Christmas Day

One need not believe, i. e. subscribe to, the doctrine of the Virgin Birth in order to understand the power that lies behind the doctrine.

First consider the time of year.  The old is past.  Future time  the unknown, lies before us. It has a virginal.  Our time belongs to us to shape. 

The child represents ourselves in oour new beginnings.  For some, it does imply laying aside old habits which limit growth.  We thus free ourselves to cultivate better habits that foster improved well being. 

All this applies whether on accepts the historical rality of the Birth Of Jesus or not.  

Other points. 

This particular statue by Bernini, bears some resemblance  to the East Asian Quan Yin  which symbolize mercy.

A friend of mine once asked why people from Asia did not have apparitions of Mary. Easy!  Nothing in their culture has predisposed them to see Mary:  Quan Yin yes. 

Christmas Eve

I was 14.  My brother had gone of somewhere with his friends.  Mother and I went to her friends house to eat our way through Christmas Eve.

Some time before 10:30PM I began ti gyrate and bounce as a lot of un medicated ADHD people do.  The neighborhood friend guided me into the bedroom that had the second tv.

I went channel  surfing and came accross Midnight Mass from St. Patrick's in the big apple.

Theatre!  Wow!

Tsk Tsk you say.  Nay Nay say I.  What is it that a Christian does when they go to church.  They retell the reason for thier hope as Paul says.

It's just that some people need more tinsel than others. 

Bah & Hum - Bug

This guy and a few like him hold that the present form of the Roman liturgy is invalid.  Aside from the fact that most reasonable people wouldn't know a valid liturgy if one ran them down in trafic, one might ask what does all that mean anyway.

But, l;et us move on  to the pointe.   They insist that the older Tridentine liturgy from the council of Trent remains The Roman rites only valid litrugy.

At last, we come to the pointe.  Why isn't the Sarum liturgy O. K..  Or, its predecessor in the area near Salisbury, the  St. James liturgy.  And don't forget the Mosarabic.   Why that tired old thing from Trent?

Trent really aimed at imposing Romes way od doing things on everyone else.  They used the excuse of uniformity.  Bah and hum-bug .   

What is a town hall meeting?

We go to a town hall meeting. 

• Everyone there knows everyone else. 
• I say something that somebody else does not like. 
• The next day, that somebody does not come to my store and buy what I sell.  
• Instead they go elsewhere  -- Walmart.

So I live in an environment where my political stance has economic conseuences.

How is publishing Names and addresses different?
Discuss.

History And Men

Men?  What does Jix;eu  mean here?  He speaks of the whole of man kind.  He speaks as if we in the West should discover some truth and as if by magic all other men in all other cultures will see it and conform to it.  

It doesn't work that way.  People don't change their culture that way.  

Each  parent bears the responsibility for rasing a child to adulthood in such a way that the child can take up a mature role.  Yet, all too many parents  -- if one can actually use that word in so many cases --  fall short of that mark.  I'm sure that they do not do so deliberatly.  Circumstances, lack of knowledge, and a host of variables produce a small number of folk who fall behind.  or don't get it. 

History and it's study does not fix this.  Good parenting does. 

Why Paris?

Why Paris. 

· [1]It’s France.

· Yes!  The same France the received Syria as a League of nations  mandate at the end of World War I.

· And no.  It was not a good experience. 

· Just ask Ho Chi Min about how it was to live under French domination.

· Shh,  don’t say Algeria.

---

[1] I spell checked this.  I really did.   I think.  Let’s see.

Catholic Bibles: NT Wright + NIV = Not Friends

Catholic Bibles: NT Wright + NIV = Not Friends

Money Grit And A College Education

Some time ago, researchers reported a discrepency in earnings between people who had graduated from High School and those who earned a GED.

 A truely close friend, posited an answer.  The answer?  People who complete High School have more grit or gumption than those in  the GED group.

Researches report that people with a college education  earn more than those with only a high school education.  But what causes this?

Surely finances play a major part in education.  So, president O'Bama proposes to make a two year AA from  community colleges  free.   Hence, the graduates would earn more.  Right?

But, does the discrepency in earnings between college educated and non-college  educated arise from the education alone or

 ??? You fill in the blank here.

Yes,  free tuition will most likely  increase the number of people  who make that highly desirable higher income level.  And, yes, the B minus requirement will have an impact on the grit issue.  But, can we tease out the grit factor from the education factor I believe that we might profit from such a teasing.

We might, also, profit from research which would show us how to teach grit.   

Some considerations

HOLD IT
We have virtually band the performance of "Dixie" and the display of the confederate battle flag.
We do so in response to the objetions of peoople of color.
 
So, why don't we respect the sensitivity of Muslims.
They find the depiction of The Prophet offensive.  Never mind questions of extremism. 
 
It almost seems that Europeans want to antagonize Muslims.  They go on about freedom of expression.  
The French ban the display of crucifixes.  They require that Muslim women refrain from wearing the Hi jab.  
Is that freedom of religion or freedom from religion.
How does that fit with freedom of expression

The Hi Jab or the Burka disturbs me not because of a religious foxus but because of a cultural focus.  
As best as I can feel it so far, the two practices say something about refusing to assimilate.  The practice says little to me about modesty.  Both practices arise from ancient Bedouin - Arab cultural frameworks.  

In other times and in other places, the Arab culture has over run the culture of host countries.   
For all that, I find little difference between my characterization of the  Arab practices and that of the Stalinist Russian expansionism that still haunts our present world. 

If these Arab practices do reflect an expressionist attitude does not the extant culture have a right to object and respond. 
If expansionism an Arabist conquest does not lie at the heart of the issue,   Wjhy do these people come here yet refuse to leave behind the culture they have fled., 

Not to be dismissive, one can say something in between.
These people have left their homeland and culture behind.  They do so voluntarily but with regret. 
The well has dried up so to speak at home.  The waters of that well have suffered pollution.  These peoople can no longer make a living.  Yet, they long for what they have left behind.   They have moved to suvive.   Most of them lack the sophistication of a cultural anthropologist , diplomat, or skilled international business person., 

We of the European ancestral line whose countries seem to offer to these folk a hope for a better life have the obligation of understanding the position of the migrant.   This position has many layers and complexities to it.   We do ourselves a disservice to approach these questions with simplistic jingoistic peti  bourgeois natterings.

The question raised takes on added dimension when an USA American looks to the Mexican border. T he question of respect for American laws  -- i. e. imigration law --  really stirs the pot for some of our native born citizens.  

I can see the respect  issue  as truely troubling if that perspective is the only one that informs the conversation.   Imagine opening our borders to people who have no intentions of respecting our laws.  
I found myself waxing angry at a self-appointed  immigrant rights  activist  who spoke one after noon.  Three times in the NPR interview the reporter asked the activist  about the question of respect for American immigration law.   The activist didn't even attempt to answer the question.  Whe simply ignored it and repeated her talking points.   I wanted to hear from her a careful exposition of why immigrant rights and or compassion trumped considerations of law.  What shall we make of that approach? 

In any case, We of the target countries of immigration or migration   have the responsibility of  considering ion a blanced and judicious manner these questions.  We cannot afford to emphazie compassion over self-reservation or visa versa.