Monday, March 30, 2009

Thomas Sowell/A mind of easy discernment

Thomas Sowell is one of those people who does not become confused and even momentarily lured off the course of truth by conventional wisdom.  He has another article today about our "Rookie President," which is right on target.

Read it here...

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODk5M2I3YWI2NTU2ZGZjZDBjMGVjNTVkZGQwNWI5ZTg=


I watched the Disney movie, Pinocchio, with my grandson this weekend.  Boy, was he glad to see that whale, finally sneeze!

It reminded me of how easy it is to become enticed with that which takes us off the course of truth, just as little Pinocchio was lured by the shiny bauble, following it to near disaster.  

There are others in the media who fall prey to the conventional thought "kool aid" of the day and then as often as not stumble back to the original truth, in time.  Many conservatives serve as examples of this, like Bill O'Reilly, who remains so impressed by Obama's style, on many subjects he just can't pick out the truth and highlight it; look also at people like Peggy Noonan, who wrote speeches for another man who could easily discern the truth with his gut, Ronald Reagan; she has been a disaster...whether it's Washington elitism or just confusion of thought, she has been ensnared by Obama's "style."

It's not difficult to see how people such as Hitler came to have such power and why "discernment" is so fundamental, especially in times like these.  Even within the walls of the church one is confronted with this secular relativism, like the catholic church, in its refusal to face the ethical repercussions of its own illegal alien policy. or, for example, many evangelicals who have rationalized the core "life" issue, justifying a vote for Obama on such flimsy grounds as environmentalism or social justice concerns, equating these with the Ontological truth of the Trinity.

I think Rush Limbaugh is pretty good at staying focused as well, evidenced by today's video of his show, where he discusses Obama's inner anger, a major psychological motivator of his behavior.  Don't think there's not a strong element of Rev. Wright in Obama and Michelle.

Sometimes I wish we could just look for growing mule ears or tails or noses on these media types!  Instead we have to exercise our God given rational faculty, and humbly seek the truth in love.  "Seek and ye shall find," the "Pure in Heart will see God," "Where your heart is, there will  you treasure be..."

God help us to stay on the path of truth, not to be lured away by smooth rhetoric or externals.  Where we find truth, let us cling to it, for its sake alone; always at the ready to depart from that which is not truth, no matter the comfort of the context in which it is presented.  Let "truth" and truth alone be my master; teach me, like Michaelangelo sculpted, to chaff away the dross in every circumstance, and reveal the living everlasting Truth.

Pinocchio has some important moral lessons...time with my grandchildren is never wasted time.

God Bless our children!  




Sunday, March 29, 2009

Dear Father Jenkins/What is blasphemy?

(I sent the following letter to the President of Notre Dame. The fact that a Catholic university could manifest such grave moral confusion in regard to the one intrinsic evil which is the very substance of Christianity, only highlights the inherent dangers of succumbing to "the relativism of our times.")



Fr. Jenkins:
You are in grave error in your rationalization concerning Obama's invitation. It is an act of blasphemy on a par with the Israelites "golden calf." Why? Christ said, "I AM the way, the truth & the life;" Life, Being Itself, is our God, a communion of personhood, a divine relationship; love is only possible within the context of being, life. As a catholic university, you are His disciple. Yet, by honoring an individual, no matter his secular office, king or pauper, you are highlighting and lauding someone who pro-actively fights for the very antithesis of God, whose actions in the Illinois State Legislature were a mortal sin, justifying infanticide through his argument and vote. This is a grave matter for the university, for your soul and for our country as a whole. It is not the equivalent of inviting him for a debate or even to express his opinion in honest intellectual repartee. He has proven through his actions, which are anything but honest, to represent a direct assault on Life..."I AM." Your letter only illustrates a grave confusion between what is an "intrinsic evil" as opposed to views and arguments on resolving various ethical and political issues which are open to compromise and disagreement. "Life" is our God. Do not choose to dance around the golden calf; it is not the Holy Spirit here, it is the antithesis propelling the university in this action. Please do not grieve the heart of our Savior. To honor a secular official whose highest priority, demonstrated by his very first actions in office, are to commit sacrilege and blasphemy against the womb by militantly supporting murder of the innocent there, is spiritually catastrophic. In Christ, Sue Langstaff

Monday, March 23, 2009

"Pauper, Pauper"/The Power of Humility

One of the most beautiful Communion hymns is Panis Angelicus, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr9Do5ZxPZA, this is a beautiful version on youtube .)

Part of the translation into English is, "Pauper, Pauper... your humble servant; you have given us the Bread of Angels, the Bread of Heaven, O, the miracle!"  

After waking up tomorrow morning, you will start your day with certain intentions, plans and responsibilities.  Things may be going according to expectations, then, oops, you spill your morning cup of java all over the floor, your clothes.  Now, you’re running late, you rush through the door at work, flip the switch on your computer and as you’re reviewing your e-mail with little enthusiasm, suddenly there is a crying co-worker standing next to you.  She needs your support.  These are very simple disruptions that all of us encounter in our daily life, seldom does your day end with every plan and expectation met perfectly, no surprises.  Sometimes the interruptions are more serious, occasionally, utterly shocking and life changing.   

 One day, as I was pondering this inevitability, a thought occurred to me.  

Suppose we look at our daily plans as an internal force propelling us along a straight line, like the straight beam of Our Lord's cross.  

Furthermore, as the inevitable obstacles begin to cross our path,  suppose we liken them to the cross bar on which Our Lord's arms were stretched and nailed.   

Suddenly, it was as though He was entering the "conversation."  What does that "crossbar" do for you?  Do you see it as an opportunity?  It places you at the center of salvation, where man meets God, where the mystery of love acts.

It reminded me of a section of Dostoevsky's novel, The Brothers Karamozov: 

Dostoevsky’s character, Zosima, in The Brothers Karamozov, states, …”Loving humility is a terrible force:  it is the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.”  Father Kallistos Ware in The Orthodox Way, continues, “whenever we give up anything, or suffer anything, not with a sense of rebellious bitterness, but willingly and out of love, that makes us not weaker, but stronger. 

So what are we saying here?  Yes, something as small as a spilled cup of coffee can have an altering and salutary effect on the world, depending on the degree of love with which it is born.  Father Ware also states that love is creative, transforming, an objective reality, just as hatred, is de-structive.  It is a mystery, the mystery. 

Next time, the dog surprises your morning with a dastardly deed...don't let that "crossbar" go to waste.  Offer it up into that great mystery of Love, it may be the most creative act of love in your day!

Pauper, Pauper...in your weakness is your strength.


 

Sunday, March 15, 2009

"America is a Christian and Moslem Country"/What?

Arveh Spero, (It's Foreign Policy Stupid! at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31014): perhaps a prophetic piece about Obama's blundering foreign policy.


Apparently, in an interview with Al Arabia, Obama said, "America is a country of Christians and Moslems." What? We have all been living under the mistaken notion that our founding and our history are Judeo-Christian! Boy, where are the "re-education" centers when you need them?

Spero explains the long list of catastrophic errors this administration is making which are weakening our security, while Rome is burning and nobody is paying too much attention, not the least of which is reneging on defensive missile shields for our Eastern European allies, in hopes Russia will help us stop Iran's nuclear intentions.

I'm certainly no historian, but even I can reasonably conclude that per history, whenever the poison of anti-semitism begins to seep into the rhetoric of any western country, watch out! It's like the canary in the mine...the next thing you know there's an explosion somewhere.

No, Barack, we are a Judeo-Christian country!

But, there may be good news on the horizon; after reading today's Gatewaypundit.blogspot.com, apparently General Petraeus is giving a commencement speech...in Iowa, in 2010!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

"We the People"/A gathering place

“We the People”

Boy, Glen Beck is emotional on this week's show on Fox. But, it’s all about his patriotism; the back drop on the set is a copy of a mosaic “We the People,” carrying the American flag. Enlarged it is thousands of faces of ordinary Americans.

The theme is about bringing back the American values still prescribed and lived in our military, most notably in the ranks of Navy Seals, Green Berets, etc. His interviews with these two heroes, truly inspiring!

Beck is promoting a new website as a gathering place for American Americans, a place where we can get together, discuss our values and how these values can bring back the country we love. Watch out NEA, “truth” is getting its “boots on!”

The website is:http://www.the912project.com/ The server went down tonight because of all the hits but they're fixing that problem.


Here are the Values and Principles: Go to the website, participate.

The Nine Principles
1. America is good.
2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.
3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.
4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.
5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.
6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.
7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.
9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.

The 12 values Americans must embrace:

Honesty
Reverence
Hope
Thrift
Humility
Charity
Sincerity
Moderation
Hard Work
Courage
Personal Responsibility
Gratitude

He asks you to make a choice.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

The Three Temptations/"Lo, I will be with you, even until the end of time"

The three temptations in the wilderness, suffered alone by the 33 year old Jesus after His baptism in the Jordon, are so substantively layered, one could use a lifetime to deliberate on their meaning, not less, their practical implications.

Father George Rutler, Rector of the Church of Our Savior in New York City, took up the subject this week; in so doing, he applied them to our own time, especially now, as the culture tumbles into catastrophy.

Father Rutler reminds us that Our Lord knew these same temptations would “assault” every generation, in fact each individual existentially; his current thoughts spell a prophetic warning.

The first temptation can easily be discerned in the “justice for the poor” campaign which has literally taken over so many Christian Churches and congregations. One of the most conspicuous examples is the Rev. Wright Church, profiled during the last election campaign. Rev. Wright preached social justice, worse, he de-christianized his rhetoric to the extent that the individual became no more than a self-pitying victim of the rich.

Why would the force of Evil in the world desire this seemingly virtuous intention, tending to the poor, to usurp the Church?

“Satan first tempts the Church to turn stones into bread: to reduce the Church to a human creature devoid of supernatural charisms. The Church is the world’s greatest feeder of the poor, but unless she feeds souls, she is redundant in a materialist culture. Satan wants to replace Communion lines with bread lines, as if the Body of Christ were nothing more than temporal sustenance. But Christ is Our Saviour and not Our Philanthropist. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you” (John 6:53). “

If the Church is no more that a philanthropist, among others, she has no eternal power, no mystery.

The second temptation, and I think, Fr Rutler puts this so well…the temptation is that Christ (always applying to each one of us as well) mock the Church. To mock, is an egregious form of cruelty. I have always hated it, hated it growing up in school, when groups of kids would mock others, hated it as it erupts in work or social situations, etc. It is a terrible form of blasphemy and arrogance. How dare I, a mere creature, from dust to dust, mock the creative wisdom of the Divine?

Will Jesus jump from the pinnacle?

“Secondly, Satan tempts the Church to mock herself, as he wanted Jesus to jump from the pinnacle of the Temple and survive. This test will see whether Christians will take up the daily crosses of life with Christ in a broken world, or engage grace as a kind of New Age energy arrogated to ourselves without moral obedience to natural law. To fly against nature is to live in an unreal world, claiming to be Catholic without living as Catholics

Will Christians take up their daily crosses; take on themselves the suffering, in union with Our Lord, to sanctify it from the inside out. That is the way Christ redeemed his own in the world. It is not love to flaunt miracle after miracle, even though possible, Christ, in His divine nature, could, if He had so willed, lifted Himself off the cross…He did not. He suffered and died, demonstrating the nature of love, only through love would He bring us Home.

Or, are we more inclined to demand proof, now, of God’s power?

I often picture Christian healing in a mystical sense; what if a doctor was told, "the only way you can heal this patient is to mystically get within the very heart of it, take it on your own being; then, yourself being the remedy, literally push it from the inside out." There would be a lot of sick people!

I have known human beings who actually had this inner intuitive and mystical connection with their patients. Kim, my older brother, had it. It was instructive, though filled with pathos, to watch his interaction with patients. It made him an extraordinary diagnostician. It also made him a suffering disciple of Christ.

Finally, the third temptation per Fr. Rutler:

“Thirdly, the Church is tempted with earthly power. Cardinal Consalvi reminded Napoleon that the Church’s power is not from earthly rulers. Pius XII said that Stalin would be able to count the Church’s divisions only after he died. The two Thomases, Becket and More, made similar remonstrances with their own blood. In the history of the Church,Judas was the first to accept a government grant in exchange for doing evil. The Church is entering a time of severe testing, and she will be crucified in ways more tortuous than nails, for she will be jeered by journalists and patronized by politicians and menaced by false messiahs, but in the end the Church’s despisers will hear severe words: “You could have no power at all against me, were it not given you from above; so he who delivered me to you has the greater sin” (John 19:11).v

A time of great testing awaits us all, versions of these temptations will assault our culture and our hearts. Everything the Obama Administration is thrusting upon us, is based not on truth, but on worldly power.

Humility is the key to discernment. If we seek Truth in honesty and humility, we will be guided through the tempest.

We must be “men” not wimps. What is a man? (I speak universally here, refusing the collar of political correctness, where, truth is the first casuality), Human "manhood," is not being unreachable, remote, tough; or winning your first fight.

How does one know, he is a "man?"

It’s when we can recite these words, as our own existential truth, on our deathbed. It is not impossible...such souls are everywhere among us.

IF
If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt youBut make allowance for their doubting too,If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spokenTwisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winningsAnd risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginningsAnd never breath a word about your loss;If you can force your heart and nerve and sinewTo serve your turn long after they are gone,And so hold on when there is nothing in youExcept the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;If all men count with you, but none too much,If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!
End