re: Ft. Hood murders

On the one hand we have the reliably, willfully, self-imposed PC blindness of the mainstream media’s initial reaction- “Gee, what could his motivation possibly have been?”

On the other hand, we have those who, lacking PC blinders, note that Maj. Nidal was reported to have shouted “Alla Akbar!” before opening fire, had listed his nationality as Palestinian at a local Islamic Community Center in Maryland although he was born in the U.S., had been reprimanded for proselytizing colleagues and patients about Islam, and had blog posts praising suicide bombers.  “Duh!  Jihad, obviously.”

Sounds to me like this fellow was a rather weak, marginal, unstable personality.  Almost every day in his work he heard soldiers elating the horrors of war, and when faced with deployment to the war zone- even a non-combat assignment as a medical officer- worked himself into a fearful and cowardly frame of mind.  Going out in a blaze of jihadi glory presented itself to him as a commendable way to redeem an otherwise pathetic life.

There are millions of devout Muslims worldwide who would never seriously contemplate performing such a horrific act, or any of the many other horrific acts of terror committed around the world… so we are told.  That doesn’t answer the problem of how to predict and defend against one’s who do?  Which of this today’s moderate Muslims becomes next month’s jihadi?

When a moderate Christian turns extreme fundamentalist, you get a Mother Theresa or a Brother Francis, a missionary or an aid-worker, or one of the growing number who forsake this world entirely and enter a monastery to pursue lives of prayer, contemplation, and service.

When a moderate Buddhist turns extreme fundamentalist you get another pacifist monk, most likely.

Extreme fundamentalist Muslims present a more problematic “public health” issue.  And as always, the biggest barrier to finding a solution is the denial or misidentification of the problem.

Lord, have mercy.  Pray for the families of the victims.

Addendum:

Mark Steyn says it better, of course, in this analysis of “The Hole at the Heart of Our Strategy”.

Rush is wrong re: NY-23

Been a busy day and evening, didn’t even get in any law study, and it’s way past bedtime.  There’s other topics I had in mind for commenting on recently, but frankly there are just always things of higher priority that take greater precedence in my life.  I have slightly less than four weeks left until I take the national certifying exams for the certified legal assistant/paralegal license, so that is going to have first claim on my time until then.

Just this quick comment on yesterday’s election.  I see that “El Rushbo” is adamantly against conservatives running as third party candidates, believing that that would only serve to ensure permanent Democratic Party victories.  To that end, he spent some effort on his show today explaining why NY-23 was a one-off  special case that ought not serve as an inspirational model for conservatives elsewhere.  If this, and that, and one more thing had been different, then it might be significant, but it isn’t.  I disagree.

How many elections did Norman Thomas and the Socialist Party USA win?  None.  Does that mean they were failures?  According to Rush, and Newt, and most “pragmatists” the answer is obviously “Yes”.  You can’t implement your policies if you’re not in office, right?  Or can you?

In fact, almost the entire platform of the Socialist Party has been successfully implemented and institutionalized by both Democratic and Republican administrations.  Norman Thomas was the stalking horse, field testing socialist policy proposals and proving their public appeal.  The major parties defeated the Socialists by co-opting them.  So, the question is:

If your opponent(s) can only defeat you by adopting your policies… have you really been defeated?

If your goal is to gain and exercise power yourself, then yes, you were defeated.  But if you believe that your policies offer the best hope for the country, then no- you won. As a wise person once observed, there is no limit to what one can achieve if you’re willing to let others take the credit.  For most people, that’s too high a price to pay.  That’s too bad, especially if you claim to love your country and to want what’s best for it.

Rush says a Conservative third party is a prescription for permanent Democratic Party victories.  And how well has it worked out being loyal Republicans?

 

Restoring science to its rightful place

Remember that line from President Obama’s inaugural address?  “We’ll restore science to its rightful place…”; policy decisions will no longer be tainted by crude ideology.  In truth, ideology has corrupted this administrations policies far beyond anything seen previously.  The so-called “settled science” of global warming might top the list, but coming in a close second would be alternative “green” energy.

Two recent posts by William Tucker at the “Planet Gore” section of NRO- “Obama Lays Out His Energy Game Plan“, and,  “Our Squandered Nuclear Advantage“.  No ideology taints in THIS White House, eh? here, eh?

Lord have mercy.

Catholic Church welcomes Anglicans

It will be fascinating to see how this develops.  I think it is beyond huge- “tectonic” might be a more appropriate adjective.  Is that whirring sound old King Henry 8th spinning in his grave?  Probably not- I imagine he had already spun himself into butter long ago, contemplating the pitiful fate of his ecclesiatic child.

Now, I love being in the Orthodox Church, am daily grateful for God’s mercy in bringing me to where I am now.  However, if I had found an “Anglican Use” parish in the Catholic Church (such as this one) when I was young and still searching, I might very well still be there today.

I appreciate the universality of Orthodox worship, but there is a powerful emotional resonance to the particular form of my own Western heritage.  I belonged to an Episcopal church many years ago, and more recently spent some time in the French Orthodox Church, which was reviving a Western Rite liturgy.  Whenever I visited my in-laws in Tennessee I attended their Episcopal church; my heart would leap with joy, but my soul broke with grief at the rich patrimony that had been squandered.  I could seldom finish the first stanza of any hymn without choking up.

An approved Western rite Anglican liturgy within the Roman Catholic Church could be hugely attractive to folks fleeing the spiritual shipwrecks of their liberal denominations.  Where once they might have seriously considered the Orthodox Church as a viable prospect, now the combination of a more culturally familiar liturgy under Rome, along with Internet-available news of the controversies within the Antiochian archdiocese, could serve to bring an abrupt end to the early successes of Orthodox evangelism in America.

Lord have mercy.

Good commentary and good links at The Anchoress, with updates.

Typically good commentary by the Ochlophobist, including reflections on Orthodox-Anglican wooing.

Pardon my crocodile tears…

Bay State liberals shun Barack Obama’s visit.

(Hat tip to Hot Air)

A great evening

When there are so many opportunities for disappointment and discouragement in the leadership of my country and my church (national level, not local), an evening like we had last night provided a blessed antidote.

Lesa and I attended a fund-raising dinner at our church for the benefit of both our own church’s private school and also St. Innocent’s Academy in Kodiak.  If you are not familiar with St. Innocent’s, visit their web site, order their CDs, and get on their mailing list.  It will go a long way toward strengthening your faith in the future… not to mention brightening your faith today.

The Academy operates as a ministry to troubled and “at-risk” youth, generally high school age but some younger and some older.  Fr. Paisius De Luca and his wife “Matushka” Mary are truly, in the deepest, most authentic sense the spiritual parents of the young people there.  As totally “sold out” instruments of the Holy Spirit they have worked miracles in the lives of those who have passed through the doors of the Academy.

The specific method of Fr. Paisius’s transformative work is music.  After watching them perform you might imagine that applicants have to audition for acceptance, but in truth there is no requirement for a pre-existing musical talent.  This makes the high caliber of their performances all the more amazing.  The entertainment at last night’s dinner ranged from Celtic folk tunes and step dancing, an English sea shanty, Appalachian shape note singing, Georgian folk music, a Yupik  (native Alaskan) folk dance, and Rachmaninoff’s “Rejoice O Virgin”.  Talk about versatile.

The youth also served the tables, chatted easily with the diners, and conducted themselves with poise, grace, and self-confidence.  Watching them you would never imagine that they had recently been oppositional, defiant, in trouble at home and at school, many already with juvenile court records.  What Fr. Paisius and Matushka Mary have achieved by the grace of God is astonishing.

To my surprize and dismay I have just discovered that the St. Innocent’s Academy web site is no longer in existence.  You can write to them at the following address and ask for a sample newsletter and list of their CD’s and DVD’s- it is:

St. Innocent’s Academy
P.O.Box 1517
1895 Mission Road
Kodiak, AK 99615

I did locate this YouTube video of them performing the Yup’ik dance that they did for us last night.

Some folks who could use our help

The plight of the parishioners of the former Antiochian mission parish in Fargo, South Dakota, is described here;  a longer- but very worth reading- article about the Fargo mission and Fr. Herbel, written by his godson, is here. Both of them provide addresses for sending financial support.

I think I can understand something of what they’ve experienced.  When I lived in Banner Elk, North Carolina from 1999-2002, I attended two Antiochian Orthodox missions; one in Boone, NC, the other in Johnson City, Tennessee.  I thought both of them were very ill-served by the archdiocese.  Granted, both missions were remote, and required much time and effort for priests to travel to and serve them.  But what possible reason can there be for a priest to tell people what a nuisance and bother it was to come do the services for them?

When I first visited the Johnson City mission, there was a surprisingly large number of ethnic Arabic members; when I returned after attending the Boone mission for a year,  they had all left to go to more distant Greek or OCA parishes.  Imagine- Arab Orthodox families who felt more cared for and valued in non-Antiochian parishes.

Another berated them for not coming up with enough money to support a resident priest, yet neither he nor the others had offered any serious support for evangelizing, or for simply providing the care and spiritual nurture that might naturally lead to church growth.  And this in what is touted as the “most convert-friendly” archdiocese.  Sad.

So, I’ll be sending them a check from our tithing account to show my support, that even in far Alaska people have heard about, and care about, what is happening there.  I hope you might pray about it and feel moved to do the same.

Lord have mercy.

_____________

“Mind your own business” is usually very good spiritual advice.  Satan has no simpler way of killing our spiritual growth than in drawing our attention to the always plentiful examples of other people’s sins and inviting us to indulge in the wonderful emotion of righteous indignation.  There might be certain rare circumstances where it could be appropriate to speak, but you can seldom go wrong by keeping silent.

One occasion for speaking out is described in the little red “pocket prayer book” published by the Antiochian archdiocese.  On pages 29-30 is a list, “Nine ways of participating in another’s sin”.  Numbers eight and nine are: by silence, and by defense of the sin committed.

I thought of these in regards to the brave lady who attended the Antiochian annual convention this year, and confronted Met. Phillip and the assembled delegates regarding the discredited Bishop Demetri’s support and apparent rehabilitation to service at the altar.  She was hooted down, and rebuked for having a hard and unforgiving spirit.

But forgiveness was not, and isn’t the point.  And fortunately, someone of far greater stature within the Church has made exactly this clarification.  I am grateful to “the Ochlophobist” for introducing me to the site “Notes on Arab Orthodoxy” (see links to the left).  I highly recommend it.  Many Orthodox converts in America- perhaps even many “cradle” Orthodox- might be under the (understandable) impression that the Greek and Russian schools of Orthodox theology are all that there is.  “Notes on Arab Orthodoxy” is making a vitally important contribution to correcting that misperception.

Sunday’s post, here, is a translation from the Arabic of an article by Metropolitan Georges Khodr (Mt. Lebanon).  The topic- corrupt bishops.  Please read the whole post, but the “takeaway” quote comes at the end, where Met. Khodr recounts a story about Saint Basil;

“Saint Basil the Great once defrocked a priest because he committed adultery. After many years, this priest was at a funeral. He approached the casket and touched the dead man and the dead man rose. He went to Basil and said to him, ‘Do you need a greater sign than this of the holiness that I have acquired in order to send me back to my flock?’ Basil replied, ‘Your holiness is between you and God, but I cannot return you to your flock because you scandalized them. It is not right for you to go to them again.’

Who will give us the like of Basil the Great so that we feel that the group we are a part of is truly the Church of Christ?”

Amen. Lord, have mercy.

An Alaskan life

Now here is someone I’d like to have known.  When anyone complains “What difference can just one person make, anyhow?”, people like this supply the answer.

May his soul dwell with the blessed!

From Sunday’s Anchorage Daily News, the story of Pete Brown.

Pres. Obama is 100% correct; SHOCKER Update III

I cannot believe my eyes…

This editorial will run in tomorrow’s Sunday New York Times…

By Thomas Friedman… in the New York Times…

I know, I know, I can imagine what cynical responses this will probably receive, and understandably so, but c’mon…

Let’s give credit where credit is due, respect where respect is due.  This is amazing.

Can you imagine the apoplectic reaction this would provoke if Obama actually had the cajones to deliver this exact acceptance speech?  And the effect on his standing domestically?  A welcomed and reassuring repudiation of the anti-military lunatic fringe of the Democratic Party (which isn’t actually all that fringe).

What a wonderful world that would be.  Change I COULD believe in?

READ IT.

Pres. Obama is 100% correct… [UPDATE II]

“I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformative figures that have been honored by this prize…”  President Obama acknowledges, in responding to the news that he had been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

No kidding.  Glad to see that even with his massive ego he can recognize the obvious.

The Nobel Prize Committee  accelerates its descent into irrelevance.  Now, you don’t even need to actually have achieved anything- they’re bestowing anticipatory awards!  As Mark Steyn suggests (here), it’s as if Hollywood included a “Lifetime Pre-Achiement Award” category in the Oscars, given to some promising young art school graduate.

Lord have mercy!

UPDATE I:  A Shocking New Trend Line!

Mocking from the Left! The bloom is well and truly off the rose; even they now see the emperor has no clothes.

First, the Saturday Night Live skit goofing on his two major achievements: “jack” and “squat”.

Now, Time magazine- yes, Time magazine- on it’s online edition, has a “Top Ten Obama Backlash Moments” list… and invites readers to rearrange it and submit their own personal prioritized version (h/t to HA).  The Nobel Peace Prize comes in at #1.

Meanwhile, derision for the decision appears to be President Obama’s first truly bipartisan achievement.  Yikes!

UPDATE II:  “DNC official: GOP siding with terrorists.” (at POLITICO).

Gosh, I’m confused… they say that like it’s a bad thing!  Since when, exactly has the Left ever having had any problem siding with terrorists, proudly and publicly?  A few memory-joggers here at the Zombietime “Hall of Shame“.