Considering Evil

The existence of evil is not so much an obstacle to faith in God as a proof of God’s existence, a challenge to turn towards that in which love triumphs over hatred, union over division, and eternal life over death.

Nicholas Berdyaev, Dream and Reality

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I am particularly alarmed at the verbiage in public discourse that conveys evil when faith is needed.  Mind you, the political rhetoric on the Left, in particular, has been most troubling … and it has ratcheted up over time and found allies in what must be a free and fair press and media.

What once was helpful dialogue has turned in time to ideology, division and too often to hatred.

In this is destruction and the foretelling of violence, if it is not halted – unless cooler heads prevail, and voices come to echo faith and wisdom, unity, good will, fellowship, compassion and community.

Let’s pause to consider evil – as our words seem to tell us now that we do not know the measure of evil, its destructive force – its capacity to destroy all in its way, tear down, maim and murder.

Think of this: “Judge, not, that ye be not judged.”  These the words of Christ.

Christ does not say we ought to be silent when evil appears – but rather that we first must judge ourselves before we judge others.

Sadly, I see not much proof of pause in the words of those so quick to accuse others of evil intent and evil acts.  So think again of Christ: “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote in thy brother’s eye.”  (Matthew 7:5)

Today we are too quick to judge, to claim a moral ground that those who judge and condemn show no evidence of actually occupying.  Nae, what we see is ideological “got-ya” moments – the opportunity to make of morality itself a weapon of evil, a way to advance one’s quest for power, one’s idiocratic ideas and demonstratively discredited ideology.

Yes, evil is being “addressed” by evil.  There can be no greater harm done, no better way to perpetuate division and nudge us closer to more violence and bloodshed, than to hijack morality to advance one’s private desires for gain, superiority, power.  Such conduct is evil itself.

A response to evil must have pure objectives – to correct, to teach, to heal, to build relationship, advance fraternity, community, repair misunderstandings, restore justice, advance love, create a stronger bond with others, with what is right and good and lasting – to grow closer to God and others – while excising us from hatred and the craven desire for power and retribution for one’s real or imagined slights and injuries.

I close with this: those who see themselves as perpetual “victims” are consigning themselves to a life of unhappiness and anger when in their mere but sacred being they are, in reality, sons and daughters of a loving God.

Evil begets evil – until we seek the Good that is above and in us.

Shalom.

 

 

 

Man Without God & Banana Republics

After trips and computer problems, we are back to a more regaular schedule.  Writing in the morning.  Here we go.

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Man without God is no longer man.

Nicholas Berdyaev, in The End of Our Time

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I write about faith and culture – secular culture in particular, that is: culture hostile to God, culture that “glorifies” not God but man himself and herself.

Our nation was founded on liberty that relies on belief in God and the honor that accrues to those who realize that they have a sacred relationship with their Creator.  As Berdyaev says so simply and accurately: “Man without God is not man.”

The relationship between God, and belief, liberty and the human person is vital to our success, freedom and security.  Yet, alas we see the Democrat Party of the Left acting in opposition to our wellbeing because they do not appreciate and protect our legacy of God-belief-liberty-freedom-success-security.

What we see today in the lawlessness of Congressman Nadler’s attempt to discredit a good man and excellent lawyer in Attorney General William Barr as is expected.  “Expected” you say?  Yes, we have seen this Democrat disregard for law as the product of godlessness and its predictable by-products: chaos and destruction.

For those who question this characterization of the Democrats – I sight an article by Charles Krauthammer in The Washington Post from August 16, 2013 (when it used to be a relatively serious and somewhat reliable newspaper).  The article was entitled “The Lawless Presidency” aimed at Barack Obama and his lawless actions – actions that discredit the U.S. Constitution and show us man shrunken to miniture when he acts without God.

Doctor Krauthammer reports the following – Mr. Obama’s Justice Department unilaterally deviated from federal drug laws so as not to punish otherwise punishable crimes.  Likewise, the Obama administration waived portions of the dubious Obamacare law without any provison of the law allowing this.  He personally directed a “70-plus-percent subsidy for insurance premiums paid by congressman and their personal staffs – under a law that denies subsidies for anyone that well off.”  Likewise he lawlessly suspended a cornerstone of Obamacare “the employer mandate.”

Krauthhammer further reveals that Mr. Obama granted exemptions from the law to preferred businesses, unions, and “other well-lobbied, very special interests.”  Krauthammer also reports Mr. Obama unilaterally eased immigration law and exceeded his authority and gutted the legislative process in doing so.

The point to be made is this: Mr. Obama (a man of no particular achievement or work record) acted unilaterally – acted far outside his lawful authority – and no one protested and no one stopped him.  Congressman Nadler is proceeding in the same manner.

So we come to this: man unrestained and without God is far less than man and the problems he creates are utterly destructive.  A moderately faithful man would know this – alas this is the Democrat Party of the Left today.  No God, no man.

Today Democrats are a lawless and destructive cohort.  Our silence and acquiesence will be our demise.

As Doctor Krauthammer notes acts such as we saw with Mr. Obama (and like we see with the Democrats today) are “banana republic stuff.”

Shalom.

Seeing as the Mystic Sees

… it is difficult for churches, government, and leaders to move beyond ego, the desire for control, and public posturing.  Everything divides into oppositions … vested interests pulling against one another.  Truth is no longer possible at this level of conversation.

… you can lead people only as far as you yourself have gone …

Richard Rohr, in The Naked Now

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Richard Rohr writes of two monks of the 11th and 12th century – Hugh of St. Victor monastery in Paris, France, and Richard of the same monastery.  He tells us that these monks wrote that humans have been given three different ways of seeing.  One way arises from the eyes that produce thoughts.  The second way of seeing leads to reason, and to reflection and meditation.  The third way of seeing leads to true understanding and contemplation.

It is the third way of seeing that is the rarest and most evolved.  Whereas the first way of seeing is common, it produces little depth of experience, is more concrete and binds one to the immediate without nuance.  The second way of seeing allows one to relish his or her power to conceive of the material disposition of the world.  Ah, but the third way of seeing allows one to do more – it allows one to “taste” existence, to be in awe before the underlying mystery, coherence, and spaciousness that connects one with everything!

The third way of seeing is seeing as a mystic sees – seeing as God has designed us to see.  This seeing exceeds the senses, does not rest on knowledge and intellect alone – but rather sees in a manner that expands his or her consciousness – and in this is transformed, made whole, lives in and above at the same time, is mortal and immortal, contented, whole and wise in ways that neither the senses nor intellect can offer.

In commenting on this Rohr says “I cannot emphasize strongly enough that the separation and loss of these three necessary eyes is at the basis of much of the short-sight-edness and religious crises in the Western world.”  Hence the above quote that leads into today’s blog.

The view that Rohr shares, Dear Friends, highlights how and why “identity politics” is so destructive, so wrong-headed, so primitive, tribal, hostile, aggressive, hateful and unappetizing.  Those with greater depth of human experience cannot abide that which pits one against another in a death struggle.  We are, after all, not made to be enemies to one another but rather brothers and sisters to one another.

This historic moment requires us to see as the mystic sees.

Shalom.

Destroying Blessings We Have

Solo piano on a Sunday afternoon.  Fitting for one of many decades – when Dear Ones are lost to mortal time yet linger in the clouds, and the sky, and the sun and shadows, and the open fields and spring breeze, in the green of it all and in the silence broken only by singular notes of the soloist at play.  

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Books are a storehouses of human ideas.  The three great religions which come from the Middle East centre their practice on a sacred book and indeed are frequently known as Religions of the Book: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Diarmaid MacCullough, in Christianity the First Three Thousand Years

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Our faith is a faith of ideas – ideas that led to Western Civilization, its structures, its culture, its law, the nation state, our respect for individual liberty and for freedom and democracy, trade and the free market, prosperity, greatness in education, in the arts and science, and in human existence itself as it flourished.

MacCullough reminds us the the early centuries of Christianity were spent wrestling with difficult questions, with the understandings of Graeco-Roman philosophy and Judaism.  Further, he reminds us that social and political history is derived from ideas that appear in Judaism and Christianity and in our Greek and Roman forbearers.

The truth of the matter is that social and political history is dominated by theology.  But alas this is something that we scantly recall today.  Now we have those in authority who have no earthly idea of what the Oxford Professor MacCullogh knows so well as one of the world’s leading figures on the history of Christianity.

Now we have among us childish people who wish to tear down what centuries have produced – tear down without an inkling of knowledge of the past as it generously protects us today in our institutions, attitudes, structures, default settings, common language and long-accepted ideas.

Today the ideologues on the Left and the upstart dolts in the appropriately named “genreation x” desire a scorched earth and the destruction of common and critical institutions and relationships such as between man and woman, mother and child, husband and wife, adult and child, as to biological identity and what have you.

Ignorant destruction is NOT a pretty thing.  And its sweeps can occur in far shorter a time than it took to create what will be destroyed. 

Let’s be very plain – those who pursue radical ideas – who advance radical and immediate fundamental change disclose to us that they are not smart enough to manage even the simplest tasks or intellectual activity.  If you doubt this, I recall two simple statements of our most recent past President who boasted that he would “fundamentally change America” and welcomed himself on the public stage by saying “We are the people we have been waiting for.”  Only a man with no accomplishments in his life can lay claim to such nonsense … as in “I’ve done nothing to date – but will undo what many people before me have done at great price … ”

Yes, turn your back on Christianity, and on old white men, and history and free markets and our Constitution, on the liberties it protects, and on this Representative Federalist System of autonomous states and individual freedom and expect barbarism and tribal conflict amid the unjustified destruction and chaos that befalls the anger and ignorance we see and hear now.

Some are odds with who we are and what good its conveys.  Beware.

Shalom.

Knowing Joy and Sorrow

Life demands for its completion and fulfillment a balance between joy and sorrow.  But because suffering is … disagreeable, people naturally prefer not to ponder how much fear and sorrow fall to the lot of man.  So they speak … about progress and the greatest possible happiness, forgetting happiness … is poisoned if the measure of suffering has not been fulfilled.

Carl Jung, M.D., in Psychotherapy and a Philosophy of Life (Collected Works, Vol. 16)

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Where are the adults and wisdom figures today?  Not in politics.  Not in higher education.  Not in media.  Not in journalism.  Not in public life.  Not in the law.  Surely not in the established bureaucracies of the government.  And most assuredly not in entertainment.  Not among the Leftists and the whining ideologues, nor among the “professional” advocacy class and the liberals on television or the products of “identity politics.”

Nope, we are short of mature, wise adults.

In large measure this is due to having few people with honestly examined lives.  Few who are familiar with human psychology, philosophy, the history of Western Civilization or history itself, few familiar with the Classics of literature, and fewer still who are spiritually developed and hence engaged in faith and guided by a religious narrative.

Super-power notwithstanding, a nation does not survive that is not populated with those who are broadly educated and are humbled by a life in which both joy and sorrow have been experienced.

When I look at the assembled collection of Democrat presidential aspirants I think only of this – “what a motley crew!”  Not a one to whom I’d feel comfortable giving a sharpened pencil.  Likewise, I prefer not to give attention to anyone in journalism – such is the state of that enterprise today.

So where does this leave one?  To the task of independent self-education – becoming familiar with a range of disciplines that instruct as to the collected understanding of the human person for good and ill.  And from this base – to the individual life lived to experience and know both joy and sorrow … which renders us sober, grateful, insightful, steady, humble, wise, courageous, faithful and joy-filled.  

Alas the miss-mash we see in the nonsense of a secular society stripped of wisdom and insight ought to call us back to common sense, more silence than chatter, and quiet application of life dedicated to proper education and conduct now simply honored in their abandonment.

Shalom.

Faith and Identity #3

3:03 a.m. – how nice it is to awake in the full night of silence to think about faith

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Faith is a backward-looking virtue.  It concerns who we are … “the mystical chords of memory.”

Deirdre N. McCloskey, in The Bourgeois Virtues

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In faith you are connected with those who have come before you – with a stream of being that reaches to the very distant past, the sacrifice of others, their fidelity.  Their story is our story.

In faith we belong to others – to Saint Peter and Saint John – to Abraham and Martha and Mary and Lazarus … to Aquinas, St. Augustine, to Simon of Cyrene, the men on the road to Emmaus – to centuries of faithful Jews and Christians.

In faith we have identity … a place in a long story that has no end.

In a world too often focused on the immediate, the immaterial, on desire, immersed in anxiety, loneliness, doubt and worry – we have in faith: certainty, confidence, cause, connection, and a call to life.

In faith we have as Aristotle says “another self,” – in faith is solidarity and union with one another now, in the past and in what is to come.  In faith we know love – a love that runs to what has come before, what is now, and what will be in all the tomorrows yet to come.

In faith, particular differences do not matter for the faith others possess is the faith we possess.  Ethnicity, race, age, social status, wealth and such do not matter to those who share a faith.

The broad identity of faith is the union of belief.  We are, in faith, what we believe.  Therein is our solace, our identity, our purpose, our meaning, our stability and our happiness.

Shalom.

Faith as Identity #1

Missed posting yesterday.  Stood with a friend in a long anticipated hearing on a complicated and contested legal matter.  Matter “concluded” at long last.

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The theological virtues are above the nature of man, whereas intellectual and moral virtues belong to the nature of man … Therefore the theological virtues should be distinguished … The intellectual and moral virtues perfect the human intellect and appetite in proportion to human nature, but the theological virtues do so supernaturally.

St. Thomas Aquinas, in Theologiae

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If this be so, how can you neglect faith?  If your perfection requires your spiritual development, who would be foolish enough to listen to the endless number of people like Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, A.O.C., et al when they speak about anything whatsoever.

Yes, in the present time, there are not many people in politics, news, the celebrity class, academia, the “professions” or what have you who warrant our time or attention.

Let’s face it, we are NOT discreet listeners.  Indeed, we should be.

I often hear others say (in response to some injustice) “how can X or Y let this (the injustice) happen?”  It is, in all honesty, a childish reaction to the world around them and injustice in particular.  It is a question asked by one who does not know what Aquinas and others have talked about for ages … the primacy of faith and perceptions derived from faith are central to all inquiries and understanding of the world we inhabit and those people and events in it.

Mathematicians know this, scientists too.  Those few among us who still muster belief itself and match belief with their intellect and life experience know this as well.  They, as a consequence, do not need to ask of injustices done to innocents and others.

Indeed, the proof of the fundamental role of faith in one’s existence is this: even atheists ask the fundamental question like: “Why this injustice?”

Their question confirms the place of, and need for, faith.  Their question is a faith question.  Their question reflects the insight of Aquinas and many others we ignore and in this make fools of ourselves and anyone of the many who daily listen to the nonsensical “public figures” who do not possess the modest intellect or common sense sufficient to wonder much at all about what they see and what they say.

Alas, following Aquinas and other giants of intellectual, moral and spiritual maturity allows us to be who we are designed to be.

Smarten up, people.  What is eternal is above all that is not.  We consume what is not eternal and this is the central fault you see.

I know except that things perishing and transitory should be spurned and things certain and eternal should be sought.  (Emphasis added.)

St. Augustine, in Soliquia

Just can’t make this any plainer to you, Friends.

Shalom.

Postscript – The contested hearing yesterday was frankly pathetic.  The judge and lawyers were childish in their narrow range of thought and lack of depth of examination or understanding as to the events before them.  It was much like watching people playing “judge” and “lawyer.”  It would have been silly if not so pathetic.  We are sadly ill-bred and in this lies decline and injury to all.  First faith – insight and wisdom follows.

Shame on the malcontents …

March 19, 2019 – My Mother’s Birthday.

  My mother saved my life.  Without her I would have been lost.  She always put me first but always insisted that I live humbly, that I do what was right and good.  A petite lady of strength and faith, I owe my life to her.

Thank you Mom, for all you did for me!

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You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell …

Numbers 35:34

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These are God’s words to Moses.

Today some among us freely defile this land with their words, their hatred, their division.  In this, they show godlessness.  They express hate.  Their words are the words of racism.  They express hatred of White men.  They defile those who were indispensable in the founding of this nation.  In this they dishonor themselves.

Criticisms come from many who have served self, not others.

Among these critics and malcontents are those who wish to radically alter this country.  We see them in Leftist candidates for public office.  Their number includes young upstarts who know little and have done less.  We even hear now from one who came to us from a failed Marxist-Muslim state.  Her bigoted words defile.  They tell us she deserves only contempt.

No one comes to our house to set it aflame.  For God dwells here among us and our children deserve the blessings of this land – a free, safe, lawful and prosperous nation among many failed and corrupted countries.

Shame on the malcontents.  The door to our house swings both ways.  They are welcome to leave by the same door they entered.  Should they leave, they will not be missed.

This land is for the grateful and the faithful – those who wish to be good neighbors to one another, work hard, abide by the law, respect us and take pride in who we are and what we have built.

Shalom.

The Peace of Christ …

Christians are meant to be the continuing revelation of God’s Son through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

Thomas Keating, in The Heart of the World

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While our challenges may be many and run deep within us, our country and our culture, our task is quite clear: to be the continuing revelation of Christ in this world.

What makes this task initially challenging is that we are (independent of God) merely humans and as such we get angry, become busy, self-absorbed, weary and preoccupied.

Look about, many are angry (especially those in the secular Left – the socialists, Communists and radicals).  Confrontation can be quite hostile, even physical.

What is one to do?  Remain calm.  Be soft-spoken.  Avoid anger.  Simply respond quietly.  Perhaps take up your calling to speak to others of the truth of the Gospels.  Our task is to share Christ with others, to quell the hostility – defuse the anger.

In our most trying times – it is the peace of Christ which resides in us and gives us voice, courage and wisdom.  Yes, the peace of Christ in troubled times.

Shalom.

Postscript – Those who dislike Trump make their position known in rather intense and obvious ways,  We see this with Democrat Members of Congress and the news and celebrity class.  But few people ask: How did we elect Trump?

Well the news of the very wealthy in business, law and entertainment paying huge amounts of money to get their “little darlings” into once “elite” colleges tells you exactly why we have Donald Trump as President.  The elites live separately from the vast majority of all other Americans.  They live (as the Clintons so clearly do) above and apart from the vast sea of working Americans who pay their taxes without loopholes and privileges.

The arrogance of elites elected Trump, and their elected state, local and national representatives go one better – they ignore the will of the common voter on borders, the national deficit, abortions, illegal immigration, the Second Amendment, education, religion and all manner of Leftist (i.e., socialist and Communist) public policy.

This is a divide that creates very real problems.

 

Sloughing to Gomorrah Indeed

Liberalism moves … toward radical individualism and the corruption of standards that the movement entails.  By destroying traditional social habits of the people, by dissolving their natural collective consciousness into individual constitutes, by licensing the opinions of the most foolish, by substituting instruction for education, by encouraging cleverness rather than wisdom, the upstart rather than the qualified … Liberalism can prepare its way for … the artificial, mechanized or brutalized control which is a desperate remedy for its chaos.

Robert H. Bork, Sloughing Toward Gomorrah; Modern Liberalism and American Decline

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Bork makes the case that modern liberalism (as distinguished from classical or traditionalism) is destroying America.  It is an impressive case.  Yet, I see few in politics (but for some conservatives) who make this case.  And, I see few in politics who represent traditional or classical liberals and offer thoughtful opposition to modern liberalism.

Likewise, I see few clerics, few in the media, in academia or the law who offer a critique of modern liberalism and school us as to the damage it has done and is doing.

Recently I watched a documentary that purported to explain the political mess in Washington whereby collaboration and congeniality among liberals and conservatives has ceased. The documentary blamed the paralysis on Americans who held traditional values and ignored the ruckus caused by proponents of modern liberalism.  It ignored the fact that for every action there is a reaction.  Such blindness does not help.

In looking briefly at Bork’s criticism of modern liberalism one might see what the documentary misses:

• corruption of standards: think FBI and the Justice Department as each has been revealed to us
• destroying traditional social habits of the people: think the destruction of the family, the dispatch of religion from the public square, abortion, infanticide and the hyper-sexualization of culture
• dissolving the natural collective consciousness into individual constitutes: think identity politics
• licensing the opinions of the most foolish: think cable news, TV networks, major metropolitan newspapers, and attention given the views of “entertainment” celebrities
• substituting instruction for education: think Leftist ideology and the indoctrination centers that primary and secondary schools and colleges have become
• encouraging cleverness rather than wisdom: think late-night and midday television “pundits”
•  the upstart rather than the qualified: think Ocasio-Cortez and her cohort
• artificial, mechanized or brutalized control: think of national health care, the Green New Deal, Venezuela and the attack on the U.S. Constitution.

Sloughing to Gomorrah indeed.

Shalom.