Sundays just have a special feel to them. I wonder if it’s that number seven thing where human beings just love the number seven for some reason, and we decided that the seventh day is the end of a cycle of days and therefore special. Regardless, Sundays appear frequently in religious and literary works, and I feel it too. I love them because of that special feel, and I hate them because, toward the end, you know the special feeling is about to be replaced by work the following day.

Last Sunday was just special, no dread. Robby and I spent the morning and afternoon working through some Aristotle. It was his first graduate paper presentation, and he was understandably nervous. The issue was Aristotle’s virtue theory and the problems with it. There are many, but perhaps the most significant is that Aristotle bases his ethical theory on character or virtue, but even virtuous people behave differently in different situations, and in fact virtue itself is seen differently in different situations. So we hacked around on this old stump for several hours, and it was frustrating, exhausting, revealing, and fun.

Then Robby was off to go see U2 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. It was being broadcast on YouTube, so I planned to watch it on the pretty Interwebs, as St. Mary calls them. It’s a series of tubes, you know. I had my walk to do, which was wonderful as usual, but first I had to call the pater familias, my father, who had turned 89. I’ve written about him before both here and in print, and I will likely write about him again in both mediums. He is simply one of the best people I know, and as we both grow older, he becomes more and more my role model. It seems odd to say that since he is almost ninety, and I live like I’m twenty sometimes, but it remains true. A self-taught, self-reliant, self-assured man who got that way by his own scratching and clawing at the world until he brought it under submission, my father is the source of the best of me. When I think through a problem and come up with a solution, I am reminded of him. When I weigh the possibilities of a situation and choose based upon my own sense of integrity instead of appeasing or bulldozing my way, I think of him. When I reflect upon my life and the ethical choices I have made and why, I think of his life and choices and how his virtue was both there and evolving in his own choices. Our conversations are not frequent; they do not need to be. He is always there in my mind and heart, inspiring and instructing me. Happy Birthday Dad.

Back home from the walk, I queue up YouTube and wait for the concert to begin. I contemplated buying tickets and going to the show, but I think I’m happy with my YouTube seat. I watch the concert and marvel at this band that I have been listening to since I was about twenty-four. I still remember buying the vinyl album of The Unforgettable Fire, and I can remember thinking while it played that I had never heard anything like this before. Bono’s anthemic lyrics delivered in shouts and whispers. Edge’s guitar playing that virtually created a world made of sound, a world of dark skies shot through with lightning bolts. I was living in Nashville at the time, going through one of the most bizarre times in my life (about which I should post, I guess), and U2 was this alternate universe where God and justice and love fought with evil and hate while Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton provided the beat of the drums and the pulse of the bass. I wanted to get lost there, and in some sense I’ve never left. At the end of the concert, an announcement appears that the rebroadcast will begin soon. I hear Robby come in the door and ask him how it was. “Amazing,” he says, shaking his head. Then out gushes a stream of adjectives and adverbs that I struggle to process they come so fast: transcendent, beautiful, powerful, passionate, carnivalesque, etc. Though he has just come from the concert, he sits with me through the entire rebroadcast. We sit in amazement, happy and content that these guys, my age, are still holding us, thrilling us, kissing us with their music. “Moment of Surrender” ends the show, and it hits me hard and good. Something about those lyrics, which are not poetic but are still powerful. Bono’s words are like Edge’s guitar: they are at times atmospheric, at times gut-hitting, at times anthemic. Whatever they are, they are meaningful to me, and I watch the Twitter feed on the site confirm from all over the world that tonight we are one. Tonight. A Sunday, Bloody Sunday in October.