May is the month of birthdays and graduations. It brings back thoughts of the great celebration June had for me a year ago on my 80th. She had a tough time keep secret the great news that all my children would make it! May is also my sister Marge’s birthday. And as I recall it was also Catherine’s. Catherine was my Mom’s assistant. She was cook, bottle washer and nanny as long as I can remember. She had apparently some mental deficiency, which never bothered her caring help to mom, and all of us. She lived with us as long as I could remember.
We congratulate the graduates, Paul Berger from High School, Meg Baker from High School, and Karen McSorley from College. We wish all of you success in your new endeavors what ever they may be!
May reminds me of the term “May Day”. I remember in the sixties that we had a parade on May 1st or the Saturday nearest to that day, which was called “May Day Parade”. As I recall it was in protest to the Marxist parade being held as a promotion and honoring of Communism. It seemingly disappeared when Communism collapsed. But I came across the term some where and decided to investigate where it arose. It was a term to describe the protest and the parade by workers in the 1880’s to end the 12-hour workday. They moved to have it reduced to eight hours. It was probably the beginning of unions. It also led to the Haymarket massacre in 1884. The U.S. Federation of Organized Trade and Labor Unions had passed a law declaring that as of May 1886 an eight-hour day would be the full and legal workday for all U.S. workers. They had given the two-year period before it going into effect in hopes that management would start to work towards that goal. However it never gave it a nod.
On May 1,1886, workers took to the streets in a general strike to force the industry leaders to recognize the eight hour working day. Over 350,000 workers across the country participated. During the strike action on May third in Chicago the police opened fire on the unarmed strikers killing six workers and wounding untold numbers. There was uproar
across the nation because of the Police brutality. On May 4, the International Working People’s Assn. organized a rally at Haymarket Square in protest. As the rally was ending 180 police marched forward and demanded they disperse. Then deep within the police ranks a bomb exploded killing seven cops. The police then opened fire on the unarmed workers. The number killed or wounded is unknown. Eight were arrested on charges of “inciting a riot” and murder. The eight workers were convicted of as anarchists, murder and inciting a riot. Only one of the men accused was present at the protest. He was the speaker. In a great show trial where no evidence was produced to uphold the accusations all eight were found guilty. Four were executed, one committed suicide, three remaining were pardoned in a labour upheaval in 1893. The whole episode is probably the worst example of police brutality in the history of the U.S. labor movement. It is certainly not a May Day we would like to remember.
Then there is the expression ‘mayday, mayday, mayday’ or a call for help. I learned that the correct way to signal mayday consists of three repetitions, then the name of the boat and its radio call sign. This expression of course has nothing to do with May Day. The word is an anglicized version of French m’aidez (help me) or m’aider (to render help to me) There is something all those fishermen out there should know! Apparently radio communication was not as clear as it is today and thus the use of repeated words.
“Religion, as I came to understand it, was a primitive relic that could not stand up to the advances made in our understanding of human psychological developments or the inquiry of higher mathematics and modern sciences. Yet I knew religious people who were psychologists, mathematicians and scientists”. This is a quote from a book written by Kathleen Norris, author of the best seller “Cloister Walk”. The book is entitled “Amazing Grace: Vocabulary of Faith” and is a series of essays on the words used in talking about faith. This quote appeared in a chapter entitled, “Belief, Doubt and Sacred Ambiguity” It reminded me of another book I have read entitled “Rocks of Ages” by Stephen Jay Gould. He was The Professor of Zoology and Geology at Harvard, curator for invertebrate paleontology at the university’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, professor of Biology at New York University.
The “Rocks of Ages” are Science and Religion. Gould makes a solid argument that each should stay within their own field of knowledge. He created the term “NOMA” which he had mean “Non overlapping magisteria”. “Magisteria” is the Latin word for “teachings”. In simple words each should stay in their own field. He points to the historic example of Galileo and the Church’s condemnation as a classical example of one acting in a field of which they have no real knowledge. He also refers to the people today who believe the theory of evolution denies the existence of God and violates somehow the Bible. Both ideas are false. Darwin never denied the existence of the Almighty. Gould writes, “Darwin did not use evolution to promote atheism, or to maintain that the concept of God could ever be squared with the structure of nature. Rather he argued that nature’s factuality, as read within the magisterium of science, could not resolve, or even specify the existence or character of God, the ultimate meaning of life, the proper foundations of morality, or any other question with the magisterium of religion.”(p.192)
Gould’s book was written in 1999. Later in an essay for “Natural History” he wrote: “Our failure to discern a universal good does not record any lack of insight or ingenuity, but merely demonstrates that nature contains not moral messages framed in human terms. Morality is a subject for philosophers, theologians, students of the humanities, indeed for all thinking people. The answers will not be read passively from nature; they do not, and cannot, arise from the data of science. The factual state of the world does not teach us how our powers for good and evil, should alter or preserve it in the most ethical manner”
Norris’s comment is in a book written about the same time. It sounds so simple. Yet most still think the way Kathleen Norris sentence reads about religion as being obsolete in view of science, mathematics, etc. Her next thought is that she knows many scientist, mathematicians, etc. who ardently practice religion. So she resolves the apparent conflict by visiting a Benedictine Abbey and joins in their liturgy. It becomes the subject of her book, a best seller, “The Cloister Walk” She then practices what Gould advocates, keeping the subjects in their proper field. Yet it still is happening today ten years later in that there are political parties and others advocating no teaching of evolutions in their school because they believe it contradicts the Bible.
I have had no problem keeping Religion and Science apart. My practice of belief has been hindered by first becoming automatic under my parents and then somewhat the same when passing it on to my children. At one time I believed I was to be like four of my brothers, only at the time it was six, and become a priest. Two, Joe and John left their studying for the priesthood as I prepared to enter the Junior College in preparation for the seminary. Then there was a period after my divorce that in anger I did little concerning my faith. It wasn’t until June suggested we go back to church that I once again begin to feel and sense the growing of my faith. Studying the Bible helped me a great deal as well as June’s support and the weekly attendance at church helped even more. With her help and my prayers I feel sure my faith will continue to grow.
Until next time, Pax Tecum!