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Enter In His Gates

December 31, 2011 Leave a comment

The other day I walked as usual during my lunch hour. Working in a downtown Chicago office affords many interesting paths for my walking and praying. That day I chose Millenium Park, thankful for some open space and towering blue sky.

 Walking and praying are complimentary actions for me. They are complimentary in that praying to advance the Kingdom of God is coupled to my physical action of going forward, of not being static or complacent. Walking increases my heart rate, my breathing also becomes faster and deeper.  As I walk every breath then becomes a prayer uttered out of the rhythm of my heart, mind, body and soul. Beyond this, walking and praying are often the only actions I can take when I am told to wait on the Lord.

 That day, walking and praying, I lifted up the needs of others and my own very pressing needs. As I did so I clearly heard these words from the Holy Spirit:

 “Enter in His gates with Thanksgiving

And into His courts with praise.”

 In that moment I understood that God was acknowledging my intercessions and supplications. I felt a child-like pleasure in His notice of me. God was calling me into his presence.

 In a sermon by C.S. Lewis written down in a book by the same name, The Weight of Glory, this moment was captured for me:

 “For glory means a good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgement, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.

Perhaps it seems rather crude to describe glory as the fact of being “noticed” by God. But this is almost the language of the New Testament.  St. Paul promises to those who love God not, as we should expect, that they will know Him, but that they will be known by Him. (1 Cor. 8:3).”

 That day, not only was God acknowledging my words but His invitation to “Enter in His courts…” revealed that He wanted the object of His love, me, to be in His presence. My giving God praise and thanksgiving would realign my objectivity so that one day I would be in position to know the pleasure of the inferior in His words to me: “Well done thou good and faithful servant.”

 “Apparently”, as C.S. Lewis also wrote in Weight, “what I had mistaken for humility had, all these years prevented me from understanding what is in fact the humblest, the most childlike, the most creaturely of pleasures-nay, the specific pleasure of the inferior: a beast before men, a child before its father, a pupil before his teacher, a creature before its Creator.”

 Lewis, again in the same book, also wrote that “Glory, as Christianity teaches me to hope for it, turns out to satisfy my original desire (the specific desire of the inferior) and indeed to reveal an element in that desire which I had not noticed. By ceasing for a moment to consider my own wants I have begun to learn better what I really wanted.”

 A New Year is upon us. I will cross the threshold of this New Year and “Enter in His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise.” I do so as an adopted child anxious to drink joy from the fountains of joy.

 

Course Correction Needed: 2012

December 26, 2011 Leave a comment

Currently, we as a nation have as our leader the only un-American President ever to hold the office.  He is un-American not because he is black or because there have been questions about his place of birth.  He is un-American precisely because he wants to transform America into a completely different country – effectively, an EU style nation under centralized control. And as such the liberty of the individual will convert to the power of the state and its elite contingent.

Here is what a member of Britain’s Parliament said in a recent book warning Americans about the Europeanization of America:

The alarming thing is that President Obama, the former chair of the Senates’s Europe Committee, seems genuinely to believe that the United States can usefully learn from the European political and social model.  The platform on which he was elected, and the policies he is now implementing, are not a series of initiatives lashed randomly together.  They amount to a sustained project of Europeanization:  state health care, government day care, universal college education, carbon taxes, support for supra-nationalism, bigger government, a softer national policy.

 Of course European leaders are flattered by the mimicry.  But, in their hearts, even they know that pursuing such an agenda leaves a country less prosperous and less free.[1]

 In order to accomplish this change Obama regularly uses blatant demagogic rhetoric of the class warfare type to stir up fears.  And, with a sliding scale of European-like moral relativism coupled with the Left’s anthropocentric humanism, he ultimately promotes the worship of man and his material needs – One nation under man and his “fair share” of material goods.

With all the arrogance he can muster and an uncontrained vision of top-down government Obama truly seeks to unsettle Americans from their long-standing moral and religious heritage and move them into the framework of a secular democracy based on nothing more than rational humanism and anthropocentrism. He plays to the fear of inequitable outcomes (materialism) and encourages envy cleverly disguised as egalitarianism.  But consider these telling words from economist Thomas Sowell:

 “Those who want to take our money and gain power over us have discovered the magic formula:  get us envious or angry at others and we will surrender, in installments, not only our money but our freedom.  The most successful dictators of the 20th century – Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao – all used this formula, and now class warfare politicians are doing the same.”

  “Envy plus rhetoric equals “social justice.”

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it. (emphasis mine)

 Nor is economic failure the worst of it.  The millions slaughtered by Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot for political reasons are an even grimmer reality.

Obama daily brines us with acerbic fairness talk hoping to stir up a maelstrom of unrest and radicalism, hoping to push the U.S. into a European model of government where the rule of “Fairness” and “Rights” replaces Truth and Love.  In this madness Obama is helped by the influence of the European George Soros, his money being channeled into progressive media outlets.

 Obama dislikes the U.S. because he envies Europe.  He does not want to exalt America’s exceptionlism and its unmatched charity.  Rather, he wants to extol Europe’s elitism and its useless intellectual humanitariansim.  He believes Europe to be superior to America in many ways including societal issues and in the nature of its governance.  He certainly believes Europe to be on the height of societal evolution when in fact Europe is cutting off its own moral foundations at the root.

As a student of radical SDS terrorist Bill Ayers Obama also bows to the 60’s radical’s vision of democratic revolution, but he does so now in a new button-downed guise of “Hope and Change.”  (BTW:  the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in the Constitution. The phrase was coined by Bill Ayers in 1975.)

 Since the 1960s when the radicalization of democracy began it has continued to undermine all authoritative institutions and even Truth itself. The 60’s radical prostrates himself before pure autonomy and consent, offering nothing of value in exchange. Beyond all this Obama wants to place over America the banner of “One World” – “One World Under Man and Materialism 

Under such a ”One-World” banner Obama would pledge U.S. allegiance to international energy, environmental, economic, judicial and social policies. This banner would replace our own hard won historically, philosophically and religiously birthed constitution with an Eric Holder type of pick and choose demagoguery – a tyranny of the unconstrained vision to which Obama, Holder and Europe fully embrace. It is a banner of an abstracted democracy which encourages people to abandon self-governance and the idea of Truth. Under such a banner “The pressure builds to defer to elite opinion, to the requirements of humanitarianism and egalitarianism, to the moral authority of international law.”[2]

 Not just because of the ineptness of his leadership, his lack of statesmanship, his neglect of history, his political cronyism, his scorn of facts or his faux spirituality should Obama be a one term president.  If  Obama were to be elected again America would lose its heart, mind and soul to the nihilism, secularism and parasitism of socialism so characteristic of the European nations today – nations floundering under the weight of their own foolishness, lack of self-governance and spiritual neglect.

America needs an American President. We need a president who will guide us, a republic established by spiritual and philosophic men and women of great insight, of great learning and of great depth of character.  The founders were people of self-governance committed to the best possible outcomes available to every man.  What we have now is a one-dimensional populist autobiographer whose main devotions are to himself and to golf.

“Barack Obama also is the deep thinker who ponders great things.  And the thing that Barack Obama seems to ponder most is his own greatness.  He doesn’t write biographies, he writes only autobiographies.  He gives speeches which he declares to be historic.  He recognizes his place in history long before he has created history.  This nation is but a stage upon which Barack Obama creates his life story, and it’s all about him.” William A. Jacobson,  A Harvard Trial Lawyer for McCain

America does not need the snarkiness and hubris of light-weight Obama. We certainly do not want or need a president who cut his ideological “teeth” on the teachings of people like 60s radical Bill Ayers and “God Damn America” Jeremiah Wright. We do not need a freshman senator from Illinois to vote “Present” during our times of national crisis.

  The pilgrims left Europe in order to embrace freedom of religion – a freedom from a centralized religion. In the process they, along with Truth-honoring statesmen helped to form an American Republic derivative of and dependent on Truth.  Obama’s presidency is now piloting our ship away from the shores of vested Truth and back towards Europe. There the vacuum of moral relativism with its detestation of Truth will suck the U.S. down into its sink-hole.

 God Save America from Obama.


[1] Daniel Hannan, The New Road to Serfdom: A letter of Warning to America (New York:  Broadside Books, 2010), 76

[2]  Daniel J. Mahoney, The Conservative Foundations of a Liberal Order  (ISI Books, 2010) 21

Unwrapping Up

December 25, 2011 Leave a comment

This past year has been an incredibly agonizing one for me due to unexpected family events and the subsequent heartrending trauma that accompanies such a trajectory.  At the same time, though, I’ve become increasingly aware of a fundamental shift going on in my own nature – the shedding of my flimsy oft pretentious human nature to reveal Substantial Reality.  The nexus between these two versions of my person has been continued prayer for others and a regular partaking of the Eucharist.

 The whole divestment process has not been easy. In fact, it has been acutely painful, its unpleasantness much like what Eustace described to Edmund in C.S. Lewis’ The Voyage of the Dawntreader.  Here Eustace relates his dragon skin being torn off by Aslan.

 ”The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. but the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don’t know if he said any words out loud or not.

I was just going to say that I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that’s what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.

But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that’s all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I’ll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.

Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, however many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

Then the lion said – but I don’t know if it spoke – ‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

The very first tear he made was do deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know – if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.

Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there I was as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on – and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. You’d think me simply phoney if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they’ve no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian’s, but I was so glad to see them.

After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me – (with his paws?) – Well, I don’t exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes – the same I’ve got on now, as a matter of fact. and then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream.”

Here’s what is being peeled away from me (not for the queasy!):

 - A sentimentality of the kind that keeps my soul inbred, subservient to its self-rationalizing self-pity.

 - The desire to control a situation or someone to obtain a pleasant outcome, to soften reality’s blow and effectively deny its painful truth. 

 - Pretense.

 - The need to look good so as to impress others with my abilities, the need to compete for another’s attention hoping to gain the pride of place.

 - The impulse to take action when waiting would be the most prudent – not easy, but prudent.

- The lack of acceptance at face-value of knowledge presented as feminine – intuitive, passive, receptive.

 - The lack of acceptance of wisdom as a gift from God and therefore not derived as a human accomplishment.

The list, the shedding, goes on…

 As this painful process continues I am beginning to see my Real self emerging. This in turn has invoked in me a need to return to my baptismal vows and to those baptismal waters that I at one time had thought only help serve to moisten and seal the earnest of one’s inheritance in Christ.  Little attention did I pay to my rapidly developing dragon skin. 

 Today, by fire and trial and Aslan’s claws, I am being freed of the hardened outer layer of self-protection and I am submersing myself in the waters of my baptism.  In doing so, I, the vulnerable suppliant I, has become alive to the REAL – the “perfectly delicious” Real.

 This peeling away is all about knowing Christ and the fellowship of His sufferings. That is True Reality.

The Birth of Social Networking

December 25, 2011 Leave a comment

Jingle Bells Refinanced

December 22, 2011 Leave a comment

 

 

Juggle Bills

Dashing through the dough

In a one-shot spending spree

 O’er the aisles we go

 Buying all we see

 Bills our mailman brings

 Making faces white

My Christmas bonus couldn’t ding

Our family’s debt tonight!

 

 (chorus)

 

Oh, Juggle bills, juggle bills,

Juggle every day.

Oh! What pain it is to know

We’ll someday have to pay.

 Juggle bills, juggle bills,

Juggle every day.

Oh! What pain it is to know

 We’ll someday have to pay.

 

 

A month or two ago

I thought I’d skip a bill

But soon collections called

My spirits they did grill

The debt was overdue

Misfortune seemed my lot

They said they had to sue

But nothing’s all they got.

 

 (chorus)

 

Oh, Juggle bills, juggle bills,

Juggle every day.

Oh! What pain it is to know

We’ll someday have to pay.

 Juggle bills, juggle bills,

Juggle every day.

Oh! What pain it is to know

We’ll someday have to pay.

 

 

Jingle Bells adapted by Sally Paradise

When I Think of Christmas

December 11, 2011 2 comments

 

 

When I think of Christmas I think of the King of Love laid in a manger -

Sovereignty supine under sterling stars twinkling through millennia of delight,

Sublimity submitted to the gaze of cherubim and seraphim and slack-jawed shepherds.

 

When I think of Christmas I think of a Son,

A Son, whose tiny hands, emptied of Omnipotence, outstretched from the eternal Embrace,

Nailed to a tree -

A tree of death – bearing my Exclusion!

 

When I think of Christmas I think of swaddling clothes

Later to be exchanged for a seamless robe and then for a torn veil,

And then, for a burial shroud turned inside out.

 

When I think of Christmas I think of no room in the inn

And later finding an upper room so as to lay my head on Him Who breaks His Body,

Who pours out His blood,

Who lays down His life for His friends.

 

When I think of Christmas I think,

Friends walking in Embrace:

“Do not our hearts burn within us, from that first day until now,

Whenever Christmas comes to our house?”

 

 

© Jennifer A. Johnson, 2011, All Rights Reserved

Have it Their Way: Obamacare

December 10, 2011 Leave a comment

Recently, in my reading of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Philosophy: Everything Is Fire, a book included in the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series, I came across the term “McDonaldlization”.

This term, coined by sociologist George Ritzer in his 1993 book The McDonalization of Society, defines how Ritzer sees the dehumanizing affects on society through the use of a fast-food restaurant’s operation methodology in many of our businesses and our institutions.  He tells us that the scientific methods affecting us are efficiency, calculability, predictability (standardization), control and irrational rationality.

“Most specifically, irrationality means that rational systems are unreasonable systems. By that I mean that they deny the basic humanity, the human reason, of the people who work within or are served by them.” (Ritzer 1994:154)

As a process characteristic of doing business, whether as providing a service or a good to someone, McDonaldlization makes sense. But it only makes sense up until the point the customer is served and satisfied by such process.  If the customer is not satisfied the process would need to adapt in order to satisfy the customer or the provider would likely lose his customer.  Within a free market business scenario both the provider and the receiver have choices and they are free to make them. Certainly it is no secret that many people eat at McDonalds or drink Starbucks coffee, receiving the products and service of these companies which embrace process characteristics described above. Others do not seek those products and services. They are free to choose otherwise.

With the Obamacare bureaucratic healthcare franchise coming to a town near you, you the patient will no longer have a choice.  Medical providers will no longer have a choice.  Both the provider and the patient must now provide and receive respectively what is calculated, predictable, rational and efficient. All of this process will be controlled by the Federal Government.  You are being told a lie that things won’t change regarding your health care under Obamacare.  They will change dramatically under this newly created centrally planned institution. You should know that Central Planning Officer (CPO), the health-care computer, will not let you “have it your way.”

In another article in the afore-mentioned book titled Kicking the Hornet’s Nest:  The Hidden “Section” in Every Institution the writer describes how man-made institutions tend to become corrupt to maintain and protect its own power under the banner of providing a benefit to others. Institutions “trumpet rationality” (scientific management), “boast stability” (inertia to change or to adaptation for individual needs) and “pronounce power” (we need power to protect you) and yet as we look at our U.S. Congress we see that “Institutions cannot simply be swept clean of their corrupt elements; rather, they tend toward corruption in their very being.  The injustice of the institution appears necessary for the maintenance of the institution.”  Institutions do not care about democracy. They do not care about your vote.

Institutions tend to serve those in power. When this happens you will be subjugated to the rationality of the institution for the protection of the institution. And, the institution will protect itself. Rationality has nothing to do with how you the patient feels. You will then know the irrational rationality of the institution. Do you understand this?

Now, do you also understand that Obamacare is a loss of choice?  Do you understand it is loss of liberty and, more importantly, of human dignity? Do you understand that you will now become codified just like medical diagnoses and services are now codified? Do you understand Obamacare is a loss of privacy?  And, of protection?

There are people right now who want all of your medical records on tap so as they say “to make things run more efficiently for the doctor/patient relationship.” We are headed to the McDonaldlization of health care via the institution of Obamacare.  Wait till the Obamacare franchise hits town. You will be Big Mac’d in thirty seconds or less.

Where are the Parents?

December 4, 2011 Leave a comment

Pretense, Part 2: The World Has Become a Jerry Springer Show

In a previous post linked above I pointed out that family life in America is producing children who could easily become guests on the Jerry Springer Show later in life.

Here is a video of Theodore Dalrymple giving us more anecdotal evidence of this:

American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2012: Gingrich-Daniels

December 4, 2011 2 comments

“I simply can’t imagine a society that is radically secular or anti-religious that is nonetheless able to sustain liberty and human dignity in any meaningful way,” says Daniel J. Mahoney, author of The Conservative Foundations of the Liberal Order: Defending Democracy against Its Modern Enemies and Immoderate Friends.

“Precisely because Gingrich is right about the moral crisis the country is facing — millions of lives and entire communities destroyed by drugs, alcohol, gangs, and violence — there is a moral imperative for him to fill the leadership vacuum and address the growing devastation.” Arianna Huffington, Why Newt Must Run, The Weekly Standard, 1995 (h/t Legal Insurrection)

The video below provides a great opportunity to become familiar with Newt Gingrich. I suggest watching the complete video. Of special interest to me is the segment starting at 27:51 regarding his moral character, his family background, his promotion of wisdom, his Christianity and his discovery of the power of the Eucharist.

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