The Vigilant Gargoyle

See?

2012-01-22T08:14:00.003-06:00

Told you so. You don't have to be sorry for your mistakes or suffer the consequences. All you have to do is display sufficient outrage at being questioned about them...I believe in forgiveness. I believe in redemption. But there must be accountability and humility, and, at some level, consequences.

That thing in South Carolina

2012-01-21T12:07:00.002-06:00

No, Newt did not "knock the ball out of the park" when he answered the question about his divorces. He just acted outraged. And it IS pertinent. First he marries his high school math teacher, 6 or 7 years his senior, when he is 19! And it suddenly occurs, Oh wow! he was a player in high school! Yes, it WAS her bad since she was his teacher, but that die was cast early. Then after 19 years and two children she's suddenly not pretty enough to be a president's wife and he is by the way already messing around with Marianna who, after 17 years as his second "wife" is indignant that he's now messing around with Callista who will probably be upset when he finds someone younger. And talk about a blackeye for Catholicism---"I've converted to my wife's religion (which she was obviously taking seriously while she was doing a married man) and all is forgiven." This is why Prots whisper, "Yeah, all they have to do is go to confession---like those mafia dons who murder people all week and go to Mass on Sunday." I've been a prot---I know what they think. The problem is simple: He can't keep a sacred vow to God Almighty and the wom(e)n he's supposed to love more than himself to stick around so what makes you think he's going to keep his campaign promise to you?
BUT...I'll bet he wins...Somehow "How dare you question my personal integrity? I am outraged!" demanded by a proven philanderer has been translated into "ballsy". It's a pity. Gallant South Carolina. Where have you gone?

Flies

2012-01-18T17:29:00.001-06:00

I MUST have some respite from these damned flies! They are such belligerant, brassy little bastards, and I keep thinking the cold will kill them off, but it doesn’t. I don’t ever remember having this much trouble with them in January. I keep trying not to mount any swatting sorties because I know I look like a mad woman when I’m swatting flies, so I hadn’t done so for four or five days until just now, but when I walk into my otherwise clean kitchen and the fat little buggers are lined up on the counter having a social I just hate them. They learn, dam’ em…the thing with waiting a few days is that virgin flies haven’t got a clue about whence their doom is coming…they don’t even react to the bangs and slaps and celebratory whoops…two of them can be having a conversation maybe six inches from each other, and you get one and the survivor just sits there like “Steady on---what happened to Bill?”

Just another Tuesday...

2012-01-17T12:49:00.004-06:00

My goodness! Feeding the horses and cows goes much faster when they sort themselves out before I get there...I suppose it would be easier with people, too. Have I said how intelligent my daughters in law are? Well, they are...
Hadrian has taken up residence on the porch, rather than under it, since I moved the old blue dog bed out there for him. Of course, he'll retreat in the summer, but for now I think he likes it. Provides a better view of his kingdom, you know.
Benny has an appointment with a dermatologist tomorrow, and I still have hope that it is something more manageable than discoid lupus because it is just all over him, poor little guy...Have been rubbing it with coconut oil, and he seems to enjoy it, if nothing else...perhaps it's my imagination that it helps a bit. Dottie is truly concerned about him, bless her heart. He's really the only puppyhood friend she has left.
So concerned for Dennis. I pray that his new dialysis schedule will help dry him out a bit. He has so much fluid in his lungs.
Seguin has gone to SMU for her first day of work. Guess they will be showing her the ropes. She was not scheduled to start until Thursday, but they called last night.
It's positively hot today. Not sure how that's possible. Thought it would be colder since there was a really sharp drop in temperature while I was feeding, but it is Way Too Warm.
I am better today although my BP is still higher than normal. Better than before and I think it will just continue to come down now I'm off the Savella.
I'm having a hard time keeping Dennis and Seguin (mainly Seguin) supplied with Salsa since I got my molcajete going. It IS good salsa...and even when it's empty, the vessel gives off such a wonderful fragrance that I just want to start grinding again, but Seguin makes short work of it---I think she skips the chips and just eats it with a spoon.
Looking forward to making Country Captain for General Lee's Birthday, not to mention the wonderful cake. Thinking of fixing the chicken in advance, except for the rice and almonds---such things are always better the next day---which will leave me more time for the biscuits. Of course, the next big Feast will be St. Patrick's day---I really do enjoy cooking for the ones that have a month or so between. Feasts are just nasty without the fasts that go with them...Of course, February will be broken up with Seguin's birthday, as well as Chisum's, Crockett's and Nolan's if they come around, but birthdays are simpler and less planned. Listen to me---I could go into goofball ecstasies about the cooking, and what I need to do is vacuum. I did put up rather a lot of Christmas decorations this morning, but there are still PLENTY to finish out the Season. Sixteen more days...
Well I have fulfilled my pledge to blog today, no matter how inadequately, so the floors await. Tomorrow I'll try to be profound.
Bother...I wonder how you spell "ecstasy"...

New leaves

2012-01-16T07:09:00.002-06:00

This is my first act in an attempt to turn my life around by sheer act of will...my prayers and everyone else's are in full force...I have to get past this sickness and depression. Quit the Savella which makes my muscle pain go away, but at the price of constant nausea and elevated BP---not an option. Have an appointment for my eyes next week to assuage the plaquenil fears. Just have to push on. There is so much I want to do. General Lee's birthday feast this week, kitchen improvements, Augustine's baptism dress to finish, and just general catching up. So much to be thankful for. Stu is on track with her life, Seguin is working and has graduated despite her lupus flares. My sons all have wonderful wives and children and are supporting them, loving them and teaching the babies to pray...
I am most concerned for Dennis. Praying for his strength and for all the children to realize the enormous responsibility they have toward him...
Well, today I have to do general housework. And feed those blasted horses and cows. Hope Sigs can go to the store for me. All will be well.

A timely re-post

2012-01-13T22:21:00.002-06:00

I want everyone to have time to plan for this, so I'm reposting the recipes for General Lee's Birthday Feast a week early. Happy cooking, or, if you're in the vicinity, drop in. ;)

A Birthday Feast for General Robert E. Lee
January 19, Wednesday, is General Robert E. Lee’s birthday. I’m giving y’all these recipes today so that you’ll have time to go to the store, and otherwise get your act together.

I got this cake recipe from someone on the internet years ago, and I have shamefully forgotten who she was, but I did manage to save almost all of her text and have included as much as possible. Dear Lady, if you come across this offering, please take credit for it:

Robert E. Lee Cake
FOR THE LEMON SPONGE CAKE: 8 egg yolks -- beaten 8 egg whites -- stiffly beaten
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons lemon zest -- grated
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 cups White Lily Flour
salt to taste
FOR THE LEMON CURD:
4 egg yolks -- beaten
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon zest -- grated
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 pinch salt
6 tablespoons butter
FOR THE COCONUT CREAM:
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup grated coconut
2 tablespoons sugar
salt
1 oz softened cream cheese

Make separately and then combine a lemon sponge cake, lemon curd, and coconut cream. First let's talk about making Lemon sponge cake for the first ingredient. You want to beat eight egg yolks until they are as light as a Virginia dawn. Add 2 cups of sugar in slow Southern style whilst beating the yolks into a thick mess. You then beat in 2 tsp.of grated lemon zest and 2 tbs. of lemon juice. Sift 2 cups of flour and salt together per taste. Afterwards, you sprinkle the flour over the egg yolks and fold lightly until smooth as a Georgia accent. You then beat the egg whites until stiff as Southern resistance to Yankee aggression and fold in nicely. Divide the lovely (tasty--I know) batter between 2 buttered and floured cake pans. Bake in an oven preheated to 325 degrees F. for 25 minutes. Check to see that the layers are golden brown and lightly pull away from the sides. Remove to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before turning out.

Now we're ready to make the lemon curd. Beat 4 egg yolks with 3/4 c. of sugar, 1 Ttb. grated lemon zest 1/3 cup lemon juice and a pinch of salt. Using a double boiler for that purpose, place the ingredients over simmering water and stir frequently until thickened. Remove from heat and then add 6 tb. butter a bit at a time. You are then ready to split the sponge cake into layers and stack the curd in between the layers. You then spread the top with coconut cream, letting it drip deliciously down the sides. Here's how to make some coconut cream.

Having refrigerated the lemon-orange curd and the cake, you can wash your double boiler to make use of it again. Stir in 1 c. heavy cream, 1/4 c. grated coconut, 1 tb. plus 2 tsp. sugar, and salt together in the double boiler's top and heat over simmering water for 20 minutes. Cool cream over ice water---you want it really cold. Try infusing the cream the day before, and refrigerating overnight. Whip the cream, and when it begins to thicken, add the cream cheese. This will stabilize the cream. Continue to beat until you have soft peaks You can then drip the coconut cream over the cake. This recipe will feed 12 polite eaters at a Marse Robert dinner party.

General Lee’s favorite meal was smothered chicken. We like the recipe for Country Captain found in the lovely old cookbook, “Charleston Receipts”. . We have this wonderful dish with fresh hot biscuits, rice, turnip greens, black-eyed peas, and fig preserves. After readings of Father Ryan's "Sword of Lee", and Donald Davidson's "Lee in the Mountains", and a short narrative of his career, accompanied by stirring music of the time, serve the General's favourite dessert with good coffee. [unless we buy unroasted beans, we always use Community Coffee, every day. They’re Southern.] Then toast the Sword of Virginia with good Bourbon and end the evening with Southron songs, and toasts.

Country Captain (from “Charleston Receipts)
This will feed a dozen: I usually fix half:

1 bunch parsely (chopped)
4 green peppers (chopped)
2 large onions (chopped)
Oil
1 (No. 2 ½ ) can tomatoes
1 teaspoon mace
2 teaspoons curry powder
Salt and pepper to taste
1 clove garlic (chopped)
2 fryers cut up
Paprika and flour
1 cup currants
Cooked white rice
½ pound blanched almonds

Fry parsley, peppers and onions in oil slowly for 15 minutes. Put mixture in roaster and add tomatoes, spices, salt and pepper. Simmer 15 minutes, then add garlic. Dredge Chicken in flour, salt, pepper and paprika. Fry till brown and lay in the sauce and cook at 275 F in covered roaster for 1.5 to 2 hours. Add currants ½ hour before serving. Arrange rice on platter, pour sauce over and the place chicken on top. Sprinkle with toasted almonds.

Easter excitement...

2011-04-07T23:53:00.002-05:00

Haven't heard from everyone yet, but we'll have at least 6 children and two grandchildren for Easter...I am so happy---I love those little guys so much...I can't wait to see Nannet hunt for eggs. I love Easter so much, and to have all the chillun will be indescribable...Bunny has been collecting stuff...I love the Resurrection and all the celebration that surrounds it, Mass and peeps, sacred and profane...I can't wait for Jesus of Nazareth, The Robe, Quo Vadis and Ben Hur...Thank you so much, Lord.

Some good news:

2011-04-07T18:28:00.002-05:00

Dennis seems to be feeling so much better since he started on the cycler machine for his PD. He only does one exchange in the middle of the day now, and when he wakes up in the morning he seems so much fresher and happier! It's really wonderful. If anyone is interested and has questions about PD, holler. We'll be happy to tell you as much as we know.

"Old Blue"---traditional ballad---Goodbye, my fine friend.

2011-03-08T10:39:00.003-06:00

I had an old dog and his name was Blue
Betcha five dollah he’s a good dog, too
Go on, Blue, you good dog you.
Old Blue died and he died so hard
He shook the ground in my back yard
Dug his grave with a silver spade
Lowered him down with a golden chain
And every link I called his name
I said "go on Blue, you good dog you"
I’m gonna tell you so you’ll know:
Old Blue’s gone where the good dogs go.
If I get to Heaven, one thing I’ll do
Is pick up my rifle and holler for Blue
Go on, Blue, you good dog you!
Coyotes waitin’ for me and you.
Go on, Blue—I’m comin’, too!

In Loving Memory of
Scipio Africanus Womack
Spring 1997-March 7,2011

Well done, Good and Faithful Servant.

Awash in a grey sea of unfamiliarity and uncertainty...

2011-02-24T13:49:00.003-06:00

It was important to me that Dennis and I be respected, and even, I think, beloved at this point in our lives...I'm not a lovable person, and I suppose I will just have to accept that, regardless of how much it hurts---and I wonder why it does, so much? But I can't accept that for my husband, to whom my children owe not only filial respect, but special honor because he has made so many sacrifices. (I want to note at this point that while I'm speaking in general from an effort to maintain at least a modicum of civility, it is important to note that the problem is not necessarily systemic within our family and in no case whatever is CROCKETT an offender. How's that? Is that okay? Are we all clear on that?)

It's not important, really, except that it contributes to and makes more desolate the sea of uncertainty in which we are now drifting. I am okay with being in pain. I mean that in all sincerity. They biggest downside is that, well, I can't do the tasks I should be doing. My small home is so cluttered. My Christmas decorations aren't even put up yet---they are taken down---just not put up. Some people wonder why I don't have a bigger house. It's because I spent the money on other things. Most of my kids could probably tell you what those things are. Dennis feels badly, even after starting his PD...he's quite depressed and frankly has given up doing even the most obvious things around the house...I don't think anyone but me has taken a dish to the kitchen for 6 months...Seguin is very sick---has had lupus since she was quite young and I think maybe that's why parts of her brain don't work while others are over-developed...Anyway, she's doing well to drive all the way to Dallas every day and get to school, where she's on her feet cooking. No, she can't have her own apartment---she does not need to be alone for long periods of time---but thank you so much for asking.

When Mother was dying, my aunts and uncles kept urging me to put her in a nursing home where they "would take really good care of her all the time!" Yeah--nursing homes are famous for that. In truth, they were scared to death that I might ask them to Mother-sit sometime. You should have heard the bullshit they were spouting at the funeral about how she supported them all for 10 years and they owed everything to her!

I am not afraid, I'm just so sad.

I wish I'd known my Daddy's parents better. And I wish I had had the presence of mind to nurture my Mother's mother, regardless of her "unfortunate disposition". She walked on her ankle bone, her feet were so twisted and crippled...she was too proud to sit in a chair...I thought I would try to be "not proud" and that that would make a difference, but I think not...Didn't want the kids to have to put up with the same things Dennis and I did when we were first married...ha ha...But Crockett, I think, does laugh with me when I try to laugh at myself, and I like to see him laugh.

I can rarely leave this house. I don't mind. I want people to feel welcome. I'm so sorry that not everyone can see past our limitations. I'm grieved that some of them will never be comfortable here. This thirty acres is my children's home. It has been a continuing source of sorrow for me that they've never loved it. Except Stuart. Stuart loves it and treats it as her own. Thank you, Stuart. And Thank you, Rachel, for my little tree...You planted it so well that it is still alive.

Late Night Quickie Post

2011-01-24T00:19:00.002-06:00

This past week has been physically discouraging. I did something I rarely do: I got jealous of someone else's ability to do things...Just to get up in the morning and feel good and look forward to an adventure...I didn't feel bitter or anything, just more...envious than I like to feel...I really want to accept and embrace who I am and be completely grateful to God for letting me suffer---I sure wouldn't do it voluntarily, but He is giving me the help I need to strive for holiness. But I haven't felt very holy this week.

I'm spending the next few weeks finishing the Baptismal gown for Nolan. I can't believe he's almost here! I wonder if he'll look like Crockett?

It's Confederate Heroes' Day in Texas

2011-01-19T08:19:00.002-06:00

...and Robert E. Lee's birthday.

The Sword of Robert Lee
by Fr. Abram J. Ryan

Forth from its Scabbard, pure and bright,
Flashed the sword of Lee!
Far in the front of the deadly fight,
High o'er the brave in the cause of Right,
Its stainless sheen, like a beacon light,
Led us to Victory!

Out of its Scabbard, where, full long,
It slumbered peacefully,
Roused from its rest by the battle's song,
Shielding the feeble, smiting the strong,
Guarding the right, avenging the wrong,
Gleamed the sword of Lee!

Forth from its scabbard, high in air
Beneath Virginia's sky -
And they who saw it gleaming there,
And knew who bore it, knelt to swear
That where the sword led they would dare
To follow - and to die!

Out of it's scabbard! Never hand
Waved sword from stain as free,
Nor purer sword led braver band,
Nor braver bled for a brighter land,
Nor brighter land had a cause so grand,
Nor cause a chief like Lee!

Forth from its scabbard! How we prayed
That sword might victor be;
And when our triumph was delayed,
And many a heart grew sore afraid,
We still hoped on while gleamed the blade
Of noble Robert Lee!

Forth from its scabbard all in vain
Bright flashed the sword of Lee:
'Tis shrouded now in its sheath again,
It sleeps the sleep of our noble slain,
Defeated, yet without a stain,
Proudly and peacefully!

OH, DEAR!

2011-01-18T17:23:00.002-06:00

Just for fun, I went online to buy the DVD "Babette's Feast" for several friends...no occasion, just thinking about the movie and how great it is, and how much I loved it...WELL! Won't be doing THAT! For whatever bizarre reason---probably because it is an exquisite and uplifting film---Babette's Feast is out of production and going for around $90! I could get some VHS's at a decent price, but don't know who has the player...Oh, dear. I hope they bring it back...Also, Dennis wants "Alfred the Great" with David Hemmings...can't find it, though...

Things I Think About...

2011-01-18T15:18:00.002-06:00

I've been reading too much Dickens lately and am so struck by the agony experienced by so many during the mid 19th Century---a peculiar agony...
I keep coming back to this wonderful essay by Sheldon Vanauken, which encompasses so many of my favorite topics. Enjoy it, if you have a minute.

C.S. LEWIS AND THE OLD SOUTH
by SHELDON VANAUKEN
The title of this paper may be perplexing, especially "Old Western Man."Is it cowboys and gunslingers of the Old West? Or perhaps Red Indians? Let me, then, say at once that Socrates and Shakespeare and Jane Austen are Old Western Man-and by my reckoning, General Lee. But not Mr. and Mrs. Bill Clinton. In due course there will be further clarification, as well as an answer to the question of what C.S. Lewis has to do with the Old South, which he knew almost nothing about.

Almost everyone knows something about C.S. Lewis as a writer of extremely readable children's books (about the land of Narnia that can be entered through the back of an old wardrobe) and as a witty and brilliant defender of orthodox Christianity. Lewis has also been called the Apostle of the Skeptics. Those who have read his little book, The Great Divorce or his Space Trilogy know something of his faith as well as his brilliant imagination, while his Experiment in Criticism suggests Lewis the profound scholar. And the devastating little book The Abolition of Man has a direct bearing on my present topic. It is C.S. Lewis as prophet: a grim warning of where we may be heading and the role of our schools in taking us there. Lewis was an Oxford don. He first came to Oxford as an undergraduate-his education interrupted by service in the First World War. He had, before he came up to Oxford, read more widely and deeply than most of us do in a lifetime. At Oxford he first read (studied) what is called "Greats," which is, first, classical literature in Greek and Latin, and then the rigorous study of philosophy from the ancients to the moderns-with a severe examination in each. He then read English literature and was examined in that. A "FIRST" in those examinations at Oxford has been likened to a Phi Beta Kappa key -- and Lewis won three FIRSTS. No other word fits this achievement but awesome. When I was at Oxford in the '50s, I was privileged to know him, and we came to be friends as those who have read by book A Severe Mercy will know. After I went down from the University, we corresponded and met from time to time. A Professorship at Oxford (there are no assistant or associate professors) is a very distinguished honor indeed, for there is but one professor of each subject. Despite deep friendships among the dons, Lewis also had bitter enemies-because I believe, of hostility to his outspoken Christian faith. Oxford never gave him that honor-a professorship but Cambridge did; and so Lewis left Magdalen College, Oxford, for, as it happened Magdalene, Cambridge.

To my abiding regret, I was not in England and could not be present when he delivered his inaugural address in a packed hall. But that lecture in 1954 which is not widely known defines Old Western Man. It is a look at history by a great literary scholar. History, some think, is a bore; but one may reflect on the truth that the opposite of historical awareness is -- amnesia. The title of Lewis's address is De Descriptione Temporum -- a look at Time, the very stuff of history: time and its divisions. Lewis was a splendid speaker-lucid, witty, brilliant, and, above all, powerful. He could hold an audience spellbound, as he did this one: Cambridge dons and undergraduates, as well as a considerable contingent from Oxford crowding a large lecture hall. The chair that Cambridge had created for him was Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature, and Lewis pointed out that the title indicted the decline of the traditional antithesis between the two periods. We have all, he went on, been educated to believe that there are two great divides in Western history, two chasms that cut across it: the Fall of Rome along with the Christianizing of Europe is the first; and the second is the Renaissance. Not so, says Lewis. Neither one is the Great Divide; there is a greater one. But before considering that, let us look at the two traditional ones, beginning with the lesser one, the Renaissance.

The Renaissance, first of all, despised the Medieval, just as every new age despises that one preceding. The early-twentieth century scorned the Victorian Age its architecture, its prudishness, its indoor plants were held up in ridicule. So the Renaissance saw the Middle Ages as a time of darkness. Unable to see the architectural miracle of Chartres Cathedral, they labeled it Gothic, that is, barbaric, because it lacked Roman columns. They were blind to the power of Aquinas or Dante. An older historian spoke of Copernicus as "the first light in the darkness," and a turn-of-the-last century student wrote that Thomas Wyatt was one of the first men "who scrambled ashore out of the great, dark, surging sea of the Middle Ages." No one would write such things now. And yet the Renaissance was a new age --a significant shift in direction., For the wise men of classical times, there was a desire to see things as they are and to conform the soul to that reality. The medievals enlarged things as they included Christ's Revelation of God but still sought to conform to all of reality. But the Renaissance began the effort through the twin studies of science and magic (the high noon of magic was not Medieval but Renaissance) to conform reality to man. The Fall of Rome -- that immense Empire stretching from Syria to London-along with the spread of Christianity-has far greater claims to be the Great Divide.

And yet Latin, a living, developing language, remained the language of the educated and the language of the universal Church. Men read Virgil (oddly enough, it was the Renaissance in its fascination with the really dead, classical Latin that killed the living Latin.) Still, Lewis says, the claim of the Fall of Rome with the enormous shift from Paganism to Christianity to be the Great Divide would have to be allowed if he did not know of a far greater Divide. To take first that enormous and seemingly irrevocable shift from Paganism to Christianity, we have seen a greater-the de-Christianizing of Western society.

"Dechristianization," says John Paul II, "weighs heavily upon entire peoples and communities once rich in faith and Christian life. . ." It is still incomplete, of course, just as there were lingering pockets of Paganism in the disintegrating Roman world. But one often hears today of "post-Christian." And we've all heard references to our returning to paganism. That, at least, is nonsense. We are not about to see a President struggling to slit the throat of a milk-white bull in front of the Capitol as an offering to the gods or grave Senators spilling libations on the floor of their chamber. To say we are returning to Paganism from Christianity is rather like saying that a married woman recovers her virginity by divorce. Paganism like Christianity was a devout belief in divinity-something beyond and above man. Thus, the shift from Paganism to God Incarnate, great as it was, was a lesser shift than this: from God Incarnate to Man himself. This alone is vast enough to indicate a greater Great Divide than the Fall of Rome. And there is more, much more. But before considering other aspects of this Greatest Divide, we should locate it in time. Lewis puts it at about the time of Jane Austen and Sir Walter Scott at the end of the eighteenth century and a little way into the nineteenth. And those who lived before the Great Divide are those he calls "Old Western Man." But, like the long-drawn-out Fall of Rome, this later, Greater Divide is gradual. Old Western Man continued in unaffected areas. Lewis himself is, he says, an Old Western Man. And some who consider this may be Old Western Man. As we look further at the Great Divide, the reader will perhaps decide about himself. Since science is one of the things that is changing the world, it might be thought that the Great Divide ought to be earlier with the general acceptance among the educated of the thought of Descartes and of scientists like Copernicus. But the effects of such ideas were delayed. Science, in Lewis's words, was "like a lion cub whose gambols delighted its master in private [and which] has not yet tasted man's blood. . . Science was not the business of Man because Man had not yet become the business of Science." But when Watts makes his steam engine, and Darwin begins to monkey with Man's ancestry -- and Freud not so far ahead -- the lion will be out of his cage. It is when the many are affected, not just the few intellectuals, that the Great Divide occurs. Somewhere between us and Jane Austen's Persuasion in 1816 runs the chasm between Old Western Man and New Western Man --- the Great Divide. Old Western Man feared and worshiped his gods, accepted axiomatically what Lewis in The Abolition of Man calls the Tao or Natural Law, and, if Christian, believed in the Revelation of God Incarnate. Almost a definition of Old Western Man. New Western Man-well I shan't attempt to define him, but as we consider the post-Divide developments, perhaps he will appear. This much, though, is I think certain: Seneca and Dr. Johnson, though separated by 18 centuries, have more in common that Dr. Johnson and Freud, less than a century later.

Let us consider what the Great Divide actually divides in terms of the six (and only six) aspects of any Society: political, economic, religious, social, intellectual, aesthetic. (The initial letters make the word PERSIA)

Politically, what we used to call "rulers" we now call "leaders." In the past the aim of rulers was to keep the people quiet, getting on with their lives; now it seems to be whipping up feeling-appeals, drives, campaigns. A vast computerized bureaucracy penetrates our lives and fortunes as no government of the past ever did. Where once we asked rulers for justice and incorruptibility, we now want magnetism or charisma. And a shadow in the future, if ever it comes (which God forbid!), may be government by scientists and psychologists-adjusting us to like it.

Economically, above all the coming of the machine. Where once we wanted government to defend us from enemies, foreign and domestic, and we paid taxes for those purposes, now we expect everything from government; jobs, relief from poverty, health care. Government is spending trillions it doesn't have. And money without its intrinsic value, not gold.

Socially -- well, I hardly need to mention the word. The family in decay -- that rock-hard institution of Old Western Man. Marriage itself breaking down: multimarriages or, so to speak, serial polygamy. Or no marriage at all. Social morality is all but dead. And for good or ill --since Lewis's lecture -- a change that would be almost unbelievable to Old Western Man, a change as great as any in all history: feminism. If feminism (unisexism) is here to stay, it will be overwhelmingly the greatest social change of all time, equal to the coming of the machine. Overwhelming change and very possibly overwhelming error, too. Socially, there is no question that it is the Great Divide.

Religiously, no question either. The deChristianizing.

Intellectually, one of the greatest changes is the onset of ideology -- everything else subordinate as a world force. Killing in the name of ideology. We have touched on the lion --science -- getting out of his cage, and on Darwin, and Watts' steam engine. The machine. TV and the computer. The machine permeates our lives. Here again the change is so enormous as to leave no doubt about the Great Divide. Not only does it alter our very lives; it alters our language. For instance, the word new. When it comes to cars or TVS, the new is usually better, but not in other areas-the "new morality" is very likely worse. Yet we're taught to salivate at new. What was once admired as permanence is now called stagnation. And primitive, which in Dr. Johnson's dictionary suggested "pure" or "formal," now suggests the obsolete or crude. If we slipped through a time-fault into the eighteenth century, our plain English and their plain English might have very different connotations. Needless to say, feminism is also altering the English language for the worse; they would insist that Lewis say Old Western Man "or Woman."

Aesthetically, the last of the six aspects, is marked by change as great as the others. Aesthetically, our brave new world is almost unrecognizably different. In the visual arts, no previous era has ever produced work so shatteringly and bewilderingly different and obscure as that of the Cubists, Dadaists, Surrealists, and Picasso. And in the art that Lewis loved best, poetry and literature, the change is as drastic. It is simply untrue to say that all poetry was when new was as difficult as ours. Alexandrian verse was difficult because it required learning; but if you got the learning, it was perfectly intelligible. John Donne's dark conceits had one meaning which he could have told you. There was never anything like The Wasteland. Six learned men in poetry, discussed T.S. Eliot's "A Cooking Egg" for an hour, and no two of them agreed on its meaning. And the poems-or as I call them, prosems by "prosets" who have followed Eliot-there seems no link at all with the great tradition of poetry. Apart from different languages a reader of Homer would understand Beowulf and Catullus and Spenser would understand each other, or Shakespeare and Virgil.

It is, I think unarguable that we have been looking at The Great Divide in the history of the West, which is really the history of the whole world. It is strange, the smallest continent, Europe, has been the most dynamic ever since the Greeks, all the world wanting what the West has. Almost unimaginable change.

Now, the reader has C.S. Lewis's 1954 argument for The Great Divide in De Descriptione Temporum with a few updatings of mine, such as the drastic change that is feminism, which he was spared. The argument is for me totally convincing. He concluded the lecture by saying that he is a representative of Old Western Man and reads their texts as a native. But Old Western Man, he says, is not going to be around much longer, and thus, he may be of value as a specimen, if not otherwise. After all, he says with a smile, if a dinosaur dragged its slow length into the lecture hall, would we not look back even as we fled? So that's what the creature looked like! He was done. Thunderous applause. And people went about the university for weeks saying "I'm a dino - - are you?" To say we are returning to Paganism from Christianity is false. Paganism was a devout belief in divinity--something beyond and above man. Thus, the shift from Paganism to God Incarnate, great as it was, was a lesser shift than this: from God Incarnate to Man himself"

OLD WESTERN MAN AND THE OLD SOUTH What C.S. Lewis has given us is nothing less than a radically new way of looking at the past that supplants or, at least, supplements all other ways. The reader, mindful of my title, may be prepared for me to see the Old South as Old Western Man. And so I do. But General Lee and the War Between the States were in the second half of the nineteenth century, 50 years after Jane Austen: the machine-the Industrial Revolution -- already darkening the skies. Nevertheless, I do maintain the Confederacy was Old Western Man. We need, I think, to see the South-and the War-in larger terms relating to all of Western civilization.

Lewis, quite rightly, puts the Great Divide in the very early nineteenth century; it was then that England, which led the way in the age of steam, began to be dominated by the machine, yet, of course, large pockets of England and Scotland remained unaffected, not to mention Europe and America, though it was not long before Germany and New England began to industrialize. France was a special case; it had been torn by the fury of the Revolution, followed by Napoleon and defeat. Unlike the U.S. War of Independence, the French Revolution was the child of the intellectual's so-called Enlightenment (religiously, the Endarkenment), which prepared the way for the Great Divide; and it seems to me that the people of France were, in a way, the first to cross, or be driven across, the Great Divide. And there, too, was resistance, in particular the heroic and doomed last stand of the Vendee where the people took arms under their nobles and priests. In France, the 'Vendee was a last stand of Old Western Man.

The worldwide condemnation of slavery began with the English Evangelicals under Wilberforce in the early nineteenth century, spreading to New England -- the Abolitionists -- but not to the South. Indeed, it has often been said that the South, at least up to the War of Secession, had not yet entered the nineteenth century. If indeed the Great Divide, as Lewis says, is just after the time of Jane Austen and Sir Walter Scott, it is suggestive that, while the North had turned to the mid-century novelist, Charles Dickens, the South still loved Sir Walter Scott. The long steps toward "modernity" in England and the North and elsewhere hardly affected the deeply agrarian South. But by 1860 the north was well on its way to industrialization -- "the dark Satanic mills," as Blake called them. And the South was still naming towns and streets for Scott's characters and places -- Ivanhoe, for instance, or Midlothian, both in Virginia.

There is little question in my mind but that the War Between the States was a revolution. A Northern revolution: big business destroying the Southern landed gentry. Andrew Lytle (in From Eden to Babylon) says that "before his overthrow, the country gentleman was the most powerful single influence in early American society." And he says further that "the fall of the Confederacy removed the last great check to the imperialism of Big Business." There is here more than a slight suggestion that New Western Man was destroying Old Western Man. (As the French Revolution, the Vendee).

It is plain from what C.S. Lewis said about the deChristianizing of Europe, as well as the French Revolution attempting to destroy the Church, that what follows the Great Divide is anti-Christian. Two years ago Mel Bradford (may he rest in peace) explained why Southern clergymen from Catholic to Baptists were strongly in favor of secession: Not to protect slavery but to protect Christianity by separating from the North, which in their judgement was becoming godless. A comparison of the leaders on both sides is suggestive; and so is a comparison of the South today with the society of the victors today-New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, including the corridors of power. Can we say the Southern clergymen of the 1860's were mistaken? The South remained, and perhaps still remains, a part of Christendom, while Europe and the North moved toward post-Christian man.

I wonder sometimes if the real hate of the most powerful and influential men of the North toward the South, both in arms and vanquished, wasn't hate for both the agrarian and the religious values of the South, including the faith in the Risen Christ?

General R.E. Lee is the symbol and the actuality of the South. Oxford taught that he was the greatest general since Alexander the Great because he did so much with so little and because he won the total devotion of his men. But Lee is far more than a brilliant and audacious general. In his simplicity and grandeur he is the best of the Old South-and he is almost incomprehensible to modern sensibility. Like George Washington, he is seen as a "marble man" by moderns, who have no trouble understanding Lincoln or Sherman-both rather modern themselves. But General Lee, never giving way to hate, never blaming anyone else, the simplicity, the strange words that we have lost: words like duty and honor. But an Old Roman would understand them. Lee, I think -- and Stonewall and J.E.B. Stuart -- are Old Western Man.

The poet, Stephen Vincent Benet, in his splendid and insightful John Brown's Body, after glowing descriptions of General Lee and his officers, turns to Lee's army. Let me quote just a half-a-dozen lines.
Army of Northern Virginia, fabulous army,
Strange army of ragged individualists,
The hunters, the riders, the walkers, the savage pastorals,
The unmachined, the men come out of the ground,..
The lazy scorners, the rebels against the wheels,
The rebels against the steel combustion chambers.
Against machines, against the Age of Steam

The unmachined, the deeply religious, ready to follow General Lee to hell and back-and, because of General Lee, they almost won. These men and their great commander are Old Western Man. As a nation, his last stand.
When Lee came at last to Appomattox and the short-lived Confederacy went down, not just to defeat but to non-existence, an Oxford don (like virtually all the Oxford and Cambridge dons, deeply pro-Southern), wrote lines that no one today would write -- a drastically different point of view: "No nation rose so white and fair,/ None fell so pure of crime" (Philip Worsley). I close with a question. As Richard Weaver says so powerfully, the Southern tradition is at bay. Does it still survive?

St. Francis Assisi, pray for us...

2011-01-17T17:03:00.002-06:00

Scipio has become very anxious and clingy, pushing against me and pawing at me constantly. Seems very much like my mother after her mini-strokes, so, don't know if maybe that's his problem. Gave him valium...seems to help a little...he will be fourteen this year...Benny, good little soul, is devoting much time and attention to him...

A Birthday Feast for General Robert E. Lee

2011-01-17T11:38:00.002-06:00

January 19, Wednesday, is General Robert E. Lee’s birthday. I’m giving y’all these recipes today so that you’ll have time to go to the store, and otherwise get your act together.

I got this cake recipe from someone on the internet years ago, and I have shamefully forgotten who she was, but I did manage to save almost all of her text and have included as much as possible:

Robert E. Lee Cake
FOR THE LEMON SPONGE CAKE: 8 egg yolks -- beaten 8 egg whites -- stiffly beaten
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons lemon zest -- grated
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 cups White Lily Flour
salt to taste
FOR THE LEMON CURD:
4 egg yolks -- beaten
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon zest -- grated
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 pinch salt
6 tablespoons butter
FOR THE COCONUT CREAM:
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup grated coconut
2 tablespoons sugar
salt
1 oz softened cream cheese

Make separately and then combine a lemon sponge cake, lemon curd, and coconut cream. First let's talk about making Lemon sponge cake for the first ingredient. You want to beat eight egg yolks until they are as light as a Virginia dawn. Add 2 cups of sugar in slow Southern style whilst beating the yolks into a thick mess. You then beat in 2 tsp.of grated lemon zest and 2 tbs. of lemon juice. Sift 2 cups of flour and salt together per taste. Afterwards, you sprinkle the flour over the egg yolks and fold lightly until smooth as a Georgia accent. You then beat the egg whites until stiff as Southern resistance to Yankee aggression and fold in nicely. Divide the lovely (tasty--I know) batter between 2 buttered and floured cake pans. Bake in an oven preheated to 325 degrees F. for 25 minutes. Check to see that the layers are golden brown and lightly pull away from the sides. Remove to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before turning out.

Now we're ready to make the lemon curd. Beat 4 egg yolks with 3/4 c. of sugar, 1 Ttb. grated lemon zest 1/3 cup lemon juice and a pinch of salt. Using a double boiler for that purpose, place the ingredients over simmering water and stir frequently until thickened. Remove from heat and then add 6 tb. butter a bit at a time. You are then ready to split the sponge cake into layers and stack the curd in between the layers. You then spread the top with coconut cream, letting it drip deliciously down the sides. Here's how to make some coconut cream.

Having refrigerated the lemon-orange curd and the cake, you can wash your double boiler to make use of it again. Stir in 1 c. heavy cream, 1/4 c. grated coconut, 1 tb. plus 2 tsp. sugar, and salt together in the double boiler's top and heat over simmering water for 20 minutes. Cool cream over ice water---you want it really cold. Try infusing the cream the day before, and refrigerating overnight. Whip the cream, and when it begins to thicken, add the cream cheese. This will stabilize the cream. Continue to beat until you have soft peaks You can then drip the coconut cream over the cake. This recipe will feed 12 polite eaters at a Marse Robert dinner party.

General Lee’s favorite meal was smothered chicken. We like the recipe for Country Captain found in the lovely old cookbook, “Charleston Receipts”. . We have this wonderful dish with fresh hot biscuits, rice, turnip greens, black-eyed peas, and fig preserves. After readings of Father Ryan's "Sword of Lee", and Donald Davidson's "Lee in the Mountains", and a short narrative of his career, accompanied by stirring music of the time, serve the General's favourite dessert with good coffee. [unless we buy unroasted beans, we always use Community Coffee, every day. They’re Southern.] Then toast the Sword of Virginia with good Bourbon and end the evening with Southron songs, and toasts.

Country Captain (from “Charleston Receipts)
This will feed a dozen: I usually fix half:

1 bunch parsely (chopped)
4 green peppers (chopped)
2 large onions (chopped)
Oil
1 (No. 2 ½ ) can tomatoes
1 teaspoon mace
2 teaspoons curry powder
Salt and pepper to taste
1 clove garlic (chopped)
2 fryers cut up
Paprika and flour
1 cup currants
Cooked white rice
½ pound blanched almonds

Fry parsley, peppers and onions in oil slowly for 15 minutes. Put mixture in roaster and add tomatoes, spices, salt and pepper. Simmer 15 minutes, then add garlic. Dredge Chicken in flour, salt, pepper and paprika. Fry till brown and lay in the sauce and cook at 275 F in covered roaster for 1.5 to 2 hours. Add currants ½ hour before serving. Arrange rice on platter, pour sauce over and the place chicken on top. Sprinkle with toasted almonds.

Macaroni and Cheese As It Should Be

2011-01-16T11:45:00.002-06:00

Mac and Cheese is comfort food and filler for empty tummies. When smart chefs get hold of the idea that they are supposed to make it somehow sophisticated, they fail miserably and ruin the whole dish.
I love stinky cheese. I am a mad defender of stinky cheese. But this is not the place for it. This is the place, and possibly the only place, where Velveeta is a necessity---in no way expendable or replaceable.

Making good Macaroni and cheese is the easiest thing in the world. There are just two rules, number one, of course, being Velveeta. That cannot change. The second rule involves pasta shape and is something more flexible. I recommend jumbo, if you can find it, or large elbow macaroni. Penne or shells will do in a pinch. Avoid anything smaller or more delicate. You may use anything from 8 ounces to one pound, and of course your finished dish will serve more or fewer, more or less lavishly, depending on your decision. I used 12 when the children were all home---I use 8 now… I still serve it with broccoli, and a roll. When my father-in-law was waning, we could always get him to eat my macaroni and cheese in great quantities, even when he wouldn’t eat anything else.

You’ll need a pound of Velveeta.

You’ll need the equivalent of a stick of butter. I used margarine when I had to and it worked fine. Really, really cheap margarine worked just fine.

You may use whole, skim, or canned milk---you’ll need 4 cups. When I use canned, I just use one regular sized can of milk and enough water to make up a quart. This is probably the cheapest way to do it.

Oh, yes! ½ cup all-purpose white flour.

So here’s how:

Cook the macaroni, al dente.

In a large pot, melt the 1 stick “butter” on medium heat and mix in ½ cup flour, 1 teaspoon salt and about ¼ teaspoon black pepper. Stir with a whisk until it is well blended and cooked for just a minute---it’ll taste better.

Pour in milk and whisk well. Continue whisking (most of the time) so that no lumps develop in your white sauce until it thickens. Add velveeta, either grated or just sliced thin, and let it melt and cook, stirring constantly (it will sure scorch fast!). When the cheese is melted, stir in the macaroni and pour the whole thing into a pyrex or metal casserole and bake at 350 about 20 minutes until it’s bubbly and starting to brown a bit. Or, if you are very hungry, skip the baking altogether. Sometimes kids can’t wait. Serve with a veggie. On the off chance that you have leftovers, just refrigerate and reheat in the microwave or oven. OR, mix in one can Wolf Brand chile and serve with cornbread---GREAT leftovers.

Love, Syler

Cheap, Good Food...(recipes)

2011-01-15T17:30:00.003-06:00

When my kids were little, they didn’t all like their vegetables, but they all loved them a couple of weeks later when they became part of “that kickass soup”.

I’m posting this today because I know times are hard and money’s tight. My soup is pretty much free. I’m posting both ingredients and instructions, so pay attention.

The unchangeable ingredients are: beef, onions, potatoes, carrots and one can tomato soup.

The soup is pretty much free because it is all leftovers. That’s the catch. You have to get used to freezing every leftover you can.
If a kid leaves part of his hamburger, wash off the leftover meat and stick it in a baggy in the freezer. If you have a slice of dried up roast, ditto. Look for soup bones on for cheap. Every smidgeon of beef you can get you hands on is immediately frozen. Same thing with onions. Raw onions are frequently leftover when preparing or consuming food. Bag em and freeze em.

Potatoes are a bit different, since the ideal situation would be to put in raw potatoes, peeled or not, but you will find that any form of leftover potato will do as well, including mashed or creamed potatoes. Just save them in the freezer. I almost always have a couple of stray carrots in the “crisper”, but the same applies to carrots as the rest. Leftovers are perfect.

Now, possible additions include green beans, English peas and corn. I eschew cabbage type vegs because the flavor is too strong. As with all the other ingredients, the thing to look for is leftover or perhaps superfluous vegetables. (Somebody might give you five pounds of greenbeans, for instance.)

Assembling the soup is extremely simple: tear open the bags and deposit everything frozen in a big pot with one can of tomato soup and enough water to cover. Add about 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon salt, and ½ teaspoon black pepper then cook it on low all day, stirring every hour or so. When evening comes, serve the hot, flavorful goodness to your family with a pan of cornbread:

1 ½ cup cornmeal
1 ½ cup all purpose flour
½ cup sugar
1 T baking powder
1 t salt
¼ cup bacon grease
Mix bacon grease into dry ingredients
Add
1 beaten egg
About 1 ½ cup milk---enough to make a pancake-like batter

Pour into hot 12-inch iron skillet greased with bacon grease

Bake 30 minutes at 400 degrees.

Y'all hoard your leftovers and try this. I'll try to remember to publish some more cheap recipes.

Apropos of nothing, but very important to me, my husband is on peritoneal dialysis and is feeling so much better.

Love,
Syler

To a Tarnished Effigy

2010-11-17T10:56:00.001-06:00

Little silver goddess
Cast with love and care
And shined and finished
Til you shown pure and white
And flawless from the artist’s hand…
What elements conspired
To ruin your beauty
And efface the brilliant surface
Of your graceful gracious form?
What corrosive influence
Has marred your face
And stained your bosom to its heart?
For want of care and kindness
You are weakened, blighted, maimed…
I weep for you, tiny, helpless icon.

Yet how much sadder
If instead of argent ore
Your form was flesh and blood—
Your conscience formed
And all your faculties acute.
Who then would bear the blame
For your dissolution?

Ah...October...

2010-10-25T14:15:00.002-05:00

O I have seen the hills ablaze
with God's own Majesty;
the golden flair against the green
in fiery ecstasy.

The breath I seized of stolen glory
from the enchanted air
left jewels upon my memory
forever printed there.

(East Texas Autumn of 1998)

So where were we? Ah yes. Forrest has married Jenny. I'm very serious, and very pleased, and bless their hearts, they think McKinney Texas is the greatest place on earth. Isn't that wonderful?

The wedding was lovely. I got there---actually got there---overmedicated and in a state of near panic, but it was lovely. I could write reams about all my children's weddings, but never do them justice. I was absolutely amazed and humbled by what Jenny's mother had accomplished. So beautiful, so elegant.

I fully expected to be 3 weeks bedridden in exchange for making the wedding because that's how things work with lupus, or at least with mine. I can only fake it for so long. I could barely make it to bed Sunday night, so imagine my surprise when I woke up Monday morning feeling a good deal better than usual...and felt progressively better through the day...On Tuesday morning, I was, amazingly, symptom free...my first REAL remission since my thyroid came out...unbelievable to be without pain anywhere---like a sort of benevolent sensory deprivation...lying in bed giggling because it felt like I was floating...giggling because it didn't hurt to put on my socks...hearing Dennis say---HEY! You're not screaming while you put up the dishes!

I scream while I put up the dishes? Well, good on me for stopping, because that must be really annoying...

I know that God did this for me because I was beginning to despair. Constant pain makes you squirrelly. I would imagine that everyone in the world felt like this, and that I was the only one who couldn't cope...the entire world was in a sort of hopeless, horrible conspiracy to appear happy and healthy when they were really in agony and I was the only one who was such a wuss that I couldn't play along---how contemptible...

And then it was as if God said, "No, normal people feel like THIS, see? So it's okay for you to be incapacitated with pain, because you really actually do feel like you have been hit by a truck and contracted the flu!" It was so beautiful and so exactly what I needed that I, of course, wept. Dear Father, to love your worthless child so much! Even if it ends tonight, my gratitude is sealed. I am so happy. I wouldn't trade places or conditions with anyone, anywhere. He gives me EXACTLY what I need...

I'm trying not to overdo, cutting back steadily on the pain meds---didn't seem a good idea to cold turkey...not after taking them for so long...but I'm down to half so pretty cool. Muscles still weak, but that horrible ever present pain is just not there...

So that's the good news. On the flip side, Seguin is having a painful flair---not that she is ever "normal", but she is really hurting a lot. Going to school is really more than she should do, but she does it, because she feels she has to...it hurts to see her hurt...

And now we have a diagnosis of 4th stage renal failure for Dennis. It isn't mine to really discuss, but for anyone who reads this blog, please pray for a good man who has always put duty ahead of all else...an honorable man in a horrible age. I will publish major news here...We have much hope!

This is Magnificent

2010-10-02T21:20:00.001-05:00

Go read this:

http://middan-geard.blogspot.com/2010/09/once-upon-time-in-west.html#comment-form

I did, and my heart is all broken and sort of warm and sloshy and sleepy, so I'm going to bed.

I love you. Good Night and May God keep you and do whatever it takes to make you behave...

Syler

Trying to get back...

2010-09-27T09:55:00.002-05:00

There's nothing more boring than listening to a sick person excuse themselves so let's just plunge in as if I'd never been away...

My middly son--yes, middly--is getting married. I am overjoyed. I really love this little girl that he's chosen---she has good sense and a lovely heart. She's young, and there are some things about which she's never thought, but she is good and character is all that matters. A person of good character will make the right decisions with more conviction than a person who's been taught right, but has no character...

Anyway.

His two brothers, both married, got together with him for a "bachelor party" this weekend...the high point was, of course, a fistfight...
This is, you understand, my version, put together with snatches of information from my oldest four children...

The first info came from the oldest, who called to inform me that he was going home having punched his little brother in the face and was angry with the middle brother for having taken up for the baby...(Oldest to youngest: 32, 30, 26. I mean, it's not like they are preschoolers...Yes, they were homeschooled, but they've all been to fairly prestigious universities. You'da thought they'da picked up SOME couth, right?) said he was going back because the middle one was crying(?) and begging him to.

Then my daughter called and talked to her little sister, who was home because she lives with the middle brother and didn't want to be designated driver for the barbarian hoard...daughter's info had come from her dear friend who happens to be the fiance in this whole thing and who informed her that the youngest had bitten the middlest. Yes, bitten...

The next morning the middle son called me...They had, he said, decided that they had all been drugged..."You were all DRUGGED?" I repeated.

"Yes!" he said. "We know we were drugged because we all had no more than 10 beers each" (okay, this is believable since they all drink like IRA henchmen)"and we don't remember anything that happened!"

"You had at most 10 beers each and you don't remember what happened??"

"Yes, and we think whoever drugged us was going to follow us home and rob us, but we left before they thought we would!"

"Someone drugged you in order to follow you home and rob you???"

At this point I heard a high pitched, wheezing wail and a loud thump, and turned to see that my husband was literally laughing so hard that he had fallen off the couch and onto the Big Puppy, and was now kicking his little heels in the air and clutching his sides. Puppy looked concerned...

I was trying mentally to deal with the utter stupidity of a gang who would pass up practicing their theft scheme on one of those little metroplex yuppie nerds driving 2011 BMW's in favor of my three big redneck boys, piling out of a 2003 Ford Mustang...

"Well, you MUST have been drugged," I said. "It's the only explanation that makes any sense."

We exchanged a few more pleasantries, and he said that they had watched the Cowboy game together and had all been in fine spirits when his brothers left...

"Well, I'm glad the experience was more positive than negative," I said...

"I'm just glad we didn't get ROBBED," he said.

The youngest one called, cautiously, that evening. You know the way they do---just kind of scouting out the territory to make sure there is no unpleasantness on the horizon.

Bless their little hearts...

I love them a lot...

Good Friday

2010-04-02T17:17:00.000-05:00

Solemn Day! We wait and watch-- Our conversation hold
In low and whispered voices while His battle plan unfolds.
The long, last battle---all things leading up to one dark hour
When our Prince will lead the final charge against the deadly power.

We know full well the outcome, yet we wait with bated breath
Reliving once again our Fair Lord’s Victory and His Death.
Anticipating still the charge made slowly and in pain
Up Calvary’s hill where Love will win and Love’s King will be slain.

We look across the timeless time---our Hero and our Hope
Begins again the endless climb, is fighting up the slope!
The Cross---His banner---in the fore, He strives on gallantly:
His courage never wav’ring as He claims the victory!

The awful sounds of battle fall again upon our ears--
The pounding of the heavy nails! We see His Mother’s tears!
The flow of blood---His own red Blood--now deals the deadly blow!
The King triumphant claims His own and banishes the Foe!

O Solemn Day! All hist’ry leading up to this dark hour
When our Prince will lead the final charge against the deadly power.
We gaze across the timeless time as Heav’n and Earth bow down
Before the dead Incarnate God who wears the thorny crown.

Syler Womack 2000

Just stuff...

2010-03-31T10:59:00.002-05:00

I thought I was gonna have to have a mammogram today, but then I remembered that I had a previous appointment to get a molar pulled. Whew! Sure dodged the bullet on that one! Now I don't have to get the mammogram until next week...

Dottie is doing better since she's been seeing the Chiropractor. Benny is really back to normal, and Scipio seems easier as well. It kills me for Dot to be in pain, but it could be worse---she might be one of those dogs who loves to go out and run around and hunt. As it is, she'd just as soon stay home and lie around and have me tell her what a pretty girl she is...

The midnight gardener strikes again...

2010-03-29T11:39:00.002-05:00

Dennis and I planted 2 grape vines and four blueberry bushes on Saturday. Arliss the pit puppy watched us carefully and with obvious fascination, his brow furrowed, turning his head this way and that in an attempt to take it all in. Yesterday when Dennis watered the wee plants, Rocky the cat went with him---stayed with him---also apparently very interested.
This morning when I went out to feed the horses, I checked on the plants. Each hole had been carefully re-excavated, the dirt mounded up fairly neatly in front of it, and each mound of dirt had one of the plants lying on it. Well, all but one...I never did find one of the blueberry bushes, but nevermind...the point is that the job was done neatly, with attention to detail and apparently with some purpose---Lord alone knows what that might have been...
Well, it wasn't Scipio. Such things are beneath him. Hadrian would have done the thing with far more flair and far less care, and Dottie would have forgotten what was going on after the first plant...Benny would have suffered a fatal coronary from so much exercise---which leaves the two pits and the cat...Tweek, it must be said, has a history with plants, having stolen an antique rosebush in a one-gallon pot in order to beautify her woody little shade den...but I keep thinking of Arliss' fascination with the process---ditto Rock Star...plus, he's a cat...
All three, plus Dottie, were lying around watching me while I replanted the poor little green things and lamented their cruel abuse, so I will watch and see if it happens again, I guess...
I can't believe I was worried about the horses...

My letter to Governor Perry...

2010-03-22T11:07:00.000-05:00

Sir,
I am trusting you to do everything in your power to see that this socialist president's bill does not take effect in the Great State of Texas---up to and including secession. This giant step into the benthic depths of Communism cannot be made---at least not by us.

Yours is a unique opportunity in politics. Depending on which side is ultimately victorious, historians may record you either as a villain or as a hero, but I hope you will not be satisfied to have them say that you merely looked good in the uniform.

Thank you,
Syler Womack

Broke my own rule, but saved again by Grace

2010-03-22T08:23:00.002-05:00

So I thought I had accepted the fact that the worst is going to happen politically, and that we have no control over it, but all those years of "American" condition got my gut twisted again---and to what purpose? The worst happened, in spite of an amazing effort by the majority of citizens---and there is nothing we can do. God will help us, but our fate isn't tied to the fate of this country and the traitors who think they run the government. In reality, they are all expendable. The real controllers are so wealthy, elite and obscure that they are untouchable. But pray for the souls of men like Stupak. Poor cowardly thing...

BUT---as for my own salvation, by Grace, a totally undeserved gift from God---I had the most wonderful little house guest this week! My wee Ann Marie, the oldest (at five months) grandbaby, was here with me from Tuesday through Sunday--and I got her dear parents on Saturday and Sunday as well!

I forget---we all do, I suppose--how amazing they are...I finally really got into my groove on Saturday morning, when I remembered the sling. Tied a knot in a length of fabric, stuck any inside it, seated on my hip and we cleaned the kitchen together and washed a load of clothes... They LOVE the sling---they think you are holding them in your arms, yet your hands are both free, and they can see everything you're doing. I got to try out the "tummy tub" and just loved it, as did the baby...3 quarts water come up to her shoulders and she played and played for about 15 minutes--until the water was cooling and I was afraid she would get pruny, then she cried when I took her out because she wanted to stay there (for about 2 minutes) until the warm water calming effect took over and she took a TWO HOUR nap...We bought her a walker, but her little legs are about an inch too short so we had to put a platform under it. Worked well for those times that my fibro just couldn't take anymore stomping, LOL.

The magic is in her desire to interact with everyone in the room. Imagine how wonderful it would be if we simply acknowledged everyone's presence with a truly happy smile...Oh, that little smile.

It was wonderful, and we are so grateful to her dear parents for sharing her with us. How loving is that, to share your most precious possession? I am also grateful to my daughters for helping me care for her. Evil Aunt Sissy kept her constantly amused with hugs and mean comments---the meaner the better--"Let's leave her on someone's doorstep" got a squeal and a belly laugh---and Aunt Baby got up early every morning and held her while I fixed her bottle and walked her when nothing else would comfort her. She loves them both so much and says so, with her eyes, every time she sees them.

So---my involvement with the wee darling has saved me from despair.

say WHAT?

2010-03-11T11:35:00.002-06:00

So the ad has the guys who service the rival coke machines--Dr. Pepper, 7 up, Coca Cola, whatever---wheeling their products into the school and the announcer tells us that they are no longer supplying "full calorie soft drinks" (natural sugar as opposed to chemical whatever) in schools.
"American Beverage Companies. Helping children make more balanced choices."

CHOICES??? CHOICES???? What choices? You just eliminated the CHOICE---there is no CHOICE...You just freakin' dictated what the kid can drink! You just re-defined the word "CHOICE" you liberal creeps!

And everyone thinks it's wonderful, because the propaganda machine is in motion and its working, because who wants a fat kid, right? Oh, RIGHT! fat is unhealthy...no, that's BS---You don't want a fat kid because you want a trophy kid, you unnatural vile things...You want your kid to be a little "you" and have lots of sex. Stop lying. Get a new soul.

I may not be completely socially unacceptable, but I'm trying...

2010-03-10T16:18:00.003-06:00

Nancy Pelosi's admonition to the congress that they must "pass the bill so you can find out what's in it" was disturbing. More disturbing was her assertion that the bill is not about healthcare--it's about the future. It's about diet, not diabetes.

If you are not frightened senseless by that thought, you are brain dead. Yes, they do intend to control every aspect of your life---even what you eat. The recent reports in the news about schools sending out fat reports to parents and keeping records of their students body fat index is only the tip of the iceberg. You see, if this thing is going to work, we've all got to do our part. The fact that you may be paying for your own, plus 10 more people isn't important. After all, you're only giving according to your ability. They are only taking according to their need. You may not indulge in behavior that might cause health care costs that exceed your fair share. That's why we've been so carefully edging out smoking, in spite of the fact that the world health organization refuses to say that there is any truth to the second-hand-smoke theories. It's important that you don't cost more than other people, so you can't smoke. And it's VERY important for smokers and soon, fatties, to be marginalized and dehumanized.

You may think that people will rise up and demand that the government stay out of our business. Think again. Through a campaign of propaganda, the intake of certain foods will become so socially unacceptable that no one will think twice about banning them. Based on their own preference for thinner, "more healthy" bodies, but under the guise of "health concerns", your friends will demand that you serve only approved foods when you ask them for dinner---and you, dear sap, will have no one to appeal to and no one who will share your amazement at their total lack of propriety because wanting to eat french fries is just indefensible, and nasty, and, yes! INCONSIDERATE!

Well, they will get my french fries when they pry them from my cold dead fingers, and if someday one of my younger friends and relations comes mincing up to me and demands that I serve only tofu when he visits, because the smell of hot fat is just yucky, I will smile sweetly, pop him on the head with my wooden spoon, turn my jolly fat back on him, and go back to frying. For the sake of common courtesy I'm sure I will already be providing tofu as an alternative, but for the sake of freedom and my own identity I intend to hang on to my vices just as hard as I can for as long as I live.

I've GOT to figure this out!

2010-03-10T13:21:00.002-06:00

Nobody wants to read this stuff and I apologize, but maybe if I write it down it will help me figure out why I have been SO sick for the past 6 days. I attribute it to going to the doctor and to Mass within three days---Tyler is 50 miles away and I was gone all morning and into the afternoon...BUT---I still can't believe that I'm that mentally ill---no one wants to be---but maybe I am. I have been taking my pills and sticking to mostly low glycemic index foods...but I think maybe I should increase my lithium and my potassium...So much anxiety, inability to focus, so tired but can't sleep. I keep wanting to eat, which is weird for me... but nothing of substance. I think I'd be happy with salted wood chips...lots and lots of water...See? I can't even write. I can't think well enough to write. I fed the horses this morning as Dennis was leaving---a little after 7. I find it easier to get out the door while he's still out there, and once I'm out, it's okay---I have Jake and Argie and Cleo and Baby and Scipio, Tweek, Dottie, Arliss, Hadrian, Benny, Rock Star, Belle, Daisy Kyle and Baby Heifer, so I'm certainly not alone...When I got back in the house, it wasn't yet 8, but I was overwhelmed with sleepiness and tiredness---although I slept from 9 until 4:30 last night. Can't think---That's the worst part. Anyway. I'm making a concerted effort to go do either the kitchen or the master bath. PLEASE, Lord, make up my mind which one! Why should it be so hard? I hate this for Dennis. I know it will pass, but he still has to live with me until it does...I'm so SORRY...

Small Animal Observation

2010-03-09T10:40:00.001-06:00

Female bunnies tinkle more than male bunnies...or maybe they just tinkle more on ME...

Whew!

2010-03-09T07:21:00.002-06:00

Well, that's better. I assume the barometer has changed or SOMETHING. Anyway, better now.
Eight hours actual sleep last night, except for 6 trips to the bathroom.
There is an art to figuring out pain meds and rest schedules, and I haven't mastered it. But I'm working on it.
More light today, too, I think...

The danger of the panoply of war...

2010-03-03T14:11:00.002-06:00

Okay, it's obvious, but sometimes I forget...
When I first read "The Lord of the Rings", the battles were a distraction from the main story, which was, of course, Frodo and Sam's torturous way of the Ring. Bellicose though I am, the true thrust of the story was so clear---I wanted to rush past the plot lines related to Gondor and Rohann...But with successive readings, and especially after numerous viewings of Peter Jackson's wonderful screen adaptation which, for obvious reasons, makes more of the battles and less of the suffering, I began to pore over Helm's Deep and Pellinore Field, and most of all the glorious charge of the Rohirrim against the Orcs---so symbolic, beauty and courage and virtue against complete evil---and I would almost lose sight of Frodo and Sam and what they did to save Middle Earth...And an entire generation of LotR fans will never really prioritize as they should, and I know it---for that is what they do with 20th and 21st Century History as well...and with the entire history of The Church and of Christendom. We are so frail and so easily distracted by what is pretty and exciting...

How hard is this?

2010-03-03T08:51:00.000-06:00

Big government and more laws assure that we will never exercise common sense. Watch the news. The little girl raped and murdered while jogging by a repeat offender who was out because of a plea bargain and wasn’t even wearing a bracelet…The feds up in arms about the kid in the control tower… Lumping all “sex offenders” together with mandatory laws just makes more fodder for the ACLU idiots who whine about Scarlet letters…Look---if this is some guy who goes around raping children, kill him. If he’s an 18 year old who had consensual sex with his 16 year old fiancée, it’s shotgun wedding time. As far as the kid in the tower, you know that his daddy is going to be paying more attention while his kid is on the mic than at any other time. Nobody ought to be hair-lipped over that one. I hate Yankees and their stupid laws. Hate their lights and livers. Use some damn sense and move on.

What about Tilikum

2010-02-27T09:20:00.001-06:00

Tilly is 7 tons of testosterone cooped up in a relatively tiny tank by himself except for when he’s servicing cows or doing tricks for Scooby Snacks. It goes without saying that he is insane, and therefore unreleasable. It ought to be obvious to anyone with a heart and a brain that he is angry. Only God knows how controlled his anger is---and even so, he’s killed three humans---at least one of whom he was apparently very fond of. He’s miserable and he has no way out. What kind of a money grubbing unprincipled moron would ignore his declaration of despair by keeping him alive in his misery? Well, obviously the good people at Seaworld.
I know it’s fun, but is it worth being in collaboration with people who obviously respect neither animal nor human life? Let them know you just can’t justify their racket. Stay away from Seaworld this year. Nothing can justify killing people and torturing animals. And they are doing it for the almighty buck. Don’t help them. And speak up for Tilly by demanding his death. Please.

Just unbelievable...

2010-02-26T17:56:00.000-06:00

Watched the “bipartisan” health care meeting yesterday---just long enough to become amazed and appalled at the absolute arrogance of our president. He is not accustomed to not having his own way and it shows. He is quite…put out… about having his plans and desires in any way curtailed… Being a child of privilege, a political pet in a politically correct era, he is understandably outraged at the concept of anyone, including the American People, disagreeing with him. In addition, he honestly doesn’t understand the big deal about “sharing”. Having never been forced to sacrifice himself, he doesn’t understand the anger of people who have worked hard and made difficult choices all their lives in order to achieve a measure of comfort and autonomy in their grandparent years. He assumes that all financially secure people got that way the same way that he did: by being the right color in the right place at the right time, eloquently articulating the right philosophy. And in this, he differs very little from most politicians.

“We’re not campaigning anymore, John. We’ve had the election,” he told Senator McCain. It was a nasty, catty little remark, but it wasn’t really Obama’s fault---it was McCain’s. We wouldn’t be going through any of this if McCain had vetted Obama, as was his duty.

What was clear throughout was the fact that the President intends to get his way whether we like it or not. Because, you see, he is ever-so-much smarter than we are. People have been telling him so for years.

I was going to attack Glen Beck as well, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. I can’t stand to think about these people for too long…

Serve with humility, in obscurity

2010-02-20T12:54:00.001-06:00

There are things upon which I disagree with the renowned Anglican write C.S. Lewis---the foremost of which is the Holy Catholic Church—but one of his observations I have to hail as a little morsel of astuteness amid a chaotic pot-luck of sentimental nonsense. Lewis did not pay attention to current events. He didn’t read newspapers. He avoided keeping up with world crises because he knew that too much tragedy desensitizes us. He knew that if you hear too many stories about the naked, hungry children in India, you will lose the ability to see and to be affected by the barefoot child who actually stands before you.

We are bombarded every day with the most horrendous horror stories. We are inundated with constant appeals for money and more money---we are, in fact, panhandled on an hourly basis. These appeals are presented as if we were not already being robbed at gunpoint to subsidize what someone else has decided is the entitlement of people whom we do not know except as numbers. There is no charity here. There is no grace, no virtue, and very little, if any, good. The only people who benefit are the “benefit” organizers, the employees of the bloated governments, and certainly the corrupt officials of the countries wherein reside the poor objects of our concern.

Charity begins at home. The corruption of Charity is not limited to the National and International realm---it can occur in a rural county or small town. It can occur amoung “Church Ladies” of any sect, and amoung Catholics as well. It happens when we begin to desire not merely to help others but to be seen to help others. It occurs when we lose sight of the very clear fact that our little unremarkable good deeds are done more for our own pleasure than for the benefit of others. It escalates when we demand that other people adopt our personal and very arbitrary little priorities.

For instance, I know some people who are irritated by the fact that I spend a bit more for free range eggs. I haven’t always done so. When I was feeding five children, pennies counted. Well now I’m older and I have more money. I choose to buy eggs laid by hens not locked up in tiny cages---not because I think chickens are the most important creatures in the world, and not because I am an obsessive advocate of animal rights, but because I rather enjoy the prospect of the little hens running around in the grass and eating bugs. I like chickens. And I rather think that God enjoys the little hens running around enjoying themselves as well…I dare to think that having created these charming yard birds, and having given them all kinds of little virtues and personalities, He gets satisfaction from seeing them at their happiest. It makes me happy, so I do it. I know the difference in a child and a chicken, ma’am, but I do not wish to give, instead, to your very well-publicized campaign to feed the children of Somalia, although, if I could GO to Somalia and have my way for a few days, I would gladly give whole herds of chickens to the hungry people so that they could have chicken stew. But I won’t contribute to your charity. For one thing, I really don’t think it’s doing those children much good, and I can see that it’s very bad for you. Your children, your own dear children borne by you, are bored bullies in school because you’ve made them hate charity---it takes so much of you that you have nothing left to give them. I’ve seen the contempt on your face when poorly dressed, poorly behaved dirty children pass too near you in the grocery store. You don’t love them. How can you love the children of Somalia? Oh, How you love humanity with love so pure and pringlish, as Chesterton opined…

I like to think of what it would be like if every one of us behaved for only one day as if no one could see us except for our guardian angels. Would we notice the child standing before us who needs us emotionally or physically? Would we notice the merriment inherent in all of creation? Could we stop acting long enough to be TRULY virtuous?

Please take a day this Lenten season to cut yourself off from the admiration of the world and see a child---any child, even your own---who needs something now, whether a gentle word of encouragement, a cookie, or a pair of shoes. And give that child what he needs. And don’t let ANYONE else know what you’ve done. Keep that wonderful little joy and cherish it in your heart. Then go watch a chicken play, and praise our Loving Father for his incredible providence.

The Sincerity of the APE (Atheist Power Elite)

2010-02-18T08:09:00.003-06:00

[I have given up social networking for Lent---I need to spend more time blogging, and actually THINKING and less time just visiting...]

The problem with the Pelosis, the Reids, the Obamas, the O’donnels, the Garafolos, ad infinitem, is very simple: They have rejected God, they have rejected His laws, and they have totally rejected the concept of eternal reward and punishment. Yet, being the creatures that He made them, they still innately yearn for justice. I don’t think they are a bunch of sociopaths, although they certainly behave that way. No, they are truly concerned with justice---but it is a justice from which they have excluded God and everything that represents Him. So the only authority they have to go on is their own confused and directionless sense. They truly want to punish the evil and reward the good---in this life, because there is no other---and they have no arbitrary authority to appeal to. The so-called Conservatives of the same metaphysical stripe appeal to the “Constitution” and the “Founding Fathers” to avoid involving God, although the have invented a complex fiction regarding the founding fathers’ spirituality in order to appease the average American, who still, in his heart of hearts, believes in and defers to the Almighty. But all these practical atheist elites do what they do because they believe that they are God. That no one else knows what’s best. That the individual should turn to them, and not himself, in making personal determinations. Because they are compassionate, but not wise, they embrace the “downtrodden”. Period. Without regard to why he is “downtrodden” or whether he could become otherwise, and because they embrace the downtrodden, they assume that someone else is treading on him, and they foolishly assume that it must be the successful, the moral, the people with religious conviction. They have made conviction the cardinal sin—almost the ONLY sin--of their tragic communion: the sin of “Intolerance”. It is a fatal misnomer, for “tolerance” is the very thing they hate: in order to tolerate a thing, one must have a conviction against it, and this is the thing the Atheists in Power will not allow.
The frequent show of real intolerance from their own ranks is not mere hypocrisy. They are God. They must be allowed judgments which are denied those unfortunates who fall under their “providence”.
The entire thrust of their creed is in reality the justice they instinctively yearn for. The success of those in opposition to them is, in their minds, injustice. Taking money from those who have earned it and giving it to those who “need” it is, in their minds, justice. There is no sense in pointing out that they themselves live well. Their luxuries are mere necessities for facilitating their godhood. They are obsessed with injustice, and eaten alive by it. The question “why do good things happen to bad people” haunts them---and remember that “bad people” are simply those who do not share their creed.
As a Catholic, I don’t have to worry about eternal justice---I only have to be kind to whoever or whatever shows up at my door or falls under my sphere of influence---small as that may be. As a Catholic, I am required to practice courtesy, largesse, and defense of those weaker than myself. I am required to be an example of nobility, so that those I touch will hopefully be influenced to go forth and act accordingly to those THEY touch. I am required to use wisdom and true charity, not simple sentimentality in my giving to others both of my time and my material possessions. And I am allowed to sleep peacefully at night, because the ultimate question of Justice is not up to me.
When “Bob Rogers”, the mafia don, stands before the Judgment and hears “Eternal Damnation” he will protest, “But GOD! I was always kind to animals and my mother!” and God will say, “YES, Bob---yes you were. And that’s why I gave you that big house and all those cars and boats.”

Syler

Worth remembering...

2009-12-03T19:46:00.003-06:00

"Every mother should teach her boys to look upon a woman as they would upon an altar."---Fr. Abram J. Ryan, Poet Laureate of The South

A Horse's Christmas Fable

2009-12-03T18:33:00.002-06:00

[I publish this exactly as it was sent to me many years ago by a dear friend of whom I've lost track. Maybe she'll see it...]

The old gray horse sidled up to the pasture fence with little dancing steps. The place seemed familiar, yet somehow strange.
The grass was greener than any grass he'd ever seen, and when he looked closely at the white paddock gate it had a kind of pearly sheen. and there was another funny thing. A big, black cloud hovered just inside the gate. The cloud wasn't up in the sky where it properly belonged. It was like a great puff of black smoke rising from the grass.

Suddenly the cloud dissolved and revealed a horse. He was a small chestnut with a blunt head and one white stocking and brownish hairs in his tail and mane. The gray horse thought he had a kind of old timely look to him.

"Hello, old gray horse," the chestnut from the black cloud said. "Hey, that's a real good trick!" the gray horse exclaimed. "Where'd you learn it?"

The chestnut disappeared into the cloud again, but emerged immediately. "Learned it the day I was born," he replied, with a whinny that sounded like a chuckle. "You see, I was born on April Fool's Day and there was a total eclipse of the sun. So they named me Eclipse. I was always playing tricks on people too. Used to kick my grooms and try to throw my riders and I bit the auctioneer that sold me."

"My name is..." the old gray horse started to say politely, but the tricky chestnut ducked in and out of his cloud and
interrupted rudely. "Native Dancer," he said. "I ought to know you. I'm your great-great-great-great-great - I always lose count of the 'greats' 'a?" but anyway, you're a descendant of mine… almost everybody is, in fact. The Thoroughbreds, that is."

"Are you the gatekeeper?" Native Dancer asked.
"Mostly," Eclipse replied. "I'm on duty whenever one of my descendants is coming up. That's mostly so far as the Thoroughbreds go. Old Matchem has a few left and he takes over when one's due. And poor old Herod, he's posted here occasionally, but there's not many of his male line that aren't here already."

"What is this place" Native Dancer asked. "I guess I'm kind of lost." "the Green Place," Eclipse replied. "That's what
it's called. The Green Place. Most of the horses that get lost, come here.
We have to send some back of course."

"Why?" the Dancer asked.

"Because they don't belong here, that's why. Long before I came up there was this fellow Bayard, for instance. He was a devil-horse. Belonged to an old necromancer named Malagigi and he did the devil's work. Helped that villain Aymon of Dordogne to triumph over Charlemagne, they say. and a wizard named Michael Scott had a big black beast who used to stomp his feet and set al the bells of Paris ringing. He even caused the towers of the palace to fall down one day.

The Big Guy doesn't want that kind here. But we have Jesse James' horse, and Dick Turpin's too. The Big Guy says they did nothing wrong themselves. They were just faithful to their masters, and The Big Guy thinks that's a virtue."

"Who's the Big Guy?" Native Dancer asked.

"You'll find out!" Eclipse answered airily. He lowered his muzzle and pushed the gate open. "You might as well come in. You understand you're on probation though. The Big Guy makes his decisions about new arrivals every Christmas. Let's see, it's November 16, the way you figure things down there. So you won't have long to wait anyway."

"I'll bet The Big Guy is Man O' War" Native Dancer said as he moved inside and gazed over the emerald green expanses that seemed to stretch into infinity.

Eclipse snorted. "Don't get smart, boy" he said. Then he added maliciously, "You'd lose your bet too. the way a lot of people lost their bets on you at Churchill Downs one day."

Native Dancer felt hurt, for his ancestor had touched a raw nerve. His lip tremble a bit as he replied defensively, "That Derby was the only race I ever lost."

"I never lost even one race," Eclipse said unsympathetically. "So don't get smart up here. The Big Guy doesn't want
any smart-alecks in the Green Place. Remember that."
Native Dancer was a sensitive sort. He felt as if his eyes were teary and he hoped Eclipse didn't notice. "I won 21 out of 22, and Man O'War only won 20 out of 21" he declared. "And my son Kauai King won the Kentucky Derby."

"My sons won three Derbys at Epsom" Eclipse said.
"Young Eclipse took the second running and Saltram won the fourth and Sergeant won the fifth, and I'd have won the bloomin' race myself, only they didn't run it in my time. So quit bragging. Somebody's coming and they might
overhear you and tell The Big Guy, and that would be a mark against you."

A bay horse who seemed even more old-timey than Eclipse ambled up. "Is it my time now?" he asked eagerly.
"Not yet, Herod," Eclipse answered in a kindly fashion. "Old Fig's on duty now. One of his is on the way."

"Who's Old Fig?" Native Dancer asked. "I never heard of that one."

"There's a lot of things you never heard of, boy," Eclipse replied. "His real name is Figure, but down there they called him Justin Morgan, after his owner. Here he is now."

A very small, dark bay horse with a round barrel, tiny feet, and furry fetlocks came bustling up to the gate. "OK, OK, I'll take over," he said busily. "Where is that boy? Can't stand tardiness.
I've got things to do. A load to pull, a field to plough, a race to run, a trot to trot. No time to waste. Where is that boy?"

In the weeks that followed, The Dancer met hundreds, maybe thousands, of horses. Some of them were famous, and some of them were his ancestors and a few of them were his own sons and daughters.

He met a snorting white stallion named Bucephalus who had been approved for the Green Place by The Big Guy even though he was rumored by some that he was cursed by the deadly sin of pride because he had carried a conqueror named Alexander.

He met another gray horse who limped because he had stepped on a rusty nail back home just before he became lost forever. His name was Traveller, and he was a war-horse too, in the days when a man named General Lee had owned him.

There were other soldier steeds, two of them descendants of the bustling little stallion they called Old Fig up here. One was Phil Sheridan's black Rienzi and the other horse called both Fancy and Little Sorrel who had been the mount of Stonewall Jackson.

Native Dancer found Man O' War an amiable sort despite his proud aristocratic bearing, and he grew especially fond of a bony old fellow named Exterminator, who patiently answered all but one of his questions.
He asked the question of everyone: "Who is The Big Guy?" And the answer was always the same: "Wait 'til Christmas."

He met Messenger and Hambletonian and Hindoo. He met horses that had dared the dreadful fences of the Grand National. He met a horse who stared blindly into the emerald darkness. His name was Lexington.
He met horses who had pulled circus wagons and horses who had pulled brewers' trucks and horses who had drawn man's plows over the fields of earth, and he met others who had been the mounts of kings and captains.

Always the answer to his question was the same:
"Wait 'til Christmas."

Eclipse fussed over him and kept a watchful eye on his behavior and said he neighed too much and asked too many questions.
Eclipse could not stand the thought of The Big Guy banishing one of his descendants from the Green Place. And Native Dancer did not wish to leave. He doubted he could ever find his way to Maryland again if The Big Guy disapproved of him. And the Green Place was very pleasant in all respects. The grass was lush and he met so many interesting horses.

Back home he had sometimes been troubled by nightmares, for a Dark Star haunted his dreams, but now he slept
peacefully and rarely remembered the Derby he had lost. He became nervous though, as the weeks went by and the stars grew brighter.

And finally it was time.

On a night when the skies burned with starlight all the horses gathered as near as possible to a little hillock of the vast paddock. There were hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of them, a murmuring and expectant throng that seemed to stretch over the emerald grass beneath the diamonds in the heavens.

Eclipse was very tense. He hovered over Native Dancer, whispering, "Look your best now. Be quiet and humble. The Big Guy will be here any minute."

Suddenly the vast throng was silent as the stars themselves. The Big Guy stood on the hillock in a blinding blaze of
starlight, and Native Dancer could barely contain himself. He choked back a whinny of derision and whispered to Eclipse, "Is he The Big Guy? He's so little! And he's not even a horse! What did he ever do?"

Eclipse whispered, "He's a donkey. He carried a woman heavy with child to a small town on another night when the stars were bright. It was a long, long time ago."
---author unknown

A Blessed Advent

2009-12-01T16:15:00.001-06:00

Sunday, November 29, marked the beginning of Advent. Advent has nothing to do with "The Holidays!" but everything to do with Christmas---because there cannot be a feast without a preparation for that feast, just as food cannot be enjoyed by the sated. As the house must be made clean for the coming of a guest, the soul must be prepared for the coming of Christ.
Advent has been described as a "little Lent". Like Lent, it is a period of prayer and fasting and abstaining from meat. In the bad old days, married couples, to whom was reserved the privileges of sexual intercourse (yes, really!), abstained from sex during Advent as they did during Lent. Even today, a dispensation is required to marry during this season.
But prayer and fasting are a fitting way to prepare for the Christ Child. They help us to recall the desperate longing of the old faithful Jews for the Messiah---How long, O Lord?
O Come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom Captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear!
Advent means waiting and longing and preparing one's soul. How does one prepare one's soul? For the Catholic, it means partaking of the sacrament of Confession. Yes, I know it's called Reconciliation now, in Newchurch Speak, but that rather misses the point and smacks of slapping the Savior on the back and inquiring, "Hey, are we cool, Lord?"
No, one must rid oneself of the filth and garbage one has accumulated before one dare approach Our Lord, not as a "bro", but as the prodigal son approached his father: "I am not worthy to be called your son. I have sinned against you."
Confession calls to mind the gravity of really facing our sins and being accountable for them. It's a hard task, and not everyone is mature enough, or courageous enough, to seek out and face up to his own sins. Facing one's sins requires action. It requires reparation, when possible, and it requires change. It may require losing some habits with which we have become very comfortable, but that is what's required.
Now the Protestants argue that Confession to a priest is not necessary and that it should be between you and Jesus---and in one sense they are correct, because the very admission to yourself that you are indeed committing certain sins should immediately bring about such severe contrition and such heartfelt prayers of sorrow for your sins that the formal act of confessing to a priest should be almost an anticlimax emotionally. But it is very necessary, simply because God wills it so. "You are Peter. Whatever you hold bound on earth shall be bound in heaven."
And so we tell our sins to the priest and in doing so we humble ourselves and convict ourselves. The priest listens with Christ's ear to our sins and, in the name of Christ, by the power of Christ's Holy Church, he gives us absolution while we intone the Act of Contrition: O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell; but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen.
"...to amend my life."
It's a terrifying proposition.
But all lives were changed with the Incarnation.
Have a Blessed Advent and save Christmas for the twelve wonderful days alloted to its celebration. Remember Good King Wenceslaus who was celebrating heartily on the Feast of Stephen (the first martyr) which falls on December 26 when he spied the poor beggar and went forth through the blizzard to bring him food and cheer. Remember the Beloved Apostle John on the 27th, and the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem, slain by Herod, on the 28th. Remember Thomas a Beckett, the great Martyr of Canterbury, and Pope St. Sylvester. Celebrate the Circumcision of Our Lord, and the feast of St Basil the Great! Remember the joy of the Magi who traveled across continents to follow the Star that brought them to Our Lord on Epiphany, or Twelfth Night. Don't let them take away your Joy on Christmas afternoon. Hang onto it as long as possible, but make it your first priority to ready yourself so that you can enjoy it fully and appreciate it completely.
Love,
Syler

Sicut et nos dimittimus creditoribus nostris...

2009-12-01T06:59:00.002-06:00

Recently, I picked up my much-loved ragged copy of Kristin Lavransdatter from the nightstand and opened it at random. My eye was drawn to the italicized Latin text, "---dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris"---forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
The passage follows the thoughts of Simon, Kristin's brother-in-law, whom, in her youth, she cast away to follow her passion for Erlend whom she subsequently married. Simon marries her younger sister, partly because the sister is devoted to him, and partly because of his own affection for Kristin's father Lavrans—but Simon always retains his youthful devotion to Kristin, his promised maid. He strives, because of his good character, to be a good relative to her and to Erlend. When Erlend forfeits his lands and faces death for his part in an ill-fated coup, Simon is responsible for saving his life, at a tremendous emotional and moral cost to himself. However, Simon now finds that he has been guilty of believing an ignoble lie concerning Erlend. Because the evidence seems to fit, and Erlend is certainly not innocent of dishonorable conduct, Simon believes it, and now must make apologies to his brother-in-law.
During their encounter, Erlend, who had married Simon's betrothed maid, Kristin, is dismayed that Simon could think so ill of him (you may make of that what you will)…The fact is that Simon also is dismayed, and cannot apologize strongly enough. "'Tis not worth taking so hardly," says Erlend.
Simon replies, "I am not so good a man as you! I cannot forgive so easily them that I have wronged!...I have heard you speak fair words of Sigurd…the old man whose wife you stole from him. I have seen and known that you loved Lavrans with all a son's love. And never have I marked that you bore me grudge for that you lured from me my promised maid—I am not so high-minded as you deem, Erlend---I am not so high-minded as you—I bear a grudge to the man whom I have wronged!"
It's an astounding concept. It is indicative both of Erlend's character, that he could so easily and sincerely speak well of and love all those whom he has monstrously wronged and ruined through his own thoughtless, selfish actions, and of Simon's character, that, rather than attribute Erlend's attitude to a lack of contrition, he chooses to call it a virtue. And who is to judge whether it is arrogance or humility? Only God knows whether people like Erlend ever comprehend the pain they've caused. But suppose they do…Would it not be a virtue to put aside the weight of guilt and forgive those whom we have horribly wronged?
We could do far worse than to add "and those against whom we trespass" when we whisper the Our Father…

Chesterton's defense of women...

2009-12-01T06:46:00.000-06:00

"...the truth is that woman always varies, and that is exactly why we always trust her. To correct every adventure and extravagance with its antidote in common-sense is not (as the moderns seem to think) to be in the position of a spy or a slave. It is to be in the position of Aristotle or (at the lowest) Herbert Spencer, to be a universal morality, a complete system of thought. The slave flatters; the complete moralist rebukes. It is, in short, to be a Trimmer in the true sense of that honorable term; which for some reason or other is always used in a sense exactly opposite to its own. It seems really to be supposed that a Trimmer means a cowardly person who always goes over to the stronger side. It really means a highly chivalrous person who always goes over to the weaker side; like one who trims a boat by sitting where there are few people seated. Woman is a trimmer; and it is a generous, dangerous and romantic trade.
The final fact which fixes this is a sufficiently plain one. Supposing it to be conceded that humanity has acted at least not unnaturally in dividing itself into two halves, respectively typifying the ideals of special talent and of general sanity (since they are genuinely difficult to combine completely in one mind), it is not difficult to see why the line of cleavage has followed the line of sex, or why the female became the emblem of the universal and the male of the special and superior. Two gigantic facts of nature fixed it thus: first, that the woman who frequently fulfilled her functions literally could not be specially prominent in experiment and adventure; and second, that the same natural operation surrounded her with very young children, who require to be taught not so much anything as everything. Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren't. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world. But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets cakes. and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness."
----G.K. Chesterton

A Fairytale

2009-11-30T08:21:00.002-06:00

Once upon a time there was a great Emperor, mighty beyond measure. He loved all that he ruled and cared for all his subjects with Justice and Tenderness. In the course of time, one of the Emperor's greatest Knights became jealous and dissatisfied and led a revolt against him. The evil knight was defeated and banished along with the others whom he had seduced, but he succeeded in invading and setting up a rebel administration in one region of the Emperor's territories.

The Emperor had a special love for that territory, and seeing that the renegade knight was seducing his beloved subjects into rebellion, he sent the Crown Prince to put down the rebellion and establish a visible Kingdom within which His subjects could dwell without fear from the evil knight and his minions. After a long battle in which he endured hardships and sufferings beyond imagining, the Prince established the Kingdom and his Father declared Him to be the King of that Realm.

But the Emperor loved his son and wanted Him to sit always at his right hand, so the King appointed a Steward to minister his kingdom in his absence. "I will return" He told the Steward and all his subjects, "and it is not necessary for you to know when. But I want you to go throughout this kingdom, and send your ministers, and tell the people that they must all swear allegiance to me. Tell them that they must wait here in my Kingdom, which I leave in the care of my Steward, for my return! Teach them and love them, as I would do. Temper justice with Mercy, and temper Mercy with justice, and always deal with each other in a spirit of TRUE Charity which must sometimes burn as well as comfort. Be brave and loyal to me, even unto death, for I am your king and I will reward you. Protect those who are weaker, because of age, or infirmity or a weak spirit. Help each other to keep my charge to you. Remember that the greatest among you must serve the least."

The Steward and the subjects gazed at the King with grief and alarm, but the King said again---"I will return".

The years passed and the Steward did as the King had commanded. The forces of the dark knight, though defeated, were always active, always and everywhere trying to seduce the King's subjects away from him. The Steward was murdered by the enemy, and another was appointed to take his place, and another, and another. The years rolled by, but the subjects, always fighting evil and always led by the Steward, fought on in the King's name and established His Kingdom as closely modeled after his will as they could---making their allegiance to the King to dominate every facet of their lives---not just the government, but the smallest and least important rite or celebration bore the marks of the Reign of the Great King----even though it had been many years since his departure and none were left alive who remembered seeing him. Under the administration of the Stewards, the subjects built and nurtured and upheld the kingdom for over a thousand years, and the King's name, and the title of Steward, became revered as far as men could walk, or ride or sail.

But after a time, the subjects began to forget what they had learned from the King regarding humility and service. They had been required to fight hard to keep the enemy at bay, and their thoughts turned to power and riches. Even the Ministers and the Stewards themselves became more concerned with power and policies than in the simple code of behavior that the King had left them to follow. Some Stewards became great Generals, and were more adept at leading men into battle in order to increase their holdings than they were at tending the King's subjects. Some were actually evil, and brought their mistresses into the King's own chambers. When such things occurred, the subjects were grieved and said, "This is a bad Steward. May the next one be a good man and uphold the King's charge!" But still, they remembered the King's words, and upheld the evil Stewards because they WERE the Stewards, and as the king's subjects, they had no choice.

Still the forces of the dark Knight flourished, and infected the Knights of the King over whom the Steward reigned in his stead. Knights once devoted to the King ignored his orders, and began to set up their own governments, declaring "The Steward is not the Steward" and worse yet "The King never appointed a Steward". The good subjects knew that the rebel knights spoke nonsense, but the bad knights began pointing out that some of the Stewards had been very bad indeed, and subjects whose simple fathers would merely have replied that the King's orders could not be changed because the Steward was merely human began to think too much, and to separate their reason from their hearts and spirits, and they were lost and followed the evil Knights.

The evil Knights began setting themselves up as false rulers and establishing false codes and laws which they claimed were taken from the ancient books written by the first Steward and his ministers about the King and His victory over the dark forces. Although they were driven by pride and self-aggrandizement, many subjects followed them, and the True Kingdom was persecuted and its borders reduced as the bad Knights established their own realms.

Still, the faithful subjects remained where the King had told them, and upheld the bad Stewards along with the Good, since the King had made no provision and no exception. But the most harm came from the subjects and ministers who, like willful children, wanted only to test their boundaries. Their quest became not "How can we best serve the King", but "How much can we get away with without actually leaving the Kingdom." In answer to these, the Stewards and their cabinets produced reams of detailed rules and proclamations which, although they were meant to instruct, were, like the ancient books, used and distorted by the willful to their own damnation and the downfall of the realm. For the subjects forgot that they themselves had been charged by the King: that they themselves had a responsibility. They became so lazy that they forgot that the Steward was just a man and began to imagine that the King would magically make the Steward a little version of Himself, just because he WAS the Steward, and that they could do the King's will merely by shouting HURRAY every time the Steward made a proclamation, no matter how idiotic or treasonous.

Because these subjects did not dare to voice their opposition, every bad Steward was free to distort the King's will. Stewards became more concerned with the adoration of the public than they did in upholding the King's laws. They became sated with the adoration of the good subjects, and began to desire the applause of those in the false kingdoms. They would dine with the wicked false rulers as if they were brother Stewards, instead of denouncing them for the deadly usurpers they truly were. They approved of the false laws of the false rulers, and set them on a level with the King's own Charge.

A few of the good subjects were scandalized, and a large number of those began to say, even as the evil ones said, "The Steward is not a Steward" and they left the Kingdom and tried in vain to reproduce it as it had once been. Others suffered agonies of doubt and despair, for they understood that if even the Steward was subject to confusion and ruin, they themselves must discern very carefully the will of the true King. Most of the subjects were happy, however, for the Stewards excused all infractions of the King's code of behavior as nothing, requiring only that they have fun and enjoy themselves and forget that the King had been very specific in what he told them to do.

At long last, the King returned! His castle had been turned into an embassy for false Kingdoms, replete with lavish excesses and much winking and nodding regarding his sovereignty and his rules, and the Steward and most of the subjects were very sorry to see him come, for he looked so stern, and seemed to feel as if their behavior actually mattered.
However, some of those who WERE happy to see him return were very hurt, for he had stern words for them as well.

"Why did you follow my wicked Steward into this treason?" he asked.

"Sire," they answered: "He is the STEWARD! We HAD to approve of all he said and did! He is your own STEWARD! What choice did we have? Would you have had us abandon your Kingdom and pay homage to a false king?"

"You were right not to abandon the Kingdom," said the King, "for that was not an option given to you. And yes, he IS my Steward and I will deal with him. But your allegiance was owed to ME, not to my Steward. When you applauded his treason, you not only offended me; you failed to call his attention to his danger. You have contributed to his treason when you might have averted it!"

They were sorrowful unto death, but the King knew the hearts of those who were as true to him as they knew how to be, and he gathered around him all the subjects who were in any way worthy and told them:

"You are no doubt somewhat surprised to see among yourselves those whom you believed were acting in opposition to me. Don't be concerned. That is not your place. But rejoice that you are now leaving this ruined Kingdom and coming with me to meet my father!"

And what rejoicing there was in the banquet hall of the Emperor, where all things were revealed.

single or "in a relationship"?

2009-05-05T08:17:00.001-05:00

I am disgusted by the relatively new concept “relationship”. This is, apparently, a condition or state one chooses, and then defines the terms for, and then searches for someone who fulfills the terms… If the other person can’t be physically present as much as required (or whatever) one simply switches from “I love you” to “This just isn’t working out right now.”

I realize that in more sane times people married based on a criteria more often than they did based upon love, but it was a criteria of character and Faith, not of convenience. One had standards for one’s spouse. Even love didn’t over-ride those standards. One didn’t love someone whom one could not in good conscience marry. And one didn’t always expect to be “in love”.

But the new “relationship” thing has completely redefined love. Love used to mean an emotion that transcended time and space. You might be frantic to get back to your loved one, but it was because you missed them---because being with them was your whole earthly desire---not because you feared they might throw you over for someone who was “there”. Oh, the days before “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.”

Love used to be taken seriously. To find someone worthy to love and actually fall in love with them was the stuff of fairy tales---but fairy tales are the truest stories. One would undergo any task, any hardship, because there was only one object of one’s affection. There was no question of “love the one you’re with” because no other face, no other heart, mind, or soul would do. There was one and only one true love and all others were repulsive by comparison.

I want that kind of love for all my children, and for all the children I love. I don’t mind if they “settle” for someone whom they admire and can be friends with, because I know that God and biology will take care of the rest when they marry. But when they say they are “in love”—I want them to mean REAL love, not some trendy “relationship” thing. Some of them will be blessed with a vocation, and Christ will be the Beloved. But for the others, I want REAL love---not a convenient companionship.

That’s what I pray for. For all the dear young ones I love, from baby to 40, I hold out that hope. Keep yourself chaste for the sake of your beloved. Do not choose to love one whom a natural sense of shame forbids you to marry.

My favorite painting...

2009-03-07T11:44:00.002-06:00

George Frederick Cotman's "One of the Family"

...and look at the dog...

What more could anyone want for happiness?

The Jews and Me and The Jews

2009-03-05T10:46:00.002-06:00

So I really got off on a tear today. And of course, the reason is the screaming injustice inherent in the whole question of those humble devout families and communities scraping by on the fringes of European society during the first half of the last century and ultimately suffering for the bullying excesses of those who owned most of Europe and happened to be likewise called Jews...and then after being immolated on the Holocaust pyre they are still being exploited to the detriment of their own memories and the freedom and sanity of the rest of us...I really love the Jews...I really hate the Jews...

Odds and Ends...

2009-03-05T09:31:00.000-06:00

The Bishop Williamson thing has been an eye-opener… Do we ever stop to look at any situation objectively anymore? Or is everything governed by a knee jerk reaction… I’d say the latter. I’ve been thinking a lot about the Jews. Specifically, the Wealthy Ruling Class as opposed to the everyday run-of-the-mill good citizen, good neighbor, expendable, religious, “superstitious” Jews—-not the atheist intellectuals like Ayn Rand who came and went with impunity throughout Europe in the first half of the last century, but--you know, the kind they kill in gas chambers or sacrifice on the altar of Zionism—-innocent girls in battle dress uniforms, modest young mothers separated from their frantic husbands and stripped naked for “de-lousing”-—the kind murdered by twisted little Austrian upstarts and then exploited by—who else? The Wealthy Ruling Class—who purchased England during the Battle of Waterloo and financed all the participants in World War II pretty much everything since.

The Wealthy Ruling Class—“The Jews”. “The Jews” who carefully and craftily confuse themselves with the poor martyrs of Auschwitz because it buys them complete carte blanche politically and socially---complete immunity from any sort of accountability for ANYTHING they wish to say or demand. “The Jews” who by virtue of their shared genes with the victims of the Third Reich are not even challenged when they dare attempt to dictate the policies of the Holy Catholic Church.

“The Jews” --and WHY “The Jews”? What have they done to deserve the title “Jew”? Nothing apart from despising their faith and exploiting those who believe, and if “Jew” became a liability they would cast it aside. But it is not a liability. It is a title which allows them a privileged position ironically shared only with their ancient nemesis, Islam. Islam, the carefully deferred to so-called “Religion of Peace.” Has anybody ever picked up a damned HISTORY BOOK?

John Paul II kissed the Koran. It appears that Benedict may allow the Jews to dictate who he chooses to be his Bishops.

Williamson is accused of Holocaust Denial. What exactly does that mean? Certainly not what it says. For all practical purposes, Holocaust Denial means whatever “The Jews” say it means. In this case, it apparently means that Williamson, a man who doesn’t keep up with politically correct sensitivities, suggested that there may be a disagreement amoung scholars regarding the exact number of Holocaust victims and how they died. For this, he is accused of “Holocaust Denial”, which has come to mean that the perpetrator denies that the Nazis killed Jews and that he obviously does so because he hates Jews and wants more of them to die, and that any deviation from what “The Jews” dictate will lead to Jewish deaths.

In other words, if I am an socially oblivious accuracy freak history scholar who truly believes that 5,749,211 Jews died in the Holocaust and that two thirds of that number were buried alive rather than being gassed, I had better not say so. If I do, I will be a Holocaust Denier.

Do Catholics actually believe anything that they profess? I read an opinion recently that “Jesus Christ would not have allowed a Holocaust Denier amoung his apostles.” Really? He allowed a Roman collaborator who had fiscally raped his people not only to be his apostle but to write his biography… Then there was that anti-semite, John… Try reading John’s gospel, without any preconceived notions and tell me what John thought of the Jews. Of course, we know what John meant--we know that John didn't hate the children of Israel but was referring to the Pharisees and Saduccees who called the shots in Our Lord's trial, but somehow we are unable to extend that courtesy to anyone else. We can’t even contemplate the Jewish people with any kind of objectivity. We jump on the bandwagon when anyone yells “Holocaust Denier”. Does any of us ever turn and reply, “Christ Denier”? If we believe what Jesus said, then the First Great Commandment deals with loving GOD. The Jewish people deny the divinity of our GOD. The Talmudic Jews blaspheme and revile Our Lord and Our lady in the most heinous fashion, and instead of taking them to task, we fall all over ourselves kissing up to them and backing up their demands of retribution upon anyone who questions the details of their horrible national tragedy, which ought to be a matter for history and academic debate as much as any other national tragedy. Does ANYONE else enjoy this kind of privilege? Well, of course they do. The Muhammedans do. Anyone else?

What is wrong with our priorities, as Christians, when we take more offense at a historical inquiry than we do at having our GOD reviled? Does anyone get upset about the Armenians? The Sioux? The Cherokee? All those poor Russians starved by Stalin? Do any of those people command automatic immunity for EVERYTHING? Well, of course not.

“The Jews” control all the money in the world, and the Muhammedans are blood-thirsty barbarians who think they will gain virgins in heaven for every non-muhammedan they murder. We are justly afraid of both. But we ought to fear God more.

Let’s at least understand why we give preference to these two ancient enemies. Let’s stop pretending that we are somehow morally superior for allowing them to control us. We aren’t. Quite the opposite. We are bad Catholics and we are cowards.

Speaking of Ruling Classes, the English and Americans certainly don’t fall far below the Jews in the hierarchy of evil. Her Majesty Elizabeth II is going to knight Teddy Kennedy. There’s a rare pair for you. Sir Teddy Kennedy. The worst element of Irish Catholic depravity, knighted by the Protestant pretender. Will they dine cheek by ample jowl before the ceremony? What in the hell will they talk about?

I despise myself for the sorrow I’ve wasted on that woman in regards to her ill-behaved offspring. How else could they have turned out? Teddy bloody Kennedy.

Restore Francis II to the Throne of England and let’s be done with it!

And on the subject of Royalty, albeit in a roundabout way, I’ve suffered more than minor irritation lately from young ladies? Women? Like that McCain girl for instance, who complain because men like them for what they consider to be the Wrong Reasons. Ah, the angst. How will I know if I’m supposed to marry someone? What if he only likes me for my looks? Blah blah blah blah blah, you spoiled stupid female children! It’s none of your business, you whiney little twits, WHY the boy likes you! How dare you question the particular little twist of your lip, or tilt of your nose or arch of your eyebrow which God Almighty put on your simpering little face which, for WHATEVER reason, inspired that silly little boy and may at some time so motivate him so that he will become a man in order to embrace you as his wife? And how dare you whine, when God sends you a man, because you don’t know if he’s “really the one”?

When my girls were little, “Fergie” appeared on some idiotic news show and bemoaned her disillusionment with her royal marriage. The contrast with the queens represented in Beowulf, which we had been studying, was breath-taking, nor did the Little Girls miss the point. “I thought it was going to be like a fairy tale,” whined Fergie, and “I didn’t know that the entire Royal Navy would be going with us on our honeymoon.”

“What the hell’s wrong with her?” stormed Stuart. “She married a PRINCE of ENGLAND! What the hell made her think she was going to have a private life? What an idiot!”

“Yeah!” said Seguin. “I’m only a seven-year-old American and I know better than that!”

Well, my girls, I hope you never forget it, nor that you yourselves are royalty, and daughters of the most-high King. Like the queens in Beowulf, you must marry for the greater glory of God, and conduct yourselves with humility, dignity and unselfishness, observing all the tenets of Chivalry. Therein lies your happiness, and therein lies your answer.

And I have dishes to wash and floors to mop.

I've figured out the upside!

2009-01-21T21:50:00.000-06:00

Every day, I tell myself that since there is nothing I can do about the national situation, I'm going to withdraw from the whole thing, and just be isolated and ignorant...and you know what? Things have gotten so bad that I really HAVE withdrawn and isolated myself! I am mentally ghettoed up! It's wonderful! I didn't watch the news this morning, or yesterday, or the day before...I may bloody well never watch it again!
Free at last, free at last! Etc! Folks, I'm not kidding when I say that I feel happier and more relaxed than I have in a long time. I know it will make me mad to pay my taxes, but it always does, and anticipating it won't help, and it's not as if I can possibly affect the situation. So I am going to pretend I live in Middle Earth and just not worry about anything.
I have the Best Bishop in the Country! I have the Best Husband in the World! I have 7 beautiful children! I have my wonderful animals and lots of paint and a word processor and pens and pencils. I certainly have more than enough to eat and drink, and for the time being I can still afford roll-your-owns. I have the sweetest life possible. I have no right to be anything but happy.

A Whole Blessed New Year!

2009-01-01T12:19:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year

I am fixin' New Year's Day dinner, and only have a moment, but wanted to put down in writing that all my friends would all be surprised to know how often you cross my mind, and how dearly I cherish God's blessings for you---every one of you...

What a difference a year makes! 2008 has been so much better than the year preceeding it. Even 2007 had its good and beautiful moments---Stuart's graduation, Chisum and Erin's wonderful wedding! What an incredible grace that has been for us all. So good to have dear Erin in our family!

2008 had a few problems---my health is worse, but Seguin's is SO much better! Stuart has had to work her butt off in vet school, but she got in! and Forrest is Out of the Army!

2009 is already shaping up to be beautiful---starting with Our Rachel's baptism in two weeks, and her Wedding to Crockett three days later! I'm baking cakes and choosing frostings. Such a happy time!

I am so grateful for the continued happiness of Chisum and Erin, who seem to be more crazy about each other with ever day, for Forrest's new status as a civilian and his wonderful pilgrimage to Europe, for Crockett's new life with dear Rachel---what are the odds of people even FINDING each other these days?---for Stuart's increasing interest in her chosen field and for the good friends who get her throught the hard days, and for my baby Seguin's lupus remission and for her renewed resolve to trust Our Lord and herself, and to put bad things behind her.

Most of all, I'm grateful for my Dennis. I know that he is a saint, and if you knew all that he has carried throughout his life, all the sacrifices he's made, you would know it as well. I ask God's blessing on him, and may he receive gratitude and admiration from his family here, and glory in Our Lord's Kingdom forever.

God bless you all.

Happy new year, and a blessed Feast of the Circumcision!

Rest in Peace, Blanco

2008-12-23T07:12:00.000-06:00

Today we buried the best cat in Christendom. Aged somewhere between 13 and 18 years old, Blanco has been with us for 12 years. None of us can really remember Life before Blanco…

Blanco involved himself in every possible aspect of our lives. He was always benevolent, always sociable, always kind to smaller creatures. Our pet doves, our pet mouse, and Marcel the bunny were all nose touching friends to Blanco, who would reach through the bars on the dove cage and pat his little feathered friends on the head.

Head-butting was Blanco’s greeting of choice, and he would approach in a kind, Kingly fashion to touch foreheads with new people and animals. He liked to lie on the couch, reaching down and gently petting the dogs who lay on the floor.

Blanco loved board games and always participated, whether you wanted him to or not. He was certain that the board and pieces had been specially laid out as a lovely resting place for himself. He would lie down in the middle of the proceedings and positively beam his pleasure and general goodwill.

Blanco would rather have fallen from a cliff than to pierce flesh with his impressive claws, but he often used them to grab your clothing in order to get your attention, or move you to where he wanted you to be. He showed them to Tweek, Dot, and their seven litter mates only once, when they came bounding up to him en masse. He raised his paw, claws extended, as if to say, “Careful, children!” He never again threatened any of them, but they had the utmost respect for him.

At his peak, Blanco outweighed Benny, the Chiweanie, and was certainly taller. They were fast friends, playing together and sharing warmth.

Blanco cared for his adopted special needs brother Scooter, grooming him, because Scooter didn’t understand how to groom himself. He was always, concerned, compassionate, cheerful and forgiving.

He had an understanding of shared responsibility with Scipio, the Alpha Male dog, and they always greeted each other pleasantly.

Blanco’s decline was fairly rapid. He succumbed to an evil cancer which consumed his intestine and colon. He never lost his love for visiting us and being close to us. He had lost a great deal of weight in the last three weeks and had been acting “older” for a couple of months, but blood work indicated there was no involvement of his kidneys or liver…yet he continued to ingest less and less, and his doctor suspected cancer. She told me she thought there was a mass in his abdomen, and that in order to know more she'd have to perform surgery. Although he was failing physically, Blanco's cheerful and charitable spirit never waned. Even when forced to take nasty tasting medicine, he merely made a little mad cat face and blew spit bubbles...

This morning the doctor opened him up to determine whether he could have a few quality weeks or even months by removing the mass---however, besides the hideous tennis ball sized mass of twisted tissue and ugly veins at the top of his intestine, most of the lymph nodes in his intestine were already hard and the cancer had moved all the way down to his colon. Seeing the damage made it obvious that there really was just nothing to do---extending his life would have been cruel and selfish.

Seguin and I had held him and talked to him while he went to sleep for the surgery, so we euthanised him rather than waking him up. His last feelings in this life were of drowsiness and lots of love.

Forrest buried him out by the orchard fence.

We will miss him a lot.

My wonderful Husband...

2008-12-09T08:36:00.001-06:00

I left my house yesterday—voluntarily, I might add—and accompanied Dennis to the Raytheon Fellows Banquet. I had Seguin waiting in the wings in case I chickened out at the last minute, but I made it, since Forrest was there to drive me…I was so proud of Dennis. He is now a “Principle Fellow”, which, from what I gather, is rather cool beans. They read his accomplishments and I was interested to find out how much he’s done about which I know so little. Bless his little heart, he’s just been quietly making that odious commute to work everyday—up to a hundred miles each way, and he’s been a good father and husband and still found time to excel at his job. I was thinking of my grandmother the other day, who was also crippled both physically and emotionally—in some ways much moreso than I—and I realized that the only difference between us is that I have a good, kind, supportive husband, and she had Hubert Syler…

I’m very proud of Dennis. I can’t say it enough. We’ve always known how wonderful he is, and it was nice to see him get some official recognition in addition to our familial fondness.

Wampyrs? Oh, COME ON!!

2008-12-02T07:16:00.000-06:00

I don't watch South Park very often any more, but last week was hilarious. I love the Goth Kids---I suppose I relate to them, and they seem to be the only people in South Park who are in any way connected with reality...Now come the "vampire" kids. Not REAL vampires, as they point out when they feel threatened, but kids in black clothing from Hot Topic and PLASTIC TEETH, who neither smoke nor drink coffee... The Goth Kids' solution to the vampire invasion is hilarious---try to catch the re-run if you missed it the first time.

The heir apparent to pre-adolescent creepy angst, "Twilight" features a super innocent but intelligent young girl paired up with a pretty, pale vampire "boy" who is actually 90 years old. Well, something had to take up the Harry Potter slack now that that series is winding down...So this guy crawls in the window for cuddles with the girl. He's 90, remember? but of course they don't have sex, because that would relieve the tension that is so necessary for the entire chemistry of the thing, don't you know...insidious crap.

I have some problems with the whole vampire myth, anyway, at least as presented by Stoker, an apostate Catholic who tries with mixed success to pit some snazzy Catholic prayers and sacraments against Count Dracula, but misses the point about the grace BEHIND the sacraments, and I freely admit that I don't have enough interest to bone up on all the rules and regs for vampirism, but I tend to agree with author William Biersach regarding these gruesome undead. It is ridiculous to imagine that a human could be bitten and converted to another species or life form which would live forever unless "freed" by a stake through the heart---at which point the soul would NATURALLY fly straight to heaven because "MY god would never send anyone to hell!". If vampires exist, they are merely the bodies of the damned, animated by demons. Human souls go either to Heaven, Purgatory (and thence to Heaven), or to Hell when they die. They don't hang out and drink blood. A vampire, really a devil, would not be "relieved" and "freed" by the stake, but franticly protesting its return to hell. Not even demons want to be in hell.

At any rate, they are of hell, and not at all romantic, and children should not be encouraged to pretend to be vampires. Or even ALLOWED--upon pain of grounding.

Unfortunately, "Twilight" will be a gigantic success, because most people are utterly stupid.

My own pick for "best" Vampire movie would be "Shadow of the Vampire" starring John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe. Heck, that's creepy right there...put those two guys together with Christopher Walken and Steve Buschemi and you've just cast the four horsemen of the Apocolypse...

Poem. by me.

2008-11-25T07:14:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving Prayer

Each day should be Thanksgiving, Lord, but oftentimes we find,
The praise and thanks we owe to you are somehow left behind.
We come to you on bended knees in time of stress or need,
For every want of family or friends, we humbly plead---

And you hear us, Lord! And grant us every good that we desire!
Giving Peace and Understanding even when the answer’s “No.”
So today of all days, Father, let us send our praises higher,
And Thank you for the Graces that you constantly bestow:

Father, thank you for the Soldiers, for the men who stand today,
Prepared to give their lives in lonely outposts far away.
For soldiers’ hearts mysterious who hear the call to arms,
Protect your martial angels, Lord, and keep them all from harm.

And thank you for the Cowboys, keeping faith with freedom, Lord,
Fighting predators and weather for the cattle that they tend.
With the humble creed of Chivalry, according to your Word,
May they see your Glory, Father, in the creatures and the land.

And thank you for the Fathers all, whose shoulders bear the load
Of caring for the daughters and the sons that you’ve bestowed.
Lord, strengthen them as they go out into the dragon’s lair,
Keep their eyes upon the cross and give them comfort, not despair.

For Mothers, then, we give you praise, who serve so faithfully,
Humbly and obscurely, guiding souls toward Your Light.
Whose tears and sacrifices only You will ever see,
Give them Joy and Peace, Dear Jesus—hear their prayers by day and night.

We thank you Lord, for virgin hearts whose prayers fly Heavenward,
And for Priests uncompromising, who recall us to thy Word.
And for children, Lord, for little maids and strong and gallant boys,
Lord make us truly thankful and mindful of these joys.

For Soldier hearts and Cowboy hearts, and for all creatures living,
For undeserved Grace we give You praise on this Thanksgiving!
Be with us in the coming days and help us, Lord, prepare
The manger for your coming and the will to find you there!

Syler Womack 2004

My biggest mistakes...

2008-11-23T12:59:00.000-06:00

I catch a lot of heat from things that are merely the result of birth-order dynamics. To wit, my youngest is a Youngest: the Baby of a Large, Belligerent Southern Family...

She's remarkably mature in regard to most things, but she loses all credibility when she falls apart at the seams, which usually happens when her sibs are present, and then I get phone calls about how horrible she is---with implications that it's all my fault.

It isn't. Get over it.

She also lost a lot of credibility over her love for, and subsequent grief over, a psychopath. And that WAS my fault. Because I trusted her emotions and judgment more than my own---because I am in awe of the incredible graces owned by devout cradle Catholics...I failed to use my Veto. It is my fault.

But I've been no less guilty with the others---they just don't remember---except for that dear first-born who was, from the beginning, frankly graceless. "...a heart of gold, A lad of life, an imp of fame...and from heart-string I love the lovely bully..."

But all the rest of you---I've had far too much respect for you, and far too little sense of my own awful responsibility. I'm so sorry. It was cowardly and prideful, and if you'd had a better mother, much of your sorrow could have been avoided.

Thanksgiving stuff...

2008-11-18T14:38:00.000-06:00

From the book I made for my children:

Regarding Womack Family Thanksgivings---

Kids---this is intended to be a guide, not a mandate. If at any time you wish to vary from it, or even to ditch the whole thing in order to accommodate personal preference or the tastes of your spouses, you should do so with a free and happy heart! Traditions are wonderful and fun, and tie us to our past, but traditions such as holiday feast menus should never become oppressive. You will be no less "Southern" or "Catholic" or "Texan" if you do things differently---and what else matters anyway? I stress this because I was not given these options myself----I had to "rebel". So I am liberating you from the start!

We've always had blueberry muffins for breakfast on Thanksgiving, and I started that tradition---I don't remember when or why. If you like it, keep it up. Homemade muffins are fun, but mixes are fine, and I have often used them when short of time. I don't see any reason in the world why you couldn't just as well purchase the muffins ready-baked and then microwave them for a few seconds. Have fun watching the Macy's Parade!

I put my turkey in the oven the night before, in my big covered roaster, and let it slowly cook all night. I start it off at 400 degrees for about a half hour, then turn it down to 200 for the rest of the night. I usually put it in about 10 p.m., then turn it off about 5 am. The result is NOT a pretty turkey, but a tender and delicious one never the less. If you want it picture-perfect, you must sacrifice some of the tenderness and follow Martha Stewart's instructions. Never salt your turkey before cooking---although my grandmother did---for it dries it out. You may put salt inside it, however. Remember---I've always done a huge turkey, about 22 pounds---so if you do a smaller one, adjust cooking time accordingly. For a 10 pound turkey, start it off at about 10 pm on 350 for about an hour, then turn down the oven to 200 and set your alarm for 4 oclock and get up and turn it off! Go back to bed and get up again when you're ready to eat muffins and watch the parade.

As you are getting your turkey ready for the oven, you will, of course, wash out the cavities. Inside the larger cavity, you'll find the neck. Put that in a medium sized saucepan. Inside the smaller cavity, you'll find a packet containing the liver and gizzard. Add those to the neck, cover with plenty of water, and simmer gently for an hour before you turn down the turkey. Go about your business and just keep an eye on it. At the end of the hour, put a lid on the pan and push it to the back of the stove. You will use the broth for gravy in the morning. The gravy is about the last thing you'll do, but I'll tell you about it now. Simply remove the "innards" from the broth. Give the neck to someone to eat. It needs salt, but it's really good. IF YOU LIKE bits and pieces in your gravy, chop up the gizzard and add it back to the broth. Heat to simmering again. Put about 3 tablespoons cornstarch in a fruit jar, add about a cup of water or some chicken broth, and shake. Pour the dissolved cornstarch into the simmering stock and there it is: gravy. Salt and pepper to taste.

Nanaw (remember Nanaw? Jeb and Bentley's maternal grandmother?) used to forget to take the packet of giblets out of the turkey. It never failed, and retrieving the horrid looking glob at the table used to be a yearly tradition. I do not recommend it. She also put orange juice and marshmallows and cinnamon in her sweet potatoes. I don't recommend that either, being a sweet potato purist.

Since you are cooking the turkey all night, you cannot "stuff" it with dressing---the stuff would go bad and give you food poisoning. You may, however, mix your dressing the night before and let it sit in the refrigerator all night, as we've always done. Basically, here's the dressing recipe:

Dressing
---you know how carefully I measure things :
three pans cornbread
1 loaf white bread
2 cups onion, chopped---no, you cannot leave out the onion and expect it to taste like dressing
1 to 1 ½ cups celery, chopped, MOSTLY LEAVES
2 eggs
2 Tablespoons salt
a teaspoon pepper
about 3 or four tablespoons sage or poultry seasoning or a combination of both----you have to taste for correctness
melted butter

Let everybody help taste, because it's more fun that way. Grandpeggy always used milk in her dressing, and 2 sticks butter. (I kind of like broth instead of milk—especially for the Christmas dressing). Just keep adding the milk until dressing is the right consistency---sort of like thick cooked oatmeal. I sometimes use a combination of milk and chicken broth, but you can do whatever you like. When you are ready, put the dressing in a big pan and pour lots of the juice/grease that has cooked out of the turkey over it. Bake it for an hour or so at 350---that should be long enough if you use a big flat pan like a pyrex. You may want to add more Turkey juice as it bakes, for you don't want it to be dry.

Candied sweet potatoes can be done the day before thanksgiving and reheated. This frees up your oven, and I think it's the best way because you don't want to rush candied sweet potatoes. Open several cans of sweet potatoes. You'll probably want lots. Drain them, and fish them out one by one, slicing them very thin into a heavily buttered big pyrex dish. After you have a layer of sweet potatoes, throw in several large chunks of butter and about a half cup to a cup of sugar. Continue layering thus until the pan is full. Pour in water up to the top of the sweet potatoes and bake in the oven at 350 up to all day until the potatoes are candied. The longer the better, but you want them sort of syrup, not completely dried out. The potatoes themselves should acquire a sort of transparency. If you have any questions, ask Stuart, as she does it best.

Cranberries---I think those canned ones are NASTY. Buy a package of fresh ones and follow the directions. You can do this several days ahead and refrigerate. Your Grandaddy Blake would only eat Cranberry JELLY, right out of the can, in a can-shaped blob, which he would slice in little round slices. Not my favorite way, but you might like it.

Stuffed celery: Wash celery and cut into three-inch chunks. Mash cream cheese and add enough miracle whip to make it malleable. Add a couple of tablespoons of finely chopped pecans. Dry the celery and stuff. Best done thanksgiving morning. Good job for novice helpers.

Don't forget the olives!

Choose a green vegetable that you can live with and add delicious ingredients sufficient to offset any healthy side effects. Sometimes we do broccoli wth cheese sauce, sometimes that green bean casserole with the French's onion thingies on top. Just whatever you like is fine! But I know Chisum and I wouldn't really be satisfied without

Martha's Squawk Casserole
I don't know why we call it that, but I'm not going to change now.
4 medium yellow squash, cut in large chunks
3 medium zuchinni, cut in large chunks
2 large carrots, grated
1 large onion, chopped
1 large jar chopped pimiento
8 oz. processed cheese spread, melted
2 tablespoons canned jalepenos, chopped
8 oz. sour cream
1 can cream of chicken soup
6 chicken boullion cubes, disolved in 1/4 cup boiling water
1 pan cornbread (Mix or home recipe)
Arrange squash in greased 4-quart pan, sprinkle carrots and onion over squash. Mix pimiento, chees, jalepenos, sour cream, soup, and dissolved boullion cubes in large bowl and pour over vegetables. Crumble cornbread over top of casserole and press down gently. Bake at 350 for about 1 hour .

Use the same criteria for the Jello salad. We've always used the Blueberry jello salad with the cream cheese and pecans, but there are plenty to choose from.

Blueberry Jello
2 small pkg. Grape jello
1 ¼ cup boiling water
1 small can crushed pineapple with juice
1 can blueberry pie filling
dissolve jello in water, add next two ingredients and chill
topping:
8 oz sour cream
¼ cup sugar
8 oz softened cream cheese
beat together until creamy and smooth. Spread over set jello. Sprinkle with chopped pecans.

Don't forget the pies---

Pie Crust

2 scant cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup oil
1/4 cup milk
Mix flour and salt with fork. Into a pyrex measuring cup, measure the oil, then the milk on top of it. Don't mix them up! Dump oil and milk into the flour at the same time and lightly mix together with a fork—just until it holds together. Roll out between wax paper.

Sweet Potato Pie Thanksgiving 2001

Unbaked pie crust
3 cups baked mashed up baked sweet potato. NOT CANNED
2 eggs
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1 stick butter, melted
1/2 cup canned evaporated milk—straight—don't add water.

Puree in food processor until smooth.
Bake in 9" pie shell at 400 til done—about 45 minutes.

Kentucky Derby Pie

Crust: 2 scant cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup oil
1/4 cup milk
Mix flour and salt with fork. Dump oil and milk into the flour at the same time and lightly mix together with a fork. Roll out between wax paper.

Filling:
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 stick melted butter
6 or 12 ounces chocolate chips (semisweet)
1 cup broken pecans
1 tsp vanilla
Beat eggs, sugar, flour and vanilla together---add butter. Mix in remaining ingredients. Pour into pie shell and bake in 325 oven for about an hour.

Pecan Pie

3 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup Karo, light or dark
1 cup pecans
Mix together and pour into unbaked pie shell. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes. reduce to 350 and bake about 25 minutes longer or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. (always takes me longer than ten minutes).

Food may be consumed before, during and after The Game. Gig'em.***

liberal "tolerance"

2008-11-01T17:32:00.000-05:00

"Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions."

Thus spake that early twentieth genius, GK Chesterton, and never has it been more true or more relevant than today.

A man of conviction will not tolerate certain acts, words and even expressed thoughts. That is, he will not sit idly by and say nothing. He may refrain from arbitrarily challenging every wicked thing he encounters, but don't ask him how he feels about something if you don't want to hear it stated plainly. And if you are possessed of the popular insanity which dictates that any disagreement with your whim is a personal attack, then prepare yourself to lose your feel good.

A man of conviction will NOT, however, discard friends, family, or even acquaintances simply because he disagrees with them, no matter how vehemently. The man of conviction will instinctively love the sinner even as he hates the sin. He will realize that his acquaintance or friend is a unique person regardless of his misinformation and will be the same person when and if he corrects his metaphysic, only better, and ultimately happier. The man of conviction would no more reassure a friend re his wrong theology than he would urge him to ignore a cancerous tumour simply because his friend feared surgery.

This is in STARK CONTRAST to the modern liberal to whom "tolerance" is a shallow mantra! My family has recently experienced the hateful wrath of two such "tolerant" erstwhile friends. Their practice of tolerance runs thus: Declare that you hate "racists", conservatives and true Christians (nominal Christianity is okay). Declare that it is wrong to discriminate against anyone based on color or creed or behavior---and discrimination means whatever *I* say it means. Declare that no one has the right to disagree with you and that, if they do, they are intolerant and must be cut off.

These people are quite capable of ending long friendships based on a word. They are vicious, self-centered and their reason for hating people with convictions is that convictions make them uncomfortable. Professing convictions will make you their hero, but actually carry through with your convictions and they will turn and rend you. Eschew them. Regardless of how close you think you are to them, they will cut you off in a heartbeat and with total dispassion if you dare to gainsay them or if you become in any way inconvenient. Find yourself a good, passionately right or wrong friend who will stick by you no matter what.

More Feasts...

2008-10-31T07:48:00.000-05:00

These next three are from by The Feast Day Cookbook by KATHERINE BURTON & HELMUT RIPPERGER. I think I accessed this at the EWTN site, but it was years ago...

November 1: All Saints' Day

THIS DAY, formerly known in England as All Hallows and in France called "Toussaint," honors, as its name implies, all the saints canonized and uncanonized, known and unknown. Long ago the church bells rang for most of the night before All Saints' Day to praise the saints "risen in their glory." Everywhere patronal and family saints are especially remembered. It is a feast to give them praise rather than to ask favors of them, a day for praising them to God rather than asking them to remember the living to Him. The observance of this feast merges into the next, which is All Souls' Day, so that by evening it has become the eve of the day of the dead. On All Souls' Eve the graves in Hungary are lighted with candles and decorated with flowers. Indeed, the custom of visiting the cemeteries and adorning the graves of relatives and friends with wreaths and bouquets prevails in most Latin and Central European countries. In Czechoslovakia, and in Belgium, there is an old tradition of eating special cakes on All Souls' Eve. In many old English towns, maids still go "souling" on All Souls' Eve, that is, singing for cakes, and one hears such ancient ballads as: Soul! soul! for a soul-cake! I pray, good misses a soul-cake-- An apple or pear, a plum or a cherry, Any good thing to make us merry, One for Peter, two for Paul, Three for Him who made us all.

Soul Cakes

1 yeast cake
2 cups milk
1/2 cup sugar
6 cups flour
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 lb. Butter
3 teaspoons cinnamon
Dissolve the yeast cake with 1 teaspoon of sugar in the lukewarm water and let it stand in a warm place. Cream the butter with the sugar. Add the milk which has been scalded and slightly cooled and then add the yeast. Sift the flour with the salt and cinnamon and add to the mixture, kneading for a few minutes. Place in a bowl and allow it to rise in a warm place to double its bulk. Shape the dough into round buns and bake at 375 degrees F. for about thirty minutes or until lightly browned. Originally, these cakes were shaped like men and women and were given raisins or currants for eyes.

November 2: All Souls' Day

After the feast in honor of the saints in heaven, comes the day of praying for the dead, particularly for members of the family, so "that they may quickly attain to the fellowship of the heavenly citizens." As we have said, many of the observances of this day take place on the eve. In the Old World, superstition was more observed than doctrine and lights were set in windows to guide the departed back to their homes, and food was placed beside a candle or lighted lamp on the table to await them. In Brittany, where belief in the supernatural is intensified on this night, the people, dressed appropriately in black, hurry home after vespers to talk together about the departed, speaking of them in low tones as if at a funeral. On the table with the best cloth are placed plates of bread and cheese and mugs of cider for the refreshment of the departed ones. As the living sit whispering together, they hear, or think they hear, in creaking floorboard and empty benches about the table the movements of the ghosts who have come to rest that night in their former home. And knowing that the saddest of all are the homeless dead who roam about the countryside on this one night of the year permitted them on earth, it is a custom of Celtic people to set food and drink on doorstep and window sill, so that homeless spirits too may have a share. In Italy, and especially in Sicily, good children who have prayed for the dead through the year are rewarded by having the "morti" leave gifts, sometimes cakes, none the less welcome because they have been made by the hands of mundane bakers. Especially good are these "Fave dei Morti," and as fine a reward for a pious child as was the "Pretiolium" or pretzel of the Middle Ages.

Fave dei Morti (Beans of the Dead)

1/4 lb. Almonds
butter, size of a walnut
1/4 lb. sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons flour
1 egg
1/2 lemon peel, grated
Pound some of the almonds (unblanched) with some of the sugar in a mortar, and then rub through a sieve. Continue this process until all of the almonds and sugar have been used. Any of the mixture remaining in the sieve should be pounded again until it is fine enough to pass through the sieve. Work this paste with the flour, butter, cinnamon, egg, and lemon peel until the whole is quite smooth. When done, roll into long thin rolls; divide into small pieces and shape them to resemble a broad bean. Bake on a greased tin at 350 degrees F. for about twenty minutes or until light brown. Though soft at first they will harden when cold.

In Poland on All Souls' Day vespers are sometimes sung in the churchyards, and alms are given to the poor who in return are expected to offer prayers and petitions for the dead of the donor's family. Lighted candles are placed on the graves. In Spain every theater gives a performance of the famous play "Don Juan Tenorio" and thrills anew to the drama of the wicked lover who is dragged to hell by the ghost of the fair damsel to whom Don Juan proved unfaithful. The "Dia de Muertos" is an occasion so important in Mexico that its observance lasts for several days. Several days before, on October 30th, the souls of dead children are said to revisit their homes and spend the night. They are welcomed with flowers and food in gourds, as many gourds as there are "angelitos"--souls of dead children expected. And in the doorway of homes are placed chocolates and cakes and a lighted candle for those children who have no one to remember them. On the Day of the Dead, Mexican crowds stream into the cemeteries long before daybreak, bearing flowers, candles, and food. Breads, candies, and cakes have been made in the form of grinning skulls with eyes of shining purple paper, of little chocolate hearses [emphasis mine] and coffins and funeral wreaths. With picnic gaiety the families group about the graves in the cemeteries, everyone laughing and enjoying the fine fiesta and sharing the food they have brought. And as in Spain, in the evening the whole village repairs to see the perennial drama of the faithless Don Juan and his luckless lady.

Pan de Muertos (Bread of the Dead)
1 yeast cake
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup lukewarm water
6 eggs
5 cups flour
1/3 cup orange blossom
1 teaspoon salt water
1 cup butter
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup anisette
Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water and let it stand in a warm place. Sift the flour with the salt. Taking about half the flour, add the yeast, mix well, and allow to rise in a greased bowl in a warm place until double in bulk. Cream the butter with the sugar; add the egg yolks and the orange blossom water. Then add the remaining flour, the milk and anisette. Mix well and knead for a few minutes. Then add the egg whites, one at a time, kneading after each addition. Finally add the fermented dough and beat and knead until thoroughly mixed. Allow it to rise in a greased bowl in a warm place until double in bulk. Knead once more and divide into two portions. Remove a bit of the dough from each portion, enough to form two "bones." Shape the dough into round loaves and moisten the tops with water. Place the "bones" in the shape of a cross on each loaf and bake at 375 degrees F. for about fifty minutes or until done. The loaves are usually covered with a light sugar glaze when baked.

November 3: Feast of Saint Hubert

Born in the 8th Century, St. Hubert is the patron of hunters, and is a saint greatly honored in France and Belgium. Saint Hubert lived a full life. He became bishop of Tongres and traveled through his huge diocese on horseback and by boat, preaching and building churches to the glory of God. He was the friend of the great of his day--Pepin of Heristal and Charles Martel among them--and also of the poor. In particular his heart went out to prisoners, and he would secretly place food for them before their dungeon windows. As he died he said to those about him, "Stretch the pallium over my mouth for I am now going to give back to God the soul I received from Him." In parts of France and Belgium there has long been a custom of holding stag hunts on Saint Hubert's Day, and the hunters gather before the chase for Mass and the blessing of men and horses and dogs. After the hunt is over, those taking part gather for a bountiful breakfast consisting of fish, meat, salad, cheese, and dessert. Naturally the meat is venison of some sort, and the salad may well be one of dandelion greens.

Venaison Roti (Roast Venison)

If the venison is young, it does not need marinating; otherwise marinate several hours or even overnight. For the marinade use
1 pint of vinegar,
1 pint of red wine,
several bay leaves,
4 shallots,
2 sliced carrots,
1 lemon cut into thin slices,
some freshly ground pepper,
and a handful of juniper berries.
Carefully remove the skin from a loin of venison without tearing the meat and wipe it with a damp cloth. Lard the loin symmetrically with bacon (not larding pork). Dust with salt and pepper, cover liberally with butter, and roast in a hot oven for one hour, basting almost continuously with the butter in the pan and 2 cups of sour cream. Remove the meat to a hot platter; carefully stir 1 tablespoon of flour into the pan, then add a cup of hot stock, cook for several minutes, and strain through a fine sieve. (Though not orthodox, a leg of lamb may be substituted but in that case marinate for several days.)

Pissenlit au Lard (Dandelion Greens with Bacon)

Wash the dandelion greens carefully to remove all grit and dry thoroughly in a salad basket. Cut up 1/4 pound of lean bacon into dice and fry over a slow fire until very crisp. Add 3 tablespoons of tarragon vinegar to the bacon grease and season lightly with salt and freshly ground pepper. Pour, while hot, over the greens, mix well, and serve at once. I’m actually not sure one can find dandelion leaves in November…

What's Wrong with the World, and Why I hate Old People

2008-10-30T07:54:00.000-05:00

[The discussion herein is explicit.]
What's wrong with the world, apart from the "Protestant Reformation" and the failure of the Hierarchy to Consecrate Russia to Our Lady, is screwing. Rampant, indescriminate screwing. Screwing without attachment, without commitment, without consequence. Screwing, indeed, without striving and without even caring about whom we screw.

Sex was never intended as a casual passtime.

The entire splendor and solemnity surrounding the Wedding ceremony and the elaborate bridal garments stems from the fact that these two people are going to live with each other and have sex with each other and no one else, and SUPPOSEDLY that they, and at the very least SHE, have/has never had sex with anyone else!

Western history has been shaped by two things: War, and Who Won Which Woman. "Four things greater than all things are: Women and horses and power and War" opines the narrator in Kipling's Ballad of the King's Jest. At the end of the poem he amends his statement to: "Two things greater than all things are: the first is love, the second is war." Which makes sense since horses certainly fall into the category of War and power comes from either War, or Who Won Which Woman.

May I digress? Of course, I may---It's my blog. In more intelligent ages, princesses and other ladies of privileged birth were raised to be Queens. They did not expect to receive---they expected to give. They expected to be supportive of the old man to whom they were married. They expected to assume responsibility not only for his House, but in a very real sense, for his subjects. They expected to lose their figures to childbearing. They expected to be self-sacrificing, dignified, courageous, charitable, chaste, pious, generous, and somewhat taken for granted. Self-pity used to be considered a fault...What planet were Di and Fergie from, anyway? My pre-adolescent daughters were shocked at their ignorance and self-indulgence. How did Diana become a sainted martyr? Which leads me back to my original theme...

No doubt liasons were formed which contained no affection and did no more than ally two kingdoms, but how many dynasties and kingdoms and indeed civilizations have risen or fallen because of one woman's ability or inability to bear sons for the king? What lies concealed between a woman's legs---NOT easily accessible, interestingly enough---was not INTENDED to be accessible. It was INTENDED to be a well guarded holy of holies accessible to one man and one man only and for the purpose not only of pleasure but of creating life and extending the very civilization.

There were reasons why whores and loose women were eschewed: not only did they spread disease, they caused young men to waste the precious seed needed to establish kingdoms and families. And the reason we are in such a mess today is because good women, what few there are, tolerate the whores.

It isn't FAIR that it is the woman's job to maintain domestic morality. But, by Heaven, that's the way it is. Or was. And all our screaming for equality only meant that we wanted out of our responsibilty. We stopped trying to bring our husbands and brothers up to our level and demanded to be let down to theirs. We stopped trying to live as God demanded and started demanding our share of the orgasms, as if that were the only thing that mattered. We traded secure and loving families, reverence for life, respect for our gender, societal stability and Heaven itself for Our Share of the Orgasms. The horrendous divorce rate, abortion rate, suicide, murder, drug use and ruin are our just rewards.

Sex, and heirs which are the fruit of sex, used to be the good man's reward for courage, fidelity, physical prowess and all the other virtues required by Chivalry. Now, however, sex is free. Why strive? And men DON'T strive anymore. They buy their wives, as they buy power, not with excellence but with money. And when the wife no longer pleases, there is no reason not to replace her.

And that is what's wrong with the world.

I hate Old People because they are the most ridiculous and damnable players in this universal tragedy. They have lost their Faith and have nothing to cling to but medical science and the promise of longevity. They think that having "sex", or what passes for sex---clumsy contact between artifically stiffened flacid penises and profusely lubricated withered vaginas---means they are young. No. It means that they are simply old, without any of the grace and wisdom that should be a part of their advanced age. They complain about the younger generations and their ignorance, but they teach nothing because they are too busy trying to hang on to a stage of their life which ended with their fertility. There is a reason that their parts no longer naturally engorge and become wet. God is telling them to move on.

A recent Simpson's episode included a pharmaceutical "commercial" which exactly illustrated this sad phenomenon: "Sorry, Jimmy, I can't go fishin' with you! Grandma and I are gonna go have Old People Sex! Thanks, Jamitin!"

Next month, Grandpa will be bitching about the fact that little Jimmy doesn't know how to bait a hook. Grandpa should be spending more time casting nightcrawlers into the murky depths and less time, well, never mind. Use your imaginination.

I'm sickened by our society's inability to value anything beautiful or fine or holy. I think this is why my agoraphobia gets worse with every day that passes. I just don't want to know what's out there.

Hanging Palin in effigy

2008-10-29T10:08:00.000-05:00

It's not a hate crime. It's in very poor taste, but people have been hanged in effigy throughout history, with no ill effects to them.

It ISN'T a hate crime. What one resents, however, is the hypocrisy of the Left. Can you IMAGINE the hue and cry if Obama were hanged in effigy?

IQ challenged skin-heads

2008-10-28T08:47:00.000-05:00

I knew it was going to start, and I told you so. I didn't know WHERE or HOW, exactly, but I knew that the ruling elites were offering us a "choice" of vomit soup or turd sandwich in this election in order to foment race wars. And today the top story is Teenage Mutant Skinhead Murderers who say they intended to kill 88 Negroes and BEHEAD---BEHEAD, mind you, BE-FREAKING-HEAD 14 more before shooting Obama. And all while wearing white tuxedos. Charming young grotesques. I would thoroughly love to slap them upside their little bald white trash heads, again and again until they squalled and blubbered. And a fat lot of good it will do to put them in the damned prison system where they can become even more thoroughly skinhead and stupid. Oh, forget it. I'll rant about prisons some other time.

But I say again, like the sorrowful, angry old fat mother that I am, I told you so.

Earlier in October, I wrote in my blog at MySpace:

I wonder what our Elite Masters are up to with the "choice" they've given us this time? I remain convinced that the entire election process is nothing more than a ploy to keep us all busy...so apparently some of us are getting wise, and now they have to come up with bigger and more spectacular "consequences" and "secrets" to keep us interested.

I have to admit the Obama-Ayers connection is at least interesting. Ayers is one of those cowardly mad bombers whose goal is not to change but to terrify and subdue. A man may bomb a building because he either loves it and abhors its desecration, or because he hates its purpose and wants to stop what's taking place within. That's why we can love the character "V" in the film, "V for Vendetta". However, what if he were a man who simply wanted to call attention to himself and his cause by killing as many people as possible? Then we would have, NOT the masked and sophisticated V, but Barak Obama's buddy, Bill Ayers---a man who is on the loose for no reason except that the law he so despises let him go on a technicality. O! for a Judge with scrotal circumference! [Somehow, I doubt the skinheads will get off on a technicality as Ayers did, nor should they.]

Obama's terrorist connections, which are by NO means limited to Ayers, certainly should give us pause---and, if "democracy" were on the level, they should motivate us to make sure that SOMEONE else won. [not to mention Obama's mind-boggling lack of qualification for the job.]But if this whole system is on the level, then why isn't there a major investigation going on? The potential criminality here isn't something the media and mob rule ought to be deciding.

But it's all part of the manipulation process. Now that we are getting a sufficient number of low IQ illegals into the country---look, I'm not being mean. Most of them failed in their own country and are the products of generations of squalor. They are converging on us like mice to cheese. I like mice. But now that we are getting enough of them to do the clods jobs, the gods can afford to decimate the middle class with race wars.

That will likely be accomplished to one extent or another regardless of who wins. Same script, different actors, just like always.

In September I wrote: ...

the race agitators of all colors and creeds will hit the streets and the news programs, and stupid people on every side will start hurting each other. The elites won't care, because they will not be in harm's way, just as they don't care what happens in Iraq and Afghanistan because their lives are not on the line. I realize McCain's new VP candidate has a son on the way to Iraq, but she is not among the elite. McCain is barely on the edge, and the Obamas are deceiving themselves if they think they are part of the ruling class. Any and all of those people are interchangeable and expendable, tools used to keep us confused. What a terrific scam they are pulling off! No matter what happens, it's YOUR FAULT! Whether you voted or didn't vote, it's YOUR FAULT! There is no accountability in a democracy, except the poor benighted voters.

I'm just sayin'...I TOLD YOU SO!

And in the interest of spreading my angst around, I'm republishing a blog I did on McCain (I don't care about "Fair and Balanced". This is MY blog, these are my opinions. McCain is an unprincipled, opportunistic jerk who abandoned his wife when she became less attractive and is now practicing serial polygamy with a wealthy younger woman):

McCain has been recently quoted as saying that it is not in his makeup to conduct a fighting campaign (although he tells his supporters that they must stand up and fight for him) and that he would rather "lose gracefully" than win by means that are uncharacteristic.

I could respect "I'd rather lose gracefully than win by means that are treacherous, or dishonest"---but uncharacteristic? If it's uncharacteristic for him to be able to fight face to face, I guess it's a good thing he chose to fight from an airplane. I suppose taking on another jet is less personal that shooting the guy that just ran into you in an urban combat setting.

My daddy fought in Korea. He was always saddened remembering the faces of the North Koreans he shot when they met on a narrow mountain road—almost near enough to touch. It was apparently "uncharacteristic" for Daddy to kill a man while he was looking into his eyes—even if that man was drawing down on him and preparing—reluctantly or not—to dispatch him to his Creator. But in the circumstance of absolute necessity, fighting not only for himself, but for his fellow soldiers in his jeep and ultimately for his duty as an American Soldier, Daddy killed the Koreans. Face to face, with deliberate blood-splattering thuds as the bullets from his M-1 hit home, again and again, Daddy killed them, not because he was a killer but because he had to.

John McCain accepted a commission when he accepted the nomination of his party. It is his duty to fight the necessary fight—ALWAYS excepting treachery or dishonesty—in order to win. The fact that saying unpleasant truths while looking at Obama in a debate is not COMFORTABLE for Senator McCain does not excuse him from his duty—and you would THINK that anyone who spent so much time as a POW in Vietnam would know that. It appears that the Senator doesn't seriously view Obama as the enemy---which raises the question, "Why not?"

It has been proven that Obama has NUMEROUS ties to socialist radicals, domestic and foreign. Obama is a Right-wing Loony Fringe Conspiracy Theory Scenario Dream-Come-True. Obama is the Thing we laughed about—the Thing that could never happen.

A friend of mine, the editor of a conservative e-magazine, wrote to me this weekend: "I can't think of this guy as anything except a foreigner, and it infuriates me that he should hop, skip and jump over American blacks, who can trace their lineage back to 20 and 30 and 40 generations of American grandparents, on both sides. How can a Kenyan, named Obama, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii (a foreign country, no matter what anyone says), become President of this country?"

I've given it a lot of thought, and I believe that in order for the "masters" to find a dark-complexioned man willing to stand as their puppet for the annihilation of our system, they HAD to go outside the system itself. Conservative American blacks are too patriotic, and liberal American blacks too self-interested to participate in a national coup that will alter everything. Make no mistake, Barrack Obama is not an American black man. All of his American genes are white. He cannot claim "African-American by association" if he isn't willing to be labeled "Radical by association".

But the question is, or should be at this point, Why doesn't McCain recognize Obama as the enemy? Of course, you know what I think: I think they are working for the same puppet masters. I think that the result will ultimately be the same, regardless of who is elected. There will be some minor changes in the script, and that's all.

Marcus Aurelius wrote: "Say to yourself as a Roman and as a man to do what you must with a perfect and simple dignity, for a feeling of freedom, and affection and justice. And give yourself relief from all other thoughts."

The only thing we can do is keep our hearts and minds firmly on our families and friends, and on God. He, at least, is eternal and merciful. Do your duty in all things. Duty is ours, Consequences are God's.

Kyrie Eleison

2008-10-27T10:15:00.000-05:00

Seven years ago, I put together a book of recipes and traditions for my own children. I used sources from all over the net, never thinking to try to credit them all, for I never really intended the book to go outside my own family. However, I think we need traditions. So I'll be publishing the monthly chapters of my book here on my blog. If you find something you wrote in it, let me know and I'll give you thanks and tell everyone. :)

October 27: Juan Seguin, Hero of the War for Texas Independence

"A victim to the wickedness of a few men... a foreigner in my native land; could I be expected to stoically endure their outrages and insults?" he wrote in 1858. "I sought for shelter amongst those against whom I fought; I separated from my country, parents, family, relatives and friends, and what was more, from the institutions, on behalf which I had drawn my sword, with an earnest wish to see Texas free and happy."
In honor of Col. Juan Seguin, let’s serve:
Puerco Pibil (Slow-Cooked Pork)
· 5 T. annatto seeds
· 2 t. cumin seeds
· 1 T. whole black pepper
· 8 whole allspice berries
· 1 t. cloves
· 2 habanero peppers
· 2 T. salt
· 8 cloves garlic
· 1/2 c. orange juice
· 1/2 c. white vinegar
· 5 lemons, juiced
· 1 shot (1 1/2 oz.) tequila
· 5 lbs. pork butt
· banana leaves
grind the dried spices (annatto, cumin, black pepper, allspice, and cloves), thoroughly mince the habenero peppers, after removing the seeds
1. combine orange juice, vinegar, lemon juice, tequila, dried spices, minced habenero, salt, and garlic in a blender. Liquify.
2. cut pork into 2 inch squares, place in a large ziplock bag, and fill with the marinade
3. let marinate for at least twenty minutes (overnight is fine, too)
4. line a 9" x 12" pan with banana leaves, pour pork & marinade in, cover with more banana leaves, cover tightly with foil
5. cook at 325 degrees F. for four hours and serve over rice.

October 28: Feast of Saints Simon and Jude

Not very much is known of either of these Apostles, except that Simon was called "the Zealous," and Jude was the brother of James the Less, and that they preached and were martyred in Persia. Over the years great devotion has grown up around Saint Jude as the Saint of the impossible. As prayers to Saint Anthony restore lost articles, so prayers to Saint Jude restore or revivify the most difficult of spiritual causes for persons, or groups, or nations. Saint Jude has proved a powerful patron in more than one instance, for example in the case of the City of St. Jude in Alabama, founded to aid materially and spiritually the Negro race, and which has well fulfilled that mission. Saint Jude might make a fine patron for the United Nations, over endowed with material patrons, but sadly lacking in those of the spirit. Regarding popular celebration of the feast of Saint Simon and Saint Jude, there has arisen some confusion through the centuries. In Italy a "foletto," which translated, means holy goblin, was often confused with Saint Simon because of a similarity in names, and Jude was confused in people's minds with Judas. Another reason for the confusion is that the feast of these saints comes so close to All Hallow's Eve that it partakes a little of its traditions. From the old association with goblins and witches and feasts of the dead, there has come down to us a cake often eaten in Scotland and England in honor of Simon and Jude. In Scotland, it is known as a Dirge Cake, in England as a Soul Cake, and the recipe is on November 2nd, the feast of All Souls.

October 31: All Hallows' Eve

A soul! A soul! A soul for a soul cake!
Come save a soul for a soul cake!
One for Peter and two for Paul
And three for the Good Lord who saved us all.

Put your hand in your pocket and draw out your keys
Go down to the cellar and draw what you please!
Give us cakes and ale and good strong beer
And we’ll come no more souling until next year!

The old English custom of "soul-caking," or "souling," originated before the protestant revolt, when poor singers went about on All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, November 1 and 2, to beg for cakes in remembrance of the dead. The souls were prayed for, the poor folk fed, and everyone gained a great deal.
Allhallows e'en, or eve, a night of pranks and fun , was celebrated with games and treats. Young people bobbed for apples and told ghost stories.
When you, my children, were very young, and I was very young and impressionable as well, we lived in an all-protestant neighborhood where most of our neighbors went to “worship” at least three times each week. About 30 years ago, anti-Halloween hysteria was high amoung these folks. Skeletons, monsters, all manner of “Halloweenish” symbols were carefully cataloged and their ties to satanism documented. Many little audio cassettes by former “satanists” made the rounds, and, of course, hidden amoung the condemnations of Halloween was much finger pointing at the Holy Catholic Church…
I’m rather ashamed of the fact that I succumbed to the general alarm at the time…and rather gleeful that my temporary solution was to dress you all as saints, which was fun, and at least as horrific to many of my neigbors as the skeletons and pirates had been…
Of course, as the years went by and I contemplated things like the Gargoyles atop the Cathedrals (much lamented by the anti-halloweeners) and the Chapel of Bones in Portugal, I realized that every generation goes through these things and I decided bones and monsters were not going to draw you into the devil’s web---after all, most of your forefathers are bones, and many would have done better to have had a monstrous exterior and a pious soul. I truly loved your saint costumes (remember Forrest’s tonsure? That’s dedication!) but I loved the Halloween of 1992 when you boys dressed as Clinton, Bush and Perot---complete with huge cardboard ears for Crockett. I loved Stuart’s “legally blond” costume, and Siggy’s Axel Rose, Robert Smith and even last year’s pirate…I don’t find it at all odd that none of you has ever had a desire to dress as a witch or vampire, for we eschew things which are intrinsically evil. But the ado about Halloween will probably strike you as well when you are young parents---I’m not going to worry about your decisions. Halloween for me will always be night of fun when we can visit the neighbors in town, stroll around in the twilight, admire the kids’ costumes, and look forward to The Great Pumpkin...
Here is a recipe for Soul Cakes, which differs somewhat from the one given forAll Souls…

Makes 12 to 15 2-inch soul cakes
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, ground fresh if possible
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, ground fresh if possible
1/2 teaspoon salt
Generous pinch of saffron
1/2 cup milk
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup currants
For the Glaze:
1 egg yolk, beaten
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Combine the flour, the nutmeg, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl. Mix well with a fork.
Crumble the saffron threads into a small saucepan and heat over low heat just until they become aromatic, taking care not to burn them. Add the milk and heat just until hot to the touch. The milk will have turned a bright yellow. Remove from heat.
Cream the butter and sugar together in a medium bowl with a wooden spoon (or use an electric mixer with the paddle attachment). Add the egg yolks and blend in thoroughly with the back of the spoon. Add the spiced flour and combine as thoroughly as possible; the mixture will be dry and crumbly.
One tablespoon at a time, begin adding in the warm saffron milk, blending vigorously with the spoon. When you have a soft dough, stop adding milk; you probably won't need the entire half-cup.
Turn the dough out onto a floured counter and knead gently, with floured hands, until the dough is uniform. Roll out gently to a thickness of 1/2 inch. Using a floured 2-inch round cookie or biscuit cutter, cut out as many rounds as you can and set on an ungreased baking sheet. You can gather and re-roll the scraps, gently.
Decorate the soul cakes with currants and then brush liberally with the beaten egg yolk. Bake for 15 minutes, until just golden and shiny. Serve warm...with ale. And good strong beer.

In Ireland, Tyrone, Cavan, and other counties indulge in boxty dishes on Halloween, and also in many verses about them. One runs: Boxty on the griddle, Boxty on the pan, The wee one in the middle It is for Mary Anne. Boxty on the griddle, Boxty on the pan-- If you don't eat boxty, You'll never get your man. And another: Two rounds of boxty baked on the pan, Each one came in got a cake in her han'; Butter on the one side, Gravy on t'other Sure them that gave me boxty Were better than my mother. These boxty dishes include boxty dumplings and boxty bread and boxty pancakes (for the latter see Shrove Tuesday).

Boxty Bread

1 lb. raw potatoes
salt
1 lb. cooked potatoes
flour
Wash and peel the raw potatoes and grate them onto a piece of cheesecloth. Then squeeze them out, catching the liquid in a dish which must be allowed to stand so that the potato starch may settle. Mash the cooked potatoes over the raw, and season with salt. Pour off the potato liquid carefully; then scrape up the potato starch at the bottom of the dish and add to the potato mixture. Work in enough flour to make a good dough and knead for a few minutes; then roll out, cut into cakes, and bake on a hot griddle.

Boxty Dumplings
Use the same ingredients and follow the same procedure as for Boxty Bread. When the dough has been kneaded, instead of rolling it out, form into small balls the size of an egg, drop them into boiling salted water and cook them for forty- five minutes. Serve with a sweet sauce.

In Scotland a special cake is made, and charms wrapped in paper are stirred in before it is baked. These are the usual ring, button, thimble, and coin, with the addition of a horseshoe for good luck, a swastika for happiness, and a wishbone for the heart's desire. In England, as also in the United States, it is a night for feasting before an open fire, on cider and nuts and apples, and was formerly known as Nut Crack Night. Far back in history runs the list of games played on that night, many of them still popular, such as bobbing for apples in a tub of water, or trying to take a bite from one swinging on a cord.
Familiar is the sight of the small boy coming home with a bag full of edibles--candies, cakes, nuts, gum, enough for several meals--and a good stack of pennies. Grown-ups, whose duty for the evening seems to be to provide the handout, might spend their own evening by making it a Nut Crack Night. Sitting before a bright hearth fire, they can feast cider, apples and nuts. And soul cakes, and boxty.

Well...

2008-10-27T09:28:00.000-05:00

This is my first post, and I have no time at the moment to say anything at all...I intend to repost some of my previous blogs from other sites--perhaps I'll get to do that today--but this is a test.