A BIT OF THE BLARNEY

Every year around this time I find myself eagerly anticipating my favorite meal – corned beef, cabbage, carrots, rutabagas, potatoes, pickled beets, and Irish soda bread. That and a pint o’ the bitters to wash it all down are, as they say in the big city, to die for.

My roots are Irish. My family’s lore has it that some of my ancestors came from County Westmeath, which is still known today as “Dillon’s Country.”  I’m very proud of those roots.

Some of my earliest memories are of spending as many Saturday afternoons as possible listening to Notre Dame football games on the radio.  I have fond memories of the Notre Dame-Oklahoma game in 1953. Johnny Lattner, who just happened to be Irish-Catholic, was all over the field. He ran for close to a hundred yards, caught a couple of passes, and intercepted an Oklahoma pass. The Fighting Irish won the game, 28 to 21. Oklahoma went undefeated for the next 47 games under legendary coach Bud Wilkinson. That incredible record, which still stands, was broken in 1957 when Notre Dame running back Dick Lynch, also Irish-Catholic, scored the game’s only touchdown. While we Irish can’t lay claim to special intervention from “Touchdown Jesus” in those games (the mural wasn’t dedicated until 1964), we think there was probably a leprechaun or two traveling to Norman both times with the Fighting Irish to weave their special magic.  Some might disagree about the magic or the notion that there are even such things as leprechauns, but we who are truly Irish know better.

There’s a creation myth that’s circulated for many years. It’s about the good Lord’s creation of the people of Europe. He began with the Greeks and their grasp of philosophy.  He created French for their love of really good food. Then it was the Italians for their love of art. The Russians? Their dark, powerful literature. He saw a need for science, engineering, and mathematics and created the Germans. He crossed the English Channel and created the British to become skillful creators of massive bureaucracies. He was quite pleased with what He had done, but there was something missing. He saw that no one was having any fun. In order to remedy that problem, He created the Irish!

As proof of the Almighty’s creative power, I’m calling a few of Ireland’s great writers to the dock. I’ll begin with Oscar Wilde, the Irish playwright.  He was extravagant to a fault. He once said, “Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.” He made a few enemies over the years and learned to forgive. As he said, “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.” I’m taking his advice today. I have a few enemies here in town. They’re all forgiven. I feel really good about that. I hope they’re as annoyed as I am happy. Wilde even had a bit of humorous advice for educators. I offer this pithy little quote for our local cadre of academics.  “Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

Next, I offer James Joyce. When asked about what the point of “Ulysses” was, he often said, “I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality.”

Then there’s Brendan Behan. He was a notorious drinker. He once said of the British, “They took away our land, our language, and our religion; but they could never harness our tongues.” To underscore his love of a good drink he once bragged, “I saw a sign that said ‘Drink Canada Dry’… So I did.” For those who claimed the Irish were cynical, he offered this response. “It's not that the Irish are cynical. It's rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.” He often found himself at odds with authority and lamented, “I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse.”

We Irish have lost many battles, but we’ve never really been defeated. As Ireland’s great Nobel laureate, William Butler  Yeats wryly observed, “Any fool can fight a winning battle, but it needs character to fight a losing one, and that should inspire us; which reminds me that I dreamed the other night that I was being hanged, but was the life and soul of the party.”

We Irish have had our troubles. We’ve survived wars, famines, and clumsy attempts at cultural cleansing. We’ve walked many a stony path, but the troubles have made us stronger.

 In closing, then, I offer you this simple Irish blessing:

“If God sends you down a stony path,

May he give you strong shoes.”

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, Emporia!

SHATTERED ILLUSIONS

Some illusions are shattered more gently than others.

When I was young my musical heroes were Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. In my high school days I would often daydream about sitting around a hobo campfire with a cigarette dangling from my mouth and a few down and out drifters sharing the warmth with me. Woody would be there, too, plunking away on that old guitar with the words “this machine kills fascists” emblazoned on the soundboard. Even today I can occasionally hear the mournful strains of the old Goebel Reeves’ tune “Hobo’s Lullaby” well up within me:

“So go to sleep you weary hobo

Let the towns drift slowly by

Listen to the steel rails hummin’

That’s a hobo’s lullaby”

Woody died in 1967. By that time I’d already served six years in the Air Force, including tours of duty in Newfoundland and Vietnam. I got out of the Air Force in ’69 and adopted Pete Seeger as my new hero. I was especially fond of his protest music. Every time I heard or saw something about Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, or Richard Nixon, I’d think of Pete’s rendition of “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy.” The last words – “The big fool says to push on” – rang so true to me.

Pete Seeger died a few weeks ago. Another of my heroes has met his Maker. Since his passing, there’s been quite a bit written about his Stalinist and socialist ways. It’s as if a lightning bolt of revelation has struck the newsrooms of America. It’s funny. We who were his acolytes knew years ago that Pete was a “red.” And, so was Woody Guthrie. Neither Woody nor Pete hid that fact, except from congressional investigators. They were quite proud of their associations with the “Party.” Woody wrote columns for the Daily Worker and the Soviet press often lionized Pete as a “great hero of the people.”  Pete repented for his love of Stalin, but not for his love of communism. He maintained the party line.  Toward the end of his life, long after a million or so Kulaks had died in Stalin’s purges, he did admit he should have asked to see the gulags. But it was too late. By the time repentance came, the numbers didn’t seem so important. How did Stalin put it? “The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of millions is just a statistic.”

We knew, but we didn’t mind. We listened to them and loved them for their sentiments, not their myopic politics. They were roaring socialists, to be sure, but so were most of us in your younger days.  I never met many young people back in the sixties who weren’t ready to abolish the right to private property. We were especially keen on doing away with the other guy’s right to private property, while simultaneously clinging desperately to our own stuff. Our motto was “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is also mine.”

Like Pete, we weren’t troubled by our inconsistencies.

As it always does, times change and the seasons of life pass. We grow up.  When we do, the illusions of our youth are supplanted by the healthy kind of disillusionment that comes with adulthood. As Peter, Paul, and Mary once crooned, “painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys.”

Woody and Pete are gone, and so are the illusions. My boyhood heroes seem less heroic to me now. I realize that they had feet of clay.

Those illusions were shattered, but they were shattered gently. That’s not always the case. I read a disturbing piece from the New York Times a few days ago. In a February 1^st op-ed, Nicholas Kristof gave voice to the question of whether or not it was “appropriate to honor a man who is an artistic giant but also was accused years ago of child molestation.” The man accused is film maker Woody Allen. The accuser is his daughter, Dylan. Allen denies the allegations. Who do we believe? The artistic genius who gave us “Broadway Danny Rose,” “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” and “Midnight in Paris?” Or Dylan Farrow, the traumatized victim? What about the presumption of innocence? Does that mean that Dylan’s words carry no weight?

I’ve always loved Woody Allen’s films, but I’m finding another illusion shattered. Did he commit the crime and get away with it like the respected ophthalmologist in “Crimes and Misdemeanors?”  I don’t know. It’s all “she said” – “he said” now. But the thought of someone getting away with such a heinous crime makes my skin crawl.

Having illusions shattered can sometimes be a healthy thing. I rarely dream of life in the hobo camps these days, I don’t covet the other guy’s stuff, and I’ve sworn off Woody Allen films.  I’m disillusioned.  But, I’m also a bit wiser and a lot healthier.

I FEEL A DIRGE COMIN' ON

Holy writ commands that Christian disciples “honor all men.” It also admonishes them to “honor the king.” These are important principles of faith, but I sometimes find them hard to follow. I want to honor and respect our leaders, but I also believe they should honor and respect me and my neighbors in turn. When leaders fail to live up to their obligations to us, we have the right and the duty to speak out.

The Bible is full of times when people of faith have spoken out. John the Baptist called the leaders of his day, “a brood of snakes and vipers.” The prophet Joel railed against Queen Athaliah, declaring that Judah’s society had been “shriveled beneath the clods” under her leadership. Jesus warned those who would listen not to follow leaders who “tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.”

Nancy and I didn’t watch the state of the Union address on the 28^th. It was our mini-protest.  If we had wanted to watch kabuki or Peking opera we would have made more appropriate arrangements for the evening. We opened our I-pad instead. We found the episode of Downton Abbey we had missed on Sunday, plugged the I-pad into our TV, and settled in for an hour or so of really worthwhile viewing.

It’s strange, really. We’ve found ourselves preferring the compelling fiction of Downton Abbey over the reality and spectacle of our national politics. Will John and Anna Bates be able to weather their current storm? Will Mrs. Patmore be able to reconcile herself to the new electric mixing bowl? Will Tom Branson, the Irish firebrand, be able to reconcile himself to life as a member of the Crawley clan? Will Mary Crawley grieve forever? And, what new schemes will Thomas Barrow hatch?

It’s true. We really do prefer Downton Abbey to the pointless political theatre that our state of the Union has become. We’re weary of watching senators and congressmen¸ Democrat and Republican, pop up on cue and applaud. They look like the toilet seats Andy Griffith rigged up in “No Time for Sergeants.” It has become really nauseating.

I didn’t see it, but I read there was only one really compelling moment at the event. Sergeant First Class Cory Remsburg got the honor of sitting in the First Lady’s box.  It was his reward for 10 deployments (not two or three or four or five) into combat zones. He bears the scars of that service – blindness in his right eye and the loss of the use of his left arm. As soon as the President uttered the words, “Like the Army he loves, like the America he serves, Sergeant First Class Cory Remsburg never gives up, and he does not quit,” the gallery erupted in one minute and forty-four seconds of spontaneous applause.

The irony was palpable. Sergeant Remsburg had earned the applause, and much more from the nation he has served. Unfortunately, the same political leaders (including the President) who had the temerity to send Sergeant Remsburg into harm’s way ten times had also cut his cost of living adjustments by 1%. A seat of honor next to the First Lady, a few minutes of applause, and a cut in benefits to boot. Some rewards for patriotism and service to the nation, eh? Even the fictional Thomas Barrow could never be that crass.

No, I didn’t watch the state of the Union address. I didn’t need to. I know things are bad – really bad. And more and more of us are seeing it. The President’s approval numbers are under water and the public is tuning him out. Things with our Congress are even worse. They’re at the bottom scavenging with the bullheads, channel cats, carp, drug dealers, and ambulance chasing lawyers.

Things are approaching critical mass. The justice department is bullying nuns and other political opponents. Government agencies are spying on us, for our own good they say. Not long ago, Congress passed the “Stock Act,” to create the illusion they’re also willing to obey insider trading laws like everyone else.  Then as soon as the election was over they stripped the law of its power, by “unanimous consent.”  When asked why they had changed the law in the dead of night, they told the press that doing so in the light of day would have posed a “national risk” to the people they served. Things have hit rock bottom when legalized theft under the cloak of darkness is considered service to the people.

People see it all and their mood is shifting. They’re more sad than angry.  They feel there’s little they can do to turn things around. Peggy Noonan put it this way –“it feels more like grief.” I think she’s right. I’m past anger now. I feel a dirge comin’ on.

CUPCAKES?

“When the whip that's keeping you in line doesn't make him jump
Say he's hard-of-hearing, say that he's a chump
Say he's out of step with reality as you try to test his nerve
Because he doesn't pay tribute to the king that you serve.

He's the property of Jesus
Resent him to the bone
You got something better
You've got a heart of stone.”

-          Bob Dylan (Property of Jesus), 1981

Some college football powerhouses add a “cupcake” game to their schedules every year. Loyal fans are treated to the likes of Wake Forest dismantling the overmatched “Blue Hose” from Presbyterian or the spectacle of Miami slapping the Florida A&M “Rattlers” from one end zone to the other.

The day after the games, sportswriters often wryly suggest that Alabama or Notre Dame should start adding the Little Sisters of the Poor to their respective schedules. Thankfully, Alabama and Notre Dame have always rejected the suggestion. They’ve got too much respect for themselves or the Little Sisters.

Unfortunately, that kind of respect doesn’t apply to our government. The Obama justice department, at the behest of Kathleen Sebelius, is going after the Little Sisters of the Poor with a vengeance.

What have the Little Sisters done to provoke such wrath? They’ve said that they cannot in good conscience comply with the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that all employers provide birth control medications, including abortifacients, to their employees.

What other sins have the Little Sisters committed? I’m hard pressed to find them; unless standing up to government bullies or the failure to fear Kathleen Sebelius’s hobnailed boots constitute sins.

As things stand right now, the Little Sisters’ case is in limbo, thanks to an injunction filed by Supreme Court justice Sonya Sotomayor. The next step might be a hearing before the full Supreme Court.

How did it come to this? This isn’t a conflict the Little Sisters of the Poor want. All they want to do is minister to the poor and dying.  Kathleen Sebelius, however, is itching for a fight. The Affordable Care Act and its mandate are her babies and she means to squelch any opposition. In 2011, for example, she boldly declared that opponents of the mandate “want to roll back the last 50 years in progress women have made in comprehensive health care in America. We've come a long way in women's health over the last few decades, but we are in a war (my emphasis added).”

Sebelius and the justice department could find it in their hearts to leave the Little Sisters alone, but they’ve refused. After all, this is war.  Scorched earth is sometimes necessary to ensure the victory.

The administration has told the Little Sisters that all they need to do is “sign the form” and everything will be hunky dory. The Little Sisters are begging to differ. They seem to know what a lot of us already know about the Obama administration. The President’s underlings tend to prevaricate and they do it with great skill. This is the same administration that has trotted I.R.S., H.H.S., N.S.A., and State Department bigwigs up to Capitol Hill to practice their deceit in front of congressional committees. Even the President has gotten into the act by telling us tall tales about keeping our insurance plans and doctors. The Little Sisters are admittedly gentle, trusting souls, but they’re not fools. They aren’t going to sign that paper and that’s that.

The next month or so is going to be very interesting. Will the Little Sisters win their case? Or, more importantly, what might happen if they don’t? Will the government bloodhounds still pursue the Little Sisters? You know they will! Will the Little Sisters remain faithful to their vows of “chastity, poverty, hospitality, and obedience?” You know they will!

Just what would government justice look like if the Little Sisters lost their case? Can the girls be thrown in jail for non-compliance? No. The law doesn’t allow for that, but even if it did, I don’t think the Little Sisters would mind. They’d just turn making license plates and bustin’ rock into labors of love. I guess the government could start sending them threatening letters. The government could even threaten to seize assets, but the Little Sisters have few worldly possessions. Could our government be crass enough to seize their habits? I wouldn't put it past them. Ah, but, there other assets. Surely our government bureaucrats wouldn't consider taking food, medicine, housing, bedding, and nurture from the dying. Would they?

The odds seem to be stacked against the Little Sisters, but I’m not betting against them. They’re laboring under the assumption that their lives belong to a higher power. Kathleen Sebelius has no weapons in her arsenal that can overcome that. In fact, this whole affair has exposed her for what she really is – a ruthless bureaucrat with a heart of stone!

FAITH, CONSCIENCE, DUTY

Christmas 2013 has passed. For Nancy and me it was, for the most part, a season of quiet reflection. We did get a few gifts for my kids and for Nancy’s family, but decided against exchanging gifts with one another. It proved to be a very good decision. Our conversations were filled with meaning. Our home glowed with an aura of peace and good will, the kind the angels of Bethlehem described to the shepherds.

 

It was also nice to see that our media must have gotten the memo. Most of us have grown tired of the debate about what constitutes the appropriate seasonal greeting – “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays.” I’ve never been able to figure out why so many in the Christian community got so upset to begin with. I guess it goes to show that our media has far too much power to shape our ideas and opinions.

 

I’m not naïve enough to think that we don’t have detractors and antagonists. We’ve got plenty. But, there are some things they can’t change, no matter how hard they try. Jesus’ birth was very real. So were his life, his deeds, and his words. They’ll never be able to give us a world where a masterpiece like Giotto’s “Madonna with Child” becomes “Madonna without Child.” Nor can they take away the very real encounter I had with this very real Jesus in the Republic of Vietnam back in the 60’s. Nor can they expunge the experience of millions of other Christians.

 

Looking back at it, it was especially nice this year to be able to escape the ever-grinding gears of America’s conspicuous consumerism machine. It’s sad when you think about it. Primitive and early Christianity had nothing whatsoever to do with the consumer mindset that has overtaken us moderns. In fact, the Christianity of those times had a decidedly counter-culture flair when it came to economics. Jesus said things that run counter to modern thought, things like “Man does not live by bread alone,” “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God,” or “No one can serve two masters….you cannot serve God and money.” The early church took these words seriously, which caused them to run afoul of the commercial interests of their time. The Apostle Paul enraged the merchants of Ephesus when he preached that the silver shrines dedicated to the worship of the Greek goddess Artemis were worthless. With the prospect of shrinking sales and profits in mind, an influential silversmith named Demetrius gathered his fellow craftsmen and merchants together and appealed first to their greed, then to their moral instincts. “Our trade will   lose its good name,” he said. Artemis would be “robbed of her divine majesty.” When the merchants heard this they were furious and Demetrius got what he wanted – a near riot. For two hours, the crowd roared in unison, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.” It took the city clerk to eventually calm the crowd down by suggesting they take Paul and his companions to court.

 

How the times have changed. I can’t imagine today’s Christian community becoming so out of step with the nation’s commercial interests that their anti-social behavior would cause near riots in the streets.

 

The New Year is a few days off. The uproar about what constitutes the appropriate seasonal greeting will be forgotten. But, 2014 will bring more important, and meaningful, points of tension between Christians and their antagonists. The Supreme Court will decide whether or not David Green, owner and founder of Hobby Lobby, has the legal right to integrate his faith with his business practices.  In a world that is increasingly post-Christian, new norms will continue to be established to replace those deemed “antiquated.” The new norms will give increased power to social service agencies or government bureaucrats. There will be more and more cases like the one in which a British social service agency forcibly took an Italian woman’s child from her by caesarean section and put the child up for adoption, using their notion of what was best for the child as the justification (the Telegraph – November 30, 2013).

 

These, and other cases (infanticide, euthanasia) to come, will force important decisions on Christians. Will we give in to the new norms? Will we try to re-establish our norms? Or, will be seek avenues of conscientious objection?

 

If we accept the new norms, society will consider us to be “reasonable.” If we choose the path of conscientious objection, we can be sure of powerful societal backlash against us.

 

The path of conscientious objection doesn’t mean that we’ll make the rules. It does mean that our loyalty to society and its new norms and our responses to them must be guided by our faith and conscience. New and newer norms will come, but we must remain constant in faith, conscience, and our duty to say, “No!”

BLEEDING HEARTS, BLOODY WORDS

Almost every day America’s airwaves and editorial pages are filled with charges and counter-charges of treason. For a while congressional Democrats were the targets of the accusations. Then it was Chief Justice John Roberts. These days it’s Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and millions of members of the Tea Party.

 

The more I hear the shrill talk or read the vitriolic commentary, the more I feel like I want to puke.

 

Treason? Do those bandying the word about so casually really understand what it means? Maybe it would help if they would actually read article 3, section 3 of our Constitution, which defines it very precisely - “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.”

 

This current war of words and accusations has nothing to do with treason. Those leveling the outrageous accusations know it. The controversy may have something to do with a badly crafted and executed law or it may have something to do with a philosophical disagreement with our current Chief Justice. It may even have something to do with visceral hatred for a political insurgency like the Tea Party or differences of political opinion. But, it has absolutely nothing to do with treason.

 

The current epicenter for the accusations is Tea Party members or anyone who associates with them. The broadsides are coming from all directions, even small red state hamlets like Emporia, Kansas. Tea Partiers and those who associate with them are being portrayed as merciless traitors, bent on the destruction of the Republic. Their accusers portray themselves as loving, merciful defenders of all that is good and noble.

 

Is it really all that simple?

 

Tea Partiers are our fellow citizens and neighbors. Many of them have served honorably in our armed services. Some have “fought and bled” to defend the freedoms their accusers say they cherish. The vast majority of them are every bit as kind and compassionate as their accusers. In fact, I’d be willing to match their charitable giving and community service against their accusers’ any time. The truth is, their accusers haven’t cornered the market on kindness, compassion, service, or bleeding.

 

I’m not a Tea Party member, but I have friends who are. I’ve even been known to openly associate with them. As I was lobbying my fellow citizens to get the Lyon County extension issue placed on the ballot a while back, I met twice with members of the Tea Party. They showed me nothing but respect and kindness. I never heard any talk of sedition or revolution. They listened respectfully to me. Some supported me. They were even kind enough to give me a copy of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Now, if becoming acquainted with our founding documents amounts to treason, I plead guilty. If the time ever comes that I’m convicted of such a crime, I’ll gladly walk the steps of the gallows.

 

I do have quite a few things in common politically with Tea Partiers. Like them, I’m troubled when I see our fundamental rights under the first, second, fourth, and tenth amendments being slowly eroded by government edict and action. But, there are places where we part philosophical ways. In the current crisis, I believe Tea Partiers have made some serious tactical errors, particularly their misguided attempt to defund Obamacare. There are times when the door to disaster has to open and the chaos at its root is allowed to march through for all to see.

 

Economist Thomas Sowell recently cited Irish statesman Edmund Burke’s wisdom when matters of conscience and tactics collide. In 1769 Burke spoke against a bill that was weaving its way through Parliament. The long and the short of the legislation was that it would have subjected American colonists to charges of treason in Great Britain. Burke found the legislation extremely troubling, but didn’t attempt to block it because he knew its passage was certain. As he put it, “I cannot support what is conscientiously against my opinion, nor prudently contend with what I know is irresistible. Preserving my principles unshaken, I reserve my activity for rational endeavours.”

 

The Tea Party would have better served their interests to get out of the way of the runaway train and wait for the mid-term elections. That would have been the rational choice. Unfortunately, they didn’t. But tactical misjudgment hardly constitutes treason. 

 

Under our law, treason is punishable by death (see 18 U.S.C. 2381).  Are the Tea Party’s accusers so convinced of their political correctness that they’d be willing to personally cast the final stone of retribution? If they are, then all I can say is “God help anyone who will eventually become their targets!”

THE ARITHMETIC OF GRATITUDE

 

 

 



Philosopher/longshoreman Eric Hoffer once said that the most difficult arithmetic in life to master is “that which enables us to count our blessings.”

 

I like to think of it as the arithmetic of gratitude.

 

Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away.  While I’m grateful for the material blessings in my life, my gratitude this year centers on the transcendent blessings that are rooted in faith and my good fortune to have been born in this great country.

 

The Almighty has been far more kind and gracious to me than I deserve. I find that more often than I care to admit I lurch and blunder my way down the road to heaven. I’m grateful that God allows me to continue to keep lurching and blundering. I’m especially grateful that my weakness and occasional willfulness haven’t disqualified me from the journey.

 

This morning I tuned in to C-Span’s “Washington Journal.” The early segment was about the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. The host, Pedro Echevarria, asked the audience to call in with their thoughts on the meaning they took from Lincoln’s words. I called in and was fortunate enough to actually get through. In the few minutes I had I tried my best to explain that we Americans are no more or less extraordinary than anyone else on this planet. The thing that really makes America special is our transcendent founding principles - ordered liberty and equality before the law. Lincoln outlined them beautifully early in his speech. Then he rhetorically surveyed the field where so many had died and called on his countrymen to “take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.” Finally, like an Old Testament prophet, he called on future generations on to ensure that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

 

Lincoln’s inspiring words at Gettysburg came on November 19, 1863.  A month earlier he had issued a proclamation of national thanksgiving, setting aside the last Thursday in November [it’s now the fourth Thursday] as a day for all Americans to remember God’s kindness and grace to the nation. That first national Thanksgiving was celebrated on November 26, 1863. Ever since then we’ve been proclaiming our thanks for the “gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”

 

Lincoln knew that Gettysburg wasn’t going to end the war. In fact, it would rage on for nearly two more years. Thousands more would die on the battlefield, from Spotsylvania, to the Wilderness, to the battle of Atlanta. The carnage of Cold Harbor was yet to come. The brutal efficiency of Sherman’s march to the sea was still on the horizon. Yet, even in the darkest of these times, Lincoln pressed on with dogged faith, believing that the twin goals of national unity and the unshackling of the oppressed and enslaved were well worth the sacrifice.

 

By the time of his second inaugural in March of 1865, Lincoln was a man who had aged like no President before him, or since. The years of tragic conflict seemed to envelop him like a burial shroud. His inaugural remarks were brief. It was time for the nation to forgive and heal and it was time to reflect on how God’s hand had been woven into the great national calamity. Lincoln concluded that the war was just retribution for the national sin of slavery. As he put it,  God would  be fully justified to allow the bloodletting to continue “until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

 

Mercifully, the war finally ended on April 9^th with the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox.

 

As I consider Thanksgiving this year I’m troubled about the country I love. America is treading a dangerous path. The nation’s political course is now polluted by hate.  Our founding principles are being slowly eroded by a growing police and surveillance state. Those who served and died so nobly at Gettysburg didn’t give their lives so that government could become our ruthless taskmaster. They served and died so that our founding principles would be preserved, protected, and defended for all time.

 

But I’m also thankful. America keeps lurching and stumbling, but God hasn’t given up on us. The principles of our founding are close to his heart. He won’t abandon them, or us. Somehow, some way, he will lead us to the place to where we return to those principles and to what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.”

 

For that, and more, I’m especially grateful.

MEGALOMANIA IS CONTAGIOUS

Megalomania is one of those incurable diseases that has afflicted kings, generals, dictators, and politicians throughout history. Some historians have recorded that near the end of his young life Alexander the Great lamented that “there are no more worlds to conquer.” Caesar invaded Gaul in 58 B.C. to further his political ambitions. Napoleon was so anxious to become the emperor of France in 1804 that he snatched the crown from the Pope’s hands and crowned himself. Near the end of World War II, Winston Churchill tried to convince Joseph Stalin to cease repressing the Soviet Union’s Roman Catholics. Stalin’s reply was an example of unbridled megalomania – “How many divisions does the Pope have?

The old idiom, the bigger they are, the harder they fall, has also proven to be true throughout history. Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world before he was thirty. He died when he was only thirty-three. Julius Caesar was assassinated on the ides of March in 44 B.C., six years after his conquest of Gaul. A bit too much Gaul, perhaps? Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 with an army of half a million men. By the time 1813 rolled around, 22,000 French survivors of the campaign limped back home in defeat, done in by the Russian army and what some historians have called “General Winter.” Stalin didn’t live to see how many divisions the Pope had, but the world did. In June, 1987, Pope John Paul, a son of Poland, celebrated mass in the city of Gdansk with its citizens and a small band of steel workers who had bravely defied communist tyranny. Over a million people, or about fifty divisions, attended. The movement for freedom grew from there. In 1989, the communists left Poland, defeated by the fasting, prayer, faith, courage, and resolve of the Polish people.

Megalomania seems to be a historical constant. It’s in the air right now and it’s contagious. Its focal point seems to be Syria, but when the layers are pulled away the current world situation boils down to a contest of two competing wills and visions. To the east, Vladimir Putin has set his sights on a new and vigorous Russia. In a 2012 address to the Russian people, he unveiled a vision of geopolitical relevance that would once again place Russia in a prominent place on the world stage.  He said, “We must not only preserve our geopolitical relevance, we must also increase it.” What did Mr. Putin mean by geopolitical relevance? He put it this way. “Geopolitical relevance means the ability to build different relations with different centers of power in the multipolar world, offering them what they need.”

This clearly puts him at odds with the west and Barack Obama, who also has a grand vision and what appears to be supreme confidence in his ability to make it happen. It’s a vision of a unipolar world with him as its unelected President. He’s made it clear wherever he’s been. In June, 2008 he told adoring throngs in Berlin, “This is the “moment when we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it….” “This is the moment when we must renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons…” “This is the moment when every nation in Europe must have the chance to choose its own tomorrow free from the shadows of yesterday…” This is the moment when we must build on the wealth that open markets have created, and share its benefits more equitably…” “This is the moment we must help answer the call for a new dawn in the Middle East…” “This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet…” People of Berlin - people of the world - this is our moment. This is our time.” When he accepted the Democratic Party’s Presidential nomination later that year the theme repeated itself - “This was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment - this was the time - when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals.”

If that isn’t megalomania in full bloom I don’t know what is! But, we decided to believe him and the flowery rhetoric got him elected and then re-elected. As the years have passed, the megalomania has become more pronounced. He has convinced himself that his intellect and charm are the trump cards in the high stakes bridge game of politics and international diplomacy. He’s decided that he, by executive decree, can “tweak” laws he doesn’t like. And in the recent debate and sabre rattling about military intervention in Syria he referred to America’s sons and daughters as “my military.” Some say it was a Freudian slip of the tongue and meant nothing. I don’t believe that for a moment.

About all that’s left for Barack Obama to do is to snatch the crown and drape the ermine robe of rule around his shoulders.

So there you have it. One man is advancing a vision of a renewed, relevant Russia. The other is trying to lay claim to the title of boss of the world.

Who’s going to win? If recent events are any indication, Vladimir Putin has a substantial lead in this race to the top.

How did that happen? Here in America we’ve been led to believe that Mr. Putin is crude, calculating, and manipulative. Barack Obama, on the other hand, has created and fostered the image of himself as the smartest man in any room at any time. The answer is clear. Appearances can often be deceiving.

To be sure, Vladimir Putin is an autocrat. He’s also ambitious, calculating, and manipulative. But he’s also an extremely intelligent man. While it’s true that he served in the Soviet Union’s K.G.B., it’s also true that he earned a law degree from Leningrad State University with an emphasis on international relations. His doctoral thesis – “The Strategic Planning of Regional Resources under the Formation of Market Relations,” is far from being the work of a village idiot.

Barack Obama does have his credentials. He graduated from Harvard Law School. He was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He worked as a community organizer and as a civil rights attorney. He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. Not too bad.

Unfortunately for us, the bloom has come off the rose of Barack Obama’s superiority.  Vladimir Putin has taken the measure of him. It started with Edward Snowden. Mr. Obama mismanaged that affair with what poets sometimes call the greatest of skill. When Snowden sought refuge in Moscow, Putin let the President twist in the wind before giving Snowden a year of breathing freely. In the end, Vladimir Putin, the autocrat, became a champion of free expression and Barack Obama became a K.G.B. like despot. Now we’ve got Syria. The President has been banging on the war drum (a tin one at that) for weeks. Then, thanks to a slip of the tongue from our Secretary of State, Vladimir Putin stepped into the gap, offering a peace proposal. The opening was wider than the hole the Kansas City Chiefs line opened with the sixty-five toss power trap in the 1970 Super Bowl. So, in addition to being a champion of free speech, Vladimir Putin, the cold, calculating autocrat, can now lay claim to being a man of peace and a significant player in world affairs while Barack Obama, the peacemaker, has become the trigger happy war mongerer. How the President allowed that to happen is almost beyond comprehension.  But he did.  

The President’s ambitious plans, grounded in his belief that no one can match his intellect, have gone up in smoke and flames, as Washington Post columnist George Will noted a few days ago:

“Barack Obama’s foreign policy dream – cordial relations with a Middle East tranquilized by “smart diplomacy” – is in a death grapple with reality. His rhetorical writhings illustrate the perils of his loquacity. He has a glutton’s, rather than a gourmet’s, appetite for his own rhetorical cuisine.”

It’s sad. It’s like watching a cat tease an unfortunate mouse or bird just before he eats it. Not long ago, Peggy Noonan put it even more succinctly in her Wall Street Journal column:

“A serious foreign-policy intellectual said recently that Putin’s problem is that he’s a Russian leader in search of a Nixon, a U.S. president he can really negotiate with, a stone player who can talk grand strategy and the needs of his nation, someone with whom he can thrash it through and work it out. Instead he has Obama, a self-besotted charismatic who can’t tell the difference between showbiz and strategy, and who enjoys unburdening himself of moral insights to his peers.”

I think this has rankled Mr. Obama. His ego’s been bruised. The crown’s been tarnished and the bloom really is off the rose.

Things are so bad that people are beginning to see the real Barack Obama. Military historian Victor Davis Hanson recently observed that  “After five years of this, the world caught on, and sees juvenile and narcissistic petulance in lieu of statesmanship—and unfortunately a sinister Putin takes great delight in reminding 7 billion people of this fact almost daily.”

Even reliable media allies are turning on the President. The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd, for example, poured this salty tidbit into the festering wounds:  “Unlike Bill Clinton, who excels at boiling down complex arguments to simple ones, Obama prefers to wallow in the weeds, reminding people that he’s the smartest man in the room and expecting their support because he feels he is only doing what’s complicated and right.”

We’ve had many warnings about the dangers of this kind of megalomania in the past. One that seems appropriate right now comes from the pen of John Jay (Federalist 4, written in the late 1780’s):

“Absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition… These and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people.”

John Jay knew what he was talking about. He and his fellow American colonists had just defeated the mighty British Empire in our Revolutionary War. If only King George III and the British parliament had seen it all coming. But, it was close to impossible. Megalomania tends to blind one to reality.

At the end of that war, tradition has it that the British played an old tune titled “The World Turned Upside Down,” a stanza of which follows:

“If buttercups buzzed after the bee,

If boats were on land, churches on sea,

If ponies rode men and if grass ate the cows,

And cats should be chased into holes by the mouse,

If summer were spring and the other way round,

Then all the world would be upside-down.”

The world does occasionally turn upside-down. Empires fade; new empires supplant them. “Wise” men are proven to be fools. Are we witnessing such a turning now? It’s early and the geopolitical wheel’s still spinning, but things aren’t looking good for the smartest man in the room.

What does all of this mean to you and me? Will sanity prevail in the end? Sadly, it all seems to depend on the whim and will of Barack Obama. That, and his hubris, have made these times that really do “try men’s souls.”

FYE

I’ve heard that Newfoundland has the worst roads and the nicest people on the planet. Like so many things I’ve heard it’s only half true. Anyone who’s ever driven on New York’s Major Deegan Expressway or taken a tooth-rattling jitney ride down into Utah’s Monument Valley knows this. But, while she doesn’t have the worst roads, Newfoundland can lay legitimate claim to being the home of the world’s nicest people. I speak from experience, with a bit of personal bias mixed in. My mother was born in Newfoundland, which means I have maritime blood coursing through my veins.

 

What makes Newfoundlanders so nice? I think it’s the weather. A hundred and seventy some odd inches of annual snowfall and 102 days of blowing snow have mellowed them. Newfoundlanders take life in its stride.

 

I had the good fortune to be stationed at Ernest Harmon Air Base in Newfoundland from 1964 to 1965. The assignment gave me the opportunity to explore my DNA in depth. I spent as much of my off duty time as possible finding my way to McIvers Cove to visit my mother’s family. I met them all and they were wonderful, but there was one uncle who became very special to me. His given name was Fiander (pronounced Fye – ander), but everyone called him Fye.

 

I’ll never forget the morning I first met him. I had just finished breakfast at my Uncle Billy and Aunt Mabel’s. “Oooohhhh, Philip,” Mabel exclaimed. “Your Uncle Fye is a comin’ down the road to see ya.’ He ‘pears to be full of excitement.” I looked out the window and there he was. He was tall and lanky. His gait was like a hippity-hop. In a strange way it reminded me of Charlie Chaplin’s alter-ego, the Little Tramp. Fye was tall, well over six feet, which made the gait even more amusing to watch. He was wearing a burgundy cardigan that he’d buttoned up unevenly. His head was crowned with a well weathered golf cap. I heard him squeal with delight as he swung the door open. “Is this truly our Susie’s boy?” Once he was assured that I was he hugged me for what seemed like hours.

 

Three day passes and leaves from Harmon came and went and so did my time in McIvers. Every time I was there Fye would take me under his wing and we’d flit from place to place around the cove, drinking tea and gathering gossip like a couple of bachelor gadabouts. I didn’t notice till my third visit that Fye only had one tooth, a lower right incisor. By the time of my sixth visit I’d read Richard Brautigan’s “A Confederate General from Big Sur.” One of Brautigan’s characters was an off-center relic named Lee Mellon, who, depending on the day might have one tooth, or three. The teeth seemed to magically appear or disappear. From that point on I always found some discreet way to stare at Fye to see what was going on. I’ve never known whether it was my imagination or some sort of counter culture magic, but Fye’s tooth seemed to move like Lee Mellon’s. One visit it might be an incisor; the next it might be a canine.

 

I developed a deep bond of affection for Fye. About two months before I shipped out for Vietnam I spent a night in his cabin. We talked a lot about the bonds of family. And, there was small talk. I noticed a twelve volt battery sitting on the floor next to his bed. When I asked him what it was for he said that he had plans to get a TV, a hand crank, and a wife so that he could wire the battery to the TV and have his wife turn the crank to generate “lectricty” while he watched the Toronto Maple Leafs.  I couldn’t tell whether or not he was serious, although I did detect the hint of mischief in his eyes.

 

I thought often of Fye while I was in Vietnam. I sometimes wondered whether or not he was addled. I took a while, but I came to see that he was far from being addled. Fye just took the world in its stride. He didn’t need much to make him happy. 

 

Looking back on it now, I see that those days with Fye were the launching point in my quest for faith and belief. The warm memories of his simple ways slowly melted away the despair gnawing on me.  I’ll always be grateful to Fye for that.

 

I’ll see him again someday, dressed in that burgundy cardigan and golf cap. Maybe he’ll even have a full head of pearly whites, although there’s a part of me that’s hoping that I’ll get to see whether that incisor I saw last has once more magically become a canine.

THE COIN OF THE REALM

“Well, you’re on your own, you always were

In a land of wolves and thieves
Don’t put your hope in ungodly man
Or be a slave to what somebody else believes…
If you want somebody you can trust, trust yourself.”

-       Bob Dylan – “Trust Yourself” (1985)

 

In any civil society trust should be the coin of the realm. Without interpersonal trust our families and communities can easily wither and decay. Without institutional trust, particularly at the government level, society breaks apart at its seams, piece by piece. When trust is in short supply, so is justice. And, as it goes with justice, so it goes with truth. As the prophet said, “So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets.” Objective standards become obsolete. They’re replaced by government decrees, executive orders, or outbursts of civil rage and popular demands for retribution. It’s not far from that point till it all becomes every man for himself.

 

This is the course our leaders have chosen.

 

I’ve been trying my best to speak out about the dangers of the surveillance state for months. In some circles that marks me as the village idiot.  That’s alright. I’ll keep plugging away.

 

I thought a month or so ago I’d seen it all, but I was wrong, as evidenced by the Obama administration’s latest attempt to plug leaks and “keep us safe and secure.” On July 9^th, McClatchy News Service revealed that the executive branch rolled out a program called the “Insider Threat Program.” The long and short of the President’s order is for federal employees to spy on their fellow employees¸ looking for potential security threats. Some civil libertarians have dubbed the executive order “Barack Obama’s national neighborhood watch program.”

 

This program, along with the massive data gathering operations, prosecutions of whistle blowers, I.R.S. targeting operations that now appear to reach to the highest levels, and executive branch programs that profile American citizens who have hosted international students or have travelled internationally, has made being an American citizen an increasingly risky proposition.

 

I don’t consider myself to be a political libertarian, but as I’ve gotten older (and hopefully wiser) I’ve become increasingly libertarian. How did this happen to someone who invariably tears up when he hears “God Bless America?” It all boils down to the word trust.

 

A few years ago I became acquainted with the work of economist Robert Higgs. I read his “Crisis and Leviathan” and found it fascinating. I don’t always agree with him, but I have always found him to be thought provoking. An extended excerpt from a recent essay he did on the surveillance state follows. I’m including it because I believe what Professor Higgs says is really important:

 

“How many individuals cannot be blackmailed by someone who knows everything about their personal affairs, much less by someone who also controls enormous surveillance agencies, police forces, and the courts? With the information now in their hands, state authorities will be well-nigh certain to augment their powers by using this information to deter or cripple political opponents, to coerce unwilling cooperation (including false testimony) by others, and to silence anyone who might be tempted to criticize or expose their misfeasance and malfeasance. To suppose that American state officials will not act in these ways is naïve in the extreme. These politicians are not angels; on the contrary. And their newly acquired treasure trove of information places a resource of heretofore unimagined power in their hands. To trust that they will not massively abuse their control over this resource flies in the face of everything we know about the kind of people they are.”

 

I have to admit that I was one of those naïve people. I just didn’t think when I first started digging into this sordid mess that our government could do the sorts of things they’re doing to us now. But, the more I dug, the more angry and libertarian I became.

 

Misplaced trust in any human institution can be foolhardy. As Bildad told Job, “What they trust in is fragile; what they rely on is a spider’s web. They lean on the web, but it gives way.  They cling to it¸ but it does not hold.”

 

As I see it, there are only two ways out of this mess. First, we need to scream bloody murder. We need more village idiots! For folks in these parts it means that Jerry Moran and Tim Huelskamp are only a phone call or an angry e-mail away. It means we need to flood the President’s in box or his voicemail with our expressions of outrage. Second, we need to heed the poet’s words. We need to trust ourselves Trusting in our government is misplaced. It’s become everything it shouldn’t be. It has become a fool’s errand.