Apparently,

It's the feast day of someone called St. Thomas a' Bucket

I guess it's this guy:

Though it looks more like a chest, to me.

You Know What We Keep Forgetting?

1) That Salvation is a two-way street, God's Grace and our acceptance.
2) That sin and guilt are collective, as well as individual - no man an island.

I have begun to wonder if we have not reached a tipping point, at which more people reject humanity and compassion than embrace it (including the churches), and God has accepted our rejection of His Grace and simply walked away. 

You Cannot Be Christian and Oppose "Socialism"

I, frankly, would be unwilling to allow that you're a humanist if you oppose government welfare policies, but that's another point, and more debatable.

What is not debatable is the absolute incompatibility of being a practicing Christian and opposing healthcare, welfare programs, etc.

Leaving aside the only Biblical example of Christian community we have, in which all things were held in common and those who sought to join while holding on to "their rightful" possessions being struck dead, there is the issue of what Christian is.  Christians are called to be Christlike.  The only arguments against the socialist aspects of governmental welfare I've heard is that unworthy people are getting someone's "hard earned" tax money.  A Christian cannot be concerned about that.  Absolutely.  Stop.  End.  No more to say. 

Christ - Whom, again, we are called to be like - did not pay high taxes for your healthcare, or school lunch, or utilities.  Christ was tortured and died for you, and you are utterly, UTTERLY unworthy of it.  Completely.  Just as I am.  There is nothing in this capitalist who "hard earns" his money that is of any ultimate worth outside of that sacrifice.  Indeed, this capitalist is even more unworthy because of his unregenerate selfishness and unrepentant idolatry. 

Idolatry?  Yes.  Because this capitalist says "This is mine.  I earned it.  I deserve it."  He honestly believes it, too.  Why?  Because in the capitalist mind - even the right-wind Christians - he, the capitalist, is the god who made and provides all things.  He alone.  It is a bestial mindset, the "pagan" mindset of the imprecations levelled by Paul.  All things are of God, and He could, at any time, take it away from you and give it to another and tell you to go roll around in the mud and beg on the corner until you've learned your lesson.  God, however, desires us to grow into Christian adulthood and so asks us to do this sharing and caring ourselves.  In the most extreme circumstances, He has set up the world and material existence so that the complete denial and refusal of this call eventually results in unbearable pressures leading to revolution and economic collapse, in the hopes that the hard lesson will succeed where the gentle one has failed. 

In the end, the point is the same - this capitalist, and I and you, are the source of nothing.  Nothing "belongs" to us.  Nothing is "produced" by us.  The source and ground of all is God, and God has made very specific requests, as wiser adult to young adult (such is His graciousness), as to how to use all He has provided. 

And, it's socialist. 

Socialism is politically the furthest you can tend to capitalism and still be an earnest, practicing Christian.  God's forgiveness is great, but political capitalism is unrepentant sin, as we embrace, promulgate and demand it as our "rights." 

Christian and socialist are inextricably bound.  Christian and capitalist are unrelentingly opposed. 

It's St. Stephen's Day

You knew this was coming.

Another Senseless Tragedy

Midnight comes and BAM! Hoopla! I'm 44 . . . for no good reason at all.

There Are Still Real Bishops Out There

God Bless Bp. Packard, Michael T. Sniffen, John Merz, Dr. Earl Kooperkamp.



See More At Elizabeth Kaeton's Telling Secrets Seems appropriate,somehow.

I Still Love the Bunny

This year, they had a not-entirely-terrible translation of Schnuffel's Weihnachtslied.

One of My Favorite Christmas Songs

For Those Who've Never Seen Her

Other than in that silly '50's sitcom. Lucille Ball, being a bit of the comic bombshell, back in da day.


And just 'cause I like the song



(and if you see The Cheap Detective with Peter Falk and Eileen Brennan, you'll see one of the most hilarious uses of this song, ever)

Thoughts While Lost at Sea

Just feeling a bit alone, I guess.  A general unease at how some things are going, here.

I wonder, sometimes, if the way to get attention, to show how poorly-treated employees are and undervalued they are is by . . .

Well, in feudal Japan, there was an act called kanshi - it was suicide by a retainer to protest a decision by the feudal lord.  In a real sense, we are, in America, just as powerless to protest in any other way our "owners'" (we call them employers, but let's be real) decisions.  We are as powerless as the Buddhist monk who self-immolated - all we can hope for is to make our suffering high-profile to shame and publicly expose those over us and make things better for others. 

The problem for me is that I lack the courage of my convictions.  For that matter, I question the conviction;  I would not if I really thought it was to benefit all, in general, but perhaps it's just to say "Look at me!"  or just to get it over with.  I'm not sure that our society would really be moved by someone choosing death rather than the constant, low-level evil of our "American way o' doin' things!"  Suicide doesn't move us.  Oh, we make laws and yammer away about "getting help" and "you're not alone" and blah, blah, but that's just form, isn't it?  They die, they die.  We've fallen to that level of bestiality as a culture. 

Besides, I really don't want to die.  I don't have a particular lack of friends or family or support.  There is the possibility of personal contentment. 

Still, I watch people - not just on tv, occupying Wall Street, but people close to me - being mistreated, undervalued, and pressured beyond tolerance by men who are of far less worth than they, but have money.  Worthless men with worthless ambitions run the show, and nobody seems to think that's wrong.  I do, but lack the courage to make the grand public gesture, and the faith in my fellow man to believe it would touch a single granite heart.  It seems someone must, or it will all explode and a lot of the good people will get hurt.  I don't advocate violence, I'm warning it's coming.  We don't know the signs.  It's not happened in our lives, even the life of our country (since the Debtor Rebellion, at least) and we won't be prepared.  And what comes out of the violence aimed outward is misery for all, not change.  We could change, but, since those in the position to do so won't, it will take shaming and pressuring them with something too much to ignore. 

Well, at least it's not just us.  But, if it doesn't change soon, we may be looking at something like this:

Please Don't Watch It

While I generally work to publicize and encourage the careers of outstanding young actors - Chloe Moretz, for example - and I believe Asa Butterfield to be one of the best young actors I've seen in a while (see The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas), and I love Harrison Ford's work (yes, even the last Indiana Jones film), I have to say please don't go see Ender's Game.

It's not supposed to be out until 2013, but it's never too early to discourage supporting the views, not only of the Mormons, but of one of their spokespeople, Orson Scott Card, who wrote the book. 

But, that's not all Card has written.  In "Homosexual 'Marriage' and Civilization" he wrote:

The dark secret of homosexual society -- the one that dares not speak its name -- is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally.

Nice, huh?

Of course, he also wrote the novella Hamlet's Father, in which all Hamlet's problems sprang from the fact (in Card's warped head) that Hamlet's father was a homosexually-inclined pedophile.

Apparently, Card's at least aware of the tide of P. R. against him, because he was quick to say that he never meant to imply that pedophilia and homosexuality are related.  Yeah.  Right.

Now, I'm sure Card can't help this.  He's a Mormon.  Personally, I'd love to see the Mormon cult outlawed entirely.  But, this is a free country, and we are civilized and tolerant, so the Mormons are entitled to their view - their dangerously-insane view - and Card to his opinions that gays are somehow sick and subhuman.

Just as I am entitled to my view that authors obsessed with pedophilic molestation and writing s/f books that contain large sections detailing violent little boys all crammed together in military training requiring frequent nudity (on a satellite called "Eros", if I recall correctly), might have their own background problems/experiences that color his views of gays.

And, of course, my view that we should - in absolutely no way - contribute to the continuing success of an author who espouses such views, including by watching films made of his books, and my view that, in the future, Odd Lot Entertainment, Gavin Hood, Asa Butterfield and Harrison Ford (if rumors are true) will choose better, more wholesome projects.