ahavafriend: Remember (via Mowser)

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History, Nationalism, Pacifism and Thomas Sowell

Here is an amazing article by Thomas Sowell that traces the significant reaction of France after WWI as it relates to the ideas of patriotism and pacifism. History is so critical to remember, lest we repeat its worst episodes! From the article:

"In France, after the First World War, the teachers’ unions launched a systematic purge of textbooks, in order to promote internationalism and pacifism.

Books that depicted the courage and self-sacrifice of soldiers who had defended France against the German invaders were called “bellicose” books to be banished from the schools.

Textbook publishers caved in to the power of the teachers’ unions, rather than lose a large market for their books. History books were sharply revised to conform to internationalism and pacifism.
...

In Britain, Winston Churchill warned that a country “cannot avoid war by dilating upon its horrors.” In France, Marshal Philippe Petain, the victor at Verdun, warned in 1934 that teachers were trying to “raise our sons in ignorance of or in contempt of the fatherland.”

But they were voices drowned out by the pacifist and internationalist rhetoric of the 1920s and 1930s.

Did it matter? Does patriotism matter?

France, where pacifism and internationalism were strongest, became a classic example of how much it can matter.
...

During the First World War, France fought on against the German invaders for four long years, despite having more of its soldiers killed than all the American soldiers killed in all the wars in the history of the United States, put together.

But during the Second World War, France collapsed after just six weeks of fighting and surrendered to Nazi Germany. At the bitter moment of defeat the head of the French teachers’ union was told, “You are partially responsible for the defeat.”

Charles de Gaulle, Francois Mauriac, and other Frenchmen blamed a lack of national will or general moral decay, for the sudden and humiliating collapse of France in 1940.

At the outset of the invasion, both German and French generals assessed French military forces as more likely to gain victory, and virtually no one expected France to collapse like a house of cards — except Adolf Hitler, who had studied French society instead of French military forces.

Did patriotism matter? It mattered more than superior French tanks and planes. ..."

Constant Need for the Gospel

Here is an encouraging article I found related to the continual need to remember the gospel. In part:

"It is a false gospel which says that you are ok and God just wants to improve you. No, God wants to remove all the false foundations and beams you have erected in your house and replace them entirely with new ones. The gospel is not about moral improvement but about making a new man. Our inability to grasp this means that we have a serious gap in our apprehension of the gospel. Our identity as Christians is subverted when the holes in our lives are filled with anything other than Christ. Our relationship to God and others suffer as a result.

I want you to take a close look with me at a passage in 2 Peter 1:3-8.

“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.”

If you are going to take away anything from this article, take this away: The reason, Peter says, that your Christian life is ineffective and unfruitful and still laden with sin is not because you have not tried hard enough, but rather, that you have forgotten the gospel … forgotten what Christ has done for you. You have forgotten to apply the gospel to every situation.. The ramifications of this are profound. And take note, Peter also says that in the gospel He has provided everything we need for life and godliness NOW. This is why it is so essential for Christians to gather together every week to encourage one another and hear the pastor remind us what Christ has done, and is doing for us, through the Holy Spirit who unites us to Him. The people Peter describes in the above passage are nearsighted and blind to how the gospel applies today for them as Christians."

This article was actually a response to a book titled "How People Change" and reviewed here.

The Dumb Ox by G.K. Chesterton

Reading this book about Saint Thomas Aquinas by GKC was an odd experience for me. First, I was reading about a man whom I knew very little about, which gave me a great perspective. Some actually consider this book the best book about Aquinas to be written. But what made this truly odd was that I possibly thought as much about GKC as I did Aquinas as I read. GKC has such a brilliant mind, and thus, writing style, that I had to refrain from highlighting every sentence. To learn a fact about one man while admiring, and being amazed by, the man writing about the man is a unique encounter for me. Hopefully in the following quotes you will see what I mean.

Additionally, it was amazing how often I thought of myself as I read about Thomas (not with grandiose familiarity, but an odd "oh, there's someone else like that..."). And then there were the moments I found St. Thomas wholly unique, as when GKC described him as "one of those large things who take up a little room" (130). A few delightful bits of insight about Aquinas that encouraged me were:
1) "He maintained controversy with an eye on only two qualities; clarity and courtesy. And he maintained these because they were entirely practical qualities..." (140). For regular readers of this blog you will recognize the similarity of this trait with another man I highly respect - Dennis Prager.
2) "Aquinas is almost always on the side of simplicity" (150). Also for frequent readers, you will recall my fondness for the quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I would not give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity. But I would give my right arm for simplicity on the other side of complexity."
3) Something that my Seminary preaching prof taught -- the importance for preachers to understand humanity, both his nature and condition -- was also underscored in this book. He prescribed reading good literature to aid this pursuit. Interestingly, GKC explained, "...there ought to be a real study called Anthropology corresponding to Theology [as opposed to corresponding to biology]. In this sense St. Thomas Aquinas, perhaps more than he is anything else, he is a great anthropologist" (161).

I wish I could have met St. Thomas, and look forward to the day I will. There is much to learn from him and I hope to marinate in his life story a bit for that purpose. Here are the excerpts I underlined:

About St. Thomas' Personality:
Thomas actually studied under Albert the Great. And being known to be shy, Albert lured Thomas out of his shell by exercising his great knowledge, as GKC explains: "He had studied many specimens of the most monstrous of all monstrosities; that is called Man. He knew the signs and marks of the sort of man, who is in an innocent way something of a monster among men"....And because of Thomas' shyness, he had earned the nickname 'the dumb ox'. But Albert declared: "You call him a Dumb Ox; I tell you this Dumb Ox shall bellow so loud that his bellowings will fill the world" (71). And he was right.

"St Thomas was always ready, with the hearty sort of humility, to give thanks for all his thinking" (71).

"He had been a man with a huge controversial appetite, a thing that exists in some men and not others, in saints and in sinners" (96).

"...when he was reluctantly dragged from his work, and we might almost say from his play. For both were for him found in the unusual hobby of thinking, which is for some men a thing much more intoxicating than mere drinking" (97).

"But there is a general tone and temper of Aquinas, which it is as difficult to avoid as daylight in a great house of windows. It is that positive position of his mind, which is filled and soaked as with sunshine with the warmth and wonder of created things" (119).

"...if his daydreams were dreams, they were dreams of day; and dreams of the day of battle. If he talked to himself, it was because he was arguing with somebody else. We can put it another way, by saying that his daydreams, like the dreams of a dog, were dreams of hunting; of pursuing the error as well as pursuing the truth; of following all the twists and turns of evasive falsehood, and tracking it at last to its lair in hell" (125,126).

"He was interested in the souls of all his fellow creatures, but not in classifying the minds of any of them; in a sense it was too personal and in another sense too arrogant for his particular mind and temper" (128).

"... and he goes out of his way to say that men must vary their lives with jokes and even with pranks" (131).

St Thomas' faith was very intellectual, to say the least. However, that doesn't mean it was only intellectual. There was an emotional element to it for him, although "it would always have embarrassed him to write about [this emotional side] at such length. The one exception permitted to him was the rare but remarkable output of his poetry. All sanctity is secrecy; and his sacred poetry was really a secretion; like the pearl in a very tightly closed oyster" (140). "It may be worth remarking, for those who think that he thought too little of the emotional or romantic side of religious truth, that he asked to have The Song of Solomon read through to him from beginning to end [on his deathbed]" (143).

"...this philosopher does not merely touch on social things, or even take them in his stride to spiritual things; though that is his direction. He takes hold of them, he has not only a grasp of them, but a grip. As all his controversies prove, he was perhaps a perfect example of the iron hand in the velvet glove. He was a man who always turned his full attention to anything; and he seems to fix even passing thins as they pass. To him even what was momentary was momentous" (187).

"It never occurred to Aquinas to use Aquinas as a weapon. There is not a trace of his ever using his personal advantages, of birth or body or brain or breeding, in debate with anybody" (196).

About St. Thomas' Philosophy:
It was not only a primary idea of Thomist doctrine that a central common sense is nourished by the five senses, but "a truly and eminently Christian doctrine" as well. Unfortunately, GKC comments, "For upon this point modern writers write a great deal of nonsense; and show more than their normal ingenuity in missing the point" (32).

"Thomas was a very great man who reconciled religion with reason..., who insisted that the senses were the windows of the soul and that the reason had a divine right to feed upon facts, and that it was the business of the Faith to digest the strong meat of the toughest and most practical of pagan philosophies" (32,33).

"...the philosophy of St. Thomas stands founded on the universal common conviction that eggs are eggs.... The Thomist stands in the broad daylight of the brotherhood of men, in their common consciousness that eggs are not hens or dreams or mere practical assumptions; but things attested by the Authority of the Senses, which is from God" (148).

"...I am not so silly as to suggest that all the writings of St. Thomas are simple and straightforward; in the sense of being easy to understand. There are passages I do not in the least understand myself;...there are passages about which the greatest Thomists still differ and dispute. But that is a question of a thing being hard to read or hard to understand: not hard to accept when understood. that is a mere matter of "The Cat sat on the Mat" being written in Chinese characters; or "Mary had a Little Lamb" in Egyptian hieroglyphics. The only point I am stressing here is that Aquinas is almost always on the side of simplicity, and supports the ordinary man's acceptance of ordinary truism" (150).

"This is, in a very rude outline, his philosophy; it is impossible in such an outline to describe his theology. Anyone writing so small a book about so big a man, must leave out something. Those who know him best will best understand why... I have left out the only important thing" (181).

Below are some general thoughts by GKC that seem to be as relevant today as they were when he wrote and as much as they applied to the days of St. Thomas:
About the recent SCOTUS Decision...
"...he is emphatic upon the fact that law, when it ceases to be justice, ceases even to be law" (188).

About China...
"...things which men produce only to sell are likely to be worse in quality than the things they produce in order to consume" (189).

About The War in Iraq...
"War, in the wide modern sense, is possible, not because more men disagree, but because more men agree. Under the peculiarly modern coercions, such as Compulsory Education and Conscription, there are very large peaceful areas, that they can all agree upon War. In that age men disagreed even about war; and peace might break out anywhere" (56). It may be that we are seeing a repeat of that era when there was more disagreement, and thus the more difficulty in finding a consensus regarding war.

About Global Warming...
"...most men must have a revealed religion, because they have not time to argue. No time, that is, to argue fairly. There is always time to argue unfairly; not least in a time like ours.... As a matter of fact, it is generally the man who is not ready to argue, who is ready to sneer. That is why, in recent literature, there has been so little argument and so much sneering" (127).

"Behold our refutation of the error. It is not based on documents of faith, but on the reasons and statements of the philosophers [or environmentalists] themselves. If then anyone there be who, boastfully taking pride in his supposed wisdom, wishes to challenge what we have written, let him reply openly if he dare. He shall find me there confronting him, and not only my negligible self, but many another whose study is truth. We shall do battle with his errors or bring a cure to his ignorance" (94). Unfortunately, Al Gore has consistently refused to debate anyone publicly. I guess that's why he can say the debate is settled - since it never actually started.

GKC responded to this reaction by observing: "After the great example of St. Thomas, the principle stands, or ought always to have stood established; that we must either not argue with a man at all, or we must argue on his grounds and not ours" (95,96).

About The Emergent Church...
"In short, a real knowledge of mankind will tell anybody that Religion is a very terrible thing; that it is truly a raging fire, and that Authority is often quite as much needed to restrain it as to impose it. Asceticism, or the war with the appetites, is itself an appetite. It can never be eliminated from among the strange ambitions of Man. But it can be kept in some reasonable control..." (104).

"In truth, this vividly illuminates the provincial stupidity of those who object to what they call 'creeds and dogmas.' It was precisely the creed and dogma that saved the sanity of the world. These people generally propose an alternative religion of intuition and feeling. If, in the really Dark Ages, there had been a religion of feeling, it would have been a religion of black and suicidal feeling. It was the rigid creed that resisted the rush of suicidal feeling.... A thousand enthusiasts for celibacy, in the day of the great rush to the desert or the cloister, might have called marriage a sin, if they had only considered their individual ideals, in the modern manner, and their own immediate feelings about marriage. Fortunately, they had to accept the Authority of the Church, which had definitely said that marriage was not a sin.... when Religion would have maddened men, Theology kept them sane" (110,111).

About Feelings vs. Intellect in Faith...
"Mystics can be represented as men who maintain that the final fruition or joy of the soul is rather a sensation than a thought. The motto of the Mystics has always been, 'Taste and See'.... [It] is equally right in saying that the intellect is at home in the topmost heavens; and that the appetite for truth may outlast and even devour all the duller appetites of man" (73,74).

About Knowing History - Remembering...
"Perhaps there is really no such thing as a Revolution recorded in history. What happened was always a Counter-Revolution. Men were always rebelling against the last rebels; or even repenting of the last rebellion.... Nobody but a lunatic could pretend that [modern trends of rebellion toward the last generation] were a progress; for they obviously go first one way and then the other. But whichever is right, one thing is certainly wrong; and that is the modern habit of looking at them only from the modern end. For that is only to see the end of the tale; they rebel against they know not what, because it arose they know not when; intents only on its ending, they are ignorant of its beginning; and therefore of its very being" (76, 77).

About The Debate Between Science and Religion/the Church...
"Albert, the Swabian, rightly called the Great, was the founder of modern science. He did more than any other man to prepare that process, which has turned the alchemist into the chemist, and the astrologer into the astronomer.... Serious historians are abandoning the absurd notion that the medieval Church persecuted all scientists as wizards. It is very nearly the opposite of the truth. The world sometimes persecuted them as wizards, and sometimes ran after them as wizards; the sort of pursuing that is the reverse of persecuting. The Church alone regarded them really and solely as scientists" (66).

"...private theories about what the Bible ought to mean, and premature theories about what the world ought to mean, have met in loud and widely advertised controversy, especially in the Victorian time; and this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of Science and Religion" (88).

"It is the fact that falsehood is never so false as when it is very nearly true. It is when the stab comes near the nerve of truth, that the Christian conscience cries out in pain." This was proved by St Thomas' final stand against heresy in his day. "He had cleared the ground for a general understanding about faith and enquiry; an understanding that has generally been observed among Catholics, and certainly never deserted without disaster. It was the idea that the scientist should go on exploring and experimenting freely, so long as he did not claim an infallibility and finality which it was against his own principles to claim. Meanwhile the Church should go on developing and defining, about supernatural things, so long as she did not claim a right to alter the deposit of faith, which it was against her own principles to claim. And when hd had said this, Siger of Brabant got up and said something so horribly like it, and so horribly unlike, that (like Antichrist) he might have deceived the very elect.
Siger of Brabant said this: the Church must be right theologically, but she can be wrong scientifically. There are two truths; the truth of the supernatural world, and the truth of the natural world.... It was not two ways of finding the same truth; it was an untruthful way of pretending that there are two truths.... Those who complain that theologians draw fine distinctions could hardly find a better example of their own folly. In fact, a fine distinction can be a flat contradiction" (92,93).

About Past Ages...
"The saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint [and maybe we could also use the word prophet] is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means always the same element in every age.... Christ did not tell his apostles that they were only the excellent people, or the only excellent people, but that they were the exceptional people; the permanently incongruous and incompatible people..." (23).

"...as the eighteenth century thought itself the age of reason, and the nineteenth century thought itself the age of common sense, the twentieth century cannot as yet even manage to think itself anything but the age of uncommon nonsense" (25). And what would GKC think of the twenty-first century?

"Nobody can understand the greatness of the thirteenth century [when St. Thomas lived], who does not realize that it was a great growth of new things produced by a living thing. In that sense it was really bolder and freer than what we call the Renaissance, which was a resurrection of old things discovered in a dead thing" (41).

"That is what makes the riddle of the medieval age; that it was not one age but two ages. We look into the moods of some men, and it might be the Stone Age; we look into the minds of other men, and thy might be living in the Golden Age.... There were always good men and bad men; but in this time good men who were subtle lived with bad men who were simple" (63,64).

"I think there are fewer people now alive who understand argument than there were twenty or thirty years ago; and St. Thomas might have preferred the society of the atheists of the early nineteenth century, to that of the blank sceptics of the early twentieth" (126).

Referring to the Reformation of Martin Luther, "It had a peculiar horror and loathing of the great Greek philosophies, and of the Scholasticism that had been founded on those philosophies.... Man could say nothing to God, nothing from God, nothing about God, except an almost inarticulate cry for mercy and for the supernatural help of Christ, in a world where all natural things were useless. Reason was useless. Will was useless. Man could not move himself an inch any more than a stone. Man could not trust what was in his head any more than a turnip. Nothing remained in earth or heaven, but the name of Christ lifted in that lonely imprecation; awful as the cry of a beast in pain" (194,195).

Liberal Journalist: Bush Did NOT Lie to Us About Iraq

Here is a great article by James Kirchick, an assistant editor of the New Republic, explaining the obvious distinction between faulty information and intentional deception. In part:

"Four years on from the first Senate Intelligence Committee report, war critics, old and newfangled, still don't get that a lie is an act of deliberate, not unwitting, deception. If Democrats wish to contend they were "misled" into war, they should vent their spleen at the CIA.
...This may sound like ancient history, but it matters. After Sept. 11, President Bush did not want to risk allowing Hussein, who had twice invaded neighboring nations, murdered more than 1 million Iraqis and stood in violation of 16 U.N. Security Council resolutions, to remain in possession of what he believed were stocks of chemical and biological warheads and a nuclear weapons program. By glossing over this history, the Democrats' lies-led-to-war narrative provides false comfort in a world of significant dangers.
...[It may be justifiable to say] -- given the way it's turned out -- that they don't think the effort has been worth it. But predicating such a reversal on the unsubstantiated allegation that one was lied to is cowardly and dishonest...."

Europe vs. America

It has been a spotted past between us, but this brief history lesson might actually bring some clarity to the heart of the issue. This fascinating article explains the distinct mindset of the "two" worlds. The article concludes:

"...Regardless of who wins in November, the attitudes of Americans toward the role of identity in democratic life are unlikely to change much. Relative to Europe, Americans will surely remain deeply patriotic and much more committed to their faiths.

Europeans, meanwhile, may move closer to the Americans in their views. The recent shift to the right in Europe – from the victory of conservative leaders like Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi to the surprise defeat of the leftist mayor of London, Ken Livingston – might partially reflect a belated awareness there that a unique heritage is under assault by a growing Muslim fundamentalism.

The logic of the struggle against this fundamentalist threat will inevitably demand the reassertion of the European national and religious identities that are now threatened.

Europeans are now saying goodbye to Mr. Bush, and hoping for the election of an American president who they believe shares their sophisticated postnational, postmodern and multicultural attitudes. But don't be surprised if, in the years ahead, European leaders, in order to protect freedom and democracy at home, start sounding more and more like the straight-shooting cowboy from abroad they now love to hate."

Kennedy Started the Vietnam War!?

Did his meeting with Khrushchev provoke Kennedy into concluding that he needed to confront Communism in Vietnam? So implies the history review in this article by Hugh Hewitt. Hewitt is quoting another article, written by Scott Johnson of The Daily Standard, summarizing the historical/political events surrounding the Vienna talks between Kennedy and Khrushchev. That article concludes:

"Summarizing Kennedy's own evaluation of the aftermath of the Vienna conference in his 2003 biography of Kennedy, Robert Dallek writes that Kennedy "now needed to convince Khrushchev that he could not be pushed around, and the best place currently to make U.S. power credible seemed to be in Vietnam."

In short, the Vienna conference resolved no issue between the United States and the Soviet Union. On the contrary, if anything, it precipitated crises that were resolved through the display and use of military force.

What harm can possibly come of a meeting between enemies? There are many, like Obama, who say that no harm can come from talking. To paraphrase JFK's June 1963 Berlin speech, let them come to study the Vienna conference."

National Alzheimer's

Memorial Day is the day of "memory" for our nation. It actually started after the Civil War, in 1866 as Decoration Day with Americans going to cemeteries to decorate the graves of soldiers in honor of their sacrifice. It eventually became Memorial Day, a day of remembrance. Dennis Prager was talking today and mentioned the idea that our memory is what makes us who we are. If we ever lost our memory we would lose our identity, very much like a victim of Alzheimer's, who forgets not only who he is but also who everyone else in his life is.

On a national level, when we lose our memory, we also lose our identity. There are many famous quotes about those who fail to learn from history (our memory) are doomed to repeat it, etc. Well, connecting this with one of my other favorite quotes about remembering, I found Prager's comments quite profound.

One of the interesting components of our history, our national memory, that I have learned lately, especially as it relates to war, is that we WON the Vietnam war. Seriously, check out your history. The problem was the "won, now run" policy that our decision-makers implemented prevented Vietnam from stabilizing the peace and getting up on its feet. Thus, "in early 1975 the communists launched a massive attack. President Gerald Ford asked for $1 billion in supplemental funds to help the South Vietnamese, and Congress refused. They had already pulled the plug on the U.S.-supported government of Lon Nol in Cambodia. Ford had no choice but to order the evacuation of remaining U.S. personnel."

Now, this is important to our national identity because people are claiming Iraq is the new Vietnam. The parallels are striking. But have we learned the lessons? If we win the peace, but leave as soon as it looks certain, without staying long enough to secure it, will Iraq become the new Vietnam for certain?

Obama claims that if we have not been able to stabilize Iraq in 7 years, we won't be able to do it in 14, 21, or 54 years. Really?! Well, how does he explain Korea? It's not that we failed in the Korean conflict, ultimately, as much as our presence there helps maintain the peace we secured. This precisely is John McCain's point about being in Iraq for 50 or 100 years, if necessary.

It's a shame to see one so young suffer from such a horrible disease - Alzheimer's. I pray on this day of memory, we as a nation, will not fall victim to it as well.

Thank you to all who have served and are serving.

Lessons from Negotiating

This NY Times Op Ed piece is a brilliant REMINDER of history (Remember, the opposite of remembering is not forgetting, but dismembering!). As it relates to Obama referencing Kennedy's meeting with Krushchev to support why an American President should sit down with our enemies, the NY Times explains:

"...Khrushchev’s aide, after the first day, said the American president seemed “very inexperienced, even immature.” Khrushchev agreed, noting that the youthful Kennedy was “too intelligent and too weak.” The Soviet leader left Vienna elated — and with a very low opinion of the leader of the free world.

Kennedy’s assessment of his own performance was no less severe. Only a few minutes after parting with Khrushchev, Kennedy, a World War II veteran, told James Reston of The New York Times that the summit meeting had been the “roughest thing in my life.” Kennedy went on: “He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts. Until we remove those ideas we won’t get anywhere with him.”

A little more than two months later, Khrushchev gave the go-ahead to begin erecting what would become the Berlin Wall. Kennedy had resigned himself to it, telling his aides in private that “a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.” The following spring, Khrushchev made plans to “throw a hedgehog at Uncle Sam’s pants”: nuclear missiles in Cuba. And while there were many factors that led to the missile crisis, it is no exaggeration to say that the impression Khrushchev formed at Vienna — of Kennedy as ineffective — was among them.

If Barack Obama wants to follow in Kennedy’s footsteps, he should heed the lesson that Kennedy learned in his first year in office: sometimes there is good reason to fear to negotiate."

The World is an Evil Place

Here is an example of why I enjoy Dennis Prager. In his recent article he details the last 7 day's headlines from around the world, and then concludes:

"These are only the news items of the last seven days. I purposely chose a period without dramatic headlines. And, of course, no news came out of North Korea, which continues to be the world's largest concentration camp. Cubans continue to have no freedom. Iranians continue to be whipped and killed for sexual improprieties. Saudi women continue to be forced to be invisible in public and live a demeaned status.

The world is filled with evil. Always has been. The biggest difference today is that, thanks to communications, we are far more aware of much of it.

I am convinced that human evil is so great that most people choose either to ignore it or to focus their concerns elsewhere -- like those who believe that human-created carbon dioxide emission, not human evil, poses the greatest threat to mankind. No one will ever get killed for fighting global warming. Fighting evil, on the other hand, is quite dangerous."

This echoes one of the points of my Master's Thesis, which I personally found quite insightful:

St. Cyprian wrote to his friend in North Africa in the third century admitting from his “fair garden under the shadow of these vines” that the world looked cheerful. Yet he also knew that if he were to step away from the shade of his comfort, he would see that “It is really a bad world Donatus, an incredibly bad world” (The Good News About Injustice, 40). Gary Haugen, founder of International Justice Mission and chief U.N. inspector in Rwanda after the 1994 genocide, regrettably speaks for many of us when he confesses that in his “domesticated garden the fall is being managed” and the only use for the armor of God is “for fighting weeds, backyard pests and trespassers.” Like Haugen, we also are “caught totally off guard when the true nature of ‘the world’ passes before [our] eyes” (46, 49).

All of this brought to mind another quote I saw on the Chesterton blog back on 9/11/06. May we always be as clear about our surroundings as GK Chesterton, who stated: "I am never surprised at any work of hell" ["The God of the Gongs" in The Wisdom of Father Brown].

You Could Have Heard a Pin Drop

Yes, I'm actually posting an email forward on my blog. Four great reminders that America is not all that bad and that sometimes those with a poor opinion of us just don't have/can't remember all the facts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Then there was a conference in Europe where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French, German, and American. During a break one of the French engineers came back into the room saying 'Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?'

A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: 'Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck.

We have eleven such ships to help those in need; how many does France have?'

You could have heard a pin drop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian, Italian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but an Italian admiral suddenly complained that, 'whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English.' He then asked, 'Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French or Italian?'

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied 'Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German.'

You could have heard a pin drop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A group of American, retired teachers, recently went to France on a tour. Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on. "You have been to France before, monsieur?" the customs officer asked sarcastically.

Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously.

"Then you should know enough to have your passport ready."

Mr. Whiting said, "The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it."

"Impossible. Americans always have to show their passports on arrival in France!"

The senior Mr. Whiting gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained. "Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in '44 to help liberate this country, I couldn't find any damn Frenchmen to show it to."

You could have heard a pin drop.

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When in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of 'empire building' by George Bush.

He answered by saying, 'Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.'

You could have heard a pin drop.

"American Democracy is a Fraud"

Strong words from Pat Buchanan in a recent article regarding the border fence. Read the whole thing here (which is also a great reminder of our history and lists a few more reasons to be proud of this great nation). Here is the conclusion of the article:

"After Arizonans voted to cut off all social benefits to residents who could not prove they were in the country legally came reports of people pulling their kids out of public schools and leaving the state.

From the border come reports that added Border Patrol agents have reduced the number of illegal aliens apprehended, suggesting word has gone out south of the border that it is no longer so easy to walk in. And deportations of criminal aliens, long demanded, is actually going up.

Let it be said: Our border can be secured; the illegal aliens can be sent home; the magnets that draw them here can be turned off. This crisis can be resolved if the courage and will are there. Unfortunately, we have a government that does not seem to care and probable nominees neither of whom is committed in his heart to doing it.

Given the manifest will of the people that this invasion from the south be halted and rolled back, the 2008 election is shaping up as yet further confirmation that American democracy is a fraud."

"An Open Letter" to Mrs. Obama

Dear Mrs Obama,
In case you are not familiar with American history, here is a simple review of American accomplishments that are all worthy of our pride.

"The Americans"
On June 5 1973, Canadian radio commentator Gordon Sinclair delivered a stirring, pro-American editorial. The United States had just pulled out of the Vietnam War which ended in a stalemate - a war fought daily on TV, over radio and in the press. The war had divided the American people, and at home and abroad it seemed everyone was lambasting the United States. Outraged by what he saw and heard that morning, in his noon-hour broadcast, Sinclair rose to the defense of the American people - and his voice was heard around the world. His editorial was later released on a record (titled "The Americans"), with all royalties donated to the American Red Cross.

This page contained an embedded video. Click here to view it.

It's amazing that this was compiled in and related to events from 1974 and preceding. There's much more that could be added over the following 34 years (just about my entire life). This is good to remember! If this doesn't persuade you to be proud of America, maybe you could move to Canada (or Iran) and see things from their perspective. Best wishes.

The True Meaning of Christmas

This brought a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes! Seriously! After my last post about Christmas, I was so delighted to see this on Between Two Worlds. Thank you for the reminder and the powerful truth presented to the world every year in a cartoon! How amazing that the MSM actually puts this on. Unfortunately, just like most Christians, most Americans probably don't get the weight of it. Remember, if we aren't careful we will dismember the gospel by how we celebrate this holiday. Thanks Charlie Brown for helping us "remember" it correctly! Peace on Earth! Goodwill to Men! Joy to the World, a Savior has come! He is Christ the Lord!

America's History with Slavery

Interestingly, here's another article, this one by Michael Medved, about slavery in American history. I just linked to an article by D.A. Carson a couple days ago (Racism and the Church), so it's striking that this topic seems to be quite popular currently. To give you a sense of the article, Medved concludes his comments by stating,

"In short, politically correct assumptions about America’s entanglement with slavery lack any sense of depth, perspective or context. As with so many other persistent lies about this fortunate land, the unthinking indictment of the United States as uniquely blameworthy for an evil institution ignores the fact that the record of previous generations provides some basis for pride as well as guilt."

The article says things I have thought, but never seen articulated before, specifically when it comes to reparations. The article reminds me of my oft-quoted truism, "The opposite of remembering is not forgetting, but dismembering." This article helps remember history correctly, so we do not dismember, or disfigure, the picture we so commonly get of this nation.

The Age of Agitated Amnesiacs

While reading the book Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, I came across this extended section that fits well with the running theme of Remembering, so I thought I would reproduce it here:

Czeslaw Milosz, winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature, remarked in his acceptance speech in Stockholm that our age is characterized by a 'refusal to remember'; he cited, among other things, the shattering fact that there are now more than one hundred books in print that deny that the Holocaust ever took place. The historian Carl Schorske has, in my opinion circled closer to the truth by noting that the modern mind has grown indifferent to history because history has become useless to it; in other words, it is not obstinacy or ignorance but a sense of irrelevance that leads to the diminution of history. Television's Bill Moyers inches still closer when he says, 'I worry that my own business...helps to make this an anxious age of agitated amnesiacs.... We Americans seem to know everything about the last twenty-four hours but very little of the last sixty centuries or the last sixty years.' Terence Moran, I believe, lands on the target in saying that with media whose structure is biased toward furnishing images and fragments, we are deprived of access to an historical perspective. In the absence of continuity and context, he says, 'bits of information cannot be integrated into an intelligent and consistent whole.' We do not refuse to remember; neither do we find it exactly useless to remember. Rather, we are being rendered unfit to remember. For if remembering is to be something more than nostalgia, it requires a contextual basis--a theory, a vision, a metaphor--something within which facts can be organized and patterns discerned. The politics of image and instantaneous news provides no such context, is, in fact, hampered by attempts to provide any. A mirror records only what you are wearing today. It is silent about yesterday" (135,136).

Again, "The opposite of remembering is not forgetting, but dismembering." It is shocking to consider the claim that we might be "rendered unfit to remember" by TV!

Boston Holocaust Memorial

This April I went to Boston to support my cousin running the Boston Marathon. I had a great chance to look around the city and really loved it. My favorite site was probably JFK's Presidential Library and Museum. My most surprising find was the Holocaust Memorial. This really caught me off guard. I have studied genocide extensively (my Master's thesis is on genocide), and I have even visited holocaust sites in Europe and Rwanda. But this Memorial got me!

I have never really been emotionally moved by art or architecture, beyond the simple acknowledgement of excellent craftsmanship. But this Memorial struck a cord that I can only attempt to explain. I think the symbolism and representations and themes that were chosen combined to make such a moving statement, that it was difficult to not feel it. Let me show you.

The Memorial is nothing more than an elaborate sidewalk made of granite with 6 tall, square, glass columns along the path that visitors can walk through. Each glass column represents one of the 6 major concentration camps. They all have iron grates as the floor and steam is coming up from underneath to mist the glass, illustrating smoke stacks of the gas chambers.

There is this huge granite stone with Isaiah 56:5 engraved on it as you start the sidewalk. This was so fitting in contrast to one of the first glass panes you witness:

It reads, "Nothing belongs to us anymore. They have taken away our clothes, our shoes, even our hair. If we speak, they will not listen to us. And if they listen, they will not understand. They have even taken away our names. My number is 174517. I will carry the tattoo on my left arm until I die." The sobering reality that having no name, the very first thing we receive in this world that marks our existence, is unfathomable. But God promises to give an everlasting name to his children!

Then there is this glass pane, which reads: "Ilse, a childhood friend of mine, once found a raspberry in the camp and carried it in her pocket all day to present to me that night on a leaf. Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one raspberry and you give it to your friend."

The glass panes continue to quote profound statements and document heroic events. The steamy mist continuing to come up from the depths and cloud the glass as you walk through. It was pretty surreal. But the part that really hit me, that I could not explain, was when I picked up the brochure they have in newspaper-stand-like boxes at either end. As I read about the various elements of the Memorial, I was shocked to realize that on the six columns are etched six million numbers representing those that had died in the Holocaust. I had to walk back through - I didn't even realize it the first time. I just thought the glass was cloudy or had an interesting etch design. I didn't realize it was actually numbers.

And then it hit me. Is that how this was even possible. People just walking through life, not realizing what they are seeing and what is happening around them. Remember, the West did not know this was happening until after the war was over and Germany was defeated. Then the prison camps were discovered, and the gas chambers and piles of shoes...and mass graves. I had such a strong sense of guilt, like I could so easily miss 6 million numbers, right in front of my face the entire time. It was profound. And maybe that's the point of the Memorial.

The three commandments on the wall of the Washington DC Holocaust Museum are:

1) Never be a perpetrator; 2) Never be a victim; and 3) Never be a bystander

Again, the opposite of remembering is not forgetting, but dismembering. To actually cut a piece of the story off and disconnect it from the rest only disfigures history. May we always remember!

Remember, Part IV - Chinese Censorship

The following article was printed today in Reuters. I thought it was fascinating and might be instructive for those of us who aren't necessarily victims of censored history, but rather have just forgotten our own. Today also marks the anniversary of D-Day. Below is the prayer prayed by President FDR during a national radio broadcast on that day. May the Lord hear this prayer again today for our troops and our nation. AMEN.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A young clerk with no knowledge of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown allowed a tribute to victims slip into the classified ads page of a newspaper in southwest China, a Hong Kong daily reported on Wednesday.

The tiny ad in the lower right corner of page 14 of the Chengdu Evening News on Monday night, read: "Paying tribute to the strong(-willed) mothers of June 4 victims".

An investigation was launched by Chinese authorities to find out how the advertisement slipped its way past censors.

Public discussion of the massacre is still taboo in Beijing and the government has rejected calls to overturn the verdict that the student-led demonstrations were "counter-revolutionary", or subversive. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed when the army crushed the pro-democracy protests on June 4, 1989.

Hong Kong's South China Morning Post said a young woman on the Chengdu Evening News classified section had allowed the ad to be published because she'd never heard of the June 4 crackdown.

A man gave the advertisement to the clerk, who had recently graduated and worked for an advertising company responsible for receiving content for the ads section, the Post reported.

"She called the man back two days later to check what June 4 meant and the man said it was (a date on which) a mining disaster took place," the Post quoted a source at the paper as saying.

"This highlights (the fact) that the government needs to face up to history," the paper quoted the source as saying.

References to the massacre are barred in state media, the Internet and printed works, meaning many of China's younger generation are ignorant of the events.

Review of Congress' Joint Resolution Authorizing War in Iraq

In response to all the debate and furor over the continuing war in Iraq, I went back and reviewed the Joint Resulution of Congress authorizing the war back in 2002. I found the following excerpts particularly interesting and relevant for review. Keep in mind, this is what Congress declared (not the President), and this details significant history/events that ocurred under President Clinton that led up to this SUBSEQUENT authorization for use of force. (Excerpts below, emphasis added)

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) authorizes the use of all necessary means to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 660 (1990) and subsequent relevant resolutions and to compel Iraq to cease certain activities that threaten international peace and security, including the development of weapons of mass destruction and refusal or obstruction of United Nations weapons inspections in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), repression of its civilian population in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 (1991), and threatening its neighbors or United Nations operations in Iraq in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 949 (1994);

Whereas in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1), Congress has authorized the President `to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) in order to achieve implementation of Security Council Resolution 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677;

Whereas in December 1991, Congress expressed its sense that it `supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 as being consistent with the Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1),' that Iraq's repression of its civilian population violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 and `constitutes a continuing threat to the peace, security, and stability of the Persian Gulf region,' and that Congress, `supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688';

Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;

Whereas the United States is determined to prosecute the war on terrorism and Iraq's ongoing support for international terrorist groups combined with its development of weapons of mass destruction in direct violation of its obligations under the 1991 cease-fire and other United Nations Security Council resolutions make clear that it is in the national security interests of the United States and in furtherance of the war on terrorism that all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions be enforced, including through the use of force if necessary;

Whereas it is in the national security interests of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region: Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

The Congress of the United States supports the efforts by the President to--
(1) strictly enforce through the United Nations Security Council all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq and encourages him in those efforts; and
(2) obtain prompt and decisive action by the Security Council to ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of delay, evasion and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies with all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.

(b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION- In connection with the exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon thereafter as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that--
(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and
(2) acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorist and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."

Remembering history is important. Relying on the headlines or 10 second soundbites of the media is not helpful, and could be dangerous in distorting reality.

Remember, Part III - or, One Thing I Respect About Hillary Clinton

Of course there's the adage about those who fail to know their history are doomed to repeat it. But when it comes to knowing, and more importantly remembering accurately, history, I would suggest that this is crucial to being able to reconcile the present. Let me explain. There are actually three issues that collide in my mind that prompted this entry: 1) Hillary Clinton's refusal to apologize for her vote in favor of the war, 2) A recent discussion with a friend about the war in which the friend declined continuing the discussion because she was not familiar with the historical time line that I was presenting that led us into the war, although she remained committed to her opposition, and 3) Someone recently asking me if I regretted quitting a job I held a year ago.

So how do all of these connect. Remembering history is critical. Hillary is right to not apologize for actions taken with the best information she had at the time. There is nothing wrong with it. The entire world thought Iraq had WMD's. Of course, knowing what we know now, most people would vote differently today. But that's not the issue. You cannot, nor should not, apologize for decisions made in context after-the-fact.

My friend was holding to a position that the war was unjustified, but did not have the historical knowledge/rationale as to why we got to the point of a unanimous UN resolution (1441) that demanded consequences for non-compliance by Iraq. Regardless of what we found once we got in country and what the situation looks like now, you cannot just forget (or conveniently ignore as some politicians are doing today) the facts that we had at the time.

As for my job, as I look back now, someone suggested that "everything turned out well" at the agency so I should have "hung in there" after all the funding was cut. Unfortunately, the results of actions are not even good assessors of the right-ness or wrong-ness of a decision. In my particular situation, my boss was asking me to do impossible things, things I could not do, like compromise quality of performance with a diminished staff, take on extra responsibilities in excess of the ones I had just handed off and carried for over a year to the point of burnout, restructure a program that had just be restructured with incredible growing pains, etc. Additionally, our relationship had been so strained during the march up toward the end that it was practically impossible to continue a productive relationship, the decision-making structure that was in place that led up to the crisis was still in place and there were no signs of it changing to accommodate the situation, and ultimately, there had been such a fundamental disparity about the true nature of the situation that it seemed irreconcilable. It is not helpful, nor right, to consider the situation now and use that to assess whether I should have stayed. Doing so only ignores the facts as they were at the time. Whether with my job or the war, remembering the history correctly prevents one from regretting decisions made. Any other response is simply "dis-membering" what happened for some politically correct objective or some unhealthy self-flagellation.

Remember, Part II - Forgiveness

Again, "The opposite of remembering is not forgetting, but dis-membering."
I choose the topic of forgiveness first, since it is the most current in my thoughts. I spent much of the time on my New Year's retreat climbing this fortress. Without any of the details, at least from my perspective, there has been much to forgive over this last year. It seems that God intended that I wrestle through these things for a time and then was gracious to give me release when He deemed the match had been sufficient. Whether it was I or the Lord who came out the victor, I cannot say [Even Jacob's match with the Angel of the Lord seems to have been a draw]. But I can affirm the burden of unforgiveness was left behind in 2006. Interestingly, the last two Sunday sermons have been about "letting go" of grudges or offenses in order to start the New Year off right. The pastor used the analogy of swimming with a cinder block (same as a millstone, will bring you instantly to the bottom of the lake). However, his "Just let go of the brink" exhortations seemed to ring too simplistic. Commenting on the “sudden discovery” that he had really forgiven someone whom he had been trying to for 30 years, C.S. Lewis states: “My feeling was 'But it's so easy. Why didn't you do it ages ago?' So many things are done easily the moment you can do them at all. But till then, sheerly impossible, like learning to swim. There are months during which no efforts will keep you up; then comes the day and hour and minute which, and even after, it becomes almost impossible to sink.” And so it was for me -- impossible until it was possible. And on New Year's Eve the Lord made it possible.

But the quote! Without writing a complete theology on the issue, my brick let go of me in this manner: My desire to "let it go" was prohibited by the incessant "but what about...." This mantra seemed like glue between me and the brick. I wanted to forgive (even if only in theory). I wanted to move on, let go. But it wouldn't let go of me. C.S. Lewis explaines, "Such anger is the fluid that love bleeds when you cut it.” So the time of intentional effort and serious labor with God began by laying the situation in front of him. I began to meditate on the Scriptures that talk about forgiveness. I think one small thing that might divert others on the path toward letting go is being caught up with the reasons to do so. Among the reasons Scripture lists are 1) so your prayers won't be hindered, 2) so God will accept your offering/devotion, 3) so your sins can be forgiven, etc. These are all powerful reasons to promote forgiveness. But this distraction--I call it that because I already wanted to forgive, I just didn't know how to--kept stoking the pot of emotion and compacting the grudge deeper into my pores. It was as I meditated on Ephesians 4,5 that the "how" came to me. In brief, the answer was in imitating God. He forgave us, not because we asked for forgiveness or even recognized we needed it, but while we were still his enemies because of Christ. For Christ's sake we were forgiven. Not to pull this down to some mundane, or even benign, parallel, but just as a mother might ask an older child to be nice to the younger sibling "for her" - not because the younger sibling wasn't annoying or didn't provoke him - simply for her. To forgive one person because someone else asked you to. How strange, yet magical. For me, this was the solvent that broke the adhesive bond between me and the brick. I am to imitate God in all things. I can forgive because God did, and I can do it the same way He did it - not because I asked him to (at least initially), nor because I even knew the depth of my offense and was able to accept the responsibility for it. No, He offered forgiveness for Christ's sake! Forgiveness has very little to do with the offender.

I also looked at 1 John 2:8-12 which explains that "the darkness is passing and the true light is already shinning. Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness." And John reminds his readers, "I write to you dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name." As I considered this, I came across the following story:
An ancient rabbi once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the day was on its way back. “Could it be,” asked one student, “when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it is a sheep or a dog?” “No,” answered the rabbi. “Could it be,” asked another student, “when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it is a fig tree or a peach tree?” “No,” said the rabbi. “Well, then what is it?” his pupils demanded. “It is when you look on the face of any woman or man and see that she or he is your sister or brother. Because, if you cannot do this, then no matter what time it is, it is still night.”

Ultimately, this confirmed the work that God had done - I could see those who had injured me as brothers and sisters, with their own weaknesses, fears, needs, etc. But my one concern was that all of this was too easy, as C.S. Lewis had noted. And I think, that is true - maybe not too easy as much as just incomplete. This is where the quote comes in. When the emotions of the injury come flooding back, as they are prone to, the resolution of the matter is to "re-member" what God has done - put the pieces back together. If I don't "re-member" how God helped me let the brick go or how the offender is truly a brother or sister, then I am prone to "dis-member" the Body of Christ. I will cut them off (some could argue, cut myself off). This is the caution that Heb 12:15 talks about with the "bitter root" that defiles many. To "re-member" the story of God's forgiveness toward me and imitate Him in forgiving others is a sure way to not "dis-member" His body, or even my brothers and sisters in the faith.

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