Now I couldn’t quite place it at the time, but there was just something about the number 101010 that was familiar, which for me usually means there’s a related snippet of some movie or television show tucked away somewhere in my skull. And sure enough, once I had the time to look it up, the connection was obvious. It turns out that in the binary numeral system the number 101010 = 42. And 42, as any Sci-Fi fan worth his or her salt should already know, is the very number which is the answer to the ultimate question of LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYTHING as calculated by the supercomputer Deep Thought in Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Now, just in case you’ve managed to avoid science fiction for the past thirty years and are not familiar with the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in any of its many incarnations, it’s the story of the last two earthlings in existence (our planet having been blown to smithereens by a Vogon construction crew to make way for a hyperspatial express route) who traipse around the cosmos in a stolen starship accompanied by the alien Ford Prefect, his cousin Zaphod Beeblebrox (the three-armed two-headed President of the Galaxy), and Marvin the Paranoid Android (a morbidly depressed robot with a self-proclaimed brain the size of a planet). This band of misfits eventually make their way to the planet Magrathea where they are indeed presented with the ultimate answer to LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYTHING, only to be informed that nobody knows what the actual question is.

Now, lots of people have spent way too much time trying to figure out what Douglas Adams meant by making the answer to the ultimate question be the number 42. Was he referencing the angle in degrees at which light reflects off of water to create a rainbow (awww, sweet), or maybe the number of rules in the game of cricket (Adams’ favorite sport), or perhaps even the forty-two-lettered name of God from Jewish tradition (though an atheist, the author confessed a lifelong fascination with studying religion). Adams never said, passing the whole thing off as a whim. “The answer to this is very simple.” he related in an interview, “It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought ’42 will do’ I typed it out. End of story.”

Of course, there’s still a lot of people to this day who refuse to accept Adams’ own explanation, so the speculations continue. But whether or not there is a hidden meaning to 42 is probably missing the point. Being that The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a farcical satire written by a (mostly) committed atheist, it’s seems more than probable that Adams was taking a potshot at what he saw as the seeming futility of posing such metaphysical questions in the first place. After all, if life has no externally determined purpose, as atheists believe, then to ponder what meaning life has is nothing but a big waste of time. Or as it plays out in the Hitchhiker’s Guide, if you ask something nonsensical like ‘what is the meaning of life’ then all you’ll get in response is a nonsensical answer like 42.

And yet, as noted, despite atheism’s general disdain for anyone’s claim to having at least some of the answers to life’s big questions, Douglas Adams admitted in interviews that he just couldn’t seem to stop thinking about God, philosophy in general, and the questions they both raised, things like why are we here and does anything we do really matter in the end? And that ultimately says something good about the man. Peter Kreeft, renowned Catholic philosopher, wrote that “anyone who is simply not interested in these questions is less than fully human, less than fully reasonable. Reasonable persons, even if skeptical about the possibility of answering them, will not dismiss them as unanswerable without looking (that is not reason but prejudice) but will examine the claims of philosophers to have given reasonable answers to these questions before settling into a comfortable, fashionable skepticism.” Professional atheist Austin Cline actually agrees with this, writing that “although there is a role for dispassionate research, philosophy must derive from some passion for the ultimate goal: a reliable, accurate understanding of ourselves and our world. This is also what atheists should seek.” So, while on the surface the eternally morose Marvin the Paranoid Android might seem like the epitome of atheism as he bemoans, “Life? Don’t talk to me about life!”, the opposite is actually true for the mature atheist.

Which leads to a strange instance in which a thinking atheist can actually agree with something in the Catechism, at least where it states “Catechesis on creation is of major importance. It concerns the very foundations of human and Christian life: for it makes explicit the response of the Christian faith to the basic question that men of all times have asked themselves: ‘Where do we come from?’ ‘Where are we going?’ ‘What is our origin?’ ‘What is our end?’ ‘Where does everything that exists come from and where is it going?’ The two questions, the first about the origin and the second about the end, are inseparable. They are decisive for the meaning and orientation of our life and actions.”

The difference is that the subsequent answer to the ultimate question of LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYTHING arrived at by Christians turns out to pretty simple, to know and love God, and from that to be able to know and love his creations. That’s how we’re to orient our lives (and we even manage to do so on our good days). But what about the atheists? By asking the same questions, yet rejecting the religious answer, to what ultimately are they orienting their lives? The pursuit of one’s own self interests? Meandering from one fleeting moment of happiness to another? Resignation to nihilism? I guess they still have a lot of questions to ponder, huh? Me, I think I’ll stick with the few answers provided so far by faith. They make a lot more sense.

And to think, I was reminded of all that just by looking at a odometer. Well, that and the fact that I needed an oil change, but still. Funny the weird places you find God in sometimes.

(Oh, and speaking of Binary, feel free to go here and listen to the song of that title by the Catholic folk duo Popple. It’s pretty catchy)

So thanks for that, God.  (and Joe!)

Onto the post:

The aforementioned link is to a list of “25 Things I’ve Learned in My Twenties.”  (If you haven’t figured it out by now, us bloggers like these kinds of “list” posts.  They’re almost as simple to write as they are to read.  Plus, they’re fun!)  Posts like these serve as sort of cautionary lists of advice while at the same time patting the reader on the back, as if to say, ”what you’re going through is completely normal experience.  We’ve all been there (or will be there).  But if you haven’t been there yet, here’s what you can do to make it a little easier on yourself.”

Anyway, a casual glance at the list will likely be enough for you to figure out that I don’t agree with everything on it (To be fair: I don’t disagree with absolutely everything on it, either).  There are things like drugs being normal and fine so long as they’re not negatively affecting you (because hey, drugs can sometimes be a good and productive use of your time, right?), or getting wasted and puking in public (everyone does it, so you should too!), and sleeping around (the solid foundation of any healthy and fulfilling lifestyle).  All of these are normal experiences in your twenties, so don’t worry about it.

Okay, fine.  I can’t address every one of these, but the ability to reason that you’ve hopefully developed by the time you’ve hit your twenties ought to be enough to give you a hint that some of the items on this list are not exactly the best advice to be following.

However, in my opinion, number 12 is worth addressing specifically, because I think it’s a lie we might be tempted as young people to tell ourselves quite frequently:

12. You’re going to betray your convictions. You’re going to feel shame. You’re going to continue to put yourself in situations that aren’t good for you. And then, slowly but surely, it will become less frequent. It might not ever go away completely but it won’t be as bad. In the meantime, stop shame spiraling about it. It gets you nowhere.

For starters: Why are we considering it a given that you’re going to betray your convictions?  Sure, we’re all human and we all make mistakes.  We may very well do things that betray our convictions.  But a surefire way to guarantee that happening is to tell yourself that it’s going to.  By definition, if you have convictions, you should be doing everything in your power to keep them.  If you’re not, then they’re not very strong convictions that you have in the first place.  But then again, maybe that’s the author’s point…

My advice: develop strong convictions before your twenties, so you care so much about them that you wouldn’t dare betray them.

In any case, what he says next is the reason I chose to address this point all on its own:

You’re going to continue to put yourself in situations that aren’t good for you. And then, slowly but surely, it will become less frequent. It might not ever go away completely but it won’t be as bad.

This is just not true.  This is the lie we tell ourselves over and over again so that we won’t feel as bad for doing whatever we’re doing when we know it’s wrong.  “It’s not like I’ll be doing this forever,” we tell ourselves.  But the fact of the matter is: unless you make the conscious decision to stop, and unless you actually make the effort to stop putting yourself in those situations which you recognize are not good for you, then the only thing that will change is that you’ll stop recognizing that the situation is bad for you.

The author even acknowledges this!  “It [the bad that you’re doing] might not ever completely go away,” he says, “but it won’t be as bad.”  Why won’t it be as bad?  What has changed about the situation other than the fact that you’re now more accustomed to putting yourself in a bad situation?  The truth is that it’s still just as bad as it was when you started.  You’ve just (unfortunately) become accustomed to it.

My advice: You might find yourself choosing to place yourself in situations that are bad for you.  Stop it.  Cut it out right now, or you’ll justify it (and other things that are wrong) for the rest of your life.

And praise God when you feel shame for doing something wrong!  It actually does get you somewhere; that’s the point.  You don’t like feeling shame?  Then stop doing whatever you’re doing that’s making you feel shame.  It’s as simple as that.

It’s a sad place to be in when you do something terrible and don’t feel a drop of guilt for it. But regardless of your feelings, if you know you’ve done something wrong, go to confession and then do whatever you can to avoid doing it again.  Making excuses for yourself is what gets you nowhere (except for into deeper problems).

The afternoon sun streams gently through the stained glass windows, leaving puddles of jewel-toned light here and there among the pews.  

The smell of incense lingers in the air from Mass, and all the members of the family pause and inhale it deeply as they quietly and reverently enter the Sanctuary.  Older children help little children dip their fingers in the holy water fonts, signs of the cross are devoutly made, and the crowd of loved ones spends a few moments in silent prayer, kneeling before the Tabernacle, waiting for the baptism to begin.

Baptism!  The baby, wearing the gown that’s been in the family for a century, looks solemn, as if she understands the gravity and joy of the event.  The baby’s siblings look on with wonderment and awe, proudly welcoming their new baby sister to the Church family with silent well wishes.  

Grandmothers and Grandfathers hold hands in the pews, smiling gently at the miracle of new life.  Aunts and Uncles, holding scores of cousins, bask in the glow of family.  Everyone listens to Father as the baptism starts, everyone is in rapt, hushed attention, and if you listen you can ever-so-faintly hear the choirs of angels singing songs of welcome for the newest little saint.

Aaaand then there’s baptism Clan Donaldson style.

John did baptize in the wilderness…

Mark 1:4

The rain had stopped, at least.  Connecticut shed its crypt-like dankness two days before, and the sun had burned off the damp.  Everything outside was brilliant emerald green, and while our parish doesn’t have stained glass windows, the light pouring into the Sanctuary was still jewel toned and lovely.

Since Ford hasn’t seen fit to move us back to Michigan or Mississippi, that means family was woefully absent (closest relatives, 6.5 hours away- farthest ones, 45 hours) so other than the eight of us, there was the baby’s godmother, flown in from Mississippi, and our neighbors.  Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins all were there via the wonders of Facebook, Instagram, telephone, and imagination.

The baptism was at 12:30, and we made the mistake of taking the kids to the 11 o’clock Mass.  This, of course, meant that 5/6ths of them were completely and totally ready to escape the forced silence, hissed threats, and under-the-pew pinches that is synonymous in their minds with church, and yet there was still another hour to endure.

Do I even need to tell you that behavior did not improve?

The nine year old had to be told not to gallop down the aisle toward the Tabernacle, even if she was pretending to be a Catholic horse who wanted to say hello to Jesus.  The six year old and four year old played a energetic round of “slam the kneelers” with the neighbor boys.  The three year old, reading the writing on the wall, realized that he was going to be expected to sit quietly for another endless amount of time and began to thrash and wail.

Father surveyed all this with equal parts horror and resignation.  St. John in the Wilderness indeed.

Ken, Godmother Janice, baby Veronica and I went to sit in the front row, as directed by an increasingly distracted priest, while our neighbor sat several pews back with the boy posse, trying to convince The Jude that I was not, in fact, leaving him forever.

The two year old began screaming at the top of his lungs, and earned himself entry into the front pew.  He happily began to play a solo round of slam the kneelers.

The nine year old had been enlisted by Father to server as a helper, tasked with handing him the oil of Catechumens and Holy Chrism.  I tried very very very hard not to launch into full scale freakout mode, so certain was I that the girl would fumble the oils, send them crashing to the floor, and woosh! there goes the parish supply of holy oils for the year.

Maybe envy isn’t even a strong enough word.  Let’s start over.

I used to nurse a precious little nugget of contempt for my husband.  Because he…he will never have to be pregnant.  He will never have to endure morning sickness or the feeling of a human’s head pressing firmly on his bladder from the inside.  And don’t even get me started on labor and delivery and the lovely fourth trimester known as postpartum recovery from said labor and delivery.  How terribly, horribly cruel it seemed to me.

And then something crazy happened.  We bought this dilapidated fixer-upper and we started fixing it.  And oh, it was so hard.  And it lasted so long.  And some days we were so tired that it seemed impossible to move forward, but we had to.  We had no choice.  There was simply no turning back.  And those days…well, those days were not nearly as hard for me as they were for my husband.  Because I felt like we were in labor.  And I knew there was no way out but to have this baby, and having this baby was going to be hard and it was going to suck.  But someday it would be over, that I knew.

My poor husband had no such frame of reference.  He had never looked down that tunnel of sheer exhaustion and not been able to see a light shining for him at the end.  He had never really gone past some mysterious point of no return and wondered if he’d ever get to be human again.  So there he was, exhausted, overwhelmed, teetering at moments on the brink of hopelessness, and for the very first time I felt so, so, so sorry for him that he had never experienced the frustrations of pregnancy.  Or endured the pains of labor.  Or felt the all-consuming void followed by instantaneous euphoria of delivery.  That light at the end of the tunnel that doesn’t appear until you’re basking in it.

I felt bad for him.  And finally I was thankful.  Thankful that I had experienced all of those things so that at least one of us could say “It’s going to be fine.  This is going to work out.  Just one thing after another.  That’s all we can do.  We’re doing great.”

Now, as we prepare for the impending arrival of baby number five, I realize that he sure did have to suffer through morning sickness- mine.  He did every bit of cooking and cleaning and child care.  He ran all the errands.  He brought me just the right blanket at the right moment when I was immobile on the sofa.  He catered to every ridiculous food or beverage request.

And in exchange for all that, he doesn’t get to feel the baby move or get to know her so intimately before she’s even born.  No one asks him how he’s doing or feeling after Mass on Sunday and no one will ask him how he’s feeling after the baby arrives.  He gets no bragging rights and no birth-story glory.  Yet he’s going to be there for every excruciating moment, wishing there was something he could do.  Trying to take on some of the pain himself.  Wanting to share as fully as possible in this partnership with God.

I am in a partnership with God.  Can we take a second to revel in that?

He picked me because He knows I’m the woman for the job.  He chose me for this.  Every woman who ever gets to carry a child in her womb has been chosen by God to partner with Him in the creation of a whole new life in this particular, incredible, exhausting way because she is the perfect one for the job.

I’m sorry…remind me again why I was envious of my husband?

Dwija Borobia lives with her husband and their four (soon-to-be-five!) kids in rural southwest Michigan in a fixer-upper they bought sight-unseen off the internet. Between homeschooling and corralling chickens, she pretends her time on the internet doesn’t count because she uses the computer standing up. You can read more on her blog house unseen. life unscripted.

An architecture student who attended a drawing class in last summers the Way of Beauty program at Thomas More College in New Hampshire tells how what he learnt about traditional proportion has improved his designs and enabled him to get a prestigious scholarship.

Last summer an young Catholic architecture graduate, Geoff Yovanovic attended one of the Way of Beauty Atelier drawing classes. As well as improving his drawing, he hoped that what he would learn might give him insights in to how architecture can conform to a culture of beauty; and give him an edge in his search for placements with architecture firms that had more traditional work. He was recently graduated from university, looking for a placement to work towards full profession qualification.

The lectures and talks were given helped him, but also because he expressed this interest to me, I did my best to give him as much additional reading as I could. You can find out about this year’s program of summer retreats and the iconography classe here. I also encourage him to believe that using traditional proportion would allow his work to stand out in the pack even if he was doing mundane projects, as I wrote in the article Proportion Adds Value to Property. He took what I said seriously, did work to learn more about his (even writing an article for this blog during the year, here). Then just this past week I got the following email from him describing his latest success which he attributes, in part, to what he learnt on the course. Here it is:

]]> http://catholicexchange.com/how-the-way-of-beauty-atelier-has-helped-a-young-architect-to-move-forward-in-his-career/feed/ 1 http://catholicexchange.com/still-voices-4/ http://catholicexchange.com/still-voices-4/#comments Tue, 22 May 2012 18:29:16 +0000 David http://catholicexchange.com/?p=153100 Read More]]>

I’d love your comments on this. How has living on the “digital continent” helped you? Or does it keep you from prayer at times? If the latter, what is the solution? A digital fast?(how often and  for how long?) Do online prayer aids help give you quality prayer time, or does making prayer one more chunk of time spent  screen-staring leave you feeling something isn’t quite right with it?

Your thoughts please!  I assume permission to publish them, by the way. I’ll use just your first name, or make up a pseudonym for anyone with  usernames that don’t sound like ordinary names. (e.g. Mr.CelticHunkyCoolness, AthanasiusAgainsttheWorld, etc.)

As we wind down the feast of the Ascension of the Lord,( or head toward  it depending on what diocese you live in)  I’ll share my recent digital prayer experience from Thusday evening. I am now using my new ipod touch, rather than the Kindle, for the Liturgy of the Hours. I realized   that my music playlist will keep going while I use other apps, so… I said Evening Prayer II for  Ascension Thursday with the theme music for the 1961 biblical epic King of Kings as a background. This particular piece of music always moves me. It helps me to “see” Jesus better than almost any other piece of music, with the possible exception of Handel’s Messiah. This is a slightly embarrassing admission, because I was trained in classical music, and therefore should have the good  taste to get my religious/emotional highs from the works of Bach, Palestrina, Gregorian chant, etc. But somehow, nothing sends me to the vestibule  of heaven quite as well as this piece of Hollywood bravura. Here’s a bit from YouTube. The music is easier to hear starting around 00:44. The actual movie is somewhat less inspiring to me than the music. But the footage below is appropriate for the feast of the Ascension:

watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gyXeq3gbfXU

See, I like the kind of “sacrifice” that makes me feel…awesome.  You know, like fasting (but only when I’m not pregnant.  Of course.  See?).  Or getting up super early and powering through my day on very little sleep and saying “look what I accomplished!  Go me!”.  Because those things aren’t, and I’m giving myself away here, actually that hard for me to do.  So I can wear my “Check me out with all my awesome sacrifices” t-shirt and strut all over town without actually having to feel very put upon at all.

But then the time comes for me to make some kind of sacrifice for my family or others that actually inconveniences me and BOY HOWDY do I throw a fit.  Usually not in front of my children (anymore.  Thank you Jesus the power of grace) but in my head all day, and then in the general direction of my poor husband and night, yes sirree.