"Auld Lang Syne"

Peggy Noonan discusses the song:

'The question it asks is clear: Should those we knew and loved be forgotten and never thought of? Should old times past be forgotten? No, says the song, they shouldn't be. We'll remember those times and those people, we'll toast them now and always, we'll keep them close. "We'll take a cup of kindness yet."'


Robert Burns lyrics:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne*?

CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp!
and surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS
We twa hae run about the braes,
and pu’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
sin auld lang syne.

CHORUS
We twa hae paidl’d i' the burn,
frae morning sun till dine ;
But seas between us braid ae roar’d
sin auld lang syne.

CHORUS
And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!
and gie's a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak a right gude-willy waught,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

Demographics of American Catholics

On the face of it, not good. Nonetheless, Pope Benedict has said for years that a faithful remnant is better and tougher than a large indifferent herd.

Ivy League and ROTC...

“The state that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.”

Lively discussion and links at Instapundit.

Reepicheep

Quin Hillyer:

Mostly, though, Reepicheep feels a destiny, a destiny to find Aslan's country beyond the sea, whatever the risk and whatever the cost. The movie made mincemeat of the verse, but the book explains that a dryad nursing him in his crib had recited to him the following prophecy:

Where sky and water meet
Where the waves grow sweet
Doubt not, Reepicheep,
To find all you seek:
There is the utter East.

I have not seen the new film version of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but I know I will.

Predicting America's demise has been the world's pastime since the first failed settlements in the 16th century...

Victor Davis Hanson is not so pessimistic as we go forward in the 21st century.

"Popes, Atheists, and Freedom"

Daniel Henninger in the WSJ, an excerpt:

'Days after Benedict XVI chastised China before thousands in St. Peter's Square last week, a Chinese newspaper run by the People's Daily replied to his defense of Christians there: "The Vatican has to face the fact that all religious beliefs are free in China, as long as they do not run counter to the country's laws."

'"Face the facts" sums up nicely the worldview and foreign policies of China, Iran and Russia. Get over it. John Paul said no. Benedict again says no.'

I would add that the Christian teaching of Jesus as Incarnate God who shared in our infantile helplessness as well as our pain in death is a revolutionary view of the human person. Love is the author of our life. Human dignity was, is, and ever shall be fundamental to our relations with others, not a matter of power or convenience.

In another thoughtful post, Walter Russell Mead reflects on the Holy Innocents and our desire for transcendence, even if one is not a traditional theist.

Carrying someone else...

It is not a burden but a privilege.

Hat tip to the Anchoress.

Merry Christmas!

I defer to someone greater than I: Pope Benedict (and his Christmas message on the BBC).

(Stained glass in the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, Conyers, GA.)

To Hell and back...

Most near-death experiences are reported as largely positive, but here is a link to stories of those who were near death and experienced the darkness of Hell.

(I grew up believing Hell existed but not really fearing eternal damnation. I don't think these stories are likely to be on NPR.)

Nashville Dominicans on NPR!

Hat tip to the Anchoress.

Love your in-laws.

Mitch Albom.

More on John Henry Newman

Objectivity, subjectivity, conscience, and faith.

"In the Bleak Midwinter"

Nice rendition.

Fully vested priest being shot in Mexico, 1925

The Memorial to Saint Stephen is superseded by the Feast of the Holy Family this year, but the message of December 26 is that the Incarnation, if lived out to the fullest, can lead to your execution. As comfortable as we are in America, and as much as we stereotype Mexicans as those thoughtlessly devout peasants seen in Western films, Mexican secularists conducted what was essentially a pogrom against Catholics during the 1920s and recorded their bloodlust for posterity.

Hat tip to Skopeji and Taylor Marshall.

"The Kings"

A poem about spiritual struggle.

(I am a Mark 9 guy: "Lord, I believe; help me in my unbelief.")

Yesterday's Chestertonian post was about paradoxes of Christmas.

Saint Joseph appears in many readings at this time...

Elena Maria Vidal on his saintliness:

'We venerate the legal father of Jesus (Code of Canon Law, 532), because the new man takes form in him, who looks to the future with confidence and courage, does not follow his own project, but entrusts himself totally to the infinite mercy of him who fulfills the prophecies and inaugurates the season of salvation.'


Perhaps no one in North America was more devoted to Saint Joseph than Holy Cross Brother Andre Bessette, who was canonized this year (on the same day as Australian nun Mary MacKillop).

John of Kanty, Dec. 23

Saint and scientist.

"To Santa or Not to Santa"

Lisa Mladinich discusses Santa Claus as a catechist:

'Saint Nicholas, a 4th-century bishop, is one of those absolutely phenomenal role models. Through his devotion to the poor, his kindness to children, and passionate love of that precious Baby in the manger, his life exemplifies the true spirit of Christmas.'

As a Catholic convert, I have come to recognize Santa Claus not as the cartoonish character used to sell products, but as the only saint that all children can understand, someone of virtuous giving, not self-indulgence. At my daughter's first Christmas, I determined to teach her that the Feast of the Nativity is when we enjoy the full graces of the communion of saints. She gets gifts every day for twelve days, and each gift is from an appropriate saint. Some of the gifts are things she wants; others are things (usually books) intended to nurture her soul. (She loves the prayer cards that come with the gifts.)
As she gets older, she will see not reason supplanting mystery as her inevitable worldview, but a community of giving among the living, the dead, and those yet to be born which unites mankind in both reason and faith. We teach her that the only things we truly own to ourselves are our sins. Everything else is a gift of God shared first to others and passed on to us, often through suffering and martyrdom (such that of St. Stephen). Christmas is not a one-day binge but a twelve-day festival of souls that transcends time.

Hat tip to the Anchoress.

Fairy Tales are better than most of what's reviewed in the NYT...

Joy Behar v. C.S. Lewis. I'd pick Lewis for a first-round knock-out.

"Russell Kirk on Social Justice"

From The Imaginative Conservative:

“From the time when first amended into reflect upon such matters, the nobler and more serious minds been convinced that justice has some source and sanctioned more than human and more than natural. Either justice is ordained by some power above us, or it is mere expediency, the power of the strong over the weak—… a great part of mankind, nowadays, has succumbed to this latter concept of justice; and the consequence of that belief is playing to be seen in the violence and ruin that have overtaken most nations in the century.”

Why conservative thought never dies...

James Piereson writes:

'Despite their many successes and the growth of their cause, most conservatives still think of themselves as an embattled minority fighting a proud and insulated establishment. Shut out of liberal institutions, such as elite-college faculties and the national press, along with mainline churches and even government itself, conservatives have set up their own counterinstitutions in the form of think tanks, radio and television networks, magazines, book publishers, citizen associations, charitable foundations, newspapers, and even a few colleges with conservative faculty and curricula....

'As a separate culture, conservatism has a built-in resistance to being killed off because, even if the voters should abandon it temporarily, its institutions will undoubtedly persist to prepare the ground for renewed battles. Political parties die when they lose too many elections, but movements can continue intact in the face of persistent defeats until their goals have been reached or they have been absorbed into the mainstream operations of government. In fact, the conservative movement may be more in its element in opposition, when principles can be advocated in pure form, rather than in power when those principles are inevitably adulterated by compromise. Recent setbacks and a renewed challenge from liberalism may have reinvigorated the movement after the Bush years, and may have brought new recruits into the ranks. If that is so, the 2008 election, instead of killing off conservatism, may have created the conditions for its renewal.'

Tessa Dahl and redemption

In a Benedictine abbey.

Jesus did not spring from the head of Zeus...

G.K. Chesterton notes:

"If the world wanted what is called a non-controversial aspect of Christianity, it would probably select Christmas. Yet it is obviously bound up with what is supposed to be a controversial aspect (I could never at any stage of my opinions imagine why); the respect paid to the Blessed Virgin ...You cannot visit the child without visiting the mother, you cannot in common human life approach the child except through the mother. If we are to think of Christ in this aspect at all, the other idea follows as it is followed in history ... those holy heads are too near together for the haloes not to mingle and cross."


Hat tip to Karen Edmisten.

Richard Holbrooke, Requiescat in pace

Michael Barone has a nice tribute.

Comprehensive immigration reform still needed...

Though I don't trust either party to fix the problem. The Anchoress has a nice post, though she is likely to get blasted for it.

I have posted on this topic before. and stand with what I have written. Laws should not be fantasies for legislators, jokes for enforcers, and gobbly-gook for judges.

This is America. We are a nation of immigrants, and the success of immigrants benefits our country. Nonetheless, if we do not control our own borders and make clear the expectations that immigrants should have to stay here and become citizens, we are teaching millions of people, citizens and aliens, that our laws do not matter.

Richard Rorty, Barack Obama, and Progressivism

This blog discusses Progressivism frequently because it is heir to secular millennialism in American politics and culture. Every Democratic president, and to a lesser extent, every Republican president, embraces at least part of Progressivism's legacy. Barack Obama is no exception, and he too struggles to balance the millennial expectations of the left with the pragmatic nature of American governance, as well the contradictions of a movement which seeks to utilize constitutional government to rewrite the constitutional law and moral habits of a huge and powerful nation that is not necessarily Progressive.

In an intelligent article this week, Peter Berkowitz questions the entire Progressive worldview:

Does democracy actually change "the metaphysic of the relation of man and his experience in nature"?

'[Richard] Rorty nevertheless certainly seemed to think he had accurately divined the nature of right and left in America. And he certainly seemed to think that the difference was of cardinal importance. The right, or conservatism, according to Rorty, seeks to uphold an unjust status quo, defined by the quest to preserve inherited privilege. In contrast, the left, or progressivism, takes its cue from Walt Whitman and John Dewey who, Rorty proclaims, are "prophets of a civic religion." The left, of which they are spiritual leaders, is the party of hope; it seeks to bring the reality of America into harmony with democracy's progressive promise.

'Rorty's pragmatism is dogmatically anti-traditional. He dismisses the whole history of philosophy as obviously refuted. And he flatly rejects biblical faith as childish nonsense. Yet, or fittingly, Rorty celebrates democracy's progressive promise not as an alternative to religion but as an alternative faith, agreeing with John Dewey that "democracy is neither a form of government nor a social expediency, but a metaphysic of the relation of man and his experience in nature."

'Nor is Rorty's quasi-religious language a slip. He goes on to say that the proper aim of American politics is nothing less than to embody in social and political life "a new conception of what it is to be human." And the utopian overtones are no accident.'

Conservatives deny Rorty's belief that democracy is a metaphysical transformation of the human species. Utopianism always yields tragic results. Russell Kirk's Ten Conservative Principles are a better ticket to social harmony, public good, and private happiness than the inversion of democratic practices into a quasi-religion promising everything in this world and nothing in the next. Kirk wrote:

'The thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society. The conservative is not opposed to social improvement, although he doubts whether there is any such force as a mystical Progress, with a Roman P, at work in the world. When a society is progressing in some respects, usually it is declining in other respects. The conservative knows that any healthy society is influenced by two forces, which Samuel Taylor Coleridge called its Permanence and its Progression. The Permanence of a society is formed by those enduring interests and convictions that gives us stability and continuity; without that Permanence, the fountains of the great deep are broken up, society slipping into anarchy. The Progression in a society is that spirit and that body of talents which urge us on to prudent reform and improvement; without that Progression, a people stagnate.'

The Enduring Popularity of C.S. Lewis

John Blake writes:

“Joy” was Lewis' term for a stab of longing that unexpectedly welled up in him during moments of contemplation, such as listening to opera or reading an ancient Norse tale.

In his book, The Weight of Glory, Lewis wrote that the yearning he experienced during those moments convinced him there was another existence beyond this world.

“For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a love we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited.”

What do Anglicans believe about the priesthood?

Fr. Dwight Longenecker.

Christianity and Paganism

Fr. Dwight Longenecker:

'C.S.Lewis was an expert in classical languages and culture. He understood very well that the pagan religions had connections with Christianity. He said it didn't worry him. What would really worry him is if Christianity did not have any connections with paganism.'

Julian Assange and WikiLeaks...

The voluminous leaks are the culmination of vanities on every level. The Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") gives citizens access to any government document upon request, unless the document falls under one of several exceptions, namely, pending criminal investigations, national security, and attorney-client privilege. The Justice Department can shelter most of its documents behind the exceptions of pending criminal investigations and attorney-client privilege. The State Department and Defense Department can and do classify thousands of documents in their possession as "classified," "secret," or "top secret" and thereby exempt them from FOIA under national security.

The law of unintended consequences, as Richard Nixon learned the hard way, cannot be repealed. Section heads like to classify documents because it makes them feel important. Bureaucrats, when in doubt, classify almost anything. (One of my history professors requested CIA documents from the Cold War forty years after the fact and had to meet two guys in sunglasses at a cheap hotel to look through the boxes of documents of no security risk.) Congressmen are not interested in non-classified documents, because it makes them feel important to read anything considered secret. National security agencies produce valuable forbidden fruit, and it is in their interest to over-produce it by bureaucratic fiat.

Here is a better rule: If someone below the rank of E-6 (military) or G-7 (civilian) can look at it, it is not much of a secret, except perhaps in a short-term tactical sense. When an Army private can transfer 250,000 supposedly classified documents, the system has all the secrecy of a high school.


The political spectrum on the leaks is interesting: Liberals and neo-conservatives seem to be of the same view: national security trumps Julian Assange's demand for secretless government and diplomacy. When Charles Krauthammer and Margaret Carlson agree on something, then you have unity not seen since 9/11.

Traditional conservatives are not sympathetic to the leakers, but believe that any government that has as many and long tenacles as ours needs WikiLeaks or some other form of whistle-blower. Soft libertarians tend to think in a similar way and are perturbed that a government which places so much confidence in its capabilities could expose itself, its representatives, and its allies to ridicule and reprisal. Hard libertarians consider Assange and his companions to be heroes. Norm Pattis writes:

'WikiLeaks has done more in the past year to foster accountability in government than any other organization. While government lies, and the mainstream press, dependent as it is on fostering relationships with power, pussyfoots around the edges of the truth, WikiLeaks has dived head first into deep waters. The mainstream press is now forced to report these truths, and the leaders of the world's government scurry like rats on a sinking ship. They threaten prosecution of those who tell the truth, and mutter death to the man who tells it. Government is a necesary evil. It will always exists, and it always has in one form another.'

Pattis calls the latest events a "new reformation" and considers Assange another Martin Luther or Johann Gutenburg.

"Waking Up From the Pill"

Vanessa Grigoriadis writes in New York Magazine: "Fifty years ago, birth-control pills gave women control of their bodies, while making it easy to forget their basic biology until in some cases, it’s too late."

A few excerpts:

'Medications don’t usually have their own black-tie events there aren’t galas for antibiotics, or chemotherapy, or blood thinners but the Pill, after all, is so much more than just a pill. It’s magic, a trick of science that managed in one fell swoop to wipe away centuries of female oppression, overly exhausting baby-making, and just marrying the wrong guy way too early....

'Suddenly, one anxiety: Am I pregnant? is replaced by another: Can I get pregnant? The days of gobbling down the Pill and running out to CVS at 3 a.m. for a pregnancy test recede in the distance, replaced by a new set of obsessions. The Pill didn’t create the field of infertility medicine, but it turned it into an enormous industry. Inadvertently, indirectly, infertility has become the Pill’s primary side effect.'

Hat tip to Pentimento.

John Yoo on Guantanamo

WSJ.

"From Audacity to Animosity"

The President and his base.

Peggy Noonan notes:

'The president must have thought that distancing himself from left and right would make him more attractive to the center. But you get credit for going to the center only if you say the centrist position you've just embraced is right. If you suggest, as the president did, that the seemingly moderate plan you agreed to is awful and you'll try to rescind it in two years, you won't leave the center thinking, "He's our guy!" You'll leave them thinking, "Note to self: Remove Obama in two years."

'In politics, the angry person is generally understood to be the loser, which is why politicians on TV always try not to seem angry. And politics is always, at the end of the day, a game of addition, not subtraction.'

The New York Times reviews Russell Kirk's

The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Santayana.
A few things have changed since 1953, namely that an intelligent conservative book by a learned author would not get such a balanced review in the NYT today. Dr. Kirk always said he "found his job through the New York Times."

TIME had an even better review.

Good government is more than writing a constitution...

A Kirkite website I just discovered:

'Conservatives must prepare society for Providential change, guiding the life that is taking form into the ancient shelter of Western and Christian civilization. For this, they will require the vision of Burke, the common sense of Adams, the courage of Randolph, the toleration of Tocqueville, the resolution of Calhoun, the imagination of Disraeli, the stern justice of Stephen, the catholic learning of More. Democracy in some form will endure. Whether it is to be a democracy of degradation, or a democracy of elevation, lies with the conservatives.'

Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind

"The Assangeian Stables"

A nice post on a Kirkite site by John Willson.

I will have to come back to the WikiLeaks business later. It raises all kinds of issues.

"Eve" by Madeleine L'engle

Posted by the Anchoress and more than lovely. I saw it in Magnificat recently.

Feeling the need for a retreat after Christmas...

I will admit being pretty exhausted and ready for something new, beginning with an attitude adjustment. My pastor wants me to go on a Cursillo Retreat this winter. Does anyone have experience with Cursillo?

(Another priest friend is a big fan of Marriage Encounter. Anyone experienced with it?)

Roosevelt's story...

As told by a Carmelite nun:

We talked as we warmed our hands on hot mugs of coffee. A quarter-hour later the car was fixed; its battery had been recharged. I turned to thank Roosevelt. It was only then that I saw the tears in his eyes. "What's the matter, Roosevelt," I asked. "Why are you crying?"

"May I tell you why I fixed your car?"

"Yes, of course," I answered, not knowing quite what to expect.
"I was born a long time ago in Mississippi. We were very poor. Every winter I contracted pneumonia as a child -- our house was so poor. One year, I must have been about 10 or so, I was rushed to the hospital. With no antibiotics (recall this is in the 1930s, so antibiotics had not yet been discovered,) pneumonia caused the death of many children. The doctors had just told my mother that I would not last the night.

"That evening two Catholic Sisters, dressed just like you, entered my hospital room. I had a high, high fever and I remember one of the sisters came by my bed, put her cool hand on my forehead, and prayed for me. I didn't know what to do, or how to respond. I had been taught that no black could dare get near a white woman. And now here was this white Catholic nun, not only placing her hand on my head, but praying to God with all her heart for me."

Hat tip to the Anchoress. Read the rest.

"The Great American Funk"

After all the sad talk around the world from Korea to Ireland, Russell Kirk would say it is time to let a little sunshine in. Tony Blankley writes a great piece about how one determined Frenchman revived his nation after a national catastrophe unknown to most Americans. An excerpt:

'But even that French despair ended -- and it started to clear when Gen. de Gaulle found himself in London in June 1940, unknown, with no resources, no respect, but an uncontainable will to rally Frenchmen to the majestic task of saving France from her self-imposed infamy.

'In his memoires, de Gaulle describes the moment. In a long paragraph, he listed everything that blocked his objectives.

'He concluded: "As for me, with a hill like that to climb, I was starting from scratch. Not the shadow of a force or of an organization at my side. In France, no following and no reputation. Abroad, neither credit nor standing. But this very destitution showed me my line of conduct. It was by adopting without compromise the cause of national recovery that I could acquire authority. ... In short, limited and alone though I was, and precisely because I was so, I had to climb to the heights and never then come down. The first thing to do was to hoist the colours."'