Looking Progressive

"It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been motivated by the fear of not looking sufficiently progressive. "
- Charles Peguy

I can certainly relate to this. - DOB

Man on Wire

I watched this last night and I have never been so amazed at a story like this. Amazed in the sense of wonder and disbelief. This guy is just on a different plane than everyone else. Tightrope walking between the tops of the Twin Towers in NYC? It made me think of three things:

1) Insanity. Of course. Yet, is was the insanity to do something beautiful and surreal. Insanity to take us away from the normal drudgery of our lives. A wonderful thumb in the pie, if you will.

2) Kierkegaard. Obviously, this man had been captured by something transcendental. Something irresistible that made him go beyond the "ethical" mode that the majority of us find ourselves in. It made me quite envious of that state with the full understanding that an undertaking of that magnitude would never fall to me.

3) Art. I have been given of late a monumental influx of appreciation for art. Literature, especially. But visual art and music is right up there. What this man did was art. Graceful art. Notice the smile and salute he gave 110 stories above the ground. It was literally the most wonderful performance I have ever seen.

It was the sublime act of a dead man offering horrific martyrdom to something transcendent. Crazy transcendent but transcendent nonetheless.

If I Needed You

There are several things that resonate with me in this song and Van Zandt's recounting of how he came to write it. First of all, he was broke, sick, and alone (with regard to companionship of his own) at the time. Secondly, it was his unconscious that wrote the song in a dream, waking him up in the middle of the night. Thirdly, it is the lyrics that poignantly and clearly articulate a place of need and a desire to be loved in that need. Townes Van Zandt was a brilliant man with a powerful insight. - DOB

David Brooks Article - People Are Irrational

The economic spirit of a people cannot be manipulated in as simple-minded a fashion as the Keynesian mechanists imagine. Right now political and economic confidence levels are running in opposite directions. Politically, we’re in a season of optimism, but despite a trillion spent and a trillion more about to be, the economic spirit cowers.

Mechanistic thinkers on the right and left pose as rigorous empiricists. But empiricism built on an inaccurate view of human nature is just a prison.

This is an amazing article by David Brooks. Read it all here. - DOB

Howlin' Wolf

One of my favorites. - DOB

Ted Haggard Was Given No Quarter

The following are exerpts from a recent Foxnews.com article:

"The reason I kept my personal struggle a secret is because I feared that my friends would reject me, abandon me and kick me out, and the church would exile and excommunicate me. And that happened and more..."

Haggard moved his family to Arizona after the scandal and also lived in Texas. He re-emerged last month at a rural Illinois church, where he delivered guest sermons and said he was sexually abused as a second-grader.

He now sells insurance and, in the documentary, says he isn't successful.
"At this stage in my life, I am a loser," he says.

Read the whole article here.

Ever since this happened, I have not been able to get it out of my mind. I remember hearing his interview on Issues, Etc. (unfortunately, I cannot link the interview because the Missouri Synod inexplicably yanked the show suddenly... it is now, thankfully, back on the air) before it became known that he was sleeping with a male prostitute and buying meth. Haggard was saying he had not sinned in some time and the host of the show was challenging him with the Sermon on the Mount. I remember thinking, "Ha, ha. Here's another Christian who doesn't think he sins. He obviously doesn't understand the bondage of the will. Ha, ha, LOL..." and all other sorts of derogatory (and arrogant) remarks.

Well, then it happened. The male prostitute saw him on television and then publicly revealed the whole affair. The secular (and theological) Left and the gay lobby were ecstatic. They watched gleefully as the life of an enemy (how could they ever regard him as anything other than that?) was destroyed and sank below the waves like the Titanic. No quarter.

Then, the Christian Right totally threw him under the bus. And then (just so no mistake could be made about it), they backed the bus right up so it could run over him again. The church of our Lord Jesus Christ, friend of sinners, turned its back on Ted Haggard. No quarter.

Read this again: "The reason I kept my personal struggle a secret is because I feared that my friends would reject me, abandon me and kick me out, and the church would exile and excommunicate me. And that happened and more..." Thank God, however, for that rural Illinois church that took him in and his wonderful wife.

I'll spare you, the reader, my theological disputation on this. If you look back into the archives of this blog, you will find it. I simply want to address Rev. Haggard with these words from my tradition's Book of Common Prayer:

Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all that truly turn to him.

Come unto me all that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you. St. Matth. xi. 28.

So God loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. St. John iii. 16

Hear also what Saint Paul saith.
This is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be received, That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. 1 Tim. i. 15.

Hear also what Saint John saith.
If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins. 1 St. John ii. 1.

God bless you, Ted Haggard. Sleep well tonight because you have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. - DOB

Just Let Me See...

"...Before the stations of the mountain of desolation,
Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow,
Now at this birth season of decease,
Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,
Grant Israel's consolation
To one who has eighty years and no to-morrow..."
- T.S. Eliot A Song for Simeon (Luke 2:29-32)

Penn & Teller Are Atheists But....