On Writing

Every writer I knows has trouble writing.

Joseph Heller

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Gee, that is a problem.  I never have a problem writing.  Maybe I am not a writer.

To me writing is like breathing.  Like seeing.  Like watching the human parade of the morally and spiritually disshoveled with a blithering idiot section (reserved for those with a public presence), each marching out-of-step with one another – and in this I include the upper middle class haughty bourgeiose – the pretenders of affluence, the self-proclaimed “special people” and those of faux status and little humor – the “intellectuals,” the people near the top of the pyramid, the celebrites and the life-long elected – “ahummm” – “public servants” who seem to gain more belly fat with each successive electoral victory – balloning in time to the size of a small banana “republic” or a well-fed water buffalo.

I was born poor.  To this day I have not become a man who looks like he swallowed a small Volkswagon or Toledo, Ohio.

I can still see my feet clearly with no interruption at the waist line.  Poverty, dyslexia betrayal and untimely loss kept me humble – a near failsafe against a culture of being “special.”

As to writing – life has always seemed to me to be hand to hand combat and an hilarious Marx Brothers adventure.  A combination of terror and hysterical laughter.  This – more than an adequate mix for a verbal man such as myself.

Long ago someone said to me – “You write like you speak.”  Ah, that is the answer to the puzzle.

I am who I have always been.  The same eyes looking at variations of the same insanity with rare moments of crystal clear brilliance on our worse and on our best days.

Light and severe dark produce the same product:  I write from this – the combat, the terror, the instinct to fight back, the absurd idiocy and the humanity of it all – delivered outside to reside within until its moment arrives.

The crowd and its antics, like God, write of me – I just transcribe.  Somewhere in my head and heart the notes have been stored, the images kept fresh.

If I am a writer it is all because of what God gave me.  Blame Him.  I write from the gifts of pain and suffering, from cunning and courage – and from the endless laugther at the folly of it … from the surrounding of beauty, heartbreak, sacrifice, heroism, pathos, common injustice, freinds, people who loved me and the uncommon victory that emerges now and again.

Shalom.

 

 

 

 

Battle of Words

… false seeing … a love affair with words and ideas … But you cannot really love words; you can only think them.  You cannot really love reality with a judgmental mind, because you’ll always try to control it, fix it, or understand it before you give yourself to it.  And it usually is never fixed enough to deserve your protected self.  So you stay on Delay, Stall or Pause forever.

Richard Rohr, in The Naked Now

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When you pause to think about it – each day we are surrounded by other people’s words – a virtual down-pour of words, ideas, concepts, complaints.  The mere saying of them is accepted in the culture and common discourse as if these words convey something useful, truthful.

Need an example?  We speak of “multiple genders,” children in the third grade “deciding” that they are not male, but female – not female but male.  A man says his male sexual partner is his “wife.”

Yes, words are appropriated and their meaning distorted.  What was once “A” is now “Z.”

When life as it is is abandoned, false words and proclamation emerge and Truth vanishes.  We see here a love affair with words – a love affair with self, with fantasy, distortion – words used to personal and political advantage and the “hell with reality.”  In this, a journey away from truth in favor of fiction … and the added feature of fragmenting, dividing and destroying culture and shared community. 

Think too of ideology.  Despite historic evidence to the contrary ideologues tout the utility and “benefit” of socialism and the road to Communism – advocate for it without regard to its destuctiveness.  Here we have selfishness – the desire to tear down what others have built – anything to deny reality and life.

Things successful and unbroken are smashed with these words so those who cannot wade into life as it presents, or into history and common sense – arrogantly attempt to bend us to their disorientation and even their unhappiness and hatred.

You see this battle and its divide in our political parties – one houses those who hi-jack, usurp words and ideas for their own use and the other party that fights to salvage words, protect ideas and concepts that afford common understanding, support the essential and successful structures (marriage, for example) and institutions that have given us peace,  prospertity and freedom.

The battle over words as we have seen it thus far does one remarkably destructive thing – it has the capacity to alter the experience of human experience … the likes of  which substitute illness for health.

Where are you in this battle of words and established truth?

Shalom.

Our Value: God Resides in Us

In truth, if I consider what God has placed in me, what He works in me through His grace, I am worth a great deal, I am beyond price: “For you are bought with a great price … You are worth what God is worth.”

Adolphe Tanquerry, S.S., D.D. in The Spiritual Life

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With the above in mind, can anyone be without purpose?  Come to doubt their value?  Feel as through they do not matter?  I say, “No.”

If we possessed this one thought as expressed above (that God resides within each one of us), we cannot contemplate that we have no value, no purpose, no reason for being.

Yes, it is that simple.  When we lose the primary fact that we are created by God for a purpose and that we have value, we carry the value of God.  As such, we are never without value.

With this in mind our task is simply this: to do good as God would and does seek in and through us.  Yes, we have a purpose in being … it is our task to show that value in how we live and what we do and what we say.

Shalom.

Becoming Obvious – With yesterday’s disgraceful performance by the Democrats in the Senate Judiciary Committee, it is becoming obvious the Democrats are pursuing a path to destroy any one like Attorney General William Barr because they cannot sustain their political existence if it is established that during the last Presidency Democrats acted to spy on and destroy an elected President and violated the law, falsified documents and lied to the Federal Court in the process.  In short, the Democrats are insuring their own demise by this conduct.  Ironically, their conduct confirms that they know they have engaged in lawless conduct in order to alter an electoral result and cover-up their past unlawful conduct.  Their current conduct ironically confirms their guilt.

This is a sad and very serious time for this nation and our Representative Federal Republic, its Constitution, the rule of law, our electoral system and our freedoms.

 

Knowing the Gift … and acting on it …

Most people, quite sadly and with disastrous consequences, do not know that the gift is already given.

Richard Rohr, in The Naked Now

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We are given the Divine Presence of God and within that and residing with us is faith, hope and love.  Yet, many ignore this gift and some of those who do not know this gift, this experience, are by their words and deeds telling us that they are disordered, that their ideas are ignorant of the gift and in that ignorance they advocate behaviors and policies and world views which are antithetical to faith, hope and love.

You see this in political candidates who advance abortion to the new-born child.  Not satisfied with taking the life of a child within the womb, they see killing a newborn as a “choice!”

Think, too, of those who wish that felons may vote while in prison or that all manner of souls have welcome access to this country without regard to their conduct, misbehavior – even when it is unlawful, sinister, or intended to destroy this nation or engage in criminal conduct.  Think, too, of the elected and aspiring politicians who seek to create a climate where all is “free” and no one is accountable.  Think of those who wish to dismantle free enterprise, the U.S. Constitution or the Electoral College because their side did NOT win a presidential election.  And think too of those among us who wish to accommodate all manner of sexual deviancy.

People are known by their words and deeds.  Many among us tell you that they do not know of the experience of the God within and that they are hostile to the idea of God and those who espouse this belief.  This is both a shame and very dangerous in a world where Christianity and Judaism are under increasing attack while the West stands by and does next to nothing to defend itself.  Serious business, Friends.

Shalom.

 

… subject to sin and death …

Happy Easter!!!

“… dying he has destroyed our death, and rising her has restored our life.”

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There is no human life on earth that is not subject to sin and death.  Sin fractures relationships with others and indeed fragments our very self.  Death is “that ubiquitous reaper.”  But Christ changes that default setting that bedevils man and woman, child and adult.

Christ on the Cross redeems each of us from sin and neuters the dread of death, the pain of this mortal exodus.  In Christ we are upright in soul and being – sin does not imprison and death does not threaten.

In Christ we have a whole new existence – human wholeness, spiritual expanse, contentment, strength, truth, humility, certainty amid the unknown, community, friendship everlasting.  In Christ, all troubles teach and insight and wisdom abounds, patience too.

In Christ, love prevails as love is practiced in all manner of life’s encounters.

Imagine a culture in which consciousness of Christ was for each of us – the substance of each daily transaction, each moment, each idle hour, each day month after month, year after year.  Imagine Western Civilization restored to its formative reality – Imagine America and Americans at their historic best – humble, compassionate, brave, sacrificial, honorable, hardworking, strong, independent, dignified, sober, gentle, just, forgiving, confident, grateful for each day and each breath, faithful and kind.

The worm, Friends, is turning.  We have gone too long divided, disgruntled, angry, joyless, self-serving and without Christ.

The truth of the matter is quite simple – we need not “fundamentally alter America.”  Those who think this are mistaken, ignorant of many things – and in need of faith.  For them we might pray.

Shalom.

 

Christ Jesus or the Posture of Judas?

Holy Saturday

” … You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified.  He has been risen; he is not here.  Behold the place where he laid.”

Mark 16:6

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Jesus was plunged into sorrow, but triumphed over this world and all its vices and deceits.  This said, as a Judeo-Christian culture – how can so many who say they are Christians act as if what Jesus did does not matter today?

Is it not true that if we actually believed would we put so much trust in politics, government, in seeking power, and focus all our efforts on material goods, or destructive pleasures and addictive vices?

Western Culture and this nation will rise or fall in direct proportion to our belief in God and, as Christians, our relationship with Christ Jesus.

Today our faith and traditions and founding propositions are under attack … and for Christians it will be our relation to Christ which will decide the day.  One of our two major political parties and our once reliable press advances perspectives and policies that are hostile to what the West is and the place of God in our lives and public our affairs.

Speak not and act not and you will have assumed the posture of Judas.

Dear God, help us to see the glory of the empty tomb and to act upon that glory each and every day.

Shalom.

Who is worth your attention?

Good Friday

… aware that everything was now finished, Jesus said, “I thirst.”

John 19:28

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Take a moment today to stop and let your mind feed your heart, as on this Holy Day it most surely will.  When the heart is in play the soul is touched … on this Holy Day even more so than on most others.

Make a few minutes for this silent retreat – from the head, to the heart, to the soul.

In silence now, I come to this question: What did Jesus do?  And to this recitation – He entered mortal life as the incarnation of Our Father and all that Our Father is and enkindled in us.  He healed those who suffered.  He befriended the friendless.  He called others to the Father.  He taught others including the religious scholars he encountered.  He made the sinful clean.  He suffered and was rejected.  He hung on the Cross and was taunted and ridiculed.  He redeemed us by His death … and was resurrected!

I ask this question and provide the above answer in the hopes that you might look around you and particularly look at those who appear prominently in our mass culture – those whose images, voices, opinions and criticisms we see and hear all to frequently.  Indeed I ask in this – what have they done to justify our attention?  And I mean people in politics, the intellectuals, elites, princes of the tech industry, those in media with unrestrained opinions about all things, and the endless “advocates” of self-serving (destructive) politically (in)correct views.

Who is worth your attention?  Jesus or the talking heads of present day American mass communication culture?

I’ll take Christ … and proclaim that no one who seeks our attention warrants our time or consideration who does not show he or she has lived a life representative of the selfless nature of the Son of God.

Shalom.

… intimacy with the Father …

The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing that I lack …

Psalm 23:1

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Do you ever ask yourself how did Jesus endure what he did?  In this question I suppose it is wise to realize that his strength came from his intimacy with the Father.

Yes, our strength, peace and contentment comes from our intimacy with God our Father.  Yet, think about this: what happens when we drift away from God?  When a culture divorces itself from God?  When God is no longer welcomed in the public square?

In such circumstances whither strength?  Courage?  Confidence?  Hope?  Friendship?  Community?  Family?  Love?  Peace?  Tranquility?  Insight?  Truth?  Wisdom?  Certainty?

Do you wish disintegration?  Illness?  Confusion?  Division?  Hostility?  Destruction?  A nation’s decline?  Then deny God … and you will gather all these and much more that is injurious.  Be certain of this – Western Civilization itself rests on Christianity, Judaism and the belief in God and our relationship with God.  And be certain of this as well: there are within and without those who deny God and aim to destroy those who believe in God and nation’s which reflect that belief.

Perhaps the tragic fire at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris is the impetus we need to realize that we in the West are a people whose very existence rests on belief in God and the faith which embodies that belief.  Make no mistake in this one thing we are in a very, very serious struggle.

Shalom.

Betrayal …

Reclining at table with his disciples, Jesus was deeply troubled and testified, “Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”

John 13:21

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Betrayal.  It is hard to imagine anything more disillusioning than violating a relationship.

Think about it, one has a trusted relationship and violates that trust.  You can see it in a man who fathers a child but deserts his child and the woman with whom he fathered the child.

Imagine Judas who was mentored by Jesus.  Think of what he did.  He sat at the table with Jesus and his disciples and took his morsel given at the table and walked away … from Light to Darkness – that is betrayal.  Judas choose alienation over sacred loyalty, over friendship, over duty and obligation, over faith, over honesty, over trust, evil over good, his own desires over God.

And then there is Peter.  Pledging his loyalty to Jesus, he denied knowing Our Lord three times before the cock would crow.  Yes, cowardice got the best of Peter.  Yes, for Peter fear dominated faith.  Yes, Peter, too, choose alienation.  Yes, for Peter trust was abandoned, friendship was dishonored – God denied.

Look about you today.  Are we a culture of trust?  Or is betrayal more common?

Are we a culture of heroes or betrayers?  One in which citizen is alienated from citizen?  A culture of unity or division?  Is division commonplace?  Is it the way of a political party?  Do women create division from men?  Do father’s desert their children?  Men and women divorce one another with ease?

Alienation.  Betrayal.  Distrust.  Hero or coward?  Loyal or not?  Divisive or unifying?  Neighbor or not?  Friend or enemy?  One alone or many together?  God-full or Godless?

Shalom.

No Mia Culpas

” … a stillness in the room … that is the passing of the wings of tragedy.”

Whittaker Chambers

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Now that Mr. Mueller & Company have determined that there was no criminal conduct by Donald Trump and those involved in his presidential campaign can we expect a mia culpa from the Democrat and Socialist Left?  The Trump haters?  The “news” media turned-gossip mongers and wishful-thinkers?  No.

Why do I say this?  I invoke the Alger Hiss rule.  And what is that?  Despite a clear record of the well-born Mr. Hiss being a Communist agent tucked into the upper echelons of U.S. State Department (he was instrumental in the World War II Yalta Conference that conceded Eastern Europe to Soviet Russia), he NEVER admitted to his subversive activity despite the proof assembled in historian Alan Weinstein’s Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (1978) and others.

You can expect no better from today’s Junior Varsity Left.  Doubt it?  Remember Nikolai Bukharin during the Stalin regime who plead guilty to a crime he never committed despite the penalty of execution which was levied against him.

The Left true-believers rarely admit guilt or error preferring more so to “double down.”  Introspective and humble they are not.  Party first, party last, party always!

Shalom.

Postscript – I often talk about the experience of the human experience and make this point: our exclusionary secular culture has changed for the worse the experience of the human experience.  Yes, we are poorer psychologically, emotionally, socially, intellectually, inter-personally and spiritually.  We have exiled God and our relationship with the mystery of human existence and the unknown.  The negative consequences of our disregard for religious narrative make us less than we are made to be … and we generate far more needless problems, worries, anxieties, hostilities, loneliness and deadly isolation.  There are no mia culpas among the faithless, the Godless … and Marxists are faithless and Godless.