Turkey Point

The rains keep coming day after day with dramatic skies of massive black boulder clouds sweeping across the horizon. Below the earth drinks heartily knowing that bone dry days are but months away. Here, at Turkey Point, population zero humans, a glimpse of how it will all look once brother Sun returns. Few can find Turkey Point but for those who do there is the blessing of silence, peace and solitude...a secret place is necessary to at least dream about when the "machine tells us how to dream" Pink Floyd

Agincourt

Bernard Cornwell's "Agincourt" is an excellent novel of that historic battle in the Hundred Years War. It captures a view of history from the eyes of a common archer, and as such, is a refreshing alternative to the telling of history from the eyes of the ruling class. The novel's graphic prediction of the violence of the Middle Ages clearly shows how far the old civilization of Rome had collapsed into the barbarism of its invaders. The fusion of the Germanic tribes into Roman order was truly catastrophic considering that indoor plumbing was just one benefit of the old empire which did not reappear for 1,500 years, even after a devastating plague wiped out more than a third of Europe. Reading Cornwell's work I wondered if the current situation in the West is but the early stages of another collapse in which the enemy this time is not across the Rhine but within us. Destruction is so much easier than building and recovery is almost impossible to achieve. "Agincourt" reveals the totality of violence 1,000 years after the collapse of Roman law. It shows a world in which children and women have absolutely no rights. Their abuse and murder is permitted despite the cries of the Church. It is a world of illiteracy and diminished life span in which each generation takes with it to the grave a piece of the culture and civilization that once was. I once spoke to an African-American parent in a poor urban zone. She told me that in her world the grandmothers were raising their grandchildren because a generation had been lost to drugs and violence. She wondered what would happen when the grandmothers died. When that moment came in the Middle Ages the rich fled to castles, and some people fled to walled cities. In our times we have opted for gated communities. Eventually, medieval castles collapsed and cities were sacked.

Being Stained Glass in the New Century

Stained glass is mute, perhaps ugly, without light. However when the burning sun radiates through it, often a beautiful picture fills the room with vibrant colors and a message. Gothic churches of medieval Europe allowed for wide windows of stained glass because of their architectural supports of flying buttresses and vaulted ceilings. Suddenly, the dark and mysterious Romanesque churches were now competing with the brilliant colors of Gothic churches. To a people with little literacy the windows told the stories of the bible in a clear almost comic book style. Now the peasants could see Adam, Eve, Abraham, Christ and Mary. The new cathedrals had their altars showered by light from the east in honor of Jerusalem as they silently waited for the return of Christ to that sacred city in the end times. People were buried on their backs facing Jerusalem waiting to face Christ on the promised day of the Resurrection of the dead in glorified bodies when the archangel Gabriel would sound his horn across the heavens on that last day. The windows and the dead still wait.

In our times perhaps we are all stained glass windows in the sense that God can shine through us and make his presence known with the warmth and dazzling colors of His love. Perhaps this happens when we know we just did something good for someone, or when we really did a good job in our vocation. As the moment passes, and we and our little world retreats to its sadly familiar darkness, it is good to remember that we did not provide the light that radiated but that He was the light and that He used us to show His love. It is good to be the stained glass.

Notre Dame 1789, 2009

During the French Revolution Notre Dame cathedral in Paris was desecrated and renamed the Temple of Reason. Statues of kings were beheaded and pagan ritual dances on the high altar replaced the holy sacrifice of the Mass as priests and nuns were beheaded in the massive square outside the cathedral. Today, Notre Dame University in America has also embraced the current secular culture of its time. By inviting Obama (an avowed champion of abortion and stem cell harvesting) to receive a degree, Notre Dame University has now officially renounced its Roman Catholic identity despite its claims of denial and has joined an Episcopalian style embrace of the secular culture in a pseudo-Christian disguise. Honesty should follow with a new name for the school since it is not Catholic. Perhaps it should be called the Notre Dame Episcopalian University, or Notre Dame Secular University. Such an action would indeed be truth in advertising to perspective students and their parents. Likewise, officially leaving the Catholic church would free the university of its current strange dual personality, and most definitely purify the church it currently infects with confusion. Those choosing to become or remain Catholic would have a clarified understanding of their faith and the educational opportunities available under the title of a Catholic University. Notre Dame could be free of controversy and impediments in its developing secularization. Nostalgia for a lost past is a waste of time. The church of Bing Crosby in "Going My Way" has long left Notre Dame. Leave with God's blessings. Allow American Roman Catholics to be about the business of their faith to build and feed Roman Catholic higher education. It is obvious that the marriage of Notre Dame University and Roman Catholicism is over. Lets not stay together for the children. This farce has confused and damaged them enough.

War of the Worlds

Homosexuals cover the plaza in front of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Looking to the sky and holding derogatory photos of Pope Benedict over their groins they chant slogans of protest against the Catholic church. Inside the cathedral, worshippers are trapped and cannot leave. Young pagans distribute condoms to onlookers and verbally attack the church for refusing to conform its dogma to their sexual mores. They claim they speak for the new century. They claim that condoms are the only answer to the aides epidemic. They claim they are tolerant of religion as long as it agrees with them.

In other times British pilots used the twin spires of Cologne's cathedral as directional markers for their bombings of the people of Berlin. Communists used cathedrals as museums to support their claim that religion was dead. Napoleon used cathedrals as stables for his armies conquering Europe. Henry VIII of England stripped the cathedrals of their wealth to reward those who broke from the Pope and acknowledged him as head of the Church of England. God's cathedrals and His people survived all of these blasphemers and they will survive the spiritual Vandals of 21st century Paris as well.

To Witness

Recently, I visited a low security prison on a Saturday afternoon. In the waiting room were many women. Some brought food...some brought children...some were dressed sensually...all seemed materially poor but rich in love. One by one we were called to the registration desk, scanned, inspected and escorted to the cafeteria waiting until the inmates were called on the public address system. As the men streamed in, each intensely searched the room until a familiar face was spotted and a light flickered in their eyes. Familiar foods were shared and the room filled with positive noise. At one table a black Muslim and his white wife stared at a small video. At another table a mother fed her crippled son. Nearby a young inmate rested his head on the breast of an older women and seemed to sleep like a contented baby. I wondered what the future held for all of them. Why did these women surrender a Saturday and make long journeys to visit them? What did these children think about this world when they returned to school on Monday and joined other kids? Where were inmates and families of the rich? Since so many inmates were addicted to drugs that was the reason most were here. Were these men criminals who were addicted or did their addiction cause them to become criminals? I wondered do we punish the sick for being sick? Would we imprison a person who stole drugs to relieve their cancer? Are these people in an endless descent into a final defeat? When we love someone who is terminally sick we often are just reduced to being witnesses of their suffering, and in that sense we become the martyr. The word martyr means "to witness". It is associated with suffering, and indeed, we do suffer when we helplessly watch the journey of the terminally ill. For these men I wondered if their drug addictions were terminal, and if their visitors, adult and child, were called to be their witnesses..their martyrs. Such was the world of drugs in America that Saturday at the prison.

Urban Prairies

Detroit...half of the people have left...the auto industry has collapsed...25% of the people are unemployed...houses can be bought for a few thousand dollars...one was sold for a dollar...entire zones have been abandoned...looters climb telephone poles to steal copper wire...an urban prairie of crushed bricks emerges. The first American city has died.