JOE LONG writes:

G.K. Chesterton’s “Ballad of the White Horse” expresses the spirit of virtuous defiance described in the previous entry. In the poem, King Alfred, facing an apparently unstoppable Viking invasion, sees a vision of Mary, who promises him…nothing.  In response to his request for a prophecy telling him whether he can succeed in his last ditch defense, she responds,
 
          “…you and all the kind of Christ
          Are ignorant and brave,
          And you have wars you hardly win
          And souls you hardly save.

          “I tell you naught for your comfort,
          Yea, naught for your desire,
          Save that the sky grows darker yet
          And the sea rises higher. (more…)

  IN THIS ENTRY, Sage McLaughlin writes: It is very encouraging ... that there are people who continue to struggle, even though we're hounded and hated for it. In Tolkien's mythology, the Men who were loyal to the gods of their fathers were called the Faithful, and they were despised by the King's Men, who hated the old gods, most especially for their refusal to allow mortal Men into paradise. Eventually the wrath of the gods destroyed their civilization, but some few of the Faithful survived to rise again (Aragorn of the Rings story was of that line). I believe that was Tolkien's hope for the West. If there was an abiding theme in his work, it was that we are obliged to go forward even in the absence of hope, because none of us knows who bears the seeds of a new beginning, and none of us can see to the end of all things.  This is all we have, in the end, unless we want to become complicit in the doom of Christendom. So I'm happy that men like Nathan trudge ahead, bearing some ember of the light of Truth with them along the way.

  I SAW this beautiful painting by the Dutch artist Nicholas Maes yesterday and, to me, it conveyed the dark ambivalence that may afflict anyone who has engaged in many days of Christmas cooking. The spilled fruit, stalking cat and gun propped against the wall might be interpreted as looming death and disorder, repressed sexuality or, to the postmodern critic, stultifying domestic tyranny, but, under the influence of the season, I viewed them as representative of the cook's state of mind, which might be summed up in the words, "To heck with it, let the cat eat the bird."   

JAMES P. writes:

Diana wrote of the “right to reproduce” and of the absurdity of homosexual couples having children genetically their own. She terms this madness that she doesn’t believe will ever happen. But it is already happening! This story relates that 63-year-old Elton John and his male “partner” have had a child via a surrogate mother. Frankly I find everything about this story repulsive, but that’s the world we live in — what seemed like unthinkable madness yesterday is the reality of today.

(more…)

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snows, and driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.

                                             Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Snow-Storm”

(more…)

DIANA writes:

I’m sorry to bother you with so many e-mails so suddenly, but the post about suffering and how people write to you really touched me. Here is my story. I leave a lot out, of course.

My oldest brother is 12 years older than I am. He’s schizophrenic. I can hardly remember him as a normal young man, but I do have some memories. For most of my life, he’s been a terrible burden and a shame. He is subject to fits of rage and violence. (I had a lot of therapy sessions devoted to dealing with this. They all boiled down to: forget about him and save yourself.)

But the bedrock of his personality is an overwhelming sweetness. He’s actually the sweetest person in my family. I’m not just an addled family member who can’t see the bad in her brother. It’s true. He’s a sweetheart. He couldn’t believe that 9/11 was caused by terrorists. I called him afterwards to calm him down. He was fine. “No one would do that on purpose!” he said to me. (more…)

DIANA WRITES:

So Joe Biden says that “same-sex marriage” is inevitable. Well, we shall see about that. Do you remember the Equal Rights Amendment? That too was inevitable, but under the passionate generalship of Phyllis Schlafly, it died.

But let’s think about the consequences if a distracted and beaten-down public is unable to summon enough opposition to homosexual marriage. Did you know that there is something called “a right to reproduce”? And that intellectuals have written articles in law reviews about this? This boils down to homosexuals changing laws to foster surrogacy, and to throw money into more “ART” – assisted reproductive techniques that might enable homosexual couples to bear children who are genetically their own. (more…)

MY AUNT MARY, who is now 80, was stunningly beautiful when she was younger. She had golden hair that she kept long and rolled into a French twist at the back of her head. The sunny yellow of her hair complimented her fair skin perfectly. When her hair began to gray, she started to color it herself to keep it blonde and she continued to wear it in the exact same elegant style. Her hair was obviously very important to her. She once told me she did not swim in the pool in her backyard because the chlorine would destroy her coloring. (more…)

  PESSIMISM is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good. Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy. It is when for some reason or other good things in a society no longer work that the society begins to decline; when its food does not feed, when its cures do not cure, when its blessings refuse to bless.                                                            --- G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man 

  BRISTOL PALIN has purchased a house in Arizona and reportedly is planning to attend Arizona State University. Presumably, she will be taking her young son with her, moving him thousands of miles from his father, or perhaps she will be leaving her son thousands of miles away. When Bristol's pregnancy was announced to the world, conservatives jumped to defend the Palins. Bristol did not have an abortion and that was enough evidence of family values. But the Palins have allowed Bristol to become a symbol of all that is wrong with single motherhood in America.

NORA writes:

Emily D.’s story is indeed very sad. In my experience, however, hardcore feminists are pretty outspoken about it, or they express opinions and attitudes that give away their position quite clearly to those around them. Didn’t her husband observe any of these characteristics when they were dating? I find it hard to believe that her attitude was a total surprise to him. Either she had certain extraordinary qualities (great physical beauty, perhaps) or, more likely, offered certain “benefits” that he valued so much at the time that he was willing to overlook her extreme feminism. (more…)

THE REV. James Jackson writes:

This is my favorite bit:

“Clear Creek is an intriguing fusion of contemplative ‘island,’ nature enclave and forest encampment. I am fascinated, like many baby boomers, by kinetic, intensely dedicated communities, companies and other ventures with strong missions, a laser-like focus and iconoclastic cultures: NASA’s hugely successful Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL), game changer Apple, Inc., the Teach for America operation, Herbie Hancock’s music shop, Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors, BMW, the film company Pixar, and Burt Rutan’s aerospace design shop come to mind. Clear Creek, to me, is another instance of this kind of collective rigor, discipline and focus.” 

EMILY D. writes:

My husband and I are always sad when I go to my brother’s home. My sister-in-law is the typical “modern woman” and her marriage to my brother is a microcosm of the feminist absurdity you write about. She never cooks, and as a result her son is a very poor eater and is overweight, even though he is only three. (more…)

SINCE I began this website, I have received a number of eloquent, personal notes from readers. These moving letters described serious personal suffering.  A middle-aged woman wrote of her marriage, one hellish experience after another, and her decision to avoid divorce. A man told me of a woman who had cruelly slighted him and belittled his expression of affection after their romance had ended. Fifty years old and divorced, expecting to live alone and never have another romance for the rest of his life, he was not bitter, just exhausted. A female reader wrote about her lifelong depression and poverty. She had begun to go to church by herself at the age of 10 because her parents were non-believers. A man wrote of serious illness.

I did not post any of these notes, even when readers gave me permission to, because they were too poignant and intimate. The best I could do was privately express consolation. Modern life is crushingly impersonal. Professionals will listen to you for a fee and provide a diagnosis. But there is often nowhere to rest your head. There is no place to cry for a few minutes.

I am praying for you this Christmas Eve. I have not forgotten your notes. Suffering is never wasted if we listen to what it has to say.

(more…)

SEE these comments at VFR. Daniel H. from Seattle writes:

Triumphant secularists love to point out that the timing of Christmas was melded with pagan celebrations of the winter solstice, as if that proved Christmas to be a fraud. But this, of course, is an impossibly juvenile response. Why is Christmas associated with the winter solstice, and not, say, the autumnal equinox or some other random astrological phenomenon? Because it is central to the Christian story that in darkest night, a light is born. It is the central theme of the Christian ethos. This idea is so central to all of Western society (thanks to Christianity), that even the most inane Hollywood schlock movie relies on that theme. It resonates with even the most degraded secularist because it is (a) oddly familiar for reasons he doesn’t understand, and (b) oddly true for reasons he refuses to acknowledge.

(more…)

THE all-male choral ensemble Chanticleer, of San Francisco, performs Charles Ives’ “A Christmas Carol.”  This is from the group’s excellent album, Sing We Christmas.

(more…)

SEVEN YEARS AGO, my husband went out on Christmas Eve to pick up some clothes at the dry cleaners. About an hour after he left, a large police cruiser pulled into our driveway. The moment before I saw my husband get out of the vehicle was sickening. I thought they had come to tell me of his death.

But he emerged from the cruiser. His head was cut up. He was shaken and he had large shopping bags in his hands. Here is the story of his adventure. (more…)