On "Lost" and Being Lost
I finished Season 1 of Lost today, and I report that, so far, I am completely on board with this train. Among other things, it has reawakened my latent lust for impossibly lonely South Pacific islands. I remember being fascinated by them, thanks to a couple of rather terrible books I read when I was about 9 or 10, as a kid. Part of this is undoubtedly due to the romantic image painted of them, coupled with belonging to the land of perpetual summer (quite the novelty for an Alberta boy), but it also has to do with showing a corner of the world that is as far as possible from... anything.
Think about it. Where would most of think of as "the centre of the world"? Jerusalem, ala the medievals? Rome? The valleys in central Africa where our first ancestors evolved? New York?
You name it, I guarantee you the South Pacific island is as remote from that as we can get on this planet. (Caveat: Antarctica is probably equally remote, but where Antarctica is like going to the moon or Mars--inhospitable and alien--the South Pacific is as lush and living as anywhere... just really far away).
So, yeah, if I ever get rich, I'm going to England, Italy, and Tahiti.
In other news, I am now Pope-less. So is everybody else (unless they're Coptic Orthodox, but even then that's equivocation since what I mean by "Popeless" is "no longer have a Bishop of Rome as the head of the Church" rather than "somebody who can be called Pope"). I haven't eulogized the pontificate that just ended, but I am grieving it. What's particularly weird about this is that I am simultaneously grieving a pontificate and not having to grieve a pope. As every media source keeps reminding you (in case, somehow, you forgot), this is obviously new ground... but the feeling it evokes is not. I am distinctly reminded of when my grandmother sold the house where she and my grandfather had lived my entire childhood--Grandma was still alive and I was happy she had moved somewhere smaller and more manageable, and that she would be more comfortable... but I mourned nonetheless the house and attendant memories.
More than John Paul II, Benedict XVI was "my" pope. Partly this is a function of age: Benedict was elected just after I turned 18, just before I graduated high school, and his first big papal trip was to World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, which was my first real adventure as an adult. He was the the pope of my seminary years, my university years, and the last pope of my Canadian years, and the pope under whom I was married.
But it's more than that. In 2007, when I was going back to seminary for my second year, I read the first part of Jesus of Nazareth during our opening retreat, and I realized what a talented communicator and teacher we had for a pope, and I began to collect his works here and there as I was able. More than almost anyone I've read, the things that he says make sense to me. And this pope has said so much as an individual: as a Christian, as a theologian, as a professor--not just as a pope. Whatever his reputation has been, he has always been a kind, considered intellectual. It should come as no surprise that someone who has discerned his greatest joy as a professor should love the Professor Pope.
I will miss him--I do miss him. But he has not left us yet... no more than Grandma had. God willing, his successor will be as easy to love.
Think about it. Where would most of think of as "the centre of the world"? Jerusalem, ala the medievals? Rome? The valleys in central Africa where our first ancestors evolved? New York?
You name it, I guarantee you the South Pacific island is as remote from that as we can get on this planet. (Caveat: Antarctica is probably equally remote, but where Antarctica is like going to the moon or Mars--inhospitable and alien--the South Pacific is as lush and living as anywhere... just really far away).
So, yeah, if I ever get rich, I'm going to England, Italy, and Tahiti.
In other news, I am now Pope-less. So is everybody else (unless they're Coptic Orthodox, but even then that's equivocation since what I mean by "Popeless" is "no longer have a Bishop of Rome as the head of the Church" rather than "somebody who can be called Pope"). I haven't eulogized the pontificate that just ended, but I am grieving it. What's particularly weird about this is that I am simultaneously grieving a pontificate and not having to grieve a pope. As every media source keeps reminding you (in case, somehow, you forgot), this is obviously new ground... but the feeling it evokes is not. I am distinctly reminded of when my grandmother sold the house where she and my grandfather had lived my entire childhood--Grandma was still alive and I was happy she had moved somewhere smaller and more manageable, and that she would be more comfortable... but I mourned nonetheless the house and attendant memories.
More than John Paul II, Benedict XVI was "my" pope. Partly this is a function of age: Benedict was elected just after I turned 18, just before I graduated high school, and his first big papal trip was to World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, which was my first real adventure as an adult. He was the the pope of my seminary years, my university years, and the last pope of my Canadian years, and the pope under whom I was married.
But it's more than that. In 2007, when I was going back to seminary for my second year, I read the first part of Jesus of Nazareth during our opening retreat, and I realized what a talented communicator and teacher we had for a pope, and I began to collect his works here and there as I was able. More than almost anyone I've read, the things that he says make sense to me. And this pope has said so much as an individual: as a Christian, as a theologian, as a professor--not just as a pope. Whatever his reputation has been, he has always been a kind, considered intellectual. It should come as no surprise that someone who has discerned his greatest joy as a professor should love the Professor Pope.
I will miss him--I do miss him. But he has not left us yet... no more than Grandma had. God willing, his successor will be as easy to love.