Be Strong and Holy

Worth meditating on:  Apparently the/a Greek word for “holy” also means “strong”.

In Christianity, we are called to sanctification, the lifelong process of cooperating more and more with God’s work to make us holy, pure and set apart for His service.  In one of the seeming paradoxes of Christian theology, this process also makes us spiritually stronger and stronger, even as it also makes us more and more dependent on God, the eternal Source of all goodness and love and power.

Happy Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!

A number of intrepid souls have contributed to the cause since the last time I covered drawing Mohammed:

• The awesome Bosch Fawstin celebrated Everybody Draw Mohammed Day last year by helping others celebrate Everybody Draw Mohammed Day—for those who wanted to join the cause but didn’t feel up to the task artistically, he offered to draw a Mohammed for each on their behalf; readers took him up on it, and 65 new Mohammed drawings were commissioned and sent out!

‘That is, the woman does not work because the man tells her to work and she obeys. On the contrary, the woman works because she has told the man to work and he hasn’t obeyed.’

I’ve been reading Chesterton lately (What’s Wrong with the World).  He was writing in a very different social context—in England, a hundred years ago—but a lot of it sounds surprisingly familiar.  Some of the dynamics between men and women, for example, may be more universal (and to a more specific level of detail) than I had assumed.

Hyperventilating Left: Wanting to Repeal Obamacare ‘Fascist’

According to some of the things our left-leaning friends are telling each other, wanting to repeal Obamacare is an example of “fascism”.  I suppose America was fascist from 1776 until Obamacare was passed in 2010?  I suppose America has since enjoyed a brief period of being a non-fascist state, 2010 to present?

‘Republicans Didn’t Read the Bill’, and Other Possible Common Ground between Progressives and Conservatives

To our left-leaning friends currently criticizing Republicans in the House for apparently not having read the bill they just passed, a few thoughts:

1.  I agree with you!  Seriously, to that extent, shame on Republicans in Congress.  “‘I don’t think any individual has read the whole bill,’ Representative Tom Garrett of Virginia said.”  This is no way to run a republic.  We elect these men to represent us; the parliamentary work of crafting and considering bills is literally their job.  Bothering to read the thing is almost literally the least they could do.

Even NPR Basically Admits: Socialism Doesn’t Mean Equality; It Means Worthless Promises for the Poor and Privileges for the Ruling Elite

Socialism = enforced inequality.

After more than a decade of socialist rule under Hugo Chávez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro, Venezuelans are starving to death.  NPR reports that they also can’t afford cars:

. . . buying a new car is out of the question for most Venezuelans.

. . . Protests against Maduro’s government have left almost 30 people dead in recent weeks as the economic situation there continues to worsen. Inflation has surged, making even basic goods too expensive for many workers. . . .