A Christmas Blessing

A Christmas Blessing

May you be filled with the wonder of Mary, the obedience of Joseph, the joy of the angels, the eagerness of the shepherds, the determination of the magi, and the peace of the Christ child. Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit bless you now and forever.

Pax et bonum

Memorial Service Pictures

Pax et bonum

Science Fiction and Horror Poetry

Over the years I have published a number of science fiction and horror poems. They are mostly haiku/senryu, thought there are other forms mixed in. Yes, the haiku are not classic/true haiku, but they are still fun to write and read. 

The list so far:

A doctor from South Aldersgate (limerick) Weird Tales August/September 2006

alien banquet - Random Planets 2019

apocalypse comes – Scifaikuest  AUG 2021 PRINT

at his sentencing - Scifaikuest November 2023

blind date takes - Scifaikuest November 2023 

Clouds shrouding (saturne) - Scifaikuest February 2023

Halloween costume (werewolf) – Scifaikuest online, February 2023

Last words (saturne) - Scifaikuest February 2023

“life form” (cinquain) in Scifaikuest May 2018

mining rights sold” Random Planets 2019

mining rights sold  Rochester Area Haiku Group 2020 Members’ Anthology

mirror with a painting (vampire teen) – Failed Haiku Volume 7 Issue 74 (February 2022)

New colonist (saturne) - Scifaikuest February 2023 

on the asteroid - Scifaikuest February 2019

researcher turns on - Scifaikuest November 2023

Robot’s valentine - Scifaikuest, February 2017

snow on snow on snow – Scifaikuest AUG 2021 ONLINE

Supernova - Scifaikuest – online – February 2017

the calculations Scifaikuest AUG 2021 ONLINE

The thirsting (saturne) - Scifaikuest February 2023 

through the rubble - Scifaikuest  AUG 2021 PRINT

time travel mishap – Scifaikuest online, February 2023

trying to recall - Skifaikuest February 2019 

     trying to recall – Failed Haiku Volume 7 Issue 74 (February 2022) 

two moons (cinquain) – Random Planets 2019

watching as the clone – Failed Haiku Volume 7 Issue 74 (February 2022) 

There are a couple of more scheduled for publication in Scifaikuest in February 2026 - yes, they are working that far out!

And I'm about to submit some more.

Pax et bonum

Gogyohka - he leaned in

I've some across a form of poetry that could lend itself to science fiction poetry: The gogyohka.

It's a relatively new poetry form based on Tanka poetry.
It has five lines.
Each line of consists of one phrase with a line-break after each phrase or breath.
There are no restraints on numbers of words or syllables.
The theme unrestricted.

The form was created early in the 20th Century, but didn't get a name until 1983!

My first attempt at a science fiction one:

he leaned in

to smell the roses

only to learn

they weren't roses

and they were hungry 

I might try more.

Pax et bonum

Peanut the Squirrel, RIP

Pax et bonum

American Solidarity Party Results

I am a member of the American Solidarity Party. I joined it in 2016. I ran as an ASP write-in candidate for Gates Town Board in 2023.  I got 86 votes even though I only entered the race at the end of September.

The Party was created in 2011, and it was incorporated in 2016, the first year it ran a Presidential candidate. 

Here are the results nationally, and in New York, where the Party so far has only been able to run its candidates as write-ins.

2016 (Mike Maturen/Juan Muñoz): 6,697 - though not all states reported results; 409 in New York
2020 (Brian Carroll/Amar Patel): 42,305; 999 in New York

We'll see how we do in 2024.

Pax et bonum

Skateboarding Limerick

The once was a young man from Gates,
whose skateboarding tempted the fates.
He tried a new trick,
but landed on brick -
now six months of rehab awaits.

Pax et bonum

Presidential Elections in New York: Vote Third Party (Update)

I've been predicting for a long time that the Democratic Presidential candidate - first Biden, then Harris - will carry New York by more than a million votes, and so I'm free to make a statement by voting for a genuinely pro-life candidate, Peter Sonski of the American Solidarity Party. I'm voting for him not only because I agree with him and the Party on the issues, but I am also trying to send a statement to the Republican Party to stop wading deeper into pro-abortion waters.

I've gotten criticisms from pro-life friends saying we have to vote for Donald Trump because, even though he's very flawed on life issues, he is far better than Kamala Harris. 

I agree Trump is better than Harris when is comes to abortion and related issues - even though he is clearly not pro-life - and if I lived in a battleground state I would probably vote for him. But I live in New York, which is not a battleground state. 

Here are the rounded results since 1988 - with the Democratic candidate winning every time: 

1988 - Michael Dukakis beat George H. W. Bush by .25 million votes

1992 - Bill Clinton beat George H. W, Bush by 1 million votes 

1996 - Bill Clinton beat Bob Dole by 1.9 million votes

2000 - Al Gore beat George W. Bush by 1.7 million votes

2004 - John Kerry beat George W. Bush by 1.4 million votes

2008 - Barack Obama beat John McCain by 2 million votes

2012 - Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney by 2 million votes

2016 - Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 1.8 million votes 

2020 - Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by 1.9 million votes

Because New York is not a battleground state it's been mostly ignored by the pollsters, but there was one poll put out last week. Harris was up by 19%. I seriously doubt the margin is that great, but I still think it is large. 

So, unless there is some dramatic development in the last week of the campaign,  I stand by my prediction. 

We'll see if I'm right November 5. 

UPDATE: 

 

There were indeed some developments in the last week of the campaign. 

Joe Biden called Trump supporters "garbage," then his people tried to backtrack. But he said it live. Trump subsequently did his clever garbage truck stunt, and his followers began wearing garbage bags.

Bill Clinton also said a few things that confused the campaign,

Harris appeared in more public situations, and did not do well even when she had a script.

And Joe Rogan endorsed Trump.

So Trump began building a lead in many states, or to narrow the leads Harris had in some states.

That apparently happened in New York.

I had predicted Harris would win in this state by more than a million votes (barring late developments). 

At the moment, with counting still underway, Harris has won New York by about 900,000 votes. 

So I was off, but not by much, and I did say I could be off based on late developments.

Meanwhile, my comments about voting third party hold up.

Pax et bonum

Helen Steiner Rice

I've often declared before that my two favorite poets are Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson. How American of me!

I also really like the works of several other poets: Yehuda Amichai, Seamus Heaney, Edward Lear, Ogden Nash, and Masaoka Shiki stand out. 

Oh, and of course, E. C. Bentley, the creator of clerihews!

Now all of those are highly regarded poets in literary circles. But there is another who, while many academic sorts might turn up their noses at her work, I really like.

Helen Steiner Rice.

Rice wrote inspirational and Christian poetry. She also wrote poetry for greeting cards.

I read her poetry for encouragement and pleasure. She touched many lives.

Isn't that what good poetry should do?

I'm not alone in liking her poetry. Pope St. John Paul II also appreciated her poems, and no one can accuse him of being an intellectual lightweight.

I was inspired to post this because at our parish's ongoing rummage sale room I spotted a copy of Prayerfully, a collection of Rice's prayer poems.

Naturally, I bought it! 

I now own several collections of her works.

A few years back, I even wrote a clerihew about her (hooray for Bentley):

Critics of Helen Steiner Rice
say her poems are just too sweet and nice.
But I suspect those poems will be read
long after those critics are dead.

But let's end with one of Rice's:

The Bend in the Road

Sometimes we come to life’s crossroads
We view what we think is the end;
But God has a much wider vision
And He knows that it’s only a bend.

The road will go on and get smoother
And after we’ve stopped for a rest,
The path that lies hidden beyond us
Is often the path that is best.

So rest and relax and grow stronger
Let go, and let God share your load,
And have faith in a brighter tomorrow
You’ve just come to a bend in the road.

Pax et bonum

Ancestry Strikes Again!

Ancestry has updated my results again. Yes, I know they revise as they get more results from others to compare and refine my results. 

The new results include some new regions.

Ireland (Northern Ireland and - new - Ulster): 41%

England and Northwestern Europe:                 38% 

Denmark (new)                                                10%

Scotland:                                                            6%

Iceland (a new region!):                                     3%

Germanic Europe:                                              2% 

Ireland remains on top, only very slightly changed. And England and Northwestern Europe remains second, and rose slightly.

Hmm. Scotland only 6%? With my mother a Scottish immigrant? Down from 16% just two years ago? Okay, I get that her family has roots in Ireland, but ...

Iceland is an interesting addition. Denmark used to be Denmark and Sweden. Now it is just Denmark, and it rose from 7% to 10 %.  Ah, Vikings! 

Here are previous results:

August 2022.

Ireland 42%
England & Northwestern Europe 35%
Scotland 16%
Sweden & Denmark 7%

May 2022

Ireland 39%
England & Northwestern Europe 29%
Scotland 28%
Sweden & Denmark 4%

So now more Irish, English/Western Europe, and Sweden/Denmark, less Scottish. And overall less Celtic.

They have updated multiple times as they have gotten more people in their data base -

September 2021

Scotland - 57%
Ireland - 33% (with ties to Donegal)
England and Northwestern Europe - 10%.

2020 

Scotland - 54%
Ireland (with strong links to Donegal) - 29%
England and Northwestern Europe - 13%
Wales - 3%
Norway - 1%

2018 

Ireland/Scotland/Wales - 58 %.
Great Britain - 36 %.
Scandinavia is now Sweden, and dropped to just 4 %.
Germanic Europe - 2 %.

2014

Ireland - 56 %
Scandinavia - 16 %
Great Britain - 10 %
Iberian Peninsula - 8 %
Western Europe - 5 %
A few odd traces - 3 %

Pax et bonum

Mass Etiquette

Pax et bonum

More On Dieting (sort of)

Earlier this week I noted I have begun a diet with a goal of losing 30 pounds, and that I was cutting out sweets of various forms except on Sundays and for special events.

So far, I've lost 3 pounds, and I have been able to avoid all those sweet temptations.

Good.

Another "diet" I've undertaken is reducing the number of books I own. I started this a couple of years ago when I instituted a rule that I had to get rid of two books for every new book I acquired. Then when I retired I got more serious - I've donated more than 1,000 books over the last four years, including more than 100 this year so far.

But then, I also keep acquiring books, just not to the scale I did so before.

The most recent additions are:

Tolkien: Man and Myth by Joseph Pearce

The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful by Joseph Pearce

The Father's Tale by Michael O'Brien

The Sabbatical by Michael O'Brien

Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset 

Light reading? I think not! They total more than 3000 pages, with two of the books topping 1,000 pages.

Yikes. 

I've always enjoyed Pearce and his takes, and I just finished a biography of Tolkien, so I wanted more.

I've also enjoyed Michael O'Brien, so his books were a natural.

As for Undset, I have read only one work by her, but Kristin keeps showing up on lists of recommended books, so ... 

Of course, I already have several books on my "To Read" shelf. 

Hey, at least none of them are diet books!

Pax et bonum

Health and Weight

Recently, I've begun to notice more and more signs of the effects of aging.

Some of those signs are related to thing over which I have little or no control. After all, I am getting older!

But there are areas over which I do have some control.

I'm overweight. This morning, I weighed 216.2 pounds. At 6', I should weigh in the 180's. That gives me a BMI at the upper end of "overweight". (I used to be "obese", so this is at least an improvement.)

I'm very sedentary.

I have a chronic sweet tooth. Too many candies, cookies, pastries, ice cream, etc. Two years ago my physical indicated I was pre-diabetic. I cut back a little on my sugar consumption, and dropped down below the pre-diabetic line, but I'm still close to it.

Therefore ... I need to lose about 30 pounds. And I need to even more drastically reduce my sugar consumption.

I will be dieting over the next few months. I'd like to see me lose about a pound a week. If I do lose about a pound a week, I should hit my target by next April or May.

I need to do more exercise. Not sure yet what that will involve, but light weights will be part of it.

As for sugar, I've already stopped putting sugar in my coffee, but I need to go much further. From now on I will allow myself treats only on Sunday or on special occasions. No more getting a candy bar at the store, or noshing on candy or cookies between meals. 

Losing weight will also help with my back and knee problems.

One saint sometimes identified as the Patron Saint of Dieters (and those with stomach ailments) is St. Charles Borromeo. I need to learn more about him, and to pray to him more for help. I found this prayer online: 

Prayer to St. Charles Borromeo

O St. Charles, you are invoked as

the patron of all those who suffer

with stomach ailments and obesity.

You are also called upon as a helper

for all those attempting to diet and lose weight.

Please intercede for me today

and help me to control

my desires and compulsions,

so that I may fix my appetite

on the glory of heaven.

Amen.

Pax et bonum

Kamala Dinosaur Meme

Pax et bonum

I Am Going Home (Song)

Earlier this year I attended a great concert by The Tannahill Weavers, a Scottish band I've long liked. I owned several of their albums before the concert, but, of course, they had some for sale at the venue. I bought a couple that I did not already own.

On one of the albums I found their cover of a song by Billy Connolly, "Oh No."

It has a lively tune as the Weavers played it, and I was enjoying it ... until I listened to the words.

Yikes.

It's another one of those songs about a man declaring he's leaving home and his woman. He tells her he doesn't care if her heart is grieving, she can have the home but he's going to hit to road. And he tells her again and again not to say "oh no."

The song annoyed me. I thought at first maybe I'd use the tune to write a song opposed to the message of this one. But I thought that might lead to copyright issues.

Then I thought I'd just write an original song in response. But as I mulled over what approach to take I suddenly remembered a song that I'd partly written years before called "I Am Going Home"

I had a basic tune, a refrain, and a couple of verses already. I revised them a little, and added a couple of new verses. This is the result:

I've been here before

I've been there before

I've been everywhere and more

and now I'm going home

I am going home, Lord

I am going home.

I am going home

'cause that's where I belong.

I've done a little of this.

I've done a little of that

I've done more than I should have done,

and now I'm going home.

I am going home, Lord

I am going home.

I am going home

'cause that's where I belong.

I've worked from dawn to dusk,

I've worked the whole nith through.

I have worked the live ong day,

and now I'm going home.

I am going home, Lord

I am going home.

I am going home

'cause that's where I belong.

I've seen some pretty women,

all around the world,

but none of them's as pretty

as the one that waits back home.

I am going home, Lord

I am going home.

I am going home

'cause that's where I belong.

I've sung this song before

you know I'll sing it again,

but let me say once more

that I am going home.  

I am going home, Lord

I am going home.

I am going home

'cause that's where I belong.

Pax et bonum

Culling and Collating

I have been in the process of downsizing by donating books to the library, to my former schools, and to the parish for its ongoing "Treasures" room (kind of a continual rummage sale to support the parish). Last year, for example, I donated 329 books. Since I started donating at the time of my retirement four years ago the total is about 1,000 books!

I'm now going through boxes of books I had in storage in the crawl space, and picking out books to donate. I found a lot of Thomas Merton books that I'll never read/reread,  for example, so they will soon be heading out the door.

As part of the process I'm also collecting related books scattered across multiple book cases or in boxes stored in closets or the crawl space. I now have one bookcase dedicated to G. K. Chesterton, C. S.  Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. That bookcase features works by them, biographies and autobiographies, and studies of them and their works.

Right now, the tally by author:

Chesterton - 72 

Lewis - 40 

Tolkien - 10 

Williams - 11

There was no more room in that bookcase for friends and followers, so I've dedicated a shelf to Hilaire Belloc (5 books), Joseph Pearce (17), and multiple titles by Dale Ahlquist. 

Next to my bed, meanwhile, are two small bookcases dedicated to Charles Dickens (13), Haiku poetry (30), and collections of favorite poets such as Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Seamus Heaney, Dante, and Edward Lear (15).

The culling and collating continues.    

Pax et bonum

T. S. Eliot Clerihew

T. S. Eliot

was not appreciated by the proletariat.

"Those new-fangled poems kinda bore us.

He writes like he's sittin' with an open thesaurus."

Pax et bonum

Harris on Time

Pax et bonum

Reading Goals

One of the things I've been doing the last couple of years in terms of reading is setting goals for the number of books and the number of pages.

I'm finding that having such goals is getting a bit cumbersome.

I'm on my way to meeting this year's goals, but I find fewer and fewer books worth reading. The longer, richer, but often denser works that are worth reading slow me down, and I've even found myself deciding not to read a book at this time because it would make it harder to meet my goals!

Now goals about reading a particular author - even trying to finish all the books by that author - are fine. I'll keep doing those.

But total number of books and a set page count? I have to think about that.

Pax et bonum

The Path to Belloc

In his book Literature: What Every Catholic Should Know, Joseph Pearce provides a quick overview of what he considers great work of literature. He includes at the end of the book a list of 100 works "every Catholic should aspire to read."

For the most part, I agree with him. And I've used his list to help guide my effort to fill the gaps in my own reading history. Mind you, as a Literature major, a book lover, and as a Chestertonian, I had read many of the works he cites. 

Chesterton. Dickens. Dostoyevsky. Tolkien. Lewis. Shakespeare. Sophocles. 

Ah. Favorites whose works iIread and reread.

But there have been some works he mentions that I did not like. I tried Don Quixote, and got a hundred pages in before I gave up. I did read a few of Jane Austen's books that I had not previously read, but did not really enjoy them. Manners and romance are not my cup of tea. And I did read both of Flannery O'Connor's novels; too grotesque for my taste.

I decided to tackle Hilaire Belloc. I had only previously read Cautionary Tales for Children (which I had enjoyed) and Pearce's Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc. I found the biography informative, but came away not really liking Belloc as a person!

Nevertheless, I thought it was time to tackle one of the Belloc books on Pearce's list: The Path to Rome. I started it a few months ago, but it did not hold my interest, so I drifted away to other works. Still, given his ties to Chesterton, and Pearce's championing of the book, I felt obligated to finish it. So I returned to it.

I did finish it the other day. But I have to admit I did so just to say I did. Indeed, the last third of the book I kept thinking, "Get to Rome already."

It could be that I'm not a fan of travel books or of long rambling works. But even more, his personality got in the way. I did not care about his struggles, and got tired of his commentary and judging. Oh, there were some descriptive passages that were quite fine, and I could appreciate them as examples of good writing. But that's about all I did enjoy.

I have his The Four Men on my bookshelf, and Pearce is even higher on that book than on The Path to Rome, but I hesitate to even attempt it. I also have a collection of his essays; those I might read as I do enjoy essays. Not yet, however.

Instead, I'll just end this with a clerihew I wrote about Belloc a number of years ago:

Hilaire Belloc
walked off the end of a dock,
but being in the midst of a debate
he was unaware of his fate.

As for my current reads, I'm juggling a book about haiku poet Santoka Taneda,  The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, and Father Kevin McKenna's A Concise Guide to Catholic Social Teaching.

And enjoying them all.

Pax et bonum

Politics ... Bah! Humbug!

It's an intense political season, so naturally I've been posting about the campaign.

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are completely objectionable in so many ways. I could never vote for them.

But Donald Trump is no prize. And his support of disordered individuals, and statements lately about abortion and IVF are worrying.

The Republicans have moved away from being pro-life. They are not as extreme as the Democrats, but they are moving in that direction.

Meanwhile, our Congressman Morelle is a pro-abortion extremist who has betrayed his faith. But his opponent also supports abortion.

At least i have Peter Sonski of the American Solidarity Party as a presidential candidate for whom I can happily vote.

But the election this year has me worried about the future of our country.

Sigh. 

Pax et bonum

Trump, IVF, and Pro-lifers

Pax et bonum

DNC

Pax et bonum

Proposition 1 and Weak Responses

I was out the other night with a group of men from the Catholic men's group to which I belong. I struck up a conversation with one man sitting next to me. The issue of Proposition 1 on the NY ballot came up.

For those unfamiliar with the Proposition, if approved it will codify abortion without limits in the NY Constitution, and undermine parent right when it comes to their children and abortion or "gender transition."

As part of our discussion, the man noted that the Catholic Courier had reported on a statement from the NY Bishops opposing the Proposition, but complained that the Courier has stuck the article on an inside page (13) and posted it in a single narrow column that would not draw a lot of attention. He said that the issue is so important that priests should be talking about it in their homilies, and it should be addressed in parish bulletins again and again, otherwise people will not be aware of the evil of this proposition.

I agreed that a single article like this in the middle of the summer will not be enough. As a retired teacher, I know you have to repeat new ideas again and again before a majority of students understand them. I also think the article could have used some statements or a second article interviewing diocesan officials, local pro-life activists, and perhaps some spokesperson from the opposition organization linked in the article.

Perhaps there will be more from the Bishops. Perhaps the diocese will do something to focus on the issue. Maybe it will distribute bulletin articles and homily hints related to the Proposition. How about a press conference with diocesan pro-life officials and Bishop Matano? One can only hope,

As for the Courier, perhaps there will be something more in October when it puts out a Life issue, but that's just a month before voting and hardly enough. Maybe there will be something in the September issue, but I'm not holding my breath given recent trends. Just this year:

- There was no coverage of the Good Friday Stations of the Cross for Life.

- There was no coverage of the national 40 Days for Life Catholic speaker coming to Rochester.

- There was no coverage of the national Men's March coming to Rochester and drawing more than 200 mostly Catholic marchers processing through downtown Rochester.

- Unless there is a future article, there was no coverage of Catholic pro-life activist Mark Houck, whose home was raided at gunpoint by the FBI - terrorizing his wife and seven children - but who was acquitted of all charges.

Anyway, the man and I agreed that with the state government and the media backing it, and without more being done on sustained basis by the Church, it is likely the Proposition will pass, and abortion will be enshrined in the State Constitution and parental rights will be undermined.

And maybe after the approval state Catholic officials will lament the passage and note that, gee, they did issue a statement against it.

Pax et bonum

WALZ PUNISHED CHURCHES DURING COVID

WALZ PUNISHED CHURCHES DURING COVID

Is Childbirth More Dangerous than Abortion?--PODCAST Season 9, Episode 32

Colonel Kolb On Tim Walz

Colonel John Kolb, Tim Walz’s battalion commander and direct supervisor:: “It is an affront to the noncommissioned officer corps that he continues to glom onto the title. I can sit in the cockpit of an airplane, it does not make me a pilot.”

Pax et bonum

Kamala Meme

Pax et bonum

James Stewart

Our pastor went on a short vacation, and as part of it he visited the James Stewart Museum in Indiana, Pennsylvania, his hometown. In passing he mentioned that Stewart is his favorite actor. I responded that Stewart is also mine.

Of the 80 movies Stewart made, I've seen more than 30 of them. The exact number is unclear because I don't recognize some of the titles, but if i saw the movies I might be able ot say, "Oh, yes, I saw that."

My favorite movie if gis is also one of my favorite Christmas movies: It's a Wonderful Life.

My top five Stewart movies are:

It's a Wonderful Life
Harvey
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
The Shop Around the Corner
Anatomy of a Murder

But I also really like: 

You Can't Take It with You
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Winchester '73 (Though I thought the Shelley Winters character was annoying and deserved to be shot!)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Flight of the Phoenix

There are others I like, though not as much as these 10.

I know he won an Academy Award for The Philadelphia Story, though I think that was a payback for not getting the best actor award for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. My quibble with this otherwise fine movie is that it stars Katherine Hepburn, and except for The African Queen I never liked any of her movies or her portrayals!

I was once in a production of Under Milkwood, portraying multiple characters. One of them the Rev. Eli Jenkins. I imitated Stewart's voice in playing him! (I also played Lt. Sulu in a parody of Star Trek, imitating the voice of John Wayne, so the character was known as "Duke Sulu! But that's another story.)

Stewart tended to play decent, moral characters (with a few exceptions). He was also a war hero, taking years away from his movie career to fight in World War II. 

My only sadness about Stewart is that while filming Destry Rides Again he had an affair with Marlene Dietrich, who was married at the time. He broke up with her after filming ended. The affair was bad enough morally, but what Stewart did not know was that she became pregnant and aborted their child. How awful.

Still, he remains my favorite actor. It's nice to know he is also the favorite of my pastor, a fellow movie buff.

Pax et bonum

J.D. Vance

I don't know if J.D. Vance

has ever been to France,

but unlike Walz he doesn't lack

service to the nation in Iraq.

Pax et bonum

Coach Tim ...

Pax et bonum

Tim Walz and Socialism

Pax et bonum

Let the Political Clerihews Continue!

The clerihew is supposed to be a gentle, humorous, clever poetic form. Some political clerihews clearly are too harsh to be true to the spirit.

But I still write some of those more pointed, political ones.

The Democratic ticket (for the moment, anyway) has inspired two recent ones.


Kamala Harris
finally made it to Paris.
And, yes, she did once visit near the border,
at a peaceful site her handlers found made-to-order.

Governor Tim Walz
was enjoying some spaghetti and meatballs,
but then got a sick feeling in his belly
when an ad for tampons came on the telly.

Not my best, but a start.

Walz is a new face. And who knows if he will stay on the ticket due to all the flak. Of course, Kamala has been on the scene for the last three years, and during her failed Presidential bid back in 2020.

Senator Kamala Harris
traveled to Paris.
She was trying to find ways to avoid every public relations error
of their revolution's Reign of Terror.

Kamala Harris
didn't mean to embarrass,
but her family's reaction to her Jamaican drug joke
suggests her presidential campaign might just go up in smoke.

There was also a limerick

There will be more!

Pax et bonum

Cat Ladies Unite!

Pax et bonum

She Gets Us

Pax et bonum

Someone Else Likes Old Books

In the July/August issue of  Gilbert, an article by Mark Johnson caught my attention. In "Urgent Conversations with the Dead" he discusses reading good and old books - a subject near and dear to my heart.

He notes that we used to read books with a sense of urgency, books that elicited a personal response, books that revealed truth about the world and human nature.

Johnson laments the fact that too many people no longer read books "with urgency" due to television and the internet. And he points out that too many new books are tainted by "characters engaged in fruitless searches for an ever-elusive 'inner self'' and trapped in personal development purgatories." He goes on to say "If The Brothers Karamazov were written today, all the brothers would be sent off to therapy by page 80 or so and live pleasantly medicated lives ever after."

As a retired middle school and high school English teacher I did indeed see such tendencies in the "young adult" and even adult novels were were supposed to teach. They were shallow, and tended to water down moral and ethical values. Thank God I ended my teaching career at a classical education  school with ties to the Chesterton Network!

One of my joys since retiring is that I have had time to read some of those books with values and depth. Oh, some are for fun - I'm currently reading a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery - but many are books and works I've wanted to read or reread. Some are old classics, some are more contemporary books with substance. Just this year I've read such books as:

Heretics by G. K. Chesterton

The Flying Inn by G.K. Chesterton

Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales

By the Rivers of Babylon by Michael D. O’Brien

The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift  

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O’Connor 

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Johnson points out the importance of novels in challenging the current trends: "The path back to reading for truth may also be though the novel ...."

I completely agree.   

I have a pile of novels waiting me to read or reread! 

Pax et bonum

Brotherhood of Men to Abolish Abortion

KAMALA HARRIS IS NOT RELIGION-FRIENDLY

KAMALA HARRIS IS NOT RELIGION-FRIENDLY

Harris Meme 2

Pax et bonum

Kamala Harris Meme

Pax et bonum

Joy Reid Clerihew

Joy Reid

was fined for driving at excessive speed.

She was dismayed when the Black traffic court judge didn't agree

that speed limits are tools of white supremacy.

Pax et bonum

Biden Supports

Biden is an extremist when it comes to abortion. 

Pax et bonum

The Flying Inn

One of my reading goals this year was to read a novel by G. K. Chesterton that I had not yet read. I just finished The Flying Inn.

It as typical Chesterton, flights of fancy and fantasy, couple with satirical points - in this case government control and hypocrisy. 

I've now read four of his six novels - The Flying Inn, The Napoleon of Notting Hill,and The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, and Manalive. With the Chesterton reading group I'll begin reading The Ball and the Cross this September. That will just leave The Return of Don Quixote - perhaps a goal for next years?. 

I've also read all of the Father Brown mysteries. There are some short story collections I'll read at some time as well.

Good reading ahead!

Pax et bonum

Chesterton and Whitman

Now that I'm enjoying Leaves of Grass for my poetic reading, I recall Chesterton offering some praise for Walt Whitman. Given Chesterton's orthodoxy that may at first seem a bit strange. But actually, it makes some sense.


Scott Hubbard explores this issue in Transpositions ((2/20/2017)

The Orthodoxy Of Leaves Of Grass: The Imaginative Visions Of G.K. Chesterton And Walt Whitman In Dialogue

by Scott Hubbard

Walt Whitman is not likely to appear on anyone’s list of great Christian poets. And with reason. From the first publication of Leaves of Grass in 1855, to his death in 1892, the good gray poet had cosied with Emersonian Neoplatonism, drafted plans for ‘The Great Construction of the New Bible’ and even accorded the figure of Satan a place within the Holy Quaternity of God. [1] He is large and contains multitudes, but Chalcedonian orthodoxy is not one of them. The problem is that Whitman’s personal heterodoxies may keep his name from appearing on any list of great poets written by a Christian. However, one Christian who in his own lifetime offered hearty dissent to this rule was none other than 

renowned essayist G.K. Chesterton.

When Chesterton compiled his 1905 essay series Heretics to expose the philosophical inadequacies of the literati of the past half-century, not only did he spare Whitman from his critical scythe, but the American poet received accolade as a type of noble pagan. Indeed, for a pre-conversion Chesterton, Whitman was ’one of the greatest men of the nineteenth century’. [2] And while this is certainly a tendentious claim from England’s Catholic Colossus, it is not one that his later work shows any trace of recanting. In fact, the English apologist and the American bard had imaginative visions that greatly overlap in scope and focus.

Chesterton sensed a kindred spirit in Whitman on at least three key motifs, which may help to illuminate the value of Whitman’s poetry from a specifically Christian perspective. We will now consider those three motifs, introduced by an example of their occurrence in Whitman’s great poem Song of Myself. Finally, we will posit one point of divergence stemming from the third motif to suggest a possible difference in the ethical applications of their respective imaginative visions.

The Miracle of Being—A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;/How could I answer the child? . . . . I do not know what it is any/more than he. [3] More so than any other corrosive ideology, Chesterton set himself against scientistic fatalism. Edwardian polemicists saw the earth spinning like clockwork in an inexorable pattern; Chesterton rejoiced in the greenness of grass and the curious noses of elephants; after all, these things did not have to exist. [4] Chesterton, like Whitman before him, recognized that the recurrence in nature only enhances the essential mystery of things, and that human beings ought to feel a kind of awe or primal wonder at the mere fact of being itself. And though Whitman himself could yawp, ‘Hurrah for positive science!’ he too felt a deeper humility before the most common wonders of creation. [5] Scripture resounds with the same kind of awe, from Job before proud Leviathan to the psalmist contemplating the wondrous miracle of his own birth. Existence has never been inevitable, or even a right in the largest sense, but a gift, the fundamental miracle that we all get to experience.

Joie-de-Vivre—Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and joy and knowledge/that pass all the art and argument of the earth;/And I know that the hand of God is the elderhand of my own,/And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my own,/And that all the men ever born are also my brothers . . . . and the women my sisters and lovers,/And that a kelson of the creation is love. [6] In his chapter, ‘Omar and the Sacred Vine,’ from Heretics, Chesterton repudiates the melancholy escapism of Khayyam-Fitzgerald in favor of ‘a serious joie-de-vivre like that of Walt Whitman.’ [7] The idea of joie-de-vivre is not simply a lazy insistence that everything will be okay, but a permanent joy based on the good nature of things. This is the joyful abandon of Wisdom in Proverbs, ‘Delighting in him day after day, ever at play in his presence, at play everywhere on his earth, delighting to be with the children of men.’ [8] This creaturely joy properly responds to the ‘Miracle of Being’ of the preceding point. The gift of existence is in fact delightful, and Whitman rejoices accordingly.

Democratic Emotion—I celebrate myself,/ And what I assume you shall assume,/For every atom belonging to me as good as belongs to you. [9] Throughout his poetry, Whitman invites his readers into direct relationship to himself. In another chapter from Heretics, Chesterton recognizes that Whitman, ‘feels the things in which all men agree to be unspeakably important, and all the things in which they differ (such as mere brains) to be almost unspeakably unimportant.’ [10] This does not mean that Whitman’s poetry reduces particular human persons to non-descript everymen. Rather, he perceives an innate humanity within each person that enables the relationship extended by his speakers to be received by readers in meaningful dialogue. Chesterton lauds Whitman’s relational vision as ‘the thing which is really required for the proper working of democracy . . . the democratic emotion.’ [11] Again, this emotion is not mere sentimentalism. Christian anthropology acknowledges the image of God in every human being, and so treats the neighbor with love and respect. Though Whitman does not see his ethical duty in expressly these terms, he grounds his oeuvre on the essential dignity of humanity, and responds correctly to this vision with genuine affection for those he sees and for whom he writes.

Chesterton’s affinities for Whitman’s poetry are well-founded. The two writers have imaginative visions that apprehend the wonder and humility that humans should feel at the simple miracle of being, that ground real joy in the ancient meaning and mystery of the universe, and compel a profound respect and charity for one’s fellow human beings.


These visions are both Edenic and eschatological; they look back to the primitive and final harmony of creation and call us to practice wonder, joy and self-giving love, even in this present age.

However, it is precisely in the state of this present age that the two visions differ. Set against Chesterton’s love for both creation and his neighbor is his intuition that ‘in some way all good was a remnant to be stored and held sacred out of some primordial ruin . . . or wreck.’ [12] This idea of the wreck (a more vivid image than the traditional ‘Fall’) of humanity in sin implicates both world and self in a brokenness that world and self alone cannot heal, and must be redeemed from the outside. 

Whitman’s vision is very different. Though Whitman’s poetry directly tackles the subjects of suffering, death and evil, there is no primordial wreck from which the human story starts. Whitman’s vision of the world contains infinite variety and infinite possibility, but it occludes a narrative of human redemption because there is no fundamental sin to be atoned for.

As such, one essential difference between the two imaginative visions exist. While both exhort us to empathize with our neighbor’s situation and lovingly give of ourselves for his or her good, Chesterton’s vision is able to go further in that it is able to locate the self’s own guilt in the suffering of the neighbor. Whitman’s poetry of course demonstrates deep, even kenotic care for the suffering other, but for Chesterton’s, and Christianity’s vision, such care might not be enough for the best human relationships. It may be that an imaginative vision demands a recognition of universal human brokenness, as well as human dignity, to rightly guide us in loving our neighbors as ourselves.

[1] See Malcolm Cowley’s introduction to Leaves of Grass, The First (1855) Edition, (New York: Penguin, 1959), 14, 28. All subsequent quotations from Song of Myself are taken from this edition.
[2] D. Collins, ed., Lunacy and Letters, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1958), 62.
[3] Song of Myself, 6.90-91.
[4] G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, from Collected Works: Volume I: Heretics, Orthodoxy, The Blatchford Controversies, ed. David Dooley, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), 262.
[5] Song of Myself, 23.488.
[6] Song of Myself, 5.82-86.
[7] Heretics, 96.
[8] New Jerusalem Bible, (New York: Doubleday, 1990), 975.
[9] Song of Myself, 1.1-3.
[10] Heretics, 189.
[11] Heretics., 188.
[12] Orthodoxy, 268.

Scott Hubbard is an MLitt student in the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts (ITIA) at the University of St Andrews. His research Scott considers the central relationship between speaker and addressee(s) in Walt Whitman’s poem Song of Myself. Scott is particularly interested in how Whitman’s poem might interact with and illuminate the meanings of Christ’s command to love one’s neighbor as oneself, and how the reception of such an interaction might affect concepts of selfhood and relationship in American culture, both within and outside of the Church.

Pax et bonum