A Quick In-And-Out

Sounding off to all of the readers out there who still follow my posts (and I know there are at least as many as see them reduplicated over at Facebook).

It's been a long-running theme here that I can't seem to sustain any kind of regularity with blogging, and thereby do I fail to maintain stable readership. Time and effort involved in the writing process and the other demands of my schedule are the converging factors which seem to make this problem endemic.

I'm toying with the idea of beginning "video blogging." Generally speaking, I am able to put together at least somewhat cogent thesis presentations in extemporaneous interlocution, so I think this could - at least potential - facilitate much more frequent posting. I would also write occasionally, to be sure.

I'm looking for feedback on the proposal. Be honest, don't hold back. I'll be posting a sample video with some thoughts on an argument in which I'm currently embroiled. This will serve to give a preview of production type and quality, as well as to test whether the feed will be transmitted to the aggregates I use.

Thanks in advance for your consideration.

Zippy on Usury

Zippy Catholic has been back and blogging strong for some time now.

I would recommend in a particular way a recent series of posts that he has offered on the topic of usury. Since I don't see an index there at his site, I've taken the time to compile one here for ease of access, because I think the whole lot worth reading and considering:

March 05: How about some non-usurious loans?

March 07: Usury, or Burning Down the House

March 08: Fisk Pervenit and The Dumb-Ox on non-recourse productive investments

March 09: Usury and the Language Barrier

(Also, pay attention to follow the internal link in the first post to the conversation on the matter Zippy had last March on this topic. It's all very fine reading.)

If you finish all of that (and the wonderful extended discussion in the comment strains), then I encourage you to also check out this brief assessment of the matter by the great Belloc himself, or this slightly longer excerpt.

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I'll be doing some updates to the blogroll over the next few days, and making a couple more additions to the Distributist's Bookshelf. Stay tuned.

The Distributist's Bookshelf

A while back on this page I undertook an ill-fated venture which I called the Ship's Manifest. The idea was that this website was something like my ark in which I hoped to weather the storms of ideological hail swirling about the modern world, and the "manifest" was meant to detail the cargo (intellectual) of the ship. In plain terms, it was my reading list. (NB: The "Manifest" project has since been dismantled and the entries removed, so don't drive yourself nuts looking for them.)

This was ill-fate for a few reasons. For one, I had become a little too trigger-happy in employing the (perhaps somewhat melodramatic) conceit of my blog's name, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, and was stretching metaphors a bit. The result was that the somewhat melodramatic began to border on the histrionic.

A second reason the venture was ill-fated was that my seminary pursuits at the time precluded my posting with as much regularity as I moved through books.

A third and final reason the idea failed was that nobody ought really to give a damn what I'm reading at any given time. Sometimes, I don't even care. Not everything I read is easily related to my vocation and I felt I was shoe-horning certain things into place in order to derive Distributist wisdom from works that were only tangentially related. This is not to say that Chesterton's maxim does not hold true, that "there is no such thing as a different subject." But if I'm going to spend time writing about books here, I want it to be in a precise and valuable way such that my readers can discern what might or might not be worth their while. And I also want a way to be able to denote when a literary work is being discussed particularly for its relation to Distributist thought. Thus, I have reviewed recently the beginning of Dawson's The Judgment of the Nations and commended it to my readers, but if pressed I would not say it is essential reading for the Distributist.

So, I'm going to try this again. Only this time 'round, I'll be employing a different format and mechanism and hopefully make much less a hash of it. The new feature will be called The Distributist's Bookshelf. I will be making a little virtual bookshelf (or stealing one from the web if I can find a neat code that fits my purposes) either in the side-bar or on the bottom of this page. It may end up being nothing other than an Amazon.com "list" of books and reviews that are good for Distributists to have, with my explanations of why I think so and maybe some other insights I may want to share. I will employ a rating system for these books. I will rate them from 1 to 5 diamonds (♦) in terms of overall quality (literary merit, content, achievement, etc.); and I will rate them in terms of 1 to 4 spades (♠) in terms of their "necessity" to the Distributist's library(one being least and four most essential).

The list of labels in the left-hand margin of the page will include Distributist's Bookshelf as a new easy-click way of finding all of the entries for the topic. Entries detailing other books that I consider from time to time just for fun will simply bear the label books as is the case now. All of the entries for The Distributist's Bookshelf will appear as well under the label for books, since that is what will be considered in this project. So, in order to isolate only those books highlighted as more-or-less essential reading for Distributist, the new label for the bookshelf project will be the way to go.

Now that this messy bit of housekeeping is out of the way, I ask you to stay tuned for the first entry in my new project. It's a selection which I consider an absolute must for all Distributists (♠ ♠ ♠ ♠), and the choice just may surprise you...

Christus Rex

Today is the liturgical solemnity of Christ the King. In a way, today might be considered the feast day of this blog, which is dedicated to bringing about the reign of Christ the King to the greatest extent possible within society.

The homily where I attended Mass today called for attention and devotion to Saint Thomas More: to the lessons to be learned from his life and the help to gained by his intercession. He has been on my sidebar since day one, because he is a crucial figure for the proposed reclamation of the social reign for Christ's dominion.

The recent "Manhattan Declaration" is a worthy embodiment of the ethic of this great saint, who was always "the King's good servant, but God's first." As the health care debate kicks into full swing, and the battle over the redefinition of marriage and all that that contest entails finds its way into new States, we need to remain vigilant, pray for our leaders - social and ecclesial - and remember that Christ has no voice in this world if not our own.

There Will Be Work Always

I feel I owe my patient readers an apology for my hiatus of late. I would use an unusually busy workload as an excuse, but I know that my desk will always be full; I should look to find excuses to put my work aside and take leisure, rather than to excuse myself from leisure to work even more.

Thank you for your patience.

Night is Darkest Before the Dawn

I'm sure you're all eagerly awaiting what I have to say about The Dark Knight. Well, I have plenty to say and am waiting only to see the film once more before I unleash it all on unsuspecting passers-by. In the meantime, however, fear not. There are plenty of other lights, brighter than what my intellect could muster, already shining on the subject.

Check...

... them...

... out.

Be warned, spoilers in some of those reviews. My own will be a mess of spoliation, another reason it's better that I wait a bit longer to post.

A thumbnail of what I have to say: Nolan has made an epic film which does not redefine a genre (he had already done that with the first film in the series) but explodes that definition and takes it to new philosophical horizons.

There are other things coming soon as well. See the sidebar.

Words, Words, Words: My Working Lexicon

The identifications proposed below are not to be seen as definitive. This is NOT a glossary or dictionary. Rather, I have compiled here my own working lexicon; as I grow in my own understanding of the concepts, terms, and persons involved in Catholic Social Teaching, I will continue to update this list and nuance the content.

This is a working lexicon. Each time an item on the list is revised, the first part of the definition will reflect this fact and the date given, thus: [Revised mm/dd/yy]. Consequently, when considering the various content on this site and cross-referencing the lexicon, the date of the post (or date of latest revision) will be important to understanding that I may have interpreted a given concept or term in a slightly different way. [Nota bene: Sometimes, the content of posts on the blog will be updated or revised; this date will be reflected in the text of the post (rather than the timestamp), at the very bottom the particular post.]

Persons or general concepts are in bold; subjects reflecting proprietary works or ideas (reflected by a term “coined” by a specific thinker) will be listed as an italicized title.

The lexicon is divided into four sections for ease of reference: Economical, Philosophical, Theological, and Biographical/Bibliographical.



FEEDBACK GREATLY DESIRED, in order to gain clarity and instruction about terms which may be vague or where I am lacking in understanding.

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ECONOMICAL

Capitalism – A society in which a free minority are owners of the means of production in the form of private property, with a proletarian mass of non-owners who work under freely engaged social contract with the owners [i].

Communism – (1) A specified type of socialism which denies the right to “private” property even on the distribution side of economic exchange; all property is to be shared in common based on need [ii]; (2) in practical terms, a denial of the individuality of the person, who is seen chiefly as he relates to the community, thus impacting all social institutions even beyond the economic sphere.

Consumerism – (1) An attitude in the individual or society which seeks fulfillment in the consumption of material goods; (2) a philosophy, deliberately mechanized by political and corporate bodies for the stimulation of the economy, whereby the consumption of goods is stimulated and promoted as a way of life and happiness for the State [iii].

Distributism (or Distributivism) – The system in which so large a number of citizens are invested of the means of production in the form of private property as to generally characterize the State; that is, a “Proprietary State” in which property, especially the means of production, is well distributed amongst the larger part of the working population [iv].

Economics – (1) The study of how wealth is produced, consumed, and distributed [v]; more specifically, the study of the material limitations and laws (i.e., necessary relationships between existents) governing the processes of goods production, consumption, distribution, and exchange.

Marxism – Marx and Engel’s theory of communist socialism heavily influenced by materialism and evolutionistic sociology; here, the struggle between classes is seen as the impetus for societal change and balance [vi].

Proprietary State (see Distributism).

Property – (1) “The name for a control of the Means of Production” [vii]; (2) Control by an agent (an individual or community) over wealth, which control implies inclusion of the means to produce wealth [viii].

Socialism – A theoretical society in which the means of production belong to the State, which would redistribute the goods produced to the commonwealth; in theory, “private property” in terms of consumption goods could still be maintained, and that in less or equal division amongst the citizenry.

Value – (1) A thing’s usefulness; (2) a thing’s worth in exchange [ix].

Wealth (see also Value, #2) – (1) A thing’s exchangeable value, the real measure of which is “the toil and trouble [to a person] of acquiring it” [x]; or, (2) “values attaching to material objects through the action of man” which are exchangeable [xi].



ECONOMICAL NOTES
[i] cf. Hilaire Belloc, The Servile State, Section I.
[ii] cf. Belloc, Economics for Helen, Part II, Socialism.
[iii] cf. Retailing analyst Victor Labeau, quoted in The Story of Stuff by Annie Lennox (time appx. 11:54): “Our enormously productive economy... demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction in consumption.... We need things consumed, burned-up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.”
[iv] cf. Belloc, Economics for Helen, Part II, The Distributive State.
[v] Belloc, Economics for Helen, Part I, Introduction.
[vi] cf. John Paul II, Dominum et vivicantem 56: His Holiness calls “dialectical and historical materialism” the “essential core of Marxism.”
[vii] Belloc, The Restoration of Property, Chapter I.
[viii] Belloc, Economics for Helen, Part II, Property.
[ix] Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Part I, Chapter 4.
[x] Ibid., I, 5.
[xi] Belloc, Economics for Helen, Part I, “What is Wealth?”
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PHILOSOPHICAL

Commutative Justice – One of the species of justice (see Distributive Justice): “[T]he order of one part to another, to which corresponds the order of one private individual to another [...] is directed by commutative justice, which is concerned about the mutual dealings between two persons” [i].

Darwinism – Commonly used term to describe any system of evolutionary theory which uses materialist principles such as random selection (to the exclusion of other explanatory notions, such as teleology) as a basis for describing observed phenomena.

Distributive Justice – One of the species of justice (see Commutative Justice): “[T]he order of the whole towards the parts, to which corresponds the order of that which belongs to the community in relation to each single person [...] is directed by distributive justice, which distributes common goods proportionately” [ii].

Materialism – Broad term describing any philosophy holding as a basic principle that all real phenomena are a result of material objects and relations.

Personalism – A philosophy centering on the value and uniqueness of the person, growing from a confluence of pragmatism and phenomenology among other philosophies, but distinct in its “axiological” scheme which proposes the person as an “absolute.” (See Christian Personalism.)

Social Darwinism (or Evolutionistic Sociology) – The reduction of social phenomena (such as economics) to a biological or physiological explanatory principle; the belief that “all social phenomena [...] must each and all be seen as intrinsically related phenomena of the science of life in its most highly evolved form” [iii].



PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES
[i] Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae IIa IIae, Q61, a1.
[ii] Aquinas, op. cit.
[iii] Benjamin Kidd, quoted in Heinrich Pesch, Liberalism, Socialism and the Christian Social Order, Book 1: The Philosophical Roots of Economic Liberalism, trans. Rupert J. Ederer (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2000), 189.
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THEOLOGICAL

Christian Personalism – Proponents argue that this philosophy best captures the dynamic reality of the human person as socially ordered and made in the image and likeness of God; the “absolute” here is slightly modified to encompass the Divine Communion of Persons and, secondarily, man’s relations with the Divine, thus maintaining the ethical and phenomenological centrality of man, but emphasizing the imago Dei over the individual; (For its opponents, however, this philosophy is seen as a corruption of Thomism toward relativism, heavily influenced by Immanuel Kant’s ethical focus on “rights” [i]).

Solidarity – (1) When interdependence becomes recognized “as a system determining relationships in the contemporary world, in its economic, cultural, political and religious elements, and accepted as a moral category [...], the correlative response as a moral and social attitude, as a ‘virtue,’ is solidarity” [ii]; (2) “The principle of solidarity, also articulated in terms of ‘friendship’ or ‘social charity,’ is a direct demand of human and Christian brotherhood [...] dictated and imposed both by our common origin and by the equality in rational nature of all men, whatever nation they belong to” [iii].

Subsidiarity – The principle, firmly upheld by the Church, that “a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good” [iv]; negatively, the principle which sees such interference as “a grave evil and disturbance of right order” [v].



THEOLOGICAL NOTES
[i] This amalgamation, which Stanley Jaki has called “Aqui-Kantism,” opponents say can be found in various modern theologians’ works, notably the writings of Pope John Paul II and several passages from the Second Vatican; for a consideration and apologetic against such critiques, see “Personhood as Gift and Task: The Place of the Person in Catholic Social Thought” by Gregory Beabout.
[ii] John Paul II, Sollicitudo rei socialis 38; emphasis added.
[iii] CCC 1939.
[iv] John Paul II, Centesimus annus 48.
[v] Pius XI, Quadragesimo anno 79.
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BIOGRAPHICAL/BIBLIOGRAPHICAL

Centesimus Annus – Encyclical of John Paul II on the hundredth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, dated 01 May 1991, in which the Holy Father proposes a “re-reading” of that former document in order to “confirm the permanent value of such teaching,” and to “manifest the true meaning of the Church's Tradition” [i].

Laborem Exercens – Encyclical of John Paul II on the ninetieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, dated 14 September 1981; the Pope here calls for “the discovery of the new meanings of human work” and “the formulation of the new tasks that in this sector face each individual, the family, each country, the whole human race, and, finally, the Church herself” [ii].

Mater et Magistra – Encyclical of John XXIII, dated 15 May 1961 (the seventieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum); at great length, the Pope celebrates the Leonine encyclical as a “compendium of Catholic social and economic teaching” of “perennial validity and inexhaustible worth” [iii]. He then “pass[es] in review [over]... the various problems of our modern social life” and provides “principles and directives” for the Bishops of the day to enact [iv].

Pacem in Terris – Encyclical of John XXIII, dated 11 April 1963, investigating the laws which govern man’s relations: one with another; individuals with the State; and, individuals and States with the world community.

Quadragesimo Anno – Encyclical of Pius XI on the fortieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, dated 15 May 1931; celebrating and updating Leo XIII’s doctrines – including a remarkable exposition of the principle of “subsidiarity” – Pius XI excoriates the evils both of Socialism and Capitalism, while proposes the “reform of Christian morals” as “the only way to sound restoration” [v].

Rerum Novarum – The magna carta of Catholic Social Teaching, a “peerless” encyclical by Leo XIII published 15 May 1891 [vi]. While upbraiding the evils of Socialism, Leo XIII provides sound religious basis for the dignity of workers; he extols workers’ rights to just wages, proper division of labor, organization, Sabbath rest, and property enfranchisement; he identifies the proper role of the State, particularly in terms of distributive justice; he calls for laws favoring ownership; and he calls for an end to enmity between classes.



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
[i] John Paul II, Centesimus annus 3.
[ii] John Paul II, Laborem exercens 2.
[iii] John XXIII, Mater et Magistra 15, 42.
[iv] John XXIII, op. cit., 261.
[v] Pius XI, Quadragesimo anno 15; see also, on Socialism, #56: “the division of goods which results from private ownership was established by nature itself;” and, on Capitalism, #103: “[Capitalism] has invaded and pervaded the economic and social life of even those outside its orbit and is unquestionably impressing on it its advantages, disadvantages and vices.”
[vi] cf. Pius XI, Quadragesimo anno 1.
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I'll know my song well before I start singin'

I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’.
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
And the executioner’s face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where the souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number.
And I’ll tell it and speak it and think it and breathe it,
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it,
And I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’;
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’.

- Bob Dylan

The Catalyst

“What I tell you in the dark, utter in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim upon the housetops” (Mt. 10:27). This is the stirring commission Christ gives His twelve apostles as he prepares them to be sent out “as sheep among wolves;” but those wolves, He tells them, they are not to fear (Mt. 10:16, 26).

As I listened to this Gospel being proclaimed one Sunday at Mass, my heart was burning within me. I knew that this was the last bit of encouragement I needed. The time had come. I needed to set out again, spiritually and intellectually, down a path whose many turns are well beyond the terminus of my sight.

How you have come to find yourself crowded into my little corner of the web, perhaps only God knows. I hope, however, your time here will not be in vain. My greatest hope is that you will help enlarge this place with the input of your own thoughts and your own ideas, and perhaps lodge here more comfortably and more frequently in the future.

Some readers may be familiar with my former outlet in cyberspace, where I sought to engage in online discussion as part of my own vocational discernment while journeying toward ordination as a Roman Catholic priest. My efforts there were well rewarded and my time reading and writing online has indeed brought me closer to a “vision of truth.”

My reasons for launching this new blog are complicated and confused; some are very personal. My opinions have matured. My interests have both expanded and at the same time become more focused. Suddenly, the direction of my thoughts, prayers, and various other motivations all seem to be converging in a very singular direction. Pointing the way, at the outset, was Innocent Smith.

Chasing After Innocent

At the beginning of this academic year, I read for the first time G.K. Chesterton’s Manalive. Like so many before me, I became utterly fascinated by the character of Innocent Smith and his approach to life. When Smith waved a gun in a man’s face in order to convince the man that life is a desirable thing, it struck me as a revelation. Our world is chock full of men only half-living. Indeed, I myself have spent far too few hours in the “land of the living,” but have mostly wandered about half-asleep, not dead but, like Coleridge’s mariner, dead in life.

I became determined at that juncture to live; and, to bring others with me along the uncharted paths which I knew would open to the willing wayfarer. I had no idea what this new resolve meant. In truth, I wanted adventure: an intellectual adventure, a spiritual foray into uncharted territory. I knew the trip’s terrain lay somewhere in the Gospel of Christ but had no idea what contours would form the map of my particular journey. Like the Bagginses in the greatest story of the last century, I simply stepped out onto the ever-living Road and was swept along. I let the Way lead me to Truth and Life.

And very soon into my new pursuit, chasing after Innocent Smith’s life philosophy through sundry books and articles, I came to the first definite turn in my path; and I found this place at once a surprise as well as, truth be told, something of a disappointment...

Opening My Luggage

The road had dropped me at the doorstep of Catholic socio-economics. In distaste and a slip from reverence, I wondered whether I had not fallen victim to God’s first mistake (presuming, like most good theologians, the creation of the ostrich to be a complex joke). Catholic economics? The very mention seemed like a soporific drug. I hated the notion of economics, and thought it as much a “science” as auguring the entrails of the pigeons on Wall Street.

My first step into this field was Joseph Pearce’s Small Is Still Beautiful. Pearce had called the work an embodiment of “Chestertonian Economics” at a conference I’d attended in the summer and it was this name-dropping that encouraged me to stomach the book at all. But somewhere in the process of meandering along this first seeming detour from my intellectual path, it occurred to me that I had not been swept down this road alone: I had brought luggage with me.

Pearce’s book sparked memories of my intellectual past and my formation which revealed a subconscious interest in the subject I now found myself reluctantly investigating. My initial interest in the Papal Social Encyclicals; a fascination with writers like Dorothy Day, Flannery O’Connor, and Thomas Merton who scrutinized class relations; the hidden undertones of the writings of Tolkien and the not-so-hidden undertones of Lewis, dealing with industrial dehumanization; my fondness for champions of the poor such as Tolstoy, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, and of course, Chesterton: these and many other “landmarks” began to emerge from the chaotic landscape of my mind. Suddenly, all along that crooked line of my lifelong discernment, I saw clearly and powerfully the straight writing of the hand of God.

Following the Crowd

My intellectual luggage bore evidence of myriad philosophers, poets, and saints who had gone before me down this same road. What had once seemed a detour I now knew as a familiar but forgotten path; and soon I found myself, like Wenceslas’ servant, tripping eagerly in the warm and worn footpaths of my masters.

I further began to recognize that I was not alone on this road. I found many contemporary men and women pursuing the same ideal, the same “third way,” hoping to find the way to life and that in abundance. The merry crowd gave me courage and I began to rush as fast as my mind’s feet would take me; I found I could now walk with some dexterity along these lines of thought and anticipate the potholes that previously halted me or caused me to stumble. But my charmed journey could not continue thus uncomplicated forever. For as yet, I only pursued a goal along intellectual terrain. And this path led me directly to a Wall.

Scaling the Wall

The Catholic Church’s teachings on properly ordered economic life and functional relations within human society are not mere ideas, they are ideals. They are to be lived rather than merely thought. My journey of mind could only go so far by itself. Arriving at the wall which represented the intersection of idea and reality, I knew that I must scale that wall and engage my whole person – body, soul, and spirit – in this pursuit. Dietrich von Hildebrand helped me to perceive the footholds on this wall as I began to climb, with his edifying philosophy of the human person. My thought journey was going to continue, but now had come the time to walk on a new level, a terrain overlying the intellectual landscape alone. I would walk in thought upon pathways set in day-to-day life, melding bodily and spiritual reality. So, I threw my luggage over the ledge and sprang onto the plane retained by that edifice separating our dreams from their waking fulfillment (or disappointment). And, to my dismay, the road laid in front of me was not quite what I had been expecting; and, more than that, there awaiting me was additional luggage to carry.

Taking Up the Cross

When an ideological path intersects with real life, it bumps into all sorts of limits. Time and space and the finitude of nature are nature’s restraints. But the mysterious problem of evil; human frailty; disorder; pride; the Devil – all of these constitute further limits that challenge the marriage of ideas with existential fact.

In order to cut through such limits, we need to turn liability into asset, misfortune into benefit. The unique luggage which awaits us at the outset of such a journey is the Cross, an it has this very transformative power of working evil into good. But the Cross’s usefulness (utilitatem, a “good for”) comes at a price. The Cross must be shouldered and born as a sort of weapon into the fray; and the better armored a soldier would be, the heavier the wares he must wield.

Following the trajectory of my thought into the added dimensions of body and spirit means additional challenges, over and above the growth in philosophy which must always continue. The open landscape in front of me at the wall’s zenith was crowded with people following all sorts of different trends; and each intersection represented a potential conflict, a place where I might be swept off course. And this new concentration in my vocation, a path set within my current journey, was evidently a threat to the adversaries of life. The world, the flesh, and the devil grew in their hostility as I grew in my resolve. Instantly atop the wall, I perceived that they wicked three were brewing in their putrid caldron a reek and tempest, to darken and dampen the course where I was headed. Very shortly into my new pursuit, the storm had gathered and was heading my way.

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

“The culture of death.” This is the term which our beloved former Pope, John Paul II, used to describe that confluence of forces which stands between a man and his pursuit of abundant life. In recent years, the frenetic anxiety of our world has seen this culture encroach even nearer to the foundations of human dignity and life. State-funded abortion. Gay marriage. The world food crisis. Rampant ecological abuse and poor stewardship. War. Genocide. International campaigns of attrition. Governments bloating in scope and scale. The list goes on. The world seems to be headed to a point of reckoning. A hard rain is going to fall and who is ready to survive the deluge?

The complex schemes couching lies and sedition in secrecy will crumble. These systems which form our existence cannot maintain their present course. All around the academy, government, society at large, the home, and the individual, walls are closing in. Soon, they will crumble and implode. Crawling out from the rubble, we will be able to investigate the foundations of these once impressive structures: their underlying ideas. Our society, having so long neglected ideas and not used to dealing with them, must choose its course: we will either succumb to mental atrophy and, in our refusal to confront these ideas, fall into utter decay; or, leaders will rise up and forge a new path, choosing new ideas, and these may be good or bad. My current quest is to set out early along the best path I can find.

“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God...”

And so I arrived at that Sunday to which I referred at the outset. Only the day before, the liturgy struck me with these words: “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life.... But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”

One last push the next day was all I needed. “Shout from the rooftops.” But be not brash: sufficient for a day is it’s own evil; one step at a time, onward through the impending storm.

Nor should I be going alone. As a sheep to the slaughter, led pacifically into the valley of death, the Christian chooses his course, but always comforted by the Shepherd who keeps wolves at bay. With me, too, would be those whom I invite to join me as I seek to grow and learn...

So, thank you again for visiting my site. As I try to find my path, I hope you will join me in calculating the steps. Please, challenge my ideas. Unabashedly put forth your own. Help me to see the best way through the jumbled crowd under the darkening sky. The Church has a message for our society which strikes on all levels of life. A message about family life, social life, economic life, political life. But this message can be put many ways; the song has many tunes. I feel the burning desire of a troubadour to sing loudly the song in my heart as it cadences my own steps to destiny. But I need to learn better the tune, and that you can help me do. I want to know my song well before I start singing.

(References:)

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall by Bob Dylan (Copyright 1963)