The Obama Legacy

Bruce Haynes accurately paints a picture of the Obama Legacy by using the current election season as the palette. Excerpt:

In Iowa and New Hampshire, the two states where the most campaigning has been done, I give you the respective leaders for their parties’ nominations:



Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

Think about that. This is what two terms of Barack Obama has wrought. In Iowa and New Hampshire, two Purple states, swing states that decide presidential elections, the Democrats want a declared Socialist and the Republicans want an angry Populist.

Obama’s legacy could actually be a Sanders vs. Trump general election. Yes, I realize that there are miles to go in this race, and yes I have the humility to realize I might have a better chance of winning the Powerball than to explain right now who will win this race. But to be here, in this place, three weeks out from the night of the Iowa Caucuses, is truly extraordinary.

The Benedict Option FAQ

Q: What is the Benedict Option?

A: The Benedict Option is people, alone, apart, or together, talking about the words "the Benedict Option", some for profit, some just for fun.

Watch this space. If the Benedict Option ever becomes anything more, we'll be the first to let you know.

Songs for the Benedict Option parodying itself

(NB Pauli: perhaps it will simply beat itself to death with its other shoe)

Well, this is one way for Rod Dreher to put a halt to my making fun of his Benjamins Option* cult fraud being perpetrated on psychologically needy or otherwise uncritical Christians - by taking the lead himself.

Did I use the phrase "Dungeons and Dragons for Boutique Christians" in a recent comment? Well, here you go - Songs for the Benedict Option.

I'm going to excerpt a great wad of Dreher's hilariously cynical in-your-face-you-gullible-snipes mocking of his own reader-followers, because I could care less whether Dreher-TAC likes it or not, but mostly because, frankly, this beats anything I had on hand myself.

So here you go, Benjamins Option fans, future history pole-vaulting straight to farce:

Radu Razvan / Shutterstock.com

A couple of you have sent me this song by a singer/songwriter named Bill Mallonee, suggesting it as a theme song for the Benedict Option:

Winnowing (CD, Vinyl or Digital Download formats!) by Bill Mallonee & The Darkling Planes

Here are the lyrics:

IN THE NEW DARK AGE (the only lamp burning bright is you)

All the dominoes fell
we went under a spell
and all hell. broke. loose.
Everything you held dear
when the dust finally cleared
it was just as you feared

Chorus:
In the new dark age
Nobody puts up a fight
In the new dark age
You’ll see no flares in the night
The only lamp burning bright…is you

All the mask [sic] came off
All disguises were dropped
The game was declared over
Love was escorted out
There was hardly a shout
I’ll take the crimson & clover

We’re all mystics & freaks
With the spirit beneath
Deeper than any ocean
Let the string section “riff”
Seal it up with a kiss
Honey, we are all golden

In the new dark age
no one trusts anyone
In the new dark age
they forget to have fun
The only light from the sun…is you
In the new dark age
nobody puts up a fight
In the new dark age
you’ll see no flares in the night
The only lamp burning bright…is you
The only lamp burning bright…is you

Nice. If I were writing it, I would only tweak it to say that the only lamp burning bright is us, and then put a verse in about Christ as the light of the world, and the only reason we burn in the darkness is that He burns within us. Then it would be truly Ben Oppy, though I would have to get over my reflexive, irrational prejudice against contemporary Christian music in order to listen to it.

And then there’s this 2004 standby, “Dégenération,” from the Quebecois band Mes Aïeux, which wouldn’t take much alteration — a verse about the loss of faith and Christian tradition — to be a perfect Ben Op song:

Alright, that's quite enough, don't you think? Frankly, I'd take the crimson & clover over this myself.
 
But, still, who says radical, adolescent role-playing nouveau-Christianisme can't be a ton o' funzies, even truly Ben Oppy.

Will there be an official BenOpCon - not the standard operating procedure, the Star Wars kind - where we can all dress up in SCA-esque costumes and sing the Songs for the Benedict Option?

If there is, I'll be there in my new, officially pretentious Benjamin Options avatar, The Wordsmith Monkster.

Strumming a lute.

*NOTE: all uses of my favorite new phrase should be credited to its originator, commenter Tom.

"Radiant on the River"

Here's some beautiful poetry translated from the Maronite Liturgy. The hat tip goes to Siris, a blog I recently discovered.

First Sunday after Epiphany
2 Corinthians 10:1-11; John 1:29-34

John by the river saw Jesus
and proclaimed with true prophecy:
Behold the holy Lamb of God!
He takes away all of our sins;
I came that He might be revealed,
forgiveness radiant on the river.

O Son of the Almighty God!
You stooped to receive Your baptism.
The Father proclaimed You His Son.
The Holy Spirit like a dove
in power rested on Your head,
divinity radiant on the river.

With Your baptism You have clothed us,
the robe of glory you give to us,
the seal of the Holy Spirit,
the promise of holy rebirth
in water and in the Spirit
with Your light radiant on the river.

We do not fight with human strength;
we wield weapons of the Spirit.
The darkness has already lost;
with a glance from God light poured down
in magnificence and glory,
through His grace radiant on the river.

May divinity dwell in us
through the Spirit's descent on us;
may our minds receive Christ's great light.
Through Word and Spirit God made all;
Word and Spirit He gave to us
in splendor radiant on the river.

"NOT TODAY!"

Love it.

The danger is that we might nominate, even elect, someone with these qualifications

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

That is, someone like this

Trump

or this

Drump

or, God forbid, even this

Neither

(no, really, my Mom's a natural born citizen; and, no, you can't ask.)

My point is, as much as 21st Century Americans may still subliminally long to be governed by a Better Quality Lord or Lady Lickbottom, our Constitution plainly sets the qualification bar no higher than their own Everyman selves.

It can do that because no part of our constitutional republic is important unto itself - least of all a One as chief executive. Rather, our constitutional republic itself is the only important thing, as a system where the whole holds every single element within it in imminent check mate.

Or at least that's the theory.

Things break down, though, when the other elements of the system, beginning with the electorate, start deferring or outsourcing their responsibilities. When we, instead of being conservative (or, hell, liberal) ourselves, start looking, not for someone to legally implement our individual conservatism, but rather for someone to vicariously be conservative in our stead.

When our Legislative, in order to not risk looking bad in media, abrogates its responsibilities to the Executive.

Or when the Judicial, deferring to the Legislative, abrogates its own, separate responsibilities to maintain a constitutional separation of powers.

That's when Caesar becomes poised to take the stage, and the only thing worse than the other guy's Caesar is the one we yearn for ourselves.

So don't fear Trump becoming President, or Drump, or even me. Fear instead your own passive acquiescence into letting any one of us - or you - become a One.

Mary's Advocates doing great work for Catholic Marriage

I was gratified to see an article about one of my favorite advocacy groups out there in The National Catholic Register. Mary's Advocates is a group which basically seeks to protect families from the no-fault divorce industry. Unfortunately the industry has affected the way the Catholic Church deals with people wishing to get annulments whose spouses want to preserve their marriage. The group was started by Bai Macfarlane whose husband basically ditched her and strong-armed her legally to get custody of their children. Here's an excerpt from the article:

In a way, her decade-old ministry anticipated the call issued by the recent Synod on the Family to show “appreciation and support” for the “witness of those who, even in difficult conditions, do not undertake a new union, remaining faithful to the sacramental link.” (See Paragraph 83 in the final report.)

Mary’s Advocates fills a gap in marriage counseling, according to George Robinson, one of its volunteers. On one end of the spectrum are counseling, spiritual retreats and programs for marriages in which both parties want it to work. On the other end are marriages in which both parties don’t want the marriage to be saved. But what about those in the middle — marriages in which one spouse is committed to the marriage but the other wants to move on?

That’s where Mary’s Advocates comes in.

Robinson should know: He has been there before. “It’s so hard to find somebody else who has the same view: being ‘My spouse left me, but I’m still married,’” Robinson explained.

For faithfully separated spouses like Robinson, monthly conference calls run by Mary’s Advocates have become a true godsend. “It’s a time to be able to speak to people who get it, and that’s very special to us,” Robinson said.

The calls usually feature prayer and discussion of a chapter of The Gift of Self: A Spiritual Companion for Separated and Divorced Faithful to the Sacrament of Marriage; it is followed by informal conversation, according to Robinson, who organizes the meetings. The conversation continues through an ongoing Yahoo discussion group.

I just donated $100.00 to this group because I really believe in what Bai is doing. Click here to donate to Mary's Advocates.

She has a Facebook page also.

The Terrifying World

Jack Handey characterized the frankness of children thusly: "The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face." But frankness in childhood expression doesn't stop with speech.

The thing I enjoy most about finding uncommissioned artwork my children have created is how surprising it can be. Unlike the feeble gimmicks commonly called shock art, these pieces shock and arouse adults with an honest portrayal of reality from a child's perspective, even when the subject matter is derivative and the talent undeveloped.

The world contains terror alongside beauty and innocence, and Charles Schulz would agree. His comics are full of the fantastic such as Charlie Brown's clothes being removed by a line drive or Snoopy flying atop his doghouse. Being somewhat familiar with these famous images, I was nevertheless unnerved by my 11-year-old son's interpretation of a rather helpless Charlie Brown being terrorized by a Lucy who is twice his size and relentlessly pummeling him with a sound-cloud of insults.

"Stupid, dope, wishy-washy, lame, weak, dumb, lousy, wimp, idiot!" I asked my son about the picture; I said "Wow, this looks more like child abuse than a Peanuts comic. I've never felt so bad for Charlie Brown. Is she actually picking him up?" He just sort of smiled and calmly explained that Lucy is indeed picking Charlie Brown up, shaking him up and down, and yelling those names at him.

Lucy isn't just a mean, bossy girl here. She's an evil thug with ugliness to match. Charlie Brown isn't just the neighborhood loser. He's a victim of violence....

His sketch probably suffers a bit from insecurity and girl-fear in his 11-year-old mind, but probably not an abnormal amount. He recently played Charlie Brown in his school's production of A Charlie Brown Christmas, and perhaps his artwork was his way of helping himself relate to the character. I hope I'm worrying too much about his state-of-mind, fear of bossy girls, etc. and I'm fairly sure I am. My world is full of surprises, and I'm much more hopeful for my 11-year-old son than I am for Charlie Brown.

Here's to good surprises in the New Year.