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American Rights & The Workings of Black Power as We Know it

This post is my effort to address a crisis of the lack of white racial consciousness in America. It is my effort to communicate the truth clearly on those issues related to that in those terms.

This is the kind of post I avoided writing for much of my life. There are many more things I could write and don’t. I do not wish to inflame passions outside of the right and proper conduits and outlets for their best and highest expression. I know that divisions can become very serious indeed. I do not wish to unwisely divide the country.  I do remember all my life being part of a regional remembering perhaps illustrated well in a video clip found here. Besides my connections to a long interest in the history of the States which formed the Confederacy I am a ware of how complex it can be to maintain that history. I am aware of how honoring it can be a means of empowering people who are the enemies of that heritage and always have been as well as those who have very different visions and wish to corrupt those goals and dreams and traditions for very different ones. Nonethless, Confederate feeling survives and the reader can come into contact with  some of those who make a strong effort to publicly preserve its essence here and here.

The definite connections I feel to the South have strong connections to the sense of loss, defeat and desperation which I associate with the end of the War Between the States and the aftermath of that war. The significance of race in that conflict is a subject for many books and not so much for a brief blog post. But the Confederates were fighting against Black Republicanism among other things and elsewhere in this blog I have discussed how that is relevant to our current situation. My Model Constitutions  both State and of the Union are among the permanent pages of this blog and also are among my most serious attempts to address these issues although of course they address many other issues as well.

It should be clear that I am not living in shame and secrecy. We will face the future are it will devour us from behind regardless of whether I try to write about it. But America should be aware of what Black Power , Black Africanism,  the continuous massive assault by a conscious pan-Black group which is willing to lead an anti-white legion of identities. White racists often make anti-white unity easier. In South Africa the ANC got Indians and Zulus eventually to side with the rebellious Black common folk but once freedom was achieved rule of the streets by black common criminals was much more of a factor than the many defectors from other identities had feared. Black crime emasculates white men in America and creates a unity of destruction and subversion functioning much as the wave of Hitlerism functioned for a different group in Germany during the Weimar Republic — it is an infrastructure of violence and identity. This infrastructure of violence, rape and intimidation is tied to more serious art, scholarship and politics which seek Black Power  and Black Supremacy in this country and Americans need to see this trend  to see what these factors tend to as conditions of power and organization.

Meanwhile every effort at  universal and national concerns not related to race is condemned by some or many open white supremacists. David Duke and his ilk tend to see Jews as making Whites somnolent when in fact much of the language comes from very Euro-Christian historians of what is called our Civil War in explaining away and lying about factors involved in understanding  the nature of race. political organization and slavery. I am aware of how many neighborhoods, schools, jobs and women Whites have surrendered specifically to Blacks. I am aware of how many people have adopted a life of fear and cowering to black racially conscious violence. I am aware of how many other groups find it safer and better to play a small role in a black supremacist political and social agenda than a white supremacist one. These facts of life in America and around the world are real and important. But I do not want the kinds of extreme solutions which may become possible in a rise of white identity. My Constitutions are my proposal. Blacks should be citizens, they should hold property, they should  hold office. A white supremacist America can offer justice here and address similar problems around the world by being a small contributor to the right solutions.  In addition, racism itself is nothing I greatly love or aspire to foster. White Supremacy and racial consciousness for all I admit to espousing. But I have other values too. Neither my politics nor ideologies are capable of being easily compressed and summarized  into a few simple phrases.

One notes the passing of former poet laureate Maya Angelou, the struggles of the Black African Mariam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag and the latest achievement of some black artist, author or athlete coinciding with this post. It is easy to think that his is not a good time for such a post or that there is never a good time for such a post as this. Martin Luther King, Thurgood Marshall, Maya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey and President Barack Hussein Obama deserve to be treated as American figures. They contributed more up to now to America than to Blacks. But their contribution is always racially conscious and racially motivated. A nuanced White supremacy is needed which can deal with that reality. First we cannot deal effectively with theoretical or idealistic foundations of racial interaction and race policies in this post. The general theory I proclaim here is that when the structures are such that organized race behaviors in favor of Whites are made illegal in America that is a gross distortion of properly functioning social fabric. It also tends to most energize the Black racists who now have an undue advantage over all other players in the new and distorted environment. Here one can find an account of how race plays out in the streets of America which should be disturbing to White people and others in many ways. One wonders how many young White and Asian girls are never on any radio show who have somewhat similar experiences with far less to bring to the confrontation than this person did. One also knows that there are risks posed to innocent young black American men when persons like the victim are made insecure and edgy for a lifetime by certain kinds of confrontational events.

On May 31, 2014 I failed to attend a funeral of a white friend at a largely African-American church. I am who I am and am not hiding much about my politics including a concern about race and yet in the many reasons why I did not attend that funeral the racial issue was probably the least. My own health was a factor but not the principal one and there were many more reasons related to the dynamics of the day. The truth is that race is just one of a number of areas where it is very easy to make false generalizations. This post is about race and US politics from a particular point of view.  I have recently outlined some of my larger political views as they affect the near future here.  This is not South Africa or Zimbabwe. So how much can Black Power really be much worth discussing in the American context?

I am going to argue in one of these rambling and complex blog posts that Black Power has something very much to do with the American present. I think President Obama devoted to making many improbable things come true. His administration makes it possible for people to see things not often considered possible before. Dinesh D’Souza has followed Obama’s anti-colonialism and is putting out another movie that may have insight into his vision of the future. But this post has to do with many things besides the Obama administration. This post is about my life and times and experiences in a variety of contexts.

I just recently posted a couple of blog posts which have been important to the understanding of this subject. Any reader can access those two here and here. One of those is about Memorial Day and about two very different men with very different lives who both served in the US military and are both tied to the memories of Memorial Day for me. The time has passed when I would have done an ordinary and complete obituary for either one of them and I did not attend either of their funerals. Sev was buried in Arlington and his funeral related to that although there were probably closer places that participated in the ritual. Graham’s funeral was out of Our Lady Queen of Peace a mostly Black and  Creole of Color Church with a white pastor whom I have long known. I have attended that church before with Graham. But we have had a complicated relationship and it continued to be complicated even in his passing and so although my parents were participants in the rituals I did not attend his funeral. I did attend a series of lectures my sister gave to a Charismatic group in that same church.

I am writing from the Black Supremacist United States of the Occupied South as well as from the United States of America and the former Confederate States of America. This blog post is about Black Power and Black Supremacist reality as it actually occurs. There will be many struggles along the future and my own role in those struggles hardly portends to be very significant from where I stand just now.

I am writing as one who has already committed himself to a powerful reform of the country. I believe there are others who I do not know well who believe in the possible variety of American truths, one such speaker can be found here. In addition, in a small world and a smaller part of it one cannot help but feel a need to interact with others who may be struggling to achieve some of the same goals even if one does not approve of the large part of the way one expresses certain things in these days. Such is the case with my own connection with the principal author of this short video clip.

This may be a time when France and other powers in Europe can be amenable to conversation. See one possible place for conversation here. I am committed to the certain principles and I have spelled out my positions fairly carefully. But let us be clear that any path forward will be a risky and costly one. I am a man comfortable with travel, familiar with hardship who can work with his hands, I am also the holder of a graduate degree and one content to read a great deal. My political profile has gone from obscure to more obscure. But I am not here looking to join someone else’s vision I am putting forward my own vision.

The title of this post is ambiguous. I meant the rights of Americans have a racial aspect and also that all those on the right in American politics have a responsibility to discuss and understand the racial implications of our lifestyles and policies.  This post is one small part of a life but it is an effort to be direct. It is an effort to say that narrow minded fanaticism can still be averted. A truly American future can still emerge. But we must face the reality and complexity of the threats undermining America’s future.

American whites have long failed to replace the number of white children leaving childhood with babies. That need not be all bad but in our somnolent state is is disastrous. Read this whole article for one take on some implications.    The problem is far more than an American problem, as some have noted. The realities are everywhere complicated.

I believe an America with mixed marriages, social interaction and a future of ambitious projects is possible. I believe we must have a new level of white racial consiousness for that dream to have a chance.

Memorial Day : Graham Smith dies Severin Summers Recalled

I have written about Memorial Day on other years and you can find some of those posts here and here.  Some of the posts on this subject were fairly popular and I think important. They were about what was going on in those years. But this post will focus on a few men and mostly on two tied to this day for different reasons.
This Memorial Day Weekend will be marked in large part by the death of a long-time associate of my family Graham Newton Smith. A link to his personal obituaries outside the press and his funeral arrangements is available here.  He was older than I think I remembered him being and was in fact just a few years younger than my parents having been born in 1947. Being the oldest by many years myself in my family I realize that some people think my parents are younger when I am not around. I suppose his twin girls being the age of my third sister did have me off by a few years as I would say to those inquiring on the day he died that I guessed he was 63 and in fact he was 67. There were others who thought he was younger still and so I amended my guess to between sixty and sixty three. But in fact the stories he told dated him at the age he was. He had done many things even in the decades when we saw each other more often some of those things were from the more distant past.   At one time he and I had been relatively close but he and my parents remained close for decades. I will probably have a longer post dedicated to him as a blog obituary with a link to his services but if I do not it will not be because of a lack of things to write. He was a man of great activity over time.
 I have just been informed less than an hour before this posting that Graham Smith a US Navy Veteran, musician, lawyer, coordinator for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in the Diocese of Lafayette, UL alumnus,technology buff, former television personality, co-author with his wife of the novel “The Nicodemus Code”, and probably most of all in his own mind  husband of Donna Smith and father of Sarah Smith Romero, Ellen Smith (married name to be added) and Andrew Morgan Smith and grandfather of several beautiful children has recently died, I will probably post more links and such later on in the day and tomorrow. I do not know the time or details of his passing. I trust my third or fourth hand information has allowed enough time for all those closest to him to have been called and put this out as a source of some information to which comments can be added. My father received a phone call from one of my brothers and I spoke to a third party as well who confirms this news.My own recent interaction with Graham included these messages:
From Graham Smith to me:”Thanks, Beau! I’m doing better and am now in a regular room instead of ICU.”
That was sent on May 18th, 10:21pm. I replied:
“Great to hear. Hope you continue to recover well and quickly.”Graham Smith answered ” Thanks!”His reply was a couple of days ago and so I was surprised by the news. But some who saw him recently told me after this news that he expired that they thought he was in deep trouble physically. My condolences go out to all of the family and to his many friends.
Graham’s death and life reminds me of how much service in the military many years earlier stays with people as a bond and an influence. I several times saw his bond with other Navy veterans.  I wish this bond was better understood but it is not one I have myself. But I do celebrate Memorial Day. It is a time I honor all the read who once served their country in arms. Of course, as I will repeat below it is mostly a time when I honor those killed in Action under our banners.
Saturday, Dad and I bought a new Weedeater at Stine’s which pays the sales taxes on all items purchased during Memorial Day weekend. We had lunch in town at Hai Nam and then as I rented some movies on Redbox I picked up some flowers we placed on and before the graves where both of my grandfathers and one of my great-grandfathers are buried. All three of them served honorably in the military and all died many years later. Memorial Day is really for honoring the dead killed in action most of all. However none of my kinfolk here were killed in action. I have one relative killed in action who died recently. Some official notice of his passing is available by link here. However, he is buried in Arlington and so I could not go and lay flowers at his grave this weekend.I do remember him here:
Severin W. Summers III was my second cousin named after Severin Leblanc in that his grandfather who was the brother of my grandfather Frank Summers was named after him. Sev was killed on August 2, 2009 in Afghanistan by a command operated improvised explosive device when his vehicle was hit. Severin had a Bachelor of Science degree from LSU and was qualified among other elite distinctions as a U. S. Army Ranger. He did not serve in Ranger Battalion but in the Special Forces proper in the Airborne units. He received at least eight official awards and decorations as well as the badges of various skills, certifications and levels of proficiency. I have not spent huge amount of time with his side of the family although certainly there have been many connections. When I have spoken to them with one major exception it has often centered around military matters. but although it was not very much it was only with Sev among his father and brothers that I ever told any of my own stories of places with gunsmoke, exotic names and uniformed and mufty men scurrying or stalking about under stress. Although we were different even in age and personality he seemed to be easier for me to talk to than most and perhaps some of that was reciprocated. But it is easy to overstate that connection especially as we both knew a lot of people with experiences more similar to those each of us had lived ourselves.He enlisted into military service in 1989. His father and brothers are military men and his wife then Tammy Fraser Summers and daughters Jessica, Shelby and Sarah survived him as well as his mother and sister. He and I were not close and had very different life experiences but I always felt when we did have a conversation it was longer, more detailed and more heartfelt than was the case with me and most people. It may be unfair to say we shared some confidences but I say it anyway. Last time I spoke to him at length was on the shores of False River and there was some concern shared with me about certain issues related to the fitness of some parts of the military in recent years. I think these factors had little to do with his death but the truth is I did very little to address those issues before he died and his words still haunt me sometimes. But Sev was all the gung ho poster boy that I have never been. We did stretch each other in some small ways. He carried the cross in his grandmother’s funeral procession and I felt it was part of an ongoing conversation between us although it was many other things as well. To associate myself with him in any way is too much and not to do so is unthinkable as well. But he is in many ways my main share of Memorial Day.
Photo: Today Dad and I bought a new Weedeater at Stine's which pays the sales taxes on all items purchased during Memorial Day weekend. We had lunch in town at Hai Nam and then as I rented some movies on Redbox I picked up some flowers we placed on and before the graves where both of my grandfathers and one of my great-grandfathers are buried. All three of them served honorably in the military and all died many years later. Memorial Day is really for honoring the dead killed in action most of all. However none of my kinfolk here were killed in action. I have one relative killed in action who died recently. However, he is buried in Arlington and so I could not go and lay flowers at his grave this weekend.</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
<p>I do remember him here:<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
 Severin W. Summers III was my second cousin named after Severin Leblanc in that his grandfather who was the brother of my grandfather Frank Summers was named after him. Sev was killed on August 2, 2009 in Afghanistan by a command operated improvised explosive device when his vehicle was hit. Severin had a Bachelor of Science degree from LSU and was qualified among other elite distinctions as a U. S. Army Ranger. He did not serve in Ranger Battalion but in the Special Forces proper in the Airborne units. He received at least eight official awards and decorations as well as the badges of various skills, certifications and  levels of proficiency.  I have not spent huge amount of time with his side of the family although certinly there have been many connections. When I have spoken to them with one major exception it has often centered around military matters. but although it was not very much it was only with Sev among his father and brothers that I ever told any of my own stories of places with gunsmoke, exotic names and uniformed and mufty  men scurrying or stalking about under stress. Although we were different even in age and personality he seemed to be easier for me to talk to than most and perhaps some of that was reciprocated. But it is easy to overstate that connection especially as we both knew a lot of people with experiences more similar to those each of us had lived ourselves.  </p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
<p> He enlisted into military service in 1989. His father and brothers are military men and his wife then Tammy Fraser Summers and daughters Jessica, Shelby and Sarah survived him as well as his mother and sister. He and I were not close and had very different life experiences but I always felt when we did have a conversation it was longer, more detailed and more heartfelt than was the case with me and most people. It may be unfair to say we shared some confidences but I say it anyway. Last time I spoke to him at length was on the shores of False River and there was some concern shared with me about certain issues related to the fitness of some parts of the military in recent years. I think these factors had little to do with his death but the truth is I did very little to address those issues before he died and his words still haunt me sometimes. But Sev was all the gung ho poster boy that I have never been. We did stretch each other in some small ways. He carried the cross in his grandmother’s funeral procession and I felt it was part of an ongoing conversation between us although it was many other things as well. To associate myself with him in any way is too much and not to do so is unthinkable as well. But he is in many ways my main share of Memorial Day.
My own plans for Memorial Day may involve some food and swimming recreation with my sister and her family. I hope to relax a bit which I feel the need to do. However, I will not pass up the occasion of this holiday without giving some thought to our country and those who have kept it a sovereign country. However, while few Americans have died in Iraq and Afghanistan compared to Viet Nam or Korea or our other major wars perhaps many of have a connection to someone.  For me it is Sev. I hope we will remain a country he could have been  proud to be a part of and will honor his great sacrifice.

Representative Mickey Frith Dies

A former State Representative who represented the district in which I reside has died. One of his family members is well established on my Facebook list and two other have been active or inactive Facebook friends but I had little to do with him in politics, education or in the family home. I subbed a bit at the E. Broussard school which was the successor of the school which was his high school alma mater but it was solely an elementary and middle school when I worked there. We also attended the same university and for a few years I owned some in Forked Island where he was always well known.  He is further off from my life than someone I would normally have as subject of a blog obituary. But he was a significant figure throughout my life. Mickey Frith and I  spoke perhaps no more than thirty times and all of them relatively briefly. But I spent many hours, days and weeks on various parts of my father’s family farm in or near the Forked Island area. This was throughout most of my life. Mickey Frith was a presence in that area whether he was there or not.

There was a time when Mickey’s Drive Inn had  amusement games, food, drink music and air conditioning and was a center of gathering and activity for the small community of Forked Island, Louisiana. Later this business was sold and Mickey’s became a slightly different place with some of the same menu items in the nearby town of Kaplan, Louisiana. He owned a number of business he founded and he bought the well established El Camino Restaurant and ran it at a higher level than before in a town where many such enterprises do not survive sale by the first owner very well. I have sold food to hundreds of restaurants in Louisiana but as far as I know in none of these years did I ever sell or even offer to sell any directly to Mr. Mickey nor in fact sell to his restaurants.

In the pubnlic recor it is mainly the case that former Louisiana State Senator Mickey Frith has died. Of course students and teachers also mourn their dead more than most groups and he was a teacher and assistant principal at his alma mater as well as teaching in a Catholic school, Maltrait Memorial in Kaplan.  His involvment with youth was extensive. He served three terms in the legislature. The article which appeared in the local press including the front page of the Abbeville Meridional should link through here. There is also a website which does not always welcome links but many be available here or by copying this address into your browser: http://www.vincentfuneralhome.net/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=2527610&fh_id=11197church.

Mariam Yashia Ibrahim Ishag: Post One

There is no real time to do the type of work this post demands. But here is an which defines the name Mariam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag beyond a foreign sounding name. There is so much to write about what this means.

However, at minimum we who are Christians should prepare to honor her as a martyr regardless of what branch of the faith we adhere to in our own lives. If she is killed she will meet the standard ancient definition of one killed because of hatred of the faith. That is one thing we can prepare given the short time to try to save her life.

Secondly, as Americans we can urge Congress to declare formal war on Sudan. Given America’s adventurism and wars in so many place and so many attacks on foreign soil in it s history we must not confuse things by allowing this woman to be executed for marrying an American. Once war is declared the court house where she was sentenced, the palaces of the national government, airports and air bases, the jail she was held in, the place of execution and the infrastructure supporting quality of life for the court should be reduced to flaming rubble as a stimulus to further conversation and negotiation. Once this is done well the possibility of a real war can be explored. WAR WITH SUDAN NOW!! should be our battle cry and political objective despite the fact that this is not an ideal solution.

If this cannot be done those of us with private consciences and resources must consider what we can do ourselves however small it may be. God bless the family of this woman and her struggle.

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Nigerian School Girls, Educational Crises and Dixie

I CONDEMN THE ACTS OF BOKO HARAM IN KIDNAPPING AND ATTEMPTING TO SELL THE HUNDREDS OF GIRLS FROM THE SCHOOLS IN THE NORTH OF  NIGERIA. LET ME EXPRESS CLEARLY THAT IT SEEMS TO BE IMMORAL, ILLEGAL AND IMPROPER BY ALMOST EVERY APPLICABLE MEASURE. MY HEART GOES OUT TO THE FAMILIES AND THE GIRLS THEMSELVES WHO FEEL CHEATED, BETRAYED AND TERRORIZED. That is a sincere summary of my general feelings about this matter. Educating girls has been a big part of my life and I have also long opposed radical Islamists. But I do have a few more discomforting things to write. I think it is terrible that families have had their hopes and investment disrupted and that is more serious than merely emotional agony in terms of its effect on the economy and future of Nigeria. Further the funds of the sale will support non-conventional Islamist warfare in the world. However, the war is brutal and slavery may have saved the girls from being burnt alive as much a s it motivated the attack. It may have been more about war happening anyway and the girls surviving because of the option of slavery. For a view different that I have just given but laid out here by a serious new organization go here. So if slavery is o The fact and idea of slavery saving the lives of war captives is nothing new. It is as old as ancient slavery and the Classical period in the West. Go here for a bit of a review of how this worked. Most of these girls would probably not vote to have been burned alive instead of abducted. The problem gets even more complex when we realize that unlike history as taught in the US and UK slavery has been a roaring concern for the last several centuries. It has changed since the transatlantic slave trade was outlawed and the Southern States lost the US Civil war but it has endured in many places. This is a difficult time to comment on all the things that underlie the weakness of the United States of America as it faces its future.  The truth is that Boko Haram in  raiding schools and kidnapping girls for forced marriages or slavery has done something which even Al Qaeda feels the need to disavow.  We can only presume that the context of slavery in much of Muslim Africa is less troubling to the  Islamist unconventional warfare network than this high profile and unpopular act. There are many reasons why this group could be condemned by their peers but it is important for us not to forget who and what their peers are.  It is important to remember that slavery is very pervasive in much of Africa and the world. What is shocking here is the kidnapping for political and religious causes of girls with clear hope for a better future against the wishes of their legal guardians. It is unfortunate that most Americans are unaware still of worldwide slavery. The facts of slavery in each society vary and they all throw into sharp relief the variety of reforms and efforts to achieve real abolition that have happened in other countries and in those countries where slavery remains a major part of life. I am committed to keeping my keyboards and screens where my written text appears poking at the areas where I feel America is largely asleep. This is not an easy path and there is risk involved in a life where I have already had quite lot of risk. But sex, slavery and race are areas where America has lied to itself for a long time. Nonetheless, there are many issues in this crisis which must embarrass or chasten to some degree those who like me have pointed to the horrors of modern slavery. Boko Haram  is acting in the ancient realm of possibility, their deeds show why in societies which relied on slavery very much indeed it was still regarded often a s a necessary evil.

So if in fact chattel slavery is in my view better than slavery followed by murder as with the Nazis or other kind of murder of innocents than what can I say to still join the many people who are singling out this event with the campaign #BRING BACK OUR GIRLS? Well, I can say Boko Haram should not be raiding Christians and other seeking a better life. I can say that I am on the side of Christians when such religious wars are unavoidable. I can say persecuting Muslims seeking the power-sharing with Christians in progressive and capitalist parts of Nigeria where Christians happen to predominate is bad policy. But slavery is not worse than burning people alive as many raiders do in Africa and also in other places, it is not worse than cutting peoples arms off to assure they can never work again.  War captive slavery has likely kept the girls alive,  safe from being wantonly mutilated and fed. Ransoms can be paid to recover the girls or the BH fighters can be defeated in battle. Those are outcomes they as adherents of a more ancient worldview largely accept.

However, compared to the slavery which in part my Confederate ancestors sought to preserve and the slavery of the classical period this slavery has no mortgage banking, insurance and other commercial means of making resources for prisoners available and averaging out costs in such a way as to increase humane treatment  and survival for captives.  Remember Rwanda? All those people slaughtered cannot be ransomed. Slaves can  be freed by ransom with armed guards and where the law exists we have seen in the film 12 Years a Slave that they can be freed by the courts where the laws do not support them.

My view is let us kill the men of Boko Haram. Let us all help their enemies and bring a better future than the one the want to Nigeria. Let us help the girls get back to school. But let us not lie so much about how this form of slavery plays out, about where and when it exists and what it means.  For more on American slavery see this and this for some indirect insight. My glossary has more to say about these topics and I will say more if I ever bring in more writing from elsewhere. These young women would benefit from not being in a horrible war, not being denied education and would benefit less from more transparent and legalized slave trading. We can see if we choose that millions are sold with less protection yearly in that region in an illegal trade. Confederates did outlaw the slave trade across the seas in their constitution but along with Liberian colonization they saw a continuity to ancient practices that put some value on individual life and hope.

I really am on the side of the girls and  do consider Boko Haram my enemy. But I do not believe the world is really getting sober in all this. They are seeking more ways to lie to themselves and be drunker in their thoughts. But “they’ are also the many who really want to help. Those who favor civilization and our civilization must learn to attract goodwill. But the clamor for ending this slavery of captives has no context or realism to it. New lies will be the fruit,

 

Papal Canonizations: A Brief Insight

This week at the Holy See in Vatican City at Rome Italy the current Pope Francis I and the Pope emeritus Benedict XVI will preside over the “raising to the glory of the altars” the names and reputations of Pope John XXIII who called the Second Vatican Council and Pope John Paul II who traveled more than any other Pope, reigned longer than almost any other and whose life before he was Pope John Paul II made this first Polish pope very unique.

Canonization is of course always about the person. It is less about the work and career than most honors. Those things are considered but personal holiness is more considered. The life of Pope John Paul II has been masterfully written and redacted by an American scholar. You can link to the sale of George Weigel’s book here. In the case of John XXIII there is a book which is about his life and in which most of the text is written by the sainted pope himself but which probably does not meet quite the definition of autobiography under which it has been marketed all or most of my life. You can link to a copy of that book here. But it is perhaps required that i state here in this brief post that I have no doubt that both men have a great deal to say to our age by life, example and writing. Neither one is devoid of all controversy.

Pope John XXIII was a pastor in Fascist Italy and Pope John Paul II was pastor of the universal church when much of the pedophilia scandal was continuing as a crisis of discipline and truthfulness among other things. There is no doubt that both men studied morality seriously, that both men risked much for what they believed, that both men attacked antisemitism,  varied religious hatreds and many forms of intellectual blindness. There is no doubt that both men fostered cooperation to improve the lot of ordinary and not so ordinary people in suffering and crisis around the world. There is no doubt that both men sought to speak the Gospel of Christ Jesus to the modern world. So should they be canonized?

Technically, the requirement for a second verified miracle after the saint has died and is in the Beatific Vision has been wived for John XXIII and the requirement of a waiting period at the start was waived under the Santo Subito pressures around the death of Pope John Paul II.  Both men have therefore gotten a bit of a pass on the full rigors of the process.

While I will not get a chance to watch much of the process I will try to post more about it after the event. I think it will be a worthy and noble celebration. The television and radio network based in Birmingham , Alabama in the United States has extensive coverage of the event and the lives of the two men. You can link to that information here. I hope people will look at it with an appreciation of its sincerity and its greatness as an expression of a faith community. But there is also a risk in the decision to canonize a Pope which does not exist in other saints. The Pope holds authority in a real situation  where human feelings are hurt, human mistakes made and human lives upset. It seems perhaps to be too much to ask those who lost out to a Pope in Life to have him included in their liturgies after his death as a specially recognized companion of Christ. But on the other hand that is what sanctity is all about — holiness in the real world. Further as different as these popes were it is true that both sought to expose this meaning of daily sanctity to the Church and the World.

Both of these men in my opinion have been more likely to be confirmed to the glory of the altars than are either of the two living Popes who will be there. John Paul II may be faulted for not having done more to stop the murder of Jewish children in Poland by the truck loads but he did oppose the Nazis at the risk of his life, he did witness to and oppose the Communists effectively at the risk of his life and run the most honest philosophy lecture for a thousand miles in any direction. He did get shot by an Muslim on a Communist payroll. He did struggle mightily on the grandest scale as Pope for the things he believed.  Pope John XXIII made the Second Vatican Council happen and it is difficult for a  non-Catholic to imagine what was required to make that happen. I do not think this very popular Pope nor the elderly Apostle of the Longsuffering Germans  is likely to leave a record so clearly one of heroic virtue. The risk of scandal which may offset the real merits of Benedict or Francis looms larger because of what is not there in the positive column.

The two living popes are very different as are the two men raised to the honor of being recognized by the Universal Church as saints.  I have written a good bit about Pope Francis in the posts linked at the lower potion of this post. I feel I have largely covered this great American-Italian-Argentine-Jesuit breakthrough in those linked posts  although not in this post itself. So I feel I can leave aside a brief biography of Francis but can be  less sparing about Pope Benedict.

Josef Ratzinger, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI was the second consecutive Patriarch of Rome, Bishop of Rome and Supreme Pontiff and Successor to the Throne of St. Peter who has not been an Italian and he has now been suceeded by the first in a while who is both Italian and not Italian as well as an American and an Argentine. His role in making Popes from outside Italy alone is very important to the health of the Church that (without saying the Italians are not a great people and without saying that Bishops ought mostly to come from their own lands or related lands) and is a very good thing. It would probably be good if about half of all Popes were Italian over time but I would not want to see dozens of Popes in a row who were not Italian so everyone must do the best they can and perhaps the current Pope is an elegant solution.

Benedict is saddled with some responsibility for being part of the German theological establishment some of that is good and some is not. I have views differing from those held in the Church’s halls of power about some of the merits of these Germans. Josef Ratzinger is also a German who fought in the regular nonpolitical part of the German forces doing his duty in World War II and is a very accomplished scholar. However, the service to any state headed by Adolf Hitler and his lunatics is a blemish on the Papacy. But the Papacy has had many blemishes — nonetheless I do not lay all the blame on him personally but I do hold it against him. He seems to indicate in his public life that he remembers the insanity of Nazi political religion and although his experience was more ambiguous than he admits he will work to see that the liturgy and practice of the Church draws forth a milieu such as produced Mozart, the Bach family and the Gothic Cathedrals. The Pope he is will be remembered in the context of the German he is and it will be hard to find a route to canonization in all probability.

Like  John Paul II he did try to reach out to the Jews. There are problems in doing so that are real and he never looked to skilled at it. But in addition he has more to explain and  offset. If he could  have said anything kind and honest to the Jews in the way of professional advice that acknowledged some continuity of Hebrew liturgy  and have had  it well received he would advise them to invest in their worship and liturgy to reach and surpass the heights of the Temple’s musical past. That was a route, perhaps a concert shared together in the gardens, Perhaps more Hebrew in the newer forms of the Latin Mass. For those who judge such matter not so officially there is a great deal to offset in service to the Third Reich. But there is a vast set of problems regarding discussions of the period. Certainly the NAZI regime had more justification for panic and insecurity and rage than we in the USA are usually willing to teach our children, Nor is it unreasonable that we have a cast to our view of things. But Dolan, Law and Hannan  were never serious contenders for the Papacy and this man was  and is Pope.

Pope Benedict XVI had at once upon election to contend with a very broad spectrum of issues and demands and  brought to bear his talents as a writer, thinker and organizer as well as his prodigious mental capacities. He has written about Jesus Christ in a very compelling way and has sought to bring the Christ of Faith, the Jesus of History and the Jesus Christ of Cultural developments into a proper and good focus centered around the Jesus revealed in the Gospels. This is certainly a worthy goal and it fits in the larger context of a body of work. He specifically struggles with that German Teutonic impulse towards the struggle of the spiritual and the State which has always been pronounced but which which has been agonizingly dysfunctional since the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But in all the heroism of his struggle he does not lay out the offsetting values that erase the sins and scandals of his time from memory.

Pope Francis is on a honeymoon with the whole world right now and is a formidable pastor. I love that he brings Jesuit skills to bear. But there will be scandals form his past in Argentina. When they emerge I doubt I will be as critical as many. I know how hard it is to look good in horrific situations. But he was a fixer, mover and shaker struggling day in and out in a country in a long and bloody turmoil. Eventually someone will present evidence that something he did or did not do contributed to the death or ruin of an innocent person.  I am drowning in self respect and the same could be said of my life. It is just impossible in my view to come out of some situations unblemished. But all the adulation now will make it harder to take whether it comes before or after his death.  I hope and tend to think he has risked himself to help those in trouble.

I am going to try to write a little something about the canonization of two recent popes and the ceremony at which two popes will be present. Here is  a post discussing some of the early reactions to the papal reign of Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio — Pope Francis.  Here and here are posts I put up about the transition when Pope Benedict resigned and before Pope Francis was elected.  So far as it goes there is no doubt that the papacy has been a serious and sustained interest in this blog. There is also no doubt that if a major scandal breaks regarding Pope Benedict or Pope Francis that there will be people remembering having read things here that they never read extolling these men. I have done little extolling.

However, this is a great day for the Papacy. It is a glorious celebration and I am proud to see the Church reaching out to past and future. But it is a risky time for the church and a good time to be a bit self-critical. My own views are written and published in this blog at length.  I respectfully look to Rome form where I stand as myself.

New Horizons and Some Signs

This post comes at a time when a lot is going on in the world including the mourning in South Korea over the hundreds of youths drowned on a ferry that went down in the Yellow Sea. I used to look out at the Yellow Sea daily where I lived and worked and my sympathy and empathy are with those people. There is some insight into the depth of this tragedy here. However, I have not mentioned that tragedy before this post in this blog. President Obama will be heading to Asia soon to shore up relations with our treaty partners Japan and South Korea.  those are in North East Asia as is Taiwan. I lived in China and in our other treaty partner in the region — the Philippines. But I have not spent much time in Japan and have never been to Taiwan or South Korea. All of us  who are well informed of my generation see a connection between World War II in the Pacific and the Korean War and then the Vietnam War. As tensions occur in the entire Asian region we must remember the tragedy  of huge and sustained wars in Asia. we must grieve for our world neighbors in South Korea and still remember what it  has been like to losemany ships of young people.

Where the Bohai Sea meets the Yellow Sea and  China looks out to Korea.

Where the Bohai Sea meets the Yellow Sea and China looks out to Korea.

I do pray for those involved in that tragedy in a world of so much tragedy. The Malaysian Airlines disaster is yet another tragedy, But the crises brewing in Ukraine and nearby lands may be far greater still. As I look at these events I am also remembering the  events of 150 years ago known as the American Civil War. Several of my posts have mentioned anniversaries of that war. But it is certainly not the only war whose anniversaries are remembered.

The seal of the Confederacy ties the Lost Cause to the Revolution and the past long before that war.

The seal of the Confederacy ties the Lost Cause to the Revolution and the past long before that war.

So many leaders on both sides of the war had been formed in some way by the American – Mexican War and the Confederacy had George Washington on its seal who had been formed in his life and skills in what Americans call the French and Indian War before leading the Continental regulars and colonial militias in the American Revolution and War of Independence.  Struggle does not seem to end and so one struggle prepares its survivors for the next.  That is not all their is to human history and experience but the theme of constant and evolving struggle certainly is a major theme of human experience.

From each crisis and tragedy of the human past we can learn a few things. I think we are obliged to try.  I certainly am formed of all the experiences of my personal history. I am not sure what life may have in store for me but I am sure it will be connected to the rest of my life so far.

Not a very flattering image. A selfie taken a few nights ago.

Not a very flattering image. A selfie taken a few nights ago.

The centennial commemoration of the First World War is starting up around the world. It will continue for the next few years. Some called that war “The War to end all wars”. It certainly did not end all wars and Adolph Hitler was one of the people most affected by the  trials of that war but millions of other would join him in quickly imagining that another war must follow in many of the same lands to resolve issues  that had emerged before, during and after World War One — The Great War. Some call the war that followed The Big One. Most call it the Second World War. I have been writing about the struggle with Islamist terror almost continuously since 2001. I have been caught up in that struggle in a number of ways.

The world is a complicated place and so are the lives of many of us who live in this strange world. This post is going to be largely about what may be on the horizon or just over the horizon of the future. But it is also about how I come to see it in a particular way. I have a picture below of myself with my ex-wife more than  twenty years ago and think of all the seasons that have passed since then for me. I wonder what if any future crises my life has prepared me to face.

 

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It is still the start of the long Catholic Easter Season which goes until Pentecost Sunday. Easter Tuesday, the day after the day that follows what much of the world calls Easter  was a special day for the family.  Easter Monday I bought my Louisiana resident basic fishing license and Louisiana resident saltwater license to go crabbing on the Rockefeller Refuge tomorrow. Crabbing with a string or a small drop net requires no license unless one is on a refuge or wildlife management area. I posted on Facebook that night that I would be going with the family tomorrow and be back online by Tuesday evening. It was later Tuesday evening when I posted on the subject. But my post which is largely subsumed into this one reported good outcomes not mixed with any tragedy.

We had a good time at Rockefeller Refuge. I caught four small crabs. We brought back enough all together from those who also caught (some much more than I ) for me to purge and boil them and everyone had one eating size crab and then I made a stew of the small crabs. I snapped a few pics about nothing in particular although there were particularly nice birds and fish and the crabs and people. (4 photos)

Frank Wynerth Summers III's photo.
Frank Wynerth Summers III's photo.
Frank Wynerth Summers III's photo.
Frank Wynerth Summers III's photo.
 Clearly my life is not caught up in long hours spent in the halls of power. One of the themes of Easter is baptism and evangelism and I have a political view of how things play out on those themes. I do rejoice that Obama talks about Jesus as a Christian would and seems to be a Christian although his father was Muslim. I value his affinity for Islam as a Christian if that is in fact real, Such connections are important to reaching out to evangelize in Muslim countries  and to protecting Christians there. In addition I have real reticence to denying what God may be doing in Barack Hussein Obama’s heart. Had he remained a Senator those themes might have remained my dominant themes. However, in the case of Obama I feel we must consider the possibility of him being a Muslim and a liar as some have accused him of being  even as we have him as our Head of State and US executive.
Russia is squaring off with us in quite few places. You can read about the situation developing in Russia here. Obama is more or less holding his lines in the Russian Crisis. America is meanwhile under strain. The US Supreme Court has recently dealt a blow to the affirmative action which helped to create the environment in which President Obama matured as a human being. You can find one account of the new Supreme Court opinion and analysis of its impact  here.
Nationalism rises in many places in the world, Financial problems abound. Men like Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Henry VIII and Washington may all seem very different from one another but all were empowered by crises.  There are many emerging crises just now and those crisis will call forth those who can exploit them.
Hitler rose to power in the Weimar Republic and Mao rose to power in the Chinese  Republic founded by Sun Yat Sen. Those men like Napoleon had the luxury of hitting a new regime still finding its way. Nonetheless each of these men came to power by remaining involved and exercising force in the milieu in which they existed. Putin remembers fondly the Soviet Union and the Communist revolution that replaced the Tsarist Empire directly and slaughtered the Imperial family. Soviet founders paid more for power than many have paid. Russia is often willing to pay a great deal to protect vital interests and that may be important to remember.
In my own life I have written some model constitutions  and done some politicking too. I look out on a future which will be problematic. I see challenges and roots of conflict.  I see lots of reasons to be concerned but I do not believe that we are without hope. One institution for peace is one among many which exist around the world and is a big party I have attended many times.  You can learn about that  institution of soft peace policy here.
Right now I ave little specific to write about or do about many of the challenges facing America and the world. I am almost fifty years old and obscure. My vision for my country is pretty peaceable and moderate for one which still constitutes a a radical proposal. I am tired as I often am and so bring this to post with a few corrections to be made later and a few aspects to be polished. But as I look out at the world I do not feel less inclined to propose that America needs some serious reforms. I will continue to work towards some of those reforms.
In some ways the great hurdle is inside oneself. At some point I have decided that i will work for relatively radical change. That closes many doors as well as opening a few. I have never sought more trouble for my country. Hitler for example labored to bring down the Weimar Republic for decades. Napoleon is famous for firing canons on the crowds running the reign of terror which preceded him in France’s revolutionary journey. But mild as I am I remain alarmed and radical. A bit old and quiet these days, I am more than ever aware of the future which will demand some radical change or other. I still seek more peace and harmony than many other emerging radicals will. The changes I propose remain more respectful of the present institutional climate.

Easter Triduum Reflections and Notes

I still need to try to improve the organization of this blog. But this is  an Easter post as it is now. The largest part will be a reproduced 2009 note which may or may not be somewhere else in the blog but comes here from Facebook Notes. I will get to that soon,

The Easter Triduum begins with Holy Thursday evening Mass which commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ. It does not include the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday morning where the oils for anointing the Sick and those receiving order  are blessed and consecrated. It continues through Good Friday and Holy Saturday. I feel like I brought my attention to it a few hours earlier. I went to the Chrism Mass although we did not sit together I went with Mom,Genie Summers and she did most of the seeing for both of us in the standing room only cathedral I had a seat behind the standing folks as I got in later than hoped after parking near the Mouton House after dropping her off. It was still a beautiful mass even for me and a gathering of all the priests in the diocese including Fr. Nunez who celebrated his anniversary of ordination.

Bishop Jarrell’s homily was very good, relevant and Biblical and stands without the old joke he told which got a big laugh. but the joke was one of my favorites too. I heard him speak on the television about Good Friday this evening and so there was some continuity.

I got home in time to do some yard work, water plants, run errand and take out the garbage. But the mass meant a lot and so did parking near the Mouton House. I do not see the death of Alfred Mouton as being very much like that of Jesus Christ but he was a Catholic Christian who doubtless joined his sufferings to those of Christ in prayer.  This later than usual date for Easter joined the events more in my mind than normal.

One hundred and fifty years ago and about a week ago General Alfred Mouton died winning what I and most serious historians consider the last major Confederate victory. The battle of Mansfield or Sabine Crossings was major in consequence as it ended the Federal Red River Campaign, involved large armies and was decisive. However while there is no doubt the battle meant less than Mansfield some people refer to the battle at Plymouth North Carolina fought one hundred and fifty years ago today as the last major Confederate victory. A significant garrison and arms stockpile was taken, many prisoners taken and it ought to have mattered but it is hard to show much strategic effect on either side and the numbers are smaller than Mouton’s end. In addition, there is a large list of small details that put his final battle in a higher class of contests. The suffering of the Mouton family in these years was truly enormous. The longest part of this post is about Christianity and war and appear below in quotation form.

I have a lot of links through from this post. In Easter of 2011 I posted this post about what was going on. It seems a fairly happy post.  But perhaps I am posting on Good Friday today because I am more attuned to the suffering than the victory today.

I realize that many people around the world are suffering more than I am right now. I have no health insurance and have been exposed to many kinds of threats to my health. But I do not have any way to know what the consequences will be. Just this week I was dealing with someone’s leaky bottle of garden poison and  after washing off thoroughly and waiting for reactions and looking up specifics for the chemical online I  still called poison control to be sure I did not have to worry. I have been stung, bitten, exposed to rash inducing plants and food poisoned enough times  that I cannot help but wonder what may happen from the exposure since I have no infrastructure to deal with this or anything else that may injure me now or may have done so in the past. That was an event of these days.  But I have had that in one small eye view while I remember my grandfather’s   passing and how much Good Friday meant to Pops and his family. For more on this man’s death and life you can see here and here.

A couple of years ago I came into Holy Week and Easter in a darkened frame of mind. You can capture some of that here.  There was a Lent not long ago when I felt thought about security and the Christian world which are not so different from those I could feel this year as Miller shot up the Jewish centers while Mohammed Whitaker shot up the highways nearby. You can get part of that recollection here.  In another Lenten and Easter season of so many religious and biblical movies I was pondering the secular Hollywood fare during the season when Pope Benedict was transitioning out of the Papacy and still was troubled with other matters. The  world is unstable and while some current fact have changed I reproduce this  Facebook Note  much as  I wrote it in 2009.

 

War & Easter

April 6, 2009 at 11:28am

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Many of my fellow Americans are bearing arms in the service of their country in Afghanistan and Iraq.These are the countries in which the US is more or less officially engaged in a war. We have a large number of people, mostly young men who wear uniforms, follow schedules, bear weapons, drill, fight and kill as well as dying and being wounded in those two distant lands.

Perhaps they know Jesus as the Prince of Peace. I certainly know and honor Christ as the holder of that Title. Many of them are certainly Christians and it is to the Christians who serve in the US military that I primarily address this note. I think war should be avoided whenever it is right and possible to do so. Jesus said “I came that you might have life and have it abundantly”, can it be acceptable to Christian families to have their sons, daughters, wives and husbands far away causing pain and injury to other people?

Smaller numbers of Americans are bearing arms in service of the country which has renewed my passport in Korea, Germany, Japan, Cuba, and on ships and planes around the world. In addition there are farflung bases on quasi-American soil or a least not state soil. Tiny detachments hold a position for our interests in American Samoa and larger ones in Guam. There are bases in very powerful and not so powerful countries with whom we have had historic ties — these range from the United Kingdom to the Federated States of Micronesia. Then we have a fleet of nuclear powered and nuclear armed submarines prowling the oceanic depths. This is an impressive amount of coverage for a nation’s military. I actually find the role of the miitary as an institution very interesting. However it is also true that I am interested in the way our toops are mentally affected by their service. I wish all American military service personnel well as military service personnel. That is a simple postion for me to take. As long as I carry an American passport, have credits with the Social Security Agency and vote in our elections in Louisiana as it now and foreseeably exists — then the USA is the country I support as mine and the very important role of the military in that national team is one I have to root for in their role. Some people in uniform are also brave, honest, decent and patriotic. I like those qualities. However, I do not cheer on our folks in uniform because I think they all have these qualities. Rather, I think otherwise.

Jesus said that no man born of woman was greater than John the Baptist although the least born to the kingdom of heaven was greater than he. John the Baptist told soldiers who asked him how to live that they should not steal and should be content with their pay. Is that the sum total of New Testament advice to young Christians headed off into harm’s way to serve their country?

It is important to understand that I never have served in the uniformed services of the United States. Further, it is quite possible that this is one of the more difficult things that I have ever attempted to deal with in writing. However, I would not deal with it at all if I had not reached just a certain point in the process of my life. I am able now to write about many things I hoped I would never want to write
publicly about in the way that I now do. In this note I am tagging some people who are not either Christian, military or American. I am not tagging anyone for whom I do not have respect but I am really addressing my self in my own mind to a certain audience or readership. I am really writing to Americans who are in the armed services and celbrate Easter as a religious holiday .Reflecting on my own life and spiritual journey I am sort of appointing myself a momentary e-chaplain to Christians in the American military. I certainly could avoid discussing war. However, it would not be easy to do all the other things and seek after all the other objectives that I seek after and not acknowledge war.

Jesus healed the servant of a Centurion who had been generous to the Jewish population and never criticized him for representing an occupying army. He told his disciples that when the Roman soldiers conscripted them to carry their heavy Roman packs one mile they should carry them two miles instead. That is where we get the English expression “going the extra mile”.

I think that Christianity is entirely relevant to the discussion of war and arms in the United States. I think that Easter week especially is a relevant time to join the two discussions. It may prove to be a very thankless task indeed. I think of my countrymen and women who are coming from the aging congregations of urban Catholic Cathedral parishes, small rural Catholic chapels, incense filled Orthodox churches in ethnic neighborhoods, hardshell Baptist churches on red dirt roads near old sawmills and bait shops, Mega Churches with Protestant preacching and modern audio-visual equipment and the average sized Catholic churches filled with families. I think of young men of 17, 18, 20, 24, 25 and 27 heading off to boot camps, training, transports and war. I think of the secular ideas which guide so much of the military structure and the whispers and influences of men as diverse as George Washington, Hitler, Clausewitz, Mohammed, Mao Zhe Dong, Napoleon, Ghengis Khan, Horatio Nelson, Andrew Jackson and Patton who may influence their thoughts about war. I have nothing against their learning from, and studying either the good men or the bad. However, I am driven against all sane reasoning to put down a few of my own thoughts about Jesus Christ and the Christians view of war and military service.

Jesus’s Apostles had nicknames, given names or nommes de guerr that included: the Rock, Sons of Thunder, the Zealot ( a member of a known military and anti-Roman organization) and were accustomed to life threatening situations. Crucifixion and stoning were among their regular subjects of conversation. Jesus also spoke propheticaly of the coming siege of Jerusalem. Is this post of engaged observation all their Savior has to offer those who serve in the military and honor his name?

Over the course of these notes I have discussed my own life experience as it relates to this subject. However, I always repeat something from an old note in each note. I do not expect whoever chooses to read a given note to have read all the other notes. I think that it is a really dificult subject for me to deal with in conversation or writing. However, no subject is all that dificult for me to deal with. I am someone who communicates a great deal. Further, this is not the New York Times this is my Facebook notes section. It is more like drunken ramblings at a bar in some ways than it is like shouting and proclaiming from a podium. So I will try to summarize or paint a verbal picture of my background as regards this whole world of warfare. I will try to relate this to my own faith journey as well.

Jesus said ” Do you think I have come to bring peace to the Earth? I assure you that I have not come to bring peace but fire and a sword”. Is a sense of social revolution or social consciousness all these young people can bring into the upheaval of armed conflict from the one who is their model of perfection?

My grandfathers both served in the US military. I have a rather complex and rather large warrior heritage. It extends in varied directions. My mother’s father Cecil Bruce Germillion served as a bombadeer instructor in the Army Air Corp. My paternal grandfather served as an officer in the US Navy. He said he commanded a golrified private yacht in the Gulf of Mexico early in the war. Later he was part of the large fleet of vessels headed towrd the invasion of Japan’s home islands when the atomic bomb ended the war. He used to say that although he saw some action in the Pacific his real anxiety was just as great in the Gulf. He said only once but with great passion that while in the Pacific he was well armed and supported in the Gulf he and his next subordinate (perhaps an Ex. O. or a Chief I do not recall) sometimes referred to the yacht secretly as the “USS Sitting Duck” which had to do with his evaluation of the vessel’s capacity to take on a wolfpack of German submarines in full out combat.

When Jesus was criticized for failing to keep some laws of the Sabbath by gleaning grain on that day he defended his behavior by sighting the example of King David who ate the Show bread because David was a king and he and his men were under the duress of warfare. Is Jesus’s example merely that of seeing his ministry in the pattern of military operations in his familial and national history?

I am a child of the sixties. I lived in New york and London in the 1960s and had relatives who were on elite college campuses during the heyday of the Peace Movement and the movement known as the Hippies. I never really felt that wearing black hats made some people bad and wearing white ones made other people good. I do not have the space and presume of the reader’s time enough to really cover the personal aspect fully. I am not a trusting blind supporter of the military or its policies. I would not describe myself that way at all. I am not ashamed of my own lack of courage or experience with conflict or danger. I would not describe myself that way at all.

So I wonder what I might say to those spending Holy Week and Easter in the forward zone or any other zone of the US military. First, I would say that Jesus did have you in his heart as he prayed for you that night in the Garden of Gethsemane becuase you are one of those who has believed. That is a great comfort in many ways. But it is also true that is evidence that God holds you to a personal standard. A Christian cannot believe that our personal lives and consciences disappear entirely into the duties and rights of a military force or a country. God will still hold you accountable for all that you do and become while you are in the services. God will not expect you to behave as if you were not a soldier, sailor, marine or airman but he still sees your heart and weighs your deeds. Of course when Jesus taught us to pray “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” he no doubt included martial trespasses in the economy of God’s mercy. God’s mercy is certainly a very big part of what we celebrate on Holy Week and Easter.

On Palm Sunday we remember Jesus, the Son of David entering the City of David. We remember that the crowds were shouting “Hosana, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Jesus had many who supported him his claims and his ministry.He did not shy away from leadership, rank or office and he was very open and brave.

So far everything I have written in this note is something I can live with and not regret. But now I am going to start the part that I already regret before having written it. In a sense all war is wrong and even military service. I say that as one who believes that in the Holy center of the Universes around the throne of God the angels wear and use weapons and are organized in armies. But ideally and perfectly there would be no war or planning for war. So I am writing this to an audience I want to encourage who at the same time I do not hesitate to say should ideally be doing something else. I look out at the world and the church today and feel that I too must do something immoral and which will stink in my conscience for a long time. I feel that I must reveal the some of secrets of a society which has done great good and kept its secrets since the time of Jesus. I do not see Knightly orders, Popes,their Catholic Majesties of Spain or anyone else standing between me and this day. So I write what is precious to me hoping I am not violating Jesus’s injunction not to throw pearls before swine.

The secrets of our ancient order which I am going to reveal are hidden in the gospels themselves. Are there things hidden in the Gospels? It is a reasonable question.

“The disciples approached him (Jesus) and said, ” Why do you speak to them in parables?”
He said to them in reply, “Because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you but to them it has not been granted, To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; from anyone who has not even what he has will be taken away. That is why I speak to them in parables, because they “look but do not see and hear but do not isten or understand”.” Matthew 13:10-13 New American Bible.

Jesus was, among all the other things he was, a warrior. He did not do many of the things that leaders who inspire others have done. He did not besiege or sack cities like Mohammed or his own namesake Joshua. He did not burn down the temples of idols like these same men. He did not rejoice in blood and mayhem like Ghengis Khan or the Viking Pagans. Your savior was a warrior who took his joy in weddings, Passover feasts, the Eucharist he was founding, flowers, birds and children. He did not take his joy in the sufferings of others. Our age is very different from the spirit of that secret warrior Jesus but nonetheless in following the warrior’s path you are not straying from the path of Jesus’s own experience.

Josephus either implies or states that during the siege of Jerusalem the Jews turned to Cannibalism and ate one another. People eating other people is a huge and undiscussed part of human history and experience. It is one of the most important struggles of human history. Many societies have been proudly and openly cannibalistic. Many people in the world in 2009 are cannibals. Rome was a place where public law and morals condemned cannibalism. It was a place where officials would have been ashamed to admit to having dealings with merchants trafficking in human flesh. I know to my own satisfaction that here were non Jews eating and butchering Jews at that siege. By mentioning cannibalism at all, even blaming it on the Jews, Josephus put his own life at risk. In Rome there were a group of unofficial but sophisticated pirates who participated in the war machine by buying slaves on the cheap after battles and sieges as well as capturing all they could in the invaded country. They killed these people, often with torture and sport and then made sausage or pies out of them mixing the human flesh with pork.They made a very good profit on this in part because they worked the people as slaves before reducing them to food and extorted knowledge about the new lands fallen before the Roman banner. For this purpose they located large herds of swine near the lands to be destroyed in advance. They were wealthy, powerful, cunning, well armed, possessed of assasins corps and called themselves demons. They had a handful of key agents throughout every Roman Imperial governnment. They were an order older than Rome itself and not entirely Roman. There were at least tens of thousands of men at arms at their command both in the Empire and in non Roman lands. These were the enemies Jesus fought with 12 Apostles, 72 zealous highly trained disciples divided into groups of six for each Apostle. Then he had 38 reserve guards. All were also trained in charitable ministry and his preaching this was not a made up addition later on and yet with 133 part-timers(the ten not enumerated are my last nod towards a disappearing tradition) and the women officials and crowds who supported them Jesus opposed one of the most fierce and powerful forces ever to have existed.

The events of Jesus’s war are chronicled in specific events:
Event One:
Matthew 8:22-27 / Mark 4: 35-41
Jesus calms the storm at Sea

Event Two:
Matthew 8:28-34 / Mark 5:1-20
Jesus crosses the sea of Galilee
Demons are confronted
a herd of swine are destroyed
captive freed
Jesus leaves the region with the ones remaining very upset

Event Three:
Matthew 14: 13-21 / Mark 6;34-44
Jesus feeds 5000 pople mysteriously
the disciples are instructed to collect all the fragments

Event Four:
Matthew 14:22-33 / Mark 6:45-52
Jesus is seen walking on the water with Peter.

Event Five:
Mark 8:1-10
Jesus feeds 4000 people. Mark makes it clear that these were multiple events.

Event Six:
Matthew 16: 21-23 / Mark 8: 31-33
Jesus begins to predict the Passion and Crucifixion in Jerusalem as inevitably the end of his life.

Jesus and his elite units used to wait for the worst storms on the Sea of Galilee. They crossed the sea in those storms under his fearless leadership. They opened the early pens located by the demons there in anticipation of the Roman destruction of the Jews and they liberated the prisoners. They then drove the pigs from the demons herds into the sea. Jesus was a carpenter and he located wooden buthcering sites at hudden spots in the out in the lake. The crews would remove nets filled with rocks and the rafts would float to the surface. Then his crew would attach inflated pig skins and pig bladders to increase bouyancy. On these non freeboard platforms they would slaughter the pigs and butcher them into boneless slabs of fish shaped meats. They would dump the entrails, guts, bones and heads in the lake. Knowledge of these dumps enbaled him to instruct fisherman as to where to put down their nets to get a great catch. Then they would cover the platforms with nets filled with rocks and arrive at shore near guarded ovens. Reusing fish bones frm each feeding and buying distressed fish from other fishermen with knowledge of where great catches could be found they would take a breading and adhere two pork steaks to the fish skeletons. They mixed these porkfish with regular bread and fish and fed thousands repeatedly. This also attracted donations from those who wanted to contribute something and these resources funded a large ministry of healing and teaching. Jesus constantly taught that eating unclean food (such as pork) did not make someone imoral. Once Peter and Jesus were seen using these platforms it was inevitable that Jesus would be killed. He chose to make this happen in a very specific public way in Jerusalem and create pressures on the demons.

After cleansing the Temple, Jesus managed to give on last speech to a huge crowd before being arrested and killed. He said two things at once. To his disciples he said that he was the living water and if they recognized him and believed in him then he would flow out of their hearts and meet their needs for courage and peace of soul. To the handful of demon spies the same words literaly were: if you recognize me from the stormy waters, I am the water that made your guards thirst no more and living water (blood) flow from their chest.

Jesus was not a great general, he had no palaces, published glories,nor vast armies and suffered more than he made his enemies suffer. He spent time healing, forgiving and seeking peace, he was humble and meek at many times (not always meek and almost never mild) but he was a warrior. In terms only of skill and bravery he was as he was at everyhting– arguably the best there has ever been. Yes, I mean that seriously. Your churches and mine may in the end condemn me for what I write and I think his contribution to war is lost in the mists of time. But your Savior has not left you as orphans in this world of war. There are no simple answers, no excuses, no bloodlust but the Prince of Peace was a man of war and you need not doubt him as you celebrate his legacy in an armed camp.

Happy Easter! I hope this note which makes me so unhappy is useful to someone. I have no doubt that it is largely correct.

Easter has always been an occasion of me reflecting on all of the meaning of my faith and the world I understand through those meanings. For how that played out in my mind one year in a rambling note you could look here. I wish you all a happy and blessed Easter Weekend. I will edit tags on this post later and make small corrections but it will remain as it is more or less on the link.

Passover and Palm Sunday Shooting at Jewish Center

There has been a shooting yesterday at two Jewish Centers in the Kansas City area. The CNN News report can be accessed here. My condolences to all those whose celebration of Passover was disturbed by the murder of three persons at Jewish Centers in the Kansas City region. I most offer my condolences to the family and congregations with whom I have no direct contact. Dr. William Lewis Corporon and his grandson Eagle Scout Reat Griffin Underwood were shot at a center where many types of social activity occurred and an elderly woman was killed at an assisted living facility. It is sad that this occasion of Holy Week and Palm Sunday serves as an excuse for someone associating his likely Christian Identity with bloodying an occasion of worship or assembly. I will probably get another blog post mention up on this subject eventually. But I wanted to get something up no later than today or tonight.

First UPDATE April 15, 2014: Most of the statements in this post seem to be correct.  For a different coverage of the event in brief check here. One detail that merges clearly is that whether or not the victims had any Hebrew heritage or cultural ties the males were Methodist Protestant Christians and the woman was not elderly nor Jewish but was visiting her elderly mother at  a Jewish assisted living facility. She was a practicing Catholic Christian. Instead of celebrating Easter these two families will be celebrating Good Friday funerals. Also Miller had legally changed his name to Cross it seems. He was certainly a serious and organized man and it is not clear if he intended to kill Jews or perhaps Christians who associated with Jews in a certain way.   He also has been charged with a Hate Crime.


There is still a lot to be determined about the man who did the shooting. Some of it can be read here.  He founded whatever group he was in and has moved in the shadows. What distance there is between him and all the stabbers, shooters and bombers in our midst these days is hard to say. What is true is that neither his underlying fears nor those of his victims appear to have much to do with the discourse in Washington. Is every stabber, bomber and shooter just a crazed loner or failed conspirator? I do not know what labels like that accomplish but he is much like many others. Partly because not much is allowed which really represents the human need for community in this supposedly free society. perhaps he envied what he thought others had and killed them for it. But my guess is that those sites he attacked were not bastions of special identity woven and accepted into a national fabric. I guess that because that scarcely exists. Seldom does a week pass when some one does not opt to go out in an cloud of blood and violence decrying what they feel to be a desperate situation.  But Miller is not excusable nor is he just another blip. This is another seriously concerning sign of where things are.


It is also relevant that the shooter is believed to have been a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan and also to have been yelling “Heil Hitler” those have not always been related institutional connections. the shooter who changed the use of his last name from Miller to Cross did not attack a house of worship or sacred study directly and seems to have been motivated by a generic antisemitism. His concerns and animosities led him to murder people who later or earlier that day may have been assembling for a holiday Jesus celebrated. His own story is little known to me and I will be looking at that as well. One fact about all institutions which are to some degree outlawed or enjoined is that it becomes more difficult for them to discipline their members. On the other hand, I would not want Al Qaeda to have an open office in the USA. But as we look at so much violence across the country we have to wonder about those we push out of discussion. I also lay some responsibility for these connections on those who foster antisemitic attitudes among people like the shooter. Dr. David Duke who toned his rhetoric to the innocuous when he ran for governor of my State of Louisiana operates in complete focus on promoting antisemitic ideas now. Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center and its associated Klanwatch are Jewish related organizations which have opposed the Klan for decades. Doubtless this has helped antagonize the David Dukes and G F Millers of the world. But I am not a centrist nor do I espouse surrender to any integrating force that comes along in America or anywhere. Therefore I hope to challenge those who may have a voice in allegedly white supremacist organizations to condemn acts like these among their associates, publicly and in whatever institutional forms may survive. This is murder not struggle for any ideal, heritage or politics according to all the evidence I have seen.

I have just returned from finishing my Lenten commitment to Nursing Home Ministry. My sister Sarah Summers Granger, her children, my brother Simon,  my father and others were there. It is sad to think of someone bringing bloodshed to a similar place at this time. Holy Week continues on around the world as does Passover. I am a Christian and as a Christian I hold both Sacred. Things are getting worse for Christians in the country where the name Christian was first used — Syria. In the land to which Jesus and his family traveled, Egypt and in other lands as well. But somehow in twisted cowardice, delusion and hate mixed with the real tensions between Christians and Jews and the real frustrations of our time a man finds a perceived need to murder Jews living their lives in their community among the still Christian majority in the United States. There is no moral imperative which says everyone has to be happy to be with everyone else all the time. That is the madness which is promulgated in this declining country. But murdering those who are different or singling out Israel in a world of Christian murdering and West-hating Islamists is inexcusable, stupid and pathetic. Former Klan leader David Duke has devoted himself to that path. I voted for Edwards against Duke during the race when most White Louisiana citizens voted for him (many did not). I have corresponded with him briefly and we both studied part of our careers in the same university department.

Doubtless Miller has something to do in our minds with the Tsarnaev brothers anniversary of killing, the stabber in Pennsylvania the birthday of Guy Fawkes and the many other violent figures in our minds. But his crime is his own. It is a warning but it is an individual act of murder too.