Some Musical Notes

This morning, as I was reconnecting favorite sites on my browser, I ran across a YouTube channel for one of my favorite musical groups, Ensemble Polaris (image, left). What a fantastic collection of insanely different musical instruments and styles. Highly commended. If I ever formed a musical ensemble, I would strive for this variety of repertoire and musicianship.

I’ve also been drawn to Sequentia above the other groups interpreting the music of Hildegard of Bingen. I can’t quite describe the sense I get listening to this ensemble. I feel drawn into a circle, a protected place. An intimate place. I was listening to this older recording yesterday. As I’ve progressed through Mark’s Gospel this Lent in my daily lectio divina, I’ve been finding the spiritual landscape quite dry. After toughing it out in Judges, this doesn’t really surprise me. But yesterday Hildegard offered a softening of the recent landscapes. Or seascapes. I never recalled Jesus spending so much of Mark’s Gospel going here and there and back in a boat. The overall sense I get from it is a dizziness, which likely reflects more my own inner spiritual seascapes.

Heading into Holy Week, I think I’ll plan to listen to more music. If I had an iPod, it might be easier to incorporate listening into my prayer time. As it is, hauling a player and headphones along with a Bible and journal seems too busy to be bothered with. One of my spiritual directors once expressed surprise I rarely found listening to music prayerful. He gave me Spem in alium, which I found magnificent. But music listening seems to me to stand off a bit from praying. Music playing, on the other hand …

Music for Holy Week, for the end days of Lent. What would you recommend?

 

Stations of the King’s Cross

Clever. Artistic. Not a Harry Potter thing at all. Read up on the Herald feature here. Then visit the anonymous artist’s site to explore Stations of the King’s Cross a bit further. From the artist:

It would be great if the wonder of the human imagination was acknowledged and encouraged more within the Church. Read the letter of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to Artists [1999]. He has such clear ideas about the importance of art to human society. [As he says] “The human craftsman mirrors the image of God as Creator.”

In the pamphlet, the pictures are called

… just a little idea for those Circle Line passengers who believe that pondering on the enormous mystery of Christ’s death [and mysterious enormity of His love] could be a good thing.

 

Wisdom Mysteries of the Rosary

Scripture and Catholic tradition are certainly rich enough. In reflecting recently on St Thomas Aquinas, my parish’s patron saint, I was pondering what a new set of Rosary mysteries would look like if they were based on the theme of wisdom. What about these?

• Wisdom Rejoices in Creation (Proverbs 8:22-31)
• The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55)
• Jesus Preaches the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12)
• Jesus Teaches Wisdom in Parables (Luke 10:25-37)
• Jesus Offers His Easy Yoke (Matthew 11:28-30)

Once I got thinking about this, it was hard to limit it to only five. I thought about using exclusive Wisdom passages from the Old Testament, the prologue of John’s Gospel, something from the Passion, something from the Last Supper, something from the Book of Revelation. Maybe five mysteries are insufficient.

Which Scripture passages would you recommend for a Rosary meditation on Wisdom?

 

Notable Year For Venus

What a source of cheer and inspiration the heavens are! Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day is amazing. Venus captured through filters by a backyard telescope and a video camera. A modest 12-inch scope, plus modern equipment allows home capture of images better than the best of the world’s biggest telescopes, say, fifty years ago.

You don’t need a telescope, or even prime rural viewing to appreciate that evening star in the west, high and bright. Over the next three months, it will appear to draw closer to the sun–and brighten a bit more. The culmination: transit!

Venus crosses the sun’s disk as seen from Earth on a regular basis: two transits are spaced apart by eight years. Then earthlings wait over a century for another pair.

I wasn’t too concerned my vista clouded up eight years ago. I knew I’d have one more chance in 2012.

Where does your locale fit on the transit map? Here at my home, we’ll get to see the start of the event, but it will still be in progress at sunset. Clouds, please stay away!

I recommend this informative and diversely interesting site dedicated to the transit of Venus. One of the features there is a sermon given on the occasion of the 1882 transit by Rev George Dana Boardman, pastor of Philadelphia’s First Baptist Church. An excerpt:

The issue of all that has been said to-night is in a word of cheer to all who love God: and the word of cheer is this: Trust your heavenly Father absolutely. All nature is pledged to the inviolability of God’s promises, and therefore all nature is pledged to give you good cheer. You can not be loyal to infinite God in vain. As neither man nor Satan can break God’s covenant with nature, so neither man nor Satan can break God’s covenant of grace.

Let the wise men of science convene in congress; let the high priests of nature gather in solemn conclave; let them deliberate and decree, saying: “Venus, cross not the sun’s disk; light, slacken thy speed; earth, cease to roll; gravitation, lay down they force.” But lo, Venus does cross the sun’s disk; light does throb as swiftly as ever; earth does continue to roll; gravitation does still balance creation.

You can not break God’s ordinances of heaven and earth, God’s covenant of day and night,  God’s laws of nature. These He has solemnly pledged as the guarantee of His own personal veracity, bidding us accept the constitution of the physical universe as the very oath and sacrament of the inviolability of His promises in Jesus Christ; and so by these two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon he hope set before us.

Strong as that oath and sacrament was in the prophet’s day, how much stronger it is in ours, when the telescope daily brings us fresh instances of the inviolability of natural law! Every fulfillment of an astronomical prediction is a fresh witness to the veracity of God’s promises. He is in very truth the covenant-keeping God.

Let not, then, the transit of Venus to-day speak to you in vain. Let its celestial eloquence cheer and inspire you. Go forth, my brother, in the strengthened conviction that your Father in heaven is to be supremely trusted. Ay, blessed are all they who put their trust in Him.

 

 

Dawkins and Doubt

I see over nine-thousand comments at the HuffPo on the piece where Richard Dawkins has a sliver of doubt on the non-existence of God. (Sure glad we only get a sliver of HuffPo’s traffic here.)

Naturally, Dr Dawkins suggested that “religionists” should also share his rational, six-point-nine approach to this. In the world of science, there is little of ironclad certainty. There can always be one misinterpretation, one slipped decimal point, one vaguely defined aspect –any of which can wake a researcher in the middle of the night and throw the whole works into a mess of doubt.

It’s my contention that many religious believers follow this same pattern. On the basis of reason, they have convinced themselves God exists and that their way of living the faith is the Way To Go.

If a Christian announced she or he had finally found rational proof of God, I wouldn’t be interested. I would hope others wouldn’t be either. Do you suppose why?

The full debate video is up at the link above. I confess little to no interest in watching it. A debate is never likely to solve an issue of faith. More illustrative for any seeker is walking with (companion) a person of faith. Walk with a person who lacks faith, and it will largely look the same as any other human pedestrian: wake up, shower, eat, go to work, interact with other people, go home, play with the dog or the child, go to bed.

For a person of faith, something beyond measurement is at work. It might be just a glimmer. It might shine a little more brightly. Though if you’re looking for electromagnetic radiation, you’re not likely to detect a darn thing.

One of the best scenes in the movie Contact involves a challenge from the scientist, as played by Jodie Foster, to a person of faith, played by Matthew McConaughey. Prove the existence of God, she suggests. The dialogue turns back on the scientist (and you have to see the scene to get the full interpretation, well done by Ms Foster):

Palmer Joss: Did you love your father?

Ellie Arroway: What?

Palmer Joss: Your dad. Did you love him?

Ellie Arroway: Yes, very much.

Palmer Joss: Prove it.

Proof and reason are not needed. Human beings communicate with one another and with God on levels different from the realm of reason of Western Society. For believers, we’re better off living as though everything depends on faith, and not that everything depends on what we know. But I think we should be cautious about allowing too much reason into our practice of the faith.

 

To Remember, With Great Relief

Thomas Merton on this day in 1950:

And yet Ash Wednesday is full of joy. In a minute we will sing None and go barefoot to get ashes on our heads to remember, with great relief, that we are dust. The source of all sorrow is the illusion that of ourselves we are anything but dust. God is all our joy and in him our dust can become splendor.

…

I sit here in the corner of the upstairs Scriptorium and look out the window at the bare trees in the préau and the gray guest house wall and at my own little happy corner of the sky.

 

 

Snacking on the Word: Why Should They Say?

Why should they say among the peoples,
“Where is their God?”

Then the LORD was stirred to concern for his land
and took pity on his people. (Joel 2:17d-18)

It’s got to be the most bitter question a non-believer can ask one of us, don’t you think? The psalmist struggled with it here and here and here. In some ways, it’s worse than having our bones shattered.

I like the refrain of confidence from the 6th verse of the 27th:

Even now my head is held high above my enemies on every side!

There’s no avoiding Lent now, my friends. The only way out is through. The retreat, or at least it’s preliminary stage, is on. God be with us all.

 

iBooks for Prayer or Liturgy

A staff colleague alerted me to this piece on the iTalmud and how that’s maybe not the best idea. Liel Leibovitz:

One press of the home button, and I could have easily skipped from Judaism’s central text to games like Angry Birds or Words with Friends. That’s no way to experience any book, particularly one like the Talmud which, in its traditional leather-bound, dusty and imposing form, demands a dedication and attentiveness rarely expected of modern readers.

An interesting assessment, and one to which I’m sympathetic. An eReader or iPad or other such device is sort of like assembling one’s own book. Think of it as an electronic looseleaf binder. Maybe you can get one all gold and fancy-looking. Maybe you can put it in a leather case. But it’s still essentially a self-assembled book.

Mr Leibovitz suggests that the internet brings a certain egalitarianism to matters of great importance to the faith.His conclusion:

This is why technology is forever doomed to be at loggerheads with religion, and especially Judaism. For its part, the Internet aspires to create a world without hierarchies in which we are all nodes of information and opinion, none above the other. Judaism shares the Web’s disdain for hierarchies — when its sister monotheistic faiths elected popes and caliphs, it remained adamantly decentralized — but it revolves around one book which everybody must read and in which everybody must believe.

This kind of singular devotion can never survive on an app or a Web page. Which is not to say we should do away with our gadgets altogether: The iTalmud and its ilk are great reference sources, and a fun way for theologically-minded Jews to spend a quick commute on the subway or a short plane ride. But when it comes to real learning, Jews, long nicknamed the people of the book, are better off with old-fashioned tree pulp. Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof had it just right: Sometimes, nothing beats tradition.

What do you think? Makes one reassess iMissal, eh?

 

Ashes To Go

What do you make of this Episcopalian initiative to bring ashes out of the churches to the masses? The effort has its own web page and facebook site.

I looked for the sample liturgies and found a few:

• One for “extremely brief” encounters. No Scripture though, not even a verse.
• I like this one a bit more; it includes a good chunk of Psalm 51.

The appeal of Ash Wednesday is strong and deep, even outside of Catholicism. It suggests the claim that the laity have lost a sense of sin may be faulty. That people are willing, though in numbers, to receive a smudge of burned palm on their face suggests a lot of them may indeed be very aware they screw up, fall short, and indeed, have sinned in the sight of God. And their own consciences. Is that something to be worked with? Or do we churched types keep repeating the mantras of our times?

 

Snacking on the Word: From Anger to Grief in Mark 3:5a

Jesus heals the man with the withered hand in  Mark 3:1-6. I was reflecting on this in my daily lectio recently and was struck by the Lord’s two emotions in the passage:

He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart …

I wonder if we are not shown the holy way out of anger, a feeling I find I’m having some difficulties with these days. J. Ruth Gendler had the measure of anger in her fine book of many years ago.

Anger sharpens kitchen knives at the local supermarket on the last Wednesday of the month. His face is scarred from adolescent battles. He has never been very popular.

Anger is trying to gain Truth’s friendship and respect. Anger is a meticulous reporter. He is accurate about details and insists on the facts. He never lies, but he rarely understands anyone else’s point of view.

And this track led me to a deeper look at Grief:

One day at the edge of the firest Grief heard another woman crying out. She spoke with her. She listened to her story. Grief was surprised. She had never met anyone else who had suffered as she had.

After a long day and night of mourning and crying, Grief was “washed clean of her tears.”

The confrontation of Jesus with the Pharisees over healing on the Sabbath is not really a parable, like Ms Gendler’s stories of Anger and Grief. But looking deeply, it is a teachable moment for the believer. Anger can easily lead to more and deeper alienation, the scars of juvenile outbursts, and the like. The difference, it seems, is one of listening and perception. This seems difficult, at least for me.

How do I listen to the people with whom I’m angry? And then, how do I find the courage to grieve? I don’t have any answers to that. It might take a whole Lent to figure it out.

 

Five Not-So-Easy Pieces

I had noticed Jim Martin’s piece before on the new site, The Jesuit Post, but Liam emailed it to me with this commentary:

An inspirational break from the dispiriting

Indeed. So I read “The Five Best Pieces of Jesuit Wisdom I’ve Ever Heard” with a little more attention this time. I commend it to any serious believer. After reading it, I also had to do my own examen because just in the last hour I’ve had battles with numbers one, two, and four. And the other two are still pretty lukewarm for me.

It never gets easy to deal with envy. I think Fr Martin is an outstanding writer. I actually caught myself thinking, “I wish I could write like him!” before realizing that I have other things I do better that don’t involve the internet or writing books and articles. Stick with what the retreat showed me, I thought gently.

Piece number four was sparked by a difficult fellow novice. Fr Martin:

At one point in my Jesuit training I lived with a difficult person in community.  (Imagine that!)  He had many good qualities, but he was also argumentative and combative.  (Eventually he would leave the Jesuits.)  Since I was always running into him, it seemed that I was slowly changing in response.  I was always on guard – combative and argumentative myself – in order to protect myself.

The Jesuit community? Sounds more like the blogosphere to me.

At one point, I told my spiritual director that his personality seemed to be making me into a different person, someone I didn’t like.  I was becoming someone in reaction to him.

The advice:

Don’t let anyone prevent you from becoming the person you want to be.  He has no right to do that, nor does he really have the power.  God desires you to become loving and charitable.  Don’t let him distract you.

It may only have taken fourteen years, but this piece seems very appropriate for the Catholic blogosphere these days, at least from my perspective. Maybe I stick too close to the flock just to make a point of not being part of it. There might be something to just going my own way for a time. It won’t be easy or overnight, and Fr Martin is wise to realize that …

It was hard advice to follow.  But it was essential.  Rather than let someone else’s problems mold you, become the person God wants you to become.

Sounds good to me. Thanks Liam.

 

Fraternal Correction

Should we bloggers batten down the hatches in our comboxes? Don’t look now, but Pope Benedict is touting “fraternal correction” as a good theme for Lent 2012:

It is important to recover this dimension of Christian charity. We must not remain silent before evil. I am thinking of all those Christians who, out of human regard or purely personal convenience, adapt to the prevailing mentality, rather than warning their brothers and sisters against ways of thinking and acting that are contrary to the truth and that do not follow the path of goodness. Christian admonishment, for its part, is never motivated by a spirit of accusation or recrimination. It is always moved by love and mercy, and springs from genuine concern for the good of the other. [...]

This, I think, is where the more popular notions of correction run off the rails. Much critique lacks prudence. I’ve been the first-hand provider of it in my life.

“Is help helpful?” is a question that should be asked more often. The Holy Father is right to suggest that admonishment avoids an accusatory spirit. I don’t think imperfect human beings can ever dodge that entirely. Should we even try? I think we can. But I think we mis-aim more often than we’d like.

In a world pervaded by individualism, it is essential to rediscover the importance of fraternal correction, so that together we may journey towards holiness. Scripture tells us that even ‘the upright falls seven times’ (Prov 24:16); all of us are weak and imperfect (cf. 1 Jn 1:8). It is a great service, then, to help others and allow them to help us, so that we can be open to the whole truth about ourselves, improve our lives and walk more uprightly in the Lord’s ways. There will always be a need for a gaze which loves and admonishes, which knows and understands, which discerns and forgives (cf. Lk 22:61), as God has done and continues to do with each of us.

Pope Benedict’s follow-up is insightful. It suggests that an essential dimension is to be open to correction ourselves.

Blogging is difficult. Every blogger with comboxes has opened herself or himself to correction in an open or public way. Mark Shea is one of the heavy hitters in the Catholic blogosphere, and unlike many of the other 800-pound gorillas, has always been accompanied by supporters as well as ankle-biters. Some writers have good reasons not to open up the commentary, but such folks are generally open to correspondence.

Anonymity or pseudonymity provides a certain insulation from critique. I’ve never made an effort to hide, even before this blog opened in Fall 2003. For me, it’s a matter of principle. While I doubtless make mistakes and serious errors on occasion, I’m not ashamed to put my name on my opinions, reflections, and odd thoughts. It’s also good health. The healthy part is that I’m surrounded by detractors who keep me more focused.

Bishops, and especially the pope, have it very bad in that regard. They can insulate themselves from dissent, perhaps in the name of orthodoxy. But such insulation generates a loss of perspective. I’m sure that the Holy Father knows the importance, in theory, of being open to correction. He has dined with Hans Küng, after all.

It would be difficult to give up the more enjoyable half of fraternal correction during Lent. But maybe that’s what’s being asked of us. I’m going to have to consider Pope Benedict’s suggestion seriously.

 

On My Bookshelf: In The Lion’s Mouth

Michael Flynn serves up enjoyable reads, if you like science fiction with great characters to accompany world building and slowly-unfolding plots that surprise. His latest, In the Lion’s Mouth, is the third novel set in a series that explores intrigue and human adventure thousands of years in the future. It strikes me as his most accomplished book to date, and the best in an ottherwise very good series.

Flynn’s human future includes the adventures of operatives of two interstellar empires. They battle it out, sometimes in space with ships, more often in hand-to-hand combat, and occasionally in the living room while attended by a butler. This book opens in the latter setting. Super-agent Bridget ban, a junior associate named Graceful, and Bridget’s daughter Méarana await the homecoming of the Méarana’s father, another agent/double-agent. What they get instead is an agent from a rival empire, who tells how the missing man has got himself embroiled in a power struggle. They and the readers are drawn into a story with enough plot twists and intrigue to keep everyone guessing until the second-to-last page. Then we are given a cliffhanger, and now a two-year wait for the next story.

I recommend reading these books in order. The current read does stand alone. But I would start with The January Dancer (2008) and proceed Up Jim River (2010). The first book is an excellent read, lots of space and shooting and stuff. What some call space opera (think soap opera), and much beloved by fans. I think I was less impressed with the second book, in which Méarana and her father go in search of her then-missing mother. I’ve sort of spoiled the plot point, but just erase from your brain what I wrote and read the book anyway. In the Lion’s Mouth is a superior sf novel. The pace is slow and steady, but the action unfolds well. The settings are fantastic, but believable. It’s nice to have a hard-to-put-down book in one’s hands.

Two observations. One is about world building. This is the craft by which a writer creates a world (or in this case, a region of the galaxy) and develops a culture complete with history, technology, politics, maps, and characters. The stars are vaguely familiar, Edacass is Eta Cassiopeia, 19 light years away; the Century Suns are nearest stars Alpha Centauri A and B and maybe C; Epsidanny is Epsilon Eridani; Serious is the Dog Star, Sirius. Tsol is our own sun. But Terrans (Earthlings) have become the riff-raff white trash of the galaxy. Book four promises a trip to Old Earth–I can hardly wait.

More on world building and especially language–there’s a lot of Celtic people in space in ten thousand years. In their empire, they speak Gaelactic. Cute. Law enforcement folks are magpies and riffs (sheriffs). Some Chinese stuff is going on, too. As is the serving of an ancient dish, hoddawgs and zorgrot. (Get it?) Flynn has a fascinating universe and plays around with language enough to distract me.

Second observation: religion is absent here. I guess the Irish bishops crisis of the 21st century was enough to drive every Celt out of the Church by the 121st. Not many sf writers handle religion well. Most, including the more conservative folks, tend to avoid it entirely. Maybe we’re better off for it. But it makes for an intriguing thought. Suppose you were transported to the far future, ten or twenty thousand years. And you found no Christianity there. What would you make of it? Would you still read the Bible and pray the Hours? Would you attempt to evangelize? Would you look for an underground and hidden Church? Would you give up?

One of the things I’ve done since I was a boy was to put myself in the setting of the stories I read. I’ve imagined myself a Borrower, in Middle Earth, and living in the Foundation. Easily enough, I can imagine myself making and serving food with the elusively rare spice coriander in Flynn’s future. But I always come up short with wondering about how I would live my faith if I were the last Christian in the universe. Maybe that’s a worth a book.

Meanwhile, read Michael Flynn’s books. I really enjoy this series. In order, I would rate these books four stars, three-and-a-half, and four-point-five in that order.

 

Division

I’ve been corresponding with a few Catholics by email recently about HHS and religious freedom. Many believers are profoundly troubled by recent events. I don’t think they’ve gained much satisfaction or peace on the internet. I doubt division (in the secular sphere) is a terribly sound foundation on which to build unity (in the Church). Catholics are all too well-prepared to cast off their sisters and brothers not only for doing wrong, but for thinking differently. It is a particular burden of our age, and a stumbling block for us internet believers.

I was thinking of a story from the Desert Tradition in which a hermit and an abbot are conferring on what to do with a “certain heedless brother.” The hermit suggested expulsion, and the abbot concurred. Later, temptation came to the hermit. In throwing himself on God’s mercy, a voice came to him:

This tribulation came to you for this one thing, that you have despised your brother in the time of his temptation.

We might feel, sitting alone at our computers, that we are hermits. But really, the connections are deep, and all around us. And our treatment of others bears directly on how our lives fall apart when under pressure. Perhaps we convince ourselves of John 2:13ff and say we’ve done WWJD (WJWD?) on folks. Count me a deep skeptic on that one.

I’d rather focus on Catholic unity in reflecting on the Word of God, in the Eucharist, and in the expression of charity and justice to those in need. That will be a more long-lasting foundation than a temporary president and his temporary policies.

 

The Bad: Influences or Choices?

One of my staff colleagues speaks of the demonic, of possession, of exorcism. You’d have to go to him for the details, because I don’t presently care to get them. Very early in spiritual direction, almost three decades ago, I asked my director about it. Don’t go there, he advised in so many words. I got the impression that just chatting up the topic provided too many inroads. Focus on the light. Pray. Don’t get caught up in the peripherals, however fascinating they might seem.

I dated a nursing student in college who drew up my astrological chart. I know your birthday, she said, but if we knew the exact minute of your birth, I could do a really accurate chart. “12:59pm,” I said. Do you need my latitude and longitude, too? And we were off to the races of the occult, as one might say.

It was pretty harmless, but one thing she said struck me and has stuck with me for a long time. You have a virtuous exterior life, she commented. But you are attracted to the sullied, the polluted, and the dirty. My conservative friends would say that’s obvious: I dabble in professional progressivism.

My wife urges I avoid any semblance of gambling. She disliked when I won third prize in my first live backgammon tournament when we lived in Kansas City. I gave her the winnings, but she said she would prefer I not “gamble.” I respect her wishes. I play online for fun and occasional glory. No money. I know my wife doesn’t distinguish between the fine lines of buying into a tournament with cash prizes. I don’t play to win so much as I play to compete. Winning is one logical result of superior play. Another is inflicting as much difficulty on a superior opponent before the inevitable concession. When I play on the net, I do get to play many superior opponents. I play in three leagues, and 2012 has not gotten off to a stellar start. Ten wins, twenty-two losses, and not a lot of difficulty for even those opponents who are a close match.

But getting back to my colleague’s expertise, I sit unconvinced of the importance of the demonic. Does that make me more susceptible to evil? I might counter that blaming another entity for what’s wrong is rather convenient, and gets us off the hook. People are responsible for their own conduct. I think conduct produces consequences. It’s less karma than good parenting. I can make a choice to goof off, but eventually my unpreparedness will mean a bigger repair bill at the house, more of a crush for time when a project is finally due, or more making amends if I’ve let a friendship slide.

Does that mean unexplained bad things never happen? Not at all. I’m just not convinced that bad things are terribly important in the long run. Just this morning, I rolled a very fortunate double 3 (2.78% chance) that enabled me to get my two pieces off the bar, and capture in turn my opponent’s. Instead of losing the game and trailing in the match 3-0, the score was tied 1-1. Alas, it was a momentary bob above water. The match went 11-2 in my opponent’s favor.

I can rail against bad luck, but to what point? My software analysis confirmed my opponent out-lucked me 18 moves to 9. But I still made errors in the match. I can’t control the dice, but I can learn from my errors and strive to be a better player with what the dice give me to play.

I used to like chess best of all games. No luck whatsoever. Sheer skill. But in my middle age, I find myself more drawn to backgammon. Enough luck to give a weaker player much more hope than a weaker player of chess. And that bites the other way, too. I can get stung by an up-and-coming player, too. But I’m never quite the master of my fate, the way I was in chess.

In backgammon, one can convince oneself the wins are due to skill and the losses blamed on luck. Self-deception is a huge temptation, but ultimately, players indulging in that mindset will only handicap themselves and their future prospects. Consequences. Not luck. Not mean little red imps tipping the dice to send the unlucky, the unloved, on tilt.

As for the choice in the title, is evil an influence or a choice, I’m inclined to stick with the latter. We choose to be bad. The random universe gives us opportunities aplenty to treat as obstacles or as helping hands. I certainly don’t want to be the sort of Christian who pats myself on the back for the good and blames somebody else for my bad. And I’m good with taking good advice to avoid some areas on general principle. Places like Vegas. Things like winnings. Am I good on that?