As Human Beings Do

The Gospel at Mass today brings us another story of the Apostle Peter and a teaching of Jesus on discipleship.

From Matthew Chapter 16:

Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.

Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him,“God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.”

He turned and said to Peter,“Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples,“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay all according to his conduct.”

A "Can-Do American"

The Anchoress appreciates the Palin pick, too:

... I find that I am more and more pleased that she is not another Ivy League lawyer who planned and plotted a political career, but rather a concerned and active, intelligent woman who simply followed her own interests and concerns, and walked through the doors and opportunities as they were placed before her. That’s refreshing - it is also so very “can-do American.”

McCain-Palin in WashPA

Here is some video (compliments of The Herald-Standard and CNN) of the McCain-Palin visit yesterday to The Wild Things stadium in Washington, PA:

Welcome, New Readers!

A word of welcome to the new readers of this blog. Yesterday, I am proud to report, 895 unique visitors stopped in -- most from Google searches leading to my post last Saturday entitled "Look to Alaska, Senator McCain!"

In that post, I predicted that the selection of Governor Sarah Palin as Senator McCain's running mate would receive good vibes from the media. Watch CNN for 10 minutes this morning and you will realize that that's not quite the case. It is most disturbing to see the talking heads say Governor Palin "lacks experience."

Fact: Senator Obama was sworn into his first elective office in 1996.

Fact: Governor Palin was sworn into her first elective office in 1992, four years earlier.

Governor Palin was working in the trenches of city government (first as a councilwoman and then as a mayor) for four years in Alaska before Senator Obama became a state senator in Illinois.

As someone who spent five years as a borough councilman, I can tell you that serving as a municipal official is both hard work and valuable experience.

I am very pleased that, if the McCain-Palin ticket wins in November, there would be someone in the White House who has personal knowledge of the many challenges facing local governments.

Finally, a hometown connection:

Later today, Senator McCain and Governor Palin will be visiting my old stomping grounds at the small baseball stadium outside of Washington, PA. The stadium is the home of the Washington Wild Things.

The photo above, credited to Getty Images, is from BBC News.

Shattering Glass

Do you hear that sound?

It's the shattering of a glass ceiling by the Republican Governor of Alaska.

In case you missed it today:



I should note that Sully is freaked out over the Palin nod. I can't remember a time when I have disagreed with him more. He's failing to understand the visual.

Gov. Sarah Palin: A Smart Pick

Now, I'm not going to take all the credit, but I did suggest it on Saturday. :-)

Read the official McCain campaign press release here.

Major congrats to the blog "Draft Sarah Palin for VP."

Summer Has Come and Passed

For this week's "YouTube clip for a peaceful weekend," here is "Wake Me Up When September Ends" by Green Day.

Peace:



Hat-tip: XM Radio on JetBlue yesterday.

Missing the Rhetoric

I have to say that I was disappointed by Senator Barack Obama's acceptance speech last night. I usually tend to like his "high-flying, post-partisan rhetoric" that was missing.

Ross Douthat of The Atlantic put my disappointment into words:

The speech had good lines and good sections, but for the most part it felt surprisingly banal and jury-rigged, and it suffered throughout from a failure to cohere around any single theme or rhetorical style. There was a lot of liberal boilerplate (recruit an army of teachers, tax the rich, etc.) that could have fit easily into any Democratic acceptance speech of the last twenty years; there was a series of swings at John McCain that, while often effective, seemed more appropriate to a veep's speech than to an address by a Presidential nominee; and then there was a half-hearted attempt to return, in the speech's final third, to the themes of post-partisanship and national unity that defined his '04 convention speech. The whole thing felt schizophrenic - part Clintonian laundry-list, part McCain-bashing polemic, part "beyond red and blue" peroration - and watching it I was left with the impression that Obama would have been better off just sticking with the high-flown inspirational style that got him here, and waiting for the debates to recast himself as the meat-and-potatoes guy who can throw a punch and get down into the policy weeds. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, and you can see what Obama and his speechwriters were trying to do - namely, have the best of both worlds, by being soaring and substance-oriented, combative and post-partisan. But the substance was predictable, thin, and rife with pandering, the combativeness felt faintly inappropriate, and the speech didn't soar nearly as much as it should have. It was a historic evening, for Obama and for America, and there were moments that gave me shivers just watching on TV - but if you didn't go in sold on the Democratic nominee, I think it was ultimately something of a letdown.

Hat-tip: Sully

Renewal in Anaheim

I am in Southern California through Tuesday morning. This weekend, I'm exhibiting for my gig at the Southern California Renewal Communities 2008 Convention in Anaheim.

It's the first time I have attended a major gathering of Catholic charismatics. It's my fourth time, however, exhibiting in the Anaheim Convention Center.

The Promissory Note

Forty-five years ago today, on August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Film via YouTube:

How Things Change

Wednesday's NYT also had an interesting article by Jeff Zeleny about Senator Barack Obama's visit to the 2000 Democratic National Convention in L.A.

How a lot can change in eight years:

He was drained of money and confidence, fresh from a punishing defeat in a Congressional primary race here. Even the Illinois delegation did not have room at the party’s gathering in Los Angeles for Mr. Obama, then a 39-year-old lawyer, who had annoyed some state Democrats for not waiting his turn to seek a higher office.

Never mind all that. Mr. Obama bought a plane ticket and headed west anyway.

He persuaded a clerk at the car rental agency to overlook the unpaid balance on his credit card, and he made his way to the festivities. He was not a delegate — not even close to being a superdelegate — and without a floor credential he had all the sway of the junior state senator that he was.

...

As he wrote in his second book, “The Audacity of Hope,” he was frustrated by his lack of access. “I ended up watching most of the speeches on various television screens scattered around the Staples Center,” he wrote, “occasionally following friends or acquaintances into skyboxes where it was clear I didn’t belong.”

So he left one day before Al Gore accepted the party’s nomination. This time? Mr. Gore is one of the leading warm-up acts for Mr. Obama. He will be seated in Invesco Field when Mr. Obama is on the stage accepting the party’s nomination.

Nation-Building

Thomas Friedman has a compelling column in today's New York Times.

Clips:

The difference is starting to show. Just compare arriving at La Guardia’s dumpy terminal in New York City and driving through the crumbling infrastructure into Manhattan with arriving at Shanghai’s sleek airport and taking the 220-mile-per-hour magnetic levitation train, which uses electromagnetic propulsion instead of steel wheels and tracks, to get to town in a blink.

Then ask yourself: Who is living in the third world country?

Yes, if you drive an hour out of Beijing, you meet the vast dirt-poor third world of China. But here’s what’s new: The rich parts of China, the modern parts of Beijing or Shanghai or Dalian, are now more state of the art than rich America. The buildings are architecturally more interesting, the wireless networks more sophisticated, the roads and trains more efficient and nicer. And, I repeat, they did not get all this by discovering oil. They got it by digging inside themselves.

...

Obama got this far because many voters projected onto him that he could be the leader of an American renewal. They know we need nation-building at home now — not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in Georgia, but in America. Obama cannot lose that theme.

He cannot let Republicans make this election about who is tough enough to stand up to Russia or bin Laden. It has to be about who is strong enough, focused enough, creative enough and unifying enough to get Americans to rebuild America. The next president can have all the foreign affairs experience in the world, but it will be useless, utterly useless, if we, as a country, are weak.

Obama is more right than he knows when he proclaims that this is “our” moment, this is “our” time. But it is our time to get back to work on the only home we have, our time for nation-building in America. I never want to tell my girls — and I’m sure Obama feels the same about his — that they have to go to China to see the future.

Hyp·o·crite

Pot calls kettle black.

Flashback: October, 2006.

From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:

Main Entry: hyp·o·crite

Pronunciation: \ˈhi-pə-ˌkrit\

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English ypocrite, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin hypocrita, from Greek hypokritēs actor, hypocrite, from hypokrinesthai

Date: 13th century

1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings
— hypocrite adjective

The Deacon on the Democrats in Denver

With so much in the news this week about faith and politics, I wish I had the time to be a more frequent blogger.

But, I have a busy week ahead professionally. And, on top of that, I've loaned out my laptop.

So, here's a recommendation:

For good coverage of the news coming out of this week's Democratic National Convention -- and how what is done and said there (or isn't done and said there) relates to faith (and Catholicism in particular) -- head over to The Deacon's Bench.

Defying Gravity

For some Monday morning inspiration, here is a YouTube clip featuring "Defying Gravity" from "Wicked":

Son of the Living God

The Gospel at Mass today brings us a dialogue between Jesus and his disciples on Jesus being the messiah. It also is one of the passages in which Jesus creates the church.

From Matthew Chapter 16:

Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

Blogging Chihuahua

Amidst all of today's political news, I have been remiss in noting that I am spending the afternoon with Haze Hayes, the famous blogging chihuahua. I am honored to be hanging with him while his parental units are away for the day.

An aside: Busted Halo, of which Haze's dad is managing editor, recently got a great new look.

Look to Alaska, Senator McCain!

With Senator Obama's VP selection now public, I think Senator McCain should not waste time in naming his running mate.

I hope Senator McCain gives serious consideration to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (pictured above with her husband and four of her five children).

She is the governor of an important state (notably on the energy issue) who previously served as a mayor and city council member. She is a reformer. She is pro-life. She is not a Washington insider. At age 44, she is from a new generation of American leaders.

Governor Palin could help to unify the GOP base and garner the McCain campaign many good vibes from the media.

Also, it is far beyond the time when the United States should have elected a woman as POTUS or VPOTUS. Senator McCain should seriously consider this opportunity to make history.

Son of Scranton

It turns out that Scranton, PA, will have a hometown connection in the presidential race after all.

Yesterday's David Brooks column in the NYTimes hoped that Senator Joe Biden would prevail in the Obama veepstakes.

A clip:

Working-Class Roots. Biden is a lunch-bucket Democrat. His father was rich when he was young — played polo, cavorted on yachts, drove luxury cars. But through a series of bad personal and business decisions, he was broke by the time Joe Jr. came along. They lived with their in-laws in Scranton, Pa., then moved to a dingy working-class area in Wilmington, Del. At one point, the elder Biden cleaned boilers during the week and sold pennants and knickknacks at a farmer’s market on the weekends.

His son was raised with a fierce working-class pride — no one is better than anyone else. Once, when Joe Sr. was working for a car dealership, the owner threw a Christmas party for the staff. Just as the dancing was to begin, the owner scattered silver dollars on the floor and watched from above as the mechanics and salesmen scrambled about for them. Joe Sr. quit that job on the spot.

Even today, after serving for decades in the world’s most pompous workplace, Senator Biden retains an ostentatiously unpretentious manner. He campaigns with an army of Bidens who seem to emerge by the dozens from the old neighborhood in Scranton. He has disdain for privilege and for limousine liberals — the mark of an honest, working-class Democrat.

Democrats in general, and Obama in particular, have trouble connecting with working-class voters, especially Catholic ones. Biden would be the bridge.

An aside: I shook hands with Senator Biden once, I think. It was on an Amtrak train en route from Washington, D.C., back to NYC, circa 1996 - '98. It was after one of the "NYU in Washington" lobby days. If memory serves, he was headed that evening back to Delaware.

Stuck

Over at Charlotte was Both, Amy has made this wise observation about current Catholic discourse on the presidential race:

Political conversations among Catholics are stuck. Just stuck. Anyone who has been reading the politically-oriented Catholic blogs or websites sees this pretty quickly. Every single conversation - every bloody one - goes like this:

A: Obama’s positions are unacceptable to faithful Catholics because…

B. Oh, yeah? What about McCain’s positions. They’re unacceptable because….

A: But Obama’s unacceptable positions touch on more serious issues.

B. Oh really? The bishops say…

A. Oh really? But the bishops say…

I’ve sort of racked my brain trying to figure out an alternative paradigm. I’ve failed so far. One of the things that seems to be missing is cold hard reality. No, not the reality of balancing goods - that’s on full display and everyone seems to tap into that - but on the reality of politics and politicians and who they are, what drives and funds politics , what the end game is and what a president is for. I’m not trying to be cynical here, (well) ..but what was it someone once said? Put not your hope in princes? Something like that. It’s in some book I read once.