Glorying in the Mundane

Above is a picture of the eggs that our hens are currently producing. Today our girls put out 8 eggs, which isn't too shabby in my opinion. I took the picture to capture the spectrum of color that they make. We have been for some time trying to raise a specialty bird, the Black Copper Maran, which lays the darkest colored eggs in the world, and they have just recently began laying. Ours aren't the darkest layers I have seen, but they lay a lovely mahogany colored egg. There is also one olive colored egg laying hen that we have, and you can see her beauty in the mix.

Step back for a moment and just marvel at this; the chickens romp around the yard scratch up dirt, overturn leaves and other debris, and eat bugs and seeds, all climaxing in them laying an egg. This is simply stupendous. The world all about is teeming with wonder. If we fail to succumb to the call all about us to stand in awe, the fault is entirely our own. There is nothing boring about the world around us, indeed it could rightly be described as a series of miracles one right after the other occurring right before our eyes.

I remember Chesterton once saying something along the lines of, "There are no boring subjects, only people who are bores." I also recall John Piper ecstatically saying "It rains, the sun shines, grass grows, cows eat it, and cows make milk!" Truly a marvel. Oh for eyes to see the world as it is! As children we see the world more rightly, all is new and properly full of wonder. As we age we get used to seeing the miraculous every day; but the rightly tuned eyes, ears, skin, and taste-buds, see, hear, feel, and taste the glory of God all about them.

A Meditation on 40 Years of Abortion, or Why the Nazis Were Better Than Us

Men and women become accomplices to the very evils they fail to oppose. This truth has been a blight upon the German people for the last 70 years. How could they have let the evils of the the ghettos, the round ups, and the horrors of concentration camps occur in their proverbial backyard without stiff resistance? The answer: they countenanced the evil in a similar manner as the majority of people in the United States are either supportive or indifferent to the ongoing practice of abortion, which has continued for 40 years and does not seem any closer to being ended.

How I wonder, can a people wag their moral fingers at the Germans while at the same time being either supportive or indifferent to murdering infants in the womb? Perhaps it is because the Germans were too scientific in their approach, too cold and inhuman, too blunt in their aim, too honest about their goals, too messy in their methods, too dirty in their task. If these be the reasons why the German death camp sends shivers down the backs of people, how can they feel ambivalent towards abortion?

If the Germans are to be faulted for a cold scientism leading to death camps, then Americans are to be faulted with a gushing emotionalism which trumps reason leading to Planned Parenthood "clinics" [sic]. If they were too blunt about their practice (Calling for a "Final Solution"), we are simply dishonest and refuse to say what it is we actually are doing, even the term "abortion" is an obfuscation. If they are to be faulted for being too messy in their murders, we are too sanitary and too clean; to kill a child is a mere "procedure".

The Germans carried out their ethnic cleansing attempting to hasten the evolutionary process; in America the killing of children is done primarily in order to maintain a certain lifestyle or because having a child would be inconvenient. The Germans saw certain races and people groups as un-persons and their lack of rights warranted their deaths; in America, the murder of babies is conducted because the woman is so overflowing with rights that she has the right to murder. Theirs was a butchery done teeming with masculinity, with chest poundings, with "Zieg Heils!", and a frank logical methodology; ours is a slaughter being conducted effeminately, with bra burnings, "Stay out of our vaginas!", and a muddled blend of idiotic talk about rights.

The Nazis were better than us. Or rather, we aren't better than them.

They had goals, they took the ball from Darwin and ran for the end-zone. We, well we have a society of narcissistic whiners with a raging sense of entitlement who think the world exists to serve them and they will kill to maintain their idea of pleasure. For my part, I'd rather be killed in a death camp by some sociopathic-Darwinist-eugenicist shooting for the perfect man, than in the womb of some club-hopping-"Dancing With the Stars"-watching-narcissist seeking their own pleasure. At least I'd have been killed by someone who thinks their are working for the greater good.

Both will be condemned in the Last Day. Yet, perhaps it may be more tolerable for Sodom, Gomorrah, Berlin and Auschwitz than for Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles in the Day of Judgement.

The Courage to Say, "It Stinks"

"The parable of the sower"

Postmodernity is like the classic movie monster "The Blob" that absorbed everything in its wake. In no area of life does this seem more true than that of aesthetics and the arts. We are told that there are no forms of music that are superior to others, nor any art that is better than others; all is in the eye of the beholder, all is subjective, mere opinion. I am here to say, balderdash. I want you dear reader to stand erect, with a stiff upper lip, a critical eye or ear, and to courageously declare, "It stinks." without feeling as though you have committed some sort of blaspheme.

The fear to call a form of art bad came rushing back to my mind this weekend, as I was in a chapel that houses what has to be among the more ridiculous portraits in churches. It is Jesus, looking like the type of stern vagrant one would meet at a 7-Eleven at 2 am, as the sower of his parable. His toes on one of his feet jut out from the wall a bit, giving the impression that he is walking out of the painting to ask for a dollar. Flanking him are the individuals represented in Christ's parable of the sower. In the background is the city of Jerusalem, and beyond that the two towers from NYC smoldering, after the 9/11 attacks (unfortunately I could not get a picture that captures all of this).

The humorous thing to myself is that when I asked other people in the chapel what they thought about this monstrosity, the reply I got was, "Oh wow! I just noticed that! Woah that is awesome!" Another person, who I could tell was looking at the thing with a jaundiced eye, replied, "It's alright." People are simply afraid to say that an artistic expression is bad.

So, let me lead the charge and say it, "It stinks."

Apart from the second commandment issues, many depictions of of Christ are just plain creepy; this painting is no exception in that regard. Don't get me wrong, this wasn't an easy piece to make, it took a great deal of talent to produce it, so it has that going for it. It is huge, made with oils, and vibrant. The unfortunate result was a huge, oily, vibrant 9/11 level artistic catastrophe on the chapel wall.

The painting in the chapel reminds me of the steady stream of unwittingly irreverent art that Jon McNaughton continues to churn out. It is "God and Country" Fox News Republicanism put into art. Below is the painting, "The Empowered Man", it is part of a series of paintings (The previous one, "the forgotten man") which could conveniently be made into a comic strip. To the left you see Lincoln, Washington, Reagan, and I think Jefferson praying. On the right you see Obama prominently positioned with his hands up, in a defensive posture, as though the constitution wielding man has a string of garlic driving back his vampiric impulses. Behind Obama are the dejected faces Bill Clinton, FDR, LBJ.

"The Empowered Man"

When analyzing art one must ask what is its message? Here the message is that the constitution is apparently Heaven's gift to man; it has the power to drive back the forces of darkness (Obama, Bill Clinton, LBJ), and it is cheered by the likes of Lincoln. Nevermind that Lincoln was head of the bloodiest anti-constitutional presidential administration in American history; here is Lincoln again portrayed as a national saint. Also, note the kneeling of Jefferson. What is he kneeling before? This kneeling with abject reverence before the constitution is a repeating theme in McNaughton's work. Americana is the god in McNaughton's work. As such, it stinks.

"One Nation Under God"

Above is another example of McNaughton's work. The message is right to the point, the constitution is God's gift to man. It is interesting the think about the type of personality which this kind of art would appeal to; on second thought, no, it really isn't that interesting. There is no mystery here, there is no invitation to contemplate, and no question as to what exactly the artist means. McNaughton's work is to art what a strip club is to romance, it is cheap, to the point, wholly artificial, and utterly lacking in mystery. In other words, it is propaganda. Other than that the paintings themselves aren't half bad.

Art is not purely subjective, like one's favorite ice cream, or roller coaster ride. Some works are better than others and in our context it takes great courage to say that a song, painting, or even an outfit is shabby. Relativism rules in art and aesthetics in our day; where else do all of the squares on canvases, or pajama wearing Wal-Mart goers come from? It's high time for a Renaissance in beauty, this will only come through vigorously reclaiming objective standards in art and aesthetics.

The Tie That Binds Thomas Kinkade and Obama

In a discussion with friends of mine regarding art, the obligatory discussion of Thomas Kinkade arose; leading to my friend making an insightful comment concerning Kinkade's work, "You can't paint stuff like that and not be a moral degenerate." That's one of those kind of statements you need to ruminate on.

Kinkade's work is in a style that is of the manipulatively sentimental. Kinkade's intentional appeal is wholly different from the sentimentality of say the "Precious Moments" cherubic figurines, which has its place among children and women of a certain aesthetic bent; or a man who has his framed football jersey from his Alma-mater on his wall. The Kinkadian style has a shamelessness in its sentimental appeal, it is bold and frank in its appeal to your heartstrings. The question then is, what kind of person does that?

Kinkade, the self described "Painter of Light" tm, it turns out was something less than paragon of virtue. A snapshot of his escapades range from sending prints of his work to people who paid for the original painting, to scrawling out a will bequeathing his estate to his longtime mistress while obviously under the influence of some substance. Kinkade died of a drug overdose at age 54. The estate battle between Kinkade's wife and his will-written-in crayon-on-a-bar-napkin-wielding-mistress has recently been settled in secret. That's the kind of guy who slaps "Jesus-fish" on paintings or, supposedly hides an "N" in every work out of devotion to his wife, Nanette.

I would like to now assert a link between Barack Obama and Thomas Kinkade. On Wednesday Obama announced his plan regarding guns in America, he did so while surrounded by children. When we look at this spectacle like adults, we see this for the shameless emotional appeal that it really is. The message being delivered here by Obama, is loud and clear, if you care about kids you will support my ideas regarding gun laws. Yet, like the boy attesting to the fact that the emperor has no clothes, to point out the obvious merely invites derision and howls from the boobery.

So, let me conclude on this note, Obama's stunt on Wednesday was so bold in its emotional reaching, so brazen, so obvious, that it might have, it just might have caused Kinkade to blush and murmur a little were he among the living. But, in the end I think Kinkade would have to tip his hat to another master of the same trade. The unfortunate difference between Kinkade and Obama is that we don't have to suffer our homes to be cluttered with Kinkade's work, if only Obama's influence were so.

The Reasoning of Prohibitionist Busibodies Overthrown

Piers Morgan

The tragic murders of the school children in CT has brought us yet again into the midst of a bombardment of emotional arguments regarding guns. The arguments never seem to change, just the faces, there just appears to be more of them now, and they are getting louder. A group of celebrities have taken up the moral crusade against guns in a recent video calling for government to act, they never get around to telling us what exactly it is they want done. When you go to the web site that the celebrities are touting you will find that it was formed by a group of mayors, of the Bloombergian ilk, and their ultimate goal is a total gun ban. Professional blowhard, Bob Costas, used the unfortunate murder/suicide of an NFL player to lecture football viewers about the evils of guns. The Costasian logic reached its peak as he firmly asserted that if it were not for guns, 2 people would still be alive this day.

Mellisa Harris (hyphen) Perry

Cable news seems to be a never failing stream of irrational arguments regardless of the topic, and they are doing their best not to disappoint on this one. CNN's Piers Morgan is calling for a total gun ban while smearing Larry Pratt with villainous names along with the standard "You don't care about people!" schtick. Others, who prefer the Cultural Marxist staple of group politics, can get a helping of arguments asserting that those who don't support gun control are in reality racists; because blacks are statistically more effected by gun violence than whites. A pristine specimen of this shameless racial agitation, is MSNBC's Melissa Harris (hyphen) Perry's segment, regarding the apparent murder of 17 year old Jordan Russel Davis in Florida. Davis' death was caused by Michael Dunn, a man who got upset over the obnoxiously loud music pouring out of the SUV Davis was a passenger in. After having his request for them to turn the music down ignored, Dunn proceeded to fire a gun wildly into the vehicle. Not to miss an opportunity to inject race into everything, all that the faces on MSNBC could talk about was Davis' blackness, Dunn's whiteness, the evil of guns and stand your ground laws. None of which is relevant to the actual case.

Shane Claiborne

To continue with our examples of the anti-gun frenzy that is being stoked, a news paper which published the addresses of gun owners, in an attempt to shame them, has hypocritically resorted hiring armed guards because the "feel threatened". The NRA is incessantly being attacked and vilified, as though it endorses the murder of the children in CT. Statistics and graphs about guns and violence continue to pour out, which somehow in and of themselves make the case that the State needs to further restrict gun ownership. Even Christians have not been immune to gun fever. Ultra hipster "emergent-Christian" Shane Claiborn has thrown in what passes for his thoughts on the subject of the NRA; the result, yet another tiresome attempt to paint Jesus as a pacifist pinko who hates guns and votes Democrat. Still other churches are participating in "gun buy back" programs (how the State can "buy back" what was never theirs to begin with is a mystery in istself), in an attempt to clean up the streets. In summation, everyone with collectivist inklings is getting in on this gun bashing party.

In response to all of this one phrase strikes it all down, and reveals all the aforementioned rantings, statistics, howls and shrieks, for the sophomorisms that they are:

Abusus non tollit usum

In English, "Abuse does not remove use"

The marrow here is simply that the abuse of something does not eliminate a rightful use of that same thing. Violations of this historically are numerous; one of the most charming examples, in my thinking, is alcohol prohibition. Alcohol prohibitionists had their statistics. They had their vocal supporters, weeping over the evils of booze. They too had many churches supporting their attempt at idiocarcy. They too couched their position in cultural Marxist group think, banning booze you see would uplift and protect women, and keep the husband home. It was even patriotic to ban booze, since this would eliminate the financial support of German (evil) owned beer companies, and in general lead to the betterment of society. Therefore, alcohol needs to be outlawed.

The problem here again is that the abuse of alcohol, which is a real problem, does not therefore mean that alcohol has no legitimate use; regardless of John MacArthur's wild arguments. One can easily imagine a man who drinks a beer or two each night, doesn't get falling down drunk, doesn't beat his wife, provides for his family, cuddles with kittens, and loves Christ through drinking wine on the Lord's Day. The guy who gets drunk regularly, lashes out in violent fits, has numerous kids he doesn't provide for, kicks puppies, and is never home does not eliminate the rightful use of alcohol through his debauchery. The alcohol isn't the problem, the character of the man is the problem.

Luther with his usual charming wit speaks to this very thing when he writes:

“Do you suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused? Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we then prohibit and abolish women?”

Women, tastefully dressed

If you think it far flung to abolish women, the burka is in essence this very thing. The burka is the prohibitionist mindset in action par-excallence. Think about it, a pretty woman walks into a room, men might lust after her, be tempted to fornicate, or commit adultery. The answer is obvious, cover all women in blankets.

We can imagine abuse and rightful use of countless things, cars, antibiotics, drugs, kitchen knives, a moat filled with man eating fish, lawn darts, gasoline, pitbulls, a slip n slide, a nice stereo system and even computers. Many of the aforementioned items have been banned, or regulated for our own good by prohibitionists.

Coming back to the initial matter of guns and the media, we needn't deal with the statistics, the size of ammo clips, Pier's Morgan's accent, or the tiresome race card, none of that is relevant. Just like anything else guns can be misused, but, like anything else they can be used rightly. We can easily imagine a man saving his family from a group of nihilistic thugs attacking his home, or a woman stopping a would be rapist. But if your imagination is a touch weak you needn't imagine, as a gun owner recently stopped a would be mass shooter from loading up mall shoppers with lead. No, the media isn't talking about that one.

The odd thing is that people seem to know that there is a legitimate use for guns intuitively, which is why none of the gun grabbing crowd is calling for disarming the police, secret service, celebrity security guards, or the troops. No one seems serious about making government buildings gun free zones. After all, if it's such a good idea to subject school kids to gun free zones because they enhance safety, why not start with the the Capital Building, or the White House? Why the State gets excluded from all of its enactments is another post altogether.

To conclude, all prohibitionist arguments rest upon the fallacy that the abuse of a thing trumps legitimate use of a thing. This is appealing for the reason that the abuse of a thing is a real problem, a problem we want to solve, and many erroneously jump to the conclusion that banning the object is the solution. Couple that with race baiting, pseudo moral platitudes, statistics, British accents and you have a movement. However, the real problem is not the thing in and of itself, but rather, the heart of man, which is fallen and so radically corrupt that no government enactment banning items or substances can fix.