Chesterton for President

I had a rare find this weekend--Borders in town is going out of business, and I found a compilation of G.K. Chesterton's essays that I hadn't read yet! This one is called The Well and the Shallows and it is one of the last things he wrote, just before World War II. I know the guy was a journalist, not a politician, but I still would have voted for him--if I ever could have. Here's some of the gems:

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent those mistakes from being corrected."

"The State did not own men so entirely, even when it could send them to the stake, as it sometimes does now where it can send them to the elementary school."

"Those who leave the tradition of truth do not escape into something which we call Freedom. They only escape into something else, which we call Fashion."

Good News in the Middle East

So if Egypt and Tunisia sound like the last place you want to be, check out this that happened this past week. Of course, it is barely mentioned on major news networks. Southern Sudan is nearly entirely Christian, while the north is predominantly Muslim.

Thought for the Day

What worries me is that smart people can get smarter with the internet, ‘cause they can tell reliable sites from those that are not. But for the dumb people… I think the internet is just making them dumber and dumber.

--Brian Regan

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

So I took my Segundus on a rare trip to McDonald's today to bring lunch to Papa at work. I haven't ordered a Happy Meal in a while and when I did they offered "would you like milk or juice with that?" What? "Um, do you have Coke?" I asked. They did, and I also ordered a nice, big burger meal for Papa as a treat.

When I got my receipt I realized that I had to pay $1 extra to get a Coke with the kids' Happy Meal, whereas the adult combo meal came with a Coke! Hmmm...now if you want to be healthy, by all means, be healthy; but what's the deal with letting adults have a Coke and forcing the kids to have milk or juice? I think McDonald's should just switch everybody to milk or juice and see how long it takes for the adults to have a fit--when they do, the management should just stand back and ask them how they think the kids feel.

I go to McDonald's for fun, certainly not to be healthy, but what exactly is fun about milk or juice?

The End of Hope

My husband was listening to some church chants the other day and one line in the chant struck me, "Our God alone is great." Recent materialist atheists have tried to insist that God is Not Great, which makes you wonder, with a title like that, why they're atheists at all.

Anyway, along with Christopher Hitchens' book, there is also Sam Harris and his presumptuous book title, The End of Faith. Now although Sam Harris likes to pretend he's a materialistic scientist, his book is actually quite full of superstition and Buddhism. The last chapter, in fact, argues that Buddhism is somehow a true materialist religion (if that were possible). Now I have known some real materialistic scientists in my day, and their reasoning is marginally more logical than Harris'. One professor I had actually believed that all scientists should be agnostics; as if the scientific method should govern your whole life if you are a scientist (scary the implications that might have for childraising)! However, if the material world is all we see, and there is no God, or possibly no great one, than why continue to function as human beings at all? The end of faith inevitably leads to the end of hope.

Hope is only possible in a universe with a good God. It is not possible in a universe with no god, and it is not possible in a universe with an evil or capricious god. To trust that any action we do could possibly be of any value to any other human somewhere, is to function on the principle that God is Great. When this is seen through the light of the Incarnation, God's goodness and greatness are staggering. Words fail me, but a friend of mine wrote this when reflecting on an insignificant colony of ants:

We could say He cares nothing for our pain. We could say He is not good. We could say we don't understand why the sky isn't all rainbows and why the common cold exists. But we would be fools. And somehow, He would still like us.

How much do I care for these ants? I think I care. I'll stop to watch their wars. I'll buy my children documentaries--insect tributes. I won't crush them when I can help it.

But, if given the chance, would I be willing to become one of them? Would I be willing for them to drag me to the place of execution, taunt me, mock me, ridicule the gift I offered, a gift entirely beyond their comprehension? Would I be willing for the earwig, executed beside me, to add his insults to those of the ants? Would I be willing to die?

Hell no. Never. I have more self-regard than God does. I have less love for the characters beneath me.

--N.D. Wilson, Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl


Happy Advent.

Our Own Personal TSA Nightmare

In light of everyone recently realizing how scary the TSA full-body scanners and pat-downs are, here's a little story about what happened to us this summer.

We were flying out of White Plains, NY airport back home to the west coast. My 4-year-old would like to be a farmer when he grows up, so he likes to wear his overalls. Having no idea of the nightmare we were in for by letting him do so, he wanted to wear his overalls on the airplane.

Going through the metal detectors, my husband and I split up--he took the 6-year-old through and I took the 4-year-old. Of course, the metal straps on his overalls caused the metal detector to go nuts. The attendant instructed him to go to a waiting area to be "wanded," and told me that I could wait with him.

When the next attendant arrived, he told me that both myself and my son were going to need a full pat-down! I was now a suspect, because I had "touched my son's hand while in the waiting area." My husband saw the commotion, and my refusal to comply, and came over to argue our case. The TSA supervisor was called to say that if we refused a pat-down then we could all "find another mode of travel." We were outraged. My husband insisted that we would neither be pat-down, nor would we leave the area. We are all for catching terrorists, but how on earth does a pat-down of a 4-year-old who's wearing overalls aid in catching criminals? The TSA supervisor stated that it was all just to assure the other passengers that they were "safe." "For goodness sake!" I cried, "How would a pat-down of a 4-year-old make me feel safe? That makes me more scared to fly!"

Basically by being difficult and insisting on our rights they finally just gave in and let us go, thank God. While sitting in the waiting area, trying to calm down we heard the following announcement made by the flight attendants, "Mr. Saladin...Mr. Saladin...would you please board your plane immediately for Washington, D.C." Hmmm...and you went after the 4-year-old in overalls, instead of Mr. Saladin heading to the capitol building?

A Mystery To Me

Usually, while driving, I give pedestrians the right-of-way. This probably stems back from driver's ed when we had to attend traffic court for a day and take notes on the cases. I remember someone came to protest a ticket he was given when he cut off a pedestrian who was crossing the sidewalk. The driver was wrong and still got the ticket.

Anyway, it is a complete mystery to me how this deference has gotten me into trouble. The pedestrian sees me coming, stops, and starts waving me ahead of them. I absolutely refuse (I AM the one in the vehicle), and insist they go first. I have received no end of nasty looks, waves, curses, glares, and shaking of heads as a result. Whenever I happen to be the pedestrian, I'm always grateful to those cars who show deference, and usually wave and say thank you. Is this just because of the weirdos I live around, or do all city pedestrians tend toward nastiness?

Hmmmm....