“Queen Bitch” goes so well with that last post. I don’t know why.

 

The girl was still in town at about 8 o’clock last night. Poor thing was itching to get done with work at noon, heading for an outdoor concert, camping out. I sure hope it’s going alright. I have a feeling there’s going to be a lotta heat at that concert. The kids can’t have paper routes anymore because kids are unreliable. Outdoor concerts are too well attended by the police. All the radio commercials tell you how to drive, how to brush your teeth. If you don’t have a GPS you may die. If you don’t buy our product you may die, your kid may be abducted. It happens all the time. Sure.

 

God help you if you want to get a little pot into a concert because nothing about this weird new world makes any sense, and Fear is the god of these people. Suspicion is their sacrament.

 

Writing earlier about how belief must precede faith, I touched upon the subject of willingness. How important are willingness and open-mindedness? They are indispensable. At what point does the willingness to believe become the Belief? Are we talking about the same thing, or are they two different things? I don’t know the answer to that.

 

Usually, people who don’t like Religion will say something about the Spanish Inquisition, or burning witches, or some such thing. They will say, “See, this religion business can’t be any good because…” people are dismal failures at being perfect. Or, some such thing. Of course, by that same logic there would be no aeroplane, there would be no automobile, no computer, no nothing. Each and every good thing leaves behind it a trail of failures, and if your history is nothing more than a detailed description of those failures eventually you must conclude that nothing ever amounts from nothing - and then just blow your daffy head off.

 

When the history of the automobile is told it ends in triumph. It has a happy ending. So does religion. The trouble is the history of religion is lately written by people who would really rather there were no such thing.

 

By the way, willingness requires risk taking. What is it that a generation of people who seem to be afraid of everything are least likely to do? – Take a risk. The risk-taking of the culture is symbolic, superficial, and downright moronic. “Extreme” Sports. Rubbish. The news of the culture is nothing but a detailed description of failure: crimes, tragedies, celebrity marriages, and so on. And, with each depth of deeper meaning that is cordoned off by the cops and declared too dangerous to consider the culture becomes more shallow – until it is merely a surface affair.

 

I’m not talking about the future; that’s the present.

 

This is a risky post. Maybe I shouldn’t post it.

 

Anyhoooo, I was thinking about how the customer’s always right. What that really means is the customer has every right. You see, if the customer tells you black is red or green is purple that’s wrong. Nothing will make it right. But the customer has every right to be wrong. That’s a random thought.

 

Practice makes perfect. That applies perfectly to the practice of faith. One keeps practicing until he gets it right. Then I suppose he can stop practicing. Let’s say a person practicing his faith fails miserably at some point or other, and people close by who observe his failure suggest that he should give up and stop practicing. Well, he may decide to take their suggestion, or not, but there are many others who should encourage him not to give up but to apply even more effort to his faith practice.

 

Now, if he were attempting to build a rocket ship in his garage and suffered a terrible setback – such as the rocket ship blowing up or some such thing – the result would be exactly the same. Some of his neighbors (who always thought he was a crackpot) will say that he should quit trying to build his rocket ship, and others will tell him to get right back in there and try again.

 

In Noah’s case, the rocket ship was an Ark.

 

“Danger: Risk of Death,” is what the sign reads. This sign has become ubiquitous lately. You can see it just about everywhere you look. But the sign is inaccurate. It should read, “Danger: Certainty of Death.” Life can be understood as a series of risks ending in that certainty if one wishes to look at it that way.

 

Investing in the stock market can be very risky. It takes courage to invest in the stock market. Not everybody has that much courage. Obviously, it is sensible to do what a person can to mitigate the risks. That’s being prudent. But an investment that is completely without risk will pay no dividend at all. That’s being foolish. Yet the number of fools seems to increase by the day, as millions of people demand somebody do something to eliminate risk. Perhaps the government can step in and pay everybody, or guarantee everybody’s investment, or prevent anybody from failing, from falling, from scraping his knee. OK, we can try that. But I can already predict what the result will be: no investment will pay any dividend.

 

Religious people, investors, and rocket scientists are courageous, heroic, larger-than-life kinds of people. Builders of Arks. Years after Noah built his ark, according to detailed instructions given to him directly by God, people built another Ark, a smaller one, again according to detailed instructions given to them directly by God. In both cases the Arks carried Hope, the Hope of Mankind. Noah’s Ark was carried by God through the deluge. The Ark of the Covenant was carried by the Israelites into battle against enemies of overwhelming numbers.

 

Religion is like those Arks, built according to detailed instructions given directly by God, and carrying the Hope. It may carry other things too, like for instance the Law, but I’m concentrating today on the Hope. They are really one in the same.

 

What the Arks don’t carry is Faith. It was Faith that allowed them to be built, and it is Faith that does the carrying. That’s the practice I am writing about – the practice of carrying the Hope of Mankind through a sea of hopelessness, and against enemies of overwhelming number. Those who would scoff at Religion should know what they are scoffing at. Faith is where courage comes from. There can be no such thing as courage without faith. And people of faith are people of incredible courage. They bleed just like everybody else does; they fail just like everybody else does; they are imperfect just like everybody else is; they die like everybody else, but they just keep getting back up again.

 

Faith is the foundation of our civilization. Nothing would have happened without it. Nothing would have been invented. Nothing would have been tried.

 

These days the deluge isn’t a flood of water, though. It’s a flood of Fear. Fear is the god of these people, as I’ve said, and suspicion is their sacrament. Their warning signs are everywhere. The coffee cup reads, “Warning, Contents Hot.” The sun visor in your car describes in detail several ways to die. There may be more cops at the concert Elizabeth is attending than concert-goers, and they are there to keep everybody “safe.” Twenty years ago we needed less. Day by day the fear increases, the faith decreases. The culture becomes shallower, and now the Ark is hollow, the words of the prophets are ravings of idiots. The world’s getting warmer, the sky is falling, the asteroid is coming, the volcano is erupting, the levees are breaking, the markets are collapsing, Brad and Angelina have married three goats and a pig. Oh dear! Faith requires belief. Belief requires willingness, and willingness requires taking a risk. The signs say the risk is too great. Someone may scrape his knee or break his daffy head. There’s no Hope in any of that.

 

I sure do hope she’s having a good time at the concert. 

  

Now the ads at the top of the page read “My blog makes me rich,” and “I got scammed 27 times.” In response to the first I say Woolly bully. I have no response to the second. What kind of moron continues to eat his own arm despite the immeasurable pain it must cause because somebody keeps telling him “The next bite’ll be delicious?”

Well, enough of me picking on the banner advertisements. It’s too easy, and you have no doubt come to expect more.

 

I’ll do politics. Don’t panic, though. I’ll do it Squabbler-style.

 

The reason I don’t normally get into politics is because it’s so redundant. I don’t have anything to add to what Chuck Norris wrote this week for Human Events. Isn’t that something, by the way? Chuck Norris? There’s a grand total of three conservatives in the entertainment business. That was a publishing niche I should have jumped on several years ago when I heard Terry Gross interview James Woods. Actually, Norris proposes an idea close to my heart: limiting the size of congress.

 

Welcome to the fray, Chuck. Don’t hit me, I’m wearing glasses.

 

The other reason I don’t normally get into politics is that if you read what I have to say about everything else you must be able to figure out where I stand politically-speaking. In November I will be enthusiastically voting against the scheduled communist revolution and less enthusiastically voting for John McCain – like so many other conservatives. Duh.

 

I call myself conservative and not libertarian because I believe in labels. It’s very likely you’ll come across some very libertarian ideas here at the White Lodge, but you’ll also encounter a few others that would make a full-blown libertarian absolutely cringe. On balance, I fit within the conservative camp because it’s so bloody big, and so full of different ideas, and because I want Chuck on my side. In praise of labels, when I say I am a conservative you know right off the bat several things I must believe in. That’s good because we won’t have to start from scratch. And you already know I’m conservative anyway. This is how we enter the realm of redundancy I have gone to some lengths to avoid.

 

A few posts ago I found myself waxing cynical about the electoral process. That happens sometimes – if I am exposed to cable news, particularly. But I believe the Constitution is a very well-written document, especially when you take into account the fact that its various articles protect people who haven’t the slightest idea what it contains as well as those of us who think we do. And the great evil it protects people from is the government.

 

Political gridlock? Love it. The less that excessive number of idiots on Capitol Hill manages to accomplish in a day the better the quality of my sleep. Idiots? Yes. I endured the Clinton impeachment, gavel to gavel, blow by blow. Some of the names have changed; the stupidity remains the same. The majority of our elected representatives wouldn’t qualify for my old High School debating society. Well, most people wouldn’t. I’ll choose a better example: They wouldn’t qualify for your High School debating society. If you went to public school, that’s an extremely frightening thought.

 

Right at the moment I don’t have any meaningful representation in our government at all. I want you to think about that. Here I am. I’m a citizen, (not a gypsy, as I’ve previously established). I believe in small government, low taxes, strong, morally decisive national defense, and equality. I don’t believe in equality of merit. It doesn’t exist in Nature. I believe in free enterprise, not regulated enterprise. I believe in a sensible application of the Rule of Law founded upon our universal moral code – if we still have one – adjudicated by the process of blind justice founded in tenants of English Common Law and perfected (to a nice crispy golden-brown glaze) here upon our own shores. I believe in several other things, too. I believe that we – that is, people, not just American people – have our Rights given to us directly from God, and that any government which attempts to interfere, or to apportion to some rights which it removes from others, must be overthrown. It’s not an option; it’s a job. It’s how we express our gratitude to God – by accepting His gifts.

 

Well, I appreciate them. Thanks, God.

 

So, I don’t care whether you agree with me or not. We’re all friends here. But golly, can you name a single representative in a leadership position who’s expressing any of those ideas? Maybe one or two? I mean, you should think that I ought to be in a state of utter despair. But I’m not. See, in that last belief I listed above there’s behind it a faith which prevents despair. I recommend it. But I’d appreciate a little pity, anyway.

 

I still get invited to parties, by the way. I don’t usually remember to go, but at least I get invited. I think it’s because I bring the Squabbler, to tell you the truth. He has a certain je ne sais quois – charismatic appeal? – whatever.

 

Elizabeth is going to some concert this weekend where she will probably get drunk and naked. At least that’s her plan. She told me I should buy a ticket too. I don’t know how to spell the groan coming out of my mouth right now. I think it’s the combined effect on my memory of the numerous concerts very like that which I have attended. No, I’ll stay here, thanks. Sober and naked. Lonely, though. I was tempted. The temptation exhausted me. I’m so tired out from the temptation to go I have no energy left to go with. Is there that much of a difference between 31 and 46?

 

Where was I? – Politics! Yes, I steer clear of the subject usually. If Chuck Norris is writing a political blog I’ll stick with whatever it is that I do. I think I may occasionally get a point across which doesn’t tell you what to believe but does succeed in explaining what I believe, and the process by which I came to believe it. If you agree it is good to know what you are agreeing with, and if you disagree it is good to know what to oppose. And there really isn’t any need for me to write about this candidate or that candidate. I think you’ve got that under control. Politics is a coming and going kind of thing. The ideas behind them, the principles – that’s what I care to write about, when I’m not writing about myphets or naked young women.

 

Right now I am represented by words on paper, not by a person I have elected to represent me. I am represented by a Constitution which makes it difficult for anybody to prevent me from writing. It makes it difficult for anybody to throw me in jail. It makes it difficult for government to get between me and God. That – if there is no elected person to stand up for me – will have to do. 

 

Mind you, there’s a surfeit of conservatives who are writing and talking in support of the ideas I’ve named above – no one in power, just us talking. I’ve always liked Newt. He’s a good egg. I like Ann Coulter. She’s funny. She should eat something. She signed a book for me last year. It’s even more alarming in person. And now Chuck Norris. I always liked “The Octagon.” Ever seen that one? It’s cool. But all this means is that I’m in good company. We’re all completely without representation in Washington at the moment.

 

And, as for presidential candidates we have been offered no meaningful choice except a defensive one this time ‘round. It would have seemed that all Barack Obama would have to do to become our next executive is not die – that was a few weeks ago, but it’s fortunate the poor man’s his own worst enemy. Rather pathetic really. But even more pathetic is our own knight in blue serge armor who seems positively determined to lose. He’s spent more time denouncing his supporters than his opponent. Very odd. Typically Republican.

 

I don’t place as much importance on presidents as I think most people do. He’s what people see, so they figure he must be in charge. The truth is he’s in charge of various things, very important things, but just as liberals routinely point out that Ronald Reagan couldn’t possibly take all the credit for ending the Cold War or reinvigorating our economic prosperity, I would suggest that no president can really take all the blame for screwing everything up, either. We live in a nation governed not by presidents but by the people. For instance, Reagan’s tax policies would have done nothing unless the people took advantage of the opportunities they created. Yes, absolutely. And conversely, no president can trash the place unless we tell him to.  

 

I’ve had a dreadful day. I realized I was bordering on the pedantic in some of my comment replies earlier. That’s usually a sign I need a good night’s sleep. The thing about being me is I wouldn’t recommend anyone else try it.

 

 

I see my recent posts have brought a few philosophical pigeons home to roost. The advertisements at the top of this page are chosen by automated key word search. If you subscribe to the Blogstream premium service you may be missing out on these, so I’ll list the slug lines of a few of them:

 Was Jesus a Lunatic?

 

Want Atheist Women?

 

God Loves You. (Here is a prayer that can change your life.)

 

Was Jesus a lunatic? Absolutely. If Jesus is not the Son of God then Jesus is a lunatic. A person who reads the Gospels without a preconception may easily come to that conclusion: Jesus is either a deranged madman or Jesus is exactly who He says He is. There is no middle ground. There is no moderate view. A person may really take either one of two positions on Jesus, one which acknowledges He is God and one which concludes He is an extremely dangerous person.

 

In our daily lives we may hear it said that Jesus was a spiritual leader, prophet, or whatever, which some people equate and/or compare with Buddha or Zoroaster, or whomever, but of course that’s just ignorance of the Gospel. It is an idea expressed by people who have never read the Bible and have no intention of ever doing so. Their opinion may therefore be dismissed out of hand.

 

Spiritual leaders, teachers, and prophets leave behind a body of work – writings usually, something upon which to base a belief. Jesus left nothing but His own Body, a church, and all of the things that we know about Him were written by his followers. Jesus didn’t write the Gospels. Jesus didn’t write anything, unless you want to count whatever He might have written in the sand with His finger, according to one gospel story. So, this kind of ties in with one of my recent posts in which I explained that Christian faith doesn’t begin with belief in God but with belief in what others have said about Him.

 

Usually, one who is opposed to accepting Christianity has decided not to investigate it further because he doesn’t trust the people who have told him about Christianity. He says something like, “Well, there are so many hypocritical Christians who say they believe one thing but do something entirely different, so it must be that what they have to say is false.” Personally, I’m not going to argue with that logic. It is logic. I can’t tell you how encouraging it is to see people actually practicing it, for a change.

 

I dated an Atheist woman, by the way. After we went out for about a year she decided to become a nun. That’s not really White Lodge material though - because it’s a true story.

 

What did Chesterton say? – Something along the lines of “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been tried and found difficult.” Surely there is no hypocrisy where there is no standard which is difficult to attain. Someone who preaches nothing cannot be accused of “not practicing what he preaches.” But someone who preaches Christianity can always be accused of not practicing what he preaches. The chances are very good a person may find fault with his practice.

 

Well, the process of evangelization is more than just people talking. If that’s all it was then the story of Christianity would fit into a footnote explaining briefly the existence of a short-lived First Century cult. That Christianity not only rapidly rose beyond the messianic cult status but became the foundation for an entire civilization is a preposterous idea if it were just people talking. No – Christians believe that when they go out telling others the “good news” they bring somebody called the Holy Spirit along with them, and that it is not their words alone that do the work; it is the Holy Spirit speaking through them. How does one reconcile the fact that out of several rather active messianic sects that have completely vanished only Christianity blossomed into… ah… everything?

 

One doesn’t. One ignores it. Or, tries to. There is an interpretation of History prevalent in schools, in the culture, which suggests that Western Civilization somehow emerged despite the existence of Christianity rather than because of it. Of course it is utterly ridiculous, but it is what most people seem to be taught. In this view – and “view” it most certainly is – the Church existed somewhere over here and the actual civilization existed somewhere over there, and it wasn’t until the Church in its superstitious ignorance was defeated by the enlightened power of reason that true advancement began to occur. This is what most of us were taught. This is what I was taught.

 

But, when a person chooses to investigate on his own, without first accepting that interpretation, he finds in the source material which serves as the basis for what we know of History that the Church is actually at the center of every single societal and cultural advancement of note, from the advent of the Scientific Method to the establishment of our rule of Law, the development of Philosophy… What is a purely secular philosophy, anyway? It is a reaction to something which is taught by the Church, something which has been found not wanting but difficult, followed by a closing of the mind to further discourse. And, a closing of the mind to further discourse is, by definition, an anti-philosophy. It becomes an alternative “faith” based not on reason but rather fixed contrariness for its own sake. It can only be said to exist as a valid foundation for anything if History is rewritten to validate it, and that is precisely what has been done.

 

When I was young I remember arguing with my Dad, saying something along the lines of, “Think of all the wars fought in the name of God!” to which he calmly replied, “What would you prefer to fight your wars in the name of?”

 

Gee, that sounds like something I would say – now.

 

So, I think if there were no Holy Spirit helping those people who talked about Jesus there would be no blog called The White Lodge, nor a computer to write it on. There would be no red Subaru parked outside my door, no commerce for me to practice – and for which I will be late if I don’t get outta here soon – no television to complain about, no road leading to further adventures in living, and nothing to write about, nothing to read about. Or, if there were, what in Heaven’s name might it be?

 

I’ve already done frogs.    

No, I couldn’t do it. I had thought to grow a beard – “beavah!” as Gracie would say – but I broke down and shaved yesterday afternoon after spending the morning behind a face that was driving me crazy. I haven’t had a beard since 1983. It feels like I’m just plain dirty & need a wash.

 

What? Oh yes. The Squabbler tells me to mention the frogs this morning. Behind me is the river. I know a fellow who brought all his recording equipment with him to camp and recorded the sound of the frogs in the night. He’s in his 60’s, anyway. Why does that matter? – Because I am thinking of another fellow, a childhood friend, who would have done the same. He was always messing with tape machines and the like. There was no such thing as a telephone answering machine then. At least, they weren’t too common. He now heads a company that makes microphones.

 

So anyhooooo, my brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man.

 

Envy and resentment leads to murder in the case of Cain and Abel, and Jacob’s adventures are inspired by the same powerful force. Yet, God sees that he has cheated his brother and says, “Woolly bully!” Why? Wouldn’t we rather that God said, “What are you doing here? I was expecting Esau.” But of course, being omnipresent and omnipotent, He wasn’t expecting anybody but Jacob.

 

When He asks Adam why he’s hiding in the bushes it’s not because He doesn’t know the answer. When He asks Cain where is his brother Abel it’s not because He doesn’t know that Abel is dead. No, God doesn’t require any information from us, knowing everything as He does.

 

I worked that out while sitting in a church pew when I was a tadpole. I love Bible stories because they stick to the ribs. Forty years later I’m still tasting them.

 

There is an intimacy between God and man. Like that between a father and son, or a teacher and student, there is a relationship which is entirely personal. Putting aside the mysteries, theoretical abstractions, and high ideas about God, there is also the reality of personal relationship, a God of personal revelation who asks how the good china plate got broken when He knows darn well how it happened but wants you to explain that you threw it at your sister.

 

Our knee-jerk reaction is to lie, of course. Or, tell a half truth: “I was hiding in the bushes because I realized I was naked.”

 

Rubbish!

 

Then, what that doesn’t work, our next knee-jerk reaction is to blame the woman. She made me do it. And then the woman says, “The serpent beguiled me.” Fine. So it’s nobody’s fault. I suppose we’ll have to punish the whole class.

 

The woman at the corner convenience store was wearing shorts just now. I called her “sexy legs,” (even though it looks like she is collecting walnuts in her knees), and we chatted for a few pleasant minutes. I am a smooth man, after all.

 

Bible characters are who they are, but they are also other things; they represent other things. Personalities emerge in their dialogues, but they also represent larger things apart from themselves. In the case of Adam and Eve, one of the many things they represent, when taken together, is the way we think. There is a process of first denial and then gradual revelation of the truth in that exchange in the Garden that could easily be describing our own thought process, human nature, the daffy way our minds seem to work.

 

I haven’t changed all that much from when I was a kid who threw a plate at his sister. I’ve changed a little – haven’t thrown any plates lately. But getting the whole truth of something out of this piece of wood between my ears can be like pulling teeth. Since Adam, I have all those generations of experience that have come in between to help me conceal the truth from myself. At a certain point I had to face the fact that the stories I was telling myself were lies.

 

I don’t think that can happen to a person until he is confronted with guilt. I think the purpose of guilt is to bring us around to the truth. It’s a revelation. It gets us out of our little dream world. Guilt is God saying, “Isn’t it true that you threw that plate at your sister?” So, every time we feel guilty about something God is speaking to us directly, in a personal way. And just because we can’t hear a voice with our ears we may explain it to ourselves as something which is going on in our own daffy heads – just another story we are telling ourselves. But the guilt remains. It sticks to the thoughts like peanut butter. The only way to get rid of it is to change something - change the thought, amend the behavior, apologize.

 

Well, it’s not really my fault. She made me do it. I can go on telling myself that lie for only so long. Eventually, guilt is going to extract the truth.

 

Yes, I am wondering the same thing: How on earth am I going to tie that in with beards and frogs?

 

Of course, we don’t hear with our ears anyway. We hear with our minds. What’s an ear? If you remove an ear from a mind it will hear nothing. The ear, taken by itself, is like a microphone which isn’t plugged into anything. What is it at that point? It’s no more than inert matter.

 

I enjoyed listening to the frogs this morning. I was standing out there, enjoying the sound of the frogs and rubbing my smooth face. My ears were the microphones. My mind was the recording device. Now I can play it back and enjoy it again. Or, I can return to the corner convenience store for a coffee refill and talk with ole walnut-knees about the whole matter. But first, I’ll post this pleasant, rambling contribution to your day. May you have a good one.  

   

 

The aptly named Covered Bridge Pool gave my boys something to do while we were away. In fact, swimming beneath the bridge was the only available activity in the place we found ourselves. The state campground in which we were bivouacked was quite underpopulated, and a section of it had been closed – I assume from lack of interest. My father and I could endure the boys’ whining for no longer than four and a half days. It was the younger one chiefly. His older brother, now 15 going-on-30, is currently in his adolescent nihilism, which makes it impossible to discern whether or not he is enjoying himself anywhere.

 

Anyhooo, while Fibber and Molly are on their own 1941 vacation, I thought I’d dig into the vaults for a little Burns and Allen. This program dates from before their radio marriage. They were married in life – and most listeners knew that – but their radio personae were as yet unmarried. They would tie the knot at last when they realized they were becoming too old for their jokes, and the Burns and Allen Show would then be transformed from a vaudeville sketch/variety program to a situation comedy. But, in 1940 Gracie Allen ran for president as a publicity stunt, and the 1940 season was devoted to that storyline. It’s funny stuff.

 

This being an election year I guess it’s appropriate to revisit Gracie’s historic run. This being an election year, I guess it is appropriate for me to make the following comment:

 

If you were to gather together all the people who, like us, are aware of the “issues,” who are aware of what is at stake; who are aware of the differing ideological positions of the two candidates, and have themselves taken one; who are aware that elections have consequences, and so on, and so on, you would have a number of people who do not amount to a pimple on a political analyst’s buttock. No, the people with all the power in this nation when it comes to electing a president are people who may think someone named “A-Rod” is running - or may as well. The degree of their ignorance is so profound that they are likely to believe: 1. the government is where money comes from, 2. restaurants are public property, 3. the president’s job is to make laws, and 4. the president is elected by “popular vote.”

 

And that is both the good news and the bad news about living in a country which is governed from the bottom up.

 

The candidates’ chief occupation between now and November will be appealing, or making themselves attractive, to those people. This election will be decided solely upon the basis of Race. The people who will have chosen our next president will not know what the consequences of their choice have been until their televisions tell them what to think, and what to say. In the end, we are at the mercy of a Media which is unwilling or unable to report on any matter apart from Britney Spear’s glorious upskirt episode with the slightest attention to objectivity and accuracy. And, with our Civilization sliding into an abyss of complete absurdity, the only meaningful defense against utter despair is a good sense of humor. If it is lacking in any of us Gracie Allen is here to help us develop one.

 

Yes, I have returned to the White Lodge. Did you miss me?