Rambling Meditation of a Tired Man - Draft 1

All speech is problematic in various and diverse ways, but a number of major problems show up in speech about “the spiritual realm,” that is, the in-between of consciousness.  I am ever mindful of the words of St. Thomas Aquinas on God:  “We cannot say what God is, but only what God is not.”  

Although I use the word “God” while doing my public duties as a priest, and in my private prayer and thought, I am ever aware that both “I” and “God” are highly problematic words. They are not wholly convincing words.  Neither “I” nor “God” speaks about a concrete reality, or a “thing,” nor even an existent being.  Leaving “I” aside for the time being, consider the word “God.”  When “I” use it, when “God” is used in much speech and prayer, a non-existent reality is intended, or spoken about.  “God” is non-existent reality in the sense that “God” does not exist in the proper sense of “exist.”  To exist is to “stand out,” to be in space-time, to be a being or a thing, or a process, or a quality, and so on.  The word “God” intends no existing being or thing or quality.  

That speech about God is necessarily analogous must be born in mind.  The meaning of ordinary words must be “stretched” in a fully extraordinary way to speak of “God,” and that truth shows up immediately in such a statement as “God exists.”  For more precisely, “God” does not exist, but is; and what is, is not a being, even “God,” but “esse per se subsistens”, quoting St. Thomas:  be-ing (to be) subsisting through itself.  God is not a god, not a being, and so on.  As I summarized years ago:  Deus nihil.  God is nothing, no-thing.  

Begin again.  In consciousness I experience neither the reality of “I,” nor the reality of “God.”  In being conscious, one is conscious of beings and things “outside” of one’s body, but also conscious of being conscious, aware that one is aware.  I am conscious neither of “I,” nor of God. “God” symbolizes the “beyond” of consciousness, as well as “the ground of being,” the ultimate cause of what exists.  As the “beyond” of consciousness, what one experiences is, at least at times, a moving into consciousness and forming it, but not becoming a direct or knowable object of consciousness.  The divine that presents itself in consciousness is experienced as a movement or process or even as a quality such as “light,” “peace,” “joy,” but not in any way that one could say, “I know God.”  What presents itself arrives along with the awareness that it is reaching in from the beyond of consciousness, beyond the horizons of one’s awareness, so that one cannot in truth say, “I am experiencing God.”  For one to claim that “I experience God” mistakes the part for the whole--the process experienced for the whole of what is ever beyond consciousness.

Begin yet again, for I am not feeling the truth of what I am writing.  I am not “seeing” as I write, but in part remembering. I cannot here and now summon up an experience of divine presence, but I can summon up remembrances of past experiences.  My mind is powerless to produce an awareness of the divine presence, is it not? I can respond to movements in consciousness, but awareness cannot create or cause these movements. They come when they come. And yet, as noted, I can remember, and respond now to experienced-reality remembered now.  I can say, for example, “I love you,” to that which stirred or guided or illuminated in years past.  

Do I really understand that about which I am writing?  Not really.  I grope in semi-darkness, in twilight.  And that is the story of my life, perhaps.  And yet, because I do not see all, or see well, I will not stop looking, gazing, wondering, seeking.  One seeks because he is moved to seek.  One seeks “God” because the divine partner moves one to seek.  That is what I learn from Plato, Aristotle, Anselm, Voegelin.  “We love because he first loved us,” as St. John states the matter.  Love for God is not affection or feeling primarily, and perhaps not even choice of some abstraction called “the will.”  Love for God is a joyful response, a search, for that which moves one to search.  It is a “yes-saying” to the direction in which one is moving, not in space-time, but in consciousness:  from nothingness or at least less-being into a fuller mode of being, from relative darkness into relatively greater light, from less eudaimonia to more eudaimonia.  (Eudaimonia, a Greek word usually translated as “happiness,” means more literally good-spiritedness, or being in the good [divine] spirit).  There is indeed direction, movement, in consciousness, from relative opacity to relative clarity, from some dis-ease to greater ease, from strife towards peacefulness. The direction points towards the divine partner which moves and seems to cause consciousness, although the cause is unseen.  

By “God” I mean “You.”  You beyond all words, names, thoughts, feelings. You in whom my “I” rests contentedly, “like a weaned child in his mother’s arms.”  You are “known” by moving me towards You, and yet You never appear to my wondering eye “in all of your glory.”  You let the light of You gently illumine my mind or consciousness, so that I see, and am aware of seeing, but You whom I long to see I do not see or know or feel. “In your light we see light,” quoting from a psalm often quoted by St. Thomas.  When one is conscious, one is conscious in and through the light that You let fall into the “soul,” into consciousness. You are the light, unseen.

“Who are you, LORD?”  That is ever for me the Question, the great and persistent question of my life.  I hear it in Moses, in Paul, in the wondering of the Apostles before Jesus.  If I am not mistaken, it is the question of Plato, of Aristotle, of Plotinus, of Anselm, and of all of the seekers of truth I so love and respect.  What I want is not a “this,” or a “that,” not a particular you, but You who form all by moving into, guiding, even hiddenly.  You are unseen, yet present; real, but no thing.  “You are the joy of my heart,” many souls say, whether in words or in feelings or in inarticulate speech.  

When I hear, I am hearing by and with You. When I see, I am seeing with You.  (But I will not make the gnostic claim of Emerson, that “the mind of the Creator shoots through my eyes,” or some such over-reaching claim.)  And yet, Martin Buber is surely right:  “In every you we meet, we gaze towards the train of the eternal You.”  Yes, indeed.  You are the ever-present non-present forming consciousness at every moment, “the life of my life,” in St. Augustine’s apt phrase.  

A soul, a mind, opens to You by faith, but lives in You and to You by love. This is the “fides caritate formata,” of which St. Thomas wrote:  faith formed (or enlivened) by charity.  Fides informata, unformed faith, is mere belief, even religious belief.  But faith formed by charity gives life to the spirit, for it opens up the soul to the life, the mind, of the Creator--that which is, creating, forming, moving.

Return to earth.  Return to the truth of concrete experience, here and now.  It is not “I” that “I” experience, but a movement between what I call “I” and You, the divine Partner.  My “I” is not, cannot be, alone, apart from You, for You are that which enlivens, in-breathes, forms, guides consciousness from moment to moment.  You cause consciousness now, and only now, as You are only now.  Neither past nor future, but now.  Eternal now, eternally present.

Make it simpler:  Beauty in all that I experience as beautiful, Love in every act of loving, Knowing in all knowing: You. Apart from You, without You, I would not be at all. I am to the extent that I am in You.  In myself alone I am nothing, “a mere breath that passes, never to return.”  But not even that.  In myself I do not exist, or have any being at all.  All that is, to the extent that it is, is in You. That is just the way it is. To move into You is greater life, light, peace, joy; to move away is growing darkness, decay, unrest. Reality is indeed heavily tilted towards You.  All that is, is, only because it is in You.  

As I write, I see You stirring in me, but I cannot in truth say that I “feel” You. The sense is more an awareness, a trusting, loving awareness that You, ever-beyond, are ever-present. There is no present that You are not forming now.  What shall I ask You now?  I do not know what to ask, as my body and mind feel so tired.  But I can rest thankfully in an aware unawareness that You are here.  “O night more lovely than the dawn:” “amada en el amado transformada,” borrowing from St. John of the Cross.  

You have shown me You in others, on their faces, in their voices.  You have shown me You radiant in the mind of a philosopher, suffering yet glorious on the face of a dying man, most humble and gentle in a little creature.  You have shown me You hiddenly, and filled me with joy in your presence.  

Those who claim to know, may miss the hidden beauty known in unknowing, but loved.  It is love, not knowledge, that joins You to me, to every you. And yet, when You will, You cast a glance into consciousness, making it radiant with your utterly dark light--your “light” that is seen as darkness by our unknowing minds.   And that indeed is the “night more lovely than the dawn.”  To be dark in You is beauty more than seeing any thing. To be lost in You is to be found in truth. To be only in You, and not in any thing, surely not “in oneself,” is “eternal life,” true life.  Not to exist at all, but to be love in the divine Lover: that is life indeed.  When the self is selfless, and the I not an I at all, then “God is all in all.”  Not yet, not for this passing being.  But the direction is clear to me, the movement real:  from here, to There, from a being-thing into no-thing. 

 “And all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well,” “when the fire and the rose are one.”  

                                                                        ***

Rambling words, not well thought out or organized, but jotted down in part to engage in loving the One unfolding as presence in consciousness.  No knowledge, no revelation, no certainty, no creed, just a desire to respond to what moves me, here and now. 

Dog Tales For Persons Without Tails

1 Zoe and Kate                                                Several months ago a parishioner came to visit me in the rectory to help with paperwork.  Lacking a baby sitter for her youngest child, a girl of about three, she brought Kate along with her. If Kate is able to remember early events in future years, she may recall her adventure with Zoe, my seven-year old female black Lab. But I suspect that the little girl’s recounting of what happened would be quite transformed in order to make the human being look superior, the dog appear as a mindless creature. After all, in time the girl will be told that human beings are indeed the intelligent beings, and in the Church she will be told that humans have “immortal souls,” but that animals die and return to earth. And Kate may believe such tales. But if she could remember what really happened during that three-hour visit, she may be forced to admit a little human humility before the wonders of the dog world. When Kate came to the rectory door in her cute and clean snowsuit, she had no idea what she would encounter. Two large black Labs, each one weighing much more than she did, surrounded her at the door, whirlwinds in black, swirling around her, licking her face, tasting her snow suit, pushing against her little body, and letting the girl know at once who rules in this house. Moses gave her a few good kisses, but when she began to cry, he quickly and quietly withdrew to the quieter world of the living room sofa.  Zoe stayed with the girl to  keep an eye on her, and to play with her. Within a couple of minutes, Kate’s mother and I were settling down to work at the dining room table. Kate’s large bag of toys, snacks, and blankets was set on the floor. That lasted for less than a minute. Zoe charged the bag, threw her muzzle into it, and began to empty its contents onto the living room floor:  blanket, toys, blocks, treats, water bottle. Kate cried, with little screams piercing our ears. Her mother repacked the bag, and placed it on the table near us, presumably away from Zoe. But there was a problem. Kate wanted her stuff. She cried. So the bag was set on the sofa next to her, but zipped closed to keep dogs out. Moses got the message, and withdrew yet again, this time to the quiet of the bedroom. Zoe accepted the challenge. Kate pulled a small blanket out of her bag; Zoe ripped the blanket out of her hands, and ran around the living room, trailing the blanket from her mouth. Soon the blanket was wet with saliva. Then Zoe dropped the blanket, because Kate had pulled a wonderful-looking toy out of the bag. Kate held the toy in her hand for a few seconds. Zoe lurched across the room, grabbed the green dinosaur from Kate’s hands, and began to test the toy’s strength. Kate shrieked. Zoe had already pierced the dinosaur with her canines, but I took the wounded dinosaur from Zoe’s mouth, and replaced it into Kate’s bag. Then the little girl pulled out some wooden blocks to play with, each with a letter on it. One block lasted no longer than ten seconds, before it was split by Lab jaws. Another one met a set of teeth chewing into it to enjoy the flavors of the little girl. Now Kate was   sobbing. So her mother put the toys back into the bag, and zipped it up. Zoe waited patiently for a few moments. Kate’s mother made a mistake. She gave the girl a granola bar to quiet her down. Zoe loves granola bars. So they shared the bar, the girl and Zoe. Or rather, Zoe tore the whole bar from Kate’s mouth, and quickly devoured it. More screams. I told Zoe to leave the child alone. And she did, for a few minutes. But then Kate decided to walk across the living room towards her mother. Another mistake. Zoe was on her, letting her know in whose room she was walking. The girl could not move without being out-maneuvered by a creature about twice her age, twice her weight, and more than twice the woman she was. Kate was as dominated as Zoe’s brother’s had been in the litter, when I first saw the pup at 8-weeks old. Kate returned to the sofa and pouted.  She had been utterly controlled by a dog. In time, Kate may remember the adventure, but probably not. Surely it is difficult, even humiliating, for a human being to learn their proper place in the scheme of things--especially from a mere dog.  In time, Kate will think, “I am Woman,” and she may feel utterly superior, not only to some of us, but to all “dumb animals.”  Zoe will turn gray, and in her time she will go the way of all flesh.  Zoe will receive her eternal reward, and crowned with glory, we trust, for teaching human beings to be a little more humble, and not to take ourselves so seriously.

"Feed My Sheep"

 

 The accounts of appearances by the Resurrected Christ in the letters of the Apostle Paul and in the canonical Gospels are truly priceless.  I know of only one event in the unfolding of history that can be compared to these visions of Christ raised:  the account of Moses encountering the unknown God--”I AM that I AM”--through the burning bush. History is indeed constituted by such divine revelations. For human history is essentially the process of the unfolding of the divine--the eternal--in the souls of particular men and women.  Such divine-human events are the overwhelming truths of human life. The visions of Christ raised, and other divine-human encounters, become in time the nucleus around which human communities build themselves up. The Jewish people will ever be grounded on God-in-Moses, and the ensuing Exodus from the realm of death into life under the true God. The Christian Community, the Church, centers decisively on the experiences of Jesus Christ risen and alive in His people.

At the Easter Vigil and on Easter Sunday, the faithful heard the account of the empty tomb, and faith responses to the event:  “He saw and believed.”  On the Second Sunday of Easter we hear the clearest and most complete brief confession of faith in the entire New Testament. On the lips of the Apostle Thomas--believing Thomas--St. John places the extraordinary words in response to the appearance of the Risen LORD: “My Lord and my God!” Faith in Jesus as truly Lord and God, completely one with the unknown God called “the Father,” and guide and ruler of the faithful, remains the bedrock of our Christian faith then, now, and throughout time. In the Risen Christ we encounter the God of Moses, the I AM, fully present in the man, Jesus, and now active, alive, governing His people through faith working by love. 

On the Third Sunday of Easter the Church listens to the account of the Risen Christ’s appearance to selected disciples as they were fishing. Typical of the Gospel of John, the passage is packed with symbolic meanings to open us up to the presence of Christ Jesus here and now. We are not only hearing events in the past, but divine-human events that do indeed bring divine reality into human life as we listen, respond with faith, and obey. We hear Jesus question of the Apostle Peter, and free him from guilt and shame for his denial of Christ. The one who denied Jesus three times is now asked three times by the Risen One: “Do you love me?” As Peter responds from the heart--”Yes, LORD, you know well that I love you”--Jesus tells him how to put his love into practice for others: “Feed my sheep.” Through the recount of this event, Christ is telling each of us who has ears to hear: “Feed my sheep, tend my lambs.”  Each one of us has some beings in our lives whom we must lovingly tend, and help guide into a deeper union, a living communion, with Christ, and through him, with God and with all creatures in God. Through our faith-union with the Risen Christ, God is restoring humankind and creation. Day by day, through faith working by love, we are being renewed, transformed, even divinized, so that in time beyond time, “God will be all in all.” 

Pope Francis I

Dear Folks,

From what I have seen and read about and by Pope Francis, it seems to me that the Catholic Church may be in for some changes inspired from the top of the hierarchy. He well may ignite a fire in some lay persons and clergy, who will through fides caritate formata (faith enlivened by charity) reform the church in various ways. I have read several of his states so far, and they seem spontaneous and warm, not cooly and "perfectly" worded.

Also from what I have read of him, his characteristic theme seems to be "encounter Jesus Christ." His motto, in English translation, "Lowly and chosen," displays where his heart lies. He probably will carry out what recent Popes have called "a preferential option for the poor." To that end, it seems, he chose the name Francis, when a brother Cardinal and friend said to him as the election was falling his way, "Remember the poor." He admits taking the name "Francis" (Franciscus) for St. Francis of Assisi, thinking primarily of his love for the poor (embodied in his own poverty and simplicity of life) and because Francis so preached peace. A third reason he mentioned for the choice of his new name was that St. Francis showed reverence for nature, and hence, no doubt this Pope will speak about right stewardship of the earth.

One can yawn, and say, "no big deal." Ah, but the first non-European head of the Church since the late 700's! The first man from the southern hemisphere. And the first Jesuit, despite so many dedicated and holy Jesuit priests over the years (Montana was mission territory for Jesuits Fr. De Smet in the east, Fr. Ravalli in western Montana, and then many more Jesuits over the last 160 years or so). I find it amazing that despite the obvious extraordinary holiness of Francis of Assisi, this man is the first to have chosen Francis' name. I wondered about that, but this may be the reason: Since about 950 or so AD, no pope has chosen a name not used by another pope. Now Jorge Mario Bergoglio took the name of Francis. Even there is a change.  We are amused:  A Jesuit priest taking the name of the great Francis of Assisi, not the Jesuit St. Francis Xavier.) 

We will see changes. If I am not mistaken, I already feel a breath of fresh air blowing. 

Liturgies of Holy Week

Please plan to attend the High Holy Days of the Church:

Passion (“Palm”) Sunday Masses will be offered at our regular week-end liturgies of 23-24 March. We will have week-day Masses on Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week, as usual, but of course no Mass is offered on Good Friday.  Readers have been selected and need to study their readings.

Triduum Liturgies: Holy Thursday at 6:30 pm in Belt.On this day we remember Jesus’ Last Supper, and his sacrificial love unto death. Good Friday Liturgy at 3:00 pm in Centerville, and at 6:30 pm in Belt. The Good Friday liturgy is not a Mass, but a 3-part service commemorating the death of Jesus for all: the reading of the Passion according to St. John; the veneration of the Cross; prayers for the whole world with communion of the “pre-sanctified” Body of Christ. 

The Easter Vigil will be begin at 8:30 pm at St. Mark’s; there will be no other Easter Mass in Belt. If the weather is fairly mild, we begin outdoors at “the new fire.”  If the weather is typical late March in Montana, we will have a smaller fire under shelter.  New members are baptized / confirmed at the Vigil; this year we have two young men being confirmed. The liturgy of the Word is extended, but we will not let it be overly long. The focus at the Vigil and in the two Easter morning Masses we will be celebrating is the proclamation of Christ raised from death to life eternal in God. Where Christ goes, we follow now through faith and death to our self-centered life, and later through loving surrender in physical death.

The Easter Sunday Masses will be celebrated in Raynesford at 0800, and in Centerville at 1100, the usual time for Sunday liturgy.  No meal or faith class on Easter Sunday, as you will probably be with your families. 

Words of the Apostle Thomas in John’s Gospel has often served as the theme for homilies during these high holy days (the Triduum). Thomas says about Jesus, “Let us go up to die with Him.” We die and rise with Christ by faith working through love.

Final note: Please try to attend Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil or Easter Day Mass. The essence of our Catholic faith is contained and proclaimed in these liturgies. The mercy of God can work on our hearts, soften their hardness, make us more responsive to true love as we faithfully share in these liturgies. 

Come and listen, pray, sing, receive. 

From a Note To My Family:

The main thrust of the political thinking I jotted down last night on my iPad, and shared with you, is not new to me, nor is it in any way the product of Rush, or Glen Beck, or Fox News, etc.  Indeed, these thoughts have I held fairly consistently over time, beginning in my high school years. They have developed, but the continuity is clear. And especially while a graduate student in political science I expressed similar views.  

Although I have long kept an eye on American politics, for the most part, I chose the option of making an exodus from the political realm I experienced as alienating and decadent into a more intellectual and spiritual realm. You both expressed some similar views in your youth. You surely were critical of Nixon, Reagan, and the younger Bush, often calling them “liars.” The main difference between us is that you focused on personalities and one party as the target of your criticism; and ever since I have known you, it has been the Republican Party, never the Democratic Party as a whole, that you aimed at. But the larger difference between us is that I focus my critique on the Federal Government, not on a particular individual or ruling party. Indeed, the two Parties are in bed together, sharing the power, the glory--and the shame.

I have written essays since my youth on “the American Empire,” taking the phrase from Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, in which he praises “the fabric of American Empire.”  I do not share his zeal for strong central government.  On the contrary, given the flaws in all human beings, I am closer to the James Madison who wrote that “power must be made to check power,” and “ambition must check ambition” (Federalist #51). For the most part, our Founding Fathers wanted a government of self-restraint under law:  limited powers, with most political power residing in the people or in the several states (as in the 10th amendment to the Constitution).  

What has happened in U.S. history may well in part be because of political necessities, and especially because of the American civil religion, which believed that America is indeed “the new order of the ages” (our national motto), a kind of secular Kingdom of God on earth.  I have written numerous papers on this phenomenon, and it has been carefully studied. Under the guise of reapplied or frankly perverted Christian symbols, American political thought provided the kind of spiritual substance to justify the vast and overwhelming growth of political power, the conquest of a continent, the destruction of Native Americans by a “superior” culture, and so on, especially at the level of the “General Government” (Jefferson’s term). The process was gradual, and continues.  

In effect, the United States of America has evolved from a limited republic to a totalitarian empire, to put the matter bluntly. I do not share these views in public, but perhaps now I would be more bold in doing so. Potentially and really, our General Government is far more powerful, and perhaps more totalitarian, than what was developed in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Fascist Italy, New Deal America, and so on. The means of mass manipulation are much greater than had been known before. But “power must be made to check power.” Increasingly in this country, we see that no power can or does check the federal government. At least in the days of Nixon, another President with clearly tyrannical tendencies, the more liberal media elite served as some kind of check, calling him to account, as we saw in Watergate.  But a real problem is that American “liberals” are no longer rooted in Liberalism, whose primary concern was individual liberty over against the power of government. Now, the left-wing forces in America have embraced concentrated power to an heretofore unimagined extent. That was the main achievement of the “Progressive Era.” And so we have had an unfolding of virtually tyrannical political leaders who have utterly betrayed the American spirit of self-restraint and limited government. The disease showed up early in Jefferson himself when he gained Presidential power; it was marked in Jackson and in his attempt to manipulate the masses through “democracy;” in Lincoln and the concentration of power under the name of “preserving the Union.” But the movement into American tyranny--or at least the marked potential for tyranny--took major steps under T Roosevelt and the entire Progressive Movement.  It was all about amassing power to benefit people, without any due awareness that the very concentration of power threatened human liberty and well-being.  TR, Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Nixon, and into recent “leaders” we see the emergence of what political scientists call “the imperial Presidency.” Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama are just more recent examples of the same coalescing of power in the Federal Government, and especially in the President as a kind of new Caesar, the American Emperor.  

These thoughts are not new or original. To label me “crazy” for expressing them is at least puzzling. What you may not understand (or may), is that millions of Americans experience increased alienation from the Federal Government. The Body Politic is sick, to put it mildly; I would say, dying. What we see is a vast power organization devoid of any real spiritual substance, and that is dehumanizing and potentially murderous. Probably to an extent not seen since FDR and the New Deal, the Government is seen as “the problem,” as Reagan said--and then continued the growth of power. It seems that the American Left (not true Liberals, as I noted) and the American Right (not true conservatives) admire the Power as long as they have it.  Both Parties seek domination, both Parties glorify, love, and seek power, as I have said repeatedly. The problem is the concentration of power, the loss of liberty, the totalitarian control and manipulation of nearly every aspect of life in our country.  

We the People have reached the stage in which the best solution may be a radical break from the regime in two forms: as a spiritual exodus from “the powers that be,” which has always been close to the heart of the gospel of Christ (Jesus was no lover of political power); and as a political break in the form of rebellion, non-cooperation, nullification, secession. The means need to be discussed. You seem surprised, and have called this thinking “seditious.” As I wrote last evening, recall that our present regime began with secession from imperial power--from the British monarchy, explicitly, as in the Declaration of Independence. And yes, the central powers saw our Founding Fathers as “seditious,” and some would have been hanged if caught.  

On the charge of “sedition,” I turn the tables:  It is now one’s patriotic duty openly to criticize, to expose, to seek to limit the all-encircling and encroaching power of the Federal Government in any way that is possible and morally good. Killing one person--assassination--fails because the powers would only increase to prevent such actions, and so nothing is really gained. No individual at the helm is the real problem--something that so-called “conservatives” seem to ignore. As Jefferson pointed out over two hundred years ago, a hundred elected despots can be just as bad as one despot (words to that effect).  The problem is the astonishing amassing of power, wealth, influence, and manipulation at the federal level. We have become a dictatorship--not of the People, not of the Proletariat, but of the Federal Government.  “Power must be made to check power,” so ways to limit all-pervasive Government must be sought.

APPENDIX:
 

You charge me with being “seditious,” “crazy,” and “un-American” because, in effect, I present views that are contrary to your own.

Consider: Would it not be more “mad” or “crazy” to think that the fate that has befallen all regimes in the past will be spared ours?  Do you think that the deadening amassing of power under Pharaoh, or under Caesar, or under an early modern King, does not apply to the United States of America?  Is our regime so unique in your minds that it is spared the fate of all things in time:  that whatever comes to be must pass away; and that the great undoing of political regimes is the concentration of political power and the neglect of spiritual substance?  Am I “crazy” to point out that the common trends of political history are repeating themselves, or would those who neglect or refuse to see what is happening have some kind of strange blinders on their minds?  Human beings like to think of themselves, their political regimes, as wholly unique, and that has been a hallmark of American political consciousness.  In some essentials we are like the rest:  governments ruled by self-restrained men and women, with highly limited powers, generally thrive and serve the good of the subjects; governments ruled by delusional, power-drunk men and women (even if “well-intentioned”), and which amass huge resources of power and wealth at the national level do not long endure the vicissitudes of history. Wisdom suggests dividing power, restraining it, limiting it.  The lust for power, the libido dominandi, always pushes towards amassing, centralizing, using power as the rulers deem to be in their interests, or in the “public good.” Self-restraint does not yield to the sway of one’s passions. Sooner or later, unrestrained rulers over-reach, and the whole fabric of the body politic suffers. Consider the fate of Athenian democracy and its imperialistic expansion. Consider how the American Republic has grown into an incredibly vast, powerful, influential, and at times destructive empire.  Naming the process for what it is ought not to be condemned as “crazy” or “un-American,” but accepted as a civic duty. 

The American Regime: The Plight of the Secular Soul

As previously noted, I use “regime” in the two senses developed by Plato in his dialogue of that title (usually translated as “Republic”):  The regime is the way of life in a political community, and it is the constellation of power that forms the ruling structure.  In other words, the regime that organizes the body politic for action (the power structure) is at the same time the regime that forms the way of life in the souls of the members.  We are the American regime, as each of us carriers the American way of life within ourselves.   On political power in the American regime I have written a few brief essays recently.  Presently I concentrate on the regime as it shows up in the souls of the members of society.  Rather than attempt a comprehensive account of diverse types, in this essay I briefly examine what seems to be the common characteristics in the American character, at least of those typical in the ruling elites.  Granted, millions of Americans still live in the twilight of their religious traditions; these are the poor benighted souls that Obama said bitterly “cling to their guns and religion.”  These folks are seen as subjects, as “the masses” to be dominated by the ruling elite, its political power, and especially by the mainstream of secular intellectuals.  Those who “cling to their guns and religion” are seen as politically irrelevant by the ruling elites in this country.   What needs study, and draws our attention presently, is the phenomenon of the secular soul in America, and especially of the self-styled “intellectual.”  These persons make up the bulk of the ruling elite. They dominate in the news media, in entertainment, in education, in the political Parties. They control most of the levers of political power, and they control the thought-formation of the masses of Americans.  In other words, America is politically and intellectually dominated by secular souls who are, in the main, closed to ultimate reality, but bent on creating their own new reality through political action and mind control.   As represented by central government politicians, by media elites, by educationists, by many church leaders, America is dominated and being reformed by secular souls who have closed themselves off to the divine. Their loves are for power, wealth, knowledge as information, fame, public approval.  What they most hate and resist is whatever would confront them with their own divorce from ultimate reality. These secular souls, while generally not knowingly bent on murder, are fellow-travelers with the elites that have dominated Europe now since the Enlightenment--whether Fascist, Nazi, Socialist, Welfare Statist, or so on, the core element is the substitution of human fiat for the divine. These secular souls may be humanistic, but their humanism is always human-centered or even earth-centered, but never God-centered.  That would be utterly anathema to them.  These are the souls who ignore God, and end up destroying human beings in the process. It is a process now documented by millions upon millions of murders. The secular soul in America has done much to destroy the country’s future.  They have tolerated and encouraged the killing of millions of children in the name of “a woman’s right to choose,” a mindless ideological cliche intended to hide the truth of the program: the dominance of “undesirables” by the self-appointed intellectual elite. A few years ago, a highly ranked pro-abortion woman in a southern state declared a conservative political candidate, Sara Palin, to be not “a real feminist” because she had not aborted her own child. This public statement unmasked the will to dominate, to control, to seek to destroy God or man’s place in God’s world by killing off the most innocent, the human beings most unable to protect themselves. If the Nazi extermination camps were, as Hannah Arendt wrote, the models for the new Nazi society of total domination, in America and in the cultures penetrated by the disease of modernity, of secular intellectualism and scientism, abortion clinics are the hidden models of the new emerging secular State. At the will of the leader, of the dominant person, a human life can be utterly destroyed, with no consequences for the killer.   Under the leadership and inspiration of secular, anti-God souls in America, this country has in effect destroyed its future. Where are the children?  If  some 1.5 million infants per year have been aborted since Row v Wade became “the law of the land” (and it is not really law in truth, for “an unjust law is not law”), that means that roughly 60 million human beings have been destroyed by the will of the secular elite, who “legalized,” permit, and promote abortion.  I leave for others to consider the economic ramifications of the destruction of our young.  What I point out is the sheer horror of a regime that is in many ways as destructive as any in history.  And why?  In the name of a false freedom, of “choice,” of the libido dominandi, the desire to dominate.  Because the secular soul cannot truly attack or murder God (Nietzsche’s games to the contrary), it turns on what reminds of God:  the source of life, and human life in its most innocent and helpless form. Abortion is the triumph of the will, the victory of human decision and “freedom” over creatures of God. As a self-professed atheist, Nietzsche encouraged and embraced abortion, euthanasia, killing of inferior beings; his intellectual offspring show up by the millions in our secular, anti-God souls. The secular soul refuses to admit or acknowledge its evil, and the way it has been sharing in totalitarian domination of the helpless. American secularists, especially in the form of left-wing politicians and media elites, would never admit that they are children under the skin with National Socialists who sought to eliminate “undesirables” from their society. For the sake of “Progress,” the Nazis sought to kill off diseased, weak, “less-than-human” beings in their midst.  For the sake of “Progress” in America, secular souls practice, tolerate, and even encourage the killing of helpless unborn children.  Again, “pro-choice” is not just a political alternative for the secular elites; it embodies and typifies their desire to dominate nature, to control whatever is not according to their will.  In short:  abortion manifests the sheer will to power.  And the American secular elite, promoting abortion, shows itself driven by the will to power, to dominate.  The secular soul is ruled by the desire to remake reality in its own image.  It cannot do otherwise. Having cut itself off from the divine Ground, the secular soul is awash in self, and seeks to impose its whims, beliefs, “values,” desires on everyone and everything. Some secular souls are mild-mannered, quiet-voiced, kind, generous:  but expose their underlying will to dominate, as typified in abortion, and they will unleash furor upon the one who exposes them.                                                                                 *** Recently, a secularist asked me to give evidence that the American regime has much of tyranny within it.  Leaving aside the obvious and overwhelming fact of the concentration of political power--which is the essence of tyranny--consider the American character as a portrait of the democratic soul becoming tyrannical. In Plato’s Regime (Republic), there is a brilliant analysis of the evolution of the human soul, of types of regime, from the well-ordered to the utterly disordered. Towards the end of the process, the democratic soul emerges, that is “all liberty and equality,” and who follows the whims of its own desires wheresoever they would lead.  The democratic man is governed by its loves of pleasure, of money, of ease, of fame, of success, of power, but all in a disordered and disorderly way. But out of the democratic soul emerges the tyrannical soul: the man who lives, not for passing democratic pleasures, but to impose its will on others, on the world around it. The tyrant overwhelmingly seeks power and domination. And in light of contemporary scientific developments unknown to Plato, we can add that the tyrannical soul seeks to attempt to remake nature itself--including human nature--in its own image. As noted above, abortion is not just another policy of secular souls becoming tyrannical:  it is the model of the new way of total domination by one’s will.   Abortion now, euthanasia, infanticide, killing off of the elderly later.  And not so much later.  Euthanasia has quickly spread as “a right” in America, just as abortion spread, strongly promoted by the secularist. Soon will follow infanticide and shall we say, geriacide--killing off the elderly who are deemed “socially useless.”  America is becoming a society more and more similar to the killing fields of Nazi Germany: With Science as our god, we can remake nature to our own liking.   When a human being has severed his bond to God, sooner or later, man becomes tyrant. Without acknowledging the Creator of all to whom all are responsible, Cain kills Abel, and American secularists kill or promote the killing of the weakest among us.   Secular souls are in principle, then, totalitarian, and the society they dominate becomes another totalitarian regime. But with the advancements in technology and science, domination becomes all the more potentially complete, more total. The regime emerging in America has the potential of being far more destructive than what was pre-figured in Nazi Germany.   And yet, the secular soul seems utterly oblivious to what it is doing. “Where is the tyranny?” these intellectuals ask. “I see a democracy. People are free. There are not elements of tyranny here.” And if one points out the foremost example of tyranny, noted above--abortion--one is condemned, hated, or at least ignored. The secular soul is blind to God, and therefore essentially blind to itself and what it is doing. America has become increasingly a regime led by blind guides who deceive the masses for their power position. Obama embodies the blindness and the deception. When asked if the child in the womb deserves protection, his highly sophistical, clever, and immediate response was: “That is above my pay grade.”  Tolerating killing is “above the pay grade” of the  President, of the leader of the blind. Such is a portrait of the emerging American character in the twenty-first century.  It is not a pretty picture at all, and under such blind and destructive leaders, America is destroying itself. Fr. Wm. Paul McKane