Magic Statistics

From an essay on Advent written by Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest condemned as a traitor for his opposition to Hitler. He wrote this in a Nazi prison shortly before he was hanged in 1945. It's posted at the website of Bruderhof Communities.

[W]e have stood on this earth in false pathos, in false security; in our spiritual insanity we really believed we could, with the power of our own hand and arm, bring the stars down from heaven and kindle flames of eternity in the world. We believed that with our own forces we could avert the dangers and banish night, switch off and halt the internal quaking of the universe. We believed we could harness everything and fit it into a final order that would stand.

Here is the message of Advent: faced with him who is the Last, the world will begin to shake. Only when we do not cling to false securities will our eyes be able to see this Last One and get to the bottom of things. Only then will we be able to guard our life from the frights and terrors into which God the Lord has let the world sink to teach us, so that we may awaken from sleep, as Paul says, and see that it is time to repent, time to change things. It is time to say, All right, it was night; but let that be over now and let us be ready for the day. We must do this with a decision that comes out of these very horrors we have experienced and all that is connected with them; and because of this our decision will be unshakable even in uncertainty.

Read the whole thing.

via Drell's Descants.

UPDATE (9 Dec.): Bruderhof Communites has gone offline, so the full essay is no longer available. More information here.

Michael Gove writes in the [UK] Times that this is a tough question for him. He and his wife have two small children, and every pound spent on the wife is one less to spend on the kids. Also, one must also keep in mind the duty to leave an inheritance for future generations. He also believes that spending household savings on presents for Mrs Gove diminishes her personal autonomy.

My wife and I have one joint bank account between us. Into that pot goes all our earnings. And from that source comes all our expenditure. So when I buy a Christmas present for my wife, paid for by a cheque drawn on that account, I am simultaneously reducing the amount of money available to her for buying the items she has determined she needs. In other words, I am deciding what is good for her.

We all know how much we hate it when the government does that to us, so it behooves us not to do that to our loved ones. Yet, when the big day arrives, he doesn't think his wife would accept his existential anxiety in lieu of a present.

But I know that if I tried either of those lines on Mrs Gove to explain the total absence of items under the tree with her name on them, her first thought would not be admiration for the perfect philosophical rigour of my ethical reasoning. She would, quite rightly, conclude that I was a cruel, heartless, unfeeling brute who was hiding behind general principles that proclaimed respect for others while showing none through my practical actions.

Sometimes ya just can't win. He falls back on the Golden Rule.

The answer to most questions is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I just hope that my wife enjoys reading the third volume of Robert A. Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson over January as much as I will.

Here are the opening paragraphs from a Times of London article headlined Muslim peace rally attracts thousands.

More than 20,000 British Muslims gathered yesterday at a conference in London, the largest meeting of its kind to be held in Europe.

Ken Livingstone, Michael Mansfield, QC, and the former Pakistan cricketers Saeed Anwar and Imran Khan were among the speakers promoting global peace and unity.

And here's an excerpt from an eye-witness account of what actually went on:

The eminent barrister Michael Mansfield QC, wearing black and white keffiyah scarf, shouted into the mike about the heinous crimes of the Western coalition countries. The crowd chanted and thundered its appreciation.

The terrifying demagogue George Galloway ascended the podium and exhorted the crowd to stand up for the redemption of the oppressed Muslim world or else the nation had better get ready for ‘rioting in every street in Britain.’

The ‘slaughter in Palestine and Iraq’ being only part of the equation, Chechnya, Bosnia and Kashmir were also mentioned all day by every speaker including a crazed, chador-clad Yvonne Ridley, who at any moment I expected to self-immolate, such was her fury at the Zionists, the Americans and her fellow Britons. To my utter disbelief, she condemned the British police force as some form of fascist brigade in ‘jackboot Britain.’

Bosnia? Isn’t that where NATO forces liberated Kosovo for Muslims?

To all of these exhortations came cries of ‘Alllahu Akhbar’ from the enormous, simmering crowd of what looked to me like the angriest gathering of young men and women with whom I have ever had the misfortune to be seated in my lifetime.

The concluding paragraph is particularly disturbing:

In this same week, Polly Toynbee has written a scathing piece about the repulsive nature of Christian imagery in 'The Chronicles of Narnia.' She condemns religion in general but has particularly venomous feelings about traditional Christianity. Dare I say it was this faith that sustained Britain in its Churchillian 'darkest hours?' Wake up, dear, tolerant Britons, and stop expending energy on hatred of America, Zionists and your own Church and recognise the destructive turmoil within your shores before it is too late.

The Chronicles of Narnia—a series of children's books, for pity's sake—is to be denounced, but thousands of Muslims spewing anti-Western hatred at a "peace" rally in London isn't worth mentioning. The writing is on the wall, brighter than ever now, but European secularists still refuse to read it.

Read the whole thing—and weep.

via Melanie Phillips's Diary.

Mike the Geek, aka The Waffling Anglican, has tagged me with the dreaded list of seven sevens meme. I saw this at Rebecca’s blog last week, and I didn’t respond to her requests for volunteers to join in. But now that I’ve been specifically named, in hopes of showing that I’m a good sport (hah!), here goes.

1. Seven things to do before I die (listed in order of decreasing likelihood of actually happening).

• Marry off the StatDaughter and see my grandchildren
• Spend at least six weeks traveling throughout Ireland
• Immerse myself in Haydn’s String Quartets
• Tour the Holy Land with a small group of friends
• Catch up on my reading–and then:
• Read Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
• Become fluent in Latin

2. Seven things I cannot do.

• Sing well
• Understand the appeal of Survivor and other so-called reality TV shows
• Play a musical instrument
• Abide sentimentality
• Sleep in past 7:00 am on weekends
• Save me from myself
• Take care of plants

3. Seven things that attract me to my spouse. I hesitated a little over this one because there is really one thing that initially attracted me to my wife, namely, that the Lord let me know that he had chosen her to be my wife. I really had no choice in the matter. For that, I am eternally grateful. The whole, long-winded story is posted here. Now, back to the regularly scheduled list.

• Her great sense of humour
• She shares an interest in learning about God and the church
• Her generosity of spirit
• She puts up with my laziness and selfishness
• She’s a wonderful mother
• Her encouragement and support
• She’s a nurse

4. Seven things I say most often.

• Actually . . .
• If you must.
• What’s the source of these data?
• Yeah, right!
• Wanna coffee?
• What’s for supper?
• Non sequitur!

5. Seven books (or series) I love.

• Book of Common Prayer
• Gilead
• Jesus and the Victory of God
• Six by Lewis: The Abolition of Man, The Great Divorce, Mere Christianity, Miracles, The Problem of Pain, The Screwtape Letters [box set]
• Saving Grandma
• The Spirit of Early Christian Thought
• A Prayer for the Dying

6. Seven movies I watch over and over again (or would watch over and over if I had the time).

• Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth
• Standing In the Shadows of Motown
• The Complete Naked Gun Set
• Gray’s Anatomy
• The Apostle
• The Commitments
• The Complete Marx Brothers

7. Seven people I want to join in, too.

• The first seven to leave a comment saying they want to participate.