The Englishman and the King

In our age of hyper-democracy, it is good to meditate on why the English have not jettisoned their king and queen completely.  The conclusions will apply also to us in the several States, being much the same in blood, history, and customs as the Brits and Celts of the Isles.  Dr Vladimir Moss's thoughts on the matter follow (Autocracy, Despotism and Democracy, Part 2: The Age of Reason (1453 to 1789), 2012: pgs. 60-1):

It is worth pondering why the monarchy continued to exert such a mystical attraction in a nation that was well on the way to ejecting all mysticism from its political and ecclesiastical life. Part of the answer must lie in the upsurge of patriotism that accompanied the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, whose focus became the virgin Queen Elizabeth. Another part must lie in the continuing nostalgia for the past that was being destroyed, a past in which the figure of the anointed king played such an important role.

Even today, when democratism appears to have finally triumphed, the monarchy remains popular in England. And at the heart of the democracy, Westminster Abbey, there still lies the body of the most holy of the Orthodox kings of England, Edward the Confessor, like a rose among thorns. It is as if the English people, even while leading the way into the new democratic age, subconsciously feel that they have lost something vitally important, and cling to the holy corpse with despairing tenacity, refusing to believe that the soul has finally departed. Thus even such a convinced democrat as C.S. Lewis could write of the monarchy as “the channel through which all the vital elements of citizenship - loyalty, the consecration of secular life, the hierarchical principle, splendour, ceremony, continuity - still trickle down to irrigate the dustbowl of modern economic Statecraft". And even today, hysteria can seize a whole nation on the death of a princess, for little other reason than that she was a princess. Thus monarchism is something deeply rooted with the human psyche which we attempt to uproot at our peril…

Roger Scruton has spoken of the English monarchy as “the light above politics, which shines down on the human bustle from a calmer and more exalted sphere. Not being elected by popular vote, the monarch cannot be understood as representing the views only of the present generation. He or she is born into the position, and also passes it on to a legally defined successor. The monarch is in a real sense the voice of history, and the very accidental [sic] way in which the office is acquired emphasises the grounds of the monarch’s legitimacy, in the history of a place and a culture. This is not to say that kings and queens cannot be mad, irrational, self-interested or unwise. It is to say, rather, that they owe their authority and their influence precisely to the fact that they speak for something other than the present desires of present voters, something vital to the continuity and community which the act of voting assumes. Hence, if they are heard at all, they are head as limiting the democratic process, in just the way that it must be limited if it is to issue in reasonable legislation. It was in such a way that the English conceived their Queen, in the sunset days of Queen Victoria. The sovereign was an ordinary person, transfigured by a peculiar enchantment which represented not political power but the mysterious authority of an ancient ‘law of the land’. When the monarch betrays that law – as, in the opinion of many, the Stuarts betrayed it – a great social and spiritual unrest seizes the common conscience, unrest of a kind that could never attend the misdemeanours of an elected president, or even the betrayal of trust by a political party.”

Chadwick writes: “Something about an English king distinguished him from the godly prince of Germany or Sweden. While everyone agreed that a lawful ruler was called of God, and that obedience was a Christian duty, it would not have been so natural for a Lutheran to write that a divinity doth hedge a king. Offspring of an ancient line, crowned with the anointing of medieval ritual, he retained an aura of mystique which neither Renaissance nor Reformation at once dispelled. It is curious to find the Catholic king of France touching the scrofulous to heal them until a few years before the French Revolution. It is much more curious to find the Protestant sovereigns of England, from Elizabeth to James II, continuing to perform the same ritual cures, and to note that the last reigning sovereign to touch was Queen Anne in 1714… The supernatural aura of the anointed head was long in dying, and must be reckoned with when judging the unusual English forms of the divine right.”

Toxicity of GM 'Food' Revealed in New Study

'Tis unnatural,/Even like the deed that's done (Macbeth, Act II, Scene IV, ll. 10, 11).

From NaturalNews:

Eating genetically modified corn (GM corn) and consuming trace levels of Monsanto's Roundup chemical fertilizer caused rats to develop horrifying tumors, widespread organ damage, and premature death. That's the conclusion of a shocking new study that looked at the long-term effects of consuming Monsanto's genetically modified corn.

The study has been deemed "the most thorough research ever published into the health effects of GM food crops and the herbicide Roundup on rats." News of the horrifying findings is spreading like wildfire across the internet, with even the mainstream media seemingly in shock over the photos of rats with multiple grotesque tumors... tumors so large the rats even had difficulty breathing in some cases. GMOs may be the new thalidomide.

...

It goes on to say: "The animals on the GM diet suffered mammary tumors, as well as severe liver and kidney damage. The researchers said 50 percent of males and 70 percent of females died prematurely, compared with only 30 percent and 20 percent in the control group."

We may say definitively that GMO food is a danger to human health and to other living creatures, but now comes the difficult part:  opposing this life-in-death vision that the agri-business corporations of the world have in mind for us with an alternative vision for man and the creation that has life-giving, creative content.  This is Father Sergius Bulgakov's challenge to us, perhaps more relevant today than when he wrote it in 1939:

Our epoch is characterized by a broad development of creativity "in its own name," by a deluge of anthropotheism, in the form of a luciferian creative intoxication, and by an immersion in dull sensual paganism.  These developments cannot be overcome by mere rejection; they can be overcome only by the unfolding of a positive Christian doctrine of the world and creative activity, and by manifestation of its power (The Bride of the Lamb, tr. Boris Jakim, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans: 2002, p. 332).

The Islamic World Aflame

This rosy view of things tells us that the French Revolution…happened because of broad forces and trends of history, and really was for the good of mankind….

More insightful historians…have understood that the French Revolution was not and could not have been a spontaneous event.  It happened because men, some of them evil, some of them deluded, planned it on a grand scale and carried out their designs.

(John Remington Graham, Blood Money: The Civil War and the Federal Reserve, Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, 2006, p. 24)

  

…Bleed, bleed, poor country!
Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,
For goodness dare not check thee; wear thou thy wrongs,
The title is affeer'd!

(William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act IV, Scene III, ll. 31-34)

Most would not hesitate to admit the presence of evil in the world.  But at the same time they would probably be quick to locate it some distance from themselves, whether physically or spiritually:  physically, in a savage tribe of South America or Africa, or spiritually, in the hearts of kidnappers or murderers here in our own country.  Even though the light of Christianity is weak and dim in the United States today, we remain so accustomed to the kindness and charity that flow from it that we do not imagine evil could be present in very many that our eyes fall upon, especially in the more sophisticated types of people.  It is there, however -- and it is particularly strong in some of the most sophisticated, refined and highly admired of our society at that.

For an excellent illustration of this point, the reader is encouraged to pick up a copy of C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength.  In the historical world we inhabit, just as in the fictional world of Mr Lewis’s novel, we see their influence made manifest in their efforts to build the Kingdom of Man, to borrow Father Seraphim Rose’s name for it.  This is the utopia man tries to build without God:  a remaking of the world and humanity by the wealthy Elite of the banks and other large corporations, think tanks, government agencies, and so forth. 

It is from this angle we ought to view the events unfolding in Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.  These are probably not spontaneous events, but rather a work set in motion by the Elite to further their agenda:  extending the control of the British/Western European-American Empire over more of the peoples and resources of the world while at the same time reducing through war or other methods the number of those they deem unfit to live.

A recent report on the ongoing efforts to extract Afghanistan’s mineral wealth provides a timely, concrete example of their agenda in actu:

http://lewrockwell.com/orig11/baker-r20.1.html

Have the Elite soured on Pres Obama?  Is this their way of setting up Gov Romney for a win in November?  Are they behind the iconoclastic movie on Islam (whose origins remain obscure) that we are told has sparked the street violence in many Islamic countries? 

Perhaps, but of more import is remembering Richard Weaver’s warning that totalitarian governments must continually place a new enemy before the eyes of their citizens to keep them distracted from their servitude and the to keep the wheels of the war machine whirring.  That is probably closer to the true reason for starting these riots:  to keep the masses docile, from questioning the benefit of continued military engagements around the world, and to clear the way for still more invasions or occupations of other countries.

Already we hear the analysts on news and opinion shows telling us we can’t disengage from the Muslim world lest things become even more ‘unstable’.  Already we see more U.S. soldiers and arms moving into that region.  We are too naïve if we do not at least consider the possibility that this is the unfolding of a plan drawn up by the Elite to further their own ends.

Most Holy Mother of God, save us.

A Sonnet to Lee

By Rev Robert Lewis Dabney

Israel one David, Athens one Pericles,

Thebes one Epaminondas could produce.

Thy State, O, Lee, of greatness more profuse,

Nurtured two Washingtons upon her knees;

The first to crown on earth his God did please;

But thy reward was set thee in the skies.

Sterner thy fate than Jackson's; him to rise

And feel no fall, appointed Heaven's decrees.

From thy high noon thou turnedst to the west,

By clouds infolded, thunderous and dark,

Which yet, reluctant, spread around thy rest,

Purple and golden glories, prescient mark

Of that eternal radiance which hath blest

Thy soul, beyond our sun's inferior arc.

(http://dabneyarchive.com/Discussions%20V4/A%20Sonnet%20to%20Lee.pdf)

Searching for Symbols

For a people to stay united, they need symbols to look to which represent themselves and the truths of the world in which they live.  The Southern people are no different.  As to the former, why not consider a modified version of the White Dragon Flag?

This was the flag of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors and signifies the culture that grew up in the England of their day:  the England of Sts Edmund, Chad, Bede, and Aldhelm, of Sts Etheldreda, Werburga, Guthlac, and Cuthbert, of Kings Alfred, Aethelstan, and Oswald.  This was an England more concerned with producing saints than accumulating money and goods, an England excelling in poetry, illuminated manuscripts, and metalcrafts, an England more of quiet shires than crowded cities.

Sadly, it was not to last, falling to the Normans in 1066 (as the South was to fall to the Northern armies some 800 years later) due to the wickedness that had grown up in the land (see the deathbed prophecy of King Edward the Confessor), which raises the question of whether the South was punished for wrongdoing, but that discussion is best saved for a later time. 

What we can do now, however, is to reincorporate this symbol with others from our past and present and make a conscious effort to learn the truths and cultivate the virtues that they represent.  Failing that, we will remain but servants of one degree or another of the Empire controlled by Washington, D.C.

The Saints of the South II

Since the lives of blacks and whites have been and will continue to be intertwined in the South, we would be foolish not to venerate the African saints as well as the British and Irish.  Below are a few lists for your use.

List 1

List 2

List 3

The Saints of the South

‘The Church in The British Isles will only begin to grow when She begins to again venerate Her own Saints.’ -- (Saint Arsenios of Paros)

Dark times are upon us in the South, as elsewhere in the world.  A corrupt oligarchy of bankers, corporate executives, academics, et al. holds sway; most people are too enthralled by comfort and entertainment to care; and the Church generally is in too much disarray to confront these evils forcefully at present.

Yet as St Arsenios declares above, we can revive the souls in our beloved Southland if we are faithful to pray to and venerate our Saints.  But who are the Saints of the South?  Unfortunately, she is not known to have brought forth any (or else they remain unknown).  To whom ought we to pray then?  To the saints of Wales, Essex, Scotland, Cornwall, Ireland, etc.:  our ancestors - fathers and mothers - in the flesh and in the faith from the Irish and British islands. 

We are in very truth their physical and spiritual children.  Therefore, according to the words of Christ, ‘Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?  Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children . . . ’  (St Matthew 7.9-11)  If this is what we expect of our immediate, earthly parents, how much more will these heavenly parents of ours, the saints of Britain and Ireland, who have been sanctified by the grace of God, give us good gifts if we ask of them!

So, then, let us honor the saints of old, let us light the votive candles and pray before their icons.  Let us seek their intercessions every day for their sons and daughters in the South.  For we do not seek a great and powerful empire here on earth, but rather to build up a mighty nation in Heaven to the glory of God -- the Heavenly South.  Regarding such a country, St Nikolai Velimirovich writes

To the soul of the Serb the heavenly world was from time immemorial nearer and more present than the earthly world. He always saw many more relatives in the heavenly world than in the earthly. Therefore, he always took great care to remember the dead, to light candles and have their priests hold memorial services (pomens) for the repose of their souls.

And he prepared himself with service to Christ so that he himself might cross over to that higher world with faith, virtue and honor, and join his kindred before the face of Christ. There, only there lies the great Heavenly Serbia.

Ah, that Great Heavenly Serbia! It symbolizes that Great Serbia already realized long ago. We believe that there are well over a hundred million baptized Serbs there, who during their earthly life served Christ or suffered for Christ over the centuries, for ages of ages. And more of them are there in the light of paradise from periods of struggle, bondage, and suffering than from periods of freedom and easy living.

Those who are more like Christ are closer to Christ in the heavenly world. We believe in accordance with the Gospel, that some peoples, far greater than the Serbian people on earth, will be lesser in the heavenly kingdom. Even the Lord Himself said that the first shall be last, and the last shall be first. And the suffering Lazarus shall shine among the first in heaven, while the rich man shall sink among the last into the darkness of hell.

The Heavenly Serbia lies in paradise,
As fragrant and beautiful as a rose in May.
Here reside our holy fathers and forefathers,
Who attained their goal through the venerable cross.
Here reside the Serbian zhupans, kings, and tsars,
And the knights of the cross both recent and ancient.
Here the mothers of heroes and their sisters too,
Refined by suffering, shine as brightly as gold.
Here the ranks of those who keep the fasts and meek saints,
Live with a vast number of our dear relatives.
Here venerable monks and nuns, pale through fasting,
Cheerfully behold the eternal light of God.
Here live those who celebrate saints and found churches,
Strugglers and sufferers, both younger and older,
Sweet virgin maidens and tiny little children,
Who suffered as members of the flock of Christ,
Cut down by the sword, burned to death in tongues of fire,
Snapped off and blown down by the wind like tender twigs.
Here are the household masters, who in their own home,
Lit the vigil lights to the Pre-Eternal God.
Glorious master craftsmen, all skilled in their craft,
All of them are there, among the heavenly flock.
Prisoners from dungeons, patients from hospitals,
The suffering, the poor, the downtrodden on earth,
Are rejoicing in heaven around Saint Sava,
As sons of the King in the glory of the King.
The glorious Chetniks, the avengers of God,
Many "God-beseechers", many benefactors,
Widows in mourning, and mothers without children,
All have found their place in heaven among God's saints.
The peasant princes, and those who rose up with them,
And all of our other glorious ancestors,
Who lived in the most bitter and harshest of times,
Yet considered the impossible possible.
Many generations of the very best stock,
A people beyond number, the people of God
This is that eternal Heavenly Serbia,
Which shines for God like a constellation of stars.

(The Serbian People As a Servant of God, chapters 79-81, http://www.sv-luka.org/library/ServantOfGod.html)

An eternal Heavenly South, which shines for God like a beautiful arrangement of stars:  There is an end worthy of our devotion, of our time and ascetic toil!

But we must begin by looking to the saints who have gone before us, as examples to follow and honor and as helpers to beseech.  Only then will a Holy South begin to grow on earth and in Heaven.

Appendix 1 - Saints Associated with the South

(For English and Celtic saints)

http://orthodoxengland.org.uk/athlifea.htm

http://orthodoxengland.org.uk/natlocst.htm

http://www.oodegr.com/english/brit_celt_orthodoxy/brit_celt_orthodoxy.htm

http://www.oodegr.com/english/istorika/britain/British_saints.htm

  http://www.orthodoxchristianbooks.com/downloads/359_LIVES_OF_THE_BRITISH_SAINTS_2_.pdf

(For African Saints)

http://www.mosestheblack.org/home2.html

(For French, Spanish, and German saints)

http://www.oodegr.com/english/istorika/europe/orthodox_evangelists_west_europe.htm

Appendix 2 - Praying to Departed Christians

For those who may be uncomfortable asking the departed saints to pray for us, remember these things:

1. God is not the God of the dead but of the living (St Matthew 22:32).

2. Christ has one body, one Church (I Corinthians 1:13, 12:12, 13, Ephesians 4:4), not two - one for the living and one for the departed.  Since we remain united with them in Christ, we may therefore continue to ask our departed brothers and sisters to pray for and help us just as we ask Christians still on earth to do so.

3. The saints in Heaven remain concerned about what is happening on earth and bring those concerns before the Lord (Revelation 6:9, 10).

4. The prayers of the righteous avail much (James 5:16).