Random Thoughts

This can’t be what Peter had in mind

I am not a Catholic. I don’t think that precludes me from having any insight into the Catholic church though. As a Protestant having sent two daughters through six years each of Catholic school, and engaged in a total of nine years worth of commensurate reading and discussions, I have learned more than the average non-Catholic typically knows about that religion.

That being said, I just don’t get the way the Catholic Church is handling sexual abuse committed by priests. Or rather failing to handle it. I just don’t get it.

I don’t get why the current Pope wouldn’t defrock a priest who committed repeated acts of sodomy on young boys. I don’t get his rationale. Call me confused; it seems to me that the abuse of a child mandates a millstone around the neck approach if anything does.

But I’m not a Catholic, so maybe there’s some mysterious intangible element to the priesthood that innately absolves them of responsibility for in-your-face repeated sins.

When I read stories like this in the Onion,

VATICAN CITY—Calling the behavior shameful, sinful, and much more frequent than the Vatican was comfortable with, Pope Benedict XVI vowed this week to bring the widespread pedophilia within the Roman Catholic Church down to a more manageable level.

Addressing thousands gathered at St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday, the pontiff offered his “most humble apologies” to abuse victims, and pledged to reduce the total number of molestations by 60 percent over the next five years.

and I see videos like this on YouTube,

I figure there is a clear reason this kind of satire is being directed at the Church, and it’s because the Church is failing to deal adequately with a profoundly disturbing problem. It seems to me that the Catholic Church has reached the point where Jonathan Swift would be saying, if you don’t want to deal with the problem of starvation in a rational manner, perhaps you ought to consider eating the babies. Or in this case, using “Priest Off.”

There simply is no excuse for this. It’s right up there with the historic abuses of the Catholic Church. At least when they sold indulgences, people weren’t literally getting screwed.

There are a number of deeply faithful Catholic bloggers out there, and I have been wondering what they made of this situation. How are they dealing with the abject failure of their leadership to protect children?

The Anchoress seems to be urging patience toward the Pope, while Mark Shea at Inside Catholic blames the media for creating a “feeding frenzy” upon the Pope.

Allison at Why I am Catholic reminds us that the Church needs prayer.

And Greg at the Deacon’s Bench points out that statistically priests probably don’t commit sexual abuse of children more than any other segment of the population.

I’m not a Catholic. I don’t have the same veneration for the Pope or any Church leader below him that a Catholic does. I don’t particularly blame him, nor do I absolve him; I figure every human being is responsible for their own sins. I do know though that this entire situation, including the way Catholics are responding to it, doesn’t make me want to become a Catholic.

If I was a Catholic, I’d be demanding action. After all, it is their Church.

Tacky is as tacky does…

The only thing that surprises me is that anyone is surprised Rahm Emmanuel used the phrase “f—ing retards” in a White House meeting.

We knew he was a snake when Obama picked him up. He’s probably just echoing what his boss thinks anyway.

His apology is worthless at this point; let the man display better behavior for a year or two and then I’ll believe he’s truly changed his crude speaking ways.

And pigs will fly. Backwards. Through the Oval Office.

Allahpundit over at HotAir points out just how ridiculous Rahm’s apology really is.

The Obama Administration: The epitome of class and dignity. Only really, really not.

And in other news, FLOTUS Michelle publicly humiliates her daughters to authenticate her new pet cause: Childhood obesity.

Nothing like having your mama air your personal health concerns in front of the entire freaking world.

These people redefine classless and tacky on a daily basis.

Just Visiting

Today’s blog is personal, because something’s been on my mind since this morning. I’ve been reading Beyond the Pale’s musings about her own church travails, and thinking about the parallels between her apparently dissimilar situation and mine.

I’ve been attending a very large local church for over a year now. It’s a church that, two years ago, I would never have considered attending. Three years ago I would have laughed in the face of anyone who’d said “You’ll become a regular visitor here.”

It’s the first time in my adult life I’ve been a perpetual church visitor; I’ve always been a member. I like belonging to things, whether they are message boards, school associations, political parties, or churches. I like to contribute, to be a part of things. I don’t like being an outsider.

I’ve been a church outsider since May of 2008. That’s when the elders of the small church I’d belonged to for nearly a decade decided that 50 families just weren’t enough, and that–even though the church’s accounts weren’t in the red (I would know, my husband was a treasurer) the church wasn’t accomplishing its mission. So the logical thing–to them–was to disband.

It hurt. A lot. It felt like I was being handed divorce papers without cause. A “what did I do wrong, can’t we work this out, please don’t do this” feeling.

But so it went. And I and my family spent months visiting other churches. Small, medium, big, mainstream denominational, non-denominational, whacked out fringe denominational (that one was an accident) and at one point I swear I considered Catholicism just to be somewhere. Somewhere solid where I could say “This is home.”

It didn’t happen. Some of the places that might have worked for me didn’t work for MrRandomThoughts (one in particular we visited for over four months). Some didn’t work for Youngest Son. Eventually we ended up at The Mothership — at my former church we called this place “The Mothership” because it’s the largest church in our community. And it kind of looks like it landed on the big grassy lawn it’s perched upon.

Prior to our arrival, this church had gone through hell with a promiscuous pastor, a year of interim pastors, and only now, just as we began attending, had they hired a permanent pastor. He’s a fellow who is the complete opposite of the scoundrel who formerly filled their pulpit–a fresh faced preppy forty something fellow straight out of the Midwest by way of a small town with a big church in Virginia. Three kids, a great wife, and as doctrinally solid as granite rock. It looks like this time the elders got it right.

I do not trust church elders though. They took away my last church, and they screwed over this one when they hired the current pastor’s philandering surfer boy predecessor. But I figure this church is predisastered. It’s safe now, it’s already had the spiritual equivalent of an airplane through the roof.

Still, I just can’t bring myself to consider joining this church.There’s something about it that annoys me. The artificial fog that is pumped onto the stage during the worship songs, the not-quite-hitting-it attempt at a rock band, the dozens of Hummers, Mercedes and Lexus automobiles that fill the parking lot, the auditorium that seats over 2800 people…it’s all so affluent and so theatrically driven…

This Sunday, when they showed a media presentation about the Elders (a new one just was elected) I found myself actually getting angry. I’m still not sure why, except that I don’t want to hear about the middle aged affluent white men who can directly influence my ability to worship at a given place.

Yep, I’ve definitely got issues with elder boards.

And I really don’t fit in here.

I tried; two months after we began visiting, I went to the annual all-church women’s luncheon. The guest speaker happened to be someone I know personally from Youngest Son’s grade school. She’s also a minor celebrity, which is why she was the guest speaker (she happens to be a very authentic, deeply spiritual woman too). I did not get to say hello to her. There were too many women talking to her, too many who wanted her attention, and I felt frankly odd about working my way through the crowd of them. I sat at a table where I knew no one. The other women knew each other. Beyond greeting me with a smile or a nod, they ignored me. I am a rather sociable person, but there has to be some reciprocal effort, and on their part, there wasn’t.

They began the event without prayer. Someone figured out that it might be nice to pray as we started to eat, so they threw that in. For the most part, it seemed to be a chance for the women who knew each other to gossip about their daily lives. There was a psuedo-cooking demonstration, and a sort-of-craft demonstration, and music by the couple who regularly lead Sunday worship. As a duet they’re good, better than they are on Sunday morning when not-quite-hitting-it band surrounds them. And then there was my friend, who gave a very moving and challenging talk. People at my table left during it.

I won’t go to another women’s luncheon at this church. I wish I could have gotten the cost of the ticket back too.

Other events, family things held outside on the massive lawn, can be somewhat better. I can wander around with a cup of coffee in my hand smile and say hello to strangers, and not feel too uncomfortable at being ignored. Mostly I just show up on Sundays and try to get my head and heart into some kind of worship, despite the theatrical staging, and hang on until the sermon.

The pastor’s sermons are always good. He cares a lot about ministry and missions, he’s willing to address the tough stuff too about faith and sin. I wonder if he and his family are happy here. I hope they are, but they’re so different from everyone else in the building, myself included. They remind me of what I was like when I first came to California from Illinois. They aren’t jaded. I hope this place and the faint Hollywood vibe it puts out doesn’t suck the joy out of their lives.

The youth group at The Mothership is really kicking it for Youngest Son though, and MrRandomThoughts is happy in obscurity, his involvement limited to sitting in the fifth row, left center section every Sunday. So I guess we’ll just keep visiting.

I miss my old church so darned much.

And in the meantime…

I am brushing off the cyber equivalent of cobwebs here. I ought to be ashamed of myself, for all but abandoning my blog for two months.

My blog email is full of spam, understandably, but why is it written in Russian? What did I post last that issued an invite to Russian spammers?! Nevermind, I’ll just hit “delete” repeatedly.

Nothing bad happened to me in the interval between my last post and this one. My only excuse for dropping out of the blogosphere was the hurricane of life: Committing to writing NaNoWriMo, then having a full court press California state mandated teaching performance assessment followed by holiday craziness. Blog? I have a blog? Does anyone read it? Will they notice if it falls silent for a few weeks, or months?

I did not finish NaNoWriMo, but I did find my creative (fiction) voice again. That’s been fun. I’d forgotten the pleasure of playing with characters, of letting them interact and typing the result. So, for me, NaNoWriMo was a success. And I nailed a major win on the state requirement, with a perfect score and the evaluator’s comment “This is the best TPA 2 I have scored.” It felt really good to kick butt on that one.

The holidays were a success too. Though my family has narrowed down to MrRT and the four RT offspring, three of whom no longer live at home, this meant the holidays really were happy. No ugly scenes, no unpleasant relatives, just good food and good times. Christmas especially, when all six of us were together.

Nothing, and I do mean nothing, makes me happier than watching my kids thoroughly enjoy each other’s company. That is the best part of parenthood, right there.

So, it’s January now–heck, January is half over–and I’m preparing to walk into a 12th grade classroom and teach English to high school seniors who are already half checked out and heading for graduation. I must be out of my mind. Not that I have a choice; it’s the final part of the teacher credentialing process. Since they put me with 6th graders last semester, they (whomever “they” is at my university) apparently figured I needed to experience the other end of the spectrum.

Hey, if I can teach 6th grade (and I can) and 12th grade, then surely I can cover everything in between.

At least in theory.

Meanwhile, life goes on in strange and terrible ways.

One one hand, Massachusetts voters finally grew brains.

Brutally Honest calls this triumph “Obama being spanked.” Brilliant metaphor, and so apt.

Right Voices offers up a gem of humor from Jon Stewart on the election.

And Michelle Malkin calls it a miracle. Yes, they do happen.

On one hand is US politics, sometimes depressing, sometimes wonderful, often surprising.

On the other hand, we have the horrible tragedy in Haiti:

I can not even fathom this.

There are so many ways we can help these devastated people, without even leaving home. First and foremost there’s the financial, through reputable organizations like the Red Cross, Child Hope, World Vision, Compassion International, Samaritan’s Purse, and in Haiti itself, the Real Hope Rescue Center. 

A fairly comprehensive list of charities working in Haiti is available here.

Even five or ten dollars matters in a country so poor they’re beyond desperate on a good day. They haven’t had a good day since January 12. They’re not likely to see another one for a long time.

And you might want to bookmark The Anchoress as you keep Haiti’s people in your thoughts and prayers.

I’m back. I’m writing. And I’ll be posting more on these and other stories very soon.

And we remain the losers

I really don’t care who wins the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, Al Gore has one, as did Yassar Arafat. Clearly, they’ll give the thing to just about anyone. Still, it does make me feel rather nauseous to think that a man can be given a Nobel Peace Prize merely for talking about what he wants to do, who took office only two weeks before the Prize nomination deadline. Amazing. But then again, the man in question got to the presidency on nothing more substantive than that by which he gained the Nobel Prize, so in a weird, rather eerie way, it all fits.

It doesn’t make life in these United States one whit better for anyone beside the President either. We don’t need a Nobel Prize winner, we need a person who is actually doing things.

At this moment, many Americans are longing for a President who is more bully, less pulpit. The President who leased his immense inaugural good will to the hungry appropriators writing the stimulus bill, who has not stopped negotiating health-care reform except to say what is nonnegotiable, whose solicitude for the wheelers and dealers who drove the financial system into a ditch leaves the rest of us wondering who has our back, has always shown great promise, said the right things, affirmed every time he opens his mouth that he understands the fears we face and the hopes we hold. But he presides over a capital whose day-to-day functioning has become part travesty, part tragedy; wasteful, blind, vain, petty, where even the best-intentioned reformers measure their progress with teaspoons. There comes a time when a President needs to take a real risk - and putting his prestige on the line to win the Olympics for his hometown does not remotely count.

Ah well, Obama doesn’t need to do anything to get applause. He merely needs to exist.

And then I think about nominee Greg Mortenson, and my heart aches.

Compare this to Greg Mortenson, nominated for the prize by some members of Congress, whom the bookies gave 20-to-1 odds of winning. Son of a missionary, a former Army medic and mountaineer, he has made it his mission to build schools for girls in places where opium dealers and tribal warlords kill people for trying. His Central Asia Institute has built more than 130 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan - a mission which has, along the way, inspired millions of people to view the protection and education of girls as a key to peace and prosperity and progress.

Thing is, Greg Mortenson doesn’t need a Nobel Peace Prize. His ego, unlike that of the current US President, does not demand public notice. Winning–or not winning–a clearly meaningless award will not change him at all. He will go on dedicating the days of his life to true service of others, working “in the trenches,” unknown by most of mankind even while making a very real, lasting change in the lives of others.

Mahatma Gandhi never won the Nobel Prize either. I’d say Mortenson is in excellent company.

Locutusprime at Brutally Honest explains the true worth of this dubious prize:

The Nobel Peace prize is nothing that is won. It is simply given. And it is nothing more than the door prize awarded by the collective thinking of anti American Marxist and communist around the world. It has absolutely less than nothing to do with the origins of its original inception or concept. The prize is nothing more than a booby prize awarded by the anti west, anti capitalism, anti democracy cabal of Marxist communist dissidents and their dregs in academia.

Confederate Yankee underscores the absurdity of it all:

Nobel committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland was pressed by the media to explain why Obama deserved the award, and could only offer this defense: “As to whether the prize was given too early in Mr. Obama’s presidency, he said: ‘We are not awarding the prize for what may happen in the future but for what he has done in the previous year. We would hope this will enhance what he is trying to do’.”
Barack Obama won a Nobel Peace Prizefor campaigning for President.

Wordsmith at Flopping Aces posits that Bush really ought to be credited/blamed for Obama’s Nobel.

Neo-neocon reminds us of the inherent bias of the Nobel commitee, and that 1990 Nobel winner Mikhail Gorbachev presided over the fall of the Soviet Union.

American Power considers the ramifications of Obama’s Nobel Prize upon Afghanistan and Iraq.

And The Anchoress thinks that Michelle ought to have shared in the award.

Edited to add…

A look at the nominees who were passed over. If anything underscores the worthlessness of a Nobel Peace Prize, a comparison of relative accomplishments ought to do it.

God’s partner in matters of life and death

This morning I took Youngest Son to his new middle school for the first time. Dropped him off, watched him walk confidently away. The sun was shining in a cloudless blue sky (it’s SoCal and this is normal August weather). I was feeling pretty good about the day.

I got home, checked my email and found that I’d sold another of Youngest Daughter’s last semester textbooks on half.com. Wonderful system, half.com; I’ve saved literally hundreds of dollars each semester in textbook costs and resold most of the books I’ve bought. The day was really looking good.

Then I read this:

In a morning conference call with about 1000 rabbis from across the nation, Obama asked for aid: “I am going to need your help in accomplishing necessary reform,” the President told the group, according to Rabbi Jack Moline, who tweeted his way through the phoner.

“We are God’s partners in matters of life and death,” Obama went on to say, according to Moline’s real-time stream.

Well there went my happy morning. On a certain level the arrogance of Obama’s statement engenders cynical laughter. So, if he’s “God’s partner in matters of life and death,” did God have a vote when it came to Obama’s support of Planned Parenthood, and his refusal to vote against partial birth abortion? Just wondering.

God’s partner in matters of life and death…

Far more than laughter though, Obama’s declaration of partnership with God in “matters of life and death” makes me feel rather ill. That deep-in-the-pit-of-the-stomach something-is-horribly-wrong-here sort of ill. There is no end to the man’s profound arrogance, no limit to the power he presumes, even to take on equality with God in “matters of life and death.” He’s not Jesus Christ, he thinks he’s more powerful than Jesus Christ. Christ himself “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.” Servanthood eludes this particular public servant though, and Obama calls himself God’s own partner in determining mortality.

At least this clarifies one persistent question about Obamacare: Obama thinks matters of life and death ought to be in the hands of the government. And that speaks volumes about the murky mystery that is his health care reform plan.

For further consideration:

Victor Davis Hansen explains the rather creepy and sudden invocation of religion in the health care debate (H/T The Anchoress).

Neo-Neocon provides an eloquent and thorough examination of the problem with health care reform:

These are some of the very basic problems with any health care reform bill:

(1) Good health care is extremely expensive, and cutting costs will always mean denial of benefits. And even if the rhetoric says that only the unnecessary fat will be cut, medicine is not a good enough science that we can tell in advance what’s a necessary test or procedure and what is not.

(2) People logically assume that insuring everyone will have to cost more money, and they also know that there’s no magic way to get that money. People are also aware that government estimates of the cost of programs are usually underestimates, sometimes by a large factor.

(3) People are especially wary of government control over this particular aspect of their lives because it is so personal and so vital at the same time.

(4) Government-run enterprises are generally distrusted, and considered inefficient and intrusive. People know that from past and present experience.

(5) In this country there is still a widely-held philosophical strain of belief in personal initiative and responsibility rather than nanny-statism. This is in contrast to the belief system of European populations, and so it’s no surprise that European governments have encountered far less resistance to government involvement in health care than is found in this country.

Therefore it’s no surprise that the US has failed to pass universal health care so far, and especially a public option. And it’s also no surprise that there’s been a great deal lot of opposition to Obamacare, since the basic problems presented by the five points above have been compounded by the fact that the rhetoric of those pushing the bill has been entirely unconvincing in its attempts at reassurance.

And Richard Bean sums up the underlying problem with Obama’s entire approach to health care:

This fantasy–that the government will take away all our worries and pay for everything–is the result of years of the entitlement mentality that is sponsored by liberalism. It takes only a few glances at history to see where socialism leads. The shiny allure of handing over your life to be paid for by others has never led a society to greatness or goodness. It has led to a decay in morality, productivity, responsibility, and most importantly a decay in freedom.

How to save a life…

Taking a step back from the ongoing Obama saga and the messed up economy to focus on something very close to home…

This is Malachi Smith. I’ve known Malachi’s daddy and mommy since before their marriage, when Malachi’s daddy Wes Smith coached Eldest Son in track and cross country running. I went to their wedding. I rejoiced at the birth of their two little boys, Ethan, now 3 1/2 and Malachi, now 2.

My heart broke at the following news:

Donor sought for precious gift

By Rhiannon Potkey
Thursday, March 12, 2009

After another restless night of sleep, Wes Smith wakes up groggy and still tired.

The Oaks Christian School track coach and head trainer yearns for the comfort of his own mattress and not a hospital bed.

Smith wonders how he will make it through practice or organize this week’s upcoming meet.

But any discomfort passes once he sees the smile adorning his little boy’s face.

Smith’s 2-year-old son, Malachi, has leukemia and has been undergoing intensive chemotherapy treatments.

Wes recently spent 39 consecutive nights by his son’s side at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. His wife, Rachel, who cares for their 3-year son Ethan at night, takes over during the day.

“It’s been a challenge,” Wes said. “But it isn’t a perfect world and we know these things happen. Our faith in God and support of our family, work and church gives us strength.”

Those support systems are hoping to help the family in a big way on Friday.

Malachi is in need of a bone marrow transplant, and Oaks Christian is holding the “Marrow 4 Malachi Drive” from 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

People will be able to register with the National Marrow Donor Program by filling out a consent form, paying $25 and having their cheek swabbed.

Donors must be between 18 and 60 years old and willing to donate to any patient in need if they meet health guidelines.

The drive was organized by Oaks Christian soccer player Kelly Johnson and her mother Valerie.

They have been posting fliers around town, and Kelly gave a presentation to the Oaks Christian students last week asking everybody to recruit at least one adult for the drive.

“If it is not Kai who finds a match, then maybe it is someone else,” Wes Smith said. “We want people to contribute to the registry one way or another and expand the reach or impact of our experience.”

Malachi “Kai” Smith was born June 9, 2006, and diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia at the age of 13 months.

ALL is a cancer of the white blood cells in the body that normally fight infections.

It’s the most common cancer in children, and occurs in about one of every 29,000 children in the United States each year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Kai went into remission after a month, but his parents noticed his symptoms returning last December. The doctors soon confirmed the leukemia had relapsed.

Kai’s parents were told he had a 90 percent survival rate after the initial diagnosis. But the relapse diagnosis was more grim.

“The statistics the second time around are a 1 in 4 chance of survival,” Wes said. “That was a little tougher to process.”

It’s been yet another medical ordeal for young Kai to endure.

Before being diagnosed with leukemia, Kai had surgery at 28 days old to repair plyoric stenosis — the narrowing of part of the stomach that leads into the small intestines.

“It’s like, ‘Holy mackerel, the poor kid hasn’t even gotten started yet and he’s been hit twice,’ ” Wes said. “But in a different generation, he might have been dead twice, so I am thankful for modern medicine in that regard.”

But Kai has handled each hurdle like one of his dad’s star sprinters on the track team.

“He is just a happy kid and has kind of won the hearts of the nurses and staff at the hospital,” Wes said. “He always has a bubbly personality and even calls one of the nurses his girlfriend. She eats it up. It’s funny, when he walks out of the hospital, he gets this big ovation.”

Although family remains Wes’ top priority, coaching track and field gives him an outlet for a few hours each day.

“The opportunity to interact with kids is what I enjoy the most,” he said. “I consider coaching more ministry than an occupation, and it has been humbling how supportive the kids are.”

Wes and his wife don’t easily accept gifts, but they have learned to value the meaning behind them.

The family recently received a $5,000 donation from the Talbert Family Foundation to help with medical expenses. The foundation also sent $500 for the bone marrow drive to cover the cost for those who can’t pay the $25.

“By nature we are always trying to give to other people, not take,” Wes said. “But it is coming back at us almost faster than we can give it up. It really blows me away.”

Wes was hesitant about naming his son Malachi. But after reading the Bible’s book of Malachi in the Old Testament, he changed his mind.

Malachi means “Messenger of God,” and Wes thought it would be cool if his son grew up to be a preacher.

“Now I think maybe his message may not be one he is giving, but the impact he is having on people’s lives as they watch us go through these trials,” Wes said. “It’s a growing experience not just for us, but for people who come to hear the story.”

Donating bone marrow isn’t painless, but it’s such a small thing to do to save a child’s life. Maybe you can’t save Malachi, but there are thousands of children waiting for a donor. Maybe you could save one of them. I don’t know about you, but I find it impossible to turn away from their need.

Join the National Marrow Registry. You might be the person to save Malachi’s life.

If you’re wondering whether you could handle being a donor, check out Canadian Brian Beattie’s personal experience in donating bone marrow.

POSTSCRIPT: More than 500 people signed up to be potential bone marrow donors at the OCS drive today. I understand that a successful drive gets 100 signups.  I am so proud of my community.