My first Lent as an Anglican, a church that pays an annoying amount of attention to the season, was spent contemplating my recent divorce. I wryly joked that I'd given up a marriage and family for Lent. Perhaps because of that unhappy anniversary I've become a contrarian: I often give up religion for Lent, or at least going to church - just do what every rector in the diocese would like to do, take a vacation. Somebody's got to.

One year I gave up meat - and really enjoyed taking it up again on Easter Sunday. Doing that may have changed my life one whit & that's all. Another year, I got with the Wednesday night supper + speaker program, same result.

One of my friends, possibly as a result of Lenten disciplines over a period of forty years, possibly as a natural proclivity, possibly due to both, is able to change himself in beneficial ways by changing his habit patterns - within natural limits, of course. I believe that sort of detachment - the ability to regard oneself as a project of sorts - is one aim of Lenten discipline. Eventually, at least by the end of one's life, one is supposed to have left Egypt - leeks, onions, delicious fleshpots & all, and be on the road to the Promised Land.

I am waiting on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and a series of debilitating strokes to do the job before the congestive heart failure finishes me off.

Tom

***

COFFEE MEDLEY

 

I get by with a little help from my friends (John Lennon)

Re. GOOD FRIDAY COFFEE

1. Bill Bellinghausen, GOOD FRIDAY 3:00 PM

Just may be you should offer all the illness for lent. Lent is a time for reflection, and the start of a new direction......... but then there is that nasty free will......

Now if all us so called Christians would get up off our collective butts, and live a little more Christian life for forty days, where would we be? Hell, it only takes 28 days to reprogram a habit!!

Whining over removing the ten commandment out of courts, parks and schools. where is that the constitutions saz something about separation of church and state!!!! Do we really want to not offend someone because we profess a belief in Christ??? The shoe should be on the other foot, don't offend me in my house, my county, my country by not allowing me to worship in my own way!!

We have monuments to great deeds, Christ dying on the cross for our sins was a great deed, what's wrong with the cross.. in a park.

Southerners had strong beliefs fought and died for them, now were taking down their monuments.....

We're going to dedicate a Training Facility @ NTC Great lakes, Il in June 2004for the USS Triton SSN 586, and it's name sake from WWII.... When will we have to remove all references to war??? from that building??

Who can change things? Us!!!!

Are we that far apart that we can't come together and get all this crap straighten out?


So @ about 3:00 PM, today, stop a few moments, and reflect on what Christ did for us, you, me and the whole human race, and check our free will!!

are we really doing our part? can we do better?

Listen @ 3:00 today.

YIC

BB
...

Bill,

Thank you for the suggestion that I offer all my maladies, mordancies, & misanthropies as a Lenten sacrifice; God gave me a good word through you. Doubtless I could offer my bad habits as well, given that generous load of Free Will you keep trying to ladle down my tobacco-cured throat... Bill, unqualified free will (apparently incarnate as that amusing guy, Will Power) is not a product marketable to one who has felt the grip of madness as frequently and familiarly as I have.

Ah, the Bellinghausen Catholic Conservative fireworks display - Or maybe it's Conservative Catholic, I'm unsure as to which is noun & which adjective... I could get addicted to them!

I guess on Planet Bill militant forces are seeking to drive Jesus from public view & consideration. But I'm on planet Paul Simon, where one cannot ignore The Obvious Child, and The Cross is in the Ballpark. Please join me in what my ESL gang calls The States, where Born Again and Spirit Filled Republicans constitute a 20% voting bloc, and where Mel Gibson is grossing millions because he drove a Christian Era Post into our Post Christian Era. Maybe you ought to move to Dallas, the buckle of the Bible Belt, the Fundamentalist's Rome. If absolutely necessary, change drugs.

You have, Thank God, a sense of humor. Relax. He is risen, garbed in Primavera. Same time on the Luna-Solar Clock every year.

Que tenga Feliz Coneja - Have a Happy Bunny Day.

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2. Anita Rager

That's interesting.... To regard oneself as a project to be worked on (and hopefully, improved). Good approach.

Anita R.
...

Anita, In some way or another breaking & bridling the horse one rides through life tends to figure in every religion.

The basic premise that one ought to do that is found in every self-help book, from Aristotle's Ethics to Chicken Soup. In secular guise it was popularized in the latter half of the 20th. Century as psycho-cybernetics, then again in the popular psychology of the 1970's - a cornucopia of self-help techniques, including Reparenting, Visualization, & Rational Behavior Therapy. One takes advantage of the natural Topdog - Underdog - Computer structure of the psyche, in which one identifies with Topdog and uses Computer to reprogam Underdog in accordance with what Freud called the Ego Ideal. Yes, it is interesting. So is R. D. Laing's critique of The Divided Self.

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3. Sam Swank

Hi Tom,

A mutual Episcopal priest friend of ours has taken to calling this "Mel Gibson Week".

Re. "I am waiting on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and a series of debilitating strokes to do the job before the congestive heart failure finishes me off."

Not the most positive outlook I've heard espoused all week but........maybe you'll get lucky and be run over by a bus. The debilitating stroke followed by congestive heart failure rout is a real drag. You can trust me & my father on that one.

Hopefully neither happens to you anytime soon. You're the only dad I've got!

Much Love,

Sam

P.S. How do you like the way I avoided suggesting you stop smoking as a way to prolong your life?

OOps!

...

Sam -

Thank you for not suggesting the impossible obviously. And thanks for taking my gallows humor as humor... As did Carolyn and Robin: Carolyn - "I went to Good Friday service today with the Stations of the Cross. Have you taken a page from your Dad's book and given up church for Lent! His COFFEE is a riot today."

Robin - "Yes, I got tickled by it too."

Just Tom doing his Eeyore routine, y'know... Yeah, watching parents die can be an emotional drain. Having observed a pair of them depart, I figured I will probably go and do likewise, preferably in the next 15 - 20 years... Though Lord knows I do love life. And one of life's greatest joys for me is having the friendship of my daughters & sons. Not every parent is so fortunate. Tom

***

EASTER COFFEE

 

Risen

By H. Edward Sholty

Sorrow-heavy and chilled, we make our way / through early-morning fog / along a rocky path, / with costly burden of spiced ointment. / The Sun, just above the hill--a second morning / since that shameful execution. / Care-worn, we near the borrowed cave. / Some say he was born in such a place, / wrapped--as now-- in swaddling bands. / A seed, planted.

No thought to moving the great stone. / Might the soldiers of occupation / accommodate the needs of piety? / Where are they? Be they so disloyal?

No! / Stone dislodged. Grave opened. / Body missing. Linens only remain. / What means this? / Grave robbers already? The Shame!

Two young men improbably ask what we seek, / making impossible announcement. / Did Death's angel again pass over? / If delivered, by whom, for what? / He raised Lazarus, who raised him?

Now. / Who will believe? Not the tremulous men. Thomas, especially, will balk.

(Copyright H.E. Sholty, 2004, used with permission)

***

 

DOGGEDLY POLITICAL COFFEE

The world is not nearly so serious a place as one might think. It is a place where someone named the family dog Tyson & taught him to skateboard.

Here's a backlog of political coffee:

1. Sweet Sounds of Satire, courtesy Bonnie Swank:

Political Science Lyrics
Artist(Band):Randy Newman

No one likes us-I don't know why
We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the big one and see what happens

We give them money-but are they grateful?
No, they're spiteful and they're hateful
They don't respect us-so let's surprise them
We'll drop the big one and pulverize them

Asia's crowded and Europe's too old
Africa is far too hot
And Canada's too cold
And South America stole our name
Let's drop the big one
There'll be no one left to blame us

We'll save Australia
Don't wanna hurt no kangaroo
We'll build an All American amusement park there
They got surfin', too

Boom goes London and boom Paree
More room for you and more room for me
And every city the whole world round
Will just be another American town
Oh, how peaceful it will be
We'll set everybody free
You'll wear a Japanese kimono
And there'll be Italian shoes for me

They all hate us anyhow
So let's drop the big one now
Let's drop the big one now
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2. Responses to Bill Bellinghausen -

A. Helen Cariotis:

BILL BELLINGHAUSEN, Re. RESPONSIVE COFFEE

<<[General Black Jack Pershing executed 49 Muslim terrorists with bullets dipped in pigs' blood.] They let the fiftieth man go, and for the next forty two years, there was not a single Muslim extremist attack anywhere in the world. Maybe it's time for history to repeat itself? Just where do we find another General Black Jack Pershing?>>>

Helen Cariotis:

Where indeed?

In addition to pigs, dogs are considered very unclean by Muslims. Even touching a dog requires ritual cleansing and prayer, and woe to anyone who actually keeps a dog in his house. Another reason to dislike them, as far as I am concerned. Does anyone remember the brohaha when the Muslim cabbies refused to take Leader Dogs in their cabs? I think we should not forget the goal of these jihadists...it is to convert the rest of us, or destroy us if they cannot.

Yes, Marines are trained to destroy and kill WHEN NECESSARY to protect the butts of the rest of us, and I am very glad they can, as all of us should be.

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B. Don Hockaday

"The soldiers then soaked their bullets in the pigs blood and proceeded to execute 49 of the terrorists by firing squad. ... and for the next forty two years, there was not a single Muslim extremist attack anywhere in the world."

The Muslim opposition there were more guerillas than terrorists.

Col. Rodgers did similar things (sans the blood soaked bullet part, as far as is known). It didn't stop Muslim extremist attacks anywhere in the world, but it did cause them to shift their attacks away from Rodgers' area of operation.

Pershing threatened such things, but is not known to have done any. It seems contrary to his nature: "I am sorry these Moros are such fools, but . . . I shall lose as few men and kill as few Moros as possible." In a letter to a Muslim leader (which of course may have been a diplomatic gesture) he said, "I am sorry the soldiers had to kill any Moros. All Moros are the same to me as my children and no father wants to kill his own children . . ."

["There is always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong."
Henry Louis Mencken (American Mercury)]

He left out "simplistic." Some of the suicide hijackers of 9-11 seemed unconcerned about such things as "pigs." They enjoyed lap dancing and alcohol, not to mention the fact suicide itself is prohibited by the Koran. The Israeli plan of brute force has been tested for quite a few years and if anything
has made matters worse. Can you imagine how many Muslims sitting on the fence, or even on "our side," would gravitate to Al Quida after even a single incident such as suggested?

On the eve of Easter, I write of the depth of Christian hate and vengeance against a nation of people.

What would have been rational responses to the 9-11 attack? What was the problem to be addressed? What part should beating into submission play?

["The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
Henry Louis Mencken (American Mercury)]

Terrorism is real, as is practical politics. We need to combat terrorism, not support a political agenda.

Was the reason for attacking Iraq to free the Iraqi people?

["To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason." Henry Louis Mencken (American Mercury)]

Was it because Iraq, among many nations, had weapons of mass destruction? Vague or not, did our intelligence indicate Iraq was an immediate danger that could not be put off for weapons inspectors to work longer or for diplomatic responses to proceed? Did Iraq have anything to do with 9-11? Did Iraq support Bin Laden? Who is responsible to make final decisions to act on intelligence known to be vague?

Look at the polls and see if they agree to your assessment.

["There is no underestimating the intelligence of the American people."
Henry Louis Mencken (American Mercury)]

If the American people can not agree on incontrovertible facts, how is the populace able to deal with the decisions based on them?

["For men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt." Henry Louis Mencken (American Mercury)]

Bill saz: "..whining over removing the Ten Commandments out of courts, parks and schools. Where is that the constitutions saz something about separation of church and state!!!!"

The first words of the bill of rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;..."

Fair is fair; now where in the Bible does it say anything contrary?

Bill continues: "don't offend me in my house, my county, my country by not allowing me to worship in my own way!!"

I think that is what the constitution says and what current law supports. The government should not restrict people's desire to worship their own ways, even if they are not Christians. It is the "even if they are not Christians" part that troubles the water.

"Do we really want to not offend someone because we profess a belief in Christ??? "

["But any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood, and that is what happened to Jesus." Henry Louis Mencken (American Mercury)]

Honestly now, if we were able to ask Jesus what he thinks about the question of religious symbols on public buildings, what do you think his response would be (as he shakes his head and frowns at the question itself)?

As I recall, the Ten Commandments were "the old" law Jesus threw out in one of his first press conferences anyway.

Regardless, the religious symbols on government buildings is a question (by political design) highly misunderstood. You speak of historical significance and significance to our system of government. There is no problem with that. The problem arises when government officials add religious symbols for the purpose of promoting a specific religious belief system. Afghanistan did not have that problem. I am a fan of the problem. So are many Christian leaders.

How many times have I heard the parroted phrase, "The name of God doesn't offend me"? There are few people in the U.S.A. who are offended by it. Some, however, worry about the future of having an "official" religion.

Does anyone want to play the prayer in public school game?

As some who read this may surmise, I did an Internet search to find one of Mencken's direct quotes. I found plenty of others and misappropriated two or three hours of my time searching and laughing. I enjoyed them almost as much as did Mencken, which is saying a lot. He was sort of the Republican equivalent of Will Rogers, with whom he agreed in general (especially regarding politicians). Concerning the controversies under discussion today:

["The fact that I have no remedy for the sorrows of the world is no reason for accepting yours. It simply supports the strong possibility that yours is a fake." Henry Louis Mencken (American Mercury)]

To close, here is how the newspaper publisher would have dealt with the questions on the thread:

["Dear Sir (or Madame), You may be right. Regards," Henry Louis Mencken (American Mercury)]

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COFFEE HISTORY

 

It was an election year in a time of war, and congress was in session.

Bonnie Swank, Re. The more things change, the more they stay the same....

See if the following sounds familiar:

"To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disqguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back was perfectly legitimate self-defense. Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect...."

But is this the work of some liberal journalist? No, it's Thucydides on the Peloponesian War. All I could say after reading that was WOW....

I was reading Thomas Cahill's SAILING THE WINE-DARK SEA: WHY THE GREEKS MATTER and the quote was on page 191 in the chapter on philosophy. In his notes he says that it comes form Thucydides HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR translated by Rex Warner. I have read a small book of excerpts from Thucydides work called ON JUSTICE POWER AND HUMAN NATURE but so long ago that i am not sure whether this quote is in my book or not. I am taking it on faith that Cahill has quoted truly....

All right, I've found the quote in my copy of Thucydides, & though the translation differs slightly it is largely the same in substance, and what follows it is also interesting:

"To take revenge was of higher value than never to have received injury. And as for oaths of reconciliation (when there were any!), these were offered for the moment when both sides were at an impasse, and were in force only while neither side had help from abroad; but on the first opportunity, when one person saw the other unguarded and dared to act, he found his revenge sweeter because he had broken trust than if he had acted openly; he had taken the safer course, and he gave himself the prize for intelligence if he had triumphed by fraud. Evildoers are called skillful sooner than honest men are called good, and people are ashamed to be called honest, but take pride in being thought skillful.

"The cause of all this was the desire to rule out of avarice and ambition, and the zeal for winning that proceeds from those two. Those who led their parties in the cities promoted their policies under decent-sounding names: 'equality for ordinary citizens' on one side, and 'moderate aristocracy' on the other. And though they pretended to serve the public in their speeches, they actually treated it as the prize for their competition; and striving by whatever means to win, both sides ventured on most horrible outrages and exacted even greater revenge, without any regard for justice or the public good. Each party was limited only by its own appetite at the time, and stood ready to satisfy its ambition of the moment either by voting for an unjust verdict of seizing control by force.

"So neither side thought much of piety, but they praised those who could pass a horrible measure under the cover of a fine speech. The citizens who remained in the middle were destroyed by both parties, partly because they would not side with them, and partly for envy that they might escape in this way."

from Thucydides: On Justice Power and Human Nature, trans. Paul Woodruff - pp. 91-92
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GODLY COFFEE

Larry Bedell, Re. Coffee Chat with the supreme being

I share with you a letter from God to the Supreme Court as it also has application to a previous discussion here.

The Supreme Court of the United States

In Re Elk Grove Unified School District vs Newdow.

Friend of the Court

Submitted by God Almighty.

Respondent Michael A. Newdow does not believe that I exist. In the case before you, he sues to compel his daughter's school district to drop the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, arguing that it violates the constitutional injunction against religious discrimination

On one hand, the very fact of this brief--which you know simply materialized on your desks over night and as you will discover is made from no earthly substance (it is, in fact a paperlike material wrought from the skin of the gn!or'th, a horned ungulate existing only on the grassy plains of the firth planet of the star Deneb--is prima facie evidence of my existence. It therefore constitutes persuasive proof that Newdow is wrong on the facts.

On the other hand, being wrong on the facts has never been a particular impediment to success before this court. Ref. Dred Scott vs Sanford, 1857 (slavery is okay); Plessy vs Ferguson, 1896 (separate is equal); Bush vs Gore, 2000 (the loser wins) etc.

More to the point, the right to be wrong is, inter alia, a hallowed principle of democracy. And so we must examine Newdow's underlying claim, as it pertains to a person's right to freely exercise his religion of having no religion.

We will address this once we have disposed of another matter, to wit: Why do you capitalize the first-person singular pronoun? The words he and they are not capitalized; why should "I" be? This makes it very difficult for Me to express Myself in the first person and still emphasize that I (you see the problem) am the deity. Accordingly, I request from this court a per curiam ruling that, henceforth, everyone refer to himself as "i." In return, I shall continue to sprinkle this amicus curiae brief with unnecessary Latin phrases and pompous legalisms, so as to keep lawyers employed.

Regarding the matter before this court. The respondent argues that compelling children to swear, under oath, that America exists "under God" is in some way an abridgment of one's right to deny Me. This is in error for the reasons enumerated below:

(1) Children do not understand the meaning of the word "allegiance" since the entire Pledge is predicted on this word, the entire Pledge is meaningless to them. You could have them swear alegiance to "Baal, the Summoner of Thunder," and no harm would attach. (2) Since minors are proscribed from entering into contracts, their pledge of political fealty is unenforceable. Hence it is not a legal pledge so much as a promise, like not spitting at one's sister. Since the proper forum for enforcement of such a promise is the woodshed, and not this or any other court of law, respondent's pleading must be denied on jurisdictional grounds. (3) Even discounting (1) and (2) above, arguendo, the Pledge is unenforceable as a matter of law, since it is customarily recited en masse, in a rolling grumble indistinguishable from borborygmus, ie. intestinal gas. No individual speaker can be identified, nor can any individual words. The Pledge is as legally moot as the mooing of a cow.

It is upon this last point -the ritualization of the event in question- that My argument ultimately rests. And despite the critical weaknesses in the respondents case, as enumerated above, it is why he must prevail.

The words "under God" were initially inserted to the Pledge of Allegiance at a time when your democracy was attempting to emphatically distance itself from communism, a system outlawing belief in Me. Paradoxically, communism is also a system that espouses the political indoctrination of youths who are required to parrot incomprehensible ideological declarations in disgraceful, authoritarian public displays of thought control.

It is therefore argued by this Intervener that the Pledge itself--an unseemly, un-American exercise in extracting loyalty oaths from innocents--is inimical to the principles upon which a free society rests, and should be stricken. I know I can count on you nine distinguished jurists to reach the right judgment. And when the Day comes, you can count on Me to do the same for you.

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