One of the many ways of lying smoothly is to simply redefine words.  Thomas Sowell

Flummoxed

The Domestics try to keep it light,
but that 8th grade boy keeps following them

I've always been dizzied by the see-saw back 'n forth of two sides of my annoyingly animated personality:  The intoxicating immersion in all things beautiful.  The no-nonsense drive for justice.  

The warring sides are readily seen on this blog.  One post excoriating illogic, hypocrisy and willful destructive sin, next to the post that is pregnant with meaning and glory.  

Art can tip the see-saw:

Makoto Fujimura's magnificent abstracts
are of another world

A song or symphony tilts toward Whatsoever Things are Lovely

Perhaps we will just lean into All Things Lovely and leave the justice to the good dear LORD.  Art, music, and lofty ideas to make the head dance are edifying.  And here is the Big Idea that balances the see-saw:  The Father's Justice Will Prevail.  The Lamb is the first Word and shall be the last.  And all of creation will say, "It is good."  

Poetry to make the heart sing

Is it just me or is Tolkien's elven Rivendell home similar in tone and vision to Colorado Springs Glen Eyrie?

Two and a half decades ago Robert and I relished the beauty of Glen Eyrie during a Pastor's Seminar.  Of all the ill advised uTurns, after we left the other-worldly retreat we went directly to Walmart.  I cried.  It was heavenly poetry to dusty prose.  Stark.  
That experience set this truth clearly:  Set your hearts on things above, not on earthly things.  Colossians 3

Lord of the Rings Rivendell

our GOD-bathed world: that all would know as they are known

Until our thoughts of GOD have found every visible thing and event glorious with His  presence, the word of JESUS has not yet fully seized us.  Dallas Willard

There is no one like Kathryn Dawn Lang for bending the earthly themes: love/lust, innocence and guilt in juxtapostion, or the ache of romance set in the frame of remorse.  Sometimes while listening to her music, I am brought to prayer.  May KD Lang know the Source of all the beauty.  The first note of her sonorous voice pulsated from the Father's echo chamber.  May she know where it began?  And, dear LORD, may it end where it started; with You.  

(We live in) a world in which GOD is continually at play and over which He constantly rejoices.  

GOD is simply one great inexhaustible and eternal experience of all that is good and true and beautiful and right. 

It is precisely from the space immediately around us that GOD watches and GOD acts.   DW 

Life as poetry

The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.  C.S. Lewis

Here's hoping my favorite Craftsmen are with us for all Eternity.  Chihuly lining the mansion walls while KD Lang's wondrous pipes join the celebration.

Family February birthdays

On the occasion of Nathaniel's recent birthday
19 February 2014.
He shares a birthday with this doll:

Morgan Jo, age 11

Roger L. Simon sporting 20/20 vision

http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2013/12/19/the-pc-lynching-of-phil-robertson/

Book recommendation

Malcolm Gladwell's latest, "David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants"

Mr. Gladwell's "there is more than meets the eye" mode of operandi is in place with this volume.  His contention is that there is a flip-side to the notion that might wins;  bigger and stronger prevails.  

Malcolm always makes me think.  And apparently, he thought about his childhood Mennonite upbringing while researching David and Goliath.  In his own words, "I think there has been an overemphasis of the idea that David’s victory was improbable. When you look closer to that story and you understand the full historical context, you see it from a different perspective. Here was a guy who brilliantly changed the rules of combat. He was equipped with a sling that was routinely used by armies to defeat the sort that Goliath was. David was very skilled at using the weapon and he was filled with the spirit of the Lord. Put those things together, why is he an underdog? He’s smarter than his opponent, better armed and he had this extraordinary force in his heart. When you understand that perspective, you understand that sometimes our instinct about where power comes from is wrong."  

During the writing of "David and Goliath," Malcolm says that he was brought "back into the fold."  Welcome, my good man.  Welcome.

Worth repeating

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” 

― John Adams

Amendment 1: Freedom of association

If a man has the right to choose who he marries, a business owner surely must have the right to choose who he serves. You can not argue for the first while actively attempting to undermine the second.   Matt Walsh

What is a Capitalist?

What is a Capitalist?

The political dialogue and over-the-fence conversations would be greatly enhanced if we could all agree on proper word definitions.  The above article does a masterful job of defining 'capitalist.'

Quote of the weekend

There are so many holes in the Unaffordable Care Act, there are not enough Democratic thumbs to plug them.  Caren MacMurchy

Insight of the day

Most of us will just be given tiny, seemingly insignificant chances every day to be honest, honorable and forthright.  Matt Walsh

Let there be Light

Stunning: This spectacular photo captures the Advent procession at Salisbury Cathedral, where 1,300 candles are paraded through the pitch black building.

Illuminating: The Darkness to Light procession is one of the most popular services of the liturgical year in Salisbury, England.

Maybe Isaiah Robert will join the choir.
What a wondrous celebration.

Coercive malevolence and other favorite past-times

One of the most demonstrable up-close-and-personal displays of wicked coercion I ever witnessed was at the school where I taught in California's San Fernando Valley a lifetime ago.  It involved a vulnerable student named Thomas.  

I noticed Thomas in line the first day of the 1979 school year.  Recognizing the whale noises subversively  communicated to the pod dwellers, I knew that Thomas was a potential target for ridicule.  I was drawn to him immediately.
Thankfully, as the year progressed and the school of fish swam harmoniously together, Thomas learned that he was safe among the others.  It was the first time he could let his guard down.  There was no blood in the water.

Until that dreadful day when his mother removed him from my classroom.  She was angry that the school principal would not pay her custodial salary under the table.  She feared that part-time employment could affect the welfare assistance she was receiving.  In protest, she launched a mini-drama.  

As Thomas's mother approached on a sunny May day to return his books and remove him from the school, she kept a running dialogue that was intended to speak for her pawn.   

"Look at him.  He's so glad to get out of here."  

That was not the truth.  Thomas was happier in my classroom than he had ever been in his school years.  The positive attention I heaped on the dear lad, rendered him a class favorite.  Everyone liked Thomas.  He was not the brunt of fat jokes in this school.  His blood was not in the water.

His mother either had no knowledge of the classroom haven or she did not care that her son was finally able to enjoy school.  He could be used to punish the principal and me for not doing what she wanted. Thomas's mother was a wicked woman.  

Using people like pawns in an evil chess game is wicked.  For Barack Obama, malevolent  coercion is a blood sport.  Mischaracterizing others in his manipulative game of "I Win!" is legendary.  His straw men are strewn across the fruited plain.  Their names are Thomas.

Here are two examples in a grab bag of countless coercions:

In referring to the private insurance market  the ObamaCare  exchanges are replacing, the emperor said, "(I)t's important that we don't pretend that somehow that's a place worth going back to."

But we are supposed to pretend that Mr. Obama is accurately speaking for the millions of Thomas's that were perfectly happy with their insurance plans.  I'd be delighted to go back to the affordable insurance plan that has served me since retirement.  You, Mr. President, do not speak for me.

Another one of his favorite deceptive assertions is that the "do-nothing" congress refuses to negotiate.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Barack Obama pretends to be a bi-partisan listener and then refuses to budge.  Congresswoman Noem bears witness to this ploy.  The president refuses to even make eye contact or show the respect of follow-up after meeting with his across-the-aisle adversaries.  He then follows up his dismissive behavior with accusations that the republicans refuse to work with him.  Wicked Machiavellian behavior.  
Like a grade school bully, Mr. Obama bloodies everyone's nose and then whines and bellyaches that no one will play with him.  What a punk.   

One has to wonder about the endgame purpose when the favored tactic is exploitive deception.  If ObamaCare is really about serving Americans in the best possible way, why is it drowning in untruthful corruption?  

If the truth liberates - as Jesus posited - does it follow that mendacity enslaves?  

Thomas did not leave my classroom, 30 years ago, a free boy.  He was bound to his mother's wicked schemes.  I have prayed, through the years, that the middle-aged man knows the truth.  I pray, in God's mercy, that Thomas is free.  

Anytime I am asked to believe something I know is untrue, I will not remain silent like I did when Thomas shuffled away.  When the Emperor is buck naked, someone has to point it out.

Understated cartoon of the week

You betcha!

Pride cometh before the fall

Jonah Goldberg's gloating - aka, pointing out the obvious - over Barack Obama's gravitational pull to reality is the filet mignon of commentary.  With a nice cabernet to wash it down.

Here are some luscious excerpts:

In every tale of hubris, the transgressor is eventually slapped across the face with the semi-frozen flounder of reality.

Barack Obama’s hubris — another immigrant word, which means a sinful pride or arrogance that causes someone to believe he has a godlike immunity to the rules of life.

But, with an irony so rich it would be made of Corinthian leather if it was a car seat, the only way he could get his signature legislation passed was to baldly and brazenly lie about it, over and over and over again. He created a rhetorical cloud castle where no one would lose his insurance, every family would save thousands of dollars, and millions of the uninsured would suddenly get coverage. Anyone who doubted this was called a fool or a liar, or even a racist.  
 Jonah Goldberg, National Review

Read the whole romp to reality here:  http://www.nationalreview.com/article/363907/obamacare-schadenfreudarama-jonah-goldberg

Obama appealing to the lowest common denominator

The assumption in this denigrating ad is that young people have the moral rectitude of Hugh Hefner and his cage full of bunnies. Heartbreakingly pathetic. Children and young adults tend to leap over the bar that is raised. In the current crop of undisciplined 20-somethings, the bar of low expectations are limboed under rather than leaped over. I expected more from my children who are now productive and virtuous adults married to virtuous spouses.  Let's hear it for righteousness.

Question of the century

I hear you, Professor Sowell.