The Galli Report: 1.15.21

On washing Trump's feet. The case for one more child. The erotic language of prayer. Trees that talk to each other. Super-tuskers!

On Washing Trump’s Feet
In a tweet on January 12, writer and long-standing and angry Trump critic Anne Lamott wrote this,

I hope Trump and his kids go to prison. But God loves this gross, violent, insane man. That’s the mystery of grace. I’ve said I’d wash Dick Cheney’s feet and I know he’d wash mine; while I’m not there w/Trump yet, I’d get him a glass of water. God and the pope would. Biden would.

Well, maybe two out of three. 

But the larger point got me to thinking, and the result is my blog post, “On Washing Trump’s Feet—or Kissing Him.”

Three Forays into Love and Wonder
The rest of the newsletter is designed to help us momentarily ignore our constitutional crisis.

1. First an essay by the ever-wise Russ Douthat, “The Case for One More Child: Why Large Families Will Save Humanity.”  I thought the essay would be predictable, but by the second paragraph, he had hooked me:

In his 2013 book, What to Expect When No One's Expecting, Jonathan V. Last described “car seat economics” – the expense and burden of car seats for ever-older kids, the penalties imposed on parents who flout the requirements – as an example of the countless “tiny evolutions” that make large families rarer. Obviously car seats aren’t as big a deal as the cost of college or childcare, or the cultural expectations around high-intensive parenting. But it’s still a miniature case study, Last suggested, in how our society’s rules and regulations conspire against an extra kid.

2. Father Stephen Freeman begins his essay, “The Erotic Language of Prayer,”

The very heart of true prayer is desire, love. In the language of the Fathers this desire is called eros. Modern usage has corrupted the meaning of “erotic” to only mean sexual desire – but it is a profound word, without substitute in the language of the Church.

The essay, like many of his essays, wanders (or maybe is just too profound for me to grasp parts of it). But the parts I did grasp….

3. If you haven’t used up your free NY Times Magazine reads for the month, you might take a look at “The Social Life of Forests: Trees appear to communicate and cooperate through subterranean networks of fungi. What are they sharing with one another?” It’s a long and beautifully illustrated essay. (HT to Jack M.).

Noble Beasts Hardly Begins to Describe Them
I’m not sure what adjectives best express what “super-tusker” elephants are, at least as depicted in this beautiful video about creatures that were thought to be extinct.

Grace and peace,

Mark Galli
markgalli.com