Christians mingle?

Vatican II was prompted mainly by the cultural changes that were occurring after World War II. When Pope John XXXIII opened the council in October of 1962, he noted that he believed what was needed was “a new joy and serenity of mind in the unreserved acceptance by all of the entire Christian faith.” Vatican II had four separate sessions and closed on December 8, 1965 which was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception . (And, I’d be remiss if I didn’t correct the common misperception that this feast refers to Jesus’ conception, it refers to the Virgin Mary’s conception – don’t @ me).

One of the most contested holdings of Vatican II was the repudiation of the teaching Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus – “outside of the church there is no salvation.” The Vatican II document rejecting this idea that the Church was the one true religion, Lumen Gentium, 16 states: “This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church: Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation.”

As is often the case with matters of religion, some adherents often have different views of official doctrine.  And, with respect to Vatican II, there are a minority of Catholics who don’t accept Pope John XXXIII’s papacy, in part because they think he rejected papal infallibility, and view his predecessor Pope Pius XII as the last legitimate pope and therefore view the papacy as being vacant since the end of Pius XXII’s reign in 1958.

Perhaps most surprisingly, there’s a dating site for those who hold this view (good for them) -  http://www.cmrisingles.com/

sedevacantism

Noun

The belief, held by a minority of Traditionalist Catholics, that the present occupant of the papal see is not the true pope and that the see has been vacant since the 1960s.

Sede vacante is Latin for “[with] the seat being vacant”

Boy Scout Lava

It happened on a Thursday evening in late October, 1988.  I know it was a Thursday because I was at a Boy Scout meeting (Troop 369) and we always met on Thursdays at the VFW behind the town library and middle school. While I was pledging my duty to God, country, and obeying the Scout Law, my youngest sister (then 9) and two brothers (7 and 5) were playing a game in my brothers’ bedroom.  Their room had two twin beds, each about a two feet from the wall, with a nightstand in between the parallel beds.  In this iteration of their game, the three of them were villagers stranded on one bed, which was being besieged by lava on all sides.  The bed across the molten river was, however, somehow impervious to the lava and needed to be reached as soon as possible.  As if this challenge wasn’t enough, it was determined that the youngest villager had lost the use of his legs to an unspecified illness (polio, lupus?) and his life could be saved only by two heroic villagers willing to toss their sickly comrade to safety.

One villager grabbed the lame legs, the other the arms, and the countdown started. When one was yelled in unison, the sick villager was heaved across the river and improbably landed safely on the other bed -- until he bounced off the bed, ricocheted off the wall into the bed’s wooden side, crumpled to the floor, and writhed in pain in the space between the bed and wall.  

The injury requiring the most immediate attention was his left eye.  When I got home from Boy Scouts only a few minutes after the wailing had stopped but while the crying continued, I quickly realized his medical needs were beyond my First Aid merit so off to the hospital we raced.

With Halloween only a few days later, he went as a very convincing boxer who lost a tough bout.

Ruelle

1. the area or space between a bed and the wall

2. a receiving room for fashionable French ladies

3. a lane

The etymology is French, rue + elle.

I'll never be on fleek

I fondly recall when I decided to no longer keep up with slang – it was when I came across the expression “on fleek” about a year ago. Upon first blush, I didn’t know what it meant and was unable to infer based solely on context.  And, as is often the case with slang, the etymology was not clear.  A bit of research revealed that it originated in a Vine (sorry everyone over 50 who doesn’t know what a Vine is) when its star assessed her perfectly groomed eyebrows and declared them to be on fleek.  Initially, fleek was used only to describe brows: well-maintained: on fleek  -- unkempt ones: very much off fleek.   Over time, however, the term has been expanded to mean exactly right, or perfectly done (e.g., Hillary’s Twitter game during Monday’s debate was on fleek. For the record, the American Dialect Society nominated fleek for Word of the Year and Most Likely to Succeed, yet it’s still not cognized by Outlook’s spellchecker.

The main reason I decided to opt out of the never-ending-keep-up game with slang was the realization that it is very much created by young people to communicate in a language not understood by old people like me.  And, candidly, I am happy to be on the outside. I will confess, however, to a burst of pride earlier this week for understanding a colleague’s insult when she called me basic (someone who prefers only mainstream products, trends, or music).  Yes, I am basic, but I very much choose to live in my basic cocoon where I worry about retirement savings, health insurance, and the like.

Patois

1. a regional form of a language, especially of French, differing from the standard, literary form of the language.

2. a rural or provincial form of speech.

3. jargon; cant; argot.

1635-45; < French: literally clumsy speech; akin to Old French patoier to handle clumsily, derivative of pate paw

Eagles

An amuse bouche before this week’s entrée.  The Revenant, staring Leo DiCaprio and nominated for 12 Oscars™, is a noun meaning a person who has returned after death or a long absence. It derives from the French word revenir, to return. 

Earlier this week Glenn Frey --  one of the founders of the Eagles* -- passed away. One of the band’s biggest hits was Hotel California, which opens with the line “On a dark desert highway, cool breeze in my hair, warm smell of colitas rising up through the air.” The word colitas derives from the Spanish word cola meaning tail and the suffix  -ita signifies a small tail.  According to Urban Dictionary, colitas is a slang term for marijuana (I tend to believe Urban Dictionary on this one). 

Another line from that song from that song is “relax said the night man, we are programmed to receive.” Listeners regularly mishear the word receive as deceive and misinterpret night as knight. The band has never disclosed the meaning of the song’s full scope. In the excellent documentary “History of the Eagles” Glenn Frey explained that some songs are only for the artist to know the true meaning.  He did, however, disclose that the line, “they stab with their steely knives but they just can’t kill the beast” was a reference to one of the band members dating an ex-girlfriend of someone from Steely Dan.

Mondegreen

noun

1. a misunderstood or misinterpreted word or phrase resulting from a mishearing of the lyrics of a song.

Circa 1950s: from Lady Mondegreen, a misinterpretation of the phrase laid him on the green, from the traditional ballad “The Bonny Earl of Murray.”

*The name of the band is Eagles, not The Eagles, which is why I didn’t capitalize the word the before Eagles. I think “founder of Eagles” reads oddly.

What was that noise?

My  11-year old son is a sleepwalker but it wasn’t like he came with a tag that said CAUTION: I SLEEPWALK --  MONITOR ME ACCORDINGLY. The discovery process was nerve wracking. When he was five, I heard him unlocking the front door to leave the apartment around midnight. My least favorite experience is waking up in the middle of the night with him STARING at me, which is just unbelievably creepy. (And how long have you been standing there buddy?)

A few months back, I woke up around 3 am to the sound of someone stomping upstairs, luckily it was him, even though I still have no idea what he was doing down there.  [Side note:  I’ve always felt that flight or fight was too limiting – I’d add an option for fright – just standing there doing nothing seems like a fine option to me.]

His sleepwalking escapades include acts of belligerence, vows of love, demands to brush his teeth at 3 am, and, at least once, a nude appearance in the kitchen.  He’s a good kid but he needs to get his act together.

Noctambulist

A person who walks while sleeping

Latin noct-, nox night + -ambulist (as in somnambulist) — more at night First Known Use: circa 1731