Quote for the Day

"This strange disease of modern life, with its sick hurry, its divided aims."

-Matthew Arnold

The Christian Journey: Sisters of Life

Yesterday was "International Women's Day." Yes, another travesty foisted by the United Nations upon the decency of all. Their hypocrisy knows no limits.
A day later, we would like to use this opportunity to give praise to a band of women in New York who truly make our world better.

Let us recognize the women of Sisters of Life.

In the finest Christian tradition, these fervent pro-life Catholics do not only oppose abortion. They support life.
Since 1991, their order has helped, cared for, sheltered, mentored, and uplifted women in need.
These committed sisters teach, research, nurse, and pray. We salute their quiet dignity in the cause of life.

If Israel doesn't get 'em first

Iran threatens the U.S. with "harm and pain."

Somebody forgot to send Iran the memo....

Spucatum tauri: Are you sure?

Spring Break Bad???

Well, in a fine use of resources the American Medical Association has come out with findings that suggest a typical spring break might not be the wisest or healthiest course for young women to take. Why a study was necessary is the bigger story. Apparently, saying "what happens on spring break, stays on spring break" led the AMA to doubt that anything was happening. Good thing they spent money on a survey. They might be using the time to explore cures for genetic cancers or looking at the rise in formerly eradicated childhood illnesses, not wasting their breath on a bunch of spoiled college kids who might not run into any problems (ok, they probably will), but if they do, um, experience is a harsh, though excellent teacher. Who knows,they might learn. If they don't, they are fools. And why waste the time?

We recommend an alternative -- do something for someone else and prove that all college kids are not snotty brats wasting dad's money on some debauched sandy playground.

Try Habitat for Humanity!

The question of interest is this: most of these kids probably are spending their parents money. Why do the parents pay for them to indulge all their appetites in such a manner? Oh, maybe it is because a lot of these parents are sixties/seventies kids. They did the same things throughout college (b/c they didn't have to work) and then set a great example in the coked out "me" years of the eighties...and crazy, crazy thought -- look what their kids started doing in the nineties and continue until today. Sins of the father?

One bright candle against the rising of the dark

"The dike gave way"

The Reverand Dr. J.I. Packer, theologian and principal of Regent College boldly spoke to an international audience at the Metropolitan Club in New York. Anglicans, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians shivered at his words of rebuke and calls for repentance. Sadly, they were not the oblivious souls rushing the respective denominations into the abyss. Nevertheless, the warnings were apt, the metaphors sound, and the truths pointed, though sad.

"From outside the dike, there came those who called for another way of doing what they called 'theology,'" noted Packer. "All of this was an attempt to verbalize their 'religious experience,' not the revealed truth of God. Religious feelings replaced Jesus Christ, making him to be someone who is not what the Scriptures say he is. When the liberals – I use the word many of them claim for themselves – reduced Christianity to a religion of the self, the dike gave way, the prayer book was set aside, the floods came, and the Anglican Church of Britain, Canada and the United States has been inundated."

"Packer concluded his remarks with a dire warning: 'The Episcopal Church (USA) must repent and hold fast to the gospel that it has so flagrantly abandoned. It must return to that communion of the saints from which it has walked away or, in the far country into which it has drifted, it will surely die.'"

This pronouncement holds true for the Presbyterian Church and other denominations also. Heed it well, for the the Holy Scriptures remind in Matthew 7:13, "...for wide the gate, and broad the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat."

And there are many racing to an end they do not anticipate.

Quote for the Day

"Wisdom without power would be pathetic, a broken reed; power without wisdom would be merely frightening; but in God boundless wisdom and endless power are united, and this makes Him utterly worthy of our trust."
J.I. Packer

Quote for the Day

"An orange grown in Florida usually has a thin and tightly fitting skin, and it is also heavy with juice. Californians say that if you want to eat a Florida orange you have to get into a bathtub first. California oranges are light in weight and have thick skins that break easily and come off in hunks. The flesh inside is marvelously sweet, and the segments almost separate themselves. In Florida, it is said that you can run over a California orange with a ten-ton truck and not even wet the pavement."
-John McPhee, from his book Oranges

That is an excellent example of a literary journalist. McPhee was born on this day in 1931.

Gordon Parks, 1912-2006

Gordon Parks, a fine photographer who purchased his first camera in a pawn shop for $7.50, has died at 93.

R.I.P.

Hopkins attacks Hollywood condescension

Sir Anthony Hopkins gets it right!!!

excerpt:
Movie legend Sir Anthony Hopkins has criticised film bosses for making "condescending" films."Audiences aren't so mindless as movie-makers think", he told the Radio Times magazine.
The Hollywood star's latest film, The World's Fastest Indian, is a true story about a New Zealander motorcyclist who broke the land speed record.
Sir Anthony said of the movie: "No sex or violence, and that's refreshing."

He also criticised actors and actresses:
"I can't get caught up in the self-importance. People bow to your every wish and you forget where you come from and what you're doing," he told the magazine.
"I recently worked with two actors who wouldn't come out of their trailers for some reason."
"Can you figure that out? It's insanity. Or they complain because their trailers aren't big enough. "
"Bulls***. It's a job, like any other, so don't make a big deal. Be polite, treat the crew with respect and don't think you're different."

Quote for the Day

"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock..."
(from G. Greene's "The Third Man")

cinematic buffs might recognize the image as a still from the 1949 movie of the same name, starring Orson Welles.

Greene letters

Craving more Graham Greene? A new book due out this month might satisfy. The Times Online offers a sampling of the material. The work is Articles of Faith: The collected Tablet journalism of Graham Greene, and includes many letters written to and by Greene.

It ought to be a matter of concern to both historians and literary aficionados that the practice of letter writing has declined so greatly. What correspondence will remain? I cannot believe emails will become the record of our age when the time to look back arrives.

Christian Reflections, Five

"Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you. What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross."
-- Flannery O'Connor

Christian Reflections, Four

The Potter And The Clay
By Isaac Watts

Behold, the Potter and the clay,

He forms His vessels as He's pleased;

Such is our God and such are we

The subjects of His high decree.

Does not the Potter's power extend

O'er all the mass, which part to choose?

And mold it for a nobler end,

And which to leave for viler use?

May not the Sovereign Lord on high

Dispense His favors as He will?

Choose some to life, while others die

And yet be just and gracious still?

What if, to make His terror known,

He lets His patience long endure,

Suffering vile rebels to go on,

And seal their own destruction sure?

Shall man reply against his Lord,

And call His Maker's ways unjust,

The thunder, of whose dreadful word,

Can crush a thousand worlds to dust?

But O, my soul, if truths so bright

Should dazzle and confound thy sight,

Yet still His written will obey,

And wait the great decisive day.

Then shall He make His justice known,

And the whole world before His throne,

With joy or terror shall confess

The glory of His righteousness.

Spucatum tauri: Sanctimonious Banalities, Hollywood's new bravery, and Clooney's confusion

After countless Oscar night references to their "bravery" and "courage" and moral superiority, one writer at National Review ponders where Hollywood might go next.

If you missed it, Hollywood outdid themselves in banalities. Montage after montage of film clips, purportedly demonstrations of social consciousness, and other liberal fluff wearied the viewer. And how often do you need to tell the national audience, that is going to inject a much needed cash flow into the industry after Oscar movies come out for home viewing, "Don't buy DVD's" "They're bad -- pay $10 to sit in a theater and watch the crap instead!!!"

In an apparent oversight, no one remembered to say hello or even give a "shout out" to the troops. While celebs congratulate themselves on bravery, troops wonder if the next drive down the road will be their last.

Adrian Brody remembered a Marine friend from the old neighborhood a couple years back, but since then I'm having a bit of trouble thinking of anyone else.

Perhaps I'm too harsh. Is it their fault if they don't know anyone at all who is in the service? I mean, think back to those who didn't know anyone who voted for Nixon, or Reagan. "Out of touch." Slightly! And not to the great good that Clooney imagines. But we hope, to a great demise.

Quote for the Day

It may be true that my desk here is really "nothing but" a transient eddy of electrons in the flux of universal process. Nevertheless, I find that it continues to support my feet, my revolver, and my cigars all day long. What happens when my back is turned I don't know. Or much care. That's no concern of mine.
- Edward Abbey

Spucatum tauri: The diversity crusade revisited

Taliban Man at Yale

University officials are embarrassed--but not embarrassed enough.

"Are there no limits to how arrogant and out-of-touch America's Ivy League schools can get? Last week it emerged that Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former deputy foreign secretary of the Taliban, is now a student at Yale while at the same time the school continues to block ROTC training from its campus and argues for the right of its law school to exclude military recruiters. King George's troops played the music to "The World Turned Upside Down" as they surrendered at Yorktown. Perhaps the Ivy League should adopt that tune as they surrender all vestiges of common sense."

Continue the article here.