November 10, 2012

Tipping Point and the Seven Deadly Sins

~ “LETTERS FROM AMERICA” - by The Metaphysical Peregrine ~


This week America passed the tipping point. We found out America has moved from a constitutional republic based on moral scriptural values and beliefs, to an America that embraces and promotes the seven deadly sins. We have in Barack Obama and the Democrat Party, their supporters in the Jurassic Press and the trendy popular entertainment media, advocates for  wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.

In Obama's closing speeches running up to the election, he exhorted his supporters to vote for revenge, wrath. That he would say such a thing is puzzling since he has been in power for four years, so who is revenge directed toward? Statistism, Marxism, the Left, have been the Establishment since the 1930's, in both politics and culture, yet they still play the oppressed minority. That Obama made the statement indicates he and his Party believe in and practice wrath, even against those they triumph over. There's been a lot of gloating and insulting of Republicans, Conservatives and Christians since election day.

Obama and the Democrat Party advocate greed with their notion of confiscating the wealth from those that are the most productive. An interviewer a few years ago asked Obama, noting that every time tax rates were reduced, revenues to the government went up, why did he still advocate for a higher tax rate for the wealthy? His answer was his standard 'they have to pay their fair share', regardless of the results. They use the concept of fairness, deciding what that is, to line their own pockets, increase their own wealth, at the expense of others.

They promote sloth by their notion of redistributing the wealth, telling people even if they don't work hard enough to get the things they want on their own, the government will make up the difference. The more slothful one is, the increased difference will still be made up, necessitating going back to confiscating yet more from the producers to compensate.

Obama and his fellow Statists promote pride with the notion of self esteem, that one doesn't have to accomplish anything to be proud of oneself. We have students coming out of school barely able to read and write, no knowledge of art, history, literature, mathematics, civics. Students think they know these things, and tests show the opposite. Yet they are still proud of their nonexistent accomplishments.

They promote envy with their constant attack on the successful. Hey, look at that guy, he has more money than me, what an evil and despicable person! Why should he have more than me?

Statists, Leftists, promote lust. Look at all the movies, books, TV shows, and magazines that sex is central. The entertainment "reporters" on the show "TMZ" openly and happily talk about the porn they watch when at one time such things were secretive and hidden, viewing was an embarrassment. Adultery is becoming more acceptable; there's even a social media that helps adulterers hook up.

Lastly, gluttony. The Obama's have spent over a billion dollars on vacations and parties since they've been in office. They eat and feed their supporters large quantities of the finest cuisine, while exhorting others to eat moderately and plainly. They constantly exhort others to do with less, while they ever increase their own consumption.

What was rejected a few days ago by Americans, is the notion we do the best we can for ourselves, for our families and friends, without government intervention, and that there is a tried and true moral and behavioral code over a couple thousand years that lends itself to successful happy people, in turn happy successful communities, in turn nations that receive the blessings of God.

Scripture makes it quite clear with the examples of the Israelites; every time they denied God, turned their back on Him, serious, bad things happened to them.

A few days ago we decided to make it official, and turned our backs to God. We have made the State our religion. 

November 7, 2012

The Desire for God

Benozzo Gozzoli, St Augustine Departing for Milan
(between 1464 and 1465)
Apsidal Chapel of Sant' Agostino, San Gimignano, Italy

Pope Benedict XVI (from this week’s Wednesday audience in Rome):

Continuing our catechesis for the Year of Faith, we now consider the mysterious desire for God which lies deep in the human heart. God has created us for himself and, in the words of Saint Augustine, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in him. Even in today’s secularized society, this desire for God continues to make itself felt, above all in the experience of love. In love, which seeks the good of the other, we find ourselves by giving ourselves away, in a process involving the purification and healing of our hearts. So too in friendship, in the experience of beauty and the thirst for truth and goodness: we sense that we are caught up in a process which points us beyond ourselves to a mystery in which we dimly perceive the promise of complete fulfillment. Thanks to this innate religious sense, we can open our hearts to the gift of faith which draws us ever closer to God, the source of all good and the fulfillment of our deepest desire. During this Year of Faith, let us pray for our contemporaries who seek the truth with a sincere heart, that they may come to know the joy and freedom born of faith.
[…]
The answer to the question about the meaning of the experience of love thus passes through the purification and healing of the will, required by the very love which I have for the other. We must practice this, we must train, and even correct ourselves, so that we may truly desire that good.
[…]
[T]he dynamism of desire is always open to redemption. Even when it advances along mistaken paths, when it chases artificial paradises and seems to lose the ability to yearn for the true good. Even in the abyss of sin, that spark is not extinguished in man that allows him to recognize the true good, to savor it, and thus to begin a path of ascent, for which God, through the gift of his grace, never fails to provide his help. All of us, moreover, need to tread a path of the purification and healing of desire. We are pilgrims towards the heavenly homeland, towards that full, eternal good, which nothing will ever be able to snatch from us. It is not a matter, therefore, of stifling the desire which is in the heart of man, but of liberating it, so that it can reach its true stature. When in desire a window is opened towards God, this is already a sign of the presence of faith in the soul, faith that is a grace of God. St. Augustine also said: "By making us wait, God increases our desire, which in turn enlarges the capacity of our soul" (Commentary on the First Letter of John, 4,6: PL 35, 2009).

Read the full test here.

November 1, 2012

A Defense of Bores

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person. Nothing is more keenly required than a defence of bores. When Byron divided humanity into the bores and bored, he omitted to notice that the higher qualities exist entirely in the bores, the lower qualities in the bored, among whom he counted himself. The bore, by his starry enthusiasm, his solemn happiness, may, in some sense, have proved himself poetical. The bored has certainly proved himself prosaic. We might, no doubt, find it a nuisance to count all the blades of grass or all the leaves of the trees; but this would not be because of our boldness or gaiety, but because of our lack of boldness and gaiety. The bore would go onward, bold and gay, and find the blades of grass as splendid as the swords of an army. The bore is stronger and more joyous than we are; he is a demigod—nay, he is a god. For it is the gods who do not tire of the iteration of things; to them the nightfall is always new, and the last rose as red as the first.

~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Heretics, 1905


I love this quote. Moreover, at the moment, I can’t think of a more appropriate way to celebrate today's feast day... A Blessed All Saints’ Day!

Fra Angelico, The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs
Tempera on wood, 31,9 x 63,5 cm
National Gallery, London