SCHOOL
Things are going pretty well. The form 5 (senior) students have been informed that most of what I can do for them I (Rudy) already have; it is up to them to study for their big exams which come in October and November. I gave them a study technique I used in college: figure out how many pages of notes the test will cover (which, in their case, is all the pages from early February of 2009; between 80 and 130, depending on the writing size of the kid) and figure out how many days it is until the test. Then calculate how many pages one must memorize each day, and do it. I don't know how many kids will do it, but I know it worked for me. Just one new page per day, with a review of the pages previously learned, will put a lot of information into your mind.

The form 1 (8th grade) students are going well, too. There are 69 of them in one class, yet they are serious about learning. I am trying to get them to do more reading. I get science articles off the internet (Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, etc.) and type them up with questions. A good grasp of English is very important to doing well on these tests. Lately I have also had them using a higher-level science book with an index in the back. I figure familiarity with books and an ability to access their information will serve them well at every stage of life. So I am enjoying this very large class of young people.

And then, there are the form 3 students. These correspond to American 9th or 10th graders. A good friend of ours took a wise route into the teaching profession: he was a substitute teacher for a full year, taking everything from 1st to 12th grade. At the end of the year, he decided the grades to teach are either the very early or very late ones. The young ones are eager to please, and the juniors/seniors are young adults with whom you can reason and who will listen to what you have to say about the road ahead. He now teaches elementary school in Los Angeles.

The awkward ages in between, however, can be tough. Hmm, that's euphemistic. How about "It's a wonder more sophomores and form 3 students don't mysteriously and permanently disappear". These students also face major external examinations starting in early October, but most of them don't seem too serious about them. I have also pretty much finished giving them the information they need, and it's now a matter of reviewing it until I shed a tears of joy when I feed them to the tests. Of course, a good number of them will be back next year as form 4 students; but for some reason I saw that last year's form 3 students (who also ranked high on the "most deserving of a throttling" list) came back more civilized as form 4 students this year. That will be a nice change.

CHURCH
Church goes well. The girls take the walk in stride, and they always have a good time with Nomphumelelo, Futhi, and Mphendulo who join us about 1/3 of the way there. We need to do some fence repairs on the garden, but the okra, jackbean and pigeon pea plants inside are doing well. Now that we are past the winter solstice, we can start thinking about the next planting season. Father Maseko came and celebrated Mass last week, and a good number of people were present. It sure is nice to have him come and have the fullness of Catholic worship.

Operation Christmas Child, an activity of Samaritan's Purse (headed by Franklin Graham), deposited gifts with children in our area. I have not visited the website (samaritanspurse.org), but it seems to work in the following way. A family or individual purchases items from a list provided by Samaritan's Purse. The items include writing instruments, small coloring books, warm clothes (gloves, hats, and scarves), and maybe some candy. The goodies are packed into shoeboxes which are then decorated with Christmas paper. The boxes are then shipped off to poor communities and given to kids who don't have these kinds of things. I am quite touched by the program; many students are sporting the warm clothes and have pens and pencils that REALLY WORK and don't break apart long before they should. The boxes that came to the outstation church and the school seem to have come from England, judging from the packaging. One kid got a "Manchester United" ballpoint pen; ManU is one of the most successful and well-known soccer teams in the world. I wonder what sort of scramble took place for that pen.

Even our kids got some stuff. There was a distribution to all of the children in our community. We were invited, but declined (explaining to our girls that they get boxes from their grandparents). There were some boxes left over and the community leaders divided them between the different churches in our area to distribute to their members. It was way unneccessary, but Ruth wisely reasoned that since our children are fully part of the church, it wouldn't be appropriate to set them apart and exclude them from this church function so we came home with two shoeboxes. Our children do appreciate the "Disney princess" washcloth and the scarves, mittens, and pencil sets a great deal.

LAWRENCE RUGUMAMBAJU
On Ascension Thursday, the day Christians recall Jesus' return to heaven 40 days after His resurrection, we attended church in Mbabane. After Mass a lady came back and greeted us, and invited us to her home for tea. Rare indeed is the day that the Poglitsh's turn down free food, and so we took she and her husband up on the offer. It turns out that Winifred and Lawrence Rugumambaju and their four children hail from Uganda. He's an architect working with a firm in Mbabane until next April, at least. We have a lot in common including interests in family, our Catholic faith, and pro-life issues, and our kids really like each other, too. They drove out and attended Mass with us at the outstation church last Sunday, and then we spent some time together at our house afterwards. We hope to have them out again July 22 (a public holiday) for a hike in this area. We have yet to connect them with the Mubiru's (but not for lack of trying), our other Ugandan friend and his family, but we will keep working on it. The Rugumambaju's like Swaziland and want to stay longer; we want to encourage that, too.

WEATHER
It's mid-winter. Usually winter is the dry season, with no sign of clouds for 2 or 3 months. The temperatures are in the 60s and low 70s during the day (mighty pleasant) and plummet to frosting temperatures as soon as the sun sets. The only drawback is that the dryness means the roads become veritable duststorms when the least wind blows or a kombi passes over them. Today and yesterday, however, we have had rain. This is a welcome break, as it knocks down the dust for a few days and recharges the school's water source. It also provides a great reason to stay in the house and bake with the kids. Friends in town sometimes have a "Christmas in July" party. It certainly feels like Christmastime, especially on the rare rainy days.

WORLD CUP
I have spent between 3 and 4 1/2 hours a day in my neighbor's living room, watching World Cup soccer. I have only missed one game in its entirety, and about half of some other games which were played concurrently. My neighbor is there for most of the games too, and we occasionally have to encourage each other to fight off the drowsiness-not that the games are boring, but games ending at 10:15 every night, night after night, does take a toll. Wednesday and Thursday, June 30 and July 1, had no games. Ruth and the girls tucked me into bed at 7:30PM Wednesday night; and I woke only once (when the hall light was turned on) before my alarm went off Thursday morning. Thursday will also have more family time, then it's back to the games Friday. The number of games has fallen off a great deal, as teams have been eliminated. Another teacher says the press talked about people reporting "soccer depression"; without the games on, people feel something is missing. I must admit, sitting at the dinner table with everyone Wednesday evening seemed like a real break in the routine-a welcome one. Ruth and the girls are very generous. For the next section, I hand you over to Ruth.

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COFFEE SHOP CONVERSATION
Every once in awhile you find an idea that changes the way that you can see things. I have recently found such an idea and I want to share it with you.

A number of years ago I got the first inkling that there was another way to view freedom. It first was mentioned in passing in an article in First Things Magazine (www.firstthings.com). As Rudy and I read George Weigel's biography of Pope John Paul II, it apeared again: after the fall of the Soviet Union, the late pontiff warned his post-communist compatriots that their newly-won freedom was not for license, but for doing what we ought.

I purchased a book (The Person and the Common Good, by Jacques Maritain), hoping that it would explain this hint of an idea. It was too philosophically thick for me to understand, but the introduction posed this question: "Does society exist for each one of us, or does each one of us exist for society?" Maritain asserts that our attempts to answer that question have plunged us into two opposite errors: extreme individualism on one side and totalitarianism on the other.

As an American, I naturally landed on the extreme individualism side; but what was the alternative? Rudy recently purchased two books by David Bentley Hart (In the Aftermath, which is a collection of essays, and Atheist Delusions) and both of them address this issue in a way that I can understand. Hart says that from the earliest Greek philosophy until late medieval times, freedom had a completely different meaning than it does today. The classic understanding held that there is a human nature that needs to be realized in each individual human life. Achieving that nature, however, is neither automatic nor easy because innumerable obstacles try to constrain and enslave us. Many things limit our freedom, just as alcohol limits an alcoholic's freedom. Michalangelo spoke of liberating his beautiful statues from the marble. People were seen as unformed blocks of marble from which, with effort, something beautiful, noble, and good could and should emerge. Conversely, without wisely directed effort, something monstrous and barbaric could and might emerge.

In late medieval times, a new concept of freedom arose. Hart says that this new concept is the essence of what it means to be modern. This is the idea of freedom as unfettered Will. In this view (which all modern people adopt to some degree) "the greatest good" is an unlimited range of choices. One should be able to define and create one's own nature through whatever choices one makes.

These two conceptions are radically opposed and create radically different societies. Either there exists a Good and a Standard to which we strive, and in that effort we limit and restrict those things which prevent us and others from "Being All That We Can Be"; or the only Good is to eliminate limits and restrictions so that people are not prevented from "Being Anything That Can Be." Hart's books are deep and engaging; they come recommended to anyone interested in these dynamics.

This puts much of America's "culture wars" into perspective. Part of our society militantly celebrates "choice" and sees any restrictions on individual behavior and public expression as evil. Part of our society is uneasy about the social (and personal) consequences of that celebration, but find themselves confused (like me), wondering if there is any ethical reason that the grosser products of our imaginations should be limited. What reason can we give to limit the agressive spread of internet pornography? Vile things on television? We are limited to say "it is bad for the children" since none of us believe that it is appropriate or worthwhile to try and protect adults from harmful influences. I think what many of us have done is to adopt (for our private life) a vision of the Good that limits and restricts what we personally choose, so that we can achieve "freedom to do what we ought". But we propose no similar vision of that Good to guide our society, adopting instead the vision of freedom as "license to do what I want" in the public arena, with the only restriction being "Your freedom ends where my nose begins."

Could we adopt a different view of freedom for our social lives? At this point, I don't think so; we would need agreement about what "The Good" is that we are to orient our lives toward. In a society which has understood liberty as "freedom from restraints" rather than "freedom to be what we ought" for over 200 years, it is unlikely that we can find that common ground. It used to be that our religious and social conventions provided self-regulation for a large part of the population. Other parts of the culture were disciplined by public restrictions, such as limits on what could go through the mail system, public decency standards for broadcasting, and the Hayes Commission overseeing movie releases.

People are now less directed by their religious communities or by social disapproval against destructive behaviors. The last tools for shaping behavior at the societal level are the individual will and government regulation. When we think about how to handle something like internet pornography, for example, the proposed solutions are "buy filtering software" (an appeal to individual will) or "government regulation" (a suggestion Americans dislike, since it would limit individual choice). As our embrace of unlimited choice grows, our habit of orienting our personal lives towards what is true, good, and beautiful diminishes. If we lose common beliefs and practices of civility and respect of others, we seek to create more government laws and programs to deal with anti-social behavior; thus we criminalize things like sexual harrassment, deadbeat dads, date rape, and hate speech.

Our freedoms can grow smaller as socially acceptable choices grow larger. For example, I grew up in a very safe environment. I never encountered sexual advances as a child or as a young person. The adults surrounding me were safe and virtuous. I had tremendous freedom with the young men that I knew. I didn't need to carry a house key since the door was left unlocked. We could and did invite strangers to stay at our home. I couldn't understand why my parents thought it unwise for me to take walks by myself at night. Unfortunately, I have learned from other friends how rare my freedoms were. Other friends were raped or coerced or robbed in similar situations. My daughters won't grow up with the freedom that I knew because contemporary society is neither as virtuous nor self-controled as my world was.

The modern conception of freedom will sacrifice nearly every other good to maintain "choice" as the queen of all virtues. In Swaziland we see how very little tolerance organizations have for anything suggesting that one choice is objectively better than another. No organization dares suggest limiting sexual activity exclusively to marriage even though this would protect the life of the individual, provide the best environment for child raising, and thus create a healthy society. Instead, we will lament that the median lifespan of young men is about 34 years of age; but our proposals for behaviour change will not dare touch unlimited sexual expression.

These are my ruminations. I hope that you find this idea helpful to clarify the values behind the public arguments that you hear and the values behind your own internal thinking.

Sincerely,
Ruth Poglitsh