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I sent the following letter to my state legislators. I hope that others will send a similar one:
Emergency powers are designed to temporarily consolidate authority to address a situation requiring an immediate response. Those powers are not meant to endure until that special authority decides to relinquish them. The extraordinary powers end as soon as time allows for the normal legislative process to resume.
However threatening the COVID-19/SARS-2 pandemic remains, the time for rule by county judges and governors has passed. The state government must insist on a return to due process of law and regular legislative authority.
Why live on a coast prone to devastating hurricanes?
My grandparents lived for a time about a quarter mile from the famous Flora-Bama. The bar divides Alabama (Gulf Shores) and Florida (Perdido Key). A quarter mile is a long walk in the sand after some drinks, by the way.
Perdido Key is the quieter side — more families, fewer shops and restaurants. Gulf Shores is more popular with college kids because of the bars. But the birds and the dolphins don’t know the difference.
Perdido Key is a barrier island, like Galveston. Left entirely to nature, it would move with the currents and possibly disappear. One hurricane buried our deck and let us jump off the balcony. Another sucked the sand away.
That’s something people love about the ocean: it’s different every day. A fisherman or shell collector can expect anything. Storms dredge up stuff from deeper water for beachgoers to enjoy.
Cousins, aunts and uncles, great aunts and uncles, third cousins, friends, and adoptions gathered every year at that house until a hurricane finally picked it up and placed it on the road. C’est la vie.
It has been a while since I’ve been back. But, rain or shine, that shore will always be my home away from home.
The closest we get to paradise on earth isn’t an endless peace. It’s renewal.
Thank you, Lord, for air conditioning and electricity. Thanks for bottled water, pretzels, and mixed nuts. Please protect the freezer… oh and, um, yeah, our neighbors. I’ll see if Meemaw needs a hand. Oh okay, that old grump too.
It’s fun listening to heated arguments about what should and should not be moved to prepare. Those who assume the gusts will be mild and steady get annoyed by those who assume the worst… and get annoyed by the former’s complacency. Gulf Coast Southerners who know that inland homes are generally safe but also that no hurricane plays fair spit out prognostications like watermelon seeds. We turn on The Weather Channel so the kids can watch cartoons.
Ike knocked out the power for 10 days, but Laura seems more of a nag. Not bringing football, are you, Laura? I’ll trade you the house. No? 2020 can bite my foot!
A Cat 3 now, eh? Maybe a Category 4? Figures. I guess a few more things should come inside.
There’s water to drink and canned goods. Water’s in the tub for flushing. Clothes are washed because the washboard ran off with the drums. The flashlights worked a year ago, so let’s assume they’re good. The guitar’s in tune. Maybe I’ll wash the car next week instead.
Tomorrow’s forecast: flying squirrels with a chance of raccoons.
Let us begin with the now-common conclusion that US presidential candidate Joe Biden is, to one degree or another, senile; and thus physically incapable of acting as President of the United States of America, the most powerful and influential office on the planet.
It has come to my attention that some Republican voters believe the worst possible outcome of this fraud would be for the Democratic candidate for Vice President to immediately take Biden’s place after his election to President. If only that were so. In that case, most voters would know who they were truly voting for or against: the VP candidate versus Donald Trump.
Even if that was the Democrats’ plan, it would be shameful for Republicans to allow it to proceed. Obviously, any candidate unfit for the office is equally unfit for the candidacy. To accept a senile candidate is to make a mockery of our elections. Democrats should be forced to put forth a substitute candidate.
But let’s assume Biden will be tolerated to remain the presidential candidate and that he will be elected President. Democrats would have another, more nefarious option.
Joe Biden could remain President.
So long as Democrats avoid, stall, or disrupt attempts to impeach the senile President, the real powers could remain hidden. We cannot assume the Vice President would be the primary “advisor” who drafts the President’s policies and speeches. Any person or group could work beyond public scrutiny, without ever being certainly revealed to the press, to direct the pawn voters naïvely selected as a national figurehead.
In other words, to accept a senile man as a presidential candidate is to accept the potential outcome of a nameless, faceless President-in-hiding whom not one American voted for. Such a possibility is an abomination. It would call into doubt the whole of our democratic system. It would threaten not only our own republic but all nations affected by American foreign policy.
Act now, Republicans. There is precious little time to defend the legitimacy of our country’s executive branch.
There’s a scene in Christopher Nolan’s Batman series when Lieutenant Gordon worries about escalation. If the forces of justice become bolder, will the forces of evil not become bolder in response? An objective in any competition is to overpower one’s opponents. Both sides know this.
Many Republican voters have fallen into a trap of believing Trump himself is the catalyst of escalating political tensions. When Trump is no longer President, they suppose, life will return to normal. Not only conservatives are making this supposition, as Mollie points out.
The curious and explicit campaign message of media and other Biden supporters is that if you elect this Biden Trojan horse, the mobs and hordes that ride in with it will totally calm down once they secure even more power than they already held in corporations, media, academia. https://t.co/0Wnd59ahgI
Trump is crude. Undoubtedly, it affects a nation to designate such a crude man to a position of leadership. But that is not why Democrats now act as they do.
Trump has appointed many judges and, without benefit of legislative assistance, altered many regulations. But his presidency has not transformed American law, nor does he regularly act beyond his authority like a tyrant. In regard to laws and government, his presidency has been much like any other. That is not why Democrats now act as they do.
If the Left’s current behavior is by any degree a response to the election of Donald Trump, then that response is to the renewed boldness in conservative behavior.
Most people voted for Trump for a very simple reason — he fights. After generations of Republican capitulations and weak objections to relentless lies, corruptions, and assertions of power by the Left, Trump recognized in voters on the Right a desperation for bold and forceful resistance. We yearn for a leader who will get off defense and play offense like someone who really wants to win. Stop hiding behind the walls and stage a counter-attack.
I voted for Ted Cruz in the last Republican primary and would do so again. One needn’t be a Trump cheerleader to acknowledge this positive aspect of his appeal.
Leftists have become bolder because conservatives are at last daring to resist.
That change among rightwing voters will not end with Trump’s term (I hope and pray). We have been backed into corners. Like any cornered animal, in fearful awareness of diminishing options, a conservative is forced to acknowledge the necessity of bold behavior and aggressive gambles.
Conservatives hide their views under constant and often explicit threats. For speaking out as progressives feel free to speak out, conservatives commonly fear to lose grades, scholarships, associations, contracts, jobs, careers, and even the safety of their families. We are attacked.
It is a story as old as time. The tyrant blames the captive for his abuse. “Do not resist,” he says, “and I will not be forced to strike you.”
Conservatives can either meekly submit to oppression, tolerating ever more restrictions in hope to retain some semblance of uneventful (“peaceful”) anonymity, or conservatives can defy attempts to bully them into a dull, silent, false imitation of liberty.
What conservatives cannot do is fight back without provoking those who attempt to enslave them. Democrats have been pleased by their victories over the decades. If Republicans and/or conservatives frustrate those gains, or even recover lost ground, of course, Democrats will respond in fury.
Whether President Trump is elected to a second term or not, whoever might replace him, Americans have entered another era of raucous and bitter competition for cultural dominance. If the maelstrom quiets before freedom is won, our nation will not be better for it.
More than half of American adults — yes, adults — play video games. Many of those “gamers” are playing Mahjong, Sudoku, or crossword puzzles on their phones; so it’s fair to say the statistics are often exaggerated (like calling golf or darts a sport). But since PC and dedicated console gaming picked up in the 1980s and have flourished into an industry rivaling Hollywood revenues and productions (indeed, Hollywood actors now commonly perform in video games), entire generations have grown up with the medium.
Games are just another option beside TV and novels as a way for responsible parents to wind down at night or share entertainment with the kids. And I don’t mean Pac-Man.
Of course, even someone who grew up with video games might prefer other media or interests. But it is increasingly important that conservatives recognize this industry as another influential front in efforts to define the aspirations, expectations, and boundaries of our culture. As with cinema, deliberate decisions are being made to integrate leftwing ideology and political correctness into games.
This industry is as uniform as Hollywood in its assumptions, its goals, and its willingness to defy a majority of consumers in “representation” of leftist fashions and exclusion of contrary ideas. California is the heart of game development, with satellites typically based in leftwing cities like Austin or Paris. Game journalism is similarly monolithic in regard to the major corporations like IGN, Gamespot, Kotaku, and Game Informer; though there is some dissent among smaller blogs and video channels.
As in TV shows, there has long been a push in games toward more gay romance subplots and more female protagonists. “Pride” flags are offered to players as free cosmetic additions within many games even when nearly all other cosmetics must be purchased.
This month, Black Lives Matter banners have been included on many in-game greeting pages. Microsoft has a reward points system with options to donate the cash value to one of a handful of left-wing charities. Black Lives Matter was added among those groups for donations and advertised on the Xbox home screen to millions of gamers. Seemingly every gaming news organization invited token blacks (even if some guests proved astute and enjoyable) to join their podcasts and other content. Sony and Microsoft delayed their biggest marketing events of the year to give BLM the spotlight.
Reactions to political fads and offense culture sometimes take the form of sudden changes to game content. The developer Infinity Ward, owned by publishing giant Activision, recently altered a Border Patrol optional outfit in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare from the description “Show them the error of their ways and make them pay with D-Day’s Border War operator skin” to “Play along with the deer and the antelope with the Home on the Range D-Day operator skin.” Journalists roundly agreed that Border Patrol agents are not respectable and that the former description applauded violence against immigrants rather than cartels.
Years ago, Marcus “Notch” Persson, the legendary developer of Minecraft — a game every kid today knows, which was purchased by Microsoft for $2.5 billion — was scrubbed from the credits of his own creation after publicly questioning radical feminism, gay politics, and anti-white bigotry. That was before “cancel culture” entered common terminology. Do Hollywood studios alter movie credits to erase writers or directors?
Watch Dogs: Legion is among the more anticipated blockbuster (or “triple A”) games due later this year. The gameplay is impressive in many regards, not least in its photorealistic layout of London and an innovative “Play As Anyone” system that lets the player choose almost any person roaming the city to be among one’s team of protagonists.
But then there’s the setting. I honestly wouldn’t mind if developers and journalists alike didn’t consistently remark on how “familiar” the game’s vision of a post-Brexit dystopian London seems. Here is the cinematic trailer.
Socialist and revolutionary themes are popping up in several games this year. Cyberpunk 2077, arguably the most anticipated game of the year (and rightly so) is set in another near-future sci-fi dystopia that imagines corporations as the primary villains. I’ve lost count of how many times I have heard game journalists working for corporations comment on the evil of corporations.
Character customization in Cyberpunk 2077 will extend to choice of genitals. When the crossdressing fad rose to prominence, Polish developer CD Projekt Red leapt to assure gamers that transvestites would be included as a character option, complete with mix-and-match body options.
Hopefully, that gives the non-gamers among you some idea of the cultural winds permeating every branch of art and entertainment.
During my stay in another state, I was offered my host’s only housekey to use while he was at work. The arrangement was not usually a bother because we gathered at another place in the evenings before returning together to his home.
One day, the weather cooled unexpectedly — enough that I decided to return for an extra shirt. The drive to his house took about 20 minutes. There in the driveway was my host, only just arriving himself. He was as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He was in a hurry to retrieve a forgotten item and had expected he would need to climb through a low window to get inside without his house key. (He could have phoned, but apparently thought it a minor inconvenience — not worth bothering me about.) I unlocked the door with his key, saving him the trouble.
Providence is often manifested in such minor events.
It was the only time during my week-long stay that he or I needed to enter the house midday. If either of us had arrived only five minutes earlier or later, so brief were our separate needs to retrieve something, that we would have missed each other entirely. Even had we planned the meeting, different traffic conditions, etc., driving from different locations would probably not have resulted in such a simultaneous arrival. For that very unlikely encounter, my host’s life was just a little easier that day.
In this unimportant event, one can see the interplay of free will and the good Lord’s designs.
There was no direct or noticeable pressure on either my host or me to make the choices we did. I could have driven back to the house an hour sooner or later. (Indeed, I had initially determined to endure the chill without another shirt.) I could have borrowed an extra layer of clothing from my companions or asked to adjust the air conditioning if the outside air was too chilly. I could have stopped for lunch on the way. My host could have phoned to request I come with his key, at least.
But we made the choices we did, when and how we did. And eternal God, Who exists beyond the physical limits of time, Whose brilliance enables Him to create an entire universe of things we scarcely understand, incorporated our free choices into His grand design.
The difference between fate and providence is precisely such inclusion of free will.
Perhaps a simpler example would help. Imagine a mother who knows her children well. They have been taught to share their presents. But when little Kelly is given a bicycle and Joey is given a skateboard, they eagerly rush toward their own gifts. She knew they would. They could wait to play with their gifts later, but choose to play immediately. She knew they would.
The mother did not force them into action, though the opportunities presented reflect her knowledge and her will. She determined the timing and manner of their opportunities. Is that tyranny? Of course not. To give a gift in one way and not another is no more oppressive than give one particular gift and not another.
The Lord’s presence in this world can be witnessed. But His activity is commonly known as the wind is known.
One cannot see the wind. Rather, one sees the things it moves — leaves, clouds, papers, etc. One can feel the wind moving across one’s skin, especially when apart from barriers. Yet it is so common an experience that it is rarely noticed.
Deliberate attention is rewarded, though more in some circumstances than in others. Sometimes the wind is a barely perceptible breeze. At other times it is a hurricane.
An overwhelming storm feels like fate. Our choices and influences can be diminished. But Providence does not erase the humbled spirit. A loving Father does not trample His loving children amid arrangements and directions beyond their understanding.
When all the world comes crashing in chaotic fury, the Creator continues to guide and to listen. The more raucously events swirl around us, the easier it can be to neglect those opportunities and subtle graces. But freedom and grace will never leave us entirely. God is with us and His rule does not oppress. Truth will set us free.
An entire generation has grown up without leading Democrats ever granting the validity of a Republican’s election to the presidency. It has been decades since Democrats acknowledged that they could lose the highest office fair and square.
Biden — a former Vice President and now a candidate for President — goes a step further by suggesting that Trump might not cede the presidency if defeated in the upcoming election.
Democrats are deliberately undermining faith in elections. This is dangerous.
It is made more dangerous by local Democrats’ refusals to enforce rule of law. According to this officer, if Seattle officials order police to abandon the city’s flagship headquarters like they already abandoned one police station to raiders, then 911 emergency calls will be disabled for the entire city. An American metropolis would tear itself apart.
The latest headline tells me a Wendy’s was burned in Atlanta last night. Media-fueled anger over a police shooting somehow got translated into destruction of the business which required police assistance. Why? Because that’s what a segment of our society does now. They burn and pillage under a flag of politics and cultural revolution. What began in Minneapolis over a misrepresented incident has, thanks to Democrats and their allies in media, spread to a dozen major cities across the United States.
“Cancel culture” is exploding across the country (indeed, across Western civilization) to punish or silence all public opposition to the bigoted Black Lives Matter campaign. It echoes censure in previous years of resistance to global warming hysteria, LGBT(+) activism, and other causes of the Left. People are losing jobs, contracts, advertisers, and being barred from public forums because the Left will not tolerate debate or contrary expression.
This occurs as millions of Americans — perhaps as many as 100 million — demand a fundamental transformation of America into an explicitly socialist system. Their last presidential candidate was, by implication of President Obama’s FBI director, a felon who for political reasons could not be prosecuted. Joe Biden’s primary challenger this past year, Bernie Sanders, is by his own measure more radical than Biden.
This occurs as countless businesses and families are under extreme duress, if not already bankrupted, by pandemic restrictions that might or might not have once been reasonable in defense of a poorly understood new contagion.
Any one of these would be disturbing by itself. Together, our way of life is being recklessly endangered. However many honorable Democrats remain in this nation must step forward to correct their party before things spin out of control.
I once heard that a parent can only be as happy as one’s least happy child. It’s good and natural that we focus on those most in need. Though as a society we have long been so fortunate in many ways compared to civilizations of history, still we worry about the poor, the sick, the lonely, and the abused.
Today, the first Sunday after Easter is Divine Mercy Sunday for Roman Catholics; so declared by Pope John Paul II. As suggested by visions of Jesus to Sister Faustina of Poland, on this day we pay special attention to the Lord’s immeasurable mercy. From the image of blood and water poured from Christ’s heart, symbolizing the terrible Passion and the beautiful Resurrection, we remember the gifts we have received without merit.
Every day, Christians pray to be forgiven “as we forgive those who tresspass against us.” His two greatest commandments link love of God and love of neighbor, so that true love of one is the expression of the other. Likewise, acceptance of mercy and sharing of mercy go hand-in-hand.
Mercy is always an offer waiting to be fulfilled by acceptance. Thus, the unrepentant are held to account by their own choice. But mercy is offered for all. To love our enemies includes this offer of mercy to our enemies. Are you ready to forgive everyone?
On Ricochet, there is always much justifiable anger. We speak of people who despise and mock us, who despise our families and our most sacred traditions, who lie to us, who steal from us, who seek to rule over us, who turn to corrupt delights and despoil so much that was beautiful, and so on. Evils abound, as they always have.
Christ came for sinners. That means all of us. But, like that parent of a wayward child or like the person who finds a grumbling addict in a place of beauty and bounty, Christ especially concerns Himself with those in most need of mercy and care.
It’s the persons who tax us most, the ones who do us wrong and shatter our calm, blocking every affection, who most need our offers of forgiveness and reconciliation. No villain has hurt you so much as he or she has hurt God — the one who makes all things for beauty and knows the fullest tragedy of every rejection.
Who do you need to forgive today? Begin with the ones who make you the angriest. Begin with the worst; the most hardened and most detestable. How wonderful it will be when any one of them unexpectedly accepts the graces you have requested on their behalf. The pains you endure today for love will be forgotten in the overwhelming light of God’s divine mercy.
In his homily today, Father Joseph Mary of EWTN noted that at Christ’s last supper only Judas the betrayer addresses Jesus as “Rabbi” — Teacher. The other apostles address Jesus as Lord.
It’s an amazing moment. Was Judas the Iscariot not with them in the boat when Christ calmed the storm and walked on water? How many miraculous healings, exorcisms, and resuscitations did Judas witness?
This is not a case of, “Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?” Judas willfully returned to disbelief after witnessing the proof again and again that Christ governs Creation. To forget Christ’s identity was to reject his own experiences, his own life. Judas imagined some satisfaction apart from truth and grasped desperately at that easier fiction.
This is a story not just of Christ but of human nature. In this, we recognize the will as master over reason, rather than its subject. A person is not a mere consequence of experience. There are choices until the very end.
We are meant to see ourselves in both Peter and Judas the Iscariot. Both betray Jesus, though Peter’s surrender to fear is perhaps of a milder nature than the obstinance and resentment of Judas.
Peter denies Jesus as his Lord and his friend three times. But he admits that fault, repents, and renews his devotion to Christ. He acknowledges his need of Christ’s forgiveness and His sacrifice. Peter begs for truth, love, and beauty while admitting he is not owed such wonderful gifts.
Judas does not return to Jesus after his betrayal. He flees, hiding his shame, and hangs himself — perhaps in self-condemnation, or perhaps in desperation to escape the graceless depravity he had embraced. Judas does not seek forgiveness. He does not proclaim Christ as Lord and himself a sinner. Jesus says “it would have been better for that man if he had never been born.”
Sometimes the hardest thing is to start the way back home. We must look at God in the eyes and ask to be forgiven. We must accept truth and love as a choice, not an inevitability.
There will be moments in life when you witness the impossible or the ineffable. Distant memories are easy to doubt. Resolve to believe for evermore what you know when revelation comes. From life, persistent willful faith must carry us ever forward; lest dim memories lead back into the darkness from which we once were saved.
Another day, another creek. This time, I roamed near Cypress Creek out west of town.
HAM hosted their annual blood drive. All donations are welcome. If you can’t get out, don’t fret. Houston Area Mosquitoes will come to you.
They were particularly aggressive around the creek and lakes. I ended up with about 25 bites. In the words of Jimi Hendrix, “There’s a red house over yonder / That’s where mosquitoes ate my neighbor.”
On the bright side, I can’t remember the last time I encountered so many honeysuckle vines. The aroma followed me everywhere. When I was a little kid, our dad sometimes took us into the woods to pick blackberries. Sucking the sweet nectar off a honeysuckle flower was a rare treat.
One field was covered in spring wildflowers. Bluebonnets, poppies, thistles, daisies, and more crowded together in the sunlight.
One must venture farther from the city to find endless fields. But pockets of wildflowers are frequent throughout northern Harris County.
A dozen egrets stood in a field between meals. This one loitered near the primrose. Closer to the water, I encountered herons, turtles, and a pretty garter snake.
Only a pair of great egrets continued fishing at midday, in a small stream. Surrounding shrubs offered a bit of shade. Unlike the turtles, the birds didn’t seem to mind people walking by along the woodland trails.
Have you been getting out to enjoy the sunshine during this lockdown?
My previous photography adventure can be viewed here.
Squirrels, for all their zany antics, are too polite to sneeze on you. Roaming around city streets might be an invitation to disaster right now. But there remains plenty of parkland and wilderness to wander free of worry. Just try to avoid sciurologists, which I assume are as erratic and unpredictable as their subjects.
Who knew Houston was surrounded by so many fine parks? Google, of course. We need to work on two-way communication.
Texas wildflowers are in bloom. In my area, Spring, this generally means blackberry vines and many varieties of clover. But up around The Woodlands one can find a few bluebonnets and indian paintbrushes.
I haven’t ventured far west this year. But in a single field one can find many smaller wildflowers that typically go unnoticed in the common hunt for bluebonnets. These pictures were taken in Magnolia.
While exploring a bayou, I could hear the gators chirping somewhere in the high grass. Maybe a trip down to Brazos Bend later will award some interesting shots. Turtles are a more common sight in local creeks. Thankfully, cottonmouths are waiting for the weather to get a little warmer.
I was too slow to capture a woodland skink half as thick as a beer can. But a prettier one, albeit a bit disfigured from The Birds, stuck around.
Birds can be as skittish as lizards. But neither this downy woodpecker nor molting great horned owl paid me any mind.
People don’t often venture to swamps to look for wildflowers. But sometimes you’ll find wild irises or lilies among the blackberry vines.
Even the pines host flowering vines this time of year.
Get outside, if you can. Beauty abounds even in the worst of times.
If any young reporters wish to prove their mettle, opportunities abound to explain the challenges businesses face in general quarantine. Even large corporations are already discussing layoffs and cancellation of projects that would otherwise enable more hiring.
When the owners of Butler House in Spring transformed the parking lot next door into a drive-in movie theater, they had “no idea” if anyone would show up. [….]
The movies are free, and the Butler House delivers food orders to your windows. Two movies — Sherlock Gnomes and Ferris Bueller’s Day — were shown Wednesday night.
How are businesses in your area adapting to endure this disruption?
Here, then, in their thirst for water, the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “Why then did you bring us up out of Egypt? To have us die of thirst with our children and our livestock?”
So Moses cried out to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me!
The people had grown so desperate and intemperate that Moses feared them.
[….] Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it for the people to drink. Moses did this, in the sight of the elders of Israel.
The place was named Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled there and tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD in our midst or not?”
They longed for water, but there was none to be found. Suddenly, from nothing, water sprang and hope was restored. The people’s salvation was not in sight, but in faith.
The Lord accomplishes much through the regular and mundane actions of people. Our societies are rightly bustling with activity to defend against and conquer the virus. But hope begins with prayer, remembering He who brings life from nothing. If we must suffer long before the remedy, it is a familiar trial.
My parish has initiated 24-hour adoration (prayer beside the tabernacle) for the foreseeable future. I’m sure ours is not the only renewal of dedication.
In the latest issue of Imprimis from Hillsdale College, Christopher Caldwell offers a disturbing explanation for how Democrat and Republican voters drifted so far apart.
[….] the civil rights laws of the 1960s, and particularly the Civil Rights Act of 1964, divided the country. They did so by giving birth to what was, in effect, a second constitution, which would eventually cause Americans to peel off into two different and incompatible constitutional cultures. This became obvious only over time. It happened so slowly that many people did not notice.
[….] What I am talking about are the emergency mechanisms that, in the name of ending segregation, were established under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These gave Washington the authority to override what Americans had traditionally thought of as their ordinary democratic institutions. It was widely assumed that the emergency mechanisms would be temporary and narrowly focused. But they soon escaped democratic control altogether, and they have now become the most powerful part of our governing system.
From racial redistricting to more recent judicial overrides of state legislatures and presidential powers, Caldwell argues that the Left has adopted a super-constitutional model that suspends rule of law whenever is necessary to effect desired reforms.
Think of it as a soft revolution of punctuated effect, asserting itself only when manipulation of the formal system seems too difficult. They praise the Constitution when convenient and ignore it otherwise. That leaves in place the body of law while winking at non-legislative commissars.
What do you think; is this a useful way of framing the political divide? Does it suggest a course of correction? Is the Constitution on a path to irrelevance?
Can or should Civil Rights legislation be repealed?
Today, we hear again of Christ’s temptation by Satan in the desert. Note what occurs in the second temptation:
Then the devil took him to the holy city, and made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him,
“If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you’ and ‘with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus answered him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.’”
At some point, every Christian encounters this trick. Modern people must worry that some careless utterance recorded on social media many years ago will be taken out of its casual context and employed as a weapon of defamation. But even true statements can become points of confusion when isolated from broader knowledge and understanding.
I admire Christians who can quote Biblical passages and identify each verse from memory. The best I can manage is to remember something well enough to locate it after a little digging. There is value in attention to details and to the sequence of revelation.
However, too little knowledge or an inflexibly tight focus can mislead. Someone once quoted Jesus to me as having said, “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” That is true. But Christ immediately continues, “For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” The first statement by itself can be interpreted as a condemnation of wealth. But in the full context we learn that the wealthy too can be saved; because holiness is seen by what we give rather than by what we lack, by humble reliance on the Lord rather than by cunning preparation.
In one book, we are admonished for failing to act on our beliefs. In another, we are admonished for fretful planning as if the Lord is less attentive to our needs than He is to birds and flowers. Our Christian faith is full of difficult balances and paradoxes, seasons and conditions, and so much that keeps us learning even thousands of years since the words were first shared. Revelation has concluded, but the journey of understanding what has been revealed continues to unfold.
Temptations born of misunderstanding can come both from without and from within. May the Lord have mercy on us all for moments when our own confusion leads others astray. And may the Lord grant us the humility to seek His guidance before we open our yaps.
The Chinese government demands socialism be taught by priests. Many churches have been demolished. Christian funerals have been banned. A steadfast bishop lives on the street because the government threatens anyone who would house him.
As so many Westerners today ignorantly condemn capitalism and demand socialism, no country promotes such a rosy image of socialism as communist China. Unlike its South American and Mediterranean counterparts, China seems orderly and prosperous.
That’s the nature of wealthy tyrannies. When citizens are slaves, governments build grand monuments (Olympic cities, even). From Giza to Versailles, the products of power sure look fine. Around tyrannical rulers is always a class of prosperous enablers, exhibiting visible privileges bought with hidden favors. Visitors are sure to meet the happiest people, because naysayers are shot or imprisoned.
Welcome to the latest iteration of socialism, where you are free to buy but not to pray.
I was moved by this article in which Randall Smith at The Catholic Thing presents the loaves and fishes story from a new angle. What about the boy? “What boy?” you might be asking.
The five loaves and two fish were his entire food for the day. When the apostles asked him, “Can we have those?” we can imagine him replying: “These? Not these. This is all I’ve got. Go find a rich guy with a big crate of bread.” But he didn’t. He gave the little he had. Not much, but it was enough.
Imagine being him and having people ask you: “You gave the five loaves and two fish that fed five thousand?” What do you say to that? “Well, sort of. It’s not like I fed five thousand people.” “No, but if you hadn’t given the five loaves and two fish, it wouldn’t have happened. It was like Mary. You did your part; you said ‘yes.’ And that made all the difference.”
Sacrificial love does not require wealth. There is always something to give.
The politics of envy is not only ugly and unjust. It impoverishes people both materially and spiritually. In envy, people lose the experience of charity, the aspect of love and gift of spirit that prioritizes others before oneself.
The modern secular ethos says, “You have little and deserve more.” The traditional pious ethos says, “You are blessed by God and should be a blessing for others.” The former condemns the poor as helpless peons deprived of the fullness of life. The latter claims that the poor can enjoy life abundantly and that it is selfless giving which will make them rich.
As Thomas Sowell has said, we are all born poor. Poverty is the natural state of Man and it is wealth that needs explanation. But to be poor is not to be helpless and insignificant. There is nobility in love which cannot be purchased, nor lost. A kind word costs nothing. A smile is not spent but summoned.
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That expression has come to signify a person of privilege completely out of touch with common people. “Cake? Okay, queenie. How about we address the hunger first?” But we can do better. Why not cake?
Roger Scruton noted that the “form follows function” philosophy of architecture is mistaken when “function” neglects the constant human desire for beauty. In “Why Beauty Matters,” he referred to studies showing that the productivity of laborers is improved by working in beautiful settings. Modern architects were not wrong to emphasize utility. They were only misled to believe that beauty is a frivolous addition, rather than a practical aspect.
Similarly, Mother Theresa of Calcutta frequently reminded her admirers, both faithful and secular, that her service to the poor was not primarily material. Above all, she emphasized the need for people to feel loved and appreciated. It would not suffice to feed the hungry and mend the sick. They need smiles and laughter, touch and sincere conversation, so that charity can be accepted not as a burden or cold duty but as a gift of personal concern and communion.
For practical efficiency, we often structure our gift-giving by division into bare necessities. “I could give this cause $100. But I could give to 5 causes if I give $20 each.” We send rice and dry goods. We donate old clothes.
All gifts are helpful, of course. Sometimes the most basic are the most appreciated. Sometimes only certain things will survive the journey.
But people don’t live on spreadsheets. We internalize the differences between a wave and a hug, between a simple loaf of bread and a delicious cake. Sometimes, at least, give your best.
Sunday was the Feast of the Presentation, when Christians recall the day Joseph and Mary presented the baby Jesus at the temple, offering Him back to God the Father. It is a mystery, like so many others, in which Christ in a sense returns home.
We do not belong to ourselves. Though so many choices are afforded to us to shape our own lives, our lives ultimately belong to our Creator. Our children are gifts for us to steward on His behalf. All of our many gifts are for giving again, including the gift of life itself.
Sunday also was Candlemas, a celebration adopted from the Eastern tradition involving blessing of candles.
Prayer candles are a beautiful, peaceful tradition shared by various faiths from time immemorial. Even in the non-deistic faiths of China and Japan, candles represent the communication of the earthly to the heavenly, passing from visible light and smoke into invisible scents and hopes.
In Christianity, candles also represent a great consolation: that light and darkness, good and evil, are not equal forces in an endless war. Rather, God as the Light of the world is entirely beyond resistance. Darkness is merely absence of light, wholly or in part. It is always and effortlessly undone by light’s presence.
Like the candles we hold, Christians are called to carry the Light of Heaven wherever we go, to be beacons of God’s great promise that all darkness will pass away in the fullness of His presence. “The Lord is my light and my salvation. / Whom shall I fear?”
For now, the lights may flicker. But even shining dimly, we are never without effect. Wherever a soul carries the peace of God, there His victory is already with us and life blooms, rearing color from the dark soil.
Sunday was the Feast of the Presentation, when Christians recall the day Joseph and Mary presented the baby Jesus at the temple, offering Him back to God the Father. It is a mystery, like so many others, in which Christ in a sense returns home.