Wonderful Matters

The Romans are making forays into Sudan, working valiantly to cure all pain and suffering there. To see what I mean, go to The Catholicist Nation for my latest webzine piece. It's an elaboration of a thread I'd been writing about in my blog, so if you read Wonderful Matters it should look familiar.

Just want to direct you to a magnificent devotional, one that I read this morning during my quiet time. I don't want to say anything about it. You've just got to read it. It's at Radio Bible Class . I write frequently of horrific things all around to draw attention to the wonderful matters involved. This may seem wildly contradictory, but the reason I do this is because in the face of the most abject evil, the most wretched body of death-- there is a Body of Life. He is Jesus Christ. And He has a place for you if you'd just let Him be your shepherd. Anyway, again, check out the devotional. Your heart will definitely get a tad wrenched. Because, yeah, It is possible to see at Christmas...

Just a quick heads-up about an editorial in the Los Angeles Times today, a piece by Martin Kaplan titled "National Debate--Who Needs It?" It's worth a read, just because he puts a mortal wound in the entire postmodern hegemony by firmly declaring that he's tired of talking. He just wants to know what's true . Ironically, if postmodernism is true, then talking, really, is pointless. We should all be sitting alone in our interpretive community corners sucking our thumbs comfortable with our stories . If I can't find out anything that's authentically, objectively true by speaking with someone, then what's the point? So then talking is invaluable . The key question Kaplan is concerned about is, what precisely is the truth that we should know from our discourse? Yes, it is true, talking just to talk is narcissism. Oh I'm not dismissing the truth of interactive engagement for the sake of vibrant relationship, but that itself is a truth . Okay, I've ...

In yesterday's Los Angeles Times there appeared a full-page ad about saving Darfur, the war ravaged region of Sudan that is truly a humanitarian catastrophe. The ad had a photograph of a shirtless male survivor of the genocidal violence, the scars on his chest from shrapnel-filled bomb injuries quite plain to see. Wow, sounds like a call for the one person who heals, who saves, who loves to come into this situation. Sounds like the ad called for Jesus. Nah. 'Course not. It called for the guy people think is better, stronger, higher. They called for President Bush. "Tell President Bush: You must do more to save Darfur" is what the ad said. Now you'd think those who truly follow Christ and know who He is would find this comical, but alas, so many of them are piled into the World bandwagon that they just don't get it. They are not getting it to such a great degree that they miss the obvious, as do all the Radical Selfists who fiercely plead with the World to end ...

The talk around the country is the release of the Iraq Study Group Report, and its recommendations regarding U.S. involvement in Iraq. I got the gist of what they were saying, and certainly all good American Catholicists will have their opinion about what it says and what we should do. Does it recommend what Rome did? If I'm not mistaken, I believe Rome conquered a territory by rounding up all the king's lieutenants and executing every one. Every single one of them. They then brought the king to Caesar's rostrum for all to see, and dropped him to the floor where Caesar placed his foot on his neck and asked him a simple question. "Are you with me, or your former country?" If he answered "Caesar," he was allowed to live. If he answered the latter, he too was executed. Saddam Hussein has already made his choice. Why is contemporary Rome allowing all of his lieutenants to run around fomenting what everyone now concedes is a civil war? Certainly at th...