“It’s an attack on Christianity”…Vol. III to the Chronicles of the Asinine… or…St Francis has got to go!

“It is a persistent evil to persecute a man who belongs to the grace of God.
It is a calamity without remedy to hate the happy.”
Saint Cyprian of Carthage

(a yard, as seen on the web, celebrating a birthday with pink falmingo yard ornaments)

Today’s installment of Vol III to the Chronicles of the Asinine, we find that an
HOA has seemingly lost their minds.

Now my disclaimer is that I live out in a more rural area and I do not live in a subdivision
that has an HOA or Homeowners Association.

I’ve never lived in a subdivision that has ever had an HOA.

But from my understanding, residents pay monthly dues and in turn,
are told what they can and cannot do…
The HOA of Jurisdiction…
The law of the land…
As in:
How high one must keep their grass.
What type of mailbox one is to have.
When one needs to get rid of their weeds.
When one needs to take down those overdue Christmas lights.
And everyone is reminded not to leave their garage doors up…

Violators will be fined.

Now I would like to think that most homeowners are well-meaning,
law-abiding, and courteous.
Thoughtful of their neighbors while they toil keeping
up their property.

Yet sadly all we need to do is to simply watch any local news to know that
that is not always the case.

We learn about the quiet neighbors down the block who were running a
meth lab in their home. As if the hazmat team showing up wasn’t sign enough.

Or what of the neighbor around the corner who was running the prostitution ring
out of their home?
Hence why the HOA says how many cars may or may not be parked on the curb.

But today we have a story about an HOA that has told a resident that after 16 years,
this resident’s small yard statue of the Virgin Mary has got to go…

Well…if you ask me…something smells fishy in Denmark…
or rather make that Detroit…because this is a story out of a suburb of
Detroit, Michigan.

And so I suppose that now means that my St. Francis has got to go.

(The Mayor loves St Francis as they are close in stature)

And what of my tiny little cherub birdbath that is nestled up under the
viburnum and butterfly bush?

There’s a house on an adjacent street that has a small statue of Buddha
sitting in their garden.
And what of the other house further down the road that has a small statue of
a Native American Indian by the front door?

Small, tasteful non-garish, demure and personal.

As a Christian, I’m certainly not up in arms that there is a Buddha statue in a neighbors yard,
And for the record, you have to pull down my driveway and come along my front walk in order to
see St Francis.

And the Native American statue always leaves me wondering as to the family’s roots.
Offended?
Absolutely not!
Only intrigued as by what their story must be.

Discreet.
Simple.
Unobtrusive.

All words that describe most folk’s yard decor.

I’ll wager that even pink flamingos and garden gnomes have their place.

As do the beehive boxes, the small chicken coop along with the humble frog cloche.

Everyone’s little touch of the personal connection to their own tiny piece of paradise.

Now I know that there are those individuals out there who go overboard and take a good thing
to the extreme.

Those Howard Finsters of the world.

Howard Finster, if you aren’t familiar, was a Summerville, Ga character.
Both preacher and folk artist.
He claimed that God had told him to transfer his swampy land into a “folk art” paradise.
And so he spent a lifetime expanding and growing his tiny piece paradise into
quite the folk art exhibition.

Finster died in 2001 but his 2 acre Paradise Garden is still open to the public.
And the words ‘paradise garden’, in regards to Finister, are certainly up for interpretation

Whereas Finster had neither HOA or zoning issues, there is still that poor fellow out
in a suburban neighborhood of Detroit who has been told that his small yard statue of the
Blessed Virgin Mary has got to go.

According to an on-line Newsweek article,
A family in the Detroit suburbs says it is being forced to remove a statue of the Virgin Mary
that’s been in the yard for 16 years by an overeager homeowner’s association.
Samona told the Detroit Free Press he believes it’s a case of discrimination.

“There is no doubt in my mind that this is an attack on our religion.
We have already received an outpouring of support from friends and family,
and we are prepared to fight this tooth and nail.”

Samona’s parents immigrated to the United States from Iraq,
where they faced religious persecution for being Catholic.
He says every member of his family stops to pray in front of the Virgin Mary
regularly since they moved into the area in 2003.

He calls the statue “a symbol of peace,” and says the demand to remove it is
“an attack on Christianity.”
Samona says that he’s not only standing up for his family,
but for religious expression in general:
“We don’t know what’s going on over here.
We just want to be able to freely practice our religion,” He told WDIV.
“Whether you’re Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist—
whatever you are—don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t practice your religion.”

I think we would all agree that a 6-foot blowup of a cartoonish Virgin Mary would
most definitely fall under the watchful ire of an HOA but a small 16-year-old statue
that sits unobtrusively at the walkway of a family’s home, is an entirely different story.

And so we have just one more example of the madness and loss of common sense that is
currently taking this country by storm.

At this rate, we might just run out of volumes in which to share these tales of the
asinine, absurd and downright unprovoked attacks buy the PC Police.

I do wonder that if this statue of Mary was rather a statue of Buddha or
a statue of a Hindu god or simply a Muslim man out on his lawn, with his prayer rug,
bowing toward Mecca in prayer…I wonder if the HOA would have raised their flag
of discontent…

Stay tuned…tomorrow we’ll investigate the story about the flash mob of 60 teens who
amassed upon an unsuspecting business as they proceeded to trash and loot
a Walgreens in Philadelphia.

A tale of when the asinine becomes violent, dangerous and in turn a rallying cry for
our culture to finally put its foot down to the madness.

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion,
seeking someone to devour.
1 Peter 5:8

pranks +mimicking = vandalism and stupidity which leads to “Citizen’s arrest”

Hey! HEEEYYYY – –
BARNEY! You made an illegal u-turn YOURSELF!
You’re breakin’ the law, and so I, as a responsible person, need to arrest you!
Citizen’s arrest! Citizen’s arrest!
Gomer Pyle

(1963 episode Andy Griffith Show)

I grew up watching The Andy Griffith Show.
A time when you really didn’t have to worry about what was on television and what
your children would be exposed to.

Despite growing up in an expanding city, as a young girl, I felt a lovely familiarity with the show.
Our world was still somewhat small despite our living the city life.

It was a time when we were urban yet still maintained a rural feel.

Walking down a dirt road with a fishing pole, skipping rocks on a pond did not feel far removed.

One of the funnier episodes, that has remained etched in my mind, was the 1963
episode where Gomer uses his right as a citizen to make a citizen’s arrest against the
inept deputy Barney Fife.

I can still hear Gomer hollering “Citizen’s arrest, Citizen’s arrest” when Barney
made an illegal U-turn in the patrol car.

To this day I so often wish I could slap a blue light on the top of my car,
just like Kojak would do in his unmarked police car, going after the idiots on the street who seem
drawn to my direction like a magnet.

Who loves ya baby?

I’d be screaming “Citizen’s arrest” while nabbing the idiot who was on his cell phone
(which is now against the law in Georgia) while he was driving and weaving over the
yellow line, making a beeline right for my car in the opposite driving direction.
A narrowly missed near head-on encounter because someone was on a cell phone,
driving—when it a violation of the law let alone endangering other drivers.

Sadly my only recourse is to blow the horn and swerve.
Praying the idiot misses me.

Recently, I caught a news story regarding the latest Sandra Bullock Netflix series where
much of the action takes place with the heroine and family being blindfolded.

I watch very little television so this latest show is not something I care to watch…
but the fact that the producers are now having to issue a warning…
“Please do not do this at home” is sadly a sign of today’s pure idiocy.

Who in their right mind thinks mimicking the plot of a movie, like driving blindfolded,
or doing any sort of activities blindfolded is a good idea??

So today I went to get my hair cut.
The gal cutting my hair proceeded to share a story regarding a local
grocery store we both frequent.

She told me a rather unsettling tale while offering a warning.

She told me that she had made her way past the produce section and the meat section
and was now working her way toward the dairy section.
Doing what we all do…zeroing in on our own quests while staying in our own little zone.

It was at this point when she noticed a young teenage male pulling his empty cart
right up beside hers.
He was on his phone while he proceeded to reach into her cart,
grabbing out a bag of oranges which he explained he needed…
and so he was going to simply take hers.

My friend thinking quick on her feet pulled the bag back out of his cart,
replacing it back in her own cart while telling the young man that that was great but
that he would have to go back to produce to get his own bag.

He next told her he was posting her to Youtube.
Her response was…”Oh no you are not!!”

He kept repeating that he was posting since she agreed.
She continued with the “I DO NOT AGREE”

She found a manager and explained what happened.

The manager explained that there seems to be a troubling a new trend of kids
coming to grocery stores while wanting to create “pranks” in order to post
on YouTube.

The kids will head to the dairy section where they grab gallons of milk and smash them
on the floor while filming with their phones in order to upload to Youtube.

Prank or vandalism?

Vandalism I say.

The manager found the kid, along with a friend, who both wanted to know why they
couldn’t record their pranks and why would the manager be throwing them out?

Really???

How about harassing paying customers for starters?

The manager kicks them out of the store and watches as they proceed to make
their way to Target. The store manager calls the Target manager to explain
what’s coming his way.

What about vandalism, the destruction of property, theft, harassment, loitering…

What does any of this have to do with silly pranks—
Nothing.

I’m not a prank fan.
I’m not a fan of fine lines.
I’m a black and white kind of girl.
That it is or it isn’t mentality…

Just so everyone can cash in on the 10 minutes of a million likes of fame.

There is obviously a very fine line that our misguided youth seem to be missing…
One that has me screaming “Citizen’s arrest!!!”

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:2

civil discourse

“Of our thinking it is but the upper surface that we shape into articulate thought;
underneath the region of argument and conscious discourse lies the region of meditation.”
Thomas Carlyle

(big sister Alice with her boy friend Sonny / Julie Cook / 2018)

Civil discourse…
two words…
the first-word meaning—courteous and polite
the other word meaning—a conversation

Put them together and you have a ‘courteous polite conversation.’

Yet that is not exactly what we are witnessing taking place across this society of ours.

Firstly let’s take a look at our current protests emanating from within our schools.

This is a bit of a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, it’s a good thing that our kids are upset over the escalating violence
taking place from within our schools—of which are, in actuality, their schools.

But let us be specific here…this violence we’re speaking of would be gun violence
and gun violence only.

It has nothing to do with the fighting, the rampant profanity, the disrespect,
the brawls, the knives, the unwanted sexual advances, the thefts or the bullying
that continues taking place…
all of which continues to happen on a daily basis in many of our schools across this nation…
nor does it really address the fact that many of these kids who are coming to school with
these guns are known to and by other kids…that no one necessarily sees the coming storm or
acknowledges a hand in the making of the storm is both problematic and disconcerting.

And granted that is not always the case, as we have sadly seen at schools such as Sandy Hook…
that these are not necessarily known kids on anyone’s particular radar.
In the case of Sandy Hook, we had an older teenager coming into an unsuspecting elementary school…

So not each shoe obviously fits every foot.

We are on a case by case basis.

We are also talking about frustrated minors..aka adolescents.

Adolescents, as we all know, is a time of an emotional roller coaster full of angst
and hormones.
Emotions run high, deep and quick.

When I was a student in high school, Vietnam and the Civil Rights Movement had just hit
their zenith.
Protests, sit-ins, love-ins, demonstrations had all become standard words within the
vocabulary of our Nation.
We had witnessed college kids “expressing” themselves…
so naturally, high school kids felt equally as strongly yet were perhaps frustrated by the
inability to truly take part in the sweeping discontent as seen on many college campuses.

At the turn of the decade from the 60’s to the 70’s, I was in the 8th grade—
which was a part of our 8-12 high school.
A beloved teacher was fired for supposedly moonlighting as a bartender.

There was a walkout.

The principal came out of the school with a bullhorn—he told the disgruntled student body
that if they, the students, didn’t immediately return to class, there would be
disciplinary actions against those students insisting on continuing with the walkout.

Naturally, I went right back inside.

I didn’t want to get in trouble—not with the school nor with my parents who would be livid
if I decided to show my “butt” by being defiant and disrespectful to the rules and authority
of our principal and the school.

A couple of years later, during my senior year, I remember very clearly when the senior
class had prepared for some sort of no-show day…
The principal had gotten word of the senior class opting for a massive skip day so
he called in the class officers—of which I just happened to be vice president.
He told us, in no uncertain terms, that if we participated in the skip day—
there would be serious repercussions.

Now if this sort of thing happened today…the idea of a principal “threatening” a
group of students with repercussions for participating in a skip day…
well, there would be undoubtedly parents up in arms as lawyers would be circling
the wagons salivating to get involved…
Least of which would be the ACLU, who mind you, would be jumping on the bandwagon
sputtering nonsense about the civil liberties of students and threats against minors.

Our principal explained that we were the leaders of our class and that we were to set
an example of doing what wasn’t necessarily the popular thing but doing that which was
the right thing…
There were rules about skipping school and if we opted to skip…
well, there’d be penalties for our poor choices.

Needless to say, the four of us were in school that day,
along with a handful of other mindful students.

In the end, did I simply miss a good time or had I learned an important life lesson?
I would say that latter.

As a former high school teacher, I can honestly say that I appreciate the passion
many of our kids are displaying for wanting to take a stand against the gun
violence happening in their close-knit worlds.

But…

at the same time, our schools have rules about things such as disobedience,
defiance and rule-breaking…
where things such as walkouts and or demonstrations fall directly under said headings.

Schools should not be “punished” for maintaining a standard level of discipline.
If one system supports a national walkout—that’s fine…
Such being a school system’s prerogative.
Yet no one should punish or shame those schools or districts who decide to hold onto their
standards, rules, and approach to discipline versus participating in a walkout.

I was more than slightly incensed last evening when I heard an Atlanta lawyer interviewed
on the local news using his legal language insinuating that students had been
“pressured, intimidated and bullied” by school officials over their wanting to walk
out when the school had issued a ban on doing such.

If your school was one to opt out…well then…that’s that is it not?

We live with rules…whether we like it or not.
A civil society.

And our kids are just that…they are kids.
While we, in turn, are the adults.
Sometimes the responsibility of the care entrusted to us over our kids comes in the
form of rules, discipline and even tough love.
Adults are entrusted to make the rules…rules which are in place to help govern
a civil society.
And as adults, we are charged with the care of our students and children and the fact
that they must understand that we set rules for a reason.

Obviously, our legislators need to act…
And as adults, it is our responsibility to see to it that they do act—
and if we don’t like how they act…we therefore voice our objection and vote
them out of office.

Is it not our responsibility to support our school administrators who
need to be allowed to do their jobs—
of which…is to keep our kids safe, orderly and educated.

These moments, which we have been witnessing around this Nation of ours regarding the
disgruntlement our kids, are what we call “teachable moments”…
moments when its ok to deviate from the curriculum and lessons at hand as we address
a bigger issue.

But allowing the protests and defiance to take on a larger than life momentum,
as well as a life of its own, in turn, creates a disservice to each and every victim…

so…do we do our best to work toward a means of civil discourse
or do we simply allow our children to begin living as we adults are…
living by throwing civility, laws, and rules totally out the window as
the end means…
getting what it is we think we need and want by any raising the loudest and
most disruptive clamor—
Becoming a society that gets what it thinks it wants by making demands and
strong-arming any and all sense of order or civility…

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof,
for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent,
equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV

something is definitely brewing

“Hier stehe ich.
Ich kann nicht anders.
Gott helfe mir.
Amen.”
(Here I stand.
I can not do otherwise.
God help me.
Amen)
Martin Luther

“Our leaders don’t believe the values of the New Testament take
priority over everything else.”
The Rt Reverend Gavin Ashenden

(the old Methodist Church in Cades Cove, TN / Julie Cook / 2015)

Yesterday I shared a heartening tale about a modern day take on Martin Luther’s
500 year old defiance against an ailing Church.

It appears that these 500 years later on … we are again ailing….
or perhaps we are simply still ailing, never having actually been healed.
I’m not so certain as to which it actually is.

Over the past decade or so, we have witnessed leadership within many mainline
Christian denominations yielding, be it willingly or by duress, to the whims,
nay demands, of a growing egocentric hedonistic society that claims everything
in the name of acceptance and love.

But what society fails to understand is that whereas God is indeed Love,
He is also a God of Order…His Order.

I have watched in frustrating bewilderment,
for more years now than I care to recount, church doctrine and or policy being
twisted and contorted to fit an ever demanding culture’s idea of order.
As society works to claim a new oddly fitting human behavior.

Almost 6000 years have passed since God spoke very specifically to Moses.
He issued a set of “rules” for human orderly living.
God had spoken and literally laid down the law.

Then several millennia past and God saw fit to send a proxy,
a stand in for man…one who was to take man’s place in the inevitable
eternal damnation that man had claimed for himself by imposing his own order while
ignoring God’s…

….That so whomever would believe, would be saved and would have eternal life.

It was straight forward…even simple really.
Yet man insisted on making it complicated.

So while Western Civilization marks the 500th anniversary of the Reformation—
as it matters not on which side of the fence you find yourself,
the Reformation is being remembered none the less…

However…me thinks there might be something new brewing about?
As in, might we be witnessing perhaps a new bit of Reformation taking shape?

I for one hope so.

Twice during the course of this past week,
I have found myself both hearing and reading the thoughts and sharings of two
very different men of the cloth concerning this “change in the air”—

Yet neither man has cited any particular change as they are merely working to share
the current state of affairs—the health of each one’s collective church body.

One is a Catholic monk who I’ve mentioned here before…Father Hugh—
who happens to be an ardent keeper of the faith and an Australian monk serving in
a monastery in the UK who is not afraid to speak Gospel truth,
even if that truth runs counter to that of Rome.

The other being a former Anglican priest and Chaplin to the Queen, who now is a
missionary Bishop of The Christian Episcopal Church–a ‘renegade’ break away of
Orthodox Anglican and Episcopal laity and clergy.

Both men have noted that our collective Church leadership has capitulated.
As the leadership has accepted false doctrine as some sort of new doctrine.
A form of “soft socialism” so says Bishop Ashenden.

Father Hugh has shared a letter written by a well respected American Theologian and Capuchin monk, Fr. Thomas Weinandy, regarding the dangerous position Pope Francis
appears to be placing the Catholic faithful.

Bishop Ashenden on the other hand in a recent airing of Anglican Unscripted, also
addresses this dangerous direction the current leadership of the Anglican Church seems
to be taking its flock…

I offer you the links below to Father Hugh’s posts regarding Father Weinandy’s
very public letter to Pope Francis.

It should be noted that since writing and having published his letter to the Pope,
the good Capuchin Father has been asked to resign his post as executive
director of the USCCB’s Secretariat for Doctrine.

Just as I suspect those clergy who have tacked the Southwark Declaration to the doors
of various Anglican Cathedrals or who vocally support the Declaration from their pulpits
will eventually suffer reprimand and or repercussion or something even worse.

Just as I would expect to receive such should I tack the Declaration to any door of
any Episcopal Church here in the states—- I would be accused of hate mongering….
because that’s how we handle those who hold fast to the solemn Word of God—
for if you opt to follow the word of God as stated in the Gospel,
particularly when it concerns same sex unions, you are accused of bigotry and hate….
never mind what God has said about such.

Let us offer our prayers for such brave individuals who are not afraid, despite
common thought and new cultural norms, to share God’s truth…

Here I stand; I can do no other.

L’Affaire Weinandy: A Watershed?

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures and by clear reason
(for I do not trust in the pope or councils alone, since it is well known
that they have often erred and contradicted themselves),
I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted.
My conscience is captive to the Word of God.
I cannot and I will not retract anything,
since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.
May God help me.
Amen.”
Martin Luther

Christmas 1914

“There is no limit to the measure of ruin and of slaughter;
day by day the earth is drenched with newly-shed blood,
and is covered with the bodies of the wounded and of the slain.
Who would imagine, as we see them thus filled with hatred of one another,
that they are all of one common stock, all of the same nature,
all members of the same human society?
Who would recognize brothers,
whose Father is in Heaven?”
Pope Benedict XV

(an artist’s impression taken form The Illustrated London News, January 1915 of British and German soldiers during the Christmas truce of 1914)

War is a funny thing.
As in it is an age old oddity.
An ugly, devastating oddity.

Since his fall from grace,
man has been engaged in a constant state of struggle.
Battling and fighting a war within himself as he wages war against all others.
Living in a constant state of destruction…
Conquering, defending, killing, invading, taking…

And yet within man’s duality of his nature…that connection between light and dark…
of both right and wrong,
of both love and hate,
of give and take,
of fair and unfair
of peace and war…
all of which seems to leave him no choice but to create a balance within the chaos
of some sense of fairness or rightness…
as if war should be, could be, conducted fairly or even oddly, justly,
Man continues to yearn for the light, the upright, the hopeful…

As man feels his way through the never ending darkness, he has learned to set parameters.
He creates rules.
Rules of engagement.
Rules of war.
Rules set by the Geneva Convention.
Rules stating that nations are to fight fairly,
as if to say…fight by the rules.

Yet all of this seems to be grossly oxymoronic…
as if war, fighting, maiming and killing could ever be fair,
or just, or right, or proper….

Yet on Christmas Day 1914 man’s conflict and inner struggle with this duality
of his imperfect balance, oddly righted itself…

That in the midst of death and insanity, the arrival of Christmas,
the coming and eventual arrival of the child whose birth brings both the gift of
hope and peace to not merely a few but rather to all mankind,
brought balance, albeit briefly, to man’s seemingly unending inner conflict…

On December 7, 1914, Pope Benedict XV suggested a temporary hiatus of the war for
the celebration of Christmas.
The warring countries refused to create any official cease-fire,
but on Christmas the soldiers in the trenches declared their own unofficial truce.

Starting on Christmas Eve, many German and British troops sang Christmas carols
to each other across the lines, and at certain points the Allied soldiers
even heard brass bands joining the Germans in their joyous singing.

At the first light of dawn on Christmas Day,
some German soldiers emerged from their trenches and approached the
Allied lines across no-man’s-land, calling out “Merry Christmas” in their enemies’ native tongues.
At first, the Allied soldiers feared it was a trick,
but seeing the Germans unarmed they climbed out of their trenches and shook hands
with the enemy soldiers.
The men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings and sang carols and songs.
There was even a documented case of soldiers from opposing sides playing a
good-natured game of soccer.

Some soldiers used this short-lived ceasefire for a more somber task:
the retrieval of the bodies of fellow combatants who had fallen within the no-man’s
land between the lines.

The so-called Christmas Truce of 1914 came only five months after the outbreak of war
in Europe and was one of the last examples of the outdated notion of
chivalry between enemies in warfare.
It was never repeated—future attempts at holiday ceasefires were quashed by
officers’ threats of disciplinary action—but it served as heartening proof,
however brief, that beneath the brutal clash of weapons,
the soldiers’ essential humanity endured.

During World War I, the soldiers on the Western Front did not expect to celebrate on the battlefield,
but even a world war could not destory the Christmas spirit.
History.com

“Hark the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the new-born king.”
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!
Charles Wesley

the law

“Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation:
they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour…
If at my convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?”
― Charlotte Brontë

“It is impossible to enslave, mentally or socially, a bible-reading people.
The principles of the bible are the groundwork of human freedom.”
― Horace Greeley

(Santa Rosa Beach, Fl / Julie Cook / 2016)

Oh, how I love your law, O Lord
It is my meditation all day long.
How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth.
The law of your mouth is better to me
than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
You word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path.
Your decrees are my heritage forever;
they are the joy of my heart.
Your statutes have been my song,
wherever I make my home.
My lips will pour forth praise,
because you teach me your statutes.
My tongue will sing of your promise,
for all your commandments are right

(Psalm 119: 97-115, paraphrased
taken from The Divine Hours
Prayers for summertime
Phyllis Tickle)

Have we all but lost the way of the psalmist…
the one who sings with reckless joy regarding a love so pleasant and sweet…
steeped in the law of God?

Have we allowed our fallen brokeness,
that which stirs within us the spirit of rebellion,
to replace our abiding pleasure in God’s law with
repugnance for any and all holy command?

Rarely is a song now sung…
Seldom does a heart beam and rejoice…
Hardly ever are the virtues proclaimed…
in the holy writ of the Law…

Rather…
there is revelry…
there is abandonment
and there is hedonism in the restless sea of self…
as the flag of all things free is hoisted high above the madness.

It was to be a blanket of care and safety….
A rule of life…
A safety net catching those who stumble and fall…

To listen,
to abide,
to follow….
would have, could have, been so simple.

Life could have been so sweet…

Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me.
The one who loves me will be loved by my Father,
and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
John 14:21

lost in translation

“The word ‘translation’ comes, etymologically, from the Latin for ‘bearing across’.
Having been borne across the world, we are translated men.
It is normally supposed that something always gets lost in translation;
I cling, obstinately to the notion that something can also be gained.”
Salman Rushdie

“Live the questions now. Perhaps then,
someday far in the future,
you will gradually, without even noticing it,
live your way into the answer.”
Rainer Maria Rilke

(detail of an Irish manuscript and cover of Timothy O’Neills book The Irish Hand, Scribes And Their Manuscripts From The Earliest Times–as seen in a Kinsale Bookshop, Kinsale, County Cork Ireland)

Ce que tu ne comprends pas?
Lo que no entiendes?
Was Sie nicht verstehen?
あなたは何を理解していません ?
ما لا تفهم ?
Wat begrijp je niet ?
מה אתה לא מבין ?
что вы не понимаете ?
Quello che non capisci?
Nach bhfuil cad a thuigeann tú ?

No matter the language, the question remains the same…
“what don’t you understand?”

It is a question asked of the confused, the lost,
the ignorant, the arrogant as well as the simple.

“Is there some confusion?”

“Do you need for me to re-explain something?”

“I’m sorry, did I not make myself clear?”

“You’re not from around here are you?”

“Are you a moron?”

The way in which the question is asked pretty much explains to the one asking the question whether or not their query is worthy of further explanation or has simply exasperated the one being questioned.

It can even be issued as a defiant statement rather than a question.

As in…

“yeah, you see it, it is what it is…what don’t you understand?!”

Sometimes I feel that way…
as in the frustrated way of things….

As in…
“Yes.
God did say not to do that.
Or
“Yes.
God did say that was okay.”

It’s all pretty simple.
Pretty much cut and dry.

Have you ever had to sign a contract or a legal document?
Have you ever taken the time need to fully read…
or the legal ability in order to comprehend all the fine print?
Has a salesperson or legal type person ever asked, “what don’t you understand?”
With you pretty much resigned to the answer being simply “everything?!”…

God gave a list of some pretty simple commands…
or rather rules for living if you will.

A concise list of don’ts.

Pretty simple.
Pretty direct.
A relatively short list.
With no hidden fees.
No hidden clauses.
All in simple language.
No legalese.
No gobbledygook.

Just very straightforward…

Oh, and by the way, where there were no fees involved,
there were / are penalties with each broken “law”

But they were set to make life easy.
Follow the rules, the laws, and life was to be pretty much… golden….

Later, His Son came along and offered a few more to the list…
This time there were actually a few additions in the affirmative…as in “do this”

Things like…
Loving your God with all your heart, mind, body, and being…
Secondly… love your neighbor as yourself.
Do unto others as you would wish others to do unto you.

Again straightforward with a direct approach.
Nothing buried in the fine print.

There were also a few more don’ts and do’s added to the list.
Don’t have sexual intercourse or anything close with those of your same sex.
Don’t do things in excess…like drink or eat, or…you name it.
Don’t neglect those less fortunate
Do take care of widows and orphans
Do remember those in prison.
Do show mercy.
Do show kindness.
Do show compassion.

All simple.
All direct.
Rules for living—in order to make the living…golden.

Yet over time, everyone has wanted to complicate the simple.
Muddy the waters.
Argue the point.
Defy the point.
Create fine print.
Throw in some hidden agendas and clauses.

And I just want to look at everyone with that exasperated look saying….
“What don’t you understand??????”

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.
Proverbs 18:2

Making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
Proverbs 2:2-5

Civility

“When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.”
– Samuel Johnson

(photograph: Callaway Gardens Butterfly House/ Pine Mt., GA/ Julie Cook/ 2013)

As a teacher, as well as a parent…not to mention just being a human being, the idea of civility—that of a civil society, is something that has always been very important to me. I use to stress, to my students, the importance of rules, along with the accompanying of certain positive actions—not a laundry list mind you of endless does and don’ts, but rather a basic list—-a list of simple classroom rules along with the consequences of not following those rules, that would keep our world, in Room 202, afloat.

A list of rules that we could all live by—happily, comfortably, agreeably… with everyone’s safety in clear sight. I would tell them that some rules are most necessary for a “civil” society—otherwise we’d succumb to the pure pandemonium known as anarchy—which I know appeals to that daring sense of the teenage mind of damning the adult’s status quo, but for those of us who have hindsight, such is indeed invaluable to life.

I am becoming ever more wearisome with what I observe being the lack of civility in our modern day society–so much so that I grow gravely distressed. Oh you can call me old fashioned if you wish—at 53 I hate thinking I’m categorized into the group of having one foot in the proverbial “home” or worse, grave, but I suppose some reading this may just check me off as simply being of a different time.

Is it being from a different time that causes me to not appreciate hearing the “F word” at each and every turn when at the mall, crossing a street, in a restaurant, watching a ball game and reading a player’s or coach’s lips or walking down the hall at school…only to have the list go on and on? When did such a word, which is, in its origin, considered vulgar slang, become common place? That we now, as a society, condone vulgar slang as “ok”? That our music, movies—our overall entertainment, is saturated with such—that which was once used for “effect” has become all but common place……is that a good agreeable thing to be accepted?

That our politicians work harder at the practice of digging “dirt”, more so than the practice of governing and managing the Law –is even more than alarming. That we are more concerned with condemnation before we even consider common ground let alone reconciliation. That our news media relishes in the lashing out at any American whom they deem “on the wrong” side.

Having grown up as an American, the only wrong side I ever thought to be at issue was if one was anti-democracy! I grew up thinking it was ok to be an American who disagreed as you were still an American—now, however sadly, if the news media finds you in disagreement with their line of thinking, you are considered an enemy of the State–depending on the news station’s affiliation with two simple words–liberal or conservative….hummmmm, I don’t like where that all seems to be headed.

I liked life when we were kinder to one another, when we were considerate to one another. We held doors open for one another, we said yes mam or yes sir even if we were grown ourselves, we weren’t too busy or too self-consumed that we didn’t notice the young mother trying to get out of the busy grocery store pushing a full cart and keeping two young children from running out ahead of her into a busy parking-lot not hesitating to offer a hand. I liked it when television was not laced with profanity, when people thought about what they wore out in public and left the pajamas at home.

The Italian academic Pier Massimo Forni, a professor at John Hopkins University and the founder of the Civility Initiative has a tremendous insight when discussing the importance of a civil society….
“Civility means a great deal more than just being nice to one another. It is complex and encompasses learning how to connect successfully and live well with others, developing thoughtfulness, and fostering effective self-expression and communication. Civility includes courtesy, politeness, mutual respect, fairness, good manners, as well as a matter of good health.”

This thought coming after, this past week, the world witnessed a gross lack of civility in the Italian Parliament where Italy’s first black MP took to the floor and fellow MPs greeted her by throwing bananas. It’s one thing to argue in disagreement, it’s another entirely to dehumanize a fellow human being. It is this dehumanizing our of fellow man/ woman that is now becoming the norm…spiraling out of control as the social filter of civility has gone out the window.

Decorum, civility, manners, morality…however you wish to name it, is woefully lacking in our lives—and we as a people, a “civilized” group of people, are the less for it. We become “less than” in a very negative way, we sadly value ourselves less and less. I merely hold firm to these words uttered by the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead….“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”

Let us hope for a thoughtful group of “citizens” who may be out there somewhere who can remind us all of the importance of our kindness, our thoughtfulness, our playing fair and playing by the rules, by knowing the difference between right and wrong, by demonstrating respect for all, reminding us that it’s ok to disagree, that it’s still important to possess respect for things and people older and wiser than ourselves, to smile more and fuss less…..that we may recall the greatest commandment….to ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40 NIV).

Remember you are a civil individual.