Clickbait Goes Viral

 And that’s the point:

New paper out in @ScienceMagazine! In 8 studies (multiple platforms, methods, time periods) we find: misinformation evokes more outrage than trustworthy news, when it does it's shared more + ppl are less likely to read before sharing. w/ @killianmcl1 @Klonick @mollycrockett 🧵👇

And that’s the point.

This is part of the reason people are leaving Twitter.  But the real solution is to not engage via outrage.

Yeah, that’ll happen. Eventually. When people get tired of it. Journalism was small papers appealing to specific audiences. And then there was “yellow journalism,” and then radio and movie news (yeah, I remember that) and finally TV had to appeal to mass audiences (I speak in sweeping generalities, obviously). Walter Cronkite made the Grey Lady look pinko. Seriously.

So now “citizen journalism” is selling the way yellow journalism did. But this time nobody’s going to impose rules. Moving to BlueSky is not shutting down Twitter. Not yet, anyway. And the evidence is people don’t really process “news” the way we want them to. 

There’s a local PBS show with two professors (of political science) from UH who discuss politics every week. It’s very collegial, low-key stuff. One of them is Latino, which made the discussion recently all the more interesting. He pointed out that a lot of Texas Latinos (they confine their topic to Texas politics, mostly) support border control because they see themselves as Anglo. And because they think border control is important. His point was: too many Democrats make unwarranted assumptions about Latinos, and then are surprised by electoral results. We assume we know how they think. We assume wrong.

Analysis now indicates voters for Trump remembered a better economy under him (they wiped Covid from their memory). And they really didn’t pay attention to what he said in the campaign trail; or they decided he didn’t really mean it. The rest if us (they were barely a majority) assumed we knew how they were thinking.  We were wrong.

So it’s still not as simple as “misinformation!” “A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest.” Now, whaddya do about that? 🤨

Advent Approaches

 It cannot be determined with any degree of certainty when the celebration of Advent was first introduced into the Church. The preparation for the feast of the Nativity of Our Lord was not held before the feast itself existed, and of this we find no evidence before the end of the fourth century, when, according to Duchesne [Christian Worship (London, 1904), 260], it was celebrated throughout the whole Church, by some on 25 December, by others on 6 January. Of such a preparation we read in the Acts of a synod held at Saragossa in 380, whose fourth canon prescribes that from the seventeenth of December to the feast of the Epiphany no one should be permitted to absent himself from church. We have two homilies of St. Maximus, Bishop of Turin (415-466), entitled "In Adventu Domini", but he makes no reference to a special time. The title may be the addition of a copyist. There are some homilies extant, most likely of St. Caesarius, Bishop of Arles (502-542), in which we find mention of a preparation before the birthday of Christ; still, to judge from the context, no general law on the matter seems then to have been in existence. A synod held (581) at Mâcon, in Gaul, by its ninth canon orders that from the eleventh of November to the Nativity the Sacrifice be offered according to the Lenten rite on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of the week. The Gelasian Sacramentary notes five Sundays for the season; these five were reduced to four by Pope St. Gregory VII (1073-85). The collection of homilies of St. Gregory the Great (590-604) begins with a sermon for the second Sunday of Advent. In 650 Advent was celebrated in Spain with five Sundays. Several synods had made laws about fasting to be observed during this time, some beginning with the eleventh of November, others the fifteenth, and others as early as the autumnal equinox. Other synods forbade the celebration of matrimony. In the Greek Church we find no documents for the observance of Advent earlier than the eighth century. St. Theodore the Studite (d. 826), who speaks of the feasts and fasts commonly celebrated by the Greeks, makes no mention of this season. In the eighth century we find it observed not as a liturgical celebration, but as a time of fast and abstinence, from 15 November to the Nativity, which, according to Goar, was later reduced to seven days. But a council of the Ruthenians (1720) ordered the fast according to the old rule from the fifteenth of November. This is the rule with at least some of the Greeks. Similarly, the Ambrosian and the Mozarabic Rites have no special liturgy for Advent, but only the fast.

--New Advent

In short, Christmas, via Advent, was already impinging on November (with observances starting as early as November 11th for Christmas Day on December 25th, or maybe even January 6th) by the 6th century.

The more things change....

The next day John was there again with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said, "Behold, the Lamb of God." The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, "What are you looking for?"  They said to him, "Rabbi (which translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?" He said to them, "Come, and you will see."  So they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day.  It was about four in the afternoon. Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus.

--John 1:38-40

November 30 is the feast day of Andrew the Apostle

Traditional Black Friday

 According to The Onion 🧅 (via email, so you’ll have to trust me):

Did you know that Black Friday has roots in a pagan holiday? It’s supposedly based on an ancient post-harvest Germanic day of celebration called Glänzendkoboldkatastrophenparty, which loosely translates to “Shiny Goblin Disaster Party.” 

According to legend, goblins would break through store windows and, covered in shards of glass, loot any business not open on the day after the harvest celebration. Shopkeepers, loathe to see their store floor strewn with trampled, sparkling goblins clutching a day-old lebkuchen, would offer deep discounts so as to ward off the creatures with a steady stream of customers.

This reminds me I have a pretty good recipe for lebkuchen. Mmmmm…😋

It's Coming On Christmas...

I haven't done this in about three years, mostly because the subject of Christmas v. "pagan rituals" has faded in interest.  It'll come back again someday, fueled by the Puritanism in the roots of American culture, and passed off (again) as some species of a product of the Enligthenment, wherein we learned not to believe all the folklore that was recovered and resurrected by the Romantics, successors to the Enlightenment (and ultimately far more successful, despite literary theories that the Romantics only lasted for 20 years or so).  Anyway, what follows is the last version of what I had to say, altered slightly to come up to the present and what I've learned in three years (not much, actually).  So, as I said three years ago:  here I go again, having to rejoice by constructing something upon which to rejoice.

I'll see if I can do this with selected quotes, because my perspectives/opinions/approaches changed over the years; which only underlines my point that NO ONE knows where most of our Christmas traditions came from, or why December 25th was picked in Rome as the day to celebrate (and to this good day, most of the "knowledge" that Christmas is "tied to pagan celebrations" comes not from history, but from the Puritans.  Truly.)  So here we go.

Mentions of Christmas celebrations don't begin to appear in the literature until about the 12th century.  There were infancy narratives, to be sure, in the 1st (Luke, Matthew) and 2nd centuries (Infancy Gospel of James, Infancy Gospel of Thomas), but nothing else notable shows up until the high Middle Ages.  This is not to say a Christ Mass was not observed for the birth of Christ.  But that didn't start up until the 4th century. (I've been pretty damned exhaustive ("and exhausting!") about this here, if you care to go deeper.) I said I would quote myself:  let me do that.

This book does come down on the side of "Sol Invictus" (actually Natali Invictus) as the date for the Christ mass celebration because it was an important Roman holiday; it says so in passing (the anthology is not a work of scholarship).  To this I would say "Yes, but...." and note two things:  one, the Christ Mass was celebrated in Rome sometime before 354 C.E., which places it after the death of Constantine (and so Rome was officially Christian by then), and: "But even should a deliberate and legitimate "baptism" of a pagan feast be seen here no more than the transference of the date need be supposed."  Such things were quite common throughout Christian history; it wasn't until the Puritans that anyone complained so strongly about it, and their arguments really weren't all that sound.  Here, again, the right view of history is needed.

The church in Rome got along fine without the observance of the birth of Christ in a special mass for several centuries.  The first observance of such a mass was in Alexandria (200 C.E.), which is logical because the Egyptians observed the birthdays of their Pharaohs, who were regarded as gods.  Date of birth would be of obvious significance, and it's no surprise the church in Egypt would decide a special celebration of the Birth of the Christ was in order.  But already we're off track if we think that "special celebration" involved anything like the celebration we have today.  This was a celebration by the church, and that meant a special Mass.  Easter was still the dominant day on the Church calendar (as it remains in the Eastern church); the mass for the Nativity was just an addition to the liturgical calendar.

And it remained such for centuries.  It is only in the medieval church that we begin to get celebrations like the Feast of Fools in December, and more elaborate celebrations among the kings as the period moves on.

That point is worth emphasizing.  The Christ Mass was going on for centuries before it became as important as Easter, and then finally eclipsed Easter in importance (arguably only in the last few centuries; and when we're counting time in millenia....).  So if Christmas took over a pagan holiday, but wasn't that important until at least medieval times, did a tree fall in the forest but nobody was there to hear it? Or, to put it a little more sharply, from what I said earlier than that:

First, let's note there's a disagreement over whether Christmas was set atop "Sol Invictii" (per a comment at Salon) or the Saturnalia.  The two become interchangeable in these arguments, which is tedious but typical.  So:

Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. Irenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their lists of feasts; Origen, glancing perhaps at the discreditable imperial Natalitia, asserts (in Lev. Hom. viii in Migne, P.G., XII, 495) that in the Scriptures sinners alone, not saints, celebrate their birthday; Arnobius (VII, 32 in P.L., V, 1264) can still ridicule the "birthdays" of the gods.

The first evidence of the feast is from Egypt. About A.D. 200, Clement of Alexandria (Stromata I.21) says that certain Egyptian theologians "over curiously" assign, not the year alone, but the day of Christ's birth, placing it on 25 Pachon (20 May) in the twenty-eighth year of Augustus. [Ideler (Chron., II, 397, n.) thought they did this believing that the ninth month, in which Christ was born, was the ninth of their own calendar.] 

The first observance was in Egypt, not Rome.  I don't know that anyone thinks of Egypt as a hotbed of observance of Roman customs, especially since the Romans didn't do that much to export their religious customs to the hinterlands of the Empire.  Beyond declaring Caesar the "Son of God," they pretty much left local religious practices alone.  The discussion of the feast at New Advent goes on to conclude (the history is quite complex) that the feast (not the reference to the day of birth) reached Egypt between 427 and 433.  Christianity became the official religion of the Empire in 395.  About the time the Roman Empire was coming apart, in other words.  And this may or may not be wholly accurate, but it is useful in placing Alexandria in historical context:

In the late 4th century, persecution of pagans by newly Christian Romans had reached new levels of intensity. Temples and statues were destroyed throughout the Roman empire: pagan rituals became forbidden under punishment of death, and libraries were closed. In 391, Emperor Theodosius I ordered the destruction of all pagan temples, and the Patriarch Theophilus complied with his request. One theory has it that the great Library of Alexandria and the Serapeum were destroyed about this time.

Not sure just how popular a Christian holiday placed atop a pagan one would have been, even some 40 years after such events.

Which brings us, with a hop, skip and a bump (why dawdle?), to Christmas today in America:

First, Christmas as we know it in America didn't really get started until the 1820's. It wasn't widely celebrated until the 1860's, and didn't become an official national holiday until 1870. So the "observance" of it (whatever that means) is not all that old. (For a bit of perspective, A Christmas Carol was published in 1843, and many scholars today attribute the "revival" of Christmas celebrations in England to Dickens). And from almost the moment the holiday was observed as a holiday, it was connected to commerce. So the connection between Christmas and shopping, in America, is as old as Christmas in America itself. 

I would just point out that Dickens certainly tied the observance of Christmas in Merrye Olde England to commerce its own self just as tightly as Marley was bound with the chains of his neglect of common humanity.  There is precious little in Dickens’ ghost story that doesn’t focus on, or strongly include, mercantilism.

Most of our favorite Christmas songs (even "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," which I was sure originated as chant) are from the late 18th and 19th centuries (a rare few are older, or the tunes are).  What we consider "traditional" is sometimes no older than our own childhoods.  I also point this out because I don't think there was much nostalgia for the Roman Saturnalia in America in the early 19th century (the country itself was only a few decades old, and while the Republic was modeled on Rome, little else about American life was Roman.).  Yes, there was "soaling" in England for centuries, but that was rooted in the harsh winter everyone was about to endure, and the fact all the land and food from it belonged to the landlord (a knight, a baron, a duke) and the peasants needed a share if they were to be alive to plant again in the spring. The landowners depended on the serfs, so the serfs needed to get through the winter.  Noblesse oblige was never very noble, nor obliging.  It was merely practical.  Gift giving was mostly among peers, by which I mean the peerage.  Peasants, if they were lucky, could have something resembling a feast.  Trees, packages, Christmas caroling?  All products of 19th century England because Victoria's husband was German.  Mostly. And, not coincidentally, a product of: a) the Industrial Revolution, and b) the Romantics.  Coleridge reported from a trip to Germany about the Tannenbaum he saw there with the family he visited.  That did more to spread the custom than even Victoria did.

Now, about the time of year Jesus was born: we don't know.  Literally.  We have absolutely no clue.

This one is a little like the one from my early days:  the "truth" about the 'Christmas star.'  I went to a planetarium in December as a child where they tried earnestly to establish what the star in Matthew was, or could have been.  Was, mostly.  Science wanted its imprimatur, or believers wanted their beliefs substantiated with material fact.  Either way, it was a fool's game.  There was no Xmas Star in first century Palestine.  It's a metaphor.

The entire infancy narrative of Mattew, as well, as Luke, is purely metaphorical.

Basically Matthew and Luke were telling stories relevant to their gospel accounts, and the stories they told of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth are based on the needs of their stories.  So Matthew ties Jesus to the proclamations of the prophets (most notably Isaiah) that the nations would come to the "light" that would be Israel after the restoration from the Babylonian Exile when Israel followed God's way happily and willfully.  Matthew translates that into a prediction of Jesus as Messiah.  Clearly he's aiming at a Hebrew (soon to be Jewish) audience that knew Isaiah & Co.  So the light of a star brings three foreigners (Gentiles) to worship the new king (a new star indicates a new king, at least in non-Hebraic cultures.  Matthew would have known this, living in a non-Hebraic community under Roman rule.).  When they can't find him, the star helps out by moving to where Mary and Joseph are (Jesus, spoiler alert, is 2 years old by now.  This isn't the stable they come to.)  Then Mary and Joseph flee to Egypt (recapitulating the history of Israel in 3 people), and leave Egypt later, guided by an angel (not Moses this time) and relocate in Nazareth so Jesus can be the Nazarene he's already known to have been (Matthew writes after the crucifixion and resurrection. He writes to an audience who knows “Jesus of Nazareth.”).  Relocate because they started in Bethlehem, the city of David identified by Micah.  This, too, is metaphorical (take my word for it, I'm tired ot explaining every detail.  I still have Luke upcoming.)

Matthew gives us no idea when Jesus was born.  Luke comes closer, because we are told shepherds were in the fields watching their flocks.  This leads us to presume it was not winter.  But I don't know what winter is like in Israel (then Palestine).  I know they don't get a blanket of snow, and I assume grass goes fallow.  But there has to be something to feed the sheep, and there wasn't a thriving hay industry at the time.  So I'm not sure we can assume the shepherds penned up the sheep for the winter.  I'm pretty sure they don't in England, where it definitely gets much colder and is snowier.  Let's not assume we know the seasons in 1st century Palestine, or are experts in sheep herding in the 1st century, either.

Not that it matters.  Luke tells us Jesus is born during a census.  That should date things, right?  Except there's no record of such a census.  Again:  think metaphor.  Luke needs to get the Holy Family to Bethlehem for the birth.  Matthew has them there, but Jesus was known to be from Nazareth; so Matthew puts him there by way of Egypt.  Metaphor.  Luke moves them there for the birth by way of imperial decree, the very imperial power which will crucify Jesus as an adult.  Metaphor.  Matthew presages the death, too:  two of the three gifts brought by the Magi are for embalming.  Metaphor.

Luke has shepherds visit the family on the night of the birth, guided there by angels (messengers, literally agents, of God).  Shepherds are low class, basically the bikers of 1st century Palestine; the opposite end of the social spectrum from Magi.  Metaphor.  Luke's gospel will emphasize social justice (God, Mary sings, will bring the powerful down off their thrones, and raise up the lowly).  Jesus is born in a feeding trough, the usual first bed of children of the poorest class (like Joseph).  Metaphor.  This all connects with Luke's emphasis on the first being last, and the last first; with his Beatitudes where the poor are congratulated and the rich are literally damned.

But, you might say, isn't all this metaphor bad?  Shouldn't we have an accurate historical account we can all rely on?  Well, first, how do you think we all live:  by absolute history, or by metaphor?  What is the Christmas celebration except a stew of metaphors?

Is that an offensive version of a fictional scene (as I said, Matthew's Magi never met Luke's shepherds in a stall, while the star beamed down overall)?  Nativity scenes themselves are metaphors, which is why I have two from Peruvian culture (nobody looks Anglo, or Middle Eastern, in either); it's why "tradition" tells us there were 3 "wise men" (Matthew only says there were three gifts), and one was white (of course), one was African, and one was Asian (nationalities have changed over the centuries, depending.). Are cats offensive?  Or metaphorical?  

How about this one?

These are cartoon characters of children; and the Christchild is being admired by a bird. I’ve seen one where Woodstock is the Christchild.  Offensive?  Or cute?  Or just a metaphor meant to make the story of the gospels a little more "real" to us?  Like my Peruvian nativity; or my wooden one, with abstract figures. In the end, that’s all Luke and Matthew were trying to do: make the story seem more real.  But that was 2000+ years ago, and things change.  So as we retell the story, we make it a little more meaningful to us.  We slightly shift the metaphors, because we aren't really talking about a stable or a star or "wise men" or even shepherds.  We're talking about something traditional (those two nativity scenes are actually pretty secular); or we're talking about something ineffable. It’s the ineffable that’s the point. By the way, the traditional is often ineffable, too.

Nativity scenes, by the way, date back to St. Francis.  Creating physical representations of the Holy Family didn't bother a good Catholic like Francis, but Protestants eschewed such "idolatry."  It's why Protestant crosses are bare of a figure, while the Catholic crucifix includes the crucified Christ.  Idolatry and "Papistry" were primary reason Puritans banned Christmas in America, but that didn't last long.  Oddly, even the closest ancestors to the Puritans among Protestants, or the direct ancestors (the Congregationalist side of the United Church of Christ) don't all disdain manger scenes.  Although I know a Congregational church that doesn't use one, and my grandparents Primitive Baptist church didn't go in for them (I'm not even sure my grandparents put up a Christmas tree, now that I think about it.)  Most Protestants, though, don't blink at them, or at the remnant of the medieval mystery plays the church once used to teach biblical lessons to illiterate people (why print Bibles no one could read?), the Christmas pageant, usually complete with at least a few live animals (those are the ones the larger Baptist churches around me advertise every December).  It's all, and always has been, a matter of what makes us happy.

And that's okay.  May it be unto you, according to your faith.

Rescission Is Not A Magic Scissor

The Grey Lady analyzes the news:

Mr. Musk has solicited employees on X, saying the job would involve more than 80 hours of work per week. “This will be tedious work, make lots of enemies & compensation is zero,” he wrote. 

The spokeswoman for the effort did not answer questions about how many staff members the group has now, and who — if anyone — is paying them. 

In their [WSJ] op-ed, Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy also said that in slashing regulations, they would rely on a pair of recent Supreme Court decisions that limited federal agencies’ power to issue rules. 

They plan to compile a list of regulations that they believed stemmed from agencies having exceeded their legal authority. 

“DOGE will present this list of regulations to President Trump, who can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission,” the men wrote.

Not mentioned in this article is the Anti-Deficiency Act, which will keep DOGE from being anything but some tech bros in Silicon Valley playing out Masters of the Universe fantasies in their heads.

And they’re reading the Supreme Court ruling the way Fitton taught Trump to read the PRA.

Jonathan H. Adler, a professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said that many of the ideas mentioned by Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy would be ripe for legal challenges and noted that many of Mr. Trump’s previous efforts to expansively use executive powers had been struck down by courts. 

Mr. Trump’s advisers have suggested that the Supreme Court’s ruling in a landmark case involving Chevron earlier this year will make it easier for the executive branch to nullify rules and regulations that appear to go beyond the legislative intent of laws. 

However, Mr. Adler noted that the ruling actually means that agencies should not be able to make such determinations, suggesting that it would require litigation and court rulings to quash the regulations. Ignoring or eliminating rules without following the proper procedures is also likely to trigger lawsuits from those that benefit from the status quo. 

“There’s litigation risk that they’re not adequately accounting for,” Mr. Adler said, adding that the Trump administration would have to be extremely strategic if it tries to take legally creative steps to rescind regulations or shrink agencies.

In short, Elmo is not a Master of the Universe, and Trump is not a king. And rescission is not a pair of scissors:

Still, Mr. Kovacev said, the process of rescission — formally removing a rule from the books — can take years, because it requires the government to solicit and respond to public comment.

Trump can’t fire civil service employees at will unless he moves them to Schedule F. He tried that the first time around, but couldn’t do anything with it until Biden took over and rescinded his efforts. (EO’s are easier to rescind.)

All of this is “what could happen,” which, frankly, I’ve had enough of. Fear of the future is the fuel of the internet outrage engine. I’m fine being better informed than the voters who ignored Trump’s promises but misremembered his administration. But permanent outrage is just another “system of control” that keeps you reading the people selling it. I can’t do anything about Elmo or Trump, except enjoy watching them run into the buzz saw of reality. Trump already “truthed” his intentions towards Mexico, and the Mexican president responded with a letter. Which put Trump in his place so hard he dropped the subject.

She taught the world how to play him. Watch the world learn. And relax, and focus on what you can control.

December 29--Dorothy Day

A brother said to an old man:  There are two brothers.  One of them stays in his cell quietly, fasting for six days at a time, and imposing on himself a good deal of discipline, and the other serves the sick.  Which one of them is more acceptable to God?  The old man replied:  Even if the brother who fasts six days were to hang himself by the nose, he could not equal the one who serves the sick.

--Desert Wisdom

"After 1976 Dorothy [Day] virtually withdrew from the affairs of the world of the Worker movement.  Her lot, as she knew, was to await death.  Content to spend as much time as she could in the company of her daughter and grandchildren, she remained in her room at Maryhouse, coming downstairs only for the even Mass that was said at the house.  In her room, which overlooked Third Street, she could look out onto the dismal prospect of a narrow street, shadowed by five-story buildings, shoulder to shoulder, whose unkempt and desolate appearance suggested that they, like the people who passed before them, felt that their existence mattered not at all.  In front of these buildings, parked cars at the curbs were jammed against one another.  One structure, ugly with shattered windows and an aspect of grotesque garishness, was fronted by motorcycles--powerful brutish machines with signs and symbols that proclaimed their  owners' defiance of civilized norms.  The building was the home of the Hell's Angels, a motorcycle gang about whose doings fearful stories were told.

"It was in this part of New York that Dorothy had spent a half-century of her own life, where just blocks away she had lived in 1917 as the acting editor of the Masses and where in that cold winterof 1918 she had whiled away the nights with Eugene O'Neill and the young radicals and artists of the Village.  A few blocks to the west and south was New York's Lower East Side, the home of the Jews.  She had never left them.  Mott Street was two blocks away, the street of the Italians.  She remembered sitting on the front steps of the Mott Street house, watching them celebrate the feast of San Gennaro.  Perhaps she remembered that night soon after the war had begun, the cool clear air and the half-moon shining brightly over Mott Street.

"Dorothy died on November 29, 1980, just as night began to soften the harshness of the poverty and ugliness of Third Street.  Her daughter, Tamar, was in the room with her.  There was no struggle.  The last of the energy that sustained her life had been used.

"The funeral was on December 2 at the Nativity Catholic Church, a half block away from Maryhouse.  An hour before the service, scheduled for 11 o'clock in the morning, people began to assemble in the street.  Some were curious onlookers, the hollow-eyed people and stumbling people who roam the streets of lower New York, but others were drawn there by some sense of propriety of paying their last respects to the woman who had clothed and fed them.  There were American Indians, Mexican workers, blacks and Puerto Ricans.  There were people in eccentric dress, apostles of causes who had fealt a great power and truth in Dorothy's life.

"At the appointed time, a procession of these friends and fellow workers came down the sidewalk.  At the head of it Dorothy's grandchildren carried the pine box that held her body.  Tamar, Forster, and her brother John followed.  At the church door, Cardinal Terence Cooke met the body to bless it.  As the procession stopped for this rite, a demented person pushed his way through the crowd and bending low over the coffin peered at it intently.  No one interfered, because, as even the funeral directors understood, it was in such as this man that Dorothy had seen the face of God."

--William D. Miller

This morning to ward off the noise I have my radio on---Berlioz, Schubert, Chopin, etc.  It is not a distraction, it is a pacifier.  As St. Teresa of Avila said as she grabbed her castanets and started to dance during the hour of recreation in her unheated convent, "One must do something to make life bearable!"

...

I feel that all families should have the conveniences and comforts which modern living brings and which do simplify life, and give time to read, to study, to think, and to pray.  And to work in the apostolate, too.  But poverty is my vocation, to live as simply and poorly as I can, and never to cease talking and writing of poverty and destitution.  Here and everywhere.  "While there are poor, I am of them.  While men are in prison, I am not free," as Debs said and as we often quote.

--Dorothy Day 

Hospitality of the heart transforms the way to see people and how we respond to them. Their needs become primary. Tom Cornell tells the story of a donor coming into the New York house one morning and giving Dorothy a diamond ring. Dorothy thanked her for the donation and put it in her pocket without batting an eye. Later a certain demented lady came in, one of the more irritating regulars at the CW house, one of those people who make you wonder if you were cut out for life in a house of hospitality. I can't recall her ever saying "thank you" or looking like she was on the edge of saying it. She had a voice that could strip paint off the wall. Dorothy took the diamond ring out of her pocket and gave it to this lady. Someone on the staff said to Dorothy, "Wouldn't it have been better if we took the ring to the diamond exchange, sold it, and paid that woman's rent for a year?". Dorothy replied that the woman had her dignity and could do what she liked with the ring. She could sell it for rent money or take a trip to the Bahamas. Or she could enjoy wearing a diamond ring on her hand like the woman who gave it away. "Do you suppose," Dorothy asked, "that God created diamonds only for the rich?"

Thanksgiving 2024

Deuteronomy 26:1-11
26:1 When you have come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it,

26:2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name.

26:3 You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, "Today I declare to the LORD your God that I have come into the land that the LORD swore to our ancestors to give us."

26:4 When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the LORD your God,

26:5 you shall make this response before the LORD your God: "A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.

26:6 When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us,

26:7 we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.

26:8 The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders;

26:9 and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

26:10 So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O LORD, have given me." You shall set it down before the LORD your God and bow down before the LORD your God.

26:11 Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house.

Psalm 100
100:1 Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth.

100:2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come into his presence with singing.

100:3 Know that the LORD is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

100:4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name.

100:5 For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

"We're all forgiven at Thanksgiving, and everybody's welcome at the feast."--Garrison Keillor

PRAISE AND HARVEST

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, from whom cometh every good and pefect gift, we call to remembrance thy loving-kindness and the tender mercies which have been ever of old, and with grateful hearts we would lift up to thee the voice of our thanksgiving,

For all the gifts which thou hast bestowed upon us; for the life thou hast given us, and the world in which we live,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the work we are enabled to do, and the truth we are permitted to learn; for whatever of good there has been in our past lives, and for all the hopes and aspirations which lead us on toward better things,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the order and constancy of nature; for the beauty and bounty of the world; for day and night, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest; for the varied gifts of loveliness and use which every season brings,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For all the comforts and gladness of life; for our homes and all our home-blessings; for our friends and all pure pleasure; for the love, sympathy, and good will of men,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For all the blessings of civilization, wise government and legislation; for education, and all the privileges we enjoy through literature, science, and art; for the help and counsel of those who are wiser and better than ourselves,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For all true knowledge of thee and the world in which we live, and the life of truth and righteousness and divine communion to which thou hast called us; for prophets and apostles, and all earnest seekers after truth; for all lovers and helpers of mankind, and all godly and gifted men and women,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the gift of thy Son Jesus Christ, and all the helps and hopes which are ours as his disciples; for the presence and inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, for all the ministries of thy truth and grace,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For communion with thee, the Father of our spirits; for the light and peace that are gained through trust and obedience, and the darkness and disquietude which befall us when we disobey thy laws and follow our lower desires and selfish passions,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the desire and power to help others; for every opportunity of serving our generation according to thy will, and manifesting the grace of Christ to men,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For all the discipline of life; for the tasks and trials by which we are trained to patience, self-knowledge and self-conquest, and brought into closer sympathy with our suffering brethren; for troubles which have lifted us nearer to thee and drawn us into deeper fellowship with Jesus Christ,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the sacred and tender ties which bind us to the unseen world; for the faith which dispels the shadows of earth, and fills the saddest and the last moments of life with the light of an immortal hope.
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

God of all grace and love, we have praised thee with our lips; grant that we may praise thee also in consecrated and faithful lives. And may the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.
AMEN.

THANKSGIVING

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift, we call to remembrance they loving-kindness and they tender mercies which have ever been od old, and with grateful hearts we would lift up to the the voice of our thanksgiving.

For all the gifts which thou has bestowed upon us; for the life that thou hast given us, and the world in which we live, 
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the work we are enabled to do, and the truth we are permitted to learn; for whatever of good there has been in our past lives, and for all the hopes and aspirations which lead us on to better things,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the order and constancy of nature; for the beauty and bounty of the world; for day and night, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest; for the varied gifts of loveliness and use which every season brings,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For all the comforts and gladness of life; for our homes and all our home-blessings; for our friends and all pure pleasure; for the love, sympathy, and good will of men,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For all the blessings of civilization, wise government and legislation; for education, and all the privileges we enjoy through literature, science, and art; for the help and counsel of those who are wiser and better than ourselves,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For all true knowledge of thee and the world in which we live, and the life of truth and righteousness and divine communion to which thou hast called us; for prophets and apostles, and all earnest seekers after truth; for all lovers and helpers of mankind, and all godly and gifted men and women,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the gift of thy Son Jesus Christ, and all the helps and hopes which are ours as his disciples; for the presence and inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, for all the ministries of thy truth and grace,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For communion with thee, the Father of our spirits; for the light and peace that are gained through trust and obedience, and the darkness and disquietude which befall us when we disobey thy laws and follow our lower desires and selfish passions,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the desire and power to help others; for every opportunity of serving our generation according to thy will, and manifesting the face of Christ to men,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For all the discipline of life; for the tasks and trials by which we are ained to patience, self-knowledge and self-conquest, and brought into closer sympathy with our suffering brethren; for troubles which have lifted us nearer to thee and drawn us into deeper fellowship with Jesus Christ,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

For the sacred and tender ties which bind us to the unseen world; for the faith which dispels the shadows of earth, and fills the saddest and the last moments of life with the light of an immortal hope,
WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD.

God all all grace and love, we have praised thee with our lips; grant that we may praise thee with also in consecrated and faithful lives. And may the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.

AMEN.

Real Thanksgiving

‘You’re The Bonnie To My Clyde,’ Says Biden Running Off With Pardoned Turkeyhttps://t.co/csEWI4p6wL pic.twitter.com/Q8yDAhyXtZ

— The Onion (@TheOnion) November 25, 2024

I’m Old Enough To Remember…

 

…when inflation was destroying confidence in the American experiment and producing universal despair.

I guess they couldn’t have run this story any earlier than the week of Thanksgiving?

Next up:

It Is Journalism’s Sacred Duty To Endanger The Lives Of As Many Trans People As Possiblehttps://t.co/vhrsUnR3pr

— The Onion (@TheOnion) November 26, 2024

Best Of Dying Twitter

Seems problematic that Chinese state media is publicly admitting that Musk has been allowing foreign adversaries to use Twitter as a propaganda distribution channel.https://t.co/gOkvsXKxsm pic.twitter.com/BrdOD6jH1e

— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) November 26, 2024

If You Read This Carefully…

Solid point @elonmusk. Drug smugglers are famous for their adherence to international trade rules and careful compliance with the US tax code pic.twitter.com/y8ftJDnREq

— Dave Spore (@Sporaticus_) November 26, 2024

...which is to say, at all:

1) Musk, as usual, is an idiot.

2) “Autism Capital” says Trump will sign an EO for tariffs while in the inauguration stand. 

3) Is that even the right mechanism?

4) Trump says he’s had “many talks with China.” Name two. Also: he tried this last time (imposing tariffs on China). Obviously it didn’t work. 

5) Trump is not imposing 50% tariffs. He says he’s adding 10% atop “existing tariffs.” Somebody told him what high tariffs would do to the economy he’s now responsible for.

6) “Thank you for your attention to this matter.” Does he think this is how it’s done? Strong “Invoke P!” vibes here. It didn’t work during COVID, it won’t work now. Trump is supposed to “have learned,” but did he? He’s surrounding himself with ideologues who think government is just a “Game of Thrones,” and they have the dragons. 🐉 

Who’s going to explain to him how to actually raise tariffs on China, and impose them on Canada and Mexico (I guess NAFTA just evaporated? Didn’t he negotiate a new and improved NAFTA? What happened to that?)?

If people would stop jumping every time Trump screams “FROG!”, we’d better enjoy the holidays.

Advent Approaches: Soon, and Very Soon

What happened to marriage and family that it should have become a travail and a sadness?...God may be good, family and marriage and children and home may be good, grandma and grandpa may act wise, the Thanksgiving table may be groaning with God's goodness and bounty, all the folks healthy and happy, but something is missing...What is missing? Where did it go? I won't have it! I won't have it! Why this sadness here? Don't stand for it! Get up! Leave! Let the boat people sit down! Go live in a cave until you've found the thief who is robbing you. But at least protest! Stop, thief! What is missing? God? Find him!

--Walker Percy

"Excita, quaesumus Domine, potentiam tuam, et veni."

 Summon all your strength, O Lord, and come." 

 --Roman Liturgy 

 "'Adventus' is the exact Christian Latin equivalent of the Greek "parousia."--H.A. Reinhold

Advent is when we finally pay attention to the eschaton, to the end of all things. It is as Eliot said: “In our end is our beginning.”

Why Does Big Oil Hate America?

'Unlikely': Exxon leader suggests Trump's 'drill, baby, drill' chant was empty promisehttps://t.co/xPwDssPeIe

— Raw Story (@RawStory) November 26, 2024

"I think a radical change is unlikely because the vast majority, if not everybody, is primarily focused on the economics of what they’re doing,” Mallon said at London conference, Bloomberg reported. 

Trump promised to use more federal land for oil and gas production — though much of the U.S.’ oil and gas reserves are on private land, the report stated. 

“If those rules were substantially changed, you would be able to drill more, assuming you have the quality and met your economic threshold,” Mallon said. “But I don’t think we’re going to see anybody in the drill, baby, drill mode. I really don’t.” 

The U.S.’ crude oil production is already higher than any other nation, and has gone up by 45% in the past decade, Bloomberg reported. 

But that didn’t stop Trump making his “drill, baby, drill” chant central to his campaign. 

As well as emphasizing increased domestic oil and gas production as a means to achieve energy independence, He pledged to roll back environmental regulations and support the fossil fuel industry, vowing to make the U.S. the "dominant energy producer in the world." 

Bloomberg reported, “Mallon’s comments mark the second time since the election that the largest US oil company has diverged from Trump’s policies. Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods discouraged the president-elect from withdrawing the US from the Paris climate pact, arguing that it’s better to participate and push for “common sense” carbon-cutting policy.”

I’m sure “left Twitter” would disagree on what “common sense” means in that last sentence, but Big Oil is international. It understands better than Trump does. And it knows where it needs to drill, and why. 

Trump is not doing Big Oil any Big Favors. But he’s too stupid to understand that.

Reality bites. That’s an Advent lesson, too.

😹🤡😹

It hits different when he’s part of the administration pic.twitter.com/BUBF7xlpRy

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 25, 2024

I’m sorry. I can’t take these people seriously. 😹

Elmo is not part of the Administration. Not yet. He won’t even be director of the OMB.  At most he’ll run a clown committee with Vivek, but when the GAO comes calling (that’s a Congressional agency, not an administration agency; nothing Trump can do about it), enforcing the Federal Advisory Committee Act (hem hem, federal law)*, Elmo and Vivek will get bored, cry “FOUL!,” and go back to being completely useless.

But the funny part is, neither Elmo nor Trump will arrest any mayor for declining to fully cooperate with ICE. State sovereignty, for one thing (you think the six Supremes will overrule their entire judicial philosophy this one time, for Trump? Nah!). The most Trump can do is withhold some federal funds and, best I can tell from one simple Google search, only one out of four circuit courts upheld his power to do that (the 2nd). That leaves a lot of cities free to carry on.

There is no criminal sanction for being a “sanctuary city.” Rule of law, bay-bee. Even Trump can’t lock people up on his Presidential authority. Elmo, once again, doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s about as powerful as this emoji: 🤡

And worth even less attention. Advent is coming. Forget about Elmo.

Musk's primary appeal is to rather dim right-wing guys who don't know a lot, and don't want to learn, but have strong opinions and confidence in them. They see Musk expressing the same opinions and, because he's rich, they treat this as confirming his opinions are correct, and thus so are theirs.

And what will they do when their hero quits rather than fight? 😹🤡😹

*Or, if he gets his army of volunteers, the Anti-Deficiency Act.

Seems Like Old Times

'Won't break the law': 'Morning Joe' panelist doubts Trump loyalists will follow commandshttps://t.co/LPQdKnGNqG

— Raw Story (@RawStory) November 25, 2024

"So especially in the state of Florida, a bit of a sigh of relief," Scarborough said. "Okay, this is not Matt Gaetz, it's not even close to Gaetz, this is somebody that works with both sides, but you dug into her record and you found some troubling statements about retribution." 

NBC News correspondent David Rohde looked into Bondi's statements about probing the criminal inquiries into Trump, but he and Scarborough agreed that the former president's own appointees were previously unable to find serious wrongdoing in those efforts. 

"That's what [special counsel John] Durham did, it was humiliating, it wrecked his reputation," Scarborough said. "Again, this is such a losing proposition, not only is it bad for America, but it's also, it's bad for the people launching the investigation against the investigators because it brings up the underlying charges." 

Durham was appointed by then-attorney general William Barr to look into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation that resulted in one guilty plea on an unrelated charge and two unsuccessful trial prosecutions after a three-and-a-half year investigation. 

"You're right, John Durham's investigation, he was going to find that Jim Comey and John Brennan had a secret plot against Donald Trump – he didn't find that," Rohde said. "Bill Barr looked into the 2020 election fraud, didn't find it. She also talks about the 'deep state' – I've been on Fox News appearances, I've written a book on this [but] there is no deep state. 

"If you think there are too many bureaucrats in Washington, there's a deep bureaucracy and you want to cut the size of government, that's fine. There's no secret cabal of FBI people and CIA people or DOJ people undermining democratically elected presidents." 

Rohde questioned whether Bondi or deputy attorney general nominee Todd Blanche could legally carry out Trump's threats, because the U.S. Supreme Court's sweeping presidential immunity ruling doesn't apply to them. 

"The feeling is that Bondi and Blanche won't break the law if they don't have to," Rohde said. "They don't have immunity, only the president has immunity. But it's an information war, as we said earlier, and it's Donald Trump that wants to say to anyone who dares investigate him, '

Jeffrey Clarke lost his law license. Giuliani lost his law license. The landscape is littered with lawyers who were disbarred after pursuing Trump’s interests. Durham is the specter of doom looming over any “retribution” Trump may think he can get. He can find somebody to pursue it. He just can’t make it stick.

Of the enduring institutions of America, juries have been pretty good at handing Trump his ass. Expect that to continue.

Advent Approaches: A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven

There is an appointed time for everything,
and a time for every affair under the heavens.
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

--Ecclesiastes 3:1-2, 4

Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise.  In my end is my
   beginning.

--T.S. Eliot

Behold, now is the acceptable time spoken of by the Spirit, the day of salvation, peace and reconciliation:  the great season of Advent.  This is the time eagerly awaited by the patriarchs and prophets, the time that holy Simeon rejoiced to see.  This is the season that the church has always celebrated with special solemnity.  We too should always observe it with faith and love, offering peace and thanksgiving to the Father for the mercy and love he has shown us in this mystery.

--Charles Borromeo

The reign of God, the eschatological liberation of the world, is already in process. is already being established.  It takes place in concrete modifications of actual life.

--Leonardo Boff

God whose rule is hidden and whose rule will become manifest is ruling now, despite all hiddenness. Realized eschatology is realized theology.

—H. Richard Niebuhr (hat tip to rustypickup)

Political News Is Gossip

This is the type of piece I had in mind when I wrote yesterday that the Trump show is good for clicks and scoops and you can feel the excitement while reading about the latest hot Mar-a-Lago gossip. https://t.co/wYEOxjKrOC

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 23, 2024

I don’t blame the journalist involved but it’s hard not to be a bit nauseated reading this stuff and I wonder how much of a market for it there will be this time around.

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 23, 2024

The political press is the nation’s back fence. Lord knows the press seems completely ignorant about how government functions.

And I don’t hold the journalists blameless. They’re adults; they’re responsible for their behavior. (And how much of a market? There’ll also be as much of a market for gossip as there ever was. Newspaper editors still blame technology for declining readership, not content. Except insofar as they need to appeal to imaginary Republicans.)

That’s Entertainment!

Trump's incoming FCC chair already putting TV networks on noticed they'll be punished for coverage Trump doesn't like. Trump use already violated his oath in term 1 by using public power to punish coverage he didn't like. Even more open now. https://t.co/hYVW4DnHwc

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 24, 2024

Broadcast licenses are not sacred cows.

These media companies are required by law to operate in the public interest. If they don’t, they are going to be held accountable, as the Communications Act requires. https://t.co/d4WBKLV3fy

— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) November 24, 2024

The First Amendment has entered the chat.

Not to mention “the public interest” is a legally defined term (via case law), and it doesn’t align with the personal opinions of the sitting POTUS.

Major media corporations have lawyers. Much better lawyers than Trump has; or will have in the DOJ, if he has his way. The good lawyers there, if they aren’t sacked already, will tell Trump and Carr even the effort to punish broadcast systems will fail and leave the government open to sanctions (reputational if not judicial).

Fucking with individuals is one thing. Fucking with corporations (only some of them. Delta at least expects a repeal of Biden era regulations so they can go back to screwing passengers for profit), is entertainment. I don’t want the airlines screwing passengers. I don’t want FoxNews spewing lies. But FoxNews is cable, not broadcast. And “60 Minutes” is not Hannity or Ingraham or any of the crap on Fox. And I’m far more upset about Trump favoring greedy airlines than about him hassling uber-rich corporations with powers he only imagines he has.

Trump is going to waste tax dollars he’s supposed to be so concerned with wasting, and the broadcast companies (all owned by bigger, richer corporations) are going to pay a lot of lawyers to tell the FCC to pound sand. And the courts are going to do the same.

And in four years we’ll all have forgotten all about it.  Do you remember what Trump did before to “punish coverage he didn’t like”?  Issue tweets, I imagine.

Some of this nonsense is going to be entertaining.

🚽

Marjorie Taylor Greene threatens to remove 'toilets in Africa' with help of Elon Musk https://t.co/EmTGQ7SxYP

— Raw Story (@RawStory) November 24, 2024

Tell us what you see as the most government waste," the Fox News host asked the lawmaker, who has been tapped to lead the House DOGE subcommittee. 

"It's all over," Greene insisted. "Every single government department program, grant programs, contracts, it is everywhere." *

"We'll be looking at everything from government-funded media programs like NPR that spread nothing but Democrat propaganda," she continued. "We'll be going into grant programs that fund things like sex apps in Malaysia, toilets in Africa, all kinds of programs that don't help the American people." 

"We're going to look in every single aspect and we don't care about people's feelings."

Every GOP President has entered the White House promising to cut waste. The only president in my lifetime to balance the budget was Bill Clinton. Everything MTG said there? I’ve heard it, almost word for word, for 60 years.

It’s also worth noting nothing MTG mentions would add up to $2 trillion. Not even close. And while she promises to go after contracts…

https://t.co/hNu9IpUKja pic.twitter.com/THxGXv6AvP

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) November 22, 2024

Convenient that Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency is already out with a roadmap for gutting NASA - to the immediate benefit of Musk's SpaceX.

— Max Burns (@themaxburns) November 22, 2024

Greene’s money is not where her mouth is. It never is. Nor is Elmo’s:

As Balz wrote, Musk and Ramaswamy "have huge ambitions and no humility about what they are undertaking," before adding, "What they have talked about amounts to a wholesale attack on federal agencies designed to eliminate thousands of regulations, reduce the federal workforce by an order of magnitude that could cripple the delivery of vital services, and effect cost savings that would amount to nearly one-third of the federal budget, or the entire discretionary part of the budget and then some." 

Karmack cited the Border Patrol, with 19,000 Border Patrol agents, and asked where the cuts would come from when border security was the main plank of the Trump campaign. 

According to Balz, "There are about 1,800 air traffic controllers, she said. Would Trump’s team cut that workforce significantly, causing potential flight cancellations and disruption?" with Kamarck predicting " “It will take about a week and Congress will say, ‘Hey, you can’t do this." 

"And how deeply would he try to cut the workforce at the Social Security Administration, at the risk of checks not being sent out promptly or other breakdowns in a program that he has otherwise vowed not to touch?" Balz asked. 

With Ramaswamy and Musk boasting, "We expect to prevail," Balz wrote, "Those words no doubt reflect the aggressive approach the president-elect and his advisers hope to take once he is sworn in. Meanwhile, executive branch employees are bracing for what could be coming and opponents are preparing to resist through legal and other channels. Whether Trump’s shock troops, led by Musk and Ramaswamy, are truly ready will be known soon."

Pro-tip: they aren’t. Musk and Ramaswamy are completely clueless clowns. Did you miss Musk’s offer to “employ” volunteers to work 80 hours a week and, in the end, accomplish nothing? Somehow, I think Balz did. Elmo and Vivek are not to be taken seriously.

And still no mention of cutting contracts to SpaceX. 🤔 

Although the reference to SS checks going out is a tired one. Among other things, SSA administers Medicare, which keeps a lot of people employed doing more than making sure the computers deposit monthly payments in bank accounts (checks stopped being mailed shortly before buggy whip manufacturers went out of business). But sure, fire half of them randomly. That’s a good idea. 🙄

I would also note Ramaswamy has promised to cut federal employees based on the numbers in their Social Security numbers. So: Border Patrol; Secret Service; air traffic controllers; FBI Agents; food inspectors; DEA agents; IRS employees processing tax returns and refunds. You get the idea. Not sure how much support that gets in Congress.Also don’t understand how he can be taken seriously.

Been watching this movie for over 40 years. It always ends the same.

*Except FEMA. When Georgia gets hit by a hurricane.🌀  Then we hire all those people back. 🤷🏻‍♂️ 

“Fall Of The Broman Empire”

Everyone who is not MAGA or an Elmo Bro is leaving Twitter:

I can’t tell you how different it is on X now after so many people have left. I have always followed mostly right-wing accounts because I cover them, and they are running out of people to pick fights with. So they’re just mostly fighting with each other.

I got my Krampus present 11 days early.

War On, Christmas!🎅 A Time Capsule

 1893

1904

1957

1961

1967

Pretty sure the church lost that one.

1978

And no, Virginia, we didn’t need the intertoobs and unsociable media to spread rumors and create conspiracy theories nobody remembered a short time later.

🎄

Advent Approaches

As to the times and the seasons, my dear people, you have no need to have anything written to you.  For you yourselves know that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.  When people say, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come on them as labor pangs upon a woman with child, and there will be no escape.  But you are not in darkness, my dear people, for that day to surprise you like a thief.  For you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or darkness.  So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.  For those who sleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night.  But, since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.  For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we wake or sleep we might live with him.  Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

--1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11

Advent Approaches

Matthew 25:31-46  (SV)

25:31 "When the Son of Adam comes in his glory, accompanied by all his messengers, then he will occupy his glorious throne. Then all peoples will be assembled before him, and he will separate them into groups, much as a shepherd segregates sheep from goats. He'll place the sheep to his right and the goats to his left. Then the king will say to those at his right, 'Come, you who have the blessing of my Father, inherit the domain prepared for you from the foundations of the world.  You may remember, I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a foreigner and you showed me hospitality; I was naked and you clothed me;  I was ill and you visited me;  I was in prison and you came to see me.'

Then the virtuous will say to him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and fed you or thirsty and gave you drink? When did we notice that you were a foreigner and extend hospitality to you? Or naked and clothed you? When did we find you ill or in prison and come to visit you?

And the king will respond to them, 'I swear to you, whatever you did for the most inconspicuous members of my family, you did for me as well.'

Next, he will say to those on his left, 'You, condemned to the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his messengers, get away from me! You too may remember, I was hungry and you didn't give me amything to eat; I was thirsty and you refused me a drink; I was a foreigner and you failed to extend hospitality to me; naked and you didn't clothe me; ill and in prison and you didn't visit me.'

Then they will give him a similar reply: 'Lord, when did we notice that you were hungry or thirsty or a foreigner or naked or weak or in prison, and did not attempt to help you?'

He will then respond: 'I swear to you, whever you didn't do for the most inconcpicuous members of my family, you didn't do for me.'

The second group will then head for everlasting punishment, but the virtuous for everlasting life.

Abba John the Little said: “We have abandoned a light burden, namely self-criticism, and taken up a heavy burden, namely self-justification.”

Standing In Awe Of The Incompetence

DOGE is not aiming to eliminate a wasteful, lawless, and antidemocratic bureaucracy in Washington—it is hoping to become one. https://t.co/LZfcB3Otnz

— The New Republic (@newrepublic) November 24, 2024

Just read it.

Tötenfest 2024

In the German E&R church calendar, this prayer would probably come today, the Last Sunday of Pentecost, the day of the observance of the Tötenfest.  All Saints is for the saints of God; all souls is for all those who died in God.  Tötenfest was sort of the Teutonic version of Los Dios De Los Muertos, just without the sugar skulls and the celebrations and the colors.  It was a day to remember, one last time, those who had died in the year since the preceding Tötenfest, and to recall silently all those who had died years ago.  Gone, but never forgotten.  Time truly wounds all heals.

Tötenfest is a good way to end the liturgical year before the new one starts with Advent. It marks an ending and a look backward (hardly the final look, but a distinctly communal one).

The oldest members of my last church remembered something about the service, involving lighting candles and reciting the names of those who had died in the past year.  Below I talk about that in a bit more detail.  Every year, the ritual was to light candles, read names, and pray:

Almighty and everlasting God, before whom stand the spirits of the living and the dead; Light of lights, Fountain of wisdom and goodness, who livest in all pure and humble and gracious souls.

For all who witnessed a good confession for thy glory and the welfare of the world; for patriarchs, prophets, and apostles; for the wise of every land and nation, and all teachers of mankind,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For the martyrs of our holy faith, the faithful witnesses of Christ of whome the world was not worthy, and for all who have resisted falsehood and wrong unto suffering or death,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For all who have labored and suffered for freedom, good government, just laws, and they sanctity of the home; and for all who have given their lives for their country,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For all who have sought to bless men by their service and life, and to lighten the dark places of the earth,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For those who have been tender and true and brave in all times and places, and for all who have been one with thee in the communion of Christ's spirit and in the strength of his love,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For the dear friends and kindred, ministering in the spiritual world, whose faces we see no more, but whose love is with us for ever,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For the teachers and companions of our childhood and youth, and for the members of our household of faith who worship thee in heaven,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For the grace which was given to all these, and for the trust and hope in which they lived and died,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

And that we may hold them in continual remembrance, that the sanctity of their wisdom and goodness may rest upon our earthly days, and that we may prepare ourselves to follow them in their upward way,

WE BESEECH THEE TO HEAR US, O GOD.

That we may ever think of them as with thee, and be sure that where they are, there we may be also,

WE BESEECH THEE TO HEAR US, O GOD.

That we may have a hope beyond this world for all the children, even for wanderers who must be sought and brought home; that we may be comforted and sustained by the promise of a time when none shall be a stranger and an exile from thy kingdom and household;

WE BESEECH THEE TO HEAR US, O GOD.

In the communion of the Holy Spirit, with the faithful and the saints in heaven, with the redeemed in all ages, with our beloved who dwell in thy presence and peace, we, who still serve and suffer on earth, unite in ascribing:

THANKSGIVING, GLORY, HONOR, AND POWER UNTO THEE, O LORD OUR GOD.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,

AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING, IS NOW, AND EVER SHALL BE, WORLD WITHOUT END. AMEN.

We celebrated the Tötenfest at both of my German E&R heritage churches, even though no one remembered how.  There was an old E&R Book of Worship, in German, in one of those churches, so old it still had Fraktur type (Hitler, I understand, modernized that.  And Mussolini made the trains run on time, they say.  I'm pretty sure that one started as sarcasm.)  Anyway, I couldn't read it, couldn't even find the word "Tötenfest" anywhere in it.  So I did what some people remembered about it:  lit a candle for the dead of the past year, rang the church bell (in my first church they had two bells: one for church, one for funerals.  The latter was muffled and painfully appropriate.  I still miss that.), and said a prayer. Probably not the prayer above, but certainly the service should include that prayer, too.

This year I am well aware I am the last of the people I grew up with; that is, had known all my life. My parents died as recently as six years ago; my brother died just last year.  I have too many memories now that I don't share with anyone living, which is a kind of death-in-life itself.  It would be good to celebrate the Tötenfest among a faithful congregation, or at least a faithful remnant.  You can't always get what you want, though.

For your friends and families, too,  that we all may have a hope beyond this world for all the children, adults and parents and siblings and friends, even for wanderers who must be sought and brought home; that we may be comforted and sustained by the promise of a time when none shall be a stranger and an exile from God's kingdom and household.   Those are keener words than they have been in a long, long time.  Indeed, the heart of the gospel is not to evangelize and leave people "saved" by the message, but to bring them into the blessed community, and to build community with them.  The Tötenfest is where we remember those who are still with us, will always be with us, no matter where they are now.

Light a candle, if only in your mind. Call the names, if only to yourself. Say a prayer, or just hold them closer to you in your heart. Call your thoughts together, to concentrate on this, and remember God is the God of the living, so they are still alive with you, in God.

“We would not have you ignorant, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.  For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep.”

I said those words so many times at so many gravesides I have them practically memorized.  I have these words memorized, too; and said them as part of my eulogy for my brother at his memorial service in his backyard over a year ago.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of Christ Jesus, our risen Savior.

And the blessing of God Almighty, Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, be among you, and remain with you, always.

Amen.

Advent Approaches

The root of Advent is in revelation, which is to say apocalypse; and also in parousia, the anticipation of the Reign of Christ. Which is why some churches observe "Reign of Christ" Sunday on the last Sunday of Pentecost, the Sunday before the First Sunday of Advent. And why the German tradition includes a "Tötenfest" on that day, honoring those who have died in Christ in the last liturgical year, as they prepare to turn toward the beginning of the next liturgical year, which begins not with a whimper, but with a bang. The bang of the apocalypse. 


Isaiah 64:1-9

64:1 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence--

64:2 as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil-- to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!

64:3 When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.

64:4 From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him.

64:5 You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.

64:6 We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

64:7 There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.

64:8 Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.

64:9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.

Mark 13:24-37

13:24 "But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light,

13:25 and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

13:26 Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in clouds' with great power and glory.

13:27 Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

13:28 "From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.

13:29 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.

13:30 Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.

13:31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

13:32 "But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

13:33 Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.

13:34 It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch.

13:35 Therefore, keep awake--for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn,

13:36 or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly.

13:37 And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake."

Luke turns that fearful vision into a joke, but the command is the same, and it has become a traditional one for Advent: "Wachet Auf!" Keep awake! The plea from the prophet Isaiah for a visible sign from the invisible God is less well known, but deserves to be just as familiar.

The reference here is to Elijah, and the priests of Ba'al. The priests set up a pyre and doused it with oild, and prayed all day for Ba'al to set it afire. With one request, Elijah's pyre, which was doused with water until the wood was soaked, was set alight. In the last chapter of the collection of writings of the three Isaiahs, the prophet is longing for a positive sign like that, an assurance that God hears; and that God has not abandoned Israel. The great prophet of God, asks for physical proof that God is still present.  An apocalypse; a revelation.

Advent began as a season of preparation, and the reasonable preparation for the coming of the king was penance and repentance. The Christian story, after all, began with the kerygma of John the Baptizer: repent! It was a penitential season, a "mini-Lent," in which the hearts of the believers were prepared for the birth of the Messiah not with presents and cakes and cookies, but with fasting and confession and penance. The priest this morning said the old themes for the four Sundays were sin, death, heaven, and hell. There is more reference to the passage from Mark to doom and apocalypse as we commonly understand the term (a cataclysmic end to all things). But Advent is, and always has been, a curious kind of preparation. It is also the season of apocalypse.

Lent, the other “great” season of the church, is a preparation for death, and the longed for resurrection. It is another season of the already done but not yet now; but, oddly enough, on a less cosmic scale. Advent is a preparation for birth, but it is also the story of the coming of the Creator of the Universe. It is a kind of resetting of the clock to a time before Messiah, a time when the longing expectation was not yet fulfilled. And, of course, even now the expectation is still "now but not yet." The parousia is still waited on by Christians, even as they proclaim the kingdom of God is here and now, is present and at hand. The kingdom is both present and not yet. The parousia has both come, and is coming, and is still awaited. More than any other season, Advent returns us to this central paradox. It simultaneously looks forward to what has already come, and also to what has not yet come. It is completeness and incompleteness, together, in constant and necessary tension.

Advent is the one time the church tries to capture the eternal, in the temporary, to gather together that which was, and is, and is not-yet, and hold it still, and look back on it, while still anticipating it. Past, present, and future, held as an eternal Now. And it opens with a cry that is both already answered, and not yet answered today: "O, that you would tear open the heavens and come down!" And yet it is still coming, because we have the commandment: Keep awake!

For four weeks, we will be caught between this knowing about what is already history, and waiting for what has not yet come.