Nothing to fear

On Resurrection Day our bodies will testify against us.
Our hands will say, "I held a lot of money, clean and unclean".
Our mouths will say, "I ate too much and talked too much."
Our feet will say, "I went where I shouldn't have gone."
And our genitals will agree, and say, "Me too!"
They will all testify that we have been hypocrites,
And our prayers are mostly just parroted words,
That will never be worth as much as our deeds.
My gaze is already upon the hill, the sunlit one.
The path to the summit grows steeper and steeper,
There is a headwind and many brambles with thorns.
Nevertheless, my Lord and Savior beckons me on.
Onward ever, backward never, everything to gain,
And with the grace of God, nothing at all to fear.

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Ad Mejorem Dei Gloriam

Every day in the book of life there is a bright new page.
Hey feet it's time to dance! Don't think about getting old.
Springtime is like a victorious Christ rising from the dead,
And calling forth martyred plants from their winter shrouds.
The Holy Spirit is in the gentle breeze and the warm rain,
And Mother Mary is a blue sky, resplendent in the sunshine.
Upon a watchtower I stand my post, by day and by night,
Awaiting my eventual death and my hoped for resurrection.
Someone is calling to me. "Watchman, what time of night?"
"Morning comes", I answer him, "and also the night."
"Ah how the time goes" he says, but that's not always so.
Perhaps the time stands still for us when it's our time to go.
I stop those along the way who don't heed the signs and say,
"Consider the possibility that you are going the wrong way."
And for those of you whose duty it is to warn the unwary ones,
Wake up and get out of bed. Let's go! This is a workday.
I am but another passing shadow and so are you.
Let your life's passing shadow serve our Father's will.
Every day, in every way, "Ad Mejorem Dei Gloriam."
Every day, in every way, "for the greater glory of God."

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Join me!

I am made from the dust of a million stars.
I am the silvery moon shining up above.
I am a wandering disciple of the Lord.
The entire world exists within me.
My eyes are the windows that let in light.
I graze with beasts and sing with the birds,
And I make my rounds with the busy bees
To carry messages among the flowers.
I carry my heavy load like the humble ant,
And swim with the fish in a sea of tranquility.
I am one with the Universe. Join me.

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Count on it!

How to explain God, life, and the nature of time and space?

There are some things that we already know.
But there are many more things that we do not know yet.

Imagine trying to explain the world to an infant still in the womb.

You whisper to the unborn child that the world is big,

And that it has mountains and plains and rivers and forests.

You say that there are are fields of flowers and vegetables,

And waving grain and orchards with all kinds of fruits.

That there are oceans and lakes full of fish and frogs,

And all kinds of strange creatures of the deep.
You describe animals of all sorts both wild and domestic,

And birds of the air and butterflies and bees making honey.

Don't forget spiders and snakes and those nasty mosquitoes.

What about the four seasons and snow and ice?
How do you describe a rainbow and deserts and jungles?

Don't forget night, dark but for a million stars and the moon.

Also the clear bright days except for clouds, yes, and clouds too.

You must describe people, living, loving, laughing, and crying,

And birth and death...yes, that too, the dying.
You urge the baby to leave the womb and the baby replies,

"Go away! There is no other world but the world I know.

You must be daft or else you are dreaming".
Thus it is from birth to life, the same from life to death.

You can't really explain it well until you get there,
And there is no "how" or "who" or "what" with God,
You can't define God, or picture Him or put Him in a box,

But you will know Him when you are judged.
You can count on it.

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Rud Hud Hooray!

In my literary wanderings I recently came across a poem named "Hudibras" written by Samuel Butler in the 1660's. The name of his poem was taken from the name of "Rud Hud Hudibras", a legendary king of the ancient Britons who came to power after a period of great turmoil and "made his country great again". Samuel Butler's poem was written as a satire on the various religious and political factions involved in the the English civil war of the mid-17th century. In general, Hudibras is directed against religious sectarianism.

The epic poem relates the story of Sir Hudibras, an English knight who values his own esteem so highly that his conceit and arrogance readily shine through to reveal a shameless self-promoter beneath. The following lines describe his religion which sounds uncannily like that of one of our current political candidates for U.S. president.

"For his Religion, it was fit

To match his learning and his wit;

'Twas Presbyterian true blue;

For he was of that stubborn crew

Of errant saints, whom all men grant

To be the true Church Militant;

Such as do build their faith upon

The holy text of pike and gun;

Decide all controversies by

Infallible artillery;

And prove their doctrine orthodox

By apostolic blows and knocks;

Call fire and sword and desolation,

A godly thorough reformation,

Which always must be carried on,

And still be doing, never done;

As if religion were intended

For nothing else but to be mended." 

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Cuckoo Time

Last night I watched the Republican Presidential Primary debate in Charleston, South Carolina. I must say it was an eye opener. I was expecting a lot better from these people who want to guide the United States of America into the future. It was more like a bunch of high school sophomores fighting in a schoolyard and as is usually is the case in such circumstances, the biggest bully declares himself the winner in a loud and angry voice. As South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley remarked in the Republican response to the State of the Union Speech, "During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices."

This made me think that instead of making such an ass out of itself the party might consider changing its mascot from that of the noble and dignified Elephant into a more fitting image like that of the boisterous Cuckoo. You, know, the type of bird that lays its eggs in the nests of other birds and that has a call that sounds like its name. In Greek mythology Zeus transformed himself into a cuckoo so that he could seduce Hera, a very jealous female. In modern British slang, a Cuckoo is an inexperienced slacker who full of outlandish ideas. This idea put me in mind of a story which I just can't help myself from repeating here.

Once upon a time and long ago in a far away city, there ruled a king who was both powerful and wise. And he was feared by his people for his power and loved by them for his wisdom. Now, in the heart of that city there was a deep well, whose water was cool and crystal clear, from which all the people of the city drank, even the king and his retinue, because there was no other source of clean water. One night, when everyone was asleep, a political operative of a rival king entered the city, and poured a dozen drops of strange liquid into the well, and said, “From now on, whoever drinks this water will become cuckoo.” The next morning all of the inhabitants except for the king and his right hand man drank from the well and became cuckoo, just like the hired evildoer had predicted, but they didn't realize it. They thought that the king had gone cuckoo instead of them. That day the people in the streets and in the market place did nothing but gossip with one another saying, “The king must be cuckoo. Our king and his main man have lost their reason. Now what are we going to do? We can't be ruled by a king who is cuckoo. We must get rid of the king.” That evening, the king ordered his golden chalice to be filled with water from the well. When the chalice with the water was brought to him he took a big swig, and then gave it to his right hand man to drink. And there was great rejoicing in that far away city on that day, because its king and his main man had regained their reason. Moral of the story...I haven't got one. I must be going cuckoo and I'm not even a Republican!
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A Good Intention

Every year about this time I choose a theme for a New Year's resolution that I can put a one word label on and just concentrate on that one thing for a whole year until it becomes an ingrained habit. I am pleased to report that this system has worked for me very well, especially since I can place this label unobtrusively on many everyday objects as a positive and constant reminder. Here is a partial list from years past:

2011 "Ideate" ("to form an idea of", "think of", "imagine", "conceive of","envision", "visualize")

2012 "Update" ("improve", "correct", "renew", "revise", "upgrade", "amend", "overhaul", "modernize", "contemporize")

2013 "Motivate" ("prompt", "drive", "move", "inspire", "stimulate", "influence", "activate", "impel", "push", "propel"

2014 "Ataraxia" ("Tranquillity", a state of freedom from emotional disturbance and anxiety)

2015 "Contemplate" (Know Thyself, "examine", "inspect", "observe", "survey", "study", "scrutinize")

My theme for 2016 is a bit more complex than the previous themes which are fairly straightforward. My decision was influenced by the fact that 2016 is an election year in the U.S. and the political situation is becoming quite bewildering. This is due in part to worldwide concerns of extremist terrorism, global warming, racial prejudice, human rights, economic hardship, food and water shortages, new diseases, epidemics, etc. It is becoming more clear than ever that the whole world is in the same "boat"  as we are, as it were.

My resolution theme word for 2016 is "Intentionality" and so what do I mean by that? Intentionality is a key word that I borrowed from the realm of Philosophy and in particular the Philosophy of "Phenomenology" which is the study of experience and consciousness. All of the information that comes to us from the outside world from birth onward, we receive through our five senses; sound, sight, touch, smell, and taste. However, in actuality there is really only one sense, the sense of touch. Whenever we touch an object with our fingers, in many cases we are acting deliberately and directly on the object. With sound, sight, smell, and taste, however the object is acting indirectly on us through electro-magnetic vibrations. In fact we are constantly being bombarded by electro-magnetic signals from the space that surrounds us. Every signal that we perceive must first pass through the filter of our intellect before we are conscious of it. We call this "experience".

Once we experience an object we use our intellect to process it. There are several tools for this at our disposal such as instinct, memory, intuition, imagination, and logic plus "a priori" metaphysics. I won't go into metaphysics here other than to say that I believe wholeheartedly in the existence of the immortal soul and the Holy Spirit. The "intentionality" is the connection between our conscious mind and the object we are thinking about. It is the quality of our thoughts and beliefs that consists in their being directed toward some object or state of affairs.

Let me give an example. For an object we have a rock sitting on a bare patch of ground. One person is sitting at a distance from the rock and he sees the rock at eye level with the sun behind the rock and he pictures the object as dark grey in color and rectangular. There is another person who is sitting on the opposite side of the rock with the sun behind her. She pictures the object as a pinkish shade of grey and thinks it might be oval. There is another person sitting off to the side up in a tree and he sees the object as light grey but to him it is definitely round in shape and it has a whole in the middle like a donut. Now, the only thing that connects these people so far is the "intentionality" that they are looking at the same object but each has a different perception and conception. It is obvious that in order to form a true consensus about the real nature of the object there needs to be some further investigation and discussion to bring the three perceptions in line to form a conceptual agreement as to its nature. However, this all too often never happens or doesn't happen soon enough.

Intentionality without consensus is like encountering an elephant in the dark. The 13th century Persian Sufi mystic poet Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi ("Rumi" for short) talks about "An Elephant in the Dark":

Some Hindus have an elephant to show.
No one here has ever seen an elephant.
They bring it at night to a dark room.

One by one we go into the dark and come out
Saying how we experienced the animal.
One happens to touch the trunk.
A water pipe kind of creature.

Another, the ear. A very strong, always moving
Back and forth, fan animal.
Another, the leg.
I find it still, like a column on a temple.

Another touches the curved back.
A leathery throne. Another, the cleverest,
Feels the tusk. A rounded sword made of porcelain.
He is proud of his description.

Each of us touches one place
And understands the whole in that way.
The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark
Are how the senses explore the reality of the elephant.

If each of us held a candle there,
And if we went in together, we could see it.

The people who went in to see the elephant had the same intentionality in that they were all focused on the elephant but in the end their conception of the animal was different for each person. Why? Because they had no way to shine a light on the subject. By the way, if this doesn't remind you of the GOP presidential nominating process, raise your hand.

There are two points to be made about intentionality in regard to discussing things with others. The first is to make sure that at least there is a consensus about the intentionality of the subject and that you are all talking about the same thing. The second thing is to make sure that each party has access to more than one view before they entrench themselves in dogma. Whenever I go to a meeting I intend to carry the stub of a candle with me that I will place on the table in front of me. When someone asks me what it is for (and there will always be someone), I intend to tell them that it is for examining the elephant, because there is an elephant in the room at every meeting.

Oh we got trouble!

"Trouble, oh we got trouble,
Right here in River City!
With a capital "T"
That rhymes with "P"
And that stands for Pool!"

In Robert Meredith Willson's "The Music Man", "T" meant "Trouble" and "T" rhymes with "P" that stands for "Pool". In my generation "P" stood for "Pinball" and caused the same trouble, "young men (and women) fritterin' away their noontime, suppertime, choretime too! Boo hoo!

This generation has a their own supposedly harmless vice to deal with and it starts with "V" which sill rhymes with "T" and also means trouble. A friend of mine knows a young man, actually several young men who have acquired both the knack and the compulsion to play Video games to the exclusion of some of their responsibilities and their studies and asked me if I had any suggestions. Since my friend had already tried the direct approach I decided that some stealth might work and so I disguised my approach by making a reference and comparison with video games themselves. Here is what I suggest:

Dear young man or young lady,

Let’s play a video game in our head. In this game there is a world full of people and eighty percent of them are Zombies. They function only by the necessities of pure basic instincts and also through habits formed by taking the bait that is offered to them by the Manipulators of the world. These Manipulators of the world consist of another fifteen percent of the world population and their well-being depends upon their ability to enslave the Zombies and use them to gain wealth, power and prestige over each other individually as well as all the other non-Zombies of the world. There remains another five percent of the population who are non-Zombies and non-Manipulators, and although they are not actual enemies of the Manipulators, they are a constant headache because the five percent are humble and patient Christian humanist intellectuals (like Pope Francis) who are clothed in virtue to the extent that even if “sticks and stones break their bones, they will just keep on going and going, slowly teaching the Zombies how to think for themselves.

Oh, the Manipulators aren’t stupid, they can think for themselves, but it is in the form of vice, not virtue, in what we call “street smarts” or negative wit from which comes their manipulative powers. The difference between a Zombie and a non-Zombie is the difference between “0” and “1”, or in other words, a decision.  With instinct and habit (and video games) there is no decision. Everything is pure reflex action and it is strengthened by adding muscle memory through mindless repetition. A decision, however, requires thinking. So then why do people do things only by reflex or habit? They do it for the same reason that they eat potato chips. They just can’t stop! Each time they shoot the other guy or blow up something or chop off the monster’s head they get a little shot of a chemical called L-Dopa (L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine) in their brain’s pleasure center and this is an addictive drug. Believe me, the devil knows all about it.

And so in the end, who do you think is going to win the game? Will the Zombies overwhelm the Manipulators? I doubt it. Will the Manipulators once and for all get rid of the Christian Humanists? I don’t know but I’d be willing to bet that God is not about to abandon His friends. Doing what God would like us to do is the key to a joyous and triumphant eternal life. The question boils down to what a person wants to be in life, a Zombie, a Manipulator, or a child of God who is truly free from anxiety and fear, and does not need material things to keep them “doped up”.

So, where does that leave us? Hopefully it leaves us walking with Jesus on the path to eternal life. Whenever we make a decision to do something virtuous we take a step toward God. Whenever we choose a vice we turn our back on God and go in the opposite direction. Be careful which direction you are headed in when the music stops. You can always choose your direction. That is what free will is all about. God speaks to us though our conscience. We should always make it a a point to decide what we want to do whenever possible and then listen. Do not do anything, either alone or with others, that is opposed to your conscience. Good luck and God bless you!

Sincerely and Amen,

Your friend.

Notes on Conservatism

Recently I have been reading a selection of notes about Edmund Burke who is considered to be the father of the conservative  movement.  Mr. Burke served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party. The reason for my interest was a desire to pin down the "conservative principles" that many of the current Republican candidates claim to espouse but do not actually enumerate and so I went back to find out what Edmund Burke had to say.

The characteristic passion of Burke's life was his love of order. Liberty should be connected with order and any political movements that undermine either liberty or order should be challenged at all costs. The wisdom accumulated by experience in the past should be venerated and the bounds of liberty should only be enlarged with great caution and even then only gradually. Whatever has served well up to this point must obviously be fit for its purpose and should not be substituted rashly.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that is exactly how I feel. As a matter of consideration I submit that the average American  feels the same way. When I look for "conservative principles", however, there seem to be a myriad of them depending upon which newspaper or magazine you read or what talk show host you listen to. So, I decided to skip forward to the beginning of the Republican Party when it was formed in Ripon, Wisconsin in February 1854. It turns out that in general it was formed by both conservatives  and liberals who were united against the injustice of slavery.

Many Republican candidates tout their party as the "Party of Lincoln" since Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president. It is interesting to me that Abraham Lincoln would, in my opinion, have had no problem with Edmund Burke and his love of order. James Randall, the noted scholar from the University of Illinois who specialized in Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War stated that Lincoln was "conservative in his complete avoidance of that type of so-called 'radicalism' which involved abuse of the South, hatred for the slaveholder, thirst for vengeance, partisan plotting, and ungenerous demands that Southern institutions be transformed overnight by outsiders."

I wonder what Lincoln would have to say about sending eleven million people back to Mexico, building a wall to rival the Great Wall  of China ("only much taller") between the U.S. and Mexico or blaming the proliferation of firearm tragedies on the proliferation of the mentally ill and not the proliferation of unregulated firearms. Or how about some of the "first day in office" projects promised by the current crop of Republican candidates like, cancelling the Affordable Care Act, or defunding Planned Parenthood health care services for millions of women who would otherwise have no access to breast cancer screenings, Pap tests & HPV tests, pelvic exams, and help with urinary tract infections, yeast infections, and vaginitis?

American conservatism is best characterized as a reaction against utopian ideas of progress. That's fine, nobody expects utopia. In Thessalonians 5:21, the Bible tells us to "Test all things; hold fast to that which is good." The phrase is divided by a semicolon. On the left hand side you have the Democrats who are more of a mind to "test all things" and especially those that are new and shiny, and on the other side there are the Republicans who aren't afraid to try something new as long as we proceed with caution. In the middle is where most people are, both Democrat and Republican. It is the people of both parties who are out on the fringes that are not willing to concede  that compromise is a fundamental tenet of Democracy and it is cable news and talk radio who fuel the fire.

It is the privilege of the political parties to serve their country and not the job of the people to serve the political parties in order to win some kind of "break the piñata" free-for-all. My high school history teacher, Jack Annetti (R.I.P.) drummed democracy into our heads quite well; "Demos Kratein, gentlemen, Demos Kratein, the government of the people". Unfortunately, in this day and age, the "vox populi" (voice of the people) is not quite the "vox Dei" (the voice of God)...but it ought to be.

A Colloquy with God

One of my favorite Christian Humanist Philosophers, Sir Thomas Brown, wrote a book in 1643 called Religio Medici (The Religion  of a Doctor). Sir Thomas was a practicing physician and had a deep curiosity towards the natural world, and he also had wide learning in diverse fields including both science and religion. He wrote in his book that sleep so resembles death that he dare not go to sleep without saying his prayers and bidding the world adieu each night in a colloquy with God and before turning in at the end of  each day he recited this prayer and by the time he reached the end of it he was asleep. Perhaps it will have the same effect on you as it does on me. I call it the long form of "Now I lay me down to sleep." In any case it is charming.

Sir Thomas wrote as a preface: "This is the dormative I take to bedward; I need no other Laudanum than this to make me sleep; after which I close my eyes in security content to take my leave of the sun and sleep unto the resurrection"

"The night is come like to the day
Depart not Thou Great God away.
Let not my sins, black as the night,
Eclipse the luster of Thy light.
Keep still in my horizon, for me,
The sun makes not the day, but Thee.
Thou whose nature cannot sleep,
On my temples sentry keep;
Guard me against those watchful foes,
Whose eyes are open while mine are closed.
Let no dreams my head infest,
But such as Jacob's temples blest.
While I do rest my soul advance,
Make my sleep a holy trance;
That I may, my rest being wrought,
Awake into some happy thought.
And with as active vigor run
My course, as doth the nimble sun.
Sleep is a death, O make me try,
By sleeping what it is to die.
And down as gently lay my head
Upon my grave as now my bed.
However I rest, great God let me
Awake again at last with Thee.
And thus assured, behold I lie
Securely, whether to wake or die.
These are my drowsy days in vain
Now I do wake to sleep again.
O come that hour when I shall never
Sleep this again, but wake forever!"

AMEN !!!