Language Notes

Well, I'm back from my weekend trip to the general curia, having visited for a couple days in order to be introduced to some of the little things that will constitute my new job. The friar who has been the secretary for English up to now is moving back to his home province next weekend, so it was important that he show me things.

Having returned for supper at the little friary where I have been staying (because of the easy commute to the language school), of course the friars quizzed me about my weekend. Among other things, I told them of my great embarrassment at having mispronounced a word while reading one of St. Francis's Admonitions in chapel. I just put the 'wrong emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble' as they say. One of the friars--Italian being his third language at the very least--comforted me with these words: "The accent in Italian is something like their politics; it's hard to know where it's going."

Later on in the meal, partly because the school I go to is called Torre di Babele, The Tower of Babel, and because this is a funny--if not downright inauspicious--name for a language school, the brethren got to talking about the unified human language as it was, perhaps, before the whole Tower incident. I, of course, put forth my tentative belief that this language is now lost, and that this is why we humans have a hard time making ourselves understood by the animals. They expect to hear from us the names that Adam gave them. Of these, unfortunately, we are ignorant. Of course there are a lot of hard theological problems embedded in this question, such as, for example, the divine name as revealed to Moses. One of the friars put forth strongly his suggestion that Adam, Eve, and their pre-Tower of Babel descendents all spoke Ge'ez. I had neither heard nor thought of this before. I'll give it more thought.

Considering My Next Conversion

I'm contemplating my next conversion: becoming a hockey fan. Not that I'm especially attracted to the game, but I've noticed over the years that hockey fandom seems to produce a remarkable amount of fun and catchy old-school punk rock. Who knew? If stuff like this is the soundtrack, it must be the right thing.

These guys are actually the great Nomeansno in disguise:

Then from Canada to Philadephia:

Finally, going back to some of the deep roots of punk rock, my brother Connecticutians, The Zambonis:

Feast of St. Bruno

For the great Bruno of Cologne, I couldn't resist posting this song from one of all-time favorite records:

Wrong

Yesterday afternoon I went for a walk to clear my head of a paper I was trying to write. On the way back I went by two police officers who were attending to street repairs around the corner from our house. As I passed them I said hi. One of them looked at me and said, "You don't look right walking around here." I smiled, but I was speechless at the comment.

I hardly think about it, but it's true. I live in the wrong neighborhood. By the world's standards, I don't belong here. And I'm proud of it. Proud of it in the Lord, of course.

It reminded me of a band I used to listen to back in college, Nomeansno. Their best album, "Wrong," contained a poster or something that said, "Be Strong. Be Wrong." I hung it in my dorm room, and I think it might still be pasted to the inside of the lid of my footlocker.

Sometimes that's just the attitude that the disciple of the Lord needs. To have the strength and courage to think and do the wrong thing in the eyes of the selfish and glittering ideologies of this world.