Christianity and Middle-Earth

THE BRIDGE OF KHAZAD-DÛM

2008-05-08T15:04:00.000-07:00

~A metaphor for Kalimac~

o near, so near, so far away,
The birthing, dawning grey of gloom
Speaks unveiled Light and Door to day—
There is no bridge in Khazad-dûm.

Behind, the weird of drumbeats calls,
The shadows dance the chant of doom;
Before, the shivered footbridge Falls—
The perishing of Khazad-dûm.

We stumble to the shattered edge
Beside so many unconsoled,
Lost on the brink of sorrow's ledge
In drowning dark in cavern old.

A distant, ancient voice and cry
Bewails the tumbling stony span
That broke the bond of earth and sky,
Untimely parting God and Man.

Those hearts that knew are gone to dust,
Those eyes that saw are tears become,
Slain by the Night that rendered thus
The emptiness of Khazad-dûm.

No power of this world of Men
Can span the void of Primal doom,
Nor ‘til the world’s at last a-mend
Bestride the gulf of Khazad-dûm.

But Hope—the Shepherd—to atone
Has crossed the bridgeless chasm deep,
And, passing o'er, was shaped in Stone;
The Secret Fire bore bloodied feet.

So weeping, wounded, numb, we wait
Until the Builder sets that Stone,
Which, dropped, will key a new-born gate,
Make one the soaring limbs new-flown.

Thus, in the mending of the sun,
The mending of the earth and moon;
When last the weary years are done,
There’ll be a Bridge in Khazad-dûm.

Footnotes:

1) 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

2) 1 Peter 2: 6 ”Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.””

3) ”A keystone is the architectural piece at the crown of a vault or arch and marks its apex, locking the other pieces into position.”

Andúril

2007-12-21T13:01:00.000-08:00

Well, I ain't dead yet, so that's something.

Meanwhile, Narsil was just the beginning.

Entropy Cubed

2006-11-09T12:35:00.000-08:00

I'd like to welcome any new readers to this blog, but also apologize to those same readers for the fact that posts, at least for the immediate future, will be infrequent. I unfortunately have to spend most of my extremely limited energy trying not to die of heart failure and thus have little left for more pleasant pursuits.

On top of which is that apart from the actual posts, which I can do via Blogger's simple system, the other aspects - such my design layout or the above in-site links - have to be put up by my young'un, who herself is limited by the fact that she has to work, finish a master's degree, take care of me and do all of the cooking, too. (And considering that she accomplished what she has running two websites with next to no formal training, I think she's done a right good job.) Thus little deteriorations creep in - for instance, the code for the archiving below has gone really weird, resulting in redundancies right, left and center. So if you want to read archived materials, you might be driven less batty if you just start at the beginning and work your way forward.

I slave-drive her as much as is merciful, and there's also the problem of having left a number of inncocent marshmallows abandoned in Moria for about a year and a half now to worry us (lordofthepeeps.com). So I'm afraid that you must in patience possess your souls and not give up on us entirely. We hope.

Baillie

I am Naked in the Dark, Sam

2006-10-09T12:52:00.000-07:00

From all flesh I walk a-sundered here beneath a shrouded sun,
Every dream and every waking thought askew
Like the light that breaks in water or a symmetry undone,
Half a heartbeat, half a breath behind the true.

Far away the fire-mountain sits upon the world’s last mile,
Sending out its sullen breath in roiling fume;
And it settles on the cinder-slopes like dark and poison bile,
Black defilement clinging lovingly to Doom.

I have set my will to iron, but my heart turns more to clay
With each step that takes me further from the West;
For the evil that comes with me waxes stronger day by day
And its menace rides like lead inside my breast.

The world without no barer than the one I have within,
With such drear and dismal furnishings of stone,
Til I wonder at the wasteland - is it out or is it in?
This desert that I stumble through alone.

A voice comes knocking, knocking on the doorpost of my soul,
Asking questions that I scarce can understand;
His words are meant to comfort, words to cosset and cajole,
But they crawl like wounded things upon the sand.

Bits and scraps endure to reach me in this empty place I hold
And I wonder at the shapes upon my ear,
For they bring a brief remembrance of forgotten things of old
Ere they melt into the desolation here.

Frantic, questing little mem’ries on my heart and on my mind,
Dancing, prancing little yearnings on my night,
Hunting eagerly for pathways to the world they left behind,
To a place of springing green and summer light.

I can feel the little mem’ries as they dance against the gloom,
Searching out the door they hope will set them free,
And their prancing makes me weary in this barren prison-room
Even as I long to join their company.

There was color once and song, if these rememberings speak true,
Buried deep beneath the rubble of old dreams;
Rainy meads like honey-water, blossom yellow, sky of blue
Scent of pine and pebbles washed by eager streams.

But the Road I walk is deep with poisoned earth and bitter ashes,
And the ashes leach the scant remembrance grey,
Like as the wind sears useless tears from sorrow-laden lashes,
The memories dry up and blow away.

But the voice comes knocking, knocking on the doorpost of my heart
And the emptiness is gentled for a time,
As I watch him break the wafer and give me the greater part,
As I swallow water dry as ancient wine.

Weary feet and weary marches, day by dreary day and dim,
And the fire-mountain coming ever nigh;
But the flame upon the mountain is now answered from within,
Spinning fierce and wild about my inward eye.

The Fire rises sudden with a surging, pounding will,
Blazing round the cardinal acre of my soul;
Spilling nether-glow of nothing and I walk in shadow still,
A fragment dark against the darker whole.

Whirl of flame and wheel of burning red against a starless night,
Whispers murmuring and singing into thrall,
Calling back the perished memories, the morning and the light,
Even as I tremble by the crimson wall.

One by one the sweet rememb’rings cut the darkness like a knife
And I smell again the meadow wet with dew.
From the bleached bones of my present I am all at once in life,
Tasting all the lovely things I ever knew.

It lies! comes word of warning from the deepest of my heart
And old habit turns me swiftly on my heel,
But at my fore new memories spring out in sudden start,
New-bright and clear and quickening and real.

From the cruel and fiery mountain I can hear the tempter calling
Crooning promises as fragrant as the rose,
While the dear, enchanted petals of my yesterdays are falling,
Swirling round in drifts as deep as mountain snows.

I see doorways in the circle, pathways through the Ring of Fire
And beyond the grass grows greening in the sun,
Like the hills and little valleys of the lost-forever Shire,
And the Fire whispers urgent, Hurry! Run!

Then the voice comes knocking, knocking at the doorpost of my mind,
Bringing succour with its small and daily things;
Even as I leap to refuge like a hurt and bleeding hind,
From the edges of my soul the Fire sings.

The Field of Cormallen

2006-04-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

Guy over at Damascus Road has written of the grief and burden of his son’s chronic illness and how that long suffering has beaten at his own walk with Christ, battering him at times into the ditches of bitterness and weary despair.

I immediately longed to comfort him, to say something, anything, that might ease his hurt and fear, but I don’t know the words to use. Sometimes it feels almost an impertinence to think that I have any wisdom to impart to those enduring their own Mordor, especially when it involves the potential loss of a child; for all the length and breadth and darkness of my own treks through the Land of Shadow, still they have been on my own account and for my own suffering: I have never yet been confronted with terror for the life of my offspring. What do I then say that speaks to that?

~~~

The ditches are familiar territory, if not the impetus. I know well what it means to tumble into them, ditches that get deeper and wider until they become ravines, great gashes in the malignant soil of a very Old Forest, chasms leading only one way, implacable, unmerciful, and inescapable, into cold, cold Night. I’ve followed them many a time.

In that Night, I too have beaten in vain upon the gates to the city, invisible and unheard. I know the bewilderment of that barren place well; I’ve seen the worn pavement and the splintery wood and even the brown stain of other, bloodied, fists; the sign of those who have come before, who are beside, even those yet to come—the traces of their anguish and confusion and rage have left marks for all to see: other Christians have been here and other Christians will be here again, at the uncaring gates of an uncaring heaven.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Time after time I beat and I pound and I screech and I weep, until at the end, long past exhaustion or even pain, limp and chilled death-cold with hopelessness, no longer making demands or pleadings, caring only that deep water is closing about my soul, I cry, with a sudden simple need, “Lord, save me!”

And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him…

And then I see. Only a little at first, but after each idiot trek down the ditches into the malice of a darker power, I see more, then more and then more, and here finally, I understand.

I understand that those unyielding portals were never the gates they pretended to be. The ditches of Night cannot lead to the doorway of Light. I have been lost and wandering and not where I meant to be at all.

But here, now…

And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him…

…my eyes are opened as I grasp that wounded hand.

I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

Then the uncaring battlements of the Dark Tower crumble, and the imposter gates of the Dark Lord crash down like the last furious thunder of a mighty storm, and the Eye trembles and in a final gout of malice flames out and dies and is nothing, and the mountains round about fall, and the steams swirl apart and the dust is blown by a clear west wind, and there upon the plains of that vast and fruitless ruin comes a still, small voice.

And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

And now I can see clearly again and there is a green world beyond the edges of this dying one; we are ringed about with Life and Light and sweet new air; there, though my eyes were blinded and I could not behold them, are all the Shire-gardens we could ever desire, and the leaves of the forests are golden-bright, and the walls of the city gleam white in the sun, and the Gate—the Door—is open wide, forever and ever and ever. If I keep moving, though it be with canes and crutches or on hands and knees, I’ll get there. We’ll get there.

It is enough, beloved Lord. It is enough.

How Long, O Lord, Holy and True?

2006-03-27T16:07:00.000-08:00

The Dutch are already euthanizing babies. The English aren’t too far behind, if this article in the Sunday Times is any indication (via American Thinker):

“In a submission to a two-year inquiry into premature babies by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the college says: “Some weight should be given to the economic considerations as there is a real issue in neonatal units of ‘bed blocking’, whereby women have to be transferred in labour to other units, compromising both their and their babies’ care.”

The statement reflects a growing view among child specialists that babies born under 25 weeks should be denied intensive care and allowed to die.Next month the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health will debate a motion at its annual conference that it is “unethical” to provide intensive care routinely to babies born under 25 weeks. In practice, they would only be saved in exceptional circumstances. “

Bed-blocker. What a lovely epithet for a helpless infant whose only sin is to be born too early to survive without medical help. And yet, it does make for a horrible kind of commonsense: why burden the socialist health care system with sick children? For that matter, why burden it with cripples and decrepit old ladies?

Here in the States, we’re a bit behind our European cousins in the infanticide division, but never fear – we’ll get there soon enough.

It’s already all right to starve to death innocent adults in the land of the free. And to not just starve them by removing a tube that perhaps merely bypasses faulty swallowing equipment in an otherwise healthy human being, but to deny them the least comforting taste or drop of anything food-related, lest a calorie somehow derail the project.

Just think: Grandma’s between you and $500,000. She’s not really all there, so it’s not hard to find a lawyer and a judge to agree that her life isn’t of value to herself or others, and we all know that food and drink are medical treatment, and she wouldn’t want to be kept alive artificially, so the rest follows naturally.

Thus, in a situation where Grandma would have once been at the least tenderly hand-fed, even if she could only take a teaspoonful of broth at a time, we demand that she die with her mouth parched shut and her lips cracking and her soul quivering with the bewildered misery of what those cute grandchildren really think of her.

After all, Grandma would want you to have that big new house and that luxury cruise, wouldn’t she? The fact that she got to spend her declining years looking forward to being starved to death as soon as was legally possible couldn’t possibly have affected her earthly happiness: Grandma always was one to go on about Duty.

Or maybe you’re one of those pure souls who would ONLY starve Grandma in the name of Selfless Love and that Omnipotent Deity “Dignity.” By these lofty standards, spoonfuls of Chicken Noodle Cup-a-Soup held to wrinkled lips violate all principles of rectitude and decency and possibly even the Geneva Convention.

Or maybe you think that a man should be able to starve to death his estranged wife if he wants to: he couldn’t possibly be doing it out of any motive apart from sincere concern for her unwritten last wishes. After all, he IS her husband and we all know that a wife is chattel, a unit of property to be disposed of as His Highness wills. By gum, other, less civilized, peoples can merely mutter "I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you" and get rid of their wives that way; we've got to prove that we Westerners are more dedicated to women's rights than barbarians are, after all!

Or maybe all you care about is you: “if I publicly support the people who say starving people to death is wrong, then I might end up on a respirator for ten years against my stated and written and clearly legal wishes. Damn this 'laying down one’s life for others' business. I will risk no hurt to me, for I am precious!"

And then there’s the "if the Republicans are against it, then it must be right!” mindset. I begin to suspect that we could use preemies for stir-fried cat food without other opposition as long as the Republicans were against it.

I’ve got a suggestion for all of the above enablers of legal murder: you might want to search the Scriptures daily and see if you can pull together a good enough defense to get you through Judgment Day. Maybe George Felos can help you. And to the I am the Master of My Fate crowd, let me point out that pigheadedness won’t survive that particular fire. God gives to each of us the freedom to choose our courses in life: in death every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, even if hell follows after.

(This by the way, does not mean that I think that everyone who doesn't become a Christian in this life is automatically damned. Think C.S. Lewis and The Last Battle. Many a man or woman whom God has not called to Christ in this life will awake, I think, like Faramir [to revert to Tolkien] to look on their king with a light of knowledge and love kindled in their eyes.)

But I pray for a better revenge. I, sister in heart to Terri Schiavo, I, crippled and broken and of little practical use to the greater society—I pray rather that the judgment upon you each will be this: that in life you will be struck down onto trembling knees by unapproachable Light, and that out of your terror and sudden shame you will cry—as we all must or perish—

“Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”

Fall into Darkness

2006-03-17T16:10:00.000-08:00

Any readers of this blog—likely former readers as I have not posted in many long months—are aware of my involvement with the Terry Schiavo issue that so riveted the world a year ago. I was not a prime mover in this blog-issue; I merely followed the lead of better bloggers than I; but still, I had a deep personal interest in Terri’s fate and gave it all that I had in joining the efforts to save her life.

That involvement, following so closely on the heels of my brother’s nearly fatal illness, worked a terrible toll on my own health, already compromised. There is always a price to be paid for fighting evil, and so have I paid, even if I says it as oughtn’t; the price allotted to me was literally heart failure. But here a year later, I’ve gained a tenuous hold on normal living, and once again find myself (among many) suddenly summoned into the breach by those same vigorous and admirable bloggers, people who are concerned for Terri’s legacy and those that might share in her fate if good men do nothing. I don’t have the strength for an extended contribution, but will give it what little I can: many small drops of truth add up to a thundering torrent to drown the Orthancs that wage war against all good things, all Light and life and Love.

This being a Tolkien website, I will address the issue via Middle-Earth. If I get a Tolkien fact a bit wrong here or there, you LotR fans must forgive me; there’s a definite limit to my energies for research and verification and the deadline loometh. And you’ll have to look up any references yourself; I don’t have the energy to do the linking. (For quick details, I recommend the Encyclopedia of Arda).

~~~

There’s a back-story to The Lord of the Rings—a vast and richly layered foundation that nourishes the more well-known tale of hobbits and Men and Elves. Moviegoers unfamiliar with other of Tolkien’s writings may have found themselves mystified at some of the obscure references Peter Jackson of necessity had to incorporate into his three films; newcomers to Middle-Earth likely found such references so confusing as to require immediate dismissal—movie pacing waits for no man, after all, so the viewer must quickly move on lest he lose his grip on the plot entirely. Still, the hints are there for anyone who cares to dig deeper after the credits roll, as a key conversation in Fellowship between Gandalf and Frodo clearly shows:

“Evil is stirring in Mordor. The ring has awoken. It has heard its master’s call.”

“But he was destroyed! Sauron was destroyed!”

“No, Frodo, the spirit of Sauron endured. His life force is bound to the ring and the ring survived. Sauron has returned. His orcs have multiplied. His fortress of Barad-Dûr has been rebuilt, in the land of Mordor. Sauron needs only this ring to cover all the lands of a second darkness...”

The initial flashback scenes at the beginning of Fellowship have of course given the viewer some orientation: Sauron was a major bad guy and a Last Alliance of Men and Elves defeated him in a great battle; but there is much more to the back story than that simplification shows. Who were these Elves and Men, these kings of free peoples—Gil-Galad and Elendil and Isildur? Who was this Dark Lord Sauron, so generous with his rings? Why a “Last” Alliance?

All that tale is far beyond the scope and purpose of this short essay; I must leave novice Tolkien fans mystified still and focus rather on a very small part of it, the part that comes to bear on a character we meet much further on in the movie: the ranger Strider—eventually revealed to us as Aragorn, Isildur’s heir and heir to the throne of Gondor, the heir of Elendil.

“Tall ships and tall kings
Three times three,
What brought they from the foundered land
Over the flowing sea?
Seven stars and seven stones
And one white tree.”

That tree was the White Tree of Gondor, of course, and a symbol of the High Kingship to which Aragorn was heir. But what was this “foundered land” the rhyme mentions?

It was Númenor, the land of gift.

I quote the Encyclopedia of Arda:

The island kingdom of the Dúnedain, raised from the sea by the Valar as a gift and reward to the Men who had remained faithful through the dark years of the First Age. The Edain who had dwelt in Beleriand were led to the island in II 32 by Elros the Half-elven, who unlike his brother Elrond had chosen to be counted among Men rather than Elves.

Elros became the first King of Númenor, taking the name Tar-Minyatur. Under his rule, and the rule of his descendants, the Númenóreans rose to become the most powerful nation of Men in that or any other age. Their mighty ships returned to Middle-earth in II 600, and there they founded havens and cities.

For the early part of their history, the Númenóreans were closely allied with the Elves of Tol Eressëa, which lay close to their western shores. The Elves visited them often, and taught them much, but the Númenóreans themselves were forbidden to sail westwards, because the Valar feared they would become envious of the Undying Lands they and the Elves inhabited. As their greatness and power grew, the Númenóreans began to turn against the Ban of the Valar, and at last Ar-Adûnakhôr, who became King in II 2899 turned openly against it, though he did not dare defy it.

The last King of Númenor was Ar-Pharazôn the Golden, who usurped the throne of the rightful queen Míriel in II 3255. He took his armies to Middle-earth to make war upon Sauron, and so great had the Númenóreans become that Sauron's forces deserted him. Seeing an opportunity to destroy his enemy, Sauron sued for peace and returned with the King to Númenor. He gradually gained Ar-Pharazôn trust, and persuaded him to sail openly against the Valar. This he did in II 3319, but as he set foot on the forbidden shores of Aman, the land of Gift was taken away and swallowed between the waves forever.

Some few survived the Downfall; Elendil, his sons and his followers had prepared themselves for the disaster and taken ship, and were driven back across the seas to Middle-earth. There they founded the famous realms of Arnor and Gondor, though these were but a dim reflection of the glory of Númenor at its height.

Specific to the point at hand, i.e., the issue of life and death and the choices laid before us concerning the Terri Schiavos of this world, I lay before you parts of Tolkien’s description of the last days of Númenor.

“…Sauron caused to be built upon the hill in the midst of the city of the Númenóreans…a mighty temple...crowned with a mighty dome. And that dome was roofed all with silver, and rose glittering in the sun, so that the light of it could be seen afar off; but soon the light was darkened, and the silver became black. For there was an altar of fire in the midst of the temple, and in the topmost of the dome there was a louver, whence there issued a great smoke. And the first fire upon the altar Sauron kindled with the hewn wood of (the White Tree) and it crackled and was consumed…

Thereafter the fire and smoke went up without ceasing; for the power of Sauron daily increased, and in that temple, with spilling of blood and torment and great wickedness, men made sacrifice to (Morgoth)…And most often from among the Faithful they chose their victims…

Nevertheless for long it seemed to the Númenóreans that they prospered and if they were not increased in happiness, yet they grew more strong, and their rich men even richer. For with the aid and counsel of Sauron they multiplied their possessions, and they devised engines, and they built ever greater ships. And they sailed now with power and amoury to Middle-earth…and they hunted the men of Middle-earth and took their goods and enslaved them, and many they slew cruelly upon their altars. For they built in their fortresses temples…

Thus Ar-Pharazôn, King…grew to the mightiest tyrant that had yet been in the world since the reign of Morgoth, though in truth Sauron ruled all from behind the throne. But the years passed, and the King felt the shadow of death approach, as his days lengthened; and he was filled with fear and wrath. Now Sauron spoke to the King, saying that his strength was now so great that he might think to have his will in all things, and be subject to no command or ban…”

The sins of the Númenóreans were many, and human sacrifice was but one part that led inexorably to the chief sin: the decision to take to themselves the right of utter rebellion against the higher powers, to storm heaven itself, as it were. They had become as gods in their own eyes and nothing was to be denied them.

This was the burden Aragorn had to bear and the decision he had to make—whether to choose submission to the will of heaven, to the right Road and the right way, or to grasp power for himself. Many times was that choice laid before him, most crucially when he had to let go control of the fate of the Ring, to allow it to go into Mordor in the hands of the small and the weak; and in the same crisis-point to chose between his desire and his duty regarding the fate of two other seemingly useless creatures, the hobbits Merry and Pippin: that was his choice—self and will, or love and pity. He could sacrifice others or he could sacrifice himself.

“A great doom awaits you, either to rise above the height of all your fathers since the days of Elendil, or to fall into darkness with all that is left of your kin.”

Aragorn chose well. Please God that we too will turn and do the same.

The Wings of Darkness

2005-07-07T08:56:00.000-07:00

Yet at the last, in the wearing of the swift years of Middle-earth, Gondor waned…a plague came upon dark winds out of the east, and it smote the King and his children, and many of the people of Gondor perished. Then the forts on the borders of Mordor were deserted, and Minas Ithil was emptied of its people; and evil entered again into the Black Lands secretly, and the ashes of Gorgoroth were stirred as by a cold wind, for dark shapes gathered there. It is said that these were indeed the Úlairi, whom Sauron called the Nazgûl, the Nine Ringwraiths that had long remained hidden, but returned now to prepare the ways of their master, for he had begun to grow again...

London
July 7, 2005

Black Riders Came From the Sea

2005-06-23T10:25:00.001-07:00

"King Elessar issues an edict that Men are not to enter the Shire, and he makes it a Free Land under the protection of the Northern Sceptre."

Appendix B, The Return of the King
Year 1427 by the Shire Reckoning

~~~

North America, 2005 CE (by the Post-Modern Reckoning)

A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development…The 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.

As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue...

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers...

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," O'Connor wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

She was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Archaic Hebrew Text c. 800 BCE (by the Post-Modern Reckoning)

Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand. And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage…

Obsolete Hebrew Text, c. 850 BCE (by Same)

...Naboth the Jez'reelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money.

And Naboth said to Ahab, The LORD forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.

And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jez'reelite had spoken to him: for he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread.

But Jez'ebel his wife came to him, and said unto him, Why is thy spirit so sad, that thou eatest no bread? And he said unto her, Because I spake unto Naboth the Jez'reelite, and said unto him, Give me thy vineyard for money; or else, if it please thee, I will give thee another vineyard for it: and he answered, I will not give thee my vineyard.

And Jez'ebel his wife said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry: I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jez'reelite…

~~~
Black riders came from the sea. There was clang and clang of spear and shield and clash and clash of hoof and heel, wild shouts and the wave of hair in the rush upon the wind: Thus the ride of sin.

Stephen Crane

The Return of the Heart Patient

2005-06-19T08:15:00.000-07:00

I'd have sent a postcard from the Black Gate, but I've been too tired to lick the stamps.

Back to Bellwethering soon, I hope...

The Summons

2005-05-31T06:49:00.000-07:00

In the fire-shadowed room he spoke of Night,
A Night with bricked-up windows, iron door
That, barred, remained shut fast against all light.
I listened, cheer-replete and laughter-sore
And fresh from happy song.

The doom came crashing hard against my dreams,
Dead-star-like on my peace and on my heart;
Dim jealous coal from far infernal seams
Flung from the Void to snuff a moment’s spark.
Like breath my youth was gone.

Around us lay the meads and winding ways,
And snug the little kitchen-room we shared,
Sweet-scented with the ghosts of other days;
But forfeit now with peril new declared.
Thus was I home-bereft.

The merry glimmer of my little fire,
Bright-mirrored in the many-lettered gold,
Was twisted sudden to the Night’s desire;
And with the slant, unhidden tale it told,
Ere I could know to cry to Darkness, “Hold!”
It burned tomorrow into bitter cold,
And naught to me was left.

Bellwether Syndrome

2005-05-14T09:56:00.000-07:00

The Lord of the Rings owes much of its distinct flavor to Tolkien’s love of Old English culture and language. Now he was a professional, a philologist and a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, so he knew what he was doing and we Middle-Earth lovers are the richer for it; I, on the other hand, am an amateur, thus of the fragment below I make no claims as to its perfect adherence to the real thing, but it is my attempt to imitate such and mostly just by ear.

My reasons for posting it here and now are twofold. Firstly, I don’t think I have it on the internet anywhere apart from possibly somewhere in an email account—not the most reliable of archival methods—and would thus like to preserve it against the house burning down along with paper copies and my computer; but more to the point, it’s a good jumping off place into the subject matter I intend, in my rambling fashion, to address in my next few posts. I hope those will be more frequent than of late, but I labor under a wearying load of poor health, so I have to take things as they come.

I'm not entirely sure that this is even the finished copy of it, such that it is; the last time I worked on it was whilst sitting pole-axed in an ICU room listening to my brother's respirator squawking, and that was a year and a half ago. In any case, consider this the Inefficient first shot across the bow of a particular modern/postmodern mindset that I have dubbed—for reasons that will be made clear in due season—Bellwether Syndrome.

Helm's Deep

Shadow on horse-lands, smoke-kindled.
Withered the wood-smith’s walls to embers,
Red was roof-fall, rafters crumbled,
Bright-blazed homestead, hearth forsaken:
Long-years labor lying in ashes.
Hewn the fruit-bough, fair tree ax-dead,
Cattle-herds slain, corn-houses broken.
Star-mirror poisoned, sickened with death-taint.
Loud rose the grief-cry, life-hope waning,
As Rohan fled from farm to Deeping.
Dread was the duskfall: doom fed it,
The sword-bands ravened, ruin-greedy.
Fell was their war-chant, fearsome shield-song,
Loud with blade-beat, battle-gladness.
Mordor saw them, men and Uruk,
As strength he bided in shield-hall mighty.
Cunning had tempted, trapped a stone-seer,
Wound him in web-weaves, will-enshackled,
Orthanc enslaved to Orodruin.
The servant of Sauron slew men for him.
Night came swift as Northmen trembled.

Then out of dream-grave, deep, long-buried,
Theoden wakened and walked out of shadow.
Sister-son he summoned to serve him.
Came Eomer gladly, offered his sword,
Kneeling in honor, in homage to Theoden.
Rode they from Edoras, rain-shield golden,
Young lord eager, his elder age-wearied,
Scorning king-comfort, stern, bold-hearted,
Son of the Mark-lords, Snowmane’s master.
Left behind him Eomer’s womb-kin,
Sister-daughter, Dunharrow’s captain.
With him war-men, wielding sword-might,
And new-beard younglings: need called them.
Fealty they kept and faithful heart-oath,
Spear-thronged, they guarded, gathered with him;
Shining in armor and steadfast in king-love.
Warnings sped them; the white-clad wanderer,
Mearas steed-friend, spoke truth to Theoden.
Warriors he left him, wing-footed hunters,
Elf and Dwarf and Heir of Sea-kings,
Lordly victors, valiant in battle.

To Hornburg they came, Hammerhand’s fortress
Great were foe-wards guarding Deeping,
The vale behind and hidden hollows,
Winter-cold caverns cloven in splendor
By Time under mountain, many rooms making.
There the folk-clans, fear-mustered, waited,
While Rohan’s soldiers readied without,
Girt on sword-belt and sharpened war-blade,
Arrows told, to each archer counted,
Then bending the war-bow like baleful sky-ship
Curled to spin a star-shaft deadly
From highest heaven to the heart of the void-dweller.
Purposed they stood upon the stone-heights,
Fear honed to strong-heart, defying the shadows,
As under deep roof-veil the enemy gathered.
Bright was the fire that fled through storm-dark:
War-drum beating, on the blackness it crashed.
Fierce were the war-bands; from the wall men saw
As from the world’s edge white flew sky-glare,
A man’s-breath of daylight. Many there were
Thronged in the valley, throat-loud, clamoring...

The Ing and I

2005-05-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

When you have inflicted seven cats upon yourself (actually I only inflicted six; my husband’s responsible for the seventh one; he would insist on removing a wee starved scrap from the inner workings of a stranger’s car), life can take on a surreal aspect at times, like a Van Gogh painting on uppers. Many people think one cat is pretty much like another, at best a low-maintenance pet for the children and at worst a creature who leaves footprints on newly washed cars, smelly surprises in the flower-beds and bits of songbird all over.

But here at Entropy House and in other secret cat-worshipping enclaves all over the country, we know better. (This is possibly because we also know that we’re outnumbered.)

Which brings us to Ing.

Ing, as I have mentioned before, is a grey-and-white varmint. Natural selection through generations of barn cats has provided him with a long pointy nose ideally suited for scavenging supper from discarded food-cans in back alleys; the same process gives him an extremely elastic conscience to go with the snout: I Take What I Want and I Want What is Yours.

He is Fierce and Dangerous and a Force To Be Reckoned With (when not collapsed in an infantile mush trying frantically to nurse on his beloved Arry like a starving kitten—until Arry gets tired of kneading claws and soggy fur and swats him one). We suspect the veterinarian of having missed something whilst neutering.

Ing’s predecessor in my affections was an orange and white Manx with a poofy two-inch wiggy-wag of an excuse for a tail. He was four years old when a sudden heart problem involving a large clot necessitated him being put to sleep in my arms, despite all that the veterinary school in Raleigh and free rein with a credit card could do for him. So when Ing was discovered to have a bit of a heart murmur, we rushed him to Raleigh, too (at least this time it wasn’t after hours and in a panic) and, sure enough, his echocardiogram revealed a cardiomyopathy that will eventually prove fatal, too. But in his case, since we know about it ahead of time, we can put off the dreadful day with daily medication to strengthen his heart and thin his blood.

At the time, the vet said 3-5 years with meds and luck and that he would start showing symptoms in about six months. Ing being Ing, that was about a year and a half ago and he’s still being as Horrible as ever. Even more Horrible than ever, actually, because the hobby he took up to relieve any slight sensation of illness and invalid fussiness was the same coping mechanism that cats have used to ease stress for millennia: Mark Your Territory.

Only intermittently, you understand. And mostly window blinds (by way of putting in its place a neighborhood feline thug who comes and leers through the window) and the couch or the loveseat (layers of washable cotton spreads are the solution there). Still, eau de Ing is not our favorite fragrance and we go through a lot of pet-odor remover, Windex, laundry detergent and Claire Burke room spray. The house is extremely clean in spots.

We make every effort to cater to Ing’s least desire in the interests of reducing his stress levels—laps, tidbits, playtime, blankies, whatever he wants—just please don’t go piddle on the furniture.

(You’re nuts, lady. –ed)

Can’t really argue with that. But the moral of this story is this: Now that I’ve been diagnosed with my very own cardiomyopathy and will now get my very own heart pills, I feel that I can confidently rely on having my every wish and whim indulged also, just as Ing does. After all, my dear ones wouldn’t want me to feel neglected and stressed, now would they?

Not if they want a dry place to sit.

Mommy, There's a Christian Under My Bed!

2005-05-02T14:01:00.000-07:00

As I have mentioned before, I grew up in a church that took, in many regards, a Cromwellian approach to Christianity. While amusements such as theater, dancing and alcohol use were not on the roster of no-nos, Christmas and Easter certainly were, as were birthday celebrations and pretty much anything smelling of Catholicism.

Rome nurtured the Anti-Christ in her Babylonian bosom, you see. Sooner or later, a Pope would conquer the world and true Christians would be persecuted and even slaughtered as the great Fallen Woman waved her bottle of Cracklin’ Rosy Saints’ Blood in gleeful, drunken triumph over all.

Unfortunately for the Lord Protector, however, he would not have been of that prime and special vintage. You see, he went to church on Sunday. And that was—ominous drumroll here—The Mark of the Beast.

We had lots of other loonybiscuit doctrines, all much strengthened by the conviction of being right in God’s eyes, but the larger theological heresies I grew up with aren’t really the point of this post. Belief or disbelief in the Doctrine of the Trinity doesn’t have much direct bearing on how an individual operates in day-to-day life: what does is what I will call, for lack of a better term, Old Testament Christianity.

My definition of Old Testament Christianity is a religion that teaches that not only do Christians have to live by the New Testament, but they are required to live by the former as much as is possible without actually nullifying the latter. Thus we did not make literal animal sacrifices, because that had been done away with by Jesus Christ, but the commands to observe the Mosaic holy days were still in effect. Instead of sunrise services and Christmas trees, we got Levitical dietary restrictions, fasting onYom Kippur and ‘land Sabbaths.’ I probably know as much about unleavened bread and Sukkot as most practicing Jews.

Now it’s one thing to try to live a traditionally Christian life and another to try to live a traditionally Jewish life, but having to attempt a selective combination of the two is quite a challenge. Existence becomes an endless sequence of ‘do’s and ‘don’t’s and you're definitely the neighborhood weirdo. If you are of an idealistic, earnest nature, desirous of pleasing God and man, it can become an obsessive-compulsive purgatory.

But that was all long ago and far away and the reason for my bringing it up now is not to provide a personal tell-all for the benefit of the curious, but to illustrate that when I say that I understand what it is like to live under the soft totalitarianism of erroneous versions of Christianity, I know whereof I speak.

~~~
Let us go now to the Shadowy Right-wing Christian Fundamentalist Plot to Control America. (via Hugh Hewitt):

"This may be the darkest time in our history," said Bob Edgar, general secretary of the left-leaning National Council of Churches and former six-term Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania. "The religious right have been systematically working at this for 40 years. The question is, where is the religious left?"

Speakers outlined such concepts -- others would say conspiracy theories -- as Christian reconstructionism and dominionism to a crowd that Mr. White said does "not understand the further reaches of religion."

Dominionism is the theory that the account in Genesis in which God gave man dominion over the earth has become a political teaching advocating that Christians gain and hold power. Christian reconstructionism is the theory that Christian conservatives intend to impose Old Testament law in America.

Stanley Kurtz at NRO amplifies these concerns for us:

What is the real agenda of the religious far Right? I’ll tell you what it is. These nuts want to take over the federal government and suppress other religions through genocide and mass murder, rather than through proselytizing. They want to reestablish slavery. They want to reduce women to near-slavery by making them property, first of their fathers, and then of their husbands. They want to execute anyone found guilty of pre-martial, extramaritial, or homosexual sex. They want to bring back the death penalty for witchcraft.

Or so the Loonybiscuit Left would have us believe, as Mr. Kurtz goes on to explain, shaking his head in disbelief the whole time.

Captain Ed is equally bemused:

They have created a modern-day voodoo called Dominionism and smeared all church-going people as covert members of its conspiracy. Supposedly, all Christians have worked for centuries to transform America into an Old Testmant-based theocracy with high priests instead of elected officials -- somehow forgetting that for Christians, the New Testament takes precedence over the Old. Otherwise, we'd live under the same precepts as Orthodox Jews, holding Saturday as the Sabbath, eschewing pork, and avoiding cheeseburgers.

~~~
My church wasn’t so restrictive as Orthodox Judaism, of course; we were Christians after all, and Christ had set us free—to eat cheeseburgers anyway. Occasionally.

Our version of Christianity being as physically oriented as spiritual, it was impressed upon us that our bodies were the temple of the Holy Spirit (the non-Trinity version) and therefore to be spared the ravages of not only ‘unclean meats,’ but refined foods (except for occasional treats—we weren’t Puritans). Honey was good, sugar was bad; whole wheat was good, bleached flour bad. Having your baby at home got you extra Brownie points, getting your child immunized showed a lack of faith. (I fell short on both counts.) ‘Natural’ was the mantra and the Millennium was going to be one big organically-grown paradise.

So when we achieved ultimate power in our conspiracy to take over the world in this age, the rest of America was going to have to toe the same legalistic line. I mean, if it was what Jesus Christ ordered, what was good for one was good for all. Our guys get into office, take over the judiciary, infiltrate Congress, slither into the White House, and bob’s your uncle: the OT Christian Taliban is in charge and they’re even scarier than Southern Baptists. Dominionists ‘R’ Us. Right?

There’s just one fly in that ointment, a small, but pivotal fly inherent to our doctrinal persuasions of the time.

We didn’t vote.
~~~
The Mind and Power that inhabits Eternity, who is Mercy and Love and knows the hearts of men, looked on my church and saw the suffering that many of us endured. He saw our earnest desire to follow his Son and to truly find him; and he spoke from Heaven and the manacles fell from our souls.

”Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”

The slog through Mordor was over. Traditional Christianity, thy name was liberty!

But we were too late. We got to there just in time to find out that In the Eyes of Those Who Matter, it was now traditional Christianity that was the nut-nut fringe.

~~~
If you want to be any good at birdwatching, you have to learn the shape, flight patterns and behavior of the different species well enough that even if you glimpse a bird only from the corner of your eye, you can quickly spot it as, say, a thrush of some sort or a finch or woodpecker. This narrows down the pages you have to leaf through to find that specific bird and identify it precisely. This is similar to how birds or small animals spot predators: they instinctively recognize movement and shape as dangerous or non-dangerous. A cat’s slinking or a hawk’s swoop speaks immediate volumes.

In like manner, those of us who have lived under religious totalitarianism—however idealistic in intent—can spot it a mile off: we know well the warning signs of authoritarianism, whether from the right or the left. Every church has its graces, and perhaps ours is distinguishing freedom from slavery and being determined to never be in chains again.

I know very personally what chains can do to body and soul. I know a Sharkey when I see one, be he ever so well-intentioned. Yes, I realize that the Dominionists would be happy to put America in their version of heavenly manacles; but Dominionists are few and far between. I don’t think I’ve ever met one.

I’ve lived in Jesusland for forty years and I can assure you that the chances of them gaining control over the so-called Religious Right are precisely nil. We don’t execute gays or adulterers, we don’t run lynch mobs on Saturday night for amusement (or any other reason), we don’t burn crosses on our neighbors’ lawns—and it is certainly not we who are limiting the political power of African-Americans by providing for two out of five black babies to be aborted.

A far greater danger to our republic are those who would deny traditional Christians our say in the political process, who would drive us from public view lest we taint their version of the American paradise with so much as our shadows; we, like the Jews so many times throughout history and like Israel now, have no right to defend ourselves, to fight for our way of life or our beliefs.

2005-04-26T14:27:00.000-07:00

"The Elder Days are gone. The Middle Days are passing. The Younger Days are beginning. The time of the Elves is over, but our time is at hand: the world of Men, which we must rule. But we must have power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see."
Saruman, FotR

No Admittance Between Sundown and Sunrise

Sharkey's persistent, if nothing else.

"George Soros told a carefully vetted gathering of 70 likeminded millionaires and billionaires last weekend that they must be patient if they want to realize long-term political and ideological yields from an expected massive investment in “startup” progressive think tanks (…) Rob Stein, a veteran of President Bill Clinton’s Commerce Department and of New York investment banking, convened the meeting of venture capitalists, left-leaning moneymen and a select few D.C. strategists on how to seed pro-Democratic think tanks, media outlets and leadership schools to compete with such entrenched conservative institutions as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Leadership Institute."

From there—if you’d like an easy-to-grasp view of the goods on Mr. Soros—go to this related site and click on Discover the Network in the upper right-hand corner and follow the links to this Individual Profile.

(Yes, this is a conservative site, but, come, be logical—why would you expect the remoras that rely for sustenance on the Hungarian Sharkey to beach him? There are plenty of links to sources, so you can draw your own conclusions. The Visual Maps are particularly interesting.)

None of this surprises those of us who have been keeping even an occasional glance on Mr. Soros for any length of time, but for your delectation I offer these informative links for further insight on the prime financier of the Loonybiscuit Left:

George Soros and the Press

"One would think that our journalists, who profess a commitment to the Bill of Rights, would raise the alarm. But they're too busy filling out grant applications to the Soros Open Society Institute."

The Coming Crackdown on Blogging (via LGF)

"Smith should know. He's one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet."

~~~

’No!’ said Merry. ‘It’s no good “getting under cover”. That is just what people have been doing, and just what these ruffians like. They will simply come down on us in force, corner us, and then drive us out, or burn us in. No, we’ve got to do something at once!’

‘Do what?’ said Pippin.

‘Raise the Shire!’ said Merry. ‘Now! Wake all our people! They hate all this, you can see: all of them except perhaps one or two rascals, and a few fools that want to be important, but don’t at all understand what is really going on. But Shire-folk have been so comfortable so long, they don’t know what to do. They just want a match though, and they’ll go up in fire. The Chief’s Men must know that. They’ll try to stamp on us and put us out quick. We’ve only got a very short time.’

~~~
The Greatest Investors: George Soros

"A highly respected currency speculator, he once shorted the British Pound for a one day gain in excess of $1 billion."

A Free Pass for "21st Century Lenin"

"Known as "the man who almost broke the Bank of England," Soros engaged in a complex financial transaction that resulted in the Bank of England losing billions of dollars defending the British pound before having to devalue it. He is essentially a manipulator of money, able to bet that currencies of nations will rise or fall while he makes billions in the process."

Foundation Watch

"George Soros: A Bridge to Radicalism -- Soros Funds a Leftwing Network Addressing Media, Legal and Social Issues" (pdf, via Frontpagemag.com)

~~~

’I’m sorry, Mr. Merry,’ said Hob, ‘but it isn’t allowed.’

‘What isn’t allowed?’

‘Taking in folk off-hand like, and eating extra food, and all that,’ said Hob.

‘What’s the matter with the place?’ said Merry. ‘Has it been a bad year, or what? I thought it had been a fine summer and harvest.’

‘Well, no, the year’s been good enough,’ said Hob. ‘We grows a lot of food but we don’t rightly know what becomes of it. It’s all these “gatherers” and “sharers”, I reckon, going around and counting and measuring and taking off to storage. They do more gathering than sharing, and we never see most of the stuff again.’

~~~
Of particular interest to me is this aspect of Mr. Soros's philanthropy:

Soros and Schiavo

"It would seem that Terri Schiavo had the misfortune to be targeted as a test case for a wide-reaching change in medical policy. That, I believe, is why her would-be killers - those in black robes as well as white ones - run roughshod over the law with such fearless confidence. Powerful forces stand behind them. Hundreds of billions of dollars in future medical entitlements are at stake."

Death March: Assisted Suicide

"Compassion in Dying, a Hemlock spinoff founded in 1993 to surreptitiously assist in suicides, is also broadening its mandate. Originally a local group in Seattle, it has metastasized into the Compassion in Dying Federation of America, funded in part by billionaire George Soros, who has donated at least $350,000 to various of its constituent groups."

(As an aside, the Compassion in Dying Federation of America has the Right Loony Bishop Spong on its advisory board. ‘Nuff said.)

In 1994, Mr. Soros gave a speech at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center that included this wee snippet:

"This brings me to that hotly debated subject, physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. This is the one aspect of dying that is talked about everywhere -- on television, in public forums, in newspaper headlines, and serious journal articles. Voters in Oregon just approved a law that makes it the first state to lift the prohibition against physician-assisted suicide.

As the son of a mother who was member of the Hemlock Society, and as a reader of Plato's Phaedra, I cannot but approve. But I must emphasize that I am speaking in my personal capacity and not on behalf of the Board of the Project on Death in America."

No, of course not. Influencing people who depend on Mr. Soros’s good graces for paychecks or grants is the last thing on his mind. He most certainly wouldn’t want to tempt his audience. (The headline at that last link is my favorite: Soros to Announce $15 Million to Combat Influence of Money in Medicine. Makes perfect sense to me!) Why, it was just sheer fluke that he was invited to give this speech; in fact, they really wanted the head of housekeeping to give the address, but she‘s in such demand as a speaker at universities these days that there’s no getting on her calendar for love or—er, um, anything.

And lastly, as the cherry on top of this section of our little linkfest, there’s this: OSI Seminar Series: Building Coalitions for Tobacco Control

~~~

There was no beer and very little food, but with what the travelers brought and shared out they all made a fair meal; and Pippin broke Rule 4 by putting most of the next day’s allowance of wood on the fire.

‘Well, now, what about a smoke, while you tell us what has been happening in the Shire?’ he said.

‘There isn’t no pipeweed now,’ said Hob; ‘at least, only for the Chief’s men. All the stocks seem to have gone. We do hear that wagon-loads of it went away down the old road out of the Southfarthing, over Sarn Ford way. That would be the end o’ last year, after you left. But it had been going away quietly before that, in a small way…’

~~~
Intellectualconservative.com offers a take on Our Financier as “The Dark Lord Soros.” This amuses me, but methinks the author gives Mr. Soros a higher rank than he deserves. Mr. Soros is doubtless afflicted with a hefty portion of megalomania, but underneath that is a plain, old-fashioned busybody—albeit an epic busybody, one with the money and thus the means to stick his busy fingers into a great many pies. (The pies can be any ethnic/cultural flavor that they want to be as long as they are in line with the basic Utopian menu.) Take away that money and you’ve got a cross between a Homeowners Association Board director and a trendier, softer-spoken, bankrupt version of the Earl of Sidcup.

~~~

‘What’s all this?’ said Frodo, feeling inclined to laugh.

‘This is what it is, Mr. Baggins,’ said the leader of the Shirrifs, a two-feather hobbit: ‘You’re arrested for Gate-breaking, and Tearing up of Rules, and Assaulting Gate-keepers, and Trespassing, and Sleeping in Shire-buildings without Leave, and Bribing Guards with Food.’

~~~
It’s not Mr. Soros’s opinions I object to—well, I do object to them, but what I mean is that he is entitled to his opinions, political, religious or otherwise, God granting each of us the right to self-determination and the consequences—but it’s not so much that as it is his overriding impulse to remake the world in accordance with those opinions, whether the rest of us like it or not.

And what a well-ordered world it will be! Harmony achieved by Theraputic Guidance, inclusiveness guaranteed by Judicial Order, efficient use of resources assured by Central Planning, thus granting to each citizen the right to be born by permission, live a politically-correct life, and then die by prior arrangement, ushered into eternity by morphine, soft music and cuddly crib-toys. Man arrives at his glorious future and it is a Paint-By-Number Paradise.

Now granted, such a splendid realization of properly dotted ‘i’s and crossed ’t’s was Sauron’s hankering, too (minus pastels and lollipops, of course, Sauron’s taste in utopias being more along the lines of a particularly depressed Rabine landscape), so my disinclination to classify Mr. Soros as the Dark Lord may seem mere fussiness. But I feel that he lacks a little something, perhaps the beauty and charm with which his master so easily deceived the Elven eye and that, inverted, fed the menacing black hunger that crept ever amongst the shadows of Middle-Earth: the Soros kingdom is built but with the power that comes from money.
~~~

’You little folk are getting too uppish. Don’t you trust too much in the Boss’s kind heart. Sharkey’s come now, and he’ll do what Sharkey says.’

‘And what may that be?’ said Frodo quietly.

‘This country wants waking up and setting to rights,’ said the ruffian, ‘and Sharkey’s going to do it; and make it hard, if you drive him to it. You need a bigger Boss. And you’ll get one before the year is out, if there’s any more trouble. Then you’ll learn a thing or two, you little rat-folk.’

~~~
Deprived of his financial Isengard, bereft of his stock-ticker palantir, unable to bankroll his Open Society Orthanc, Mr. Soros would be ignored and forgotten and forced to find some little helpless Shire to regulate into happiness and metaphorical soot by way of venting his frustrations. Because, you see, it’s not enough for him that his soot be exactly two inches deep; every soot-garden in the Shire had better be too and if it ain’t, well, I expect he’ll insist upon sensitivity training or hobnailed bootlicking or some such for those of us with bad attitudes.

But don’t be too distressed, Pippin. There may not be any of the Shire’s pipeweed left for you to smoke, but Sharkey is going to provide plenty of the other sort.

Update: Just came across this in a recent Moonbat Central post.

A Light in Dark Places

2005-04-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

I would like to congratulate my Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ on the election of Cardinal Ratzinger to the papacy: he comforts me greatly. The various loonybiscuits are chewing their post-modern fingernails, of course, but that was to be expected. (Note to self: this might be a good time to buy stock in antidepressants.)

One of Catholicism's graces—and something the relativists scorn—is a deep understanding that human suffering is an inescapable and necessary interface between God and Man. Western society has rejected that truth, demanding instead that we be denied nothing that we desire and that we hold to no rule but that of self-indulgence and narcissism. (How eagerly we kneel before that Once, Present and Future god!)

We despise the parts offered us upon the stage of our Middle-Earth, angry and resentful that the Writer of the Story insists on adherence to his direction—and Heaven forbid that the Recording Angel dip his quill-pen in red ink instead of the more tolerant purple. Love means never having to make judgments, doesn’t it?

Jana Novak at NRO quotes an observation by the new pope that hits the nail of that particular inanity smack on the head:

"Anyone who really wanted to get rid of suffering would have to get rid of love before anything else, because there can be no love without suffering, because it always demands an element of self-sacrifice, because, given temperamental differences and the drama of situations, it will always bring with it renunciation and pain."

That is what makes us human instead of animal and that is what molds us more perfectly into the image of God.

Loonybiscuit Time

2005-04-18T16:24:00.000-07:00

Yes, it’s that time again, time for the 2nd Official Neanderbunny Award, a high honor bestowed on some of the very best nitwits to be found dwelling upon this strange planet of ours.

There are, of course, a great many possibilities to select from, the Post-Modern West of this 21st century being exceptionally rich in loonybiscuits; but a few stand out.

Barbara Boxer for one (courtesy Power Line):

Sen. Barbara Boxer, the Democratic Party's comely obstructionist, has charged that Bolton needs ''anger management lessons (…) So I was interested to hear about the kind of violent Boltonian eruptions that had led Boxer to her diagnosis. Well, here it comes. (If you've got young children present, you might want to take them out of the room.) From the shockingly brutal testimony of Thomas Fingar, assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Intelligence Research:

Q: Could you characterize your meeting with Bolton? Was he calm?

Fingar: No, he was angry. He was standing up.

Q: Did he raise his voice to you? Did he point his finger in your face?

Fingar: I don't remember if he pointed. John speaks in such a low voice normally. Was it louder than normal? Probably. I wouldn't characterize it as screaming at me or anything like that. It was more, hands on hips, the body language as I recall it, I knew he was mad.

She missed her calling, that one: she should be in a third-grade classroom, grading spelling tests in purple instead of red ink, lest Johnny’s fragile little psyche get a dent in it.

Which takes us nicely to the second contestant—or more properly contestants—the barmpots running Middleton Technology College in Manchester, England.

Olivia Acton, 13, was told she could not join her classmates at Middleton Technology College because her tightly plaited hair was too "extreme" for the strict uniform policy.

However, two other pupils at the school who have an Afro-Caribbean background are allowed to attend the school with similar hairstyles because it reflects their cultural heritage.

I had to google Manchester, being more familiar with the exact location of the Manchester of my birth—the one in New Hampshire—but that was no great hardship (I’m made of sturdier stuff than Ms. Boxer, even if I says it as oughtn’t) and I soon found it perched up near Liverpool in the northwest of England.

This convenient store of Manchester-info tells us that 1900 years ago it

"lay within the territory of the Celtic tribe called the Brigantes and started life as a Roman fort..."

Unsatisfied with this fairly straightforward ethnic crossbreeding, history then proceeded to add some Saxons to the mix.

"Around 411 AD the Roman fort was abandoned and in the following decades the Anglo-Saxons began to settle on the eastern coasts of England and by the late sixth century they had begun to penetrate into the area later to be known as Lancashire."

The next invaders on the timeline are the Vikings.

"(M)ost of Lancashire escaped their colonisation. The Manchester area was an exception however and most of the Danish settlement in what was to become Lancashire fell upon the Manchester area."

Britons, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and later, I assume, some Normans—a splendid multicultural casserole of the barbarous, the advanced and the merely resigned, spiced up with that fascinating mongrel confusion of ancestral complexions and place-name endings that really livens up a genealogy chart.

Olivia-child, I feel certain that you can find a hairstyle to suit somewhere in all this. I have taken the liberty of providing you with helpful links on the subject regarding your probable ancestors:

Roman

Roman-British

Danish rather than strictly Lancashire Viking, but close enough for government schools (Click on pic of Elling Woman at bottom)

Viking (general)

York: a headdress rather than hair, but guaranteed to get you sent to the headmaster

For the Normans, lots and lots of general Medieval headdresses; these are easier to find than images of actual locks of the period due to the stricter Christian zeitgeist of the Middle Ages, which required that women have their hair covered. (I recommend the 1400s in particular.)

Some more Norman

Please do be as outrageous as possible.

~~~
Worthy entries both, these contenders for the Neanderbunny Award, but I feel that the third contestant is just a smidgen to the fore: Howard Dean.

This is no doubt a purely subjective evaluation based on the dizzying effect his superior quality of Grade A Loonybiscuit-ness has upon my nervous system. (If Howard Dean's Bedlam-streak were a log cabin-shaped can of Vermont Maple Syrup, it’d be the lightest of fancy ambers; more specifically the rarified, faintly vanilla-flavored, first-run stuff obtainable only by signing over your house, car and firstborn child.)

Howard Dean: Schiavo case will hurt GOP

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who has accused congressional Republicans of "grandstanding" in the Terri Schiavo case, said his party will use it against the GOP in coming elections.

"This is going to be an issue in 2006, and its going to be an issue in 2008 because we're going to have an ad with a picture of (House Majority Leader) Tom DeLay saying, 'Do you want this guy to decide whether you die or not? Or is that going to be up to your loved ones?"' Dean said in West Hollywood, California.

"This is going to be an issue in 2006." That I can believe.

Karen Finney, Democratic National Committee spokeswoman, defended Dean's comments…

"Tom Delay and his cronies want to intrude in personal family matters. Democrats believe that individuals and their families should be trusted to make these very personal decisions, not Tom DeLay and not the government.”

To echo what numerous others have pointed out before me, I wonder exactly what she thinks a court is? A division of General Motors, perhaps?

Now it is entirely possible that enough Americans will fall for this asininity: it’s tricky thinking clearly when your chief interest in life is your own pleasure and comfort. I will point out, however, that whatever the outcome of the next election, the black hole of a moral vacuum that is rapidly sucking the last, lingering and very tatttered scraps of light out of the principles of the Loopy Left isn’t going to suddenly let go and spill out the blessing of Heaven upon their New World Order.

A rose is a rose is a rose, and a legal murder is a legal murder: it doesn’t matter how many times you say that it isn’t, Mr. Dean. Truth is truth to the end of reckoning, and you’re on the wrong side. That you, the head of the Democratic Party, would push your political plank out upon the smelly muck of that particular corpse-filled Dead Marsh is simply astounding.

*Baillie pauses to paste her Christian veneer back on* (ed.--This is supposed to be lighthearted, lady!)

Okay, okay.

Especially since I'm not really being fair to Neanderbunny, who is actually a very sweet-natured creature. But his daftness is not in doubt—in fact, to say of him that he has fairies at the bottom of his garden is to say it all.

How pleased he will be to have the committee chairman of one of our chief political parties to join him!

Shadow on the Pelennor

2005-04-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

The recent episode in Florida in which a woman was put to death by having her food and water taken away—a condition we call starvation when applied to sub-Saharan drought refugees—is in my opinion the point at which America’s cultural collision reached critical mass.

The sides were pretty clearly drawn, the worldviews apparent—despite the efforts of the death-supporters to smudge their talking points with expert-speak obfuscations. (I get very tired of ‘experts.’)

At one pole was a moral tradition based in old-fashioned Judeo-Christian chivalry, a view that regards each human being as an individual of intrinsic worth and made in the image of God himself; at the other pole was the bastard offspring of a mating of the Efficiency-mongers JRR Tolkien so despised with a sort of Paganism Redux.

The enfant terrible born of this unlikely consummation apportions worth not to persons, but to the collective, leaving the individual subject to the demands of the socio-political market, valuable only so far as his or her existence pays a dividend at the ballot box (a perspective which reminds me strongly of Shirley Jackson’s short story, The Lottery).

The conflict between these worldviews is the great battle of our time.

Plague and Pestilence

2005-04-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

You're going to have to make do with a Frodo-poem until I get through being sick. It pretty well describes the shape I'm in at the moment anyway.

The Gifting

The Shire-light is quenched and I am blind.
No path lies clear to guide my vagrant sight
To candled room of Once for me to find,
To lead tomorrow out of ashen Night.

The Shire-light has gone and I am blind
To any Road that Middle-Earth can mend;
The bridge to home was shivered in the End,
Like Khazad-dûm

A dusk is on my soul and all is naught,
As when we crept to stay the fatal breath
Come with the world’s new breaking heaven wrought,
And fled for one last moment withering Death.

The dusk fell on my soul and turned to naught
The golden hour that shone upon my Shire;
It lingered there, uncertain, by the Fire
And was consumed.

Thus gone from me was that which was most fair,
That, step by step, unknowing, I had sold;
And, breath by labored breath, I, unaware,
Had spent my shining coin for darker gold.

Now gone from me is that which is most fair,
And all I might have seen is lost to me,
Save for the starlight on the Sundering Sea
That westward gleams.

But Frodo-lad will come with sight undimmed
As mine that saw the Shire in brighter days,
And all I might have seen is left to him,
To light his Road amongst the winding ways.

Sweet Frodo-lad will come with light undimmed,
Youth-eager, chasing paths of light reborn,
For all the Shire he sees will be of morn
And golden dreams.

The Schiavo Effect

2005-04-05T10:28:00.000-07:00

Steve Bragg over at Double Toothpicks links to a Washington Post article about Dick Cheney’s distaste for political “revenge” aimed at the judiciary over Terri Schiavo’s starvation death.

Cheney was asked about the issue on Friday by the editorial board of the New York Post. He said twice that he had not seen DeLay's remarks, but the vice president said he would "have problems" with the idea of retribution against the courts. "I don't think that's appropriate," he said. "I may disagree with decisions made by judges in any one particular case. But I don't think there would be much support for the proposition that because a judge hands down a decision we don't like, that somehow we ought to go out -- there's a reason why judges get lifetime appointments."

Now, I like Mr. Cheney—for one thing, he’s very cuddly-looking—but I have to disagree with him on this point. For one thing, it’s not about revenge; at least, not from my perspective. It’s about defeating a terrible evil that’s already gotten its carrion claws deep into the American soul. Life and death hang in the balance of this issue—and I don’t just mean the lives of murdered innocents.

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat.
~~~
I take the title of this post from remarks about the upcoming Papal election by Hugh Hewitt, in which (after a nice little quote from The Lord of the Rings) he addresses the convergence of John Paul’s life and death with that of Terri Schiavo.

These Cardinals will have to be wondering about, and praying about, what the Holy Spirit intends them to do in conclave and why the pope has died at precisely this moment. The anti-Christians will scoff at the idea of God's timing, but not the Cardinals, for whom God's timing is a given. They will be fully informed of the circumstances of Terri Schiavo's death, of the advance of the Groningen Protocol, the pressure under which many of the doctrines of Christianity find themselves, and of a variety of developments that are directly opposed to the Church's doctrines on the sanctity of life.”

And then he speaks of what J.R.R. Tolkien would call ‘eucatastrophe.’

…It is an old story in Christianity --in fact the oldest-- that apparent disasters and outrageous injustices lead in fact to the brightest displays of grace.

Let us hope that that is what is going on here.

~~~
In yesterday’s post, Mr, Hewitt linked to a column by Albert Mohler concerning Papal authority and its opposing claims to those of Protestantism. (The link’s expired, so I went to Crosswalk and fetched a new one.)

Evangelical Christians should honor the courage of this man and his historic role in bringing Communist tyranny to an end--at least within the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe. Added to this, we should honor his defense of human dignity and his eloquent and influential witness against abortion and the Culture of Death.

Even so, we must also recognize that John Paul II also represented the most troubling aspects of Roman Catholicism. He defended and continued the theological directions set loose at the Second Vatican Council. Even as he consolidated authority in the Vatican and disciplined wayward priests and theologians, he never confronted the most pressing issues of evangelical concern.

There is no church on the face of this earth that has got it all right. To be human is to be flawed. Almighty God looks on our hearts and he judges us by how well we do with what we are given. It will avail us nothing to stand before our Judge in the Last Day with every theological button polished to brilliant perfection and our hearts corroded with self-righteousness.

That last is not aimed at Mr. Mohler, by the way. I don’t have his responsibilities (President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) nor the Pope’s, and certainly have no authority to determine doctrine and dogma for Christ’s flock. And, yet, while not blithely casting aside these genuine theological differences, I have come to understand over weary years that what divides Rome from her children pales into insignificance beside the gulf that separates Christianity from the darkness of this world.

As an individual, someone not charged with the care of a flock or a long tradition, I just keep my head down and my feet moving. Wiser heads than I can argue the technicalities and decide the great decisions: all I have to do is keep plodding towards Mount Doom, grateful for assistance unlooked for from both Men and Elves.

But the character and moral timbre of the next Pope matters to all Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant. The West—and more specifically, America—is, to echo Mr. Hewitt’s reference, on the knife-edge of moral disaster, a perilous standing achieved in all its horrifying finality last week when Terri Schiavo drew her last tortured breath.

The wolves of Mordor and Isengard have long been outside the church door, both Wittenberg and St. Peter’s; they’re chewing great splintery holes in it now.

Traditional Christianity has need of shepherds who will not flinch from the howls and snarls and bared fangs of moral relativism, faithful stewards who strive to bring Christ’s lambs safely through to morning light.

Gandalf’s declaration in his confrontation with Denethor seems pertinent:

“The rule of no realm is mine, neither of Gondor nor any other, great or small. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, these are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail of my task, though Gondor should perish, if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. For I also am a steward. Did you not know?”

May God in his mercy grant us stewards of such fibre to stand uncringing and fearless against the Night.

Guest-blogging by Caspian

2005-04-03T14:54:00.000-07:00

My son-in-law has his MA in History. His area of particular interest is WWII.

What Would Our World War II Veterans Think?
With the death of Terri Schiavo, the United States has taken a turn for the worse. “Why?” you ask. The courts now have the ability to starve an incapacitated person without due process. If someone starved his animals, they would be arrested. If the judiciary decided to starve death row convicts, appeals to the US Supreme Court would overturn the verdict because it is “cruel and unusual punishment.” But a person who is incapacitated, on the hearsay of her adulterous husband and her in-laws can be starved to death. What if it was your child? What is if it was you? Would you want to be starved to death? Although it is supposed to be a “painless” death, why would morphine administered to “ease her pain?”

In the early twentieth century, a group of people wanted to ensure the survival of their country and created a series of laws to allow first the forced sterilization of minorities, criminals, and the handicapped. Eventually they created laws for the euthanization of those handicapped individuals considered “life unworthy of life.” Criteria for those “unworthy of life” included anyone permanently disabled physically or mentally. A tribunal of doctors and judges oversaw the process and selected those for “special treatment.” Eventually a war was fought and those involved in the program were tried, convicted , and executed or served prison sentences. Anyone who knows history will know that the people wanting to ensure the survival of Germany were the racial hygienists of the Nazi Party, After World War II, Allied forces brought those people to trial. What would our fathers and grandfathers think about their country, that they defended against the tyrannies of fascism and imperialism, adopting the practices of their enemies?

In teaching world history, I find that my students are stunned at times by practices such as India’s sati in which a widow is encouraged to jump on her husband’s funeral pyre or a father denying paternity and allowing an infant to be exposed to the elements to die. But they cannot equate these practices to the Terri Schiavo situation or to abortion and the destruction of innocent life. Maybe it is true that history is a repeating pattern with humanity ignoring the lessons of the past.

John Paul II

2005-04-02T17:44:00.000-08:00

One fire was on his spirit, one resolve:—
To send the keen axe to the root of wrong,
Clearing a free way for the feet of God.
And evermore he burned to do his deed
With the fine stroke and gesture of a king:
He built the rail-pile as he built the State,
Pouring his splendid strength through every blow;
The conscience of him testing every stroke,
To make his deed the measure of a man.

So came the Captain with the mighty heart;
And when the judgment thunders split the house,
Wrenching the rafters from their ancient rest,
He held the ridgepole up, and spiked again
The rafters of the Home. He held his place—
Held the long purpose like a growing tree—
Held on through blame and faltered not at praise.
And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down
As when a lordly cedar, green with boughs,
Goes down with a great shout upon the hills,
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.

From Lincoln, the Man of the People--Edwin Markham