I told myself, when I got back into this, that I wouldn’t bother with politics.  That plenty of conservative – and liberal – bloggers already had that field covered, and that at least some of them had a calling to blow the whistles and call the plays, which made them at least more directly involved in the subject matter than I.   When combined with my general philosophy that there’s no point doing what someone else is already doing properly, or at least well, leaving the politics off the mountain seemed like the right thing to do.

But some things  even I cannot ignore.

Apparently a public elementary school in Maryland has decided to make all its students learn – and sing – a song lionizing President Obama.  An excerpt, you say?

“Barack Obama – Oh yes he rates,

The first Black President in the United States

He’s smart and he’s – so so good!

He’ll lead this country as he should!

He wants us all to work together,

To make this country even better!”

(Red Maryland has the full lyrics.)

Scary enough in itself.  And even that, without more, gives me one more reason to appreciate the fact that we homeschool.  But add in a few historical facts, and things get scarier still below the fold:

The past few months have seen (1) Obama addressing the public school youth in the classroom, via satellite feed, (2) an administration handout suggesting that children reflect upon Obama’s speech by asking themselves questions like “What does President Obama want me to do?” and “Can I do what President Obama Wants me to do?”, and now (3) some schools apparently deciding to make Obama Carols part of the holiday season.

Travel with me, if you will to the Autumn of 1933.  In January, Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany.  People rejoiced over their new, visionary leader, who promised to lead them away from the errors of the [conservative] Weimar Republic.

That autumn, the Hitler Youth program picked up speed, with the Nazis seeking to make the youth look to the government, and particularly Hitler, as a substitute for their real homes and parental influences.  Nazi officials proclaimed, “Whoever marches in the Hitler Youth is not a number among millions but the soldier of an idea.” (Read: We can do it…yes we can.) Singing played a major role in the Hitler Youth meetings (as did marching and other forms of paramilitary activities, at least for boys).

Selected Lyrics from two 1934 songs of the Hitler Youth (the second of which also shows what happens when you let Nazis loose with classic Christmas carols):

“Therefore is our love so great/therefore you are the alpha and Omega/we believe in you – faithful and unconditionally/and the work of our spirit and of our hands/is just the expression of our gratitude.”

“Silent night, holy night/all is calm, wakeful only is Adolf Hitler/watching over Germany’s destiny/ leading us to greatness/ to fame and to happiness,/gives power to us, to Germany.”

(Carols quoted from  Murdoch, Fighting Songs and Warring Words, Routledge, 1990, p.111-112.)

Anyone among you not creeped out yet?

I try not to act rashly.  I tend not to panic.  I’m probably the last one you’ll find screaming naked in the streets trying to start a panic.  But even I find this just a little too creepy for my comfort level.

Yeah, I think we’ll continue to homeschool.

[Reposted from September 11, 2007.  September 11, 2006 post is here.]

Six years*  ago this morning, a telephone call from The Random Sibling woke me from a sound and peaceful sleep.

“Is your TV on?” His voice demanded into my sleeping ear.  “Are you watching this?”

“Watching what?”  I looked at the clock.  My alarm wouldn’t go off for another half hour.  “What’s going on?”

“We’re under attack.  They’re flying planes into buildings.  Turn your TV on NOW.”

September 11, 2001.

Like the day of John F. Kennedy’s assassination or the attack on Pearl Harbor, a day every living American will always remember.

Whether or not you lost a loved one, and whether or not you stood there in person watching the towers fall, the events of September 11 impacted your life.  You will always remember where you stood when you heard the news, what you planned to do that morning, how you reacted.

I’m not too proud to admit that I cried.

I carried the news to the law school where I taught at the time.  As it happened, my early arrival made me the first to deliver the news.  The registrar thought I was joking.  Pretty sick joke.  Even I’m not that twisted.

Within minutes, television sets tuned in to CNN, just in time to watch the second tower fall.

I taught class as scheduled that morning, not because I wanted to teach but because I wanted my students to have somewhere to go and something to focus on that didn’t involve the multitudes of death and unanswered questions that blared from CNN.  I didn’t take roll, and before I started class I told the students I was going to leave the room and ask no questions about who was or wasn’t there when I returned.  Of the forty students enrolled in my first-year property class, only one chair stood empty when I opened the door - the one that belonged to a woman whose aunt worked in the World Trade Center.  We later learned her aunt had decided to stop for coffee on the ground floor before heading up to work that morning, minutes before a giant airplane plowed into the area where her desk sat.

A cup of coffee saved her life.

When I heard the news, I wished everyone in the World Trade Center had stopped for coffee that morning.  I wished they had stopped to enjoy the bright autumn day, the sun shining brightly overhead in a sky so blue that an observer could easily think, “Nothing but good could happen today.”  But they didn’t, and the towers fell.

When I asked Yak the Younger whether he would be ok at kindergarten that morning, he responded, “Sure.  The bad men [who flew the airplanes into the buildings] are all dead now.”

Six years later, I wish his words were true.

I stopped for coffee this morning, looking up into the blue autumn sky and thinking what a wonderful day God blessed me to live in.  It wasn’t until I reached the office that I realized the date.

September 11, 2007.*  Six years* to the day from the date the towers fell.  May we all take a moment this morning to sit down, look out the window and appreciate the day God has given us.  To buy that cup of coffee and to take the time to enjoy it.  May we go home tonight, hug our spouses and our children, and gratefully remember the men and women whose bravery and sacrifices continue to keep us safe and free – though perhaps, through no fault of their own, not quite as safe as we were before.  Above all, may we offer a prayer for the families of those lost and touched by the events of September 11, 2001: the lost, the missing, and the brave.

May we always remember.  May we never forget.

[*This is a re-post of an entry originally posted on September 11, 2007.  I didn't think I could say it better...so I'll just say it again.]

Addendum:  The winds of change hint at an Obama-administration attempt to modify 9-11 into an Interfaith Day of Prayer and a “Day of Service.”  Permit me to reject such ideas, once and for all, where I’m concerned.

On My Side of The Mountain, 9/11 remains a day to remember what has been, and what always will be:  a tragedy, marked by both loss and heroism.  The (lip) service Obama intends our youth to perform will not help them remember the bravery and sacrifice of those who went before, and while I have no objection to voluntary service – our nation has long stood on the strength of just that kind of service – it should not be allowed to obfuscate, detract from or mar the clarity with which we remember the anniversary of a violent and unprovoked attack on U.S. soil.

I’m sure this no longer qualifies as “news” – but Richard Danzig, a frontrunner in the race for National Security Advisor to a (hopefully mythological) Obama cabinet, has apparently cited Winnie the Pooh as “a fundamental text on foreign policy.”

When I first heard this, I hoped (desperately and without reservation) that this proved either a hoax or a bad idea, soon recognized and withdrawn.

On second thought, I realized Danzig’s choice of Winnie the Pooh probably provides a startlingly accurate picture of an Obama presidency. 

The Hundred-Acre Administration would be led by a Bear of Very Little Brain (and even less experience), for whom the sweet honey of his admirers’ affection and the approval of his army of Christopher Robins would provide not only a primary objective but the only one.

His choice advisors, from whom he could take valuable foreign policy advice, would include:

• A constantly terrified, xenophobic second-in-command whose own shadow creates cause for alarm – though not for action (at least, not beyond hiding beneath the nearest solid object).
• The hypercaffeinated jack-of-all-trades who, though gifted with the attention span of a gnat, nonetheless believes himself capable of solving any problem – despite the fact that all his other proposed solutions ended in unmitigated ruin.  (To the positive, the most wonderful thing about him is that he’s the only one with any real ideas at all.)
• A broken-tailed donkey who has to put up with the thumbtack provided by the universal health care system rather than the real, tail-securing operation available only under an administration that lets each individual opt for real medical attention rather than forcing acceptance of the lowest common denominator.
• An education advisor – universally considered the smartest of the bunch – who spells his own name “W-O-L”

For those who might have forgotten, highlights of Pooh’s brand of foreign policy include:

• Attempting to obtain honey from bees by painting himself black, grasping a balloon and attempting to masquerade as a cloud. (Read: if we stand still enough, maybe the terrorists won’t see us.)
• Getting himself stuck in Rabbit’s front door after eating too much at a dinner party.  (Translation: If you block the enemy’s front door, he won’t be able to get out and attack you!)
• Taking Eeyore a pot of honey and a balloon for his birthday, but after semi-accidentally eating the honey and popping the balloon on the way, attempting to convince the already-depressed donkey that the presents are better this way.  (Translation: banning gas for our cars, and global-warming-inducing red meat for our tables, then telling us we’re actually happier eating lettuce on foot…)

I could offer more, but I think I’ve proven my point.  Obama’s not running a dog-and-pony show, he’s offering a Hundred-Acre Administration.

And that’s truly scary – even to a yak of very little brain. 

Tip of the horns, Pirate’s Cove

Trackposted to Stuck On Stupid, The Virtuous Republic, third world county, Democrat=Socialist, Conservative Cat, and The World According to Carl, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

On its face, excuse me, on her face, Hillary’s Hollywood connections paid off big time in yesterday’s Democratic presidential debate in Los Angeles.  Whoever did her facial makeup deserves an Emmy.  She looked almost indistinguishable from a real person.

Just what is her Hollywood base of support?  paste?  cream?  oils?  (Dare we ask what other forms of support she may have gotten?  No, let’s not go there.)

Bet Nancy Pelosi is screamingly jealous.  But she lives in San Francisco.

Oprah, by a landslide. 

Bill campaigned for Hillary in Iowa and she fell in the polls when people saw that “She’s no Bill Clinton.”

Oprah stumped for Barack and he soared in the polls.  I may be the only person in America who has never actually seen an Oprah Winfrey Show, but whatever she does she has my respect as the wealthiest woman in America (and probably the world) who has earned it on her own.

What about the roaring crowd at Obama’s victory speech?  It sounded like the high-flying Democratic victory celebration four years ago for, uh, Howard Dean.  Uh-oh.

It appears Al Gore has won the nobel prize. (not the Ig Nobel Prize, mind you, which would have made more sense).

I’m not going to waste your time with a (valid, timely and appropriate) discussion of what this means for the (already trashed) reputation of the Nobel Prize.  I won’t comment on the humorous fact that the prize comes the day after news reports of a British court calling An Inconvenient Truth a propaganda piece containing substantial misrepresentations.  I won’t bother to mention that this places the Goracle in the fine company of upstanding humanitarians like Jimmy-the-Dhimmi Carter and Yasser Arafat.  Above all, I won’t bother to suggest that Mr. Gore might be better honored among the ranks of those rewarded for such important research as the discovery that rats sometimes cannot tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backward and a person speaking Dutch backward. (No, that’s not a joke.)

I won’t do this because understanding the communicative capacity of rats probably does more to advance the human condition than claiming melting snow (in summer) is a sign of impending global catastrophe.

The rats said so.

Backwards.

In Japanese.  (Or maybe Dutch.)

Better (read: actual) commentary on the Goracle’s (cough) award can be found at:

• third world county
• Wizbang
• IMAO
• Stuck on Stupid
• Stop the ACLU
• Rantings of a Sandmonkey
• Althouse

… and doubtless many others who share my opinion that this more or less puts the cap on the fact that the Nobel Prize has become one more opportunity for liberals to pat one another on the back for a job … done. 

Feel free to link and trackback if you’re discussing the Goracle, Nobel prizes, Ig Nobel prizes, the importance of being able to distinguish between persons speaking Japanese and persons speaking Dutch - backward.

Eco-saints who smugly smashed the windows, slashed the tires and scratched “FOR THE ENVIRON” on the side of their neighbor’s new Hummer demonstrated again that there is no militancy greater than the wrath of an angry open-minded liberal whose dogma has been transgressed.

Hell hath no fury like a moral relativist scorned.

Guns don’t kill babies and Hummers, environmentalists do.

We love the earth. It’s the people we hate.

Disclaimer: No SUV of Al Gore was damaged in the making of this political statement.

The imponderable question of the day, and the question every day for the residents of that gambling-desert state onNorthern California’s eastern border, is:

What possessed the people of Nevada to elect Harry Reid to the Senate?

We can gawk and exclaim and complain and remonstrate about Senator Reid ad nauseum (a state of stomach upset easily achieved when listening to Harry the Hoarse) but there will never be a solution to the problem until we can discover what possessed the people of Nevada to vote for him.

Does everyone in Nevada always try to beat the odds, to vote for a loser hoping he will turn into a winner? It makes you wonder whether Nevada was one time a wet and green oasis and it only became a desert due to bad choices by its residents, because that’s what’s going to happen to America if Harry the Horseless Head-man gets his way in the Senate.

As TRY reported Saturday, Washington Post staff writer and NPR media-celebrity Roxanne Roberts insulted Queen Elizabeth at a reception in the British embassy last week and repeated her insult on National Public Radio’s news quiz program “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.” Standing in front of the elderly and revered Queen of England, the classless Ms. Roberts turned to the male embassy official standing next to her and remarked that “The Queen is stacked.” Ms. Roberts reportedly gestured to the NPR panelists and studio audience to make her crass anatomical meaning perfectly clear to all. The theme of the NPR program was lambasting President Bush for purported breaches of etiquette and for mangling the Queen’s English, but nothing was said about Ms. Roberts’ appallingly impolite insult about a matronly and highly repected woman on a state visit, an insult made at a reception in her honor at the British embassy no less.

But there’s more. When the British embassy official to whom Ms. Roberts’ inane observation was addressed discovered that she is a Washington Post reporter, he was aghast and begged her not to repeat her tasteless comment (or the official’s polite refusal to take this impolite guest and usher her immediately out the back door into the alley, as her behavior deserved) as a news story. So what did she do? She immediately broadcast her insult and his horrified reaction on National Public Radio. Add ethical lapses to lack of etiquette on Ms. Roberts’ resume.

That cacaphony of media outrage you should be hearing would be the calls for Ms. Roberts’ to apologize and then to be fired from the Post and NPR.

Two queries from TRY: First, I did not hear all Ms. Roberts’ may have said on NPR. Could someone else who listened to the program or who has access to the transcript confirm whether or not Ms. Roberts also called the Queen “nappy-headed”?

Second, could someone at the Post or NPR please provide TRY with an appropriately accurate and equivalently insulting description of the upper torso anatomy of Roxanne Roberts?

Walking across the shopping center parking lot to my car this afternoon, I glanced at a small sign posted on the back of a car (driven, I later observed, by a not-altogether-unattractive 20-something young woman) and started to laugh. The sign, I thought, showed that when people on the opposite sides of controversial social issues repeat and clarify and repeat their positions long enough, eventually people on the other side sometimes actually get the message.

The sign said, “Just Say No To Sex With Pro-Lifers!”

Now that’s a sign that I, as a pro-lifer, can agree with. In fact, that’s a sentiment everyone on all sides should be able to agree with. That young woman knows what pro-lifers stand for. She apparently doesn’t agree with it — although I suppose she could be a pro-lifer herself with a very ironic sense of humor. Unlikely. As I say, she doesn’t agree with pro-lifers, but she is willing to leave them alone. A moral truce, of sorts.

On the other hand, she may just be conceited enough to think that pro-lifer males find her irresistably attractive and that she is punishing them for their backward lifestyle by declaring herself unavailable. Who knows.

She saw me laughing at the trunk of her car and smiled to herself without looking my way. I doubt she correctly read my thoughts.

Opponents of the 2004 Arizona initiative law requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration and proof of identification to vote (in person) failed to show a likelihood of winning their case against the initiative the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.Gonzalez v. State of Arizona (April 20, 2007). Opponents argued that the law constituted a poll tax and unlawfully burdened the right to vote. The Court disagreed, holding that proof of citizenship and identity are not taxes and that the plaintiffs had not shown any significant burden on the right to vote.

Opponents argued that voter registration in Arizona began falling in 2005, but that could be attributable not to a burden on voter registration by requiring proof of citizenship or identitybut rather to dissuading non-citizens from attempting to register or to vote due to lack of proof of citizenship or identity.

On the other hand, voting by mail still circumvents most voter identification safeguards. Graveyards still have postal addresses, it seems, even outside Chicago.

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Cell sites have relatively low-power (often only one or two watts) radio transmitters which broadcast their presence and relay communications between ringtones best free handsets and the switch.

Music governs my choice of coffee shops, for hanging out, reading, meditating, talking with friends and strangers. The closest and most pleasant coffee shop, the one within walking distance of my house with the open patio area covered by a ceiling of glassed panes that let in light and stop the rain, does not have the best coffee, but I prefer to go there anyway because of its other amenities — so long as the music is right. I used to go there nearly every Saturday morning to read the Bible or study, but it became too much of a hassle always to ask the staff to change over the music from the late-night rock-blues-jazz that livens the late Friday night open-band, open-mike festivities to a more appropriate early Saturday listening fare. So, I stopped going there for about a year, until recently I dropped in again on a Saturday to meet someone and discovered that the music had turned to classical. Nice. Very conducive to thought, introspection and thinking things through (or thinking them out, whichever idiom is better; I am not sure of the difference). So, I’ll probably go back again to test the melodic standards of the background noise again and give the place another test listen. Coffee’s still the same it seems.

Meanwhile, however, I have two other local coffee shops that get my patronage (how’s “patronage” for a culturally outdated holdover word?) — which brings me to the topic of “Coffee Shop Theology.” The last coffee shop I went to, a few days ago, was playing John Lennon’s “Imagine.” When I sat down in the coffee shop I am in right now writing this the musical offering was Bette Midler’s “God Is Watching Us (From a Distance).”

Which of these pop-culture icons’ expressions of coffee shop theology has the wiser offering for those whose meditations on God and the meaning of life are more likely to be inspired by random broadcasts than, say, sermons or main-lining the Bible itself?

Personally, as regular readers of my articles know, my preference turns toward the songs of David (aka the “psalms,” but in the original lyrics rather than their modern rewritten re-arrangements. That’s another topic, but I tell you so that you can get some insight into my analysis of the Lennon and Midler offerings (below). Here goes.

Lennon first. After all, he’s dead and therefore now knows how right or wrong his theology was, only he’s not writing any more songs to tell us the real story. What we are left with is what he “imagined” the real, hidden world to be when he was alive here.

“Imagine.” John Lennon.

“Imagine there’s no heaven/ It’s easy if you try.

No hell below us/ Above us only sky
Imagine all the people/ Living for today…”

Yes, it is easy to imagine that this life is all there is or ever will be and that death ends it all for each of us. Few people, however, do in fact imagine this as their final end. Most seem to imagine that there is indeed a heaven and that it is a heaven tailored to their fondest desires, in which they are honored residents, indulging themselves eternally in something-or-other they find pleasant. How could God do anything less for me and still be an acceptable god to me? Which explains why people also willingly imagine along with Lennon that there is no hell. Their idea seems to be to let everyone into heaven and to believe that heaven will be a better place than earth, despite the fact that everyone is there and unchanged from their earthly behavior. Sounds like hell to me.

Lennon’s initial flaw here, however, and the very dangerous premise his lyrics try to sell us, is the implication that his (or our) imagination somehow expresses something about reality, rather than his (or our) own wishes or fantasies. Perhaps it’s a danger that pop icons encounter, that people act as though everything they say is wise and true, so that they begin to believe that they actually do have special insights about life and ultimate values.

So the first evil and deception in Lennon’s world is religion, specifically belief in life after death, and reward or punishment in that life based upon our lives here and now. Lennon once said that he was greater than Jesus Christ, who explained both heaven and hell in no uncertain terms, so our choice here for reliable authorities is (a) John Lennon, (b) Jesus Christ, (c)ourselves, (d) none of the above, or (e) “It doesn’t matter because God, if there is a God, grades on a curve (as everyone knows) and I’m a better person than a lot of other people who think they’re getting into heaven.”
“Imagine there’s no countries/ It isn’t hard to do/ Nothing to kill or die for/ And no religion too/ Imagine all the people/ Living life in peace…”
The second evil in the world is politics, political systems. If there were “no countries” and “no religion” there would be no wars. Lennon is espousing the philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the belief in the “noble savage,” the innate goodness of man until corrupted by religion and political organizations. You know the theory: If there were no police there would be no criminals. Brilliant!

“You may say I’m a dreamer/ But I’m not the only one/ I hope someday you’ll join us/ And the world will be as one

“Imagine no possessions/ I wonder if you can/ No need for greed or hunger/ A brotherhood of man/ Imagine all the people/ Sharing all the world…”

Lennon’s third evil is property. More Rousseau. Following his own advice and insights explains why Lennon was famous for giving away his millions and living the simple life of a self-sufficient farmer-laborer. Oh, excuse me, that was Leo Tolstoy, the committed (albeit eccentric) Christian (and, unlike Lennon, an authentic genius).

No need for hunger, assuming that I can always steal enough to eat from other people who work for their living. In Lennon’s world, without religion, government or property, everyone works for his own needs and feels no sense of greed or covetousness toward the goods acquired by others by their diligent efforts, even though they may have greater natural skills or innate ambition than I have and thereby acquire more goods, wealth and prestige. No, Lennon-wise Rousseau-ian people enjoy living in their relative poverty so long as no one forces religion, politics or property on them. Why not? Since there are no property rights there are no consequences for me if I prefer to steal from you or enslave you rather than to work for a living myself. Since you have no protected property rights in your work product or your body, I won’t harm you and I will be good. Right. Now that does take some heavy-duty imagination. LSD might help here.

Rousseau incidentally could never understand why his elegant thoughts never seemed to work in reality. He was a good person, he said of himself, and it was the fault of the government and the culture, and his higher calling to philosophy and writing, he said, that forced him to put all of this children into orphanages to be cared for by others. This was the conduct of the philosophical father of the disastrous French Revolution (and the subsequent reign of terror and the Napoleonic empire and wars of aggression), the author of what some people believe the best book ever written on the education of children — others, no his own. Lennon could not have chosen a better idol or ideal than Rousseau.
“You may say I’m a dreamer/ But I’m not the only one, I hope someday you’ll join us/ And the world will live as one.”

If we ever live in a Lennonist system, we may “live as one,” but it will be a world not of peace but of tyranny and unrelenting terror. It will be Lennon’s nonexistent hell. Believe it.

“So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, [18] being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; [19] and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.” Ephesians 4.17-19.

If Lennon’s bemused, imaginary philosophy leave us in chaos, what does Bette Midler have to offer?

“From a Distance.” Bette Midler.

“From a distance the world looks blue and green/ and the snow capped mountains white./ From a distance the ocean meets the stream/ and the eagle takes to flight./ From a distance there is harmony and it echoes through the land./ It’s the voice of hope, it’s the voice of peace, it’s the voice of every man.

“From a distance we all have enough/ and no one is in need/ And there are no guns, no bombs and no disease,/ no hungry mouths to feed./ From a distance we are instruments marching in a common band./ Playing songs of hope, playing songs of peace,/ They’re the songs of every man./ God is watching us, God is watching us, God is watching us … from a distance.

“From a distance you look like my friend,/ even though we are at war./ From a distance I just can not comprehend, what all this fighting is for./ From a distance there is harmony/ and it echoes through the land./ And it’s the hope of hopes, it’s the love of loves,/ it’s heart of every man./

“It’s the hope of hopes, it’s the love of loves. This is the song of every man./ And God is watching us, God is watching us, God is watching us … from a distance./ Oh God is watching us, God is watching, God is watching us … from a distance.”

Which coffee shop wins in my fanciful Lennonesque v. Midleresque lyrical-theological set-to? Hard to say.

Midler is somewhat more personal and emotive, Lennon more philosophical and mystical, in tone, but their theologies are disturbingly similar.

Midler substitutes the vagueness of distance to cloud perceptions for Lennon’s imaginations, but they both see a world they imagine would be a better one than the world we now have, if people would only live up to their innate potential. Both hope for a world of peace and harmony. Both express that this hope lives in people, despite the problems of the world. Lennon implies that there is no god. Midler sees God as distant, passive, uninvolved. Like the god of James Joyce, observing the world with indifference while clipping his fingernails.

Midler provides vivid images for the abstractions of Lennon, but both believe that the natural world contains some inner or higher reality that we human are missing, a reality that makes for peace and harmony.

I’ll take Midler over Lennon. She sees the problem and implies that if the distant, watchful God would only intervene on our behalf the wars and suffering of mankind could be solved. Lennon blames God and religion (purveyors of false beliefs in heaven and hell), government and politics, and property rights for all that’s wrong in the world — reductionist, empty-headed, hypocritical ramblings worthy of Rousseau himself.

There’s hope in Midler’s world — because what she says we all long for has already happened. The watchful, distant God who is so interested in what happens to us in this world actually has come to do something about it.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [2] He was in the beginning with God. [3] All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. [4] In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. [5] The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

[9] “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. [10] He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. [11] He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. [12] But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, [13] who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

[14] “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. [15] John testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’” [16] For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. [17] For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. [18] No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God, who is now in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” John 1.1-5, 9-18 NASB.

Indeed, Bette Midler could be described as “one of your own poets” mentioned by Paul in his Mars Hill speech, in which he addresses Midler’s concerns about a too-distant and mistakenly thought to be disinterested God:

“God made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, [27] that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; [28] for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ [29] Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. [30] Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent.”

God is near to all who call upon him in truth, Psalm 145.18. If God seems distant from you, who moved?

Noting the Random Yak’s reference to Free Thinkers Day (today), I have attended Free Thinkers organization meetings but I found them stuffy and stultifying. There were just too many ideas that that we were not allowed to talk about objectively and too many opinions that it was unacceptable for members to believe.

Now that I’ve achieved self-fulfillment, what’s next?

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Rally poster seenrecently at Liberate U.:

“Join the Campus-wide Strike Tuesday to Protest Mindless Political Activism!”

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