The Explorers Club
No. LIX - Zheng He (1371-1433), who might very well have changed the course of history beyond all recognition had his people only possessed the mettle to persist in voyaging into the unknown seas beyond the end of their knowledge.






Note: Take care not to confuse Zheng He with the Three Kingdoms-era general Zhang He.

Epiphany
On Christmas Eve, there are three Mass options at Holy Redeemer: a 4:00 P.M. children's Mass in the church, a 4:15 regular Mass in the adjacent H.R. Family Life Center, and the 12:00 A.M. midnight Mass. My personal preference is for midnight, but I'd rather go with my family at an undesirable time than by myself at a more favored time. My mom doesn't like going to Mass at the Family Life Center; so, every year we sit through the awful children's Mass. And note: I hated the children's Mass even when I was a child. Kids mumbling their way through the Scriptures? I hate that. A choir of screeching worm-children "singing" the glories of God Almighty? Endlessly annoying. This year took the cake, though, because the verdammt music teacher at the Holy Redeemer School accompanied the children on his *gasp* guitar.

During my freshman and sophomore years at Michigan, I occasionally attended Mass at Saint Mary Student Parish, very near to campus. The pastor at Saint Mary had for a time been assigned to Holy Redeemer and the church was a five-minute walk from West Quad, my dorm; so, the first time I walked through the doors I immediately thought I'd feel right at home. But then the other shoe dropped. The music during Mass consisted of a trio of yuppie-hippies with guitars and a tambourine. And the Host was not the thin wafers with which we are all familiar, but hand-torn pieces of a thick wheat bread. Disdain is as good a word as any for what I felt. Later, during the years at 1213, I would drive to Saint Francis of Assisi, a family-dominated parish for the townies of A², on East Stadium rather than face the nearer horror of Saint Mary. I love guitar music, I am listening to a bitchin' electric guitar solo by Aaron Barrett of Reel Big Fish as I type this, but guitars have no place in a Catholic church. At all.

But before this post descends into inarticulate hatred of damn, dirty hippies, today's Mass, celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany, redeemed the Christmas Eve guitar debacle. Accompanying the choir was *drum roll please* a violin! Nothing like a violin to class up the joint. Plus, today's Mass featured everything but the kitchen sink, including a odd but beautiful mimed dance routine by the eighth grade student group. They were dressed all in black and wore identical white masks over their eyes and noses and danced to a recorded rendition of "O Holy Night." Odd, but beautiful, which is itself a somewhat fitting description of Catholicism.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Steppenwolf, "Sookie, Sookie" from 16 Greatest Hits (Alistair)

Commentary: My congratulations to Alistair, whose New York (football) Giants today defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to advance to the divisional round of the N.F.L. playoffs. Though we exchange heated words during and regarding the football season, let there be no mistake that I consider myself most fortunate to count Alistair among my friends and to be counted among his.