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Rod Dreher on J. D. Vance
January 27, 2025
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J.D. Vance: Comprehensively Pro-Life

And: Farm Life Truth Bombs; Bulwark Republicanism; John Gray; Davos & Gender

Jan 25
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Hello from the Man Cave in Budapest. I shouldn’t be writing today — I have laundry to do, and other things to write — but there are several things I want to share with you, and I don’t want to wait till Monday. Y’all remember that I gave you this weekend extra when the day comes that I can’t write a regular weekday post.

If you missed Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech at the March For Life Rally, watch it here. What I found most appealing was Vance’s placing of pro-life activism within the context of family formation. That is, he connected the right to life of the unborn to a broader culture of life in which children are welcomed into intact and thriving families. From the transcript of the speech:

Now the task of our movement is to protect innocent life. It's to defend the unborn and it's also to be pro-family and pro-life in the fullest sense of that word possible. Now, across my own lifetime, I can't tell you the number of friends and other acquaintances I've had who, facing a pregnancy or the prospect of one, react not with joy but with concern. They wonder how can they afford it; what will it mean for their education, their career, their relationship or their family?

And I know how many of you in this crowd have devoted immeasurable time and resources to help answer those questions and to lend a hand to young people facing a moment of desperation. But by and large, our society, our country has not yet stepped up in the way you have; and our government certainly has failed in that important responsibility. We failed a generation not only by permitting a culture of abortion on demand but also by neglecting to help young parents achieve the ingredients they need to [live] a happy and meaningful life. A culture of radical individualism took root, one where the responsibilities and joys of family life were seen as obstacles to overcome, not as personal fulfillment or personal blessings. Our society has failed to recognize the obligation that one generation has to another, is a core part of living in a society to begin with.

So let me say very simply: I want more babies in the United States of America. I want more happy children in our country, and I want beautiful young men and women who are eager to welcome them into the world and eager to raise them.

And it is the task of our government to make it easier for young moms and dads to afford to have kids, to bring them into the world and to welcome them as the blessings that we know they are here at the March for Life.

Now, it should be easier to raise a family, easier to find a good job, easier to build a home to raise that family in, easier to save up and purchase a good stroller, a crib for a nursery. We need a culture that celebrates life at all stages, one that recognizes and truly believes that the benchmark of national success is not our GDP number or our stock market, but whether people feel that they can raise thriving and healthy families in our country.

Amen. Hallelujah. And:

  

Truth Bombs From Farm Life

Now, here’s a great essay from The Free Press by Larissa Phillips, who gave up Brooklyn life back in 2010 and moved with her husband and kids to a farm upstate. She writes about the things she’s learned about reality there. Excerpt:

Living on a farm demystifies the act of sex, bringing it back from a filtered, scripted, and commercialized display to a common earthly fact that is one part of a larger cycle. It also demystifies, well, sex—as in, the distinction between what’s male and what’s female.

As we were settling into rural life, the existence of this binary was becoming a topic of public debate, with actual scientists arguing against it. I was starting to wonder whether the fact that Americans are increasingly cut off from nature had something to do with this shift. Of course, gender ideology has reached rural areas, including ours, but it’s hard for anyone who’s grown up around unneutered animals to make the argument that binary sex doesn’t exist, as Scientific American did last year. Male animals fight constantly over territory and women. Testosterone is a mighty force. Female animals are less aggressive and less territorial—except when their young are threatened. In 2022, when The New York Times published an essay titled “Maternal Instinct is a Myth That Men Created,” I was busy marveling over the animal mothers on my farm, who exhibit the most astonishing commitment to their offspring.

I’ve seen mother hens keep track of more than a dozen chicks—and wait for number 14, who was struggling to catch up, unseen and unheard. (Can chickens count? How did she know she was missing one?) I’ve seen mother goats sniffing the kids that wander up to them, and irritably butting away the ones that aren’t theirs.

“It’s the same with humans,” I told my own children. “Your own baby smells so delicious, it’s intoxicating. Other people’s babies smell like baby powder and apple juice.”

The more time I have spent with animals, the more they remind me of humans. It’s humbling to recognize that we share deep and powerful instincts with other creatures. But it’s awe-inspiring too. Seeing how sex shapes life, just as death does, makes me feel connected to something bigger than myself.

We ought to all start to understand that the entire country has been gaslighted for a long time by liberal elites. Five years from now (if it takes that long), most people will look back in amusement and horror that we ever believed in things like transing children, advocated for it in schools (poisoning the minds of children against their own natural functions), and mandated protecting it in law. Personally, I saw the transing children issue as a bright red line: if a society and a civilization can accept doing that to children as a good, what won’t it accept? I don’t think we will be free from that evil until it is buried in the grave with a necklace of garlic and a stake through its heart.

The acceleration of the Great Awokening in the Biden years has provoked this backlash. Here’s Nellie Bowles in The FP’s “TGIF” news roundup:

  

Nellie:

Yes: 55 percent of Americans want all illegal immigrants deported. That is millions of people, many of whom have been here for decades, rounded up in an unprecedented population shift. This used to be considered an extremely radical position.

It turns out that Joe Biden’s immigration policy was so unhinged, it made even normie liberals flip. Joe Biden’s open border policy—and the gaslighting his supporters performed to pretend there was no policy shift—drove America en masse, like a migrant surge, to want extremely hardcore border control. Now everyone is a Texas border cop with some dip under their lip and some barbed wire in the truck.

For as long as I’ve been paying attention to the immigration issue — since I moved to Texas in 2003 — majorities of Americans have wanted a more restricted immigration policy. And nothing serious happened to give them that. Republican presidents, Democratic presidents — nothing. Republican Congresses, Democratic Congresses — nothing.

Don’t blame people for being fed freaking up, and supporting harsh action. Meanwhile, over here in Europe, there was another knife attack in Germany yesterday, by a migrant. It’s getting to be a daily thing. If the German people somehow get over their self-hatred and vote AfD, and start deportations, do not be surprised, my fellow Americans. The US media are not giving you a remotely complete picture of what’s happening over here. It’s curating the Narrative.

Along those lines, the absurd Keir Starmer Zombie Leftist government is responding to the conviction of Axel Rudakubana for the ferocious stabbing of three children by, get this, cracking down on knife sales. The killer was an anti-white racist who was found to have an al-Qaeda training manual and ricin in his possession. Britons tried to report him to police, but nothing happened. Naturally, the problem is … knives. Keep calm and carry on, Britons.

Aris Roussinos says the rising anger and frustration in the UK echoes the rise of Irish nationalism in the early 20th century. Excerpt:

This restive mood was not so different from the mounting perception on the British Right that the Westminster state in its current form is undergoing an existential, and perhaps terminal crisis of legitimacy. Repeatedly failing, through its own ideological obsessions, at the basic function of any state — that is, ensuring the security of the people — Westminster is eroding its popular legitimacy at a frenetic pace. Indeed, given the ongoing and apparently limitless revelations of the British state’s seeming collusion with rape gangs in northern England, and demographic vandalism against the British people through its commitment to mass migration, the Irish nationalist John Mitchel’s 1845 assertion that “The people are beginning to fear that the Irish Government is merely a machinery for their destruction”, would strike a chord in provincial England today. So would Mitchel’s Trumpian observation that the British administration was “altogether powerless; that it is unable, or unwilling to take a single step…for the encouragement of manufactures, or providing fields of industry, and is only active in promoting, by high premiums and bounties, the horrible manufacture of crimes!” The relationship with Irish nationalism is typological, as through its late-stage dysfunction the Westminster state is birthing a classical nationalism of its own against its own rule, dragging the country towards political modernity. In Nairn-Anderson terms, we can say Britain is finally approaching its second bourgeois revolution.

I was talking to a London businessman on the journey back yesterday, and asked him about why the British people are so passive in the face of all this. He said, “We aren’t French. The French take to the streets when they are angry. We just seem to have this innate sense that there’s nothing to be done about it but endure.”

Bulwark Republicanism

The Bulwark is the online publication founded by GOP apostate Bill Kristol. Look:

  

This Trump second term is not even a week old, but it is already revealing that the pre-Trump GOP was in many respects controlled opposition to the Democrats. They lacked the courage of their lack of conviction. Now things are better.

Twitter yesterday sent me on a search for this 2020 National Review essay by Tanner Greer, in which he argued that the Reformist Conservatism project is dead. It’s well worth reading, to understand the current moment. In this passage, Greer dismissed (correctly) Catholic integralism, but explains why some people care about it:

Through the wonkish lens that Levin and Ponnuru wished more conservatives would adopt, Catholic integralism is pure fancy, a flight through fairyland. Catholic traditionalists are a minority of a minority: They represent only a tiny sliver of American Catholics (who are in turn only a fraction of the American populace writ large). Their vision of the common good cannot be reconciled even with the hopes and desires of Protestant conservatives. There is no constituency for their project, no possible way to marry it to American tradition or current American political practice. American society simply will never be remade along the lines of 19th-century Catholic theology. This is an eschatological fantasy masquerading as a political program — or in Levin and Ponnuru’s politer, more measured terms: “policy thinking short on discipline and mooring.”

But why, then, it is having a moment with the young thinkers of the Right?

Because government policy is not really what they care about. The young conservative is attracted to integralism not because they think its vision of the good is attainable, but because the integralists unapologetically advance a vision of the good. The integralists can tell them why the doctrines of the Great Awokening are malevolent falsehoods. The integralists provide a reason to stand strong against the social pressures of the woke. The integralists know what kind of man men should strive to be, what kind of woman women deserve to be, what purpose their life should be devoted to, and what rules and emotions should govern the relations of one human with another. They do not just endorse a stronger civic society — they have a gloriously specific vision of what worthy civic society actually looks like. They have a vision of human flourishing all their own, equal to and as compelling as the ethics and aesthetics fostered on them by the leftist over-culture.

This is true for all of the various poles of thought that those repelled by the Great Awokening have turned to. Be it the evo-pysch-infused “classical liberalism” of Jordan Peterson and the Intellectual Dark Web, the meme-based machismo of the Internet alt-right, Thiel-inspired techno-futurism, or the integralist’s Benedict Optioning cousins, these movements all share a key feature. They are oriented toward resisting not leftist politics but leftist culture. The story of next-generation conservatism, in other words, will be the story of a counterculture. Debates over what shape that counterculture should take cannot be resolved by a more “disciplined” policy environment.

Little wonder then that the reformocon vision of the future struggled to take hold! Reformocons argued for the centrality of community without endorsing any concrete vision of communal life. They described the need to build new institutions without committing themselves to any specific institutions. They authored wonkish proposals to strengthen family formation but painted no picture of families worth forming. The visions of the reformocons were colorless and empty. This was by design: Like a coloring book, every community and family could fill out the pre-printed designs with whatever color palette they treasured most. That worked when conservatives had an organic set of treasured traditions, values, and relationships to fill the blanks in with. Now they do not, and the reformocon platform is found wanting.

They are oriented toward resisting not leftist politics but leftist culture. The story of next-generation conservatism, in other words, will be the story of a counterculture.

True. If we don’t resist leftist culture, and do so primarily by offering a realistic positive alternative, then resisting leftist politics will do us no good.

John Gray On Andrew Sullivan’s Podcast

The British philosopher John Gray is always worth reading and listening to. I’m not a big podcast aficionado, but this interview Andrew Sullivan did with him is ace. At one point, Gray and Sullivan talk about the global population crisis. Sully says yes, the cost of forming families and raising children must have something to do with it, but it cannot be the only explanation. After all (he didn’t say, but might have), many generations in the past have been much poorer than people today, with much dimmer life prospects, and facing much more peril from violence and disease — yet people formed families.

After pointing out that this is not just a phenomenon in the West, but a global one, Gray responded:

I think the deep thing that’s happening is the rise of a very radical form of individualism everywhere in the world. … It means making meaning out of your own life in the way that you choose to do. So if you don’t see procreating the next generation out of that, you won’t do it.

He went on to say that people want pleasant living, “the enjoyable, congenial life” more than anything else. Because “children cramp that, people are less and less willing to take on that commitment.”

Gray added that “the revalorization of sexuality” is another part of it. People today, he said, have made a semi-religion out of sex and sexuality. Sullivan made a remarkable observation: that because of the Pill and reproductive technology, “In some ways, straight people become like gay people … and your attitude towards sex changes a bit, because it becomes purely recreational….” This is exactly what some Catholic critics of contraception have said for decades: that the Pill turns straight people into functional homosexuals, in terms of their attitude towards sex. If pregnancy is not a risk factor, and societal stigma has disappeared, then aside from personal moral qualms, what is to restrict you from sleeping with as many people as you wish?

The men moved into talking about gender ideology, and the crackpot idea that maleness and femaleness is chosen. Gray says that contemporary liberals want to deny that sex is a biological given. Gray, on the liberal mindset: “If there’s anything in a human being’s life that’s unchosen, then that’s bad.”

Gotta say that I don’t think this is something that is limited to liberals alone. This is the modern mindset. The transhumanist techno-utopians who are in ascendancy now in part because they have captured Trump believe this. Beware of repackaging this idea in a right-wing form.

Finally, Sullivan talks about how Islam and Eastern Orthodox Christianity are drawing converts. He says he has a “Houellebecqian” fear that “The religions that will endure are those that are the least compromising.” Well, yes, I think he’s right about that. About Orthodoxy, though, it is not what people may think from the outside. What makes it “uncompromising” is that it is deeply pre-modern. It has not tried to make peace with the modern world, as Catholicism has, especially with the Second Vatican Council. A figure like Pope Francis is unthinkable in Orthodoxy (and if he did arise, thank God the ecclesial structure of Orthodoxy would limit his influence; we have no figure like the pope).

But Orthodoxy is not primarily a religion of the Law, in that religious leaders define doctrine, hand it down, and expect to be obeyed. It is far more subtle than that. Orthodoxy is less a set of propositions and rules to follow, and more a way of life that gets internalized, and that you live out because it is less the Law and more the Tao.

This is really difficult to explain to people on the outside. As I’ve written here before, when I first entered the Orthodox church, I asked a priest for a book that tells me what Orthodoxy teaches, in full, so that I could study it. He replied that those books exist, but that’s not the way to become Orthodox. You become Orthodox over time, by living it out, and absorbing it, allowing it to change you. I didn’t understand. Almost two decades later, I do. Once you take on the Orthodox mindset (phronema), it all makes sense, naturally.

Iain McGilchrist, who is not Orthodox, once told me that of all the forms of Christianity extant, Orthodoxy is the one that most conforms to what he believes is the proper balance between left-brain and right-brain. As an Orthodox Christian reader of McGilchrist’s, I entirely agree. This is why I hope that Catholic and Protestant readers of Living In Wonder will see in the Orthodox things I write about in the book some practical help for rejuvenating their own spiritual life.

Big Business & Gender Ideology

Billboard Chris, the indefatigable anti-transing children campaigner, went to Davos this week. He even made into onto a discussion at a pro-trans panel. Click here to watch:

  

Note that one of the panelists said she has been talking to CEOs there, and they all promise that they are not going to roll back DEI, despite the criticism. I believe she’s telling the truth. Whether those CEOs were just telling her that to calm her down, or whether they really believe it — only time will tell. I would bet that most of them really believe it, because DEI is held to with religious fervor by that elite class. As I’ve written here before, it is impossible to overstate the conformist power among elites of being seen as a Good Person. This is why no Republican leader ever pushed back against this stuff prior to Trump. They were terrified of being seen as a Bad Person by the media and other elites. Trump is the Honey Badger of politics: he doesn’t care. (That’s a link to the megaviral Randall video from some years back; he drops some profanity in it, so be aware.)

That’s it from the Man Cave today. You kids have fun this weekend. Don’t forget this iconic billboard message from our friends in north Alabama:

 
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Local's Lounge - All are welcome

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Inaugural Mass homily of Pope Leo the XIV with some commentary by yours truly
Signs of Hope

Good day all,

      My thoughts on the Holy Father's homily in bold print.  I see many signs of hopefulness in his homily and I am praying greater clarity and unity from Pope Leo.  The world will reject his clarity since it likes spiritual ambiguity and moral relativism, but I am hoping for a less divisive Pope than Francis.  - Fr. Tom

Dear Brother Cardinals, Brother Bishops and Priests, Distinguished Authorities and Members of the Diplomatic Corps, and those who traveled here for the Jubilee of Confraternities, Brothers and Sisters:

I greet all of you with a heart full of gratitude at the beginning of the ministry that has been entrusted to me. St. Augustine wrote: “Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you” (Confessions, I: 1,1).

In these days, we have experienced intense emotions. The death of Pope Francis filled our hearts with sadness. In those difficult hours, we felt like the crowds that the Gospel says were “like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). Yet on Easter Sunday, we received his final blessing and, in the light of the Resurrection, we experienced the days that followed in the certainty that the Lord never abandons his people, but gathers them when they are scattered and guards them “as a shepherd guards his flock” (Jeremiah 31:10).

In this spirit of faith, the College of Cardinals met for the conclave. Coming from different backgrounds and experiences, we placed in God’s hands our desire to elect the new Successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome, a shepherd capable of preserving the rich heritage of the Christian faith and, at the same time, looking to the future, in order to confront the questions, concerns and challenges of today’s world.   I never got the impression that Pope Francis considered it a rich heritage, but often just an interpretation and exposition of the faith for a given time and culture.  I am probably too harsh on the past Pope, but he was not one known for clarity.  I am hoping that the use of the word heritage indicates a more positive few of the past as a treasury of faith to be preserved rather than a liability to be dismissed.

Accompanied by your prayers, we could feel the working of the Holy Spirit, who was able to bring us into harmony, like musical instruments, so that our heartstrings could vibrate in a single melody. I was chosen, without any merit of my own, and now, with fear and trembling, I come to you as a brother, who desires to be the servant of your faith and your joy, walking with you on the path of God’s love, for he wants us all to be united in one family. The Holy Father uses phrase from St. Clement of Rome (Pope #3) and seems to borrow some additional imagery from St. Augustine like he did in his opening remarks.

Love and unity: These are the two dimensions of the mission entrusted to Peter by Jesus. We see this in today’s Gospel, which takes us to the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus began the mission he received from the Father: to be a “fisher” of humanity in order to draw it up from the waters of evil and death. Walking along the shore, he had called Peter and the other first disciples to be, like him, “fishers of men.” 

Now, after the Resurrection, it is up to them to carry on this mission, to cast their nets again and again, to bring the hope of the Gospel into the “waters” of the world, to sail the seas of life so that all may experience God’s embrace. Pope Benedict used the image of sailing the seas of life at the dawn of the digital age after his election as Pope.  I suspect Pope Francis might have as well, but when you stop paying too much attention you miss little details.  I prayed for Pope Francis his entire pontificate, but I didn’t give him much active attention.

How can Peter carry out this task? The Gospel tells us that it is possible only because his own life was touched by the infinite and unconditional love of God, even in the hour of his failure and denial. For this reason, when Jesus addresses Peter, the Gospel uses the Greek verb agapáo, which refers to the love that God has for us, to the offering of himself without reserve and without calculation. Whereas the verb used in Peter’s response describes the love of friendship that we have for one another.

Consequently, when Jesus asks Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” (John 21:16), he is referring to the love of the Father. It is as if Jesus said to him, “Only if you have known and experienced this love of God, which never fails, will you be able to feed my lambs. Only in the love of God the Father will you be able to love your brothers and sisters with that same ‘more,’ that is, by offering your life for your brothers and sisters.”

Peter is thus entrusted with the task of “loving more” and giving his life for the flock. The ministry of Peter is distinguished precisely by this self-sacrificing love, because the Church of Rome presides in charity, and its true authority is the charity of Christ. It is never a question of capturing others by force, by religious propaganda, or by means of power. Instead, it is always and only a question of loving as Jesus did.  The 21st chapter of John is so rich. It is one of my favorite passages to reflect upon.  It is how God heals us of our sins.  It is both a healing moment and a recommissioning of sorts.  Jesus can’t have Peter moping through life as a the denier, Jesus is calling him to shepherd the flock.

The Apostle Peter himself tells us that Jesus “is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, and has become the cornerstone” (Acts 4:11). Moreover, if the rock is Christ, Peter must shepherd the flock without ever yielding to the temptation to be an autocrat, lording it over those entrusted to him (cf. 1 Peter 5:3). On the contrary, he is called to serve the faith of his brothers and sisters and to walk alongside them, for all of us are “living stones” (1 Peter 2:5), called through our baptism to build God’s house in fraternal communion, in the harmony of the Spirit, in the coexistence of diversity. In the words of St. Augustine: “The Church consists of all those who are in harmony with their
brothers and sisters and who love their neighbour” (Sermons 359, 9).

Brothers and sisters, I would like that our first great desire be for a united Church, a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world. In our time, we still see too much discord, too many wounds caused by hatred, violence, prejudice, the fear of difference, and an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalizes the poorest. 

For our part, we want to be a small leaven of unity, communion and fraternity within the world. We want to say to the world, with humility and joy: Look to Christ! Come closer to him! Welcome his word that enlightens and consoles! Listen to his offer of love and become his one family: In the one Christ, we are one. This is the path to follow together, among ourselves, but also with our sister Christian churches, with those who follow other religious paths, with those who are searching for God, with all women and men of goodwill, in order to build a new world where peace reigns! Look to Christ! Pope Leo goes right into the invitation to listen and reflect upon the word of God. The invitation is unity through conversion.

This is the missionary spirit that must animate us; not closing ourselves off in our small groups, nor feeling superior to the world. We are called to offer God’s love to everyone, in order to achieve that unity that does not cancel out differences but values the personal history of each person and the social and religious culture of every people. The church is always missionary. Conversion to Christ does not annihilate all differences, but rather is a process of refinement, keeping what can be of service to the Gospel and losing what is opposed to it or hinders it. Getting rid of sin is just the beginning, putting on the mind and heart of Christ is the challenge.  I pray for our new Holy Father that he may be faithful, courageous and genuinely kind.

Brothers and sisters, this is the hour for love! The heart of the Gospel is the love of God that makes us brothers and sisters. With my predecessor Leo XIII, we can ask ourselves today: If this criterion “were to prevail in the world, would not every conflict cease and peace return?” (Rerum Novarum, 21).

With the light and the strength of the Holy Spirit, let us build a Church founded on God’s love, a sign of unity, a missionary Church that opens its arms to the world, proclaims the word, allows itself to be made “restless” by history, and becomes a leaven of harmony for humanity. Together, as one people, as brothers and sisters, let us walk towards God and love one another. Surprisingly short homily, bishops can often go on forever.

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Practice Gratitude - A reprint and expanded post
Gratitude changes everything

Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Happy Wednesday Friends & Refugees, Early Birds and Later Dayers, Conversants and Lurkers, Phamily & Misfits, ADD Irregulars, WSN Curators, and Curmudgeons!  Today's reflection is one of my favorite ones from the past.  David Whyte's wonderful book Consolations - The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.  It is a treasure trove of reflection on the gift of language and the power of words.  His reflection on gratitude is outstanding.

GRATITUDE is not a passive response to something we have been given; gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us. Gratitude is not necessarily something that is shown after the event; it is the deep, a priori state of attention that shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life.

Gratitude is the understanding that many millions of things come together and live together and mesh together and breathe together in order for us to take even one more breath of air, that the underlying gift of life and incarnation as a living, participating human being is a privilege, that we are miraculously part of something, rather than nothing. Even if that something is temporarily pain or despair, we inhabit a living world, with real faces, real voices, laughter, the colour blue, the green of the fields, the freshness of a cold wind, or the tawny hue of a winter landscape.

To see the full, miraculous essentiality of the colour blue is to be grateful with no necessity for a word of thanks. To see fully the beauty of a daughter’s face is to be fully grateful without having to seek a God to thank. To sit among friends and strangers, hearing many voices, strange opinions; to intuit inner lives beneath surface lives, to inhabit many worlds at once in this world, to be a someone amongst all other someones, and therefore to make a conversation without saying a word, is to deepen our sense of presence and therefore our natural sense of thankfulness that everything happens both with us and without us, that we are participant and witness all at once.

Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness. We sit at the table as part of every other person’s world while making our own world without will or effort; this is what is extraordinary and gifted, this is the essence of gratefulness, seeing to the heart of privilege. Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence meets all other presences. Being unappreciative might mean we are simply not paying attention.

Paying attention- LOVE IT. One of my most frequent reminders in my preaching. We get more out of life by paying attention and not simply existing. a priori state of attention that shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life. The gifted nature of life- hold on to that thought, the gifted nature of life makes all the difference in what we think about our story.

that the underlying gift of life and incarnation as a living, participating human being is a privilege - EVERY SINGLE PERSON IS PRIVILEGED - some more than others, but every single one of us. A personal philosophy built on the dialectic of privilege & victimology will lead to legions of unhappy and resentful souls, and not because they lack privilege, but because they lack the appreciation of the gift of living. To focus on what you lack will never help you discover what you possess and what is unique about you. To be a someone amongst all other someones - welcome to LIFE, Digital Neighbor. 😁 The people I love the most and care for the least are still someone amongst someones. It is not always easy to remember that when thinking ill of those you care for the least.

We sit at the table as part of every other person’s world while making our own world without will or effort; this is what is extraordinary and gifted, this is the essence of gratefulness, seeing to the heart of privilege. Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence meets all other presences. Amen.

Thank you all for allowing me to sit and share at your table.  I have been so blessed by the people God or fate has placed on my life path and I have been delighted that these digital paths have opened up my horizon so wonderfully.  I greatly appreciate the personal sharing, the cultural commentary, the political ranting and wrangling, and above all the shared laughter and memes.

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Gratitude for freedom
Gratitude changes everything

Easter Monday – Gratitude for Freedom

Good morning, Digital Neighbors!  Happy Monday and Blessed Easter Friends to all you good souls on Locals and Substack.   Yesterday ended up being a catch-up day after Mass and brunch with my sister’s family. It was a great day to celebrate the joy of the Risen Lord.   I caught up on some sleep and some of the issues I missed while away from the time drain that was my typical internet habit.  I am sure I will return to some active consumption, hopefully with a more intentional attitude than I had before my Lenten media abstinence.

I caught up on some of the Douglas Murray – Dave Smith JRE and much of the debate that followed on it.  I have read a couple of Douglas Murray books, and I watched many hours of his interviews and appreciate his common sense and insightful commentary.   The internet, as divisive and drama driven as it I always is, seems to have fallen into the Dave Smith is dunce and Douglas is right or Murray is an elitist and credentialist who doesn’t believe in free speech.

I will still have to take some time before I have a more comprehensive understanding of this, but I tend to tilt towards free speech absolutism in the arena of public discourse and debate.  I am a fan of self-determined groups deciding among themselves the degree of free speech that they want to share within their group.  After all it is a voluntary group, and one is free to leave the group if you disagree.  If you don’t have freedom of association then you have even bigger problems than lack of freedom of speech. *cough* *cough* All the proponents of groupthink and herd feel demand conformity of thought or silence of opinion.

I have added this clip from the Darkhorse Podcast which has always remained one of my favorites for honest and critical thought.

I think Brett and Heather are very fair minded in this clip.  Can one admit they are ever wrong, mistaken or ignorant on a topic?   Brett and Heather fall into the circle of based conversationalists like Gad Saad, Scott Adams, and our gracious hosts at RR and Phetasy. Each has their own style but are all directionally pointed towards freedom rather than compulsion.  There are many others, but Scott is an adamant critic of calling out the arrogance of the experts. Some experts are reliable because they keep asking questions and offering critical thought. They are not only knowledgeable about their subject, but they are also capable of self-criticism and humble admission of error. It makes one more credible, not damaged goods. If someone has repeated and consistent errors most of us will stop listening to them. Some experts are not reliable because their commitment is to their preconceived and pre-committed ideas.  Such idealogues can be charismatic and convincing, but in the end, they champion a cause and not the honest discussion of the topic. It happens in every field. It used to just be religious institutions that compelled thought and behavior for centuries, now it can be any group with real or perceived authority and power. Just ask the Enemedia and Academia.

Arriving at approximate truths in public discourse takes time, is messy and requires some humility to admit when you went down the wrong path and committed too much energy to being in error.  I don’t know that most of humanity can embrace such raw honesty and humility. Imagine spending years on a particular cause to find out you are wrong? It is too easy to think that one has wasted their time and effort, but if you are honestly seeking is it ever a waste of time?  I don’t think so.   5 years down the road and I am happy that I asked questions during Covid. It opened the door to more questions and patience.  

·       I appreciate experts, but I don’t take their opinions as Gospel.

·       I appreciate questions asked in a critical manner.

·       No one and no idea are above question or criticism.

·       Yes, even dumbasses can ask critical questions of experts and should not be dismissed because they are a dumbass.  One can acknowledge their history of error, incompetency or ignorance, but if they have an honest question, its dismissal reveals the dishonesty of the expert.

·       Experts can be blind to their bias just like any of us. Experts can lie just like any of us.  Experts can be joyfully mistaken.

·       Arriving at the shores of understanding and approximate truth/testable reality takes time.  I am suspicious of anyone demanding immediate compulsion of thought and subsequent behavior.

Sorry, more than I wanted to write on a Monday morning.  Thank you if you took the time to real. Comment always welcome.  

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