Accused of Being a Christian

My parish where I attend Mass is a rather large one, particularly for an overwhelmingly Mormon state. To my knowledge, other than the Cathedral of the Madeline in downtown Salt Lake, my parish is THE largest in the state of Utah. With that being said, we have been blessed with additional clergy to help "tend the flock" of the local parishioners here.

Leading all of them is Monsignor Moore. Monsignor is a very kind and caring man who is extremely pastoral in his relationships with his parishioners. He came here many decades ago from Ireland, and let me tell you that there is something that just seems right in the world when your Mass is given by a priest having a little of the Irish brogue to his tongue.

Monsignor's homilies are often very good at tying together the scriptural readings of the Mass and making the point that the Church is trying to convey each Sunday. His homilies typically are good at keeping one's attention and connecting with the parish. They accomplish their intended task wonderfully.

Until late last summer, we also had a fellow Irishman, Father Jim, who would celebrate the Mass on the weekends too. Unfortunately, Father Jim's priestly order of St. Francis de Sales moved its priests from the confines of Utah's borders. Even more unfortunate is the fact that they had the audacity to take Father Jim with them. He is missed greatly by everyone in the parish accordingly.

Father Jim's homilies were always very personal, and often times emotional affairs. Father Jim was exceptional at connecting with the parishioners in this way, and his homilies were something that I never ever noticed anyone paying any less than complete attention.

Lastly, we have Deacon Paul. Deacon Paul is a very good man and is extremely busy in helping with the youth group and all manners of workings within the parish. Deacon Paul also will occasionally deliver the homily. Deacon Paul's homilies are typically a little more formal. They tend to be a little more dry and esoteric, not unlike a college lecture. This tends to place some people into a lull with their attention. That is truly sad, because often times there is some great points and thought-provoking questions asked by Deacon Paul in his homilies.

And all of this preceding writing was to introduce the thought that has been exercising my mind and conscience of late.

You see, Deacon Paul gave the homily a month or so back, and at the end of this well-done homily he asked the question. It is one I have pondered off and on ever since then. This is particularly so during this season of Lent as I have vowed to try and be a better servant of Christ and to do what His will is and not that of my own selfish interests. I wonder how often I measure up in answering that question positively and how many more times I fall short of it.

The question that Deacon Paul asked that Sunday was, "If I were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict me?"

My Greatest Teacher

A little while back I joined Facebook. I did so for the same reason that millions of other people signed up for an account. I wanted to try and get in touch with long lost friends from high school, from my Navy days, and to find friends I had made and carelessly lost track of as I uprooted my family multiple times by moving them all across our country while following a career.

Well, today I noticed that one of my old high school acquaintances with which I am befriended on Facebook had sent a message to a teacher of mine that I had way back in junior high school. This teacher was someone that I have thought about from time to time over the decades since I last saw him. He was someone that truly inspired me and helped change my life for the better.

I know that is supposedly what all teacher are theoretically supposed to do, but few seldom seem to measure up to that goal. Truthfully, I cannot even remember most of my high school teachers' names, let alone my junior high teachers'. But this man was different in many ways.
Ironically he taught a class that many people would consider fun but not necessarily life-changing. He taught drama class.

I don't even really recall how I ended up in drama class in my 7th grade year. I was painfully shy and while I was a good student, this class was going to be difficult for me. I had just lost my father after a long fight with cancer, and if anything I was becoming more withdrawn and closing into my protective shell.

Then came "the class". I don't recall all of the particular assignments but I do remember the process as taught by this fantastic teacher was to build confidence in acting through the process of becoming in touch with your own emotions and then being secure enough in your person to be able to draw upon those emotions as required for whatever part you were currently playing.

This teacher began to draw me out of my sorrow, out of my shell that first year. Much to my surprise, I signed up for his other drama courses the next year and then the next. As I grew in my self confidence and inner strength, Benson came to me and suggested that I actually try out for the school play. It was entitled "Up the Down Staircase" and to my horror and happiness, Benson cast me in a lead part as a young rebellious trouble making kid that basically was good inside.

The part was fun because the character was so different than the good kid I was at the time. I did well, and went out for future plays. Each part I played, I got a little bit better, a little bit less self-conscious, a little bit more confident in myself.

It even got to the point where I became an assistant to Benson for one of his beginning classes when I was a freshman. The class was small so he cast me as the fairy godmother in a version of Cinderella that the kids were doing in class. I was horrified at first, then decided to have fun with it. It was hard to believe in those three years how far I had come from the painfully shy and withdrawn kid I was.

Fast forward thirty years, and I look at the ease with which I can now communicate with others with my career, within my church, ... within my life! I have no qualms getting up and giving a talk to a group of people whom I do not know. I have that confidence in myself now, and when looking back where that came from, it is easy to point to the teacher of my junior high drama classes.

Its hard to believe that as an engineer, when I look back at my junior high schooling I find that indeed the most important life-altering class I took was taught by this inspirational man that had the wherewithal to either see some potential within me or perhaps just thought that he could possibly help some sad frightened boy discover the tools within to become a much more confident man someday.

Although I have not seen or spoken to Benson in so many decades, I have always considered the man one of the best teachers I ever had and more importantly a friend. I anxiously await his "confirming" my Facebook friendship request so that I can thank him for being the kind of person that he was, and evidently still is judging by his own blog, so many years ago.

I do not know, but I suspect that God knew the misery I was falling deeper into with my withdrawing from people. I further suspect He somehow steered me to that first drama class. He knew that a TEACHER and a good man was there to guide me at that point. My thanks to God and to Benson for that!

An Unlamented Death

I somehow missed the fact that a month ago General Ali Hassan al-Majid was put to death by hanging in Baghdad as punishment for his war crimes, crimes against humanity, and attempted genocide.

He was better known as Chemical Ali and was one of Saddam Hussein's most trusted and absolutely ruthless henchmen. He acted as the head of Saddam's secret police, as the military governor of Iraqi-occupied Kuwait leading up to and during the first Gulf war, and as the interior minister for Iraq.

It was in his role as interior minister that he crushed the Shiite uprising that occurred after the end of the Gulf War in 1991, because of the United States unwillingness to protect these people since our U.N. mandated goals had already been accomplished, so ordered George H.W. Bush.

Perhaps one of Ali's most evil accomplishments though was during the Anfal campaign to suppress the Kurdish uprising in their requests for more autonomy in the northern third of the country of Iraq. His men destroyed more than 4000 Kurdish villages and displaced one million Kurds by having done so. They killed all males old enough to offer resistance to Saddam's regime. By the time Chemical Ali was done, it was estimated that the number of Kurds killed numbered at 180,000 people.

At Chemical Ali's first trial, the prosecution played some recordings for the court. One from 1988 had this evil man heard telling some senior Baath party officials what he had planned for the Kurds prior to his campaign of genocide there. He is quoted as saying, "I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? F___ them!"

Well it took far too long but eventually the international community put together a coalition of the willing lead by the United States under George W. Bush's leadership and did capture this man, his president Saddam Hussein, and also killed Saddam's two vicious and evil sons in this just war. Millions of Iraqi's were liberated from the tyrant of Saddam and now last month a free and democratic Iraq meted out justice to this evil man, Chemical Ali.

The Cowboy Way

I always did like cowboys. Now, I don't mean the ones that dress up in their well-pressed Wranglers, put on a Stetson hat, jump in their pickup that has never ever left a concrete road, to go to the local honkey tonk to line dance in some downtown metropolis. I mean, I like real honest to goodness cowboys.

I admire and respect those men and women that have worked hard ranching. It would seem that there is something about having to be responsible for a herd of livestock's' well being and everything that it takes to do that that typically creates a man or woman of uncommonly good sense.

To this day, I cannot think of a single real cowboy or cowgirl that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting that has not exhibited this uncommonly good sense. A cowboy's sense of right and wrong, fair play, and justice is almost infallible. They are straight shooters and tell it like it is. They tend to see the world in more of the black and white shades that it often times truly is, rather than the myriad shades of gray that nearly all our politicians couch their positions in of moral relativism nowadays.

President Reagan was often called a cowboy by his critics. He returned to his ranch in California as often as he could when he was president. Perhaps that is why I liked and respected the man so much. I suspect it will take another cowboy sitting in the oval office to clean up the mess that the current goat-roper will leave us.

With this being said, an old Navy buddy who lives in Texas forwarded this short video to me. It kind of gives you an idea of why I like cowboys. Too bad the breed seems to be a lot harder to come by these days when we really could use a lot more to keep us all grounded in common sense.

The Warning We Failed to Heed

Hey, from idiot extraordinaire, Maxine Waters own words told us what the Democrats/Socialists/Liberals/Progressives were going to do if they won the White House and consolidated their power. We didn't listen and voted for a man-child for president anyway. Now every piece of legislation that comes out of committee has to be fought tooth and nail to ensure that the
"government doesn't take over" our private companies. I think that most people get it now, but just in case, we do have an opportunity to fix things later this year. Lets make sure we do so by adding fools like Maxine Waters to the unemployment rolls.

The Redundancy of Olbmerann and Arrogance

I saw this terrific video from multiple sources, including at Free's blog, John Galt for President. http://free0352.blogspot.com/ It was excellent at pointing out, once again, how pompous, arrogant and factually challenged that MSNBC buffoon, Keith Olbermann is. Watch the short video to see what I mean. I truly love the Texas spirit! Most Texans do indeed "get it"!

With Breathless Anticipation...