My Lord God

Shared by my friend Abbot Placid Soliari, OSB - Abbot of Belmont Abbey Monastery at a time of pain and confusion.

MY LORD GOD,

I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannnot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may not know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in he shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to the face of my perils alone.
Thomas Merton - thoughts in solitude.

Re: Liberals vs. Conservatives

I do not often react to the blogsphere or the chain email, please see my comments at the end if so inclined.

Whether you're "liberal" or "conservative", this is an interesting list:

If a conservative doesn�t like guns, he doesn`t buy one.
If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn`t eat meat.
If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.

If a conservative sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy.
A liberal wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good.

If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a liberal is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.

If a black man or Hispanic are conservative, they see themselves as independently successful.Their liberal counterparts see themselves as victims in need of government protection.

If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a conservative doesn�t like a talk show host,he switches channels.
Liberals demand that those they don�t like be shut down.

If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn�t go to church.
A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it�s a foreign religion, of course!)

If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

If a conservative slips and falls in a store, he gets up, laughs and is embarrassed.
If a liberal slips and falls, he grabs his neck, moans like he's in labor and then sues.

If a conservative reads this, he'll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.
A liberal will delete it because he's "offended".

'Calling an illegal alien an 'undocumented immigrant' is like calling a drug dealer an 'unlicensed pharmacist

' IF YOU DON'T STAND BEHIND OUR TROOPS, PLEASE, FEEL FREE TO STAND IN FRONT OF THEM !!!


Mr. X, this is interesting. First it assumes that liberals and conservatives have the means ($'s, power, influence) to legislate or at least influence their peddlers in congress and through the media. Most of my well-to-do latino and non-white amigos are middle-to-right, notably the cubans and well-born whatevers, and they do try to influence accordingly. The vast majority of the poor whites, blacks and others I have encountered, through my wife's work with probono medical assistance, line up for the hand up/or hand out however you want to frame it. In 2009 the poor white is still the most blatant racist given that he is "still better than an X, XX or a XXX ". Yet the poor whites really do not have a voice, more of a rage against what was "once ours" coming through rose colored glasses. The fight is in the middle, where the decline in the % of the white population's "culture" is being riled-up by the vast demographic changes; and the rights mongrels - from civil rights to my "preference rights" - activists wage ferociously or at least loudly.



Now, like it or not, there is a vast momentum to "socialize" so as to equalize, frankly it is easier for a communist to become a fascist than it is for a capitalist. The comm/fascist wants totalitarian control, the capitalist wants freedom and small government. So the war is not really between conservative and liberal; it is between freedom and the lack of it. We already know how successful comm/fascist governments have fared; how about taking the chains off so that economic progress can reduce the polarity, even as the fringe will always be with us.


In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL

Self-preservation

Moral Judgement is what we inevitably must render upon others relative to their actions and pronouncements. Many confuse this conclusion as outside our authority since it is a common belief that only the "law" and "god" are capable of judging any person or group of persons. Yet, every day, we make assessments through observation, through here-say, and through our own biases about others, individuals and groups. Therefore it is disingenuous and possibly hypocritical that we should not, even as we do. However, we can not and must not evade the optical and conclusive evidence of the moral behavior and beliefs of individuals, groups or institutions. We clearly understand that Nazism was inherently evil in the destruction of fellow human beings different from a chose "higher class" of beings. We know that certain regimes around the world espouse doctrinal and interrelated political and religious beliefs, that when at odds with other forms of societal and religious or non-religious ways, fully disregard these as heretical and propose annihilation of the non-conformist. We are not too far removed in this "post-racial" period of the American experience when individuals of a different race or religious faith or nationality need "not apply" for jobs outside of menial labor; "not in my neighborhood" exclusion from housing and school choices; should worship to the chosen god, but not in my church.

There is a vast difference from bigotry and discrimination without knowledge of the individual in question and the judgement we must levy against others regarding their actions and pronouncements. If Hector is a cheat in his business dealings, then others will find out and avoid doing business with Hector and his economic demise will be certain. If the quality of eduction in a certain school is less than what the norm establishes, then parents will move their children to better schools, and should act to remove the incompetent teachers and administration as just desserts.

Individuals have the need to judge out of self-preservation. If exclusion and oppression is how a group treats certain individuals or others, then it is the responsibility of the oppressed to move away or stand and fight for their moral rights. It is very interesting to see how some people who judged indiscriminately, when faced with the reality of the worth or perseverance of an individual, can choose to evade the reality, but they can not change the reality. Then cognitive dissonance occurs and they must change their beliefs or accept consensual ignorance, which many choose to do so as to remain a member of their "group" for fear of being outcast due to their change in beliefs, which ultimately is becoming a mental slave. Only free people can use reasoning and independent thinking to assess reality, and through induction and deduction, make up their own minds about what is truth and what is not. You can not delegate your thinking, and when you do so, then you cease to be a valid contributor to your society. Things may be what they seem to be, but only you, alone with your own mind and empirical evidence can make that assessment.

Thinking and being are co-dependent and individual actions, the aggregation of such individuals form societies that are either moral or not. You either are or you are not.