Progressive Despair vs Judeo-Christian Hope and a Future: Confession as Freedom

Gagdad Bob, of the blog One Cosmos, discusses Vanderleun's musings on the enshrinement of the seven deadly sins by the progressive left, and continues a series in which he expands on the ways in which each infect our world - and our souls - today. There's a common element in the activities, plans and machinations of progressives around the world: the inability to see a future. (Bob also approaches this topic here.)

My own thoughts:

We live in a time of incredible portent. The technological revolution has made commonplace the restoration of sight to the blind, the acquisition of knowledge at rates exceeding the reach of the most brilliant minds, and the expansion of economic wealth for ordinary people beyond the dreams of ancient kings. My little blog receives visitors from every continent. Each day, a new frontier is breached. How can we not look toward a future even brighter than that we've already lived?

And yet the progressive search for doom has trapped itself in an unrelenting "opposite day", turning its back to the sun and declaring shadows as substance. Destroying even the fundamental hope of pregnancy and childbearing, they can no longer really speak of the future, or even, of Now.

Where did it go wrong? The farther these elements of society wander from the Judeo-Christian point of view, the more intently they scrutinize the past for those curiously desperate accusations to make against... anyone, really, of integrity, of personal wholeness, of true good. In the parlance of the Charismatics, they become "the accuser of the brethren".

It's vengeance, of course, the stuff of unending feuds, but so strangely expressed in contorted histories of disjointed embroidered moments. Much of what is labeled "justice" is simply revenge, and revenge is insatiable. There is no hope in that, no future, just an endless turning of the millstones of the past.

But the future does, indeed, exist, it is hopeful, it is attainable.

The future belongs to the ordinary, the conservative, the traditional: the people who accept the past will inherit the future.

Christianity, and Judaism from which Jesus was born, understand the past as real, concrete proof of God's work in the world and our role within it. Christians understand that God sees all of our actions, that in the end of time, we will each be called to give an accounting, and face the Judgment of God for every error and evil we have done or thought, including - and perhaps especially - the most secret.

Christians also know we need not fear this, because Jesus Christ Himself faced that judgment on our behalf, is our advocate, and put Himself in our place.

Having this understanding that there are no secrets, that all secrets eventually come to light, colors our approach to the world. It develops the conscience, and the capacity for courage, it protects personal innocence and integrity.

We are taught to try to live so that we don't have anything to hide, and just as important: to admit out loud to other people when we do miss the mark. To confess our sins - not in defense when faced with accusers, never in attempt to save ourselves from the mob - but in advance, to make them known by our own volition, when those sins are still hidden and unknown, to someone we respect so that we can admit the shame.

All Christian denominations practice some form of confession, whether spontaneously to the gathered congregation at an evening altar call, privately to one's minister, or to a priest through sacramental Confession.

One does not have to be a Christian for confession of wrongdoing or wrongthinking to restore the health of the spirit and the power over the mob. The same principle is a key element of Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Steps, which shares with Christianity the insistence on assuming real personal responsibility for wrongdoing and the need for support from a Power greater than ourselves to live in harmony with ourselves and our fellow men.

By confessing to someone else even before anyone knows, we grow immediately stronger. We become confident and remove the fear and regret that guilty secrets cause. We know ourselves better and have more courage and more honesty. We walk in good faith - in Good Faith - in the sunshine again.

Suddenly, we are invulnerable, back in God's light, because we control our own destiny - and we know it. No one can blackmail us or harm us by gossip or rumor for we have no hidden guilt. We can accept the worldly consequences knowing God has forgiven us. Neither crowds nor mobs can intimidate us. Those who try will be confounded. We are freed to do our best work, enjoy our best life.

Thus it is not unusual to see men and women stand before a congregation and give their testimony: sharing their shame and their redemption, that others might share their courage as well, and take part in the Great Forgiveness that makes life - and a genuine future - possible.

And what of Judgment Day?
Our Lord said "Now is the judgment of this world."
and we are in the Now, for He has come,
and comes always.
A choice must be made. Now.
And yet,
and yet, it is not and never too late to turn
and beg a brighting glance from The Son
Who shields the searing rapture
and offers a place near the Fire:
a safe place,
a warm place,
wherein the dark can't hide,
wherein all quiet bides,
and all find Peace.

He has Called me, and I came
from out of the darkness,
a creature of the shade:
blinking, fearful, shy.
He wrapped me in a washed-soft quilt
and cuddled like a child, I drowse,
breathing to His Whisper.



Poem by Tina Howard

Why Sarah Palin Makes Us Proud: Naturally Compassionate Love

The night Nicolas was born (not premature but a month before we expected him), I held a Home Interiors party. My guests left at 9:00, we got to the hospital at 9:30, and he was born at 9:45. Following his birth announcement, his next mention in the newspaper was on the front page: he was the "baby" in this sentence about my appearance at a public hearing on water rates: "....addressed the City Council with baby in arms..."

For Ethan's birth, we went to a midwife, and both of us came home about 4 hours after he was born. I did miss the Parks Board meeting that afternoon, but went grocery shopping the next day.

So when I read that Trig was a month earlier than expected, and that Sarah, at a conference in Texas, went ahead and gave her speech after her water broke, that sounded like something I thought I might have done.

Sarah Palin treats ordinary things as though they are ordinary things, and giving birth is an ordinary thing for a woman to do. She doesn't allow the commonplace to become novel. Instead, she treats ordinary people as worthy of her time because that is the gift of life: each ordinary person and ordinary task is worthwhile.

And because she lives this way, her actions reflect the most natural compassion there is: a mother's own everyday priority of mingling love with the necessary tasks.

And so Trig is a baby who takes his place in the midst of the family like any other baby, and like so many large families he has a nephew his own age to grow up with, and that's that. While Sarah understands all the things people love to talk about and worry about and gossip about, when it comes down to the wire, Sarah Palin rejoices in the great goodness these babies bring to
the world.

And whether they agree with her politically or not, the great majority of mothers in the world recognize their own approach to family in Sarah: to whom a child is a child is a child that needs what all children need: love, direction, care, a place in the family, the blessing of his parents.

Some years ago, Ryan T. Anderson wrote a parable for First Things that illustrates this manner of living:

The Parable of the Good Soccer Mom

"You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself."

" Consider the Parable of the Good Soccer Mom: An embryo fell into the hands of ambitious scientists after she was left over in the freezer of an in vitro fertilization lab.

" A molecular biologist happened to be journeying through the lab. Seeing that the embryo was very small and didn't look like other human beings, he decided that it was not a human being. And he passed to the other side of the lab and left the embryo for his colleagues.

" Likewise a moral philosopher came to the place and launched into an exposition of human embryology and developmental biology. He concluded that the human embryo was a whole human being at the very beginning of her life. ...... [B]ut the embryo could feel no pain or pleasure and exhibited no consciousness of any type, and so the philosopher concluded that the human embryo had no moral status and possessed no rights. And he, too, passed to the other side of the lab and left the embryo to the tender mercies of the scientists.

" But a Soccer Mom who came upon the embryo was moved by both scientific fact and right moral reason.... [So] The Soccer Mom rescued the embryo, transferred her to her womb, and cared for her."

The most loving approach to life is unsentimental. It sees reality as matters of fact. Compassionate love rejoices in the present and in the future. It remembers the past but understands life looks forward. Love focuses on health and on creating and keeping health within the realm of reality.

When Sarah Palin came onto the national stage, she brought a family with her that affirmed these kinds of choices. When faced with embryos some in the world would define as "inconvenient", Sarah's actions said here's a reality that love will make good. And she not only followed her heart: she followed her beliefs.

That's healthy. That's pragmatism. That's transformative. That's normal.

And that's one reason that Sarah Palin is a Great American.




Photos: from the Sarah Palin Information Blog Photo Gallery

Why Sarah Palin Makes Us Proud: Gumption

February is Sarah Palin Month, and a good time for blogging about this remarkable American. Another good source of regular news for Sarah's supporters is Texans 4 Palin, which I've been reading for a while and added to my blog list on the sidebar.


No one "embraces change" with the legitimacy that Sarah Palin does. Her history is of a woman who makes deliberate decisions that fit the needs of the future.

She is not shackled to yesterday's best plan, she's attentive to new information and is not surprised by the unexpected.

"The next campaign" is not her mindset. She neither runs nor holds office for her ego - she has been a candidate only at those places and times that running for office made sense as a movement toward repairing something broken. Her history proves her integrity: she stays always focused on making things right.

So when, as Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, she found that it was not sufficient to combat unethical behavior within the industry when questionable activities and ethical disinterest were rampant among the Republican party leadership, she did the ethical thing: she first resigned, and announced why. Then she filed good-faith complaints against those who were engaged in shady dealings.

And the minute she determined that the most fixable "brokenness" in the Alaska Governorship was the incessant filing of frivolous complaints against her in effort to push her off of the public stage, she elegantly and simply fixed two problems at once by doing the smart thing.

Just the way the Roadrunner would take a simple step to the right at the very last minute, and watch in bemusement as Wyl E. Coyote jumped right off the cliff.

The political class twittered that her resignation would be the "end of her career". They had no clue what her career was.

It wasn't - and isn't - "being a politician".

The media wanted to censor her, ridicule her, play her for a chump. From the White House Press Corps to JournoList, they bent their ethics to try to keep their "access".

She took a simple step to the right and made a Facebook page. Suddenly even the President was spending time explaining why he wasn't going to take advice from Sarah Palin.

There's access - and there's access.

Sarah Palin has the kind of access every ordinary American is born with. That's why she terrifies the Progressives. She's untouchable, and she is proof the species is not only not extinct, but is alive and thriving. A species of American that thrives without slogans, without marketing campaigns, and without "thought leaders".

A person whose self is whole and inviolable. Who can't be manipulated. Who doesn't seek favor from those who set her up for a fall and who then are angry that she's unaware of their ridicule. And she wouldn't be interested even if she were.

Sarah Palin's interest is not in "Being First Woman President". Her interest is in fixing a broken government. And she will never have to throw her hat into the ring again to do that. I hope she will - but she will only do so when it makes sense from inside her own home and her own head and her own heart as the surest means of fixing the broken stuff she's interested in fixing.

That's real integrity. That's real leadership. That's plain old American gumption.

And that's one reason why Sarah Palin is a Great American.


....

Photo: "Sarah in Pink Jacket at Villages Book Signing" from The Sarah Palin Information Blog Photo Gallery

God Bless The Weekend: Saving our Endangered Days Off Together

Those who wish to pretend that Christianity is not the root of all that is best in Western culture, or that America was not founded and formed as a Christian nation forget, or have not understood, that the Holy Sabbath mandated in the 10 Commandments is the only reason workers in the Western world have a day off every week - and workers in countries that never adopted Christianity as a majority faith still cannot expect to be given one day off to have for their own.

For thousands of years in Jewish and Christian societies, everyone - even the poorest, even indentured servants and slaves (before the Christian world - and no other - freed all slaves and set the precedent the rest of the world has not yet caught up with) - even in those times, everyone was entitled to a day off every week.

For centuries, American States had "Blue Laws" that prohibited the sale of certain non-essential merchandise on Sundays. These laws protected businesses from the need to compete for Sunday business, and were thus welcomed by merchants as well as their employees.

The concept of taking Saturday and Sunday together in the weekend as we know it arose in America in various locations where Christians and Jews united to respect both Sabbath and Shabbat. As Jewish immigration increased and the Industrial Revolution led to greater demand for constant labor, America's devout Jewish population needed the same protection for their religious observance. In the tumultuous early days of the 20th century, Jewish leaders joined with labor unions to promote the five-day work week - and the standard weekend - as a uniform practice across industry.

Consistent two-day weekends enabled people of all major American faiths (and those of other religions, and non-believers) to share this time off: Jews as well as Christians, Seventh Day Adventists as well as Baptists, Catholics as well as Mormons. All Americans could perchance meet each other through shared leisure time, and common endeavors for their free hours.

By assuring that the day off was the same for everyone and every class of people, a common culture promoted community, neighborliness, family life and time to rest, relax and enjoy life together.

The American Weekend is endangered: another unnoticed consequence of the persistent drive to de-Christianize the USA.
33 out of every 100 Americans has to work on Saturday or Sunday or both (according to a 2004 study on the detrimental effects of non-traditional work schedules). Those people, and their families, may "not mind" the schedule, but they lose out on the shared family and community leisure time and activities that are much of the joy in life.

If you have ever worked different shifts from that your spouse or friends work, or had to have different days off than the rest of the world, you know how much you miss out on. Not having Saturdays and Sundays off, or at least one of the weekend days, isolates us from everyone we care about.

In today's "not an employee" employment climate, where 40 hour work weeks and paid holidays or paid vacation are more rare than ever before, fewer and fewer can afford to take a day off without pay to make a short trip with their family, camp out overnight, or go to a wedding, or spend the day in the park playing volleyball.

So if you love your weekends, if you are "working for the weekend", and want to keep having Saturday and Sunday to spend with the people you love best, thank the Christian way of life, and thank your company for continuing to adhere to the traditional weekend.

You don't have to be a believer to save the weekend by supporting those businesses who close on Sundays, like McCoy's Building Supply Centers, Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby, and those local businesses in your own town.

If you know of businesses that close on Sundays, feel free to post in the comments.

A Question About Tax Philosophy, and The State of The Union Address

Bear with me here. There's something that has bothered me all year, and I'd like to figure it out.

Suppose I believe that it's a good thing to pay taxes in order for the government to provide services that make our society a better place, and that in fact it is the government's job to do this.

Suppose, theoretically, that I've decried special tax deductions loopholes & tax shelters for the wealthy to prevent them having to pay the full allotment of tax due on their income and assets. Suppose I have built a career on supporting this outlook.

Let's suppose that my income for one year is already $5.5 Million, and of that, I will pay about 33% in taxes (including Self Employment taxes), which is about the same percentage that nearly every self-employed person will pay on their income, even those who only made $50 Thousand. So while it looks like a lot to say I paid $1.5 Million in taxes, it's actually not any more, percentage-wise, than, say, Joe the Plumber pays.

What if I were to have a windfall of $1 Million, and the current tax laws (which I claim are unfairly tilted toward the wealthy) will allow me to shuttle that money into my favorite tax-free charities without paying any tax on it.

In the process, I don't get a "charitable deduction", but I get something even better: I get lots of free publicity as a benefactor to these charities, and I don't have to claim the windfall as income.

If I chose not to use the loophole (which I have despised), and did claim the windfall as income, and then made the donations directly, I'd have to pay an extra $14,700. But, instead, I redirect it and "save" the money for the charities, instead of "giving" it to the government.

So in this fantasy, I, a millionaire several times over, who is campaigning to close loopholes and raise taxes on "the rich", take the loophole and avoid paying any taxes at all on $1 Million dollars.

Now, pretend all that is true, and that it isn't me, but the President of the United States.

Welcome to reality.

And 10 months after the one person in the entire universe who should be setting an example & willingly paying every penny in tax that could possibly be owed took the rich man's loophole and avoided paying a single penny of tax on the $1.4 Million Nobel Peace Prize, and took a Foreign Tax Credit of $59,000, while reporting an income - not net worth but one year's income - of $5.5 Million, Mr Obama came before the House for the State of the Union Address, and spoke thusly on 1/25/11:

"For example, over the years, a parade of lobbyists has rigged the tax code to benefit particular companies and industries. Those with accountants or lawyers to work the system can end up paying no taxes at all. "

"So tonight, I’m asking Democrats and Republicans to simplify the system. Get rid of the loopholes. Level the playing field."

"And if we truly care about our deficit, we simply can’t afford a permanent extension of the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. "

"Before we take money away from our schools or scholarships away from our students, we should ask millionaires to give up their tax break. It’s not a matter of punishing their success. It’s about promoting America’s success."

Not even the conservative media picked on on this, at the time or any time since. The entire world seems to feel that avoiding paying taxes is ok as long as it is legal even if it is a trick or a "loophole", even if one is the Head Tax Collector. Even if one is the President of the United States and made a campaign of complaining about loopholes for the rich.

No it isn't illegal. It doesn't violate the rules.

But isn't this odd? Am I odd for thinking it odd?







Photo: a flock of wild turkeys in Central Texas

Hiding In Plain Sight, or, Self-Reliance is Alive and Well and Living in Real America

In "The Lost Demographic" Merv at Prairie Pundit shares an eye-opening article about statistical analysis that made me laugh out loud:

" About a year ago, executives at CNBC were alarmed to discover that they’d suddenly lost one-third of their audience. They couldn’t figure it out; news programming, as a rule, attracts the 25- to 54-year-old demographic.

"So the network delved into the data with the Nielsen Company and made a startling finding: That missing one-third was, in fact, still there. They were no longer being counted as viewers, because they’d turned 55.

“They had just turned invisible,” says Alan Wurtzel, president of research at NBC Universal. “ Read it all...

This says a lot about ... a lot. All analysis is dependent on the assumptions one starts out with. Data can be clean as a whistle and clear as a bell, the researcher can be smart as a whip, but if the operating assumptions are wrong, the results will always be as wrong as wrong can be.

And the production of valid assumptions can't be formulized. Effective assumptions are ultimately reliant on very non-scientific intuition, hunches, and educated guesses by people with a talent for seeing connections and thinking for themselves.

One writer with a talent for noticing the connections is David P Goldman, who, under his nom de plume Spengler writes in the Asia Times that "Longevity gives life to Tea Party":

"In fact, the Tea Party is a triumph of economic rationality over lack of talent: its reason for being is so compelling and so clear that it has succeeded despite the silliness of some of its candidates. ..."

"Elite commentators tend to dismiss the Tea Party as a mob of engaged boos. On the contrary, pollster Scott Rasmussen, reports, the Tea Partiers tend to be older than 45, married, wealthier and better educated than the general population, and concerned first of all with federal spending and deficits.

"The most important thing to know about such people is that there are more of them than ever before in American history." Read it all...

True grassroots events such as the Tea Party occur not because of group-think or external engineering - just the opposite, in fact.

The self reliant person is not a loner or a loose cannon, but a hero and a leader: one whose decision to stand or act is made by trusting himself to succeed, whatever it takes, without waiting for someone else to join in the task or tell him what to do. One who knows it is up to him.

The Tea Party is the result of multitudes of healthy, successful individuals independently looking at our national problems, independently reaching the conclusions that (1) their own assumptions are valid and (2) the mandated or reported group-think position cannot produce correct results because it relies wholly on inaccurate assumptions.

Once the assumptions are correct, then data analysis can begin to produce accurate results.

Making such an admission comes hard for people caught up in the sheepfold. But not for the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, and the rest of us ordinary Americans of every color and heritage who are accustomed to thinking our own thoughts, selecting our own assumptions and doing our own research to reach our own accurate and trustworthy conclusions.

...And Pat Austin Blows It All Away

Leave it to an English teacher to show us how to use metaphor and simile properly. Pat leads by example and gives a good humored way to let the wind out of the " 'double barrel'effort of the left to paint every phrase and nuance as a cue to some nut job extremist or as a sign that Republicans are crazed gun toters "

Pat's latest post at "And So It Goes in Shreveport" is titled "Shooting from the Hip" and she lines up her targets and knocks 'em all down with the pragmatism only a high school teacher by choice can bring to the shooting match.

Great aim!