This video is just… brilliant.

Midway through, the little boy says, “…You just had two babies, and you keep loving them forever, and not having another baby between us…”

Right there, is undeniable truth that those two children in the backseat of that vehicle are truly LOVED by those wonderful parents. He is loved so much, he does not want to see his love “divided”.  The child responds exactly how a child is supposed to.

Now as he continues to grow in love, he will become more attuned to the beauty of love’s selfless giving. And, more importantly, if he grows up Christian (God willing!!!), that child will learn that there is a Name for that Love, and that there is no greater image of love than what is signified on the Cross of Calvary. And if that child grows up receiving the Most Holy Eucharist, LOVE HIMSELF will fuse with the very DNA of that boy who will certainly come to understand one day that having “another baby between us” is the greatest act of love we mere humans can propagate.

Okay. Maybe a little too deep.

At least you laughed at the part where the kid says “this makes no sense.”

Life’s little lessons.  They come from the strangest places.

Life is good, eh?

One of my favourite albums is “The Nightfly” by Donald Fagen.

(It came out a year after Steely Dan called it quits, but I was too young to be broken up about it.)

The song “New Frontier” was Fagen’s way of needling the nuclear war fear-mongers of the day. (…remember Ultravox’s “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes”?… man, I used to eat that shit up.)

As I watch the video for “New Frontier”, I’m reminded that the song was as far removed from the video’s “Red Scare” theme as we are now to those golden days of good, early 80’s tunes.

JFK spoke of a New Frontier. These days, I’m still trying to get my head around George HW Bush’s comments on a New World Order.

Funny, but I don’t see or hear many people around these days guffawing at the prospects of bombs flying overhead somewhere in the not-so-distant future.

And dammit, I don’t even have a bomb shelter.

“Western Catholics, especially since The Asteroid (™) hit in the mid-1960s, have been steadily drained of an appreciation of the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary, and have been indoctrinated with Protestant-atheist ideas that A.) their sins aren’t really sins at all and thus they should NOT feel shame or guilt for them and B.) even if they do sin, God’s mercy is a given, a blanket that covers everything (ahem), so don’t even sweat it. Shame is a an antiquated, peasant concept far beneath the modern, everlasting man…. The world is going to hell IN A HANDBASKET because shame is considered a psychological defect to be overcome, and a hate crime when recommended to others.”

– Ann Barnhardt, “We Should Be Ashamed”

“I could really use, to lose my Catholic conscience,
Cuz I’m getting sick of feeling guilty all the time…”

– Great Big Sea, “Consequence Free”

“It was pride that changed angels into devils;
it is humility that makes men as angels.”

– Saint Augustine
And all of this, as folk continue to pour ice water over their heads…
and as others continue to slough off the threats of Islam and brow-beat – in a spirit of ‘ecumenism’ – those who have eyes to see…

I dunno how some of us can’t plainly see the demarcation line between the Church of Christ and this modernized Church of Man bent on laying sacrifices at the ‘selfie’ altar.

Strive for that perfect faith Our Lord commands of us. For it is in the striving towards perfection that we can be truly genuine and sincere in our love of Him who is Love.

The pre-Vatican II Church.

Half a million Catholics reciting the Holy Rosary… converging in San Francisco, of all places.

Did you get that?

San Francisco. 

Five. Hundred. Thousand. Catholics.

Wash yourselves in this photo.  Bathe in it.  Let it fill your soul.

Rinse.  Repeat.

I have a list longer than my arm of rock ‘n roll songs that – to me – have profound spiritual undertones. I concede that I will have a tough time selling this elixir to the “rock music is of the devil” crowd. And to be honest, I completely understand.

But my buddy Clayton Richard Long put forth the other day that he has a tough time letting go of rock ‘n roll music. Quote – “If there is one thing I am weak at….my vice…the one thing I find really hard to‘leave behind’ ( in order to be a good Catholic and try and live a Saintly life…of course I have many other problems. But the one thing that I just can’t seem to quit is rock n roll.”

I feel ya, brother.
He put this forth on my blog post which included lyrics of the Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil”. But Clay, maybe we have to weed through the bad to find some good? Just askin’.

All of this said, I used to love The Black Crowes. I think I still do. Their tune “Sting Me” speaks of “truth”, “tradition”, and a “recognition of that same old (human) condition”. Yes. It may be forcing it, but I’ve long interpreted this song as a shout-out to the Old Evangelization, proclaiming that any “independence is a half-assed deliverance”. Even with that Southern Baptist backing vocal, and southern-fried back-beat.
Can the faith “Sting Me”?… Right to my rotten bones?

How about you?
And, do y’all ever do that? – try to find some Christian meaning in rock songs that seem not to have any inspiration of the Divine?
Hit me up!  Lemme know!

THE BLACK CROWES LYRICS

Jason Riley: “The black man’s most notorious enemy is the black man, not the white cop.”

Meet The Press Producer in the control room: “Son of a bitch, he’s going off script! He’s going off script! Kill his mic!… Kill… No, no! (Hitting the switch to Andrea Mitchell’s IFB) Andrea! What tha hell!… Get in there… get Riley to shut the eff up!  Throw to… the… uh… the chick show strikes out dudes in little league!… yeah, that!”

BTHT The Right Scoop

DamoRadio CFRB

The Devil comes in many disguises.  Sometimes, even as the “friend”… plucking on your heart-strings.

If one thinks the “mercy card” being played in conjunction with Robin Williams’ suicide has absolutely nothing to do with the push to euthanize the disenfranchised and soften-up the baby-killing lobby, they are foolish.

Think about it.  For a moment, just think about the catch-phrases that have been tossed here and there in the aftermath.

“No choice”.

“Mercy”.

“Rest”.

“Peace”.

“Freedom”.

“Keep quiet unless you’re a woman… er… intimate with Depression.”

Be stalwart, fellow Christian. Withstand the slings and arrows.  Pray for those who persecute you.  Moreso, pray for those who are in pain.  And even MORESO, pray for those who know not YET the Prince of Peace.

“… As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
Cause I’m in need of some restraint
So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I’ll lay your soul to waste…”

“We follow orders, or people die.”

A quote from Col. Nathan R. Jessup from “A Few Good Men”?

Or maybe, just maybe, these are words best directed to Christian folk who could give two shits about the job they are mandated to perform. And when we speak of “job”, we’re not talking about the one behind the McDonald’s counter, or the one that involves pushing paper in the industrial area office, or the one where you’re donned in Armani, sunk into a leather recliner, perched on the top floor of a business high-rise, on the horn with your assistant, setting up Tuesday’s tee-time with George.

I’m talking about *that* job… the one involving souls.

And when we speak of “mandate”, that’s not by accident. We are commissioned to put our hands to the plough by an Authority way more fearful than the boss peering out his window at you, galloping to the door at 9:23 am.

From ISIS, to Robin Williams, to a pope preaching the “solemn nonsense” of proselytism, we have lived life too soft for too long.

Peace does exist. But get it through your thick skull; it ain’t here in the temporal realm.

Watch.  Learn.  Pray.