Thursday, December 31, 2020

Remembrances for January

 

Hello everyone.  If you have time, please pray for these members of the Southern family on the day they reposed.  Many thanks.

But one may ask:  ‘What good does it do to pray for the departed?’  An answer is offered here:  https://orthochristian.com/130608.html

Along with prayers and hymns for the departed:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6je5axPodI

Jan. 1st

Francois Valcour Aimé, one of Louisiana’s noblest sons.

https://64parishes.org/entry/valcour-aime

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6679407/francois-gabriel-aime/photo

Jan. 3rd

Rev Robert Lewis Dabney, an influential leader in the South both behind and outside of the pulpit.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/dabney-on-fire/

Jan. 4th

Gen Francis T. Nichols, a Confederate general in the War between the States who lost an arm and a foot defending his homeland.  After the unpleasantness came to an end, he became a reforming governor in his home State of Louisiana, waging another mighty battle - this time against the corrupt Louisiana Lottery.  He later sat on the bench of the Louisiana Supreme Court.

https://64parishes.org/entry/francis-t-nicholls

http://www.la-cemeteries.com/Governors/Nicholls,%20Francis%20T/Nicholls,%20Francis%20T.shtml

Jan. 8th

Prof Thomas Landess, a recent defender of Southern ways.

https://theimaginativeconservative.org/author/thomas-landess

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/author/thomas-h-landess/

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/13/tom-landess-rip/

Jan. 28th

Zora Neale Hurston, Alabama-born and Florida-raised, she played a leading role in the Harlem Renaissance and was a prolific writer.

https://www.zoranealehurston.com/about/

Also, to celebrate some of the saints of January from the South’s Christian inheritance of various lands, follow this link on over if you’d like:

https://confiterijournal.blogspot.com/2020/01/happy-feast-for-saints-of-january.html

--

Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Rush Limbaugh’s Failure

 

Rush Limbaugh made a crushing admission for someone in his position as an opinion-maker on his Wednesday, 23 Dec. 2020, radio show:

 

"There's a large part of me that feels like I have failed in such a major way, in a political sense," Limbaugh said Wednesday during his final broadcast of 2020.

 

"I've had 30 years here to try to convince people, to try to persuade people, to try to encourage people to think -- critically think -- on their own, to realize the difference between conservatism and liberalism, the difference between the Republican Party and the Democrat Party as it relates to conservative versus liberal."

 

"There's still far more people than should be voting for Democrats, voting for the left. I chalk it up in part to having failed to convince people, persuade people of the truth," he said.

 

"It's a very thin line here because, look, I'm not trying to evoke any sympathy from anybody. But it just ... There's a part of me just continually amazed that the Democrat Party that the left gets even 30% of any vote. But then I have to grab myself and say, 'Rush, you're missing reality. The reality is the lifelong meaning of the D next to somebody's name, the unions that they have constant support from, the money and so forth.'

 

"I understand all this. It's just that I've had my opportunities to get into people's minds. I've had the opportunity to influence the way people think about these things. ... There's so many things that I look at that I don't understand. If I'm successful here because of A, B, C, and D, then how in the world is my side losing, especially after these four years?”

 

 . . .

 

"But I've had all of these years to get to people, to explain the wonders, the beauties of freedom and liberty and how that is conservatism. And yet despite all that, there are Americans who are willing, eagerly voting to lose their freedom, to give it over to politicians that want to control 'em who don't care about 'em. I wonder, 'How did I miss 'em. How did I not reach 'em?'"

 

--Joe Kovacs, https://www.wnd.com/2020/12/stunning-admission-limbaugh-part-feels-like-failed/

We have listened to Rush Limbaugh since 1992 when we were in junior high school.  When Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009, just hearing the theme music of his radio show and his commentary on that day gave many forlorn people some hope and consolation (us included).  While we would later come realize the shortcomings of Rush Limbaugh’s version of conservatism through Dr Russell Kirk and other ‘paleocons’, Southern agrarians, etc., and have roundly criticized some of those shortcomings, we do not write such things simply to trash Mr Limbaugh.  He has become like a familiar (though misguided!) friend, and when his voice is no longer heard on the radio, it will leave an emptiness.

Nevertheless, the reasons for his failure to persuade the ‘Left’ to accept his political views must be addressed.  The main reason for this failure is that Mr Limbaugh’s ‘Right’ is of the same essence as the ‘Left’:  Both are un-Christian ideologies intent on building the Kingdom of Man rather than the Kingdom of God.  Both make a religion of sating the bodily desires of man while ignoring the soul.  They use different methods to achieve that end:  the Right, through acts of the atomized individual; the Left, through acts of the collective.  Both destroy the healthy formation of men and women through faith, tradition, clan, guild, and other small bodies of people.  All of those customs and institutions are destroyed by the forces unleashed in the dialectic battle between the one and the many.

When viewed by the typical post-Christian American, the answer of the Left, the collective, the forced caring for one another, appears more compassionate than the anarchic competition of countless self-centered individuals seeking to maximize their own well-being.  This is what likely lies at the heart of Mr Limbaugh’s failure.

But the Kingdom of Man won’t be overthrown by devoting oneself to either a Leftist or a Rightist version of that very same Kingdom; rather, it will only happen if we establish the Kingdom of God in its place.  And what is the Kingdom of God?  It is the Divine Liturgy, partaking of the Holy Mysteries of Christ’s Most Pure Body and Most Precious Blood, pure prayer, hesychia/stillness, theosis, union with the Uncreated Light and Energies of God, the full acquisition of the Holy Ghost, acquiring the likeness of God (not resting content with having the image of God only, Gen. 1:26).  It rises far above both Left and Right (Fr Andrew Phillips); it brings together and harmonizes dialectical opposites (Jay Dyer).

This Kingdom of God is precisely what both the Roman Catholics and the Protestants have lost by denying any possibility of a real union with God since He is in their view a simple unknowable essence, known only through created intermediaries.  This is opposed to the true Orthodox teaching – that God is both essence and energies, unknowable in His essence but knowable and participable in His energies.  Having separated themselves from the Truth, both Roman Catholics and Protestants have decayed into their secular forms, which we have discussed above:  the former into collectivism/communism and the latter into individualism/libertarianism/classical liberalism.

Rush Limbaugh is to be commended for his lifelong dedication to a cause; unfortunately, he has sown many tares through those particular labors.  But it is never too late to repent and make a good beginning.  Let him even now at this late hour renounce his idolatrous Americanism and sow the seeds of the Orthodox Faith of the Holy Apostles with the time he has left.  Then he will be able to forget his feelings of failure and instead will know true blessedness and fulfilment and will be able to stand unashamed at the Dread Judgment Seat of Christ.

--

Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Saturday, December 26, 2020

A Weak Justification

 

Mr Ryan McMaken tries to justify the current hyper-commercialized economic order with the following:

 

 . . .

 

This state of relative plenty is all thanks to the so-called “consumer economy” itself, which is nothing more than a process that delivers what the great mass of the population needs and desires. Residents of the industrialized world need no longer worry that a bad harvest will lead to starvation, or that a flood will lead to permanent destitution.  With industrialization and the proliferation of markets comes “luxury.” But what exactly constitutes luxury remains utterly relative.

 

Nonetheless, it is no coincidence that modern concern over an “excessive” amount of goods and services often leads to demand for taxes, regulations, central planning, and other efforts to force us all to return merely to what is “necessary.” The “Green New Deal” and the “Great Reset” are but two examples. Thanks to all this “consumerist” luxury, the story goes, we’ve ruined the environment, our culture, and even our own families and lives.  

 

Like the aristocrats of old, today’s ruling class believes only they can be trusted with controlling access to the fruits of human industry. Otherwise the ordinary folk might use these fruits unwisely or for politically unacceptable ends. But you can rest assured the ruling class will take a healthy cut of the pie in return for its “services.”  The impulse to control all this is clearly an old one. Christmas merely offers the elites and their friends another opportunity to berate the public for its “excess.” 

 

But if the intellectuals and aristocrats of today are so concerned with the impact of consumer goods on virtue—nowadays defined perhaps as the level of one’s “wokeness” and fondness for social democracy—let them teach by example. Let the New York and Washington elite give up their posh vacations, their private jets, luxury cars, and their second (and third) homes. Let the intellectuals donate their university salaries to others.

 

Until then, you’ll find me wrapping Christmas presents.

 

--https://www.newswars.com/the-great-reset-vs-the-true-meaning-of-christmas/

The underlying argument is terribly weak and reminds one of children who want to wriggle out from under their parents’ command that they behave themselves properly:  ‘But so-and-so is doing it, so why can’t I?’  Just because the Elite are behaving irresponsibly with regard to possessions doesn’t mean that it is okay for the lower classes to act the same way.

Our standards for how to conduct our lives are not relative to other individuals, cultures, etc.  They are determined by God Himself.  The Incarnate Lord Jesus Christ, whose Holy Nativity we are celebrating for the next 12 days, teaches us to pray only for ‘our daily bread’ (St Matt. 6:11).  St Paul likewise admonishes us:  ‘But godliness with contentment is great gain’ (I Tim. 6:6).  ‘And having food and raiment let us be therewith content’ (I Tim. 6:8).  The life and teachings of the Holy Apostles and all the Saints of the Holy Orthodox Church down through the ages to the present day testify that simplicity of life is better than luxury because it helps us to focus our attention on the permanent things that are above rather than getting bogged down in the things below that pass away.  One of the hymns to St Mary of Egypt (+522) says it this way:

 

The image of God was truly preserved in you, O mother, / for you took up the Cross and followed Christ. / By so doing, you taught us to disregard the flesh, for it passes away; / but to care instead for the soul, since it is immortal. / Therefore your spirit, O holy Mother Mary, rejoices with the Angels.

 

--https://www.oca.org/saints/troparia/2018/04/01/100963-venerable-mary-of-egypt

 

(The life of this God-pleasing icon of true and fervent repentance may be read here:  https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2018/04/01/100963-venerable-mary-of-egypt)

In addition to this is the unseen environmental cost of our ‘consumer culture’, including huge toxic lagoons and mountains of discarded, obsolete electronics:

https://www.dw.com/en/the-invisible-waste-behind-our-laptops-and-smartphones/a-55947860, link via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/

We need less smug self-justification for our excesses (whether by the Elite Titans of Industry or the plain folk) and more humility, repentance, contentment, and generosity by all those in society.  Then perhaps we will see the rise of an economy that can properly be called ‘Christian’.

--

Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!