, while denouncing the vote. No speaker defended the result on the merits. Moreover, Sir Tony, as Second Church Estates Commissioner, was involved in an exchange in which he suggested that the C of E had lost influence with Parliament itself as well as the nation:

Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab): Does the hon. Gentleman share my sadness and that of many other people that the Church has made itself appear so out of touch and anachronistic in its decision making? The head of the Church of England is a woman, but in the 21st century we cannot have women bishops.

Sir Tony Baldry: I agree. It is a great sadness. I suspect that every right hon. and hon. Member has recently had representations from Church members on same-sex marriage. If the Church of England thinks that Parliament will listen to it with considerable attention on moral issues such as same-sex marriage and so on when the Church of England seems to be so out of step on other issues of concern to Parliament, it is simply deluding itself.

That's the Church's advocate in Parliament talking.

Also on Thursday, Labour member Frank Field introduced a bill "to to amend the Equality Act 2010 to remove discrimination against women in relation to consecration of bishops in the Church of England" by subjecting the C of E to the Act. The bill is not a Labour-only exercise, however; it has six supporters who represent all three major parties. It is unlikely to pass--it's a private bill, without official support from either the Government or the Opposition--but is one hell of a shot across the bow.

This raises, in the starkest possible terms, the questions of establishment and its legitimacy; as well, it raises the related question of whether the influence can be all one way (Church on State) without State pushing back. Some of the proposed reforms do not directly deprive the Church of self-governance or of autonomy. For example, taking from the Church the perks of establishment (such as 26 seats in the House of Lords, not a very large group, and one which seldom swings a vote, but it does happen, and their influence is more decisive than their votes) does not deprive it of liberty, only of political advantage, which may be historically adventitious but itself indefensible. The Field Bill could create a precedent for more general regulation that could effect other denominations as well, and be dangerous to religious freedom.

I'm unequivocally a supporter of women's ordination and of the necessary (theologically and just logically) corollary consecration of women as bishops. I think General Synod got it humiliatingly wrong in the vote. I believe the uproar should occasion self-reflection within Synod, and should give rise to a self-correction. But the scholar in me--I'm working on a series of articles on separation of church and state, and was researching the experience of the established C of E--is still digging, with more urgency now that this test of the operating paradigm of church-state relations has arisen. I'm not ready to opine yet as to what steps beyond condemnation and shaming, if any Parliament should take in this matter. The UK's informal, unwritten constitution is fragile, and an overreaction could badly damage the balance key interests of equality and liberty, here drawn into a needless conflict by General Synod's failure. I'll report back soon.

What I can say now if that the Commons are absolutely free to disregard the advise of the C of E, as Sir Tony suggests they well may, on civil marriages (not sacred). Actions have consequences, and persuading Parliament that the Church lacks wisdom can only lead to a loss of moral suasion and political influence. No sympathy on that score at all.

Two Wardrobes, Not All That Different

Today is, as well as being Thanksgiving, the 49th anniversary of C.S. Lewis's death. It's a good day to pause for a moment and think about him.

Lewis's greatest work, for me, is his later, less tendentious, Christian writing, and his literary scholarship, in which his lightly-worn learning genuinely illuminates the writing he loves. The Discarded Image and English Literature in the Sixteenth Century genuinely opened the door to a new understanding of Shakespeare, Spenser and Milton for me, and if I had never read another word of Lewis's, I would be profoundly in his debt for that.

But my favorite Lewis--the Lewis of The Great Divorce, of The Screwtape Letters, and of A Grief Observed--changed my life. Even the earlier apologetics, while not as resonant for me, have their moments, and flashes of Lewisian genius. But it's the mature Lewis who speaks most clearly to me.

What of Narnia? The books are a hodge-podge, aren't they? Borrowings and jottings, figures from legend, myth and children's books--moments of cultural imperialism, moments of transcendence. (For a troubled, yet affectionate critique of the works, see Laura Miller). For me, I found the books too late--I was amused, and fitfully grabbed by them, but they were not really my meat. Still, two moments lived with me. The first is Lucy initially pushing her way through the wardrobe into the magical land. The other is Puddleglum's response to the Witch's lie that Aslan and the world of Narnia is only a dream:

"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a playworld which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

It's a wonderful affirmation of faith, dafka, and (in A.N. Wilson's telling, marks his ultimate answer to the philosophical inadequacies in his work on Miracles pointed out by Elizabeth Anscombe in their famous 1948 debate. (Victor Reppert, while admitting that CSL wrote no more overtly apologetic works after the debate, denies that it was cause and effect, noting that Lewis rewrote the chapter in Miracles under debate. (Notably, John Dolan points out that Anscombe herself respected Lewis's intellectual honesty in re-writing the chapter.) I think Reppert and Dolan over-read Wilson's point, in part because of the easy gibe Wilson allows himself; Lewis did not give up writing about his faith, and wrote many of his best Christian works after the debate. But he wrote in a different style--less like the police-court solicitor his father was, and more like the poet and critic he was at heart. Lewis himself later wrote that she "obliterated me as an apologist," though not as a Christian writer. The debate with Anscombe helped him, in my opinion, to find his own truest and best voice.

Interestingly, tomorrow is the 49th anniversary of the first episode of Doctor Who. That means that, had he lived another day, CSL might very well have seen An Unearthly Child, in which the famous dimensionally transcendental police box takes its first (recorded) flight. One wonders what he would have made of it?

I think Lewis might have liked the show, to be honest. The pervasive air of mystery, which is not dispelled until the end of the Second Doctor's tenure, the fact that the Doctor has to learn how to be a hero, from the ordinary schoolteacher forcibly traveling with him), and the mythopoetic style of the early years of the program (yes, I think Sandifer has it dead right). All these would have appealed to Lewis enormously, I think. As would the Master watching the Clangers:



But I think Lewis would especially have loved the very beginning, in which a wardrobe different from his own creation in form but not so very different in function takes off:

Bishop Dietsche's Address to Convention

On Saturday, I wrote about Bishop Andrew Dietsche's address to the Diocesan Convention. No video has been posted, but you can read the text here. I'd just like to highlight a few passages.

As a postulant for Holy Orders myself, I can't help but love the first substantive section:

One of the pleasures of my first months in this ministry has been getting to know those in the process for ordination to the diaconate or priesthood. It would be hard to find a more impressive or inspiring group of people, and as I anticipate their coming service in the leadership of the church it fills me with confidence for our future. And in light of the significant investment which we have in these postulants and candidates for holy orders, and the care with which we raise them up for ordained ministry, and the love we have for them, I ask you help me keep them in the Diocese of New York as they transition into their ministries. However much you may love your field education seminarian from Tampa or Seattle or the Aleutian Islands, I ask you in the strongest possible terms that when you look to hire new clergy you look first before others at our own. Within the next few weeks you will all receive a letter from me introducing and commending to you our new class of ordinands. I know you will be as impressed with them as I am.

What's telling there is he goes beyond a mere shout-out; as a prospective deacon, non-stipendiary in our diocese, I'll find work. But my brothers and sisters who are aspiring to priestly ordination have reason for fret, and their bishop wants to help. Practically, not just by words.

But here's the real meat, for me, of the address:

Bonhoeffer wrote:

"Our church, which has been fighting in these years only for its self-preservation, as though that were an end in itself, is incapable of taking the word of reconciliation and redemption to mankind and the world. Our earlier words are therefore bound to lose their force and cease, and our being Christians today will be limited to two things; prayer and righteous action among [people]. All Christian thinking, speaking, and organizing must be born anew out of this prayer and action."


The Episcopal Church began its long slow slide into numerical decline in the mid 1970s. From 1950 to 1975 our church doubled in size. From then to the end of the century we lost all of those gains, and the decline continues. In such a context, we have been consumed with questions of church growth in one way or another for thirty years. But we have talked about that in ways which have not only had no measurable effect at all but which have encouraged a nagging sense of failure. “The Decade of Evangelism.” “20/20.” Great endeavors quickly invented and just as quickly set aside. We have treated growth as a project, and so have developed the same strategies to grow the church that we see in other institutions, talking in the same language and according to the same principles -- forgetting that growth in the church whenever it happens is a movement of the Holy Spirit, and growth when it comes is always a grace and a gift.

In 2008 when the economy fell off a cliff, the underlying fears that drove that single-minded growth-consciousness were revealed in full. Even the minority of our churches which are increasing in numbers and those which are structurally and financially sound shared the fears. Even the backdrop to our current transition is the humming of a great anxiety.. . .

It is so easy to give up on the church. Lost, lost, lost! But it has always been a bad bet. There is a truth which we preach and proclaim but which is hard to remember when things aren’t going very well. In any case it seems to be a truth by which we are often afraid to live or afraid to trust, and that is that within the church, even in decline, there is a great power which is not of us but of another and which is continually arcing toward resurrection.

I believe that. And because I do believe that I want to ask that we excise a too-often-heard four-word expression from our vocabulary. Four words that seem brave and bold and realistic and smart when we say them but in fact with every utterance chain us more inextricably and hopelessly to our fears and to our lowest expectations of ourselves and our God. The words are: the church is dying.

We are not dying. Rather, it is our hour.
....

I want the Kingdom of Heaven. Tell him what you want. I want to see our churches be places in the common life our our cities and communities where all may see the seeds of equality and justice and righteousness that is the heart and mind of God. I want to see justice and righteousness roll down like mighty rivers from the doors of our churches. I want to see all the people of the world stand together in our churches -- of every race, gay and straight, male and female, young and old, strong and weak, rich and poor, and in the harmony of many languages -- living together in brotherhood and sisterhood before the God of history and one another. (I think I want to buy the world a Coke.) I want the peace which passeth understanding in our own day in the place where we are. I want to see my life and yours transformed by the love of God, and the weak made strong and the burdened given hope, and I want to see the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven adorned as a bride for her bridegroom. Tell him what you want. Should we not have these things? Have we not heard the promises of God? Are we not the risen ones, the heirs of the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Should we not be the ones to hear the waters of New York Harbor clap their hands and see the Catskill Mountains skip like young rams?

I want the Kingdom of Heaven. And if I can’t have the Kingdom of Heaven I don’t want anything else. I want the Kingdom of God, but if they aren’t giving out the Kingdom of God today what in the world else would I ask for? Another dollar for the budget? Or a million dollars or a hundred dollars?

When you tell Jesus what you want, you need to think about what you ask for. It has to be important. So dear friends, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on these things.” Want these things.

Read it all, because I think the Diocese of New York is in for a great new era, and this is the beginning.

Meeting the Sixth and Seventh for the First Time

Long term readers will know of my affection for Doctor Who, which I watched through high school, thanks to my good friend from that time to the present, Vinnie Bartilucci, who introduced me to the show. However, on going off to college in 1984, where I had no TV, I stopped. So I missed the last episode of the Fifth Doctor, Peter Davison, and missed the entire reigns of the last two Doctors, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy.

Now, as I am following along--and indeed have pulled ahead of--Adventures with the Wife in Space, I have recently completed the Colin Baker years, and have seen the first two episodes of Sylvester McCoy's era.

First, how I would have loved Davison's send-off when it first aired! As it was, I still rate it among the all time best of the classic series. (Note, I have not yet seen all of Hartnell and Troughton, so this just means the recognized classics from those eras, and all of Pertwee-through Colin Baker for now. I'll double back. I promise.)

Caves of Androzani is simply excellent. The only weakness I can identify is the monster, and Nicola Bryant's occasionally roaming American accent. (Her acting, though, is quite good.) Davison plays the part with a reckless abandon he didn't often have, and the "nice guy" incarnation is quite ruthless here. He dies a hero, without setting out to be one.

As to Colin Baker, I can only echo the comments of Philip Sandifer on the episode in his blog Tardis Eruditorum:

OK, if you’re going to use one story to form the impression of your new Doctor then you at the very least have to actually show what your new Doctor is like. You can’t spend episodes mucking around with post-regenerative trauma when you’re trying to cement your new lead in the audience’s mind such that they’re excited to come back next season. In this regard, at least, The Twin Dilemma deserves some credit, in that Baker settles into his default mode reasonably quickly. But any points it gains are more than undone by the fact that they not only decide to introduce the Doctor in regenerative crisis, they do so by having him try to strangle Peri. In the best of circumstances this would be an unwise way to introduce a new lead character. In these circumstances it is difficult to understand how the idea even got approved.

More broadly, if giving yourself one shot to introduce your new Doctor is unwise, to do so when your concept for the new Doctor is that he’s an unlikable character who the audience slowly grows to trust and like is simply farcical. The two ideas are completely incompatible. Even if we grant that one of them is good - and I don’t really think “make your lead character unlikable” was ever going to be a winning strategy - “make your character unlikable and then put yourself in a situation where the first impression matters more than ever to the success of your show” is an idea that almost weaponizes stupidity.

Yeah, I know. But that's what they did. I mean I'm all for gritty but this?



That's frakkin' insane.

Worse, it sets the tone for the Doctor's relationship with Peri through just about half of Season 22; he's just dirt mean to her until Mark of the Rani, and only really warms to her in the first installments of Trial of a Time Lord, after which we watch when she promptly has her head shaved, is possessed by a giant slug (I'll explain later), and snuffs it--although we are told later that she is left behind by the Time Lords when they seize the Doctor, leaving her no option but to become a warrior queen to Brian Blessed, not every young woman's dream.

Here's what we see, though:



There are flashes of inspiration in season 22; Vengeance on Varos has a good premise, though the execution is only fair. The Two Doctors has a tremendous start, but becomes awful, with Troughton reduced to playing one of a pair of comic ghouls for an extended period of time. The Mark of the Rani--well, it's got some pretty funny moments, at least, including the lamest cliff hanger ever:



Trial of a Time Lord is, overall, a failure--some great moments, some interesting concepts and mostly well acted. But, ultimately, incoherent, and just not compelling. If I have to say one thing about the Colin Baker years, it's this: Baker doesn't deserve the animosity his portrayal has attracted over the years. he does a very good job--sometimes an excellent job--of playing what he's given to do. The onus is, in my opinion, squarely on the conception of the Sixth Doctor and on the scripts.

Doctor No. 7, Sylvester McCoy, opens inauspiciously with Time and the Rani--a hasty, weak regeneration, a Rani-plot that's more like the Ainley Master on a bad day, and more running around in a quarry. Also Bonnie Langford screams. A lot, and quite loudly. We're talking Chekov in Star Trek II, Fay Wray, only miked. Scream, Bonnie, scream.

I quite like McCoy's clowning as he finds his feet, especially his spoon-playing. And Kate O'Mara wins the good sport of the year award, doing an extended impression of a woman a quarter of a century her junior, as the Rani dupes the Doctor into thinking she is his companion Mel.

But then we move onto Paradise Towers--a failure, but an interesting failure. The world of the story is quite lived in--the Kangs, with their special argot, and color codes, remind me of the juvenile gangs of "cubs" in Logan's Run with a touch of Alex in Clockwork Orange; the fascist, rule-bound Caretakers mask their fear with their slavish adherence to a book of rules; and the cannibalistic grannies? Pretty damn funny. As is the all-too-aptly named Pex, deflated by cries of "Scardeycat!" until almost the very end (although the joke is used too often).

The misuse of poor old Richard Briers, though, who starts off well enough but becomes a gurning zombie when possessed by the Great Architect (why didn't that happen to the Master when occupying Tremas's body?) is shameful, as is the complete incoherence of the villain's plan.

Still, Paradise Towers fails daringly; it tries. Classic Doctor Who may be entering its last seasons, but it seems to have found its courage again.

New Life

Alas, the Diocese of New York has not yet posted a video of our Bishop Coadjutor Andrew M.L. Dietsche's barn-burner of an address. I hope it will, and will share it here if and when it does. The Bishop, who will be installed as our Diocesan in February 2013, gave a stirring call to abandon fear, institutional thinking and obsession with growth for the sake of growth. He urged us to think less self-consciously on the health of the Church, and to focus on mission--modeling and preaching the Gospel Way. He urged us to think big, not small--declaring that if he can't ask God for the Kingdom of Heaven, what was there worth asking for?

We will continue to be be in good hands, I think, when Bishop Dietsche is installed.

Here's a taste of his style--his humor, his thought for others, and his commitment to the God and our Diocese:

Bishop Coadjutor-Elect the Rev. Canon Andrew Dietsche addresses convention delegates from Episcopal Diocese of New York on Vimeo.

Today we also celebrated Bishop Mark Sisk, who deserves our thanks and applause for his steady, pastoral hand at the tiller. He will be be remembered as a bishop who was confronted with crises that called for real leadership, and who rose to the task. A measure of the affection and respect felt for Bishop Sisk can be seen in the video tribute to him prepared by the Cathedral Staff.

Bishop Sisk impressed me with his sincere and passionate engagement with the problems of the poor and underprivileged, and also with the issues of food production and water availability, and the harm caused by the commodification of both. His gentle good humor is notable. He will be missed. But I firmly believe that Bishop Dietsche is the right bishop to succeed him, and is ready to lead us into the next chapter of the Diocese's already storied history.

All Things Bright and Beautiful

You know, in the political season of acrimony, recriminations, and fallout, we can forget that life is a lot more than politics.

Have an antidote--catching up with old friends.



I watched these unspool as the BBC/Channel 13 aired them, and grew up on the books.

Nice to see them again.