Eclectic Amateur

Today’s Office reading from the Wisdom of Solomon seems pretty up-to-the-minute:

1 For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves, “Short and sorrowful is our life, and there is no remedy when a man comes to his end, and no one has been known to return from Hades.
2 Because we were born by mere chance, and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been; because the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts.
3 When it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes, and the spirit will dissolve like empty air.
4 Our name will be forgotten in time and no one will remember our works; our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud, and be scattered like mist that is chased by the rays of the sun and overcome by its heat.
5 For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow, and there is no return from our death, because it is sealed up and no one turns back.
6 “Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist, and make use of the creation to the full as in youth.
7 Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes, and let no flower of spring pass by us.
8 Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither.
9 Let none of us fail to share in our revelry, everywhere let us leave signs of enjoyment, because this is our portion, and this our lot.
10 Let us oppress the righteous poor man; let us not spare the widow nor regard the gray hairs of the aged.
11 But let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless.
…
21 Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them,
22 and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hope for the wages of holiness, nor discern the prize for blameless souls;
23 for God created man for incorruption, and made him in the image of his own eternity,
24 but through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it.

God have mercy.

For those who aren’t following the players, The Episcopal Church has asked for a meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury (to “dialogue”, I suppose) regarding the potential expulsion of TEC from the Anglican Communion.

+++Williams has indicated that he is on vacation through the rest of the summer. Sources say that he may actually be in America part of the time, but he is still unavailable to meet with the American bishops.

Dale Price has compiled a Top Ten list of things Rowan +++Williams would rather do than be whinged at by Americans:

The Top Ten Things Rowan Williams Would Rather Do Than Meet With TEC’s Hapless Bench During His Sabbatical

10. Use a fiberglass suppository.

9. Read Forcefielder’s Choice: The Very Best of Frank Griswold.

8. Audition for American Idol by singing “My Humps,” with Simon as the only judge.

7. Become The Official Archbishop of the Detroit Lions.

6. Attend a Yoko Ono concert.

5. Be interviewed by Don Imus.

4. Headbutt a wasp’s nest.

3. Slow-dance with Courtney Love.

2. Appear on Celebrity Jeopardy: NHL Trivia Edition.

And the number one thing Archbishop Williams would rather do than meet with TEC’s Paladins of Polity:

1. Three words: Live organ transplants.

Myself, I think every time he hears his secretary says “It’s the Americans on the phone again, Rowan, what shall I do?” he simply closes his eyes and thinks of … asparagus.

I’m busy, busy, dreadfully busy
You’ve no idea what I have to do.
Busy, busy, shockingly busy
Much, much too busy for you.

(separated at birth?)

The Lord is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Some good news for Michigan:

Craftworkers carve growing niche in state’s economy

Dave Kober carves extraordinary fish decoys. Edmund Whitepigeon passes on his basket-making technique to his daughter-in-law. And Edna Harbison sells her hand-sewn quilts at her Ontonagon store.

What do these people have in common? They are part of the rich heritage of an under-the-radar group of Michiganians: craftworkers.

From the state’s 35 weaving guilds to an East Lansing-based store that is the nation’s leading seller of a high-end Swedish sewing machine, craft production is big business, according to a study released today by Michigan State University Museum and the state Department of History, Arts and Libraries (HAL). Study authors think there could be tens of thousands of crafters in Michigan.

I’ve always wanted one of these:

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Bishop Lord Zachary the Bibulous of Westessexchestershire Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Hat tip to Dale.

My previous post on the “death pledge” drew a good comment, which deserves pulling up into a post:

Usury was traditionally condemned for two reasons.

The first was that much moneylending was small amounts for personal consumption by the wasteful or desperate — rather like taking out a loan on the family farm to pay for your mother’s operation or to feed a gambling habit.

(Incidentally, farmers hate bankers — it’s sort of a natural antipathy, like dog and wolf.)

The second was a conviction that money was “sterile”, and that making it yield profit was somehow “unnatural” — partly an outgrowth of the above, and partly sheer economic primitivism.

— S. M. Stirling

I’m well aware of the farmer-banker antipathy — I’m the first of my line to not farm since… well, possibly since Adam, as far as I know.

A story: One time, and one time only, my grandfather spoke to me about Jews. He didn’t think much of them and didn’t trust them. Now, this wasn’t for any high-falutin‘ theological reason like the old “Christ-killer” epithet. The Protocols remained unmentioned. It was for a much simpler reason:

“Jews are money people, not people of the land. You can’t trust a people that don’t have a connection to the land.”

And it became blindingly obvious: one doesn’t need much in the way of theological or sociological explanations to understand why farmers hate bankers. How much, I wonder, of historic European anti-Semitism is understandable by the simple reality that most Christians were peasant farmers, and that Jews were landless bankers? (Given that Jews were forbidden to own land and were requested to be bankers, I blame Christian princes for this setup.)

I also wonder if this doesn’t help explain the fervor of Evangelical sentiment in favor of Israel. Yes, there are theological reasons — but also, emotionally, modern Israel means that Jews are people of the land now. Which, to that old farmer’s logic, now means trustworthy, folks more like us.

Given the minuscule number of modern Americans who have any connection to the land anymore, I would say we are all money people now. I wonder what my grandfather would think of that?

Back to usury: as I think about it, I’m sympathetic to the notion of money as naturally sterile. Piles of gold bars (or pictures of dead presidents) don’t grow bigger on their own.

And I confess, it’s been a long time since I studied the “dismal science,” and this is my first encounter with the phrase “economic primitivism.” I assume this refers to something definite (a preference for simpler and more direct rather than abstract economic transactions?) rather than being mere chronological snobbery?

A man who builds his house with other people’s money
is like one who gathers stones for his burial mound.

— Sirach 21:8 (RSV)

So much for the mortgage industry.

It is therefore worth remembering that the literal origin of the word ‘mortgage‘ is ‘death pledge‘.

And perhaps it is time to remember that usury has been traditionally condemned as a sin against justice.

In honor of the good King’s feast day today (in both the Catholic and Anglican calendars), I thought I’d post a bit.

James Kiefer’s mini-biography

The Royal Family’s website on King Alfred

Wikipedia’s entry for King Alfred the Great

And, of course, my motivation and introduction to King Alfred, G. K. Chesterton’s The Ballad of the White Horse:

Before the gods that made the gods
Had seen their sunrise pass,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was cut out of the grass.

Before the gods that made the gods
Had drunk at dawn their fill,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was hoary on the hill.

Age beyond age on British land,
Aeons on aeons gone,
Was peace and war in western hills,
And the White Horse looked on.

For the White Horse knew England
When there was none to know;
He saw the first oar break or bend,
He saw heaven fall and the world end,
O God, how long ago.

For the end of the world was long ago,
And all we dwell to-day
As children of some second birth,
Like a strange people left on earth
After a judgment day.
…

“The gates of heaven are lightly locked,
We do not guard our gold,
Men may uproot where worlds begin,
Or read the name of the nameless sin;
But if he fail or if he win
To no good man is told.

“The men of the East may spell the stars,
And times and triumphs mark,
But the men signed of the cross of Christ
Go gaily in the dark.

“The men of the East may search the scrolls
For sure fates and fame,
But the men that drink the blood of God
Go singing to their shame.

“The wise men know what wicked things
Are written on the sky,
They trim sad lamps, they touch sad strings,
Hearing the heavy purple wings,
Where the forgotten seraph kings
Still plot how God shall die.

“The wise men know all evil things
Under the twisted trees,
Where the perverse in pleasure pine
And men are weary of green wine
And sick of crimson seas.

“But you and all the kind of Christ
Are ignorant and brave,
And you have wars you hardly win
And souls you hardly save.

“I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.

“Night shall be thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?”
…

“I know that weeds shall grow in it
Faster than men can burn;
And though they scatter now and go,
In some far century, sad and slow,
I have a vision, and I know
The heathen shall return.

“They shall not come with warships,
They shall not waste with brands,
But books be all their eating,
And ink be on their hands.

“Not with the humour of hunters
Or savage skill in war,
But ordering all things with dead words,
Strings shall they make of beasts and birds,
And wheels of wind and star.

“They shall come mild as monkish clerks,
With many a scroll and pen;
And backward shall ye turn and gaze,
Desiring one of Alfred’s days,
When pagans still were men.

In my previous post, I had some harsh words for a certain Islamic cleric, due to his quoted commentary on Pope Benedict’s Regensburg address and the subsequent hysteria.

On further consideration, I realized that I was failing to remember the Sheaism of “subtract 50 IQ points when the MSM discusses religion.”

And also, “do not attribute to stupidity what can only be explained by malice.”

So. Why was I thinking that I could actually draw a resonable conclusion from a MSM story regarding a religious issue? I mean, they can’t even cover local (American) stories right.

Mea culpa.

No, this isn’t about “dialogue” within The Episcopal Church (although it could be).

This week, Pope Benedict XVI gave a lecture at the University of Regensburg on the relationship between faith and reason, and the importance of and legitimate position of Greek philosophy within Church teaching.

Dry stuff, eh? Not when he quotes, in the first third of his talk, the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos:

“Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

The reactions have been, unfortunately, predictable:

Across the Islamic world Friday, Benedict’s remarks on Islam and jihad in a speech in Germany unleashed a torrent of rage that many fear could burst into violent protests like those that followed publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad….

Chancellor Merkel is not cowed, and still remembers how to use the word ‘dialogue’ in its non-debauched form:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended the German-born pope, saying his message had been misunderstood.

“It is an invitation to dialogue between religions and the pope has explicitly urged this dialogue, which I also endorse and see as urgently necessary,” she said Friday. “What Benedict XVI makes clear is a decisive and uncompromising rejection of any use of violence in the name of religion.”

However, CAIR is busy using ‘dialogue’ in its debased form (meaning, “keep talking until you see things my way”):

“The proper response to the pope’s inaccurate and divisive remarks is for Muslims and Catholics worldwide to increase dialogue and outreach efforts aimed at building better relations between Christianity and Islam,” the group said.

So far, this is all SOP. Here, however, is something deserves a bit more highlighting:

“The pope and Vatican proved to be Zionists and that they are far from Christianity, which does not differ from Islam. Both religions call for forgiveness, love and brotherhood,” Shiite cleric Sheik Abdul-Kareem al-Ghazi said during a sermon in Iraq’s second-largest city, Basra.

(Side note: “Zionists”? I think al-Ghazi’s anti-Semitism is showing.)

Get that? The pope isn’t a “real” Christian, because he’s critical of Islam. Real Christianity does not differ from Islam, according to al-Ghazi. (I’m sure his Chaldean neighbors will be surprised to hear this…)

So. A Shi’ite cleric takes it upon himself to declare what “real” Christianity is — and it turns out to be just like Islam! Those “Christians” who do not accept this vision are therefore not “real” Christians, but rather “Zionists”.

An … interesting approach to inter-religious dialogue, to be sure. One that I think will be rather unproductive with non-dhimmi Christians.

It might have a chance of working at the National Cathedral, however. I hear they go in for that sort of thing.

God have mercy.