Modest Mussorgsky originally composed the tone poem he first titled, appropriately, Saint John’s Night on the Barren Mountain in 1867 and used Slavic folklore concerning witches’ sabbaths as his subject matter. In 1886 the work was revised by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and subsequently adapted by Leopold Stokowski for Fantasia. This piece was also incidentally one of the listening selections for the music portion of Academic Decathlon in which I participated during my senior year of high school. Anyway, I make the connection between Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain and the Book of Revelation not just because I visualize evil as Chernabog (the black god/devil of the night that awakens the souls of the dead in a conjuring of evil on what was, in the original Slavic tale Walpurgisnacht, but reinterpreted in the context of Halloween) and see his minions as reminiscent of those bringing destruction as portrayed in Revelation 6-11 but rather that at the end of A Night on Bald Mountain it is the ringing of the Angelus bell which causes everything to change, paralleling to me what we see going on in the unsealing of the seventh seal (Revelation 8ff.) and the ensuing establishment of God’s reign (Revelation 21-22). In Fantasia we see Chernabog and his conjured retinue diminish back into hiding at the first ringing of the bell just as white-robed monks with lighted candles emerge only to enter the gothic church as the tolling bell continues and as the daybreak visits from on high (Benedictus, Luke 1:78) with the peaceful ending of Mussorgsky’s composition. This too is a powerful image not so much of Halloween and the period in which evil is allowed to reign but of the victory of all those saints which we will proclaim this Sunday (Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14).

All of this seems to be in harmony with the basic thrust of our course, namely, that the Book of Revelation is not so much about terrible catastrophe befalling mankind as it is about convincingly showing that, no matter what horrible things happen, God is in control, the victory over death has been won, and we can hope in God’s final vindication. As a final note, it is curious that in Fantasia the end of A Night on Bald Mountain transitions seamlessly into Schubert’s Ave Maria (1825). A nod to Revelation 12ff.?

In the last few months, multiple friends have commented to us “oh, these months are so nice when they are interactive, but not yet mobile”. On Sunday we made a run to Home Depot to start the full blown baby-proofing of our house, and we are beginning to understand what our friends meant. Besides our laptop computer cables, Miriam’s favorite items to chase after are the cats, especially when they are all curled up unsuspectingly on the bean bag chair, and air conditioning vents which make great noises when you bang things against them.

I like to say that Sunday was a day of “C’s” because in addition to crawling, Miriam also started clapping and tasted carrots for the first time. She has become an instant clapping fanatic, including when she is in a semi-awake state, and especially when looking in a mirror.

All this excitement, or a growth spurt, or some unknown cause has disrupted Miriam’s great sleeping habits. She had been sleeping 6-7 hours at a time during the night, but now has resumed waking up several times during the night. We are working on getting her into a more constant schedule, but it is slow going on that front. We continue to try to give Miriam some solid foods, although another of Miriam’s new talents is blowing food out of her mouth (rather than just spitting it out). We have now added carrots to her pallet, which she seems to like a bit, but little food of any kind seems to make it into her stomach yet.

Miriam had her six month doctor’s appointment this week and she continues to be tall and lean for her age: 16.3 lbs (7.42kg, 50th percentile), height 28 inches (70cm, 90th percentile), 17 inches (43cm head circumference, 60th percentile).

In addition to being a successful business executive and consultant for several Fortune 500 companies and an award-winning essayist, Turak has spent the last dozen of so years participating in and living up to three months as part of the monastic guest program at Mepkin Abbey, where I went on my Lenten retreat last March. While he was there he began to wonder what allowed these 20 or so men, whose average age is 70 and who work a mere four hours a day to operate a successful business that includes not only their egg (and now mushroom and compost) production for which they are famous throughout South Carolina but also to maintain a beautiful church, a wonderful library, a conference center, a guest center, a gift shop and more than a dozen immaculate retreat houses…while cooking for themselves and caring for their aged and infirm in a spotless state-of-the-art infirmary (Business Secrets, Part 1). As outlined in his article, his interview on The State of Things, and last night’s talk, Turak finds the following points to not only underlie the success of the monks of Mepkin Abbey but also to be a plan of service and selflessness for any successful business:

• high overarching mission
• selflessness
• commitment to excellence
• high ethical standards
• faithfulness
• trust
• living the life

These are fleshed out in his article as well as in his forthcoming book of the same title, however, during last night’s lecture Turak elaborated on a feature of what he calls intentionally transformational organizations by pointing out that such organizations possess and deploy a proven method for the last point, namely living the life, that begins not by offering a change in circumstance (we’ll give you a skill to make you rich) or condition (come with us and see the world) but rather a change in being (be transformed). He told several stories from his time at Mepkin Abbey in order to offer examples of how it is not necessarily the niceness per se of the community that strikes him but rather the degree to which these men live with ease a transformed life of selflessness. To do so they trust the process or, rather, submit to the disciple of the Rule of Saint Benedict which is the method for bringing about transformation of being among the monks. Turak noted that those who come to the monastery are no different than other men except that they come seeking to be changed and, in doing so, find the passion for their mission that transforms them into better versions of themselves. This approach Turak finds also in the Marine Corps, Alcoholics Anonymous, and other explicitly transformational organizations. In all of these cases we see a transformation from the grasping child declaring everything to be mine, mine to the selfless giving of one’s life in service of others in conformation to the life of Christ. Relying on Joseph Campbell and his understanding of the heroic transformation, Turak pointed out that the real transformation people are seeking is not that of condition (want food) or circumstance (want fame) but rather that of being which happens through being called, finding strength in the desert, undergoing a trial, and emerging to help others likewise be reborn, find enlightenment, and so forth. Turak illustrated this with the example of the film The Devil Wears Prada. I had an interesting reprise of this point about the failure of a change of condition or circumstance to satisfy one’s real desires as I was driving to work today listening to Joe Walsh of the Eagles singing It’s tough to handle this fortune and fame / Everybody’s so different, I haven’t changed (Life’s Been Good). Turak further argued that the goal of any transformational organization is to help people see that they are seeking such a transformation of being, to awaken them from the distractions or substitutions of other things, and bring about a change of heart. And any method for doing so—whether it is the novitiate, boot camp, the twelve steps, the catechumenate, or any other liminal period—should take people out of their comfort zone, blow their minds, get them out of the box or, in short, radically transform people from managing how to get things done to discerning what is worth doing.

Much of the remainder of Turak’s lecture as well as the majority of the questions and answers were addressed to business applications, sales, and so forth. As I further reflected on the talk it seemed to me that the method of transformation Turak is pointing to is precisely the same as Richard Rohr in calling for rituals of initiation built on the work of cultural anthropologist Victor Turner. It also struck me that if the goal of such transformation is complete selflessness in imitation of and conformation to Christ (that being my description of it, not Turak’s) that we cannot just adhere to any overarching mission it must be the only mission worth committing to with all of our hearts, mind, and strength in order to sustain not only ourselves but the organizations of which we become a part. Finally, before I had to dash off to a public computer to moderate my chat on fourth century Christian history, I found myself wondering what the relationship is between sales—of which Turak was so proud—and evangelization or recruiting. If the transformational organization sells or invites transformation in persons to Be a monk!, Be a Marine!, Be ruined for life! (JVC), how do we invite people to such transformation? How do we sell to people that transformation of circumstance or condition is not what they are really seeking but rather transformation of being (or consciousness)?

Miriam had a cold last week but seems to be better now. She never had a fever, had a stuffy nose for a few days, and is now coughing a little. We talked on the phone with the doctor and she agreed that without a fever it was probably safer for her to just stay at home rather than risk exposure at the clinic. Unfortunately I seem to have also caught the cold but am already feeling better as well.

This weekend I decided to try to give Miriam some rice cereal mixed with breast milk. Despite her extreme interest in the spoon, Miriam made some hilarious faces when taking the cereal, that Andy has translated to “ewww, what is this crap????” We think that a little of the cereal made it into her stomach but a good amount of it got all over her face and body as well as all over the highchair.

Developmentally Miriam has been rolling from her back to her stomach for a little over a month but has not been able to do the reverse which is equally frustrating to us all. She holds her head up well, finds standing (with assistance of course) her favorite posture, has taken to chewing on everything which she can powerfully grasp, and has a best friend in her left thumb. Finally, that which is most appealing is that Miriam continues to grow ever more facially and vocally expressive with each day. She loves to watch and laugh at Linus, seems to be studying the world intensely, and is growing increasingly fond of mirrors.

All that aside, for the past month or more I have become rather obsessed with heraldry or, more precisely, ecclesiastical heraldry, that is heraldry which pertains to both the clerical hierarchy as well as as lay orders in the Church. Of course I have been most concerned with heraldry in the Roman Catholic Church, which has the most extensive use of arms, but I have also learned a great deal about ecclesiastical heraldry as maintained in the Church of England (Anglican, known as the Episcopal Church in the US) and in various Lutheran churches (especially that of Sweden).

At the heart of heraldry is the blazon, the description of device or achievement. The blazon I have devised as my personal coat of arms is:

Parted per fess argent and sable. Fig tree overall eradicated and fructed, vert and argent.

If I’ve understood the art of blazoning correctly (and any more knowledgeable than I are welcome to correct my errors), the depiction at right (and additional ones below) represent my blazon which can be translated as being a shield divided in half horizontally, with a silver background on the top and a black field below. Centered over the whole shield is the charge, a green fig tree (ficus sycomorus) with its roots exposed (depicted in silver). I have tinctured (or colored) the visible portion of the trunk of the tree tenné (tawny) and added twelve purple figs in the depiction above, although I am not aware of any way to add that to my blazon without it becoming cluttered. I also ended the eight roots in cruciform heads which is another artistic detail which is not proper to the blazon itself.

I have chosen this representation for myself primarily on the grounds of having a recognizable, simple, and heraldically accurate depiction. My choosing a fig tree, however, was not without reason. Outside the front door of our home is a fig tree (ficus carica ‘Celeste’) which I planted not only because I like figs (though the ‘Mission’ cultivar may have been more appropriate) but also because of the use of the fig tree in the Old Testament as a depiction of the coming of the day of the Lord when every man shall sit under his own vine or under his own fig tree, undisturbed (Micah 4:4, see also 1 Kings 5:5, 1 Maccabees 14:12). This image of the fig tree as a sign of prosperity or favor before the Lord is realized or manifested when, in John’s Gospel, Jesus calls Nathaniel—a true Israelite in whom there is no duplicity—out from beneath a fig tree in order to reveal to him and the other apostles that Jesus is in himself the fulfillment of God’s benefaction (John 1:47-51). In some places in both the Old and New Testament the sycamore tree is used synonymously with the fig tree. For example, Amos states, I was no prophet, nor have I belonged to a company of prophets; I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores. The Lord took me from following the flock, and said to me, Go, prophesy to my people Israel. Now hear the word of the Lord! (Amos 7:14-16). Such a gatherer or dresser of ficus sycomorus trees is one who tends or cultivates sycamore (or fig) trees or does the gathering of figs (Strong’s Concordance, sub H1103). In the New Testament this reappears when Zacchaeus, who was seeking to see who Jesus was…ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus (Luke 19:1ff.) and so experiences the secure salvation foreshadowed in the Old Testament imagery of figs.

Although I have imbued my choice of a fig tree with personal meaning or Biblical significance there is no universal index of meanings or code for reading what appears upon the shield of an achievement (or coat of arms). There is, however, a set of rules by which a shield may be blazoned if not an index of what such mean. For a helpful introduction to heraldry see The Heraldic Dictionary or the excellent Oxford Guide to Heraldry (Oxford USA, 1990).

In both ecclesiastic and secular heraldry, however, there are precise meanings ascribed to and rules governing the adornments outside the shield. The most significant marker in ecclesiastic heraldry as a sign of ordination is the galero (pontifical hat or pilgrim’s hat) and the number of fiocchi (or tassels) that hang therefrom; one can know immediately by the number and color of tassels as to whether the bearer is a cardinal, archbishop, bishop, abbot, monsignor, and so forth. Additional frequently employed adornments include processional cross (for bishops and archbishops), pallium (for residential archbishops), mitre (for dioceses), and pastoral staff or crozier (turned inward with a sudarium or veil for abbots and abbesses). For a more complete study see Bruno Bernard Heim’s Heraldry in the Catholic Church (Van Duren, 1978), John Abel Nainfa’s Costume of Prelates of the Catholic Church, according to Roman etiquette (John Murphy, 1926), and Father Guy Selvester’s website and article Aspects of Church Heraldry. While the Holy See no longer maintains an official registry of ecclesial arms, the now private Collegio Araldico is still an invaluable resource and the Saint Peter Codex houses a gallery of coats of arms in the Vatican. For those just casually interested a brief introduction is given in James-Charles Noonan, Jr.’s The Church Visible: the ceremonial life and protocol of the Roman Catholic Church (Viking, 1996).

Returning to heraldry more generally, I mentioned that the right to bear arms is universal except where governed by law, such as is the case with Scotland’s Court of the Lord Lyon. Yet even in those republics which do not have governmental regulation of the heraldic art, such as the US and Russia, colleges such as the American College of Heraldry and the Russian College of Heraldry exist as private entities in order to assist armigers in designing, registering, and properly displaying their arms. Now all I need to do is come up with the funds to register my arms, commission a beautiful library painting of them, and hire someone to engrave them with a yet-to-be-determined supporter for use as an Ex Libris bookplate and to label my brews.

Let us take for example the idea of companion planting that is so important to sustainable agriculture, which is not just about coexistence, but about thriving, with plants providing mutual benefit to one another. Thinking in terms of mutual thriving requires first breaking out of a concept of limited good, in which there is a finite amount of goodness to go around wherein anyone’s increase in wealth, happiness, resources, grace, love, etc. is predicated on a reduction of the same good by another. This is a fundamental flaw not only in terms of the divine economy wherein God’s superabundant grace shines on the good and bad and rains down on the just and unjust alike (Matthew 5:45) but also in companion planting where proper planting arrangements encourages both plants to grow into their full potential more than would have been possible apart (Carrots Love Tomatoes by Louise Riotte). Cannot we expect any less from human beings who have been planted not merely adjacent to one another in order to coexist but rather side-by-side as companions in a harvest of justice?

Now, while I cannot speak the traditions of others, I can offer from the Christian tradition an explanation of how our faith shows us the way out of the iron cage of the limited good, opening up the gates of overflowing abundance that promises not only coexistence and toleration of one another but an even more wonderful mutually beneficial social order in which all thrive. I begin with the reminder that, in his own words, Christ tells his disciples that he came so that all might have life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). Jesus here is the unique mediator (gate) of this new realm wherein there is no scarcity. We see throughout John’s Gospel that all that is required is belief in God’s superabundant goodness, a little creativity, and the will to make sure everyone not only coexists but rather thrives as in, for example, the parable of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes (John 6:5-14).

Fundamentally what is at stake in my defending something more than mere coexistence is not only the survival of public religion (José Casanova) but also the survival of any form of objectivity by which we might find criteria against which to measure our lives. This points to the fundamental philosophical question, How ought I to live my life? and its antecedent epistemological grounds that might be asked By what means might I come to know how I ought to live my life? These same points have been raised by Pope Benedict XVI in his most recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate: on integral human development in charity and truth.

Which brings us back to the bumper sticker and the question with which this post is concerned, Is coexistence the best we can do? I don’t think so and I hope not but I cannot do this alone. Not only do we need God to bring about his kingdom but we also need each of you who profess faith in Christ to live accordingly. For, as we remember, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of [the] Father ( "http://usccb.org/nab/bible/matthew/matthew7.htm#v16" target="_blank">Matthew 7:21, see also Luk 6:43-49). The kingdom of heaven is at hand: will we reach out and grasp it or timidly let it fall to the ground in fear others may initially perceive our struggling for mutual thriving a threat to banal coexistence?

Despite the scorching weather earlier in the week, we had a cooler, cloudier day, however the rain and lightning held off. Everyone had a good time seeing Miriam again, and as you can see in the pictures she seemed to have fun as well. One thing that being parents has changed about us is that even with the cloudy weather we were much more responsible about our sun exposure. The clouds helped a lot, but having Miriam’s SPF 50 sunblock around and being aware of keeping her protected meant that all of us are much less roasted than we had been in previous years.

Last year Andy and I were both extremely proud of ourselves for finally getting up on the water-skies, and I am proud to say that I was successful again this year! It took a third try, but I got to my standing position which also includes a huge bug-catching smile for the entire duration of the ride. Due to the large number of participants in this year’s Lake Day, Andy chose to just take a wild ride on the 3 person tubing apparatus, and while he didn’t have to tackle the challenge of standing up on skies, the bumpy ride of the tube is making sitting a bit challenging for him today.

After a bit of “marital negotiations”, Andy decided that Miriam needed to go for a swim. As you can see in the pictures, she got in the water twice: once with Andy on a raft, and once with a very nice baby life jacket. Andy claims that she liked being in the water, but I think she was happier when she finally got the life jacket off.

After a great day on the water, we all headed to the house for a great potluck dinner. As usual, the international flair of the lab came through, especially with many Chinese and Indian dishes. Andy gave everyone a taste of San Diego, as we brought the makings for Fish Tacos of grilled fish with cilantro and lemon, homemade tomatillo salsa and tortillas.

The impetus for all this began with my striking out (after three strikes) in trying to make use of my health insurance for which I pay a quite modest $600 per year out of pocket. Since moving to North Carolina nearly three years ago and taking up employment within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Raleigh I had not had a primary care physician until just about a year ago, mostly due to the lack of urgency on my part to find one. This is something I had been trying to remedy but kept finding myself running up against seemingly insurmountable problems. Having previously found the one and only parishioner who specialized in the less-than-financially lucrative field of family medicine whose services were covered by my PPO whom I visited only once at a clinic in Hillsborough before she relocated to a clinic no longer covered by my PPO and, after some recent illness, wanting to have a primary care physician, I reopened my search. After a conversation with a friend who is an MD/PhD student at UNC and another time consuming cross-checking of physicians who are parishioners at Saint Thomas More and who are also covered by my PPO (MedCost Preferred, itself representing only one of the seven icons on my undecipherable insurance card, administered by Christian Brothers Services with whom the Diocese of Raleigh contacts) I found a small number (four) of General Internists at UNC’s Ambulatory Care. When I called to schedule an appointment with the one of them recommended by my friend I discovered that I was “in luck” that an appointment was available in December! Although my need to see a physician at the time was non-urgent a more than four-month lead time to schedule an appointment certainly did not bode well for some future time in which I may need to see my physician. Another physician in the parish, referred by my parish administrator and a supporter of community health, is not accepting new patients. The final strike came when I showed up for an optometry appointment for a routine eye exam in order to make sure that the prescription on my glasses, now four years old, is still accurate. I had located an OD who showed up as covered, it now seems, not under the medical PPO but rather under a separate vision plan (VSP) purchased through CBEBT. This particular optometrist’s Chapel Hill practice does accept MedCost Preferred, but since I do not have vision under that but rather under VSP, I was out of luck. The kicker, though, is that this very same OD does accept VSP at his practice in Burlington (between 20 and 30 miles away).

At this point you may be thinking that my insistence on using a fellow Saint Thomas More parishioner as my primary care physician—as opposed to some flaw with insurance provider—may not only be responsible for my woes but may also be unnecessary. Keep in mind, however, that, as an employee of the parish, both my salary and my benefits (including $5900 in medical and dental benefits per year) are paid from the contributions of the faithful. These are people whom I not only want but also feel compelled to support given that they support me.

Turning to my question as to why on earth I pay for health insurance, I went back in time… Last August I had an interesting conversation with my friend, Matt Belcher, who pointed out that much of the reason for the development not only of private health insurance but also other benefits, such as company-owned executive housing, vehicles, etc., was a response to Federal salary regulations to reign in inflation during World War II. Such regulations were meant to curtail companies from recruiting scarce employees using higher salaries as a away from competitor companies. The Federal income tax system had previously been designed to punitively tax those paid above what was considered reasonable salary. To therefore recruit sought after employees, companies turned to offering packages that included not only health insurance but also houses, cars, servants, investment instruments, and other non-salary compensation to circumvent the laws initially meant to avoid such wide disparity. In an interesting summary, Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance in the United States — Origins and Implications (New England Journal of Medicine, 2006), David Blumenthal, MD, MPP examines both how employee-sponsored health care came to be as well as analyzing its successes, shortcomings, and likely future. I suppose this answers my first question as to why I pay for health insurance through my employer. I was given additional insights in watching PBS’s Frontline presentation of Sick Around the World (from April 2008).

All of this made for interesting background when Michelle and I began our search for the optimal way to provide health insurance coverage for our daughter. After a long conversation with our parish secretary, who formerly worked in the benefits office of an assisted living center, I found out that the official posting of premiums includes both the actual premium ($516.15/month) as well as employee contribution ($40/month) only for individual insurance. For adding a child (or multiple children), a spouse only, or an entire family, the actual premium remains undisclosed and only the monthly employee contribution is made known ($292.90, $496.91, and $789.81, respectively). I, of course, wondered why there was such non-disclosure of the actual premium. The answer is to be found in the kind of greed and envy that was criticized in the parable of the day laborers heard just as I was doing this search. It seems that those who were given their agreed upon day’s wage have often complained when they see that their colleagues, whose health benefits for their children or spouse are being subsidized by their same employer, are receiving an effective increase in compensation simply because they have children. Are you envious because I am generous? This unfortunate explanation still left unresolved why the cost of insuring a child, who is more likely to be in need of medical care than a healthy adult, remains less than 60% that of insuring only my spouse? Apparently in order to maximum their own financial advantage, employers have generally found it profitable to insure their own employees, without whom the organization would suffer, while accepting the social expectation that both spouses would be employed and thus inflicting such financial punishment in the case of a spouse who is not employed and thus not covered by his or her own employee-sponsored health care.

To my second question regarding the ease with which I had access to and received effective health care during the nine years of my reliance on student health, including one year as a resident alien in a country with socialized medicine (Denmark), I can only say that such state-run medicine (I was a public university for seven years and attended to by PAs and Nurse Practitioners who were employed by the State of California) worked and was much less trying than this whole process has been. Though I can offer neither a simple explanation nor a universal remedy it certainly provides an interesting contrast. Perhaps others who have lived in places with socialized medicine under less healthful conditions as I generally experienced in my twenties have a different take on such. But, again, my recent viewing of Sick Around the World suggests my experience may not have been exceptional.

In late October 2008 I resolved the third and then most germane question, namely, why it is so difficult for me to get an appointment for a primary care physician. Partly it was due to my limiting my search but in the end it seems that the principal reason lies in the fact that the health care system does not respect the work of preventative care and general practitioners, choosing to reward those who eschew such primary caregiving and instead choose highly specialized practices. Anyway, I now have a primary care physician and so can not only make use of the medical insurance for which the parishioners of St. Thomas More pay $495 a month regardless of whether or not I make use of it but also in order for me to make sure I am in good health. As to insuring Miriam, it appears as though health benefits through Michelle’s graduate student insurance at Duke University costs less than 40% of what comparable insurance would cost us through the Diocese of Raleigh and CBEBT: a great witness to Catholic family values, right? (cf. CCC 2210 ff.).

Since the my getting established with a primary care physician and our choosing her also as Miriam’s physician some months ago, I found myself needing to visit a specialist in order to learn something about an intermittent food allergy I seem to have. In so doing I ran into my PPO’s $500 deductible which once again makes me wonder why I pay for health insurance. Would I not be better off taking my and my employer’s combined monthly outlay of $516 per month, remain uninsured (or contribute it to a medical savings plan), and simply pay out-of-pocket? I would consider doing so except, it seems, I cannot choose that option under the present rules of employer-sponsored insurance. So the question as to why I pay for health insurance remains on the table…