Imperishable Beauty

Visit with Fr. Hesburgh

This evening I had the pleasure of a visit with the president emeritus of Notre Dame, Fr. Hesburgh. It was part of my seminar class (which has been amazing). The stories he told were unbelievable!! He talked about singing old songs around the piano with VP Harry Truman, six days before FDR died. He was on the first board for the National Science Foundation, and asked to head NASA. (Despite his lack of science knowledge, he was asked because of his philosophical background, and only turned down NASA because he didn't want to be accused of a Catholic bias in handing out contract and he didn't want his actions to reflect on the priesthood.) He did a favor for President Eisenhower and as a result got to break the record for fastest speed in a special government plane. He went 80,000 feet in the air and Mach 3.5. He said at that point, if you had to bail out you would fall for half an hour before you reached 20,000 feet, when you could pull out your parachute. Attached to the astronaut's uniform you had to wear were enough supplies to last you for two weeks in case you came crashing down in the middle of nowhere (including $10,000 in gold coins if you needed to buy your way out of a bad situation). There was also a rubber boat that could be inflated if you landed in water.
He was on the committee that helped craft the bill that formed the cornerstone of Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. I think the story of how LBJ got that bill passed was my favorite:
LBJ would call up the southern senators at three in the morning.
Sleepy Southern Senator: hello?
LBJ: Hello, this is the president, I need to speak to the Senator from Alabama.
SSS: President of what?
LBJ: Of the United States. I heard you're not going to vote for ma bill (I only wish I could reproduce Fr. Hesburgh's imitation of LBJ's accent).
SSS: Well of course I'm not, I'm a southern senator, it'd be political suicide. The people would kill me!
LBJ (matter of factly): If you don't vote for it, I'll kill you.
Suddenly not-sleepy senator: What are you talking about? I'm a senator, you're the president, you can't talk like that!
LBJ: How would you like to see a front page article in the Washington Post one day questioning why the senator from Alabama rents room 305 in the hotel downtown for an hour every Friday afternoon? Maybe you go there to pray an Our Father?
SnSS (spluttering): What? you can't...i mean...how do you...my reputation would be ruined!!
LBJ: Told ya I'd kill ya.

He also told the story of how Lincoln decided to read the Emancipation Proclamation. He gave it to his eight cabinet members and let them vote on it: No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Lincoln looked around the room and said "Aye. Well, it looks like the Ayes have it."

He ended with what turned into an exhortation as to what Notre Dame students should be like when we graduate: We should have expanded our minds, but be grounded in what we know to be true, and able to communicate that to the world. We must maintain our intellectual integrity and be able to see other peoples' points of view, but at the same time we must be able to defend what we believe, and act upon it for the good of the world. If we are women, we must be good, strong (not mousy!) women; and men must be good, strong men ready to take the initiative and become leaders. Both must be willing to stand up and take an unpopular position if need be. We will be good parents or good servants of the Church, ready to be modern Catholics in the best sense of the term.
It made me want to clap. :) I got to shake his hand but we didn't take a picture.


Also from CSem: Random cool JP2 observation of the day:
Truth=Beauty=Being=Love
in essence, they are all interchangeable

posted by Jessica @ 9:49 PM |

Harry Potter thoughts

I went to go see Harry Potter at midnight last night with 19 other people from the dorm/people who are friends with Andrea. It was kind of funny because I'm pretty sure 90% of the audience was ND students (90% of the three sold-out theaters, that is), as evidenced by the cheering that occured when the leprachaun firework was shown. I thought it was an excellent movie. They blended the darker sections with some light-hearted intervals that were quite funny.
I've been pretty on-the-fence for several years now about Harry Potter. I don't think JK Rowling is the devil incarnate, but I don't think she's the greatest thing since sliced bread either. The movie only solidified my wishy-washiness, if that makes sense. :)
I've now seen all the movies (except for the last 20 minutes of the third one which I couldn't quite fit in this week). I liked the "Goblet of Fire" very much but it definitely deserved its PG-13 rating. It was pretty intense and scary; not quite to Lord of the Rings level but pretty close, especially considered the action was centered around 14-year-olds. Voldemart's transformation and the scene in the graveyard was pretty scary. Also, there were some hints at some off-color jokes -- nothing too bad of course, probably nothing as bad as is usually on sitcoms, but still, not something for the littlest kids.
The one thing that I still don't like about the whole series is how they *use* magic. In comparable fantesy series (LOTR & Narnia), the main characters can't really control magic or use it for their personal good. JK Rowling has avoided purely personal uses of magic (for example, Harry doesn't try to use magic to impress the girls) but their control over the world of magic still rubs me the wrong way. Plus, I just don't like it as a plot device - it's a very convenient way to get out of things. For example, in the Prisoner of Azkaban everything was going wrong until - shazaam! - up pops a time turner so they can go back in time and fix it all. But now in the Goblet of Fire, somehow they can't use that time turner to go back and set a guard so Harry's name isn't put in the goblet.
Finally, Rowling's authority figures aren't very trustworthy. Every single time, some adult figure starts off good and ends up being revealed as bad. Maybe she's doing this to emphasize that Harry can't trust anyone and that he's basically alone against the world -- which works, I guess, but isn't exactly a virtuous attitude to promote.
To sum up, I loved the movie and I intend to read the books ASAP (I've only read the first, so maybe my judgement is off). I think that there are some Christian elements in HP which make them beneficial for older kids to read. I just think that Rowling sets up a world which makes it hard to convey those Christian messages - a setup where kids can control the world through magic but can't trust authority seems to me to have some resemblances to the fall in the Garden of Eden.
Thoughts?

posted by Jessica @ 4:02 PM |