CON’S STANCE

A Sullivan on his latest, The Conservative Soul: Fundamentalism, Freedom, and the Future of the Right:

The book is about politics, but its core subject is really faith. In my head, I’m sketching a book devoted entirely to Christianity, and what a modern person with eyes open and head cleared can truly still believe.

Which reminds me of a Facebook group wall post by James P. Pinkerton,

…I ran across that word, irenicon, on pg. 66 of Adam Nicolson’s 2003 book, “God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible.”

Nicolson’s ultimate point is that the King James I, who came to the throne of a united England and Scotland in 1603, intended for the KJV to be more than just a monument to him–he intended for it to be a unifying body of work for all of England, in the spirt of the Union Jack, which dates from that era: 1606.

Just as great orators have been known for galvanizing nations with their words, so, too, with great writers–and even great committees of writers, as in the six “companies” that worked on the KJV from 1604 to 1611.

But let Nicolson tell the tale: “The Bible was to become party of the new royal ideology. Elizabeth had portrayed herself as a Protestant champion against the powers of Rome and Spain. That was out of date. James, Rex Pacificus, was to make the Bible part of the large-scale redefinition of England. It had the potential to become, in the beautiful phrase of the time, an ‘irenicon,’ a thing of peace, a means by which the divisions of the chruch, and of the country as a whole, could be encompassed in one unifying fabric founded on the divine authority of the king.”

It takes nothing away from the power of the Bible as the Word of God–which I believe that it is–to say that the Bible can also fulfill other functions here in this lower realm. Specifically, the Bible can be irenic (from Eirene, the Greek goddess of peace); so, too, the Bible can be peace-making and harmonizing–just as King James intended.

An excellent review of Nicolson’s book can be found here, in the 5/26/03 edition of The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/05/26/030526crbo_books?currentPage=1

The question before us is this: Is there a new irenicon for the world? Or at least for Christendom? For the West?

As I watched my grandma laying on her deathbed in her final hours, paralyzed by her fully aged body and heaving loudly and rhythmically for air, I wondered what she must have been thinking about. I couldn’t help but imagine what my own death will be like, and what I will think about during those last days/months/years of complete dependence upon others for the simple daily upkeep I consistently take for granted in the present. Will I regret grudges held and friends lost? Will I be proud of the way I lived my life and the way I treated others?

I sort of feel like we’re laying on our national death bed. Do we regret our collective deceits and societal failings? Will we take this final opportunity at salvation, let go of the massive amount of self-pride we’ve accumulated in favor of redemption? What are we if we do not love? What are we if we do not forgive?

I think we’re faced with a couple of choices, all of us. We can either live under the false self-perception as victims, bitter and cynical in our outlook on life and relationships, harboring un-dealt with pain that like a perverted diamond is transformed into hate and mistrust. Or, we can love and accept love by consciously choosing to seek meaning over the constant temptation to hierarchically separate ourselves from each other, whether that system is based on self-righteous morality or on arbitrary personal tastes. What will really matter, in the end? What will you be replaying in your mind, when it’s all over?

Maybe we have to ‘die’ before we can truly live. Isn’t that the meaning of the suffering of Christ?

‘It’s not a matter of reason or justice. We all get involved in a moment of emotion and then we cannot get out. War and Love - they always have been compared.’ He looked sadly across the dormitory to where the métisse sprawled in her great temporary peace. He said, ‘I would not have it otherwise. There is a girl who was involved by her parents - what is her future when this port falls? France is only half her home…’

‘Will it fall?’

‘You are the journalist. You know better than I do we can’t win. You know the road to Hanoi is cut and mined every night. You know we lose one class of St Cyr every year. We were nearly beaten in ‘50. De Lattre has given us two years of grace - that’s all. But we are professionals: we have to go on fighting till the politicians tell us to stop. Probably they will get together and agree to the same peace that we could have had at the beginning, making nonsense of all these years.’ His ugly face which had winked at me before the dive wore a kind of professional brutality like a Christmas mask from which a child’s eyes peer through the holes in the paper. ‘You would not understand this nonsense, Fowler. You are not one of us.’

‘There are other things in one’s life which make nonsense of the years…’

[Graham Greene's The Quiet American/Amazon.com]

We’re taking a break. Maybe a long one, maybe a short one, but a break nonetheless. We’ll be back when we’ve tapped back into our the source of creative energy.

Most relevant South Park ever.

What would happen if the Internet stopped? A couple of days ago the Internet & TV in my neighborhood went out, and my mom srsly asked me where she could go to check her email. I told her to meditate. Maybe we all need to meditate.

Because it feels like a waste of time. Sometimes I wonder if what I spend energy caring about even matters.

‘It’s not the first time I made a misstatement that was mangled up, and it won’t be the last,’ said Obama, with refreshing candor. But candor is dangerous in a national campaign, what with network newsniks waiting for mistakes or foul-ups like dogs panting for treats after performing a trick. The networks’ trick is covering an election with as little emphasis on issues as possible, then blaming everyone else for failing to focus on ‘the issues.’

[The Washington Post]

Not real.

A rolling haze of nothing. That’s all I see and hear and feel until a faint sound pings at my mind like a stone tossed down a well. I roll over and pick up my cell phone. Five minutes past 11. Damn it, I think. I was dreaming I was having a near-life experience. Whether this is true or not, I cannot recall. I never remember what I dream.

[Kaboom War Journal]

A blog worth bookmarking.

[Ecorazzi]

Just in time for Benedict XVI’s visit.

We are members of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States who are supporting the campaign of Senator Barack Obama of Illinois to be the next President of the United States — and urging others of our faith to do the same. We are real, honest-to-goodness, practicing Catholics who embrace and call attention to Catholic Social Teaching, which the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops describes as ‘wisdom about building a just society and living lives of holiness amidst the challenges of modern society.’

[Roman Catholics for Obama]

Gone? Will the bitter cont. change the almost decisive shift?

[Pollster]

Andrew Sullivan fleshes it out:

I certainly find it hard to understand the rise of Islamism without understanding the abject political and economic failure of many Arab states to respond to the genuine desires and needs of their citizens. In fact, I thought this link between the bitterness created by unrepresentative political institutions, economic failure and Islamism was a core feature of neoconservative thought.

Obviously, the frustration is much greater in the Arab world - but their fundamentalism is at another extreme level as well. That doesn’t mean that there is no connection between fundamentalism and economic/cultural/political frustration. The rise of anti-Semitism and homophobia in Christianity in the early middle ages also correlates with economic depression and political malaise. And I think the rise of Christianism as an absolutist, defensive and outsider-leery form of Christianity in this millennium is absolutely connected in some cases to economic and political alienation. Note: in some cases. Obviously, wealth and fundamentalism are not crudely correlated - wealthy people and self-confident people can also embrace rigid faith. Osama was very rich. So is Pat Robertson. This is complicated. The truth is buried in there somewhere. Which is why it’s better not to think out loud in public when you’re running for office.

Leave that kind of recklessness to bloggers like me.

I wish Andrew Sullivan was straight. And in his early twenties.