Politickles

Mississippi voters are likely to be the first in the nation to add to their state constitution “personhood” language that declares unborn children to be persons, effectively outlawing abortion and setting up a potential Supreme Court showdown. . . . – Washington Times

A veil in Manoppello, kept secret for centuries and only recently reemerging, illustrates Christ’s resurrection in a way that will change the world. – Zenit

Like George Burns used to say, “I’m happy to be here. Of course, at my age, I’m happy to be anywhere.” We’re not that old, but we are happy to be here — or anywhere, for that matter.

A severe tornado hit us on Good Friday, around 7:30 in the evening. We’d never been through one before. The warning sirens had been sounding all day, so we weren’t paying much attention to them anymore. All of a sudden, the wind got real loud and there was no doubt what it was. We made it down the steps to a safer spot just before the lights went out.

Most of our trees are down, but the house is relatively unscathed. Homes just down the street were obliterated. No one killed, amazingly enough.

It’s been like Mardi Gras for mutants ever since — a steady stream of people walking by in shock, emergency vehicles galore, storm chasers looking to make a quick buck, cars turning around in our driveway every 30 seconds because the road’s blocked off at the corner.

The whole family’s been working in the yard all day long every day, cutting up trees and dragging branches out to the street for the cleanup crews. With just one handsaw and a pair of clippers, we might have gotten discouraged, but the neighbors on both sides hopped over the fence with chainsaws to help out.

We just got power & phone back yesterday morning. If not for the contractor who lives next door, we’d still be out. He and an electrician friend reconnected the meter, mast, and weatherhead that had been torn from the house; without those in place, the utility company would not have hooked us up again and we would still be in the dark. He also reconnected our phone line long before the phone company showed up. And he ran us a line from his generator the morning after the storm, so we were able to keep the fridge going and charge cell phones in the meantime.

It’ll take weeks, maybe months, to clear up the backyard, and the place will never look the same. It was very private before and now is very open. Perhaps that’s what we need.

We couldn’t cook for Easter, so one of our daughters and her boyfriend took our food to his dad’s kitchen (he’s a caterer), cooked everything, brought it back to us in a hotbox, and we ate by candle light. It was the best Easter ever.

Friday evening tornado leveled most of our trees. Houses just down the street were demolished.

Feel free to publish, post, or pass on Your Weekly Politickle by F.R. Duplantier:

GOOD FRIDAY
When tornadoes come whirling your way,
You get down on your knees and you pray:
You’re just glad you’re not dead,
Have a roof overhead –
Nothing else seems to matter that day.

From the archive:

SURVIVOR
You strive and you strive and you strive
Until, finally, at last you arrive!
Then you lose your nice home —
Everything that you own —
And thank God that at least you’re alive.
(2005)

KATRINA
There are times in our lives to restart,
Times when everything comes apart:
Do you know what it means
To miss New Orleans
When that’s where you left your heart?
(2005)

SEPTEMBER 11TH
“Kissed my loved one at the door.
No idea what lay in store.
In the tower
Not an hour.
Now my loved one is no more.”
(2005)

Last week’s verse:

POSITION STATEMENT
While walking with the abbot,
Which was his daily habit,
A monk who spied
Hares side by side
Said, “That’s the east-er rabbit!”

Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

This evening we gather against the evocative backdrop of the Roman Colosseum. We are summoned by the Word just proclaimed to join Pope Benedict XVI along Jesus’ Way of the Cross.

Let us turn our inward gaze to Christ and implore him with hearts afire: “I beg you, Lord: Say to my soul: I am your salvation! Say it, that I may hear it!”

Christ’s comforting voice blends with the delicate thread of our “yes,” and the Holy Spirit, the finger of God, weaves within us the solid web of a faith full of consolation and guidance.

To follow, to believe, and to pray: these are the simple and sure steps which guide our journey along the Way of the Cross, and gradually enable us to glimpse the path of Truth and Life.

(Text of the meditations prepared for Good Friday’s Stations of the Cross at the Roman Colosseum)

In a new book called Faith of the Fatherless, [Paul] Vitz examines the psychology of atheism and concludes that the unwillingness of such noted figures as Voltaire, Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and Bertrand Russell to believe in a personal, loving God can be traced to defective relationships with their own fathers. — F.R. Duplantier, Behind The Headlines, 1999

From 1995 to 2001, I wrote a nationally syndicated daily radio and newspaper commentary called “Behind The Headlines,” applying the principles of free enterprise, limited government, and traditional morality to the issues of the day. It was the best job I ever had. My boss was Phyllis Schlafly, the best boss I ever had.

I frequently devoted commentaries to the latest, most provocative books coming out of the new conservative publishing houses (and imprints) that were popping up all over back then. One such book was Paul Vitz’s Faith of the Fatherless, to which I devoted two commentaries: the one excerpted above, and a second. I subsequently had the opportunity to interview Vitz when I sat in for Phyllis on her Saturday morning radio show, “Phyllis Schlafly Live.”

Maybe you don’t believe in the power of prayer. If you’ve lost your faith, or never had it, but would like a convincing demonstration of the power of prayer, then this challenge is for you. Find today’s date on the calendar. Flip six months ahead and mark that date. Now, starting today, pray for faith. Pray for faith every day, at least once a day, for six months. Pray sincerely, pray with all your heart, and one day — on or before the date you’ve marked — you’ll suddenly notice that all your doubts have vanished. In their place you’ll find an abiding faith, and you’ll never question again the power of prayer. — F.R. Duplantier

I actually did this in my mid-twenties. Having convinced myself that I didn’t need a “crutch,” I stopped going to church when I was 15 and began a lengthy period of unconscious moral decline — which culminated, fortunately, in an epiphany in which I recognized, and summoned the courage to admit, that I had become a moral cripple. I did need a crutch, after all. The seemingly insurmountable problem was that I no longer had any faith. I wasn’t a staunch unbeliever, merely an agnostic (never have understood how anyone could affirm God’s nonexistence), but the unquestioning faith I’d known as a child was utterly gone. How could I get it back?

The solution was paradoxical: I would pray for it. It seemed like a crazy idea, especially for an intensely logical person like me. How could I pray when I didn’t really believe in God, much less the efficacy of prayer? Why would God listen to the prayers of a faithless person like me? It was illogical, it didn’t make any sense, but I didn’t know what else to do. So I prayed.

It wasn’t much of a prayer, either, for I’d forgotten how to pray. I just asked for my faith back. Please, God, let me believe again.

I did that every day, several times a day, for weeks or months — I’m not sure how long, because I have no idea exactly when my faith was restored. I never could pinpoint the precise moment, because it came back quite unobtrusively. I just happened to notice one day that the doubt was gone, completely gone, never to return. Where the emptiness had been, there was fullness. It was a nice feeling.

Five more years passed before I actually ventured into a church again, but I had begun the journey home.

EASTER MORNING
On Easter morn I woke before dawn
To play the Easter rabbit.
My children’s hunt would follow soon,
The yearly Easter habit.

I hid the eggs so colorful, ETC.

I wrote “Easter Morning” for my father in 1974 or ’75 after seeing the sadness in his eyes when my youngest sister, then 8 or 9, declined his offer to stage an Easter egg hunt for her. The last of his kids had grown up. With my own youngest daughter now ten, the hunts may be near an end for me, too. Or maybe not. I may be spared the sorrow of a lapsed family ritual, for even my oldest kids still enjoy a good Easter egg hunt.

Feel free to publish, post, or pass on Your Weekly Politickle by F.R. Duplantier:

POSITION STATEMENT
While walking with the abbot,
Which was his daily habit,
A monk who spied
Hares side by side
Said, “That’s the east-er rabbit!”

From the archive:

HOLY WEEK
So begins the passion play:
Evil triumphs for a day,
But Friday’s cross
Redeems our loss
And confirms us in the Way.
(2009)

NATIVITY
Tell me how can an innocent Child –
Holy Infant, so tender and mild –
Be the object of scorn
From the moment He’s born:
Rejected, resented, reviled?
(2005)

MEA CULPA
How fully prim piety fails
And scarcely scapegoating avails
When I add my own ration
To Christ’s frightful passion
And with my hands help drive in the nails.
(2004)

PASSION
Critics say it’s a judgmental story
With scenes that are overly gory,
But that’s what you’re liable
To read in the Bible
Of sacrifice leading to glory.
(2003)

P.C. (POST CHRISTIAN)
The other children teased her
For being a faithful feaster:
When the pagan takes
His seasonal breaks,
She celebrates Christmas and Easter.
(2002)

BASKET CASE
My obesity just isn’t funny
And I’m suing for bundles of money:
When a basket of candy
Is too full and too handy,
Who’s to blame but the old Easter Bunny?
(2005)

RABBIT REACTION
John Kerry’s “bunny day”
Was such a funny day,
But to friends in France
His silly stance
Was not a “bonne idée.”
(2004)

Last week’s verse:

BASIC ECONOMICS
You’ve got thousands in debt to repay,
But you can’t make that debt go away
If you keep on defending
Your gross overspending
Or you cut back just pennies a day.