War on, Christmas!

Mrs Breuer's mother, Rita, began collecting antique Christmas decorations in the 1970s. Her husband had said he wanted the sort of old-fashioned German tree that his grandmother used to have. But Rita Breuer and her daughter soon started to unearth bizarre tree decorations that had little to do with the traditional Christmas. First World War items included a miniature glass soldier carrying a hand grenade and military tree baubles in the shape of shells and tanks.*

"The trend continued into the Nazi era," Mrs Breuer said. The church was too intimidated to protest, and the majority of Germans continued with the traditions they had become used to. "The Nazi Christmas ideology appears to have been adhered to most by the families of party activists who lived in towns," she added. The Nazi version of some German carols that were stripped of their Christian content survive and are still unwittingly sung by today's Germans.

I want to say the Hallmark ornaments like the above are in-line with the miniature glass soldier carrying a hand grenade; but then again, Hallmark hasn't made a Punisher ornament yet, or a Rambo, for that matter; so I guess it's all good.

I will add that the idea that Christians "stole" Christmas traditions from pagans is a bit rich, as well as a sign of information deficit disorder.  It's a common problem, especially in an information besotted age like this one; or the 19th century, for that matter.  It's hard today to read Frazer's The Golden Bough without being aware of how prejudiced he was against most things Roman Catholic (he writes like a Puritan on anything to do with Catholic traditions in Europe) as well as most things not befitting an English gentleman to the manor born.  In other words, by modern standards he comes quite a bloomer about many details and conclusions.  I mention him because he could be the patron saint of many a comment on the internet about the origins of Christmas and its traditions.

None of which, frankly, are correct.  Nothing about Christmas was "stolen" by Christians; the very idea that it was is one founded in Puritanism (the infection that led to Deism in the late 18th century) rather than anthropology or any branch of scholarship.  And the irony is, it is neo-puritanism that insists Christmas must be cleansed of such traditions, but where the Puritans wanted to remove the Catholic influence from Christianity, neo-puritans want to remove Christianity from Christmas.

Which things like Hallmark ornaments should prove has already been done, despite the best efforts of Linus van Pelt.

The Puritans were not fans of Christmas celebrations, in no small part because they considered all the traditions associated with Christmas to be pagan in origin, much like the Catholic church itself (which the Anglican church was modeled on.  The name "Puritan" started as a pejorative because they wanted to "purify" the Church of England; later they wore it as a badge of honor.  History is full of such ironies.).  So anything they considered "pagan" was not to be admitted into the purity of their Christianity.  The Puritans are long gone, but they're argument about Christmas lingers on.

So we get statements about how many traditions of Christmas were "stolen" by the Church, which actually didn't adopt any of them.  Some churches do decorate their worship space with evergreen branches (but never mistletoe; or rare enough the exception proves the rule) or maybe even holly and its berries (or plastic simulacra), but that's as far as it goes.  No Santa Claus; no wassail bowls; you can even raise eyebrows if you serve hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls on Christmas Day.

Yule logs, roast meats, grand feasts, evergreens, etc., etc.:  all kept in cultures that converted to Christianity because the church didn't expunge them.  Protestants did, to some degree; it's one reason the Carmina Gadelica preserved the prayers and charms of the Highland people; the Presbyterians were busy eliminating such practices.  Most of what was kept was either deemed harmless or, like St. Brigid in Ireland, converted to Christianity.

But that doesn't make St. Brigid an invalid saint; well, unless you're a Puritan, and then all saints are invalid.

It's not, in other words, an "objective" position on Christmas traditions to say they were "stolen."  It's not even a valid position; no anthropologist would agree with you (no credible one, anyway).  Most of the anthropology that did argue for such "theft" (Sir James Frazer comes prominently to mind) has been discarded in favor of more objective (!) assessments, assessments that don't assume Frazer's prejudices are also the truth.

My favorite example of this is Wikipedia entry which argues that it is transparently clear many Christmas traditions were overlaid on pagan ones, meaning the Church "stole" them in order to keep the people.  Well, first, that appropriation of culture by Christians goes back to Paul (his fight with Peter was over how much of Jewish law to impose on Christian converts), so:  duh.  But  I don't put much stock in Wikipedia, and this entry is as good an example why as any.  The article notes that the word "Jule" doesn't appear in any source until 900 C.E.   I'll just point out that's medieval Europe, not pre-Christian, or even pre-Roman, Europe.  So if "Jule" was popular in 10th century Germanic regions, it was a Christian Europe it was popular in.

You can make the same argument about the Christmas tree, which descends from the paradeisbaum of German passion plays (the tree in the Garden.  The Feast Day of Adam and Eve is in December).

The entry also makes the usual lazy assertion that Christians appropriated "pagan" traditions and rituals, and therefore those things we like most about Christmas aren't really "Christian."Most people converted to Christianity and kept living the lives they'd been living.  Some Protestants objected to that, as I said; sometimes the Roman Church objected.  But for the most part, the Church converted people and left their familiar traditions intact because those traditions didn't offend Christianity.  Christians from Catholics to the UCC have done enough stomping on native cultures around the world; there's no need to make up responsibility for things they didn't do.

And it's not really an offense against God (especially if you don't believe in God) or common humanity to sing for "Peace on Earth" under a bough of mistletoe or while swigging eggnog laced with bourbon standing near as big a burning log as your host could find, or while waiting for the Buche de Noel to be served.

So get over it.  It's not like Christianity was imposed on Europeans as if the Christians were colonizers and the natives mere slaves.  Hell, even the Indians on the subcontinent enjoy cricket.

Did they steal that from the British?

Anyway, I hate to bring the Nazis into this, since our cultural appropriation of Christmas is hardly as evil in intent as they were.  But it is nearly as hegemonic as the Nazis wanted to be.  Ironically, though, the "spirit of Christmas" prevails.  It is the one time of the year we are called to listen to the angels of our better nature, to at least pretend (as Bill Murray says at the end of "Scrooged") that we are as nice as we say we are, that "peace on earth" and "goodwill toward all" is supposed to be a universal sentiment.  We don't get there, but we try to.

And despite comic book characters fighting each other one somebody's tree this year, that's a Christmas gift worth cherishing every December.  It's the last Christian remnant of our popular Christmas, but it endures.  It is the part we haven't managed to remove, despite our best efforts to render the rest of the holiday as religion-free as possible.

Long may it survive.  It does us good to at least remember to express the sentiment annually.

Oh, good grief.....

"There are those who contend that it does not benefit African­-Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less ­advanced school, a less ­­ a slower­ track school where they do well. One of, ­one of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas… They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they're pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them…I'm just not impressed by the fact that the University of Texas may have too fewer. Maybe it ought to have too fewer. And maybe some, you know, when you take more, the number of blacks, really competent blacks admitted to lesser schools, turns out to be less. I don't think it stands to reason that it's a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible."

Justice Antonin Scalia today, in oral arguments on Fischer v. University of Texas.

All I have to say is, I heard arguments like this in my childhood, especially before the public schools I attended were integrated (which happened in 1970 16 years after Brown v. Board was handed down.  When I got to Austin 8 years later, they were still fighting over it.  And then there was the fight in Boston....).  The argument against integration was that "the blacks" wouldn't like white schools, and wouldn't do well in them, and wouldn't be happy there, and were better off in "their own schools" with "their own teachers."

It wouldn't, you see, be a good thing for the "white schools" to admit as many blacks as possible.

And then, of course, we did.

I never thought, in my entire life, I'd hear that blatantly racist argument uttered again, certainly not in the courtroom of the highest court of the land.

Maybe I was wrong about the impact of Donald Trump.......

"What Ho, Twing!"

The world needs more of Wodehouse's finely honed sense of farce, if only to stem the tide of stentorian statements like this:

When a purportedly major presidential candidate, leading in the polls less than two months before the first votes are cast, proposes that we keep people out of the country based entirely on their religion – well, it feels like apocalyptic science-fiction, as if we were all living inside “The Man in the High Castle,” but I can only conclude that the moment to stand up and be counted is upon us.

Oh, calm down and stop taking yourself so seriously.  For one thing, "leading in the polls" doesn't mean burning the Reichstag or marking the calendar for Kristallnacht  (and frankly, having an adult life that "extends well back into the 20th century" doesn't mean so much, either; a lot of us have that, but you don't hear us using it to claim some kind of historical authority.  Or maybe we do, but we sure sound damned fatuous when we do so, if this is any example.).  But "leading in the polls" doesn't, as I started to say, mean a damned thing.  To wit:

For now, most surveys cover Republican-leaning adults or registered voters, rather than likely voters. Combine that with the poor response rates to polls and the fact that an increasing number of polls use nontraditional sampling methods, and it’s not clear how much overlap there is between the people included in these surveys and the relatively small share of Republicans who will turn up to vote in primaries and caucuses.   

Don't go so fast through there you miss the reference to the reliability of polls, for which the response rate is poor (and that affects the sampling), and the methods of sampling themselves raise issues; making polls not all that good as predictors of the future (as we have seen in elections recently past; but still we don't learn).

And another thing:

But there’s another, more fundamental problem. That 25 or 30 percent of the vote isn’t really Donald Trump’s for the keeping. In fact, it doesn’t belong to any candidate. If past nomination races are any guide, the vast majority of eventual Republican voters haven’t made up their minds yet.

And that's not 20-30 percent of the American public; nowhere near, in fact:

Right now, [Trump] has 25 to 30 percent of the vote in polls among the roughly 25 percent of Americans who identify as Republican. (That’s something like 6 to 8 percent of the electorate overall, or about the same share of people who think the Apollo moon landings were faked.) 

So about the same number of people who could be convinced Kubrick filmed the Apollo moon landing on a sound stage, can be considered hard-core supporters of Donald Trump.  If we're in Philip K. Dick territory, it's only the Dick of drug induced paranoia.  We're nowhere near a radical alternative history lesson.  We're certainly not here:

It’s the moment to ask yourself whose side you’re on, and the moment to observe that those who would sacrifice essential liberty for the sake of temporary safety will get neither. Would you have spoken out in Germany in 1933, or 1936, or 1939, risking your own safety and that of your family, or would you have kept on going with your head down? It is time for those questions too, and also for the one that U.S. Army chief counsel Joseph N. Welch famously asked Sen. Joseph McCarthy in 1954: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”

This isn't the day when the entire world sat silently and listened to Trump rave.  Trump has already waffled on the details of his plan; national leaders of others countries have already denounced his stupid statement; the White House Press Secretary said it made Trump unqualified to be President, and indicated the same for every GOP candidate who didn't denounce Trump in no uncertain terms.  Hell, even Paul Ryan came before the cameras in his freshman year beard to denounce what Trump said.  "Have you no shame?" is not the question.  The question is, how many people are taking this seriously?  And the best answer we have right now is:  about the same number who take seriously the claim the moon landing was a fake and a conspiracy.

As Charlie Pierce is wont to say, some of those people at Salon need to take a cold shower.

But it isn't Trump's fault; it's ours.  At least, that's what Mr. O'Hehir insists.  We created this Frankenstein monster, because....well, I'm not sure what we did.  For someone who's adult life extends well back into the 20th century, O'Hehir seems oddly ignorant of the violence of the '60's, especially against blacks and civil rights workers; or the political violence of the '70's; the sanctions cruelty in Central America in the '80's; the lunatic politics that has run from the defeat of Goldwater to the present day through the GOP, a party that stopped representing the country-club set sometime just after poor Barry was trounced by LBJ.  We did this?  Considering what we've done in America to Africans, natives, the people of the Philippines, Cuba, Vietnam....I don't think the presence of Donald Trump, politician, is even a patch.

And since Trump is so determined to do what Bill Maher and Sam Harris want to do, which is denounce "Muslims," will somebody finally point out the racism here, because even Donald Trump doesn't imagine refusing entry to the country to Asians; and yet the majority of the world's Muslims live in Southeast Asia.

We aren't going to be blocking Somalis from coming here, or Indonesians; we're going to block "Muslims," and by "Muslim" we mean "Arabs."  Even if we aren't quite sure of the distinction between "Arabs" as an ethnic group, and as a nationality.

But it's not about race, because it's never about race; it's only about Muslims, except it's only about what we think Muslims look like, and it turns out Muslims look like people with certain racial characteristics.  And the rest are just not "real" Muslims; or at least not real threats.  Or something.  And that's been going on for years.  In fact, if you want to see something really scary, nine years ago, I wrote this:

By the way, on p. 85, [Sam] Harris asserts that all adherents to Islam are dangerous, crazy, and violent. His support for this sweeping generalization that encompasses over 1 billion people? I will quote his explanation: "Muslims are utterly deranged by their religious faith." The emphasis is in the original. Reflect on the fact that, were this statement made about Jews, or African Americans, or even Asians or Mexicans, he would be vilified as a racist. The difference here is...?

I'll be glad when this kind of nonsense has run its course.

Mr. Harris is still a part of this discussion.  He agrees with Ted Cruz that we should support Christians coming to this country over Muslims, which says something about his antipathy to Muslims.  I rather like what Noam Chomsky said when asked about Harris' comments:

“A person who makes charges like that either provides evidence, or is telling us, loud and clear, that he merits only contempt. I presume that he provided no evidence.”

No, in fact, he hasn't.

I agree Trump (and Harris) make frightening noises; but I think the only proper response to them is contempt,  Rather than contempt, however, Mr. O'Hehir ends his argument with a final rhetorical flourish (the kind we should all be taught to avoid):

America has gone much too far down a dark road, and we don’t have a light or a map to find our way back. 

Oh, you wish times were as bad as that, so you could say you were there and fought the good fight, pointed out the emperor had no clothes, asked the Senator if at long last he had no shame, sounded the warning about the danger of Nazis in Germany, or of Hitler as Chancellor.

But it ain't so.  Trump has not changed a country that could overlook Wounded Knee for almost a century, could bury the Trail of Tears in a memory hole, could ignore the last violation of the natives by the opening of the Oklahoma territory; that could forget the imperialism of the war in the Philippines, or be so content to still be navel gazing about Vietnam 50 years on; or pat itself on the back for canonizing Martin Luther King after we killed him; or forget so soon Bobby Kennedy and LBJ walking through the poor rural areas of America (are there still poor rural areas in America?  Or are they all rich white Republican enclaves?  Jennifer Lawrence's fist film was set in as fictional a landscape as Panem, wasn't it?); a country that still can't accept why the Civil War was fought, or what we owe to the slaves who built this country, is supposed to have nightmares because Donald Trump is leading in the polls among GOP voters two months before the first caucus?

No, I don't think so.  Still, as Wodehouse noted:  "It is all very well to excite pity and terror, as Aristotle recommends, but there are limits."

Trump should excite neither pity nor terror.  He isn't a sign of anything, except that if we have a national salvation, it does not lie in politics.

It takes a train to cry.....

Never let it be said our Texas politicians are completely clueless.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick tweeted this:

Yes, he really did.  He took it down later "so others cannot misinterpret it."  Or misunderestimate him, I suppose.

I honestly don't know how else to interpret what it plainly says; but maybe that's why I'm not a state official.

And brave Gov. Abbott went ahead and sued the Federal government and International Rescue to keep 8 Syrians from entering Texas over the weekend.  He went so far as to ask for a Temporary Injunction, but in the face of the Government's novel legal reasoning, including the fact that, once admitted to the U.S., all such visitors have free right of travel through the country like anyone else (including convicted felons and even child molesters!), the State decided their plea for a preliminary injunction could be heard on Wednesday.

Two days after the refugees come to Texas.

Yes, when Gov. Goodhair Rick Perry decided not to run for Gov. again, we all cheered up.  And yes, sure enough, things got worse.

"Pray without ceasing."--Paul of Tarsus

Russell Moore told Linda Wertheimer, almost wholly in passing, that the current contretemps about "thoughts and prayers" for the victims of the shooting in California (which means it's escaped the intertoobs and entered the "real" world!) is a sign of "deep divisions" in the country, because such a critique would have been unthinkable even a few years ago.

Well, of course, I should start by noting this critique began in the "real" world, with the New York Daily News.  But it's hardly an "unimaginable" complaint, except to an evangelical like Mr. Moore, who assumes that what he calls good is good, and what he calls bad is bad.  I will not call the complaint about such empty platitudes as "thoughts and prayers" bad; I will present my argument for it.

It demeans prayer to use it so casually as to rattle off the word in response to any story of such a sensational crime.  This has been pointed out before:

“As I said just a few months ago, and I said a few months before that, and I said each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough,” [President Obama] said.

Emma Green of the Atlantic thinks the current criticism is "prayer shaming."  But it is actually the legitimate critique of the use of religion by the religious.  Or, at least, it can be.  As Jim Naughton of the New York Daily News wrote:

 DC pundits seem unable to grasp that many people upset by pols' "thoughts and prayers" rhetoric are not mocking prayer but defending it.

Prayer is not a request for the salvation of others, or for their comfort.  Prayer is directed at us, not even to God.  Review the Lord's prayer again:  the first lines acknowledge humility before God and emphasize the very Jewish idea that even God's name is holy and should be kept holy.  The following lines ask for God's rule on earth, without qualification.  Keeping in mind the statement of the prophet that the day of the Lord is a day of darkness, not light, that isn't necessarily a request for hegemony.  The next lines address the needs of the one offering the prayer, but those needs are confined to this day's daily bread; nothing more.  And the rest is directed toward our attention to others:  may God be lenient with us, to the extent we are lenient with others.  Our fate is tied directly to theirs.  Am I my brother's keeper?  Yes, but only in the sense that my brother is my keeper, too.

In that "lesson on how to pray," where is there room for the formulaic "thoughts and prayers" of politicians?  What kind of prayer, precisely, are they offering?  Concerns?  Compassion?  As Jesus says to his disciples:  the Gentiles do as much.  Frankly I would ask Mr. Moore:  if that's all your evangelical Christianity, with all its concern for secularism, has to offer, then how are you any different from the secular humanists?  Is this all there is?

Prayer is holy.  Prayer is sacred.  We do nothing for the victims of crime if we only "hold them in our prayers."  That's a social formula, an empty phrase; it doesn't even engage our sensibilities.  We say it as casually as we say "Bless you!" when someone sneezes, little thinking that we mean anything except it is the thing to say when you hear a sneeze.  It is neither prayer nor blessing, it is simply polite reflex.

To echo Mr. Pierce on this point, I, too, am heartily fed up with this nonsense:

It's long past the time to break the power and influence held over our politics by a splinter faction of one form of American Christianity. It's long past time to make refashioning the Gospel into talking-points—​and, worse, a vehicle for ratfcking—​a political liability rather than a political asset. It's long past time to ignore the bleating of self-professed Christians who specialize in marinating in their victimology, who build their own Golgothas, and who drive the nails into their own palms. If so-called "prayer-shaming" is the first step in that direction, then Chris Murphy's entire career in politics has been worthwhile.

Enough with empty pieties and meaningless platitudes!  Prayer is not a wish or a polite word, prayer is powerful, but only if we engage its power!  It is the true power of powerlessness.   Prayer is activity, not passivity.  To relegate it to the passive sense, "I will pray for you," is to reduce it to a nothing, a "Shape without form, shade without color,/Paralysed force, gesture without motion." Prayer is not something done to us, or in spite of us; prayer is done through us.  Prayer is our action in the world, not our wish for ourselves.  Prayer is not a plea for Xmas presents; it is for the strength to get up and do what needs to be done.  And our prayer is answered when we get up and find out what strength we have, and what it allows us to do.

"Religion is responsibility, or it is nothing at all."--Jacques Derrida

One one occasion he happened to be praying some place.  When he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us how topiary, just as John taught his disciples."

He said to them, when you pray, you should say:

Father, your name be revered.
Impose your imperial rule.
Provide us with the bread we need day by day.
Forgive our sins, since we too forgive everyone in debt to us.
And please don't subject us to test after test.

--Luke 11:1-4, SV

Let the reader understand.

Still nothing to add, except to note what Allison said, and to pick it up where Thought Criminal left off:

Prayer is sweeping the front porch.

Prayer is poetry, too, but poetry meant to spur action: Singing to a god of the glory of its creation, calling others to that glory, using the only voice a poet has to bring people together for a common purpose. Prayer does something.

Prayer is love, and love is work, or it is nothing. Anyone can sing a song.

And prayer like that has moved mountains and it has built cities and it has brought the walls of Jericho down. Prayer like that would take the events of today and shake the foundations of this country until our fear-mad politics and our angry, resentful culture came tumbling down, too. Prayer like that would pass laws. Prayer like that would make this one the last one.

So when we say our prayers are with the victims of a crime, we’d better mean our backs are bent to work to help them, or we’re not talking about our prayers.

And let the people say, "Amen."

Same as it ever was

What can I add, except:  "Yup."

The news now is that only two shooters were involved, and they are both dead.  The shooting had nothing to do with the facility, but with a holiday party being conducted by the San Bernardino Dept. of Public Health which rented a room there for the party.  The shooters were employees of the Dept. (or at least one of them was).

This is the 355th such shooting in a year that is only 336 days old.  And the answers of our would-be leaders is empty platitudes which would make the most timorous pastor blush with shame.  Pastors are sometimes forced to deal in platitudes because they have no real power to effect events, to assuage the pain of death, the sorrow of sudden loss.  Politicians deal in platitudes as a way of escaping responsibility, because whatever authority they have, they won't use it.

And, sadly, we, the great American public, won't make them use it.

"And they were each one quite odd..."

This started life as two posts, but the second presumed the first had been published.  I decided, then, to make an unwieldy marriage of the two.

One of the dangers of going to seminary is that you might learn to release the limits on your empathy, and when that happens, where do you stop?

Fatima, just shy of her teenage years, was scarred when she witnessed the death of her best friend in Syria three years ago. She worried that if she made new friends, she'd see them die too. "It's hard for me to forget. I saw so many bad things in Syria," Fatima said. She's unsure whether it was a sniper's bullet that killed her friend—the memories are still painful for Fatima. She was walking with the girl to the market to fetch food for her family in Homs, a Syrian city devastated by the country's civil war. Fatima went into a shop, heard a noise behind her, and when she turned around she saw her friend lying dead in the street.

The PBS Newshour just the other night ran a story about people in Paris getting therapy after the attacks there; about how they will need psychological help to cope with what they saw, what they experienced.  I saw the story and thought, "Yes, that's good they get that.  But what about the Syrians?"

And then the universe, or God, or a particularly perverse wave of coincidence (take your pick) drops the above in my lap, by way of Charlie Pierce.

Fatima, I'm happy to say, is getting some counseling at the camp in Lebanon where she lives now.  But how many Syrians don't get such counseling?  As the article points out:  this is an entire generation of Syrians, not just a handful of Parisians.  Numbers don't really matter, except in terms of impact; and what will the affect on that generation do in the world?  Violence spreads like a contagion.  "Those to whom evil is done/Do evil in return."  And 'round and 'round we spin it, and here in America, to our eternal shame (or it should be; it will be forgotten by New Year's), we are so afraid of "terrorists" our would-be leaders fear toddlers and want refugees to remain offshore permanently, because it's the only way to be sure.

The other side of that movie quote is just waiting for some GOP candidate to pick it up and declare our "final solution" to the problem of the "Middle East."  It's the only thing they haven't advocated yet, I don't know what they are waiting for.

In fact, what our leaders are doing is so much worse than that:

In a letter sent to President Barack Obama this month, Mr. Christie said he had directed the state's Department of Human Services to not resettle any Syrian refugees in New Jersey and that nonprofit organizations were to notify the state of any Syrian placements in New Jersey. The practical meaning of the governor's position isn't clear. The U.S. Department of State oversees the screening and resettlement of refugees. States, however, have a role in passing federal dollars to local charities working on the efforts. The Christie administration began a preliminary assessment of how much authority the state has in providing federal assistance to refugee groups but hasn't made a final determination, senior officials said. Regardless, local religious leaders and activists are expecting a family of seven from Syria to arrive Monday in northern New Jersey, one of the first to come since the Nov. 13 terror attacks in Paris.

Is New Jersey going to identify these Syrians?  Perhaps round them up and forcibly detain them, then put them on a train outbound from New Jersey to Anywhere Else, U.S.A?  Is that what we are going to see?  This isn't even resettling them in places where they can be isolated; this is refusing them the right to live here at all, a right of residency no state has the power to refuse.  The next logical step is to refuse to allow any convicted felons to live in New Jersey.  Why not?  It makes as much sense, and is probably more likely to protect the public, than refusing to allow 7 people the protection of a nation of immigrants, who are now a nation of xenophobes, apparently.

And as long as we're considering refugees and religion, apparently faith is faith until it's faith in people political leaders don't want to trust.  And so the Roman Catholic Greg Abbott directs state agencies to refuse to resettle Syrian refugees in Texas (probably the very same letter Chris Christie signed), and the state agencies pass the word along to NGO's in Texas, most of which are religious organizations:

“Consistent with…federal-law obligation, we now require that you provide immediately and ongoing consultation with Health and human Services Office of Immigration and Refugee Affairs regarding any plans that may exist to resettle Syrian refugees in Texas,” it reads. “We reserve the right to refuse to cooperate with any resettlement on any grounds and, until further notice, will refuse to cooperate with the resettlement of any Syrian refugees in Texas.”

“If you have any active plan to resettle Syrian refugees in Texas, please discontinue those plans immediately.”

The letters constituted a direct challenge to the work of groups such as Refugee Services of Texas, which partners with faith-based organizations such as Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Church World Service, and Especial Migration Ministries. Faith leaders — especially Christians — in Texas and other parts of the country have spoken out repeatedly against the anti-refugee sentiment of Abbott and other Christian governors, noting that a closed-door policy to refugees flies in the face of Jesus Christ’s biblical call to “welcome the stranger.” Others have pointed out that government-subsidized faith groups typically perform the bulk of refugee resettlement in the United States, and that thwarting their work hedges dangerously close to an attack on religious liberty. 

And as I finish this, the radio tells me Greg Abbott has sent a letter to such agencies in Texas, threatening to sue any that relocate a Syrian refugee to Texas.   The way of peace is what we are searching for; except I don't think we really want to find it.  It is there; but we don't understand it.

And the question is:  do we want to understand it?

In the spirit of the season....

The state of Texas has told the International Rescue Committee in Dallas that they are in violation of their contract with the State of Texas by relocating any more Syrians into Texas.

So far the total number of Syrians relocated to the state since 2014 is 224.  There are currently some 4 million refugees outside of Syria.  Texas claims to have accepted more Syrian refugees than any other state in the union, but after Paris, even one more Syrian is a potential terrorist too far.

What the state thinks it can do is still unclear:

The executive commissioner of the state Health and Human Services Commission wrote last week to the International Rescue Committee in Dallas that failure to cooperate with the state “may result in the termination of your contract with the state and other legal action.”

Contract termination would provoke a civil action, at worst.  "Other legal action" can't mean criminal action, as that can only be carried out by the District or County attorney, and I doubt there's a DA or County Attorney in Dallas County (where IRC's Texas office is located) anxious to bring criminal charges against the IRC (whatever those charges would be).

Is it a coincidence that IRC is headquartered in New York city?  No, probably not. Nor is it chance that IRC is a large, non-Texas based, non-religiously affiliated, target.

About is playing a clever game here, if a disgusting one.  This is the federal government's position on the matter:

"States may not deny (Office of Refugee Resettlement)-funded benefits and services to refugees based on a refugee's country of origin or religious affiliation. Accordingly, states may not categorically deny ORR-funded benefits and services to Syrian refugees," wrote Robert Carey, director of the office, adding that states and agencies that do not comply would be violating the law and "could be subject to enforcement action, including suspension or termination."

The state, wisely, is not arguing with that point:

Black, the HHSC spokesman, said last week that the state “has and will continue to comply with all applicable laws governing this matter.” He added that state officials were also working to amend the state’s refugee resettlement plan.

Notice the ORR letter (as it is being called) refers to services to Syrian refugees.  The state's argument is going to be that it is not denying funds to Syrian refugees, just to the agencies that relocate Syrian refugees.  It's not a point that I think carries much legal weight, but then again I didn't expect the trial court to find that Obama didn't have the authority to refuse to deport certain persons if he chose not to use government resources that way.  I suspect Abbott is planning to go forum shopping again if the Feds decide to challenge the State of Texas on this issue.   The breach of contract claim also allows the state to say the matter is a civil one between the two parties (the state and the private agency), and no federal government issue is involved.

These are cheap legal tactics for making life difficult for the refugee agencies and doing nothing to protect the people of Texas from another 200 Syrians.  The State ultimately loses, but only after several years in court, and then only in the appellate courts, and by then the political point has been made.  Is anyone really paying attention to the fact we've hardly taken in any Syrians at all, while Europe is flooded with them?  No more than we noticed that Paris is not in North America. In both cases we think that what's happening across the Atlantic is happening in Oklahoma, and politicians like Abbott know it.

The IRC is already looking for alternate funding (they don't want to spend all their money on legal fees), and if the Feds cut off funds for refugee resettlement in Texas, it won't keep Abbott up at night. This is so ugly it's making me think wistfully of the days when Rick Perry was in the Governor's mansion.  This is a "win" in the way the Governor of Alabama "won" against Planned Parenthood, which the State of Alabama now has to pay the attorney's fees PP incurred to get the State to do what it was legally obligated to do.  No matter, of course, "because all that sweet evangelical cash from all those sweet suckers in the piney-woods prayer shacks will continue to bankroll his campaigns, and they will all turn out to vote for him the next time he runs."  "He" in the sentence being Gov. Bentley or Gov. Abbott; doesn't matter, they're fully interchangeable at this point.

In the spirit of preparation

I suppose we should have expected this:

During a discussion of the shooting with Cruz, conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt said, "I have never met — not once — a single pro-life activist who is in favor of violence of any sort."

Cruz responded that he hadn't either.

"And I would note that this whole episode has really displayed the ugly underbelly of the media," Cruz said. "You know, every time you have some sort of violent crime or mass killing, you can almost see the media salivating hoping, hoping desperately that the murderer happens to be a Republican so they can use it to try to paint their political enemies."

"Now, listen, here's the simple and undeniable fact: the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats. The media doesn't report that," he continued.*

So, No True Scotsman (he's not one of ours!) and a blatant lie (he's violent and a criminal, which means he must be a Democrat!).  It's cartoon logic.  It's comic book reasoning.  It not only won't draw supporters away from Donald Trump (who seem to like The Donald more for his public persona than for what he actually says), it will make Cruz look a fool when he finally gets on a Sunday morning interview program and tries to look rational.

But it's also a cautionary tale in attributing blame.  I accept that Robert Dear is the perpetrator of the attack on the Planned Parenthood clinic (that is something that has to be proven in court).  His motive is only relevant in determining what crime he committed, and that he committed a crime.  But that's not "motive" in the commonly used sense, i.e., what drove him to take guns to the clinic and start shooting people.

That's interesting water cooler gossip, I suppose.  This, however, is where it leads.  Not that we can do anything about that; people gonna talk about people.  I just don't care to engage, or to quietly encourage engaging the discussion by remaining passively silent.  This is a discussion where we all end up sounding like Ted Cruz.  He's just made excessively clear what we're all thinking:  Robert Dear is not our guy, he's their guy! And it's their fault!

If we want to attach fault to others, it's our fault.  Our fault for not providing adequate mental health care to people like Robert Dear.  Our fault for allowing something as dangerous as guns to be so freely and easily available, especially to such obviously unstable personalities as Robert Dear.  This is our failure as a society.  These deaths, this trauma:  it's on us.  We are a democracy, we are the government; we are the ones who are supposed to act to make these crimes more impossible.  And every step of the way we refused to.

And now we want to point fingers.  Maybe we should consider why we are so anxious to point fingers.

It's Advent.  It's the season of preparation.  Preparation for what?  And how do we prepare?  Whom do we prepare?  Others?  Or ourselves?

Advent is the time for rousing.  We are shaken to the very depths, so that we may wake up to the truth of ourselves.  The primary condition for a fruitful and rewarding Advent is renunciation, surrender.  We must let go of all our mistaken dreams, our conceited poses and arrogant gestures, all the pretenses with which we hope to deceive ourselves and others.  If we fail to do this, stark reality may take hold of us and rouse us so forcibly in a way that will entail both anxiety and suffering.

--Alfred Delp

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

*The implicit racism of this remark has just now occurred to me.  It is widely understood that the majority of blacks vote for Democrats, and widely perceived the majority of blacks are violent criminals; or rather, that the majority of people accused of violent crimes are black.

Cruz is blowing a very shrill dog-whistle here.

Turning and turning....

The problem with apothegms is that they can be used for so many purposes.  Take Gramsci's famous observation, for example:

The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.

It sounds clever and insightful, but that is precisely because it is vague and amorphous.  What is this "crisis"?  One in which a Second Coming is at hand?  Or simply the kairos of the moment, the apparent crisis at hand?  For example:  every story of a mass shooting is a crisis of murder which provokes a crisis of ignorance:  who did it?  why?  what was their motive?  why did they do it?  what drove them to mass murder?  why did they shoot up the school/post office/military base/clinic?

Of course, all of those questions are the same question:  what was the motive?  And we are determined to know that.  We are determined to have a narrative, to have an answer, to end the mystery and detail not only what happened, but all the reasons why it happened.  The crisis of blood always provokes a crisis of ignorance which always creates an interregnum between act and information, in which a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.

And so is Robert Dear a madman, a "gentle loner," an "itinerant loner," a man deranged by right-wing propaganda, by religion, by Christianity, by voices in his head?  As of this writing we still don't know, but that we will argue over which narrative is the "correct" narrative is a given.

According to a profile that ran this weekend in the New York Times, Robert Lewis Dear was “gentle loner who occasionally unleashed violent acts towards neighbors and women he knew.” This is the same Robert Lewis Dear who shot nine people at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado, killing three, including a police officer, and wounding six.

Predictably there was outrage on Twitter (what other response is there on Twitter?).  And the NYT rewrote the story three times:

Hastily, the New York Times removed “gentle” and briefly let the rest of the copy stand. However, there is now a third version online. In it, Dear has become an “itinerant loner who left behind a trail of disputes and occasionally violent acts toward neighbors and women he knew.” In a tweet to Salon columnist Jack Mirkinson, the New York Time’s “Express Team” Senior editor Patrick LaForge observed, by way of acknowledgement that mistakes were made: “It’s hard work covering these.”

"Gentle" is not an acceptable description of a man who killed people in cold blood, although he may have been gentle once, and is homicidal now.  Perhaps his neighbors remembered him that way; but their reminiscences are not allowed now.  So now he is "itinerant," with all the negative connotations of someone who doesn't stay put (unless you are rich enough, like Mitt Romney, to afford several houses and live in them throughout the year.  Only then are you not "itinerant."  Celebrities who split their time between countries aren't "itinerant," either.  No, we know what "itinerant" means, and it's never good.)  And now the stories of violence outweigh the stories of gentleness.  Which history, however, is true?

Well, obviously the one we approve of.

What does this do to explain what Mr. Dear did and why he did it?  Nothing at all.  Earlier today Salon breathlessly announced "Now We Have the Motive:  All Evidence Suggests Planned Parenthood Attack was an act of Domestic Terrorism."  First, I'll accept that this act should be regarded as terrorism (I don't know what makes it "domestic," as if it were more civil because the perpetrator was a citizen.).  But what motive did the article describe?  It didn't.  What evidence did it rest on?  Nothing more than we know as of this writing, which is largely:  nothing.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and society abhors an interregnum.  In it a great variety of morbid symptoms appear; and it says more about our rush to judgment and our need to fit events into a narrative, a mold, and ideology, than it does about the acts themselves.  We stand exposed again, and we rush to cover ourselves, to make our narrative cohere, to make the world make sense along the lines we have set for it.  We don't need to decide Dear is a man inspired by propaganda, or religious fervor, or even that this proves there is a "human impulse to live beyond the law."  Not until we first face the fact that this is the kind of act human beings are capable of.  That is a substantive truth that both religion and science can agree on.

Rene Girard would set this problem in an Augustinian way:  a sign of something we lack and long desperately for and try to plunder from others, hungry and blind in our need.  I'm never comfortable with the unfilled hole metaphor, but certainly the boundaries of our identity are set by others and not by us alone.  So perhaps the truth is somewhere between these two not so disparate views, and the hole blown open by violence is the one we need to fill lest our limitations and our vulnerabilities be implicated.

We have to, in other words, make sure Robert Dear is in no way one of us; and equally be sure we can label him as one of them.  Because the old is dying, and the new cannot be born.

Or maybe we are just impatient for this mystery story to conclude, so we can set it aside and move on to the next coming crisis.  I mean, after all, it's been 72 hours, time to wrap this one up!

We want to open [sic] to the possibility that authorities are simply being cautious and methodical. The shooting happened Friday. It's now Monday morning. But local authorities do seem quite agnostic on the motivations in the fact of what seems fairly probative evidence. And remember - pointing in either direction - they also certainly have much more information than we do.

Inquiring minds don't just wanna know; they gotta know!

The Last Day of November

That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang,
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

The War on Christmas started much earlier than we knew

Myrna Loy kicked it off in 1934.

Of brillig and slithy toves.....

Now we must be very afraid of religious extremism.  It promotes violence, as it did (maybe; maybe not) in Colorado Springs, at a Planned Parenthood center.

I'm more familiar with Planned Parenthood clinics than I would like to be, and I agree with Cecile Richards on NPR this morning:  violence against women and their healthcare is appalling.  I have nothing but sympathy and support for Planned Parenthood, and cannot condemn violence against them, or violence in general, in the world, strongly enough.

As the Pope said, we don't understand the way of peace.  And, by and large, we don't want to.

But religion is not the source of violence in the world, not the original sin which, if extirpated, would lead to a new millennium and a thousand years of peace.  In the '70's, already forgotten in the wave of nostalgia for disco, violence came directly from politics, and directly from left-wing groups.  Paddy Chayefsky captured it perfectly in "Network" and "Hospital," but we laugh off the group that guns down Howard Beale in the final scenes, and ignore the chanting crowds outside the hospital in favor of more growling from George C. Scott and more sex-kittening from Diana Rigg.   Someday our collective amnesia will fail and we'll remember fully the Bader-Meinhof Gang and the other sources of terrorism in America and Europe.  For now, however, we have washed over it, and the current crop of "new atheists" on-line and in the public eye who weren't even a gleam in their father's eye at the time, are convinced they know all they need to know because ignorance is bliss, and ignorance of history is especially happy.

Was Robert Dear motivated by religious belief to attack a Planned Parenthood clinic?  Or is he a paranoid schizophrenic who mentioned "body parts" because the words mean as much to him as the opening stanza of "Jabberwocky" mean to the rest of us?  At this point we simply don't know, and yet we want to have a motive, and we want to have one right now!  It may be that the media is hesitating to identify this crime as terrorism, or to ascribe a religious motive to it; but I don't think that's "malign hesitation."  I think in this case it may well be justified caution.*

After all, once we've established the narrative of "what happened" in that Colorado Springs clinic, it will be the story of what happened even if it isn't the story.  Most of what we know about Columbine and 9/11 isn't true (she didn't say "yes," the killers weren't methodical and robotic sociopaths, the hijackers weren't armed with box cutters), and not being true it serves one agenda or another, except the agenda of truth.  Was Robert Dear deranged by right-wing Christian extremists, or by FoxNews extremists; or was he just deranged?  The answer actually matters, especially in the context of a discussion about gun control and access to guns by the mentally ill.  If Robert Dear was suffering from a defined illness, it may be his story is grounds for restricting gun sales.  If he was simply unhinged by mass media, well:  what're ya gonna do about that?

And still we don't understand the way of peace; and still we don't really want to.

Advent has begun.  The way of peace would be an appropriate meditation for the season.

*After all:  "The official said the 'no more baby parts' comment was among a number of statements he made to authorities after his arrest, making it difficult to know his specific motivation."

Thanksgiving 2015

"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 life,

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.

Now stay outta the stores and stay near your family.  At least until Friday, when you may well want to escape them for the sanity of the shopping frenzy.

Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang

This is very stupid, but since Richard Dawkins thinks this is a defense to his original claim:

"How could you think I was likening a hoaxer to a killer? I just meant ‘Only a kid’ is not a knockdown defence. Remember poor James Bulger?”

The "kid" is not suing anyone.  Under Texas law, he can't, since he's a minor.  Suit may be filed in his name (full legal nerd:  the lawyers have only sent demand letters so far; no suit has been filed), but it will be filed by his parents on his behalf.  Is Ahmed any more than aware of this?  Probably, but he has no real choice in the matter.  So likening him to a child trained by ISIS to decapitate a prisoner is not only tasteless and brutal and shameful, it's not an apt comparison.

Unless the comparison is that neither child is culpable for their acts, absent a showing that the disabilities of minority should be removed.  Either way, Ahmed's family's attorneys sending demand letters is in no way comparable to the James Bulger murder.

Except in Dawkins' mind.  Can I ask again why anyone considers this guy smart?  Or Twitter worth the trouble it stirs up?

Link courtesy of Thought Criminal

"In our end is our beginning...."

I started this journey with Charlie Pierce, who noted that the Pope had declared War on Christmas with these words:

What shall remain? Ruins, thousands of children without education, so many innocent victims and lots of money in the pockets of arms dealers. Jesus once said: 'You can not serve two masters: Either God or riches.' War is the right choice for him, who would serve wealth: 'Let us build weapons, so that the economy will right itself somewhat, and let us go forward in pursuit of our interests.' There is an ugly word the Lord spoke: 'Cursed!' Because He said: 'Blessed are the peacemakers!'

His not-too-serious take was that this would upset Bill O'Reilly.  His version of the story came from TheWeek.com., which quoted the same portion of the speech but ended the article this way:

Francis concluded his sermon by highlighting the peace-making work of people like Mother Teresa, as well as calling for prayers that the Christmas season would see repentance and pursuit of peace.

Endings are instructive, because "in our end is our beginning," even if that's not quite what Eliot meant.  The Week got the story from three sources:  The Washington Times, the Journal, an Irish newspaper, and from Vatican Radio.  The Journal noted that "The sermon threw a shadow over the start of the festive season at the Vatican, where a giant Christmas tree was unveiled."  It went on to note:

The tree, which will be decorated in time for the start of the Vatican’s Holy Year on 8 December, will be festooned with ornaments made by children from cancer wards in hospitals across Italy.

This year’s nativity scene will be made up of 24 life-size figures, sculpted from wood and hand-painted.

In a nod to Pope Francis’s humble style, alongside the figures from the story of Jesus’s birth will be sculptures of ordinary people, including a man supporting an elderly person in need.

Which is a nice conclusion to a story about such a seemingly despairing speech.  The Washington Times took a different approach.  Using the same portion of the sermon preferred by Pierce and the Journal, it adds the Pope's words that:

A war can be justified — so to speak — with many, many reasons, but when all the world as it is today, at war — piecemeal though that war may be — a little here, a little there, and everywhere — there is no justification — and God weeps. Jesus weeps.

Which prompts this interesting conclusion to the article:

Just last week, Paris was attacked by jihadist gunmen and suicide bombers, leaving 129 dead and 352 wounded.

On Friday, 10 gunmen overwhelmed the Radisson Blu Hotel in Mali’s capital — shouting “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great,” in Arabic — before firing on guards and taking 170 people hostage.  

Vatican Radio chose a slightly different emphasis.  Their account includes more of the sermon, including the now infamous paragraph, but puts the whole in a greater context:

Today Jesus weeps as well: because we have chosen the way of war, the way of hatred, the way of enmities. We are close to Christmas: there will be lights, there will be parties, bright trees, even Nativity scenes – all decked out – while the world continues to wage war. The world has not understood the way of peace.”

Pope Francis went on to recall the recent commemorations of the Second World War, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, his visit to Redipuglia last year on the anniversary of the Great War: “Useless slaughters,” he called them, repeating the words of Pope Benedict XV. “Everywhere there is war today, there is hatred,” he said. Then he asked, “What shall remain in the wake of this war, in the midst of which we are living now?”

“What shall remain? Ruins, thousands of children without education, so many innocent victims: and lots of money in the pockets of arms dealers. Jesus once said: ‘You can not serve two masters: either God or riches.’ War is the right choice for him, who would serve wealth: 'Let us build weapons, so that the economy will right itself somewhat, and let us go forward in pursuit of our interests. There is an ugly word the Lord spoke: ‘Cursed!’ Because He said: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers!.’ The men who work war, who make war, are cursed, they are criminals. A war can be justified – so to speak – with many, many reasons, but when all the world as it is today, at war – piecemeal though that war may be – a little here, a little there, and everywhere – there is no justification – and God weeps. Jesus weeps.”

The Holy Father went on to say that, while the arms dealers go about their business, there are the poor peacemakers who, perforce to help another person, and another and another, spend themselves utterly, and even give their lives – as did Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, against whom the powerful, worldy cynic might say, “But what did she ever accomplish? She wasted her life helping others on their way to death?” He repeated, “We do not understand the way of peace.”

“It will do us well to ask the grace of tears for ourselves, for this world that does not recognize the path of peace, this world that lives for war, and cynically says not to make it. Let us pray for conversion of heart. Here before the door of this Jubilee of Mercy, let us ask that our joy, our jubilation, be this grace: that the world discover the ability to weep for its crimes, for what the world does with war.”

Since in our end is our beginning, the Pope's words reminded me of this prayer from the E&R Hymnal:

O Christ, son of the living God, have mercy upon us.
Thou that sites at the right hand of the Father, have mercy upon us;
And deliver us for thy Name's sake.

AMEN.

O Christ, when thou didst open thine eyes on this fair earth, the angels greeted thee as the Prince of Peace and besought us to be of good will toward one another; but thy triumph is delayed and we are weary of war.

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD AND MASTER.

O Christ, the very earth groans with pain as the feet of armed men march across thy mangled form.

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD AND MASTER.

O Christ, may the Church, whom thou didst love into life; not fail thee in her witness for the things for which thou didst live and die.

TEACH US TO DO THY HOLY WILL, O LORD AND MASTER.

O Christ, the people who are called by thy Name are separated from each other in thought and life; still our tumults, take away our vain imaginings, and grant to thy people at this time the courage to proclaim the gospel of forgiveness, and faithfully to maintain the ministry of reconciliation.

TEACH US TO DO THY HOLY WILL, O LORD AND MASTER

O Christ, come to us in our sore need and save us;
O God, plead thine own cause and give us help, for vain is the help of man.

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD AND MASTER.

O Christ of God, by thy birth in the stable, save us and help us;
By thy toil at the carpenter's bench, save us and help us;
By thy sinless life, save us and help us;
By thy cross and passion, save us and help us.

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD AND MASTER.

Candle Lighting Ceremonies

The sage Bill Maher speaks:

this idea that somehow we do share values, that all religions are alike, is bullshit. And we need to call it bullshit.”

Which, of course, is the very arrogance and bigotry (yes, Virginia, there can be religious bigotry) the international ecumenical movement was started to counter, in 1910.  But that can't be right, because the comments at Salon assure me that atheists know more about religion than the faithful do.  And yet nobody seems to know about the ecumenical movement and its efforts to roll back such bigotry and ignorance.

Maher, here, is siding with ISIS.  He's giving them all the reason they need to insist this is a religious war, a holy war, and that Christians think of Muslims as infidels.

And he's not too good on history, either:

Maher said that Cameron discussed forced marriages, female genital mutilation and Britain’s 11,000 cases of honor-based violence.

Only one of those three, FGM, has no history in Western Christian culture.  True, we have set aside "honor-based violence" (sometime after Burr got into a duel on American soil, or the Hatfields stopped trading bullets with the McCoys; then again, this is still not an unknown form of violence in our country), and we ended the practice of forced marriages (something still known in non-Muslim countries, too), but not because those practices were always at odds with Western, or Christian, or even liberal, values.

Ah, well; curse the darkness, or light a candle.  These things I do too much discuss, too much explain. 

"When you pray...."

When Ted Cruz says again, as he will, that Christian refugees from Syria are safe, while Muslim refugees are a clear and present danger, think about this:

The Islamic State has behaved very much as a sectarian movement, a jingoistic Sunni-Arab organization with little patience for those outside the rigid boundaries of their identity group. As a result, non-Sunnis, particularly the Shi‘i Arabs of Iraq, have borne the brunt of ISIS persecution. Not unlike the Hutu militias during the Rwandan genocide, ISIS set up checkpoints in Iraq when it re-entered the country in 2014. Drivers were asked to step out of their cars and pray; those who prostrated like the Shi‘a were summarily executed.

And the people who know that history, what do they hear when Ted Cruz or Jeb Bush spouts off about Christians being admitted to the U.S., and Muslims being refused?

"And when you pray, do not act like phonies.  They love to stand up and pray in houses of worship and on street corners so they can show off in public.  I swear to you, their prayers have been answered!  When you pray, go into a room by yourself and shut the door behind you.  Then pray to your Father, the hidden one.  And your Father with his eye for the hidden will applaud you." --Matthew 6: 5-6, SV

Adding:  or we could go with Stephen Colbert's test:

“If you want to know if somebody’s a Christian just ask them to complete this sentence,” Colbert said pulling out his Catechism card. “‘Jesus said I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you….’ And if they don’t say ‘welcomed me in’ then they are either a terrorist or they’re running for president.”

That'd work, too.

"Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war"

Very dangerous people

Now 34 governors are pleading to keep their states safe from Syrians.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the 27-year-old Belgian born extremist who authorities say planned the horrific attack on Paris Friday night, died Wednesday in a pre-dawn raid by security forces, according to French prosecutors, who confirmed his death on Thursday. He was reportedly killed by a sniper.

I just wanted to highlight that bit.  Oh, and the "Syrian passport"?  Probably a fake; or maybe it belong to a soldier loyal to Assad.  You know, one of the groups of Muslims fighting ISIS.

So, for the record:  no Syrians involved in the attacks in Paris.  Indeed, all the attackers seem to have been Europeans.  Screeching about interment camps for refugees and how state borders will be closed because of "Islamization" and how non-Christian refugees mustn't even be allowed into this country?  All exactly what ISIS wants to hear.

Terrorism works.  But only with our complicity.   We are far from the site of the latest attacks, and yet we seem to be the most sacred about them.  On the BBC World Service the reports from Paris and Brussels are of people who want to get back to normal life; who don't fear the refugees and don't fear their neighbors (all of the attackers in Paris were citizens of France or Belgium; none were refugees).  And this is what the President of France said:

"Life should resume fully," Hollande told a gathering of the country's mayors, who gave him a standing ovation. "What would France be without its museums, without its terraces, its concerts, its sports competitions? France should remain as it is. Our duty is to carry on our lives." In the same spirit, he added, "30,000 refugees will be welcomed over the next two years. Our country has the duty to respect this commitment," explaining that they will undergo vigorous security checks. Hollande noted that "some people say the tragic events of the last few days have sown doubts in their minds," but called it a "humanitarian duty" to help those people … but one that will go hand in hand with "our duty to protect our people." "We have to reinforce our borders while remaining true to our values," he said.

In America, far away from the assault on the city of Paris, far from the scenes of violence and even the press of refugees on our continent (Obama wants to allow a mere 10,000 into the country, or something like 1/10 of 1% of the number who have fled to Europe), life must grind to a halt until we can pass a law making sure no refugees from Syria ever enter the U.S.   President Obama has had some choice words about this hysteria:

"And so if there are concrete, actual suggestions to enhance this extraordinary screening process that’s already in place, we’re welcome -- we’re open to hearing actual ideas," Obama said. "But that’s not really what’s been going on in this debate. When candidates say, we wouldn't admit three-year-old orphans -- that’s political posturing. When individuals say that we should have a religious test and that only Christians -- proven Christians -- should be admitted -- that’s offensive and contrary to American values."

"I cannot think of a more potent recruitment tool for ISIL than some of the rhetoric that’s been coming out of here during the course of this debate. ISIL seeks to exploit the idea that there is a war between Islam and the West," he continued. "And when you start seeing individuals in positions of responsibility, suggesting that Christians are more worthy of protection than Muslims are in a war-torn land, that feeds the ISIL narrative. It’s counterproductive, and it needs to stop."

Obama then criticized politicians who describe themselves as "tough," noting that they are now afraid of women and children fleeing terrorism.

"These are the same folks oftentimes who suggest that they’re so tough that just talking to Putin or staring down ISIL, or using some additional rhetoric somehow is going to solve the problems out there. But apparently, they’re scared of widows and orphans coming into the United States of America as part of our tradition of compassion," he said. "First, they were worried about the press being too tough on them during debates. Now they’re worried about three-year-old orphans. That doesn’t sound very tough to me."

Finally, Obama worked in a hit on Congress and lawmakers on Capitol Hill's sudden interest in barring Syrian refugees from the country.

"With respect to Congress, I know that there’s been discussion about legislation suddenly surfacing around refugees," the president said. "I’ve been waiting for a year and a half, or more, for legislation that would authorize the military activities that we’re carrying out in Syria as we speak, and have not been able to get anything out of Congress. And now, suddenly, they’re able to rush in, in a day or two, to solve the threat of widows and orphans and others who are fleeing a war-torn land, and that’s their most constructive contribution to the effort against IISL? That doesn’t sound right to me. And I suspect it won’t sound right to the American people."

But now the GOP leadership of the country has lost its collective mind, afraid of toddlers and 50 year old women and non-Christians and just anybody who used to live in Syria and wasn't in this country last week, because fear is the little death, fear is the mind killer.  And the screening process? It is long and complex and can involve involve a retinal scan.    There is a young girl here in Houston, an American citizen of Pakistani parents, dying of a disease that cannot be cured.  Her parents cannot come back to America to see her before she dies, largely because they are Pakistani.  She has been here for 13 years, seeking treatment for her condition.  Her parents have never been able to visit her, and even now can't get a visa just on humanitarian grounds.  Now she has turned to her local Congressman for help.  That is how hard it is go get into the U.S. from some countries.

The people screaming about terrorist and refugees have lost their minds a long, long time ago.  I remember fondly now learning about an America that felt itself far removed from the strife of the "old world."  Thanks to technology we now seem to be scared to death of the world.

At least many of our leaders and would-be leaders are.

This is progress?