DC vs. the Church

The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., announced on Tuesday that it had to close its adoption program
within the District of Columbia.  The decision to do so was made as the only feasible alternative to compliance with an unjust law promulgated by the DC City Council several months back.  The law prohibits discrimination against "married" gay couples in numerous matters, including adoption.  The fact that so many people cannot see the difference between holy matrimony and homosexual unions shows the depravity into which our culture has descended.

The Church in DC has very manfully despised the opinion of the world on this matter, and very maternally cared more for the authentic welfare of her children than for the esteem of reprobates.

It's time to get praying, very, very hard.

Wall Street in Ashes (Lent for Everyone)

Today is Ash Wednesday. Don't forget to go get your ashes!

Here's an article from the Wall Street Journal about Lent and how the lenten principle of disciplined self-sacrifice can be very useful even for unreligious people and for non-Christians.  You would think that such insight wouldn't be rocket science or even newsworthy, but there it is.  I am grateful all the same that a major media outlet sees the sensibility in sensible living.  And I am grateful to Erin Johnson for pointing the article out to me.

The article makes the point that little sacrifices, like a cup of latte, can add up to a lot of savings.  These little things that add up can be the key to getting out of debt and building up substantial savings.  The article doesn't go a step further: that we might give some of the fruit of that savings to the poor, thereby fulfilling another precept of Lent: almsgiving.

Don't forget, during Lent we are called by the Church to deepen our Christian living in three chief areas: prayer, fasting, and giving to the poor.  Each of our Lenten disciplines should be something that is difficult, a challenge for us, but also something that is doable.  It does no good to "blow it" three times a week.  Our disciplines should also be things that are good in themselves and also things that we are allowed to give do.  So that means no prayer routines that interfere with our real duties, and no giving up fornication for Lent, either - don't wait for Lent to give that up!  And no giving up homework, either!  It's an added bonus if our Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving can all interrelate to each other somehow, and a double bonus if we retain them to some extent after Lent.

For example, one might
Prayer: Spend 10 minutes with a daily devotional;
Fast: Abstain from morning latte on the way to work, thereby saving $3 and 10 minutes for prayer;
Give to the Poor: $3/day saved from the morning latte, paid upfront early in Lent if possible, to make sure.

Doesn't sound too dramatic, does it?  Nope.  But what a change a little prayer can make in your day, and how many prayers can be answered by your leftover change!

To help you out, Busted Halo has come up with a Lent Calendar, kindova twist on an Advent Calendar, to help you "get your ash in gear."  American Catholic also has some good resources up, and Catholic.org has a nice article and some good resources, too.  Now seems a good time to re-embed Fr. Tim Naples' video on confession.




Lent is the time for penitence, which we Catholics know entails confession. Let's make this one a good one. But let's remember why we do it. Yesterday at the National Shrine, Msgr. Kevin Irwin preached about the need to do Lent for Jesus, and not as a score-card of holiness or as a self-help program to lose weight or save money. Those all miss the point. We are to learn humility - and that can happen in failure, too, so we shouldn't be discouraged if we accidentally eat that chocolate we gave up. We should just let it remind us how desperately we need God - if giving up chocolate is hard, how hard is resisting the devil's wiles and living in grace til the end of our days!?

Over THIS?

Pro-Abortion America (NOW, NARAL, etc.) have fought like a bunch of linebackers to keep Tim Tebow's extremist advertisements off the air. Check 'em out; but brace yourself, they'll make even the most resolute pro-lifer grimace.

Lol. Now that you've watched the entirely innocuous ads with Tim Tebow and his mom, are you as perplexed as I am about why the abortionists would try to keep these off the air? Their whoopin' and hollerin' has caused more of a fuss than these ads could ever have done by themselves. It's awesome, really. Normally, we traditionally-minded Christians are the ones who drive up the ratings of our enemy's propaganda. We get all worked up about a nasty movie or play and make all sorts of otherwise unaware bystanders suddenly become very interested. This time, the shoe is on the other foot.

Now, of course the ads aren't exactly innocuous. In fact, even though they say so little, they are deadly poison to the abortion industry. The have two attractive people, who clearly love each other immensely, and one of whom is famous - now even outside of his professional reputation. (In fact, opposition to the ad has probably turned Tim Tebow, at least for now, into a household name.) So why are these ads poison to those people? Because the ads undermine the mentality that makes abortion possible. For decades and decades, America has slowly been buying the lie that most of us know from our own experience isn't true: babies are a burden and it's better not to have them if there's a real chance that its not gonna work out just right. These advertisements remind us of what we all know: not only that nothing in life is guaranteed, but that somehow, with a bit of grit, optimism, friendship, and faith - heck, with just a little of any of hose things - life has a way of turning out OK, unless by OK we mean two kids and a dog and a white picket fence and two nice cars with annual vacations overseas. In that case, our odds narrow somewhat. But if we can roll with the punches just a little, we don't typically have to resort to murder to get things to work out passably. Sometimes, oftentimes, if we have eyes to see, things will turn out far better than we could have planned (not dreamed, but planned) ourselves anyway.

Actually, scratch my metaphor about poison. These ads are ingenious little bits of warm sunlight casting in among fungus that had been hidden in shadows. Just like fungus avoids sunlight, the abortionists avoid truth:

Life is worth living.

The Roar of the Unborn Babies

On Friday, January 22, over 200,000 people showed up to participate in the annual March for Life, the largest annual demonstration in the nation's capital.

As usual, the Democratic Administration and Congress turned a completely blind eye, as if the couldn't see the crazy traffic patterns and endless streams of people.  I mean, it was a small group on the edge of the city, out of sight.  So it's not surprising that the Prez couldn't see them.

Oh, wait.  I forgot.  It was 200,000 people who marched, and they marched down the central street of the nation's capital - Constitution Avenue.  And they did it in broad daylight.

But they were kooky nuts, the kind you just have to ignore.  You know: lots of taxpaying, middle-class, family-values types.  And so monotonously homogenous.  I mean, groups like Presbyterians for Life, Lesbians for Life, Democrats for Life, Jews for Life... not to mention women who have had abortions... no diversity there.  Just lots of white, mean, conservative Catholic men.  No news here, people.  Move along.  Lol.

Well, for decades Congress, the Courts, and Democratic Administrations have ignored the personhood of unborn children, democratic process, the growing consensus of the American people, and even basic principles of morality and constitutional law.  Now, Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) has admitted that the Senate's version of healthcare "reform" cannot pass in the House, and Rep. Pence (R-In.) has attributed it to the bill's abortion language.  Though the Democratic Party has ignored an increasing amount of its own constituency and all manner of other voices and concerns, the little babies have them now, right where they want them.  The Democratic Party leadership is like the monkey with its hand caught in the cookie jar - they can't get their precious healthcare obamination because they won't stop clutching onto their government-funded abortions.

In a surprise twist of fate, the little children have saved from economic catastrophe an America that cannot bring itself to save them because of our love of economic comfort.

Let's pray that we learn to return the favor.

Babies and Distributism

Here's a little taste of G. K. Chesterton, whose writing style is somewhat ironic because as he writes, the reader has the constant sensation that he is being led somewhere and only the author knows.  He is a master of paradoxical conclusions designed to blow his ideological opponents out of the water.

I hope it is not a secret arrogance to say that I do not think I am exceptionally arrogant; or if I were, my religion would prevent me from being proud of my pride. Nevertheless, for those of such a philosophy, there is a very terrible temptation to intellectual pride, in the welter of wordy and worthless philosophies that surround us today. Yet there are not many things that move me to anything like a personal contempt. I do not feel any contempt for an atheist, who is often a man limited and constrained by his own logic to a very sad simplification. I do not feel any contempt for a Bolshevist, who is a man driven to the same negative simplification by a revolt against very positive wrongs. But there is one type of person for whom I feel what I can only call contempt. And that is the popular propagandist of what he or she absurdly describes as Birth-Control.

I despise Birth-Control first because it is a weak and wobbly and cowardly word. It is also an entirely meaningless word; and is used so as to curry favour even with those who would at first recoil from its real meaning. The proceeding these quack doctors recommend does not control any birth. It only makes sure that there shall never be any birth to control. It cannot for instance, determine sex, or even make any selection in the style of the pseudo-science of Eugenics. Normal people can only act so as to produce birth; and these people can only act so as to prevent birth. But these people know perfectly well as I do that the very word Birth-Prevention would strike a chill into the public, the instant it was blazoned on headlines, or proclaimed on platforms, or scattered in advertisements like any other quack medicine. They dare not call it by its name, because its name is very bad advertising. Therefore they use a conventional and unmeaning word, which may make the quack medicine sound more innocuous.

Second, I despise Birth-Control because it is a weak and wobbly and cowardly thing. It is not even a step along the muddy road they call Eugenics; it is a flat refusal to take the first and most obvious step along the road of Eugenics. Once grant that their philosophy is right, and their course of action is obvious; and they dare not take it; they dare not even declare it. If there is no authority in things which Christendom has called moral, because their origins were mystical, then they are clearly free to ignore all the difference between animals and men; and treat men as we treat animals. They need not palter with the stale and timid compromise and convention called Birth-Control. Nobody applies it to the cat. The obvious course for Eugenists is to act towards babies as they act towards kittens. Let all the babies be born; and then let us drown those we do not like. I cannot see any objection to it; except the moral or mystical sort of objection that we advance against Birth-Prevention. And that would be real and even reasonable Eugenics; for we could then select the best, or at least the healthiest, and sacrifice what are called the unfit. By the weak compromise of Birth-Prevention, we are very probably sacrificing the fit and only producing the unfit. The births we prevent may be the births of the best and most beautiful children; those we allow, the weakest or worst. Indeed, it is probable; for the habit discourages the early parentage of young and vigorous people; and lets them put off the experience to later years, mostly from mercenary motives. Until I see a real pioneer and progressive leader coming out with a good, bold, scientific programme for drowning babies, I will not join the movement.

But there is a third reason for my contempt, much deeper and therefore more difficult to express; in which is rooted all my reasons for being anything I am or attempt to be; and above all, for being a Distributist. Perhaps the nearest to a description of it is to say this: that my contempt boils over into bad behaviour when I hear the common suggestion that a birth is avoided because people want to be "free" to go to the cinema or buy a gramophone or a loud-speaker. What makes me want to walk over such people like doormats is that they use the word "free." By every act of that sort they chain themselves to the most servile and mechanical system yet tolerated by men. The cinema is a machine for unrolling certain regular patterns called pictures; expressing the most vulgar millionaires' notion of the taste of the most vulgar millions. The gramophone is a machine for recording such tunes as certain shops and other organisations choose to sell. The wireless is better; but even that is marked by the modern mark of all three; the impotence of the receptive party. The amateur cannot challenge the actor; the householder will find it vain to go and shout into the gramophone; the mob cannot pelt the modern speaker, especially when he is a loud-speaker. It is all a central mechanism giving out to men exactly what their masters think they should have.

Now a child is the very sign and sacrament of personal freedom. He is a fresh free will added to the wills of the world; he is something that his parents have freely chosen to produce and which they freely agree to protect. They can feel that any amusement he gives (which is often considerable) really comes from him and from them and from nobody else. He has been born without the intervention of any master or lord. He is a creation and a contribution; he is their own creative contribution to creation. He is also a much more beautiful, wonderful, amusing and astonishing thing than any of the stale stories or jingling jazz tunes turned out by the machines. When men no longer feel that he is so, they have lost the appreciation of primary things, and therefore all sense of proportion about the world. People who prefer the mechanical pleasures, to such a miracle, are jaded and enslaved. They are preferring the very dregs of life to the first fountains of life. They are preferring the last, crooked, indirect, borrowed, repeated and exhausted things of our dying Capitalist civilisation, to the reality which is the only rejuvenation of all civilisation. It is they who are hugging the chains of their old slavery; it is the child who is ready for the new world.

G. K. Chesterton, "Babies and Distributism," from The Well and the Shallows

I hope you enjoyed that little article as much as I have. Little did Chesterton know... or perhaps he did suspect... that before long an age would come in which men would murder babies in the womb, starve them in hospital janitor closets, and openly speak in the classroom of murdering them into their first years of life postpartum.

Proverbs that Might be True, pt. 5

Barbarism is not a picturesque myth or a half-forgotten memory of a long-passed stage of history, but an ugly underlying reality that may erupt with shattering force whenever the moral authority of a civilization is lost.

Christopher Dawson

(Ok, so it's a bit long for a proverb, I admit...)

Bishop Allen Vigneron's "10 Rules for Handling Disagreement Like a Christian"

If you've never encountered these rules, please read them.  Memorize any that are not intuitive to you.  I recently read a suggestion that Christians brainstorm a set of rules for internet-based discourse, rules like, "Assume the best intention and good faith of those with whom you are corresponding."  A noble idea.

The Slaughter of the Innocents Goes On...

Today, Monday 28 December 2009, is the feast of the Holy Innocents, those children slaughtered by Herod (Mt 2:16) in his demented plot to destroy the Christ Child, thereby winning the notorious distinction of being the first manifestation of anti-Christ in history.  The Church recognizes his little victims as something like martyrs, even donning red on their feast day in honor of their blood.  They did not voluntarily give their lives rather than deny Christ, yet their innocence poured out still bears witness to His.

In our times, anti-Christ has been powerfully active in many modern regimes.  The Nazis and the Soviets were both explicitly anti-Christian.  They were defeated, but we must not lull ourselves into thinking that anti-Christ was, or even that his plan was delayed.  The Evil One is crafty beyond our reckoning.  I believe that part of his plan was to discredit evil itself - he has done this by psychologizing sins into mere neuroses on the one hand, and by making us think that a plan or idea cannot be evil unless it is proposed by a short man with a funny mustachio and a German accent.  We are mistaken if we believe either of those two lies.  Sin is sin, and we are all guilty of it.  Some sins are small, and others are immense.  We must use our meager powers and whatever grace God gives us to resist it all.  We cannot compromise with it, and must realize that the Enemy always tries to sell us sin by bundling it with genuine goods, because only a lunatic would pick sin otherwise.  So intimacy and pleasure, both good, are used to sell adultery; adventure and profit, both good, are used to convince people to burgle or rob.

Now health care is being used to push abortion.  Make no mistake - unless the law specifically forbids the funding of abortion, it will be slipped in as one more entitlement.  If the developers of the health care proposals under consideration did not want abortions to be funded directly or with subsidies, they would include prohibitive provisions in their bills.  And I can think of no better way - nor can Uncle Sam - to encourage something, other than to pay for it.
Please pray for Bart Stupak (D-MI) and the group he is rousing to resist this atrocity, this holocaust to Moloch. Rumor has it that he and his group are already being brought under tremendous pressure from the highest levels.

Fellow Americans, we are capable of helping each other out without paying to kill each other's babies.  America, we can do better than abortion!

Babies

I know lots of people who are having babies.  Babies are beautiful.  Now there is a documentary called "Babies," coming out, and it looks pretty... well, beautiful.

Here's the website.  It seems to be about the first year in the life of four babies from different places around the globe. The people responsible have a few weird movies, but this one looks good. Thanks, Anchoress!

Beautiful, no?

Timelapse movie: The Alps -- part II (night) from Michael Rissi on Vimeo.

Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, 3rd Movement - set over the Alps.

More on the Manhattan Declaration

Click here to download the entire Manhattan Declaration.

The Manhattan Declaration on Religious Liberty

Today at noon at the National Press Club, a coalition of about 150 leaders of the Christian community in the United States have issued a statement called the Manhattan Declaration. In the statement, numerous Catholic and Orthodox bishops and seminary rectors, Evangelical and Protestant ministers, and other Christians involved in culture, politics, and public life have all vowed that they will not budge one inch on traditional morality pertaining to abortion and marriage; they have insisted upon the primacy of religious liberty in public life. The statement is truly inspiring.

The Manhattan Declaration can be found here, on the website First Things. Additionally, a website has been established called www.ManhattanDeclaration.org, with a place for visitors to sign onto the declaration alongside Archbishop Donald Wuerl, Chuck Colson, Marjorie Dannenfelser, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Fr. Joseph D. Fessio, Most Rev. Peter J. Akinola, and a host of others. Unfortunately, right now the link is having trouble and redirects to Chuck Colson's website, which is still an interesting read.

What's monumental about this is the strength and courage of the statement and its ecumenical breadth.  It is a clarion call to the nation's Christians - 80% of America.  With 60% of Americans saying that religion is important in their lives, this statement should be something of a wakeup call against the militant atheism that, in the name of maintaining a secular government (and secular it should be), is attempting to secularize the entire nation, and to bully anyone who objects or refuses to play along.

Here are some more articles related to it: from the Catholic News Agency and another about the Declaration's special place in current DC local politics.

Especially as we approach the Solemnity of Christ the King, this weekend, it behooves us to remember that nothing Caesar or his cohort can say or do has any authority over us except inasmuch as it aligns with the Law of God.  No matter who is president, no matter what lobby gets whatever law passed, Jesus Christ is Lord!

Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom Speaks Out Against Secular Sterility

Lord Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, must have caused a stir with his speech just a few days after taking his seat in the House of Lords of the UK last week.  He said that Europeans are too busy shopping to have children.  I wonder how that went over.  His speech also does a good job of pointing out succinctly why secularism and moral relativism can never win an argument about civilization or culture.

Holy Cow - Articulate Defender of Georgetown's "No Birth Control" Policy

And in, of all places, the Washington Post / Newsweek "On Faith Blogs."  That's right, a blogger for Georgetown / On Faith's blog has written this piece, supporting Georgetown's insurance plans, that do not cover contraception, and chide the university leadership for skirting the issue quietly rather than offering a cogent defense of that policy.  Mr. Deneen, the blogger in question, offers that cogent defense in his piece.  It is not meant to be a conclusive, syllogistic argument, but it is cogent and strong, arguing both that birth control is wrong (or at least, that the Church is not wrong for warning against it) and that Georgetown is right not to finance it.

I am really surprised and impressed.

Triumph of Democracy

In a breathtaking change of tack, Congressional Democratic leadership has decided to behave democratically. They are going to allow the House to vote on the overwhelmingly popular position to exclude federal funding from federal health care spending. Rep. Bart Stupak (R-Mich) and a group of a few dozen Democrats should be applauded for putting principle above party loyalty. The Democrat machine might try to grind them out of politics, but God will reward them.

Now the Washington Post reports that the Stupak amendment has been inserted to the House Democrats' catastrophe on a vote of 240-194. Whether the plan is stupid and ruinous for our nation, at least now we can be reasonably sure that it will not fund, either directly or surreptitiously, the murder of unborn children.

Thank you, Congressman Stupak!

The blogosphere is filled with rants of people who feel women are somehow being abused by the Stupak Amendment. In reality, their own logic is being turned against them, as is the tide of American thinking generally, and they are bitter and frustrated.  The vote on the Stupak Amendment seems to more or less coincide with the majority of Americans, who believe they should not be compelled through taxation to pay for an act they believe to be morally ambiguous or worse.  Abortion supporters continue to speak out of both sides of their mouth.  On the one hand, as a normal medical/surgical treatment, they want abortion funded.  On the other hand, as a private choice, they do not want it regulated by government authority.  On the one hand, they say that abortion is a personal decision between a woman and her doctor.  On the other hand, they want it funded - apparently by everyone BUT the woman or her doctor.  The moral nonsense is compounded by legal nonsense.

It is heartening that Americans are starting to wake up.

My Life Is Average

A friend of mine just told me about this site called My Life Is Average.  Open contributions from anyone who cares to contribute provide a steady stream of pleasant and cheerful anecdotes, like the ones quoted below:

Today, I was driving behind my boyfriend when he suddenly pulls over. I do the same and am utterly bewildered as he runs out of his car and pulls me out of mine. He then grabs my hand and we take off running.. and jumping into a giant pile of leaves he saw on the side of the road. I do believe I will be keeping him around. MLIA.

and:

Today, I was eating my dinosaur themed fruit snacks. There were only a few left, and poured them out into my hand. I find half of a red dinosaur, and a T-Rex with red on its teeth. Best bag of fruit snacks ever. MLIA.

I am convinced that even more than daily miracles, God offers us daily chuckles, if we will open our eyes to see them.  C. S. Lewis wrote that he was confident that affection is responsible for nine tenths of basic human happiness.  Being able to chuckle once or twice an hour probably goes a long way to basic happiness, too.

By the Mines of Moriah

We spent the day in Moriah, New York, nestled among the Adirondacks, east of the High Peaks region and near the southwestern shores of Lake Champlain.  The people there were extraordinarily friendly, and mostly seemed supportive of our candidate.  It is amazingly rural - a half hour from the nearest large road.  The people are proud of their cultural heritage here, and proud of America.  They feel that things aren't going so well, but do not believe that America is "broken."  They'd mostly like our leaders to leave things alone.

View Larger Map
The community was founded upon mining, but I do not know what they do now.  A lot of the people are from here, but like my own neck of the woods, the area has experienced some growth through the gradually immigration of folks from other parts of the country.

We ate a hearty Election Night Harvest Dinner in a Baptist church hall, at the invitation of the mayor and at the expense of a local well-wisher who calls himself Brett the Mountain Man.  It was a really nice evening and a nice way to finish a day of meeting local townsfolk and even more people come in from the countryside to vote in this local population center of four or five thousand people.  The mayor, who was probably five or ten years younger than my dad, and vigorous, sat next to a widower who was much older but only a bit quieter.  The widower told us how a ninety-four year old neighbor of his had had both of his legs amputated after a quadruple bypass surgery had wrecked his circulation.  "Shame and a waste," said the mayor.  "When my heart gets like that, I'd rather just say a quick rosary and then go to meet my Maker."  Why make such a big deal of trying to save an old man from living his last days?  Doctors may sometimes be more afraid of death than their patients.

We sat next to one woman who has lived her entire eighty four years here, and more than sixty of them with her husband, who died only last December 18.  I will try to remember this kind woman and her husband in my prayers that day this year.  She was visibly choked up a bit when we discussed him briefly, but she mostly expressed gratitude to God for His kindness in giving her "such a loving man for so many years."  The mayor and her elderly neighbor, the widower, listened sympathetically as she told us just a bit about him: "He never said an unkind word about anyone, never so long as I knew him, which was all my life."  She told us about a young priest that used to visit their family when she was caring for their child and babysitting her nieces and nephews.  Though her family is Methodist, she said that the priest was always very warm with them and told them he felt very welcome in their home.  "Well, he was," she said, "He was most welcome.  What a fine young man he was."  The widow, the widower, and the mayor were excited to see young people (us) caring so much about politics and about the state of the union that we would drive all the way up from Maryland.  We were encouraged by their hospitality and functioning, albeit small, community.

There weren't many young people here, in this place without few jobs, and none for folks with degrees - except for perhaps the mayor and a nurse or teacher.  Some young men drove by in pickups and waved, giving us thumbs up.  The ones who drove by in inexpensive sports cars were less visibly supportive.  I wonder if there is a correlation.  Young women mostly drove by packed in small American or Japanese imports like Kias and Hyondais.  They mostly waved or didn't seem to notice us.  The shopkeepers were immensely friendly in Moriah, where we got early morning coffee, and in Port Henry, where we got our brunch and late lunch.  Like the waiters and shopkeepers I encountered in Germany, they did not overdo it, nor did they seem interested only in making a sale.  They lacked either the sicky-sweet attentiveness or the condescending, distracted rudeness that alternatively characterize the staff at accommodations in the DC area.  Like the staff in mountainous Bavaria, these mountain folk were genuinely friendly and interested in their customers, but no more so than they would be with a stranger or loose acquaintance on the street.  The ones we met on the street though, were eager to exchange phone numbers or email addresses.  That made me think faintly of Mexico on my earlier visits, when the internet was still new there.  Brett the Mountain Man joked about his internet connection being delivered by pack mule.

I'll miss it. But maybe I'll return. I've no doubt I'd be made to feel welcome.

News from New York

I am up in New York state, here:

Plattsburgh is a nice town. It is the only town in this neck of the woods, for a long ways, in any way. Burlington, Vermont is actually fairly close - but it is across Lake Champlain, the crossing of which requires considerable time waiting for a ferry or to go around the lank, or by the bridge near the Canadian border.  It's not as cold as you'd think, and it's not as "liberal" (what a lie, in its modern usage, that word is!) as the rest of New York is (thought to be, at least).  This congressional district is the largest in the country, geographically speaking, and one of the most sparsely populated.  It is the size of Connecticut, and most of its towns' populations are counted in the hundreds and scores, not in the thousands or tens of thousands.  People here are not rich.  They do not frequent health clubs or expensive universities.  If they want a helping hand, they want it from their neighbor, or from their family or pastor, or maaaaaybe from their mayor - but NOT from their Uncle Sam.  They fear that Uncle Sam would rather be a Big Brother.  I fear with them, and in many things think like those with whom we have spoken.

I am here doing something I have never done before.  I am working in a political campaign.  The GOP apparatchiks decided to put a candidate on the ballot, and God alone knows why, that has nothing to do with the GOP - Dede Scozzafava.  She is pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, and pro-public option.  More mystifying, she has nothing to do with the views of Republicans in the area, evinced by the fact that they are defecting in massive numbers to support a local party's candidate, Doug Hoffman of the Conservative Party.  She trailed increasingly in the poles behind not only the Democratic candidate, but also behind Hoffman. Since bowing out of the election race, she has endorsed the Democratic candidate!

I came up hear to post signs and hand out leaflets for three reasons, even though politics isn't normally my thing:

1. If our democracy is to be healed, we need more political parties, ones that stand for things - anything at all, almost - rather than merely seek power;
2. Big party bosses are entirely out of touch with their constituents in an increasingly obvious and ridiculous way - see above;
3. Our President and his administration and the congress need to be reminded that they were elected as moderates and that their political careers are mortal.

Coincidentally, after the poorly supported Republican candidate's abandonment of the race, most of her supporters seem to be joining up with the Conservative candidate whom the Republican leadership would not nominate.  This additional support is giving him a clear lead in a state where only a plurality of votes is necessary to gain office.  Tomorrow we will stand in the rain and give out leaflets at the polls all day, before driving home.

If you think that this neck of the woods is insignificant, think again.  It was in upstate New York that both the American abolitionist movement and the women suffragist movement were born.  This region might very well the broadcasting hub of all that is good about America, a sort of antithesis to New York City or to Hollywood.

Interesting side note: The people in this region are easily the most intelligent in the country.  They have a thing called Steward's.  Steward's is an coffee and sub shop rolled together with a gas station and a - get this - ice cream shop.  I don't mean that Steward's sells ice cream sandwiches or nutty buddies.  I mean, twenty, thirty flavors that you can mix and match, and a double scoop of their own flavors (which include black raspberry, Fourth of July, and Irish Cream, inter al.) costs a mere $2.50.  When you stop for a fill-up, you can stop for a fill-up!  It's BRILLIANT.  Between the scenery, the nice folks, and the Steward's ice cream, this place is like a piece of heaven.

Land of the Free? Home of the Brave?

A rap song I like sings, "THIS is the land of the free?  THIS is the home of the brave?"

The only defense of human dignity - from being treating like cattle, for instance - is recognition that human persons are made inviolable by a Creator who demands justice for His creatures.  Materialist theories of man's origins cannot yield any reason to treat people as anything more than mere matter, usually as material for someone else's schemes.

I am not here denying evolution or other scientific theories.  I only deny that they explain everything.

Of course, all this said, it is not beyond Fox News to just blow it, or to blow something out of proportion either.  Anyone know any more about this?  I first heard about it about a month ago, but haven't gotten around to blogging about it.

A Different Kind of Kingdom

Many of us work or have worked for company's whose environments were relaxed, where "business casual" is the attire, and where we are encouraged or required to call our supervisors and even the CEO by their first name, usually Skip, or Chip, or Don.  The purpose of this casualness is to make us feel comfortable, to feel at home, to think of the company as a family.  Yet, everyone seems hellbent on kissing Chip's butt in a way we rarely felt inclined to kiss Dad's butt.  In fact, when we kissed Dad's butt, he usually called us on it very quickly, didn't he?  "Ok son, now what's this all about?  What do you want?  Do you need money for a date?  Do you wanna borrow the car?"  But Skip, Don, and the other bigwigs and supervisors at our company seem to like having their butts kissed.  They are certainly aware that our desks are all straightened way a visit from them is anticipated.  The modern kings, princes, and petty barons are much smoother than maybe they were in medieval times, but they nonetheless manage to make themselves felt, as Jesus put it.

The readings from today's Mass (Is 53:10-11; Ps 33:4-5, 18-19, 20, 22; Heb 4:14-16; Mk 10:35-45), those of the XXIX Sunday in Ordinary Time, probably go in one ear and out the other of folks intent on being worshiped, the Don's and Chip's of this world.  But they might go misunderstood by those of us trying to be Christians, and should give a moment's hesitation to anyone engaged in "the culture wars."  Here's why:

James and John go up to Jesus and ask him if they can be the two top dogs in their kingdom.  In another account (Mt 20:20) it's their mom that does the asking.  How that fact got confused between St. Matthew and St. Mark might be an interesting sociological question, but it's not really relevant to the story or to the message for present purposes.  Anyway, Jesus basically asks them if they can handle it.  "Of course we can," they basically say, "easy."

Easy, indeed.  Now, the other apostles get all tangled up because they want to be the best in the kingdom, too.  Pandemonium ensues.  Jesus calms them all down by stumping them, as usual:

"You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many," (Mk 10:42-45).

Now, this is a different sort of kingdom, isn't it?  Not only is it a kingdom with a different goal than the kingdoms of this world, but it is a kingdom operating on a whole different set of principles.  Normal kingdoms depend upon and elevate the majesty of their king; ours depends upon and elevates the crucifixion of our king.  Normal kingdoms run on taxes; ours runs on widows' pennies (Lk 21:1-3).  And this all makes sense: a different goal often requires different means.  One packs different things for a trip to Ocean City than for a trip to Alaska, and one probably uses a different mode of transport.  The Kingdom of God is different than any of the kingdoms of men, not only because it is run by a different king aiming at different goals, but also because it uses different means.

How often do we who "fight to save the culture" fight using the very worst weapons developed by the very worst people in our culture?  We organize committee meets, develop marketing strategies or three year project goals, recruit workers, and bang! off we go.  Of course, our Blessed Lord chided us because we don't even do these things very well (in the parable of the dishonest steward, "for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light," Lk 16:8).  We use the means of the world to beat the world, but we do not use them well because our Christian faith and morals get in the way; for their own part, using the means of the world often ends up corrupting our Christian faith and morals, which are the whole point of the Kingdom of God.  Now, I am not arguing that committee meetings and marketing strategies are necessarily evil.  Evil is a very emphatic word.  But those things are emphatically not the way our Lord does things.  We are to make use of the things of the world (Lk 16:9) as appropriate, but never in a way that detracts from our true purpose.  Our true purpose is not to out-world the world, to one up the world at its own game.  Our purpose is to let God build up in us and through us a new sort of world - the Kingdom that is to come.

And that is a different sort of kingdom:

"The LORD was pleased to crush him in infirmity. If he gives his life as an offering for sin, he shall see his descendants in a long life, and the will of the LORD shall be accomplished through him. Because of his affliction he shall see the light in fullness of days; through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear," (Is 53:10-11).

When we who want to change the world are willing to suffer whatever it please the LORD to visit upon us, as an offering for sin, then we shall see the world change.  If we really believed that our affliction would bring us "to the light," would we seek to dodge it.  If we believed that our suffering would justify many, would we be working so hard to do it with committee meetings?

What I am suggesting is not the abandonment of formal structures in the Church.  I am only urging a return to prayer, fasting, almsgiving, to penance, to service to the weakest and poorest, to those most mangled by the Kingdoms of this world.  I am not suggesting that we have stopped doing those things in the Church, not at all.  I only wonder if we haven't somehow gradually gotten our minds onto the wrong track, if maybe we haven't settled in a bit too much, those of us in the pews.  I am not denigrating petition-signing, election-time campaigning, and blog-writing.  I just hope they haven't taken the place of hairshirt-wearing and prisoner-visiting.  The ancient world was converted to Christ when they saw Christians picking abandoned babies up off the sides of roads, when they saw Christians nursing people with contagious diseases, when they saw Christians giving their own last bit of food to a hungry stranger, trusting in Providence for their own next meal.  The postmodern world will be converted to Christ when they see us lifting male prostitutes up out of the gutters, when they see us nurturing drug-addicted babies, when they see us living simply (and donating the rest of our salary) so others might simply live.

Well, in any event, I doubt many have been converted by seeing how we conduct our committee meetings.  Let's refocus our hearts.  And that, dear brothers and sisters, needs prayer.