Bomb & a Burqa, Two Bits

The Velvet Hammer lady reports and editorializes on today's Religions of Peace death-tally, now in Peshwar, Pakistan. (Wait, wait ... I thought Pakistan was a Muslim nation, ipso facto. Oh, well. Tell me more.) The report states as follows:

A burqa-clad woman blew herself up and killed at least 15 people Monday at a crowded police checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan, police said. It was believed to be the first time a female suicide bomber has struck inside the country.
The bombing, which injured 22 others, apparently was in a rickshaw that was being examined at a police checkpoint around 8:25 a.m. local time in the town of Bannu, said police officer Habib Khan.

Bannu police chief Ameer Hamza Mahsud said that investigation of the bomb site confirmed that the attacker was a woman who was riding in the rickshaw. He added that police had prior intelligence about the possibility female suicide bombers would strike in the town.

I posted last week on driving in northern Virginia and seeing a full-body burqa-beclothed driver behind me in a vehicle in 600-pound Gorilla. Mark Gordon, at Suicide of the West commented on my tale of seeing the burqa in my rear-view mirror thusly: "A burkha-clad woman driving in Virginia should see the Western man in her windshield as the 600-pound gorilla, but she doesn’t. Why? Because on some level she is intimately involved in the building of a civilization, while the Westerners around her are either actively dismantling theirs or allowing it to crumble into dust." Oddly (and happily, I might add), acquaintances and colleagues of mine are beginning to sense a nagging and growing need for unity among Christians, regardless of what the ontologically-challenged nihilists of the West are busy being about. And I sense an opportunity for the work of René Girard's mimetic theory in the air.

Case in point: burqas! What? Are males so sexually obsessed that we can't keep our mitts off gals otherwise clad? The burqa is relatively recent development in ladies' apparel in Scimitar Land. So, why the bone of contention?

Girard can help. The template of Islam is purely and simply that of what he calls "the primitive Sacred," anthropologically speaking. The burqa obscures, stiff-arms any truly human interchange, and hides. The acceptability of being devious by Jihad standards is becoming commonplace and even honorable by their practitioners -- anything that fools the enemy can be easily justified in hindsight. "I did it for Allah" is a good enough rationale so long as the blood of the enemy is shed.

And this is a key component of the primitive Sacred: it is born in doubling rivalry with the other, either individually or culturally, and thrives on retributive violence, even to the point of self-annihilation ... so long as THEY perish as well. Christianity is not innocent of such slap-dash behavior, but (as usual and God bless us!) we feel remorse and contrition after such goings-on, repent, and seek to love our enemy better the next time. Saint Peter is our main-man here, setting the template at the crowing of the Rooster [Mk 14, 72].

Does Islam have any such precedence regarding remorse and repentance? Please, name it for me. It simply isn't there, never was, never has been ... but hope prays it shall one day by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Meanwhile. trust a burqa-bedecked person at your own risk.

Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus +

An essay of the little way of St. Thérèse of Lisieux by Rev. Jean C. J. d'Elbeé, Humble Confidence.

The Hubris of Alchemical Gnosticism

Or, How I Learned to Love Dionysus
Pity two people: the 64-year old retiree who followed his disordered passions to become a "woman" surgically, and the writer of this story, "Woman Suing IRS Over Sex-Change Tax Claims":

After years of painful soul searching, Rhiannon O'Donnabhain -- a former construction engineer from a devout Irish Catholic family in Boston -- decided to surgically change his sex to female in 2001. The struggle was equally tough financially -- hormone treatments and medical procedures set her back $25,000, a burden she felt could be partially offset by taking a $5,000 tax deduction for medical costs.

Talk about alchemical Gnosticism at its finest pagan expression. It's all here: years of succombing to the vertigo of the disordered imagination, better living through chemicals "treatments", elective neutering. All at the small cost in monetary terms of $25,000. Did I mention the hubris of re-designing what God the Creator had already given this Rhiannon O'Donnabhain in terms of a teleological purpose for being in the universe with his precious, unique, and vital person, made imago dei?

But no. He decided to "become a woman," and the benighted IRS disagrees with the decision and action being a tax claim. And what does the scientific community say about this?

"When did the IRS suddenly become physicians?" said Marshall Forstein, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "It's absolutely clear that transgender identity is a condition discussed in diagnostic manuals. It seems the IRS is now in the business of practicing medicine without a license."

And, according to O'Donnabhain's lawyers from the Massachusetts-based Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), the case is expected to set a precedent on whether such procedures will be considered tax deductible.

So since GLAD is now on-top of the situation, we know that the human Gnostic project with its emphasis on power of individual choice of lifestyle over God's silly designs so regrettably put into each person without consulting us about our choice in the matter -- for heaven's sake, what kind of a life-giving Creator is this anyway? Gees! -- the tax claim will set a precedent and go through with flying colors. Hooray, human hubris wins!

Sarcasm aside: Catholic truth is in a two-front war. Ostensibly, the human hubris crowd thinks in self-satisfaction that they are pleasing themselves. In reality, they are bowing at the altar of Dionysus. On the other hand, the Scimitar is the other side of the same coin: paganism cloaked in pharisaical Koran-rules that catch new victims for sacrifice. To whom? Same god: Dionysus. Fancy that.

Continue to pray for the Holy Father, the Church, and all who hold antinomy toward this basion of sacramental grace and truth. +

Must Read List: Why Matter Matters by David Lang

Annie Dillard, Sub-creator*

I will close this 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time by Catholic Shire reckoning with a blessing that truly is worth defending. In 1975, Annie Dillard was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction with her Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. There certainly are equally famous and rich descriptions of the glory of God's creation, but none struck me, a young college kid, quite so much as this long-legged, long strawberry-blond-haired, piercing eyed author/naturalist sitting on a boulder in the rear-cover picture. That got me reading, and then I was hooked by her stunning prose, keen wit, and theological temperament.

Read Eudora Welty's review of Pilgrim in the New York Times. And Dillard’s own website that she maintains.

*J. R. R. Tolkien's coinage for creative human art, music, literature that reflects the creativity of the Lord in whose image we are created, imago dei.

Jihad - Definition

What Jihad really means. Key quotation by Douglas E. Streusan at the Middle East Quarterly:

Muslims today can mean many things by jihad-the jurists’ warfare bounded by specific conditions, Ibn Taymiya’s revolt against an impious ruler, the Sufi’s moral self-improvement, or the modernist’s notion of political and social reform. The disagreement among Muslims over the interpretation of jihad is genuine and deeply rooted in the diversity of Islamic thought. The unmistakable predominance of jihad as warfare in Shari’a writing does not mean that Muslims today must view jihad as the jurists did a millenium ago. Classical texts speak only to, not for, contemporary Muslims. A non-Muslim cannot assert that jihad always means violence or that all Muslims believe in jihad as warfare.

Conversely, the discord over the meaning of jihad permits deliberate deception, such as the CAIR statement cited above. A Muslim can honestly dismiss jihad as warfare, but he cannot deny the existence of this concept. As the editor of the “Diary of a Mujahid” writes, “some deny it, while others explain it away, yet others frown on it to hide their own weakness.”

The term jihad should cause little confusion, for context almost always indicates what a speaker intends. The variant interpretations are so deeply embedded in Islamic intellectual traditions that the usage of jihad is unlikely to be ambiguous. An advocate of jihad as warfare indicates so through his goals. A Sufi uses the term mujahada or specifies the greater jihad. Bourguiba clearly did not advocate violence to improve education and development in Tunisia. When ambiguity does exist, it may well be deliberate. In the case of Arafat’s statement about a “jihad for Jerusalem,” he intended his Muslim audience to hear a call to arms while falling back on the peaceful definition to allay concerns in Israel and the West. Only his later actions reveal whether he was co-opting Islamists by adopting their rhetoric or duping Israelis by hiding his violent intentions. [Tip: LGF]

The Crusades - Don't Be Ashamed!

A good read and looks good on the coffee table too is Crusades – The Illustrated History [2004], Thomas F. Madden, Gen. Ed. And, if the book budget is a wee bit meager, you can read Madden's article, "The Real History of the Crusades," here.

Welcome to the New Michigan

Anti-Jewish and Anti-Christian fliers found on windshields. "Kill Jews and Christians if they don't believe in Allah and Mohammad." And I thought Jack Chick tracts were problematical. Read more.

Let's print up a few reams of these, shall we?

Lan astaslem - I WILL NOT SUBMIT

Oh, and by the way, I will be happy to forgive others their trespasses as soon as I am sure I can keep them from beheading me and plundering the Shire. Pax et bonum. +

Lost Horizon - The Meek Shall Inherit

Chronicles of Atlantis is about, ostensibly, "things worth fighting for." I mentioned elsewhere a film called "Excalibur" -- John Boorman's depiction of the heroic pagan tragedy. Its soundtrack leans heavily on Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana," a pagan paean if ever there were one. But I want to make the case that a finer film (in black and white, unlike the movie poster here), is Frank Capra’s LOST HORIZON (1937), based on James Hilton's book of the same title. Dimitri Tiomkin's musical score is an even finer evocative work, tinged with a note of loss, sadness, and "beyondness".

The High Llama of Shangri La invites Robert Conway, unhappy but patriotic British Foreign Secretary and visionary, to stay and lead the monastic-like order. Here is the High Llama's rationale:

It came to me in a vision long, long ago. I saw all the nations strengthening, not in wisdom, but in the vulgar passions and the will to destroy. I saw their machine power multiplying until a single weaponed man might match a whole army. I foresaw a time when man exalting in the technique of murder, would rage so hotly over the world, that every book, every treasure would be doomed to destruction. This vision was so vivid and so moving that I determined to gather together all things of beauty and culture that I could and preserve them here against the doom toward which the world is rushing. Look at the world today. Is there anything more pitiful? What madness there is! What blindness! What unintelligent leadership! A scurrying mass of bewildered humanity crashing headlong against each other, compelled by an orgy of greed and brutality. The time must come, my friend, when this orgy will spend itself, when brutality and the lust for power must perish by its own sword. Against that time is why I avoided death and am here and why you were brought here. For when that day comes, the world must begin to look for a new life. And it is our hope that they may find it here. For here, we shall be with their books and their music and a way of life based on one simple rule: Be kind. When that day comes, it is our hope that the brotherly love of Shangri-La will spread throughout the world. Yes, my son, when the strong have devoured each other, the Christian ethic may at last be fulfilled, and the meek shall inherit the Earth.

LOST HORIZON -- a far-away place of civilization for your DVD collection.

"Shire Strategy"

As I posted at the 4M blog, James Pinkerton has produced in his essay, The Once & Future Christendom, to my mind the only feasible paradigm for rescuing the Christian West; namely a "Shire Strategy." Pinkerton utilizes Tolkien's Lord of the Rings for terminology and even policy in a way that honors the beliefs of a prime adversary of the West qua "the Shire" without a desire to quash, destroy, or subsume that adversary.

For another analysis of Pinkerton's notion, see A Conversation with James Pinkerton in "View From the Right."

The Dionysus Mandate

Marilyn Manson, performance/mort-rock artist of the neo-pagan West (pictured left) was an important influence in my fictional take on a recrudescence of the primitive Sacred, The Dionysus Mandate – A Fable of Desire & Death. One must realize, however, that the book denotes events that might take place in the West, where the influence of the Gospel is still to be found. Where the primitive Sacred still takes the form of a billion-strong Islam today, we see officer-class practitioners of it.

An Important 28 Minutes

Erwun Caner Shares His Journey Through Islam.

Expect More Without the Gospel Influence

In his tape series, "The Dionysus Revival," Gil Bailie speaks of the West's infatuation with the élan of the Dionysian. Those who saw and felt first hand and tasted of its heady false-freedoms, say, in the 60's, know of what Bailie speaks. What no one then knew then was that, anthropologically speaking and what René Girard has made so clear, the first intoxicating buzz of the Dionysian throwing-off of mores and prohibitions leads to the place of blood sacrifice. This is the primitive Sacred.

The mythos that silences concern for the victims of such regressive religious and neo-pagan behavior now attempts to throw a cloak called "choice" over our sanitized altars of Moloch -- read abortuaries -- in the West. But those whose hearts and minds have been formed in the ethos of the Gospel -- however little "Christ-hauntedness" remains in the West -- can still see clearly and feel the revulsion of the Sacred in all of its crowd-powerful glory when it comes to us from a non-Gospel influenced culture.

Let us consider an example. LGF reports on an "honor killing" shown on Youtube. And a question: If you were an anthropologist from the West who happened upon such brutality, what would you do?
(a) Observe closely, take notes, and later write an ethnography to publish in a professional journal.
(b) Watch in stunned horror, walking closer to the action, and later wonder, starring at your hands, "Where did this blood come from?"
(c) Roar in indignation, throw yourself upon the girl's attackers in a mad adrenalin rush.
(d) Slink back, look at your watch, and retire to your hotel room feeling depressed, diminished, with memories of going to Confession as a boy. Choose one.

جهاد, djihād

Battle of Lepanto

Walid Phares lays it on the line regarding Preventing the West from Understanding Jihad:

In Arab Muslim history, a Hiraba (unauthorized warring) was when a group of warriors launched itself against the enemy without orders from the real commander. Obviously, this implies that a "genuine" war against a real enemy does exist and that these hotheaded soldiers have simply acted without orders. Hence this cunning explanation puts "spin" on Jihad but leaves the core idea of Jihadism completely intact. The "spoilers" depart from the plan, attack prematurely, and cause damage to the caliphate's long-term plans. These Mufsidoon "fail" their commanders by unleashing a war of their own, instead of waiting for orders.

This scenario fits the relations of the global Jihadists, who are the regimes and international groups slowly planning to gain power against the infidels and the "hotheaded" Osama bin Laden. Thus the promoters of this theory of Hiraba and Mufsidoon are representing the views of classical Wahhabis and the Muslim Brotherhood in their criticism of the "great leap forward" made by bin Laden. But by convincing Westerners that al Qaeda and its allies are not the real Jihadists but some renegades, the advocates of this school would be causing the vision of Western defense to become blurred again so that more time could be gained by a larger, more powerful wave of Jihadism that is biding its time to strike when it chooses, under a coherent international leadership.

Compare the last notion that Phares warns of -- a "larger, more powerful wave of Jihadism ... under coherent international leadership" -- with the goals of a Christendom with borders and boundaries in James Pinkerton's ”Shire Strategy.” The latter is humble by comparison.

Islam and Paganism

Jeff Mirus posits an interesting notion regarding Islam and Paganism in the online journal, Catholic Culture. Mirus says, "...it is no good denying Islam’s devotion to the One, which Mohammed derived indirectly from Revelation; clearly, he was a passionately committed monotheist. But it is critical to realize that Islam is not based on any sort of special revelation given by the One to his people, except insofar as it borrows imperfectly from Judaism and Christianity."

I recall Gil Bailie saying in his tape series on Carl Jung that the time came when he realized that Dante could understand Jung but Jung could not understand Dante. May the many who suffer downstream of "the Prophet" under the pharisaical quasi-revelations of the Koran come to realize the same thing about Islam.

The Key to Ecumenism, the Pope Says

...And There Is Strength in Numbers