I was walking with Pope Leo and Billy Graham by the Tower of Siloam

And I noticed the tower had fallen and killed many people.  In my distress I turned to them, and Billy Graham told me there is much suffering in our fallen world.  I am no doubt suffering too.  In fact, if I'm honest, my whole life has been missing something, and as I look at that tower I can see the problems of the world that have always been.  But  it's time I admit that the only solution to my distress and depression is to turn to God by repenting and coming to Christ Jesus, to make Him Lord of my life, and then I will find what my life has been missing.  Oh, and then I should make sure I find a local church and become part of it.

I then turned to Pope Leo, who assured me that the world is filled with injustices and suffering.  He likewise assured me that God would be there for me in my own struggles and suffering, to give me the sense of His Presence, and to bring us all to be united as one family in this world.  Once I realize that, I can then get busy and start working on how to make sure no more towers like the one at Siloam fall, or that oppressive regimes can no longer mingle the blood of the innocent with their sacrifices as Pilate did.  

I thought of that when I heard some of the words of Pope Leo in Spain.  I've been listening to Pope Leo quite a bit, eagerly waiting that moment when he finally says 'Yes, Griffeys, the hell you went through to become Catholic was worth it, for there is no more pressing need in all creation than walking with God through Christ in the Catholic Faith.'  Or similar.  

Instead, I heard things that reminded me more of a Catholic version of Rick Warren's A Purpose Driven Life, with a touch of socio-economic and political concerns tagged on the end. Not horrible stuff, but in the end, I just keep getting the impression that it's all about me.  Not me in the sense that it's imperative I repent and draw near to God.  But somehow as if God is a means to an end that ultimately comes back to me.

In fact, it dawned on me that if it was up to the last couple popes we've had, I never would have become Christian, much less Catholic.  Not that they don't act like Jesus or God or the Christian Faith are important, at least from a Catholic POV.  They just aren't - necessary, at least from a modern POV.  Or at best they aren't exclusively necessary.  And there never seems to be any demand on me at all, apart from seeking justice for the oppressed and the immigrant and concerning myself about the world's climate and economic woes.  Big, lofty problems that never really put me on the spot for my own personal life choices and behaviors. 

Out of strange coincidence, as I've listened to Pope Leo, I saw an old clip of Billy Graham a few days back.  It's been a long time since I heard him.  It brough back memories.  Even as an agnostic, I always respected Rev. Graham.  As I told people then that I didn't believe in Christianity, but I knew he did.  And that meant something.  Especially compared to other prominent celebrity ministers in those days.    

Which is why, when he had his famous Crusades on television, I would sometimes watch.  Even in college, if other roommates were out and about, I'd turn him on and listen.  I must admit - and  I know people will probably find all sorts of problems with his theology or ministry style - but when he preached, something often stirred inside me.  He said much of the same thing the last popes have said. Hurting people, hurting world, injustices and all, feeling lost and alone.  But somehow he pointed past the worldly and material to the New Jerusalem (though I wouldn't have identified it as such).     

And he made it clear it wasn't a blank check. I  had to meet God halfway.  A covenant, so to speak. A new covenant, but covenant nonetheless.  God is eternal love and grace and forgiveness, but not on a one-way street. I would have to confess, to step out, to make Jesus Lord of my life for the world to see.  And let me tell you, as an agnostic, the thought of stepping out and saying I believe in Jesus publicly was like begin asked to go to the front of the class and do a calculus problem on the chalkboard.  Because something about the invitation made me think that would be a major decision on my part, nobody to hide behind or nowhere to run.  It was me and my decision or not, and I would have to live with the consequences one way or another.  Let me tell you, that was a powerful idea. 

Despite the dread I had when pondering that, I often entertained the thought.  I think, IIRC, I once actually called that hotline they had at the end of the broadcast. I don't recall if anything happened.  But that's how much it touched me.  I should say, as a Protestant minister, I often got the same zingers in my soul when I listened to Fulton Sheen.  I had never heard of him growing up, but in Louisville there was a station that showed reruns of his old TV show.  Wow, could that fellow preach.  As one from a denomination that put a huge premium on mach schau when it came to sermon delivery, I often stood in awe of Sheen's communication abilities.  A reputation Catholic priests were not always associated with. 

And, like a Catholic Billy Graham, he laid it on the line.  He didn't shy from the issues of the day. Far from it.  But it was always wrapped in higher things.  It was, you might say, a reminder that however many towers we lament or authoritarian atrocities we decry, we need to make sure we - that's me, Dave Griffey - are right with God.  And it isn't going to arrive in the mail with a picture of Ed McMahon on the envelope.  I was going to have to meet and accept God's gift; to be prepared to make the call and follow through.  

I just don't get that from so much of the Church today, including its popes.  As I said here, dignity seems to be the big idol before which our leaders bow (yes, I saw the headline). But is seems to reinforce that modernist idea that it's really all about me isn't it. God's here to give me a purpose driven life, which mainly means, in terms of obligation that I get with the picture and fix the things of the world, as opposed to come forward and confess Christ before men, or repent and sin no more.  

I should add one more thing.  I was chatting with one of my sons, as you're aware I often do.  We were talking about the heavy emphasis on such things as 'fix the problems of the world will you' that is everywhere today.  He said that's one of the things that drags so many younger people down.  The idea that they have no business being anything but miserable unless they invest themselves in fixing vast geopolitical problems that have evaded the leaders of the world since time immemorial. Again, I thought of that when I reflected on Pope Leo's call to trust that God loves us, but make sure we use this realization to get out there and be those social justice warriors that the world wants.  As opposed to focusing on anything terribly eternal in our own personal considerations.  

And now a few passages to ponder: 

For this reason, he added that those who allow themselves to be enlightened by the Gospel “also develop a critical perspective regarding a social system that does not place the person at the center and gives rise to situations of injustice and existential poverty on various levels.”   Pope Leo XIV  

"True repentance is a turning from sin... Humanly speaking, it is our small part in the plan of salvation. Our part is repenting. God will do the converting, the transforming, and the forgiving." Billy Graham

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?3I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.4Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”  Emphasis mine. 

To my thinking, one of these passages is not like the other two, even if there are similarities. 

BONUS REMINDER:  For those who grew up in the Faith, this is what people outside are often looking for when they've been primed to seek God.  It would be nice if modern Church leaders remember that:

I was going to write a lengthy screed

 But decided just to post the headline and have folks take it all in:

A reminder to Christians of the modern age: We are not, repeat not, in Kansas anymore, and it's high time we stop pretending otherwise. 

Attention Christians: Be like the squirrel

This is making the rounds.  I admit it's pretty awesome (according to the cameraman, the squirrel survived):

That's one brave squirrel.  A bravery it would be nice to see among the world of Christianity. 

I've said post-Christian era secularism has had its winning streak of sowing seeds of doubt and largely running roughshod over the Christian Faith for generations, if not centuries.  Partly because it forever seized on the idea that there are problems in the world needing fixed, which is true.  But then it always made sure those problems were hung around the neck of the Christian Faith, religion, and eventually all of Western culture.  

Likewise, the solutions were almost always wrapped up in the need to admit how wrong the Faith, the Bible, religion in general, the miraculous, and values and heritage of the West always were.  And nothing takes the fight out of the fighter more than doubting the legitimacy, much less the reality, of the cause at hand. 

Which is likely why it worked so well.  Just think how much godlessness, debauchery, decadence, blaspheme and assault on almost every cherished virtue or moral standards were able to be hoisted up and imposed our our society, our children, our Faith, one decade after another.  Sometimes it boggles the mind. 

Only now, you are beginning to see some pushback.  Perhaps too late for the matters of this age.  But at least where the spiritual side of the tracks is concerned, there is never too late as long as we have breath to take. 

Why waste time here on this 6th of June

When you can go to The American Catholic for an update on the 82nd Anniversary of that Day of Days on June 6th, 1944.  Here, here, here and here are, as usual, some good reads.  

Like last year, I've seen no major MSM mention of it.  I'm sure a couple outlets have if you Google them and D-Day stories directly. But even Googling "D-Day" yielded nothing from any MSM outlets I saw, except the BBB if you count that. 

As I've said, WW2 had fallen to the wayside by the time I was entering high school and college in the 1980s.  Vietnam had become the pop culture starting point around which endless movies, shows, and class lessons were based.  WW2 got mention on the 10s.  That is, every 10th Anniversary year.  I recall in the early 90s (50th), there was significant coverage.  But only around the various key anniversary dates.

It would be Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation and Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan in the late 90s that threw WW2 back into the spotlight.  Up until that point, WW2  had been given about 70s movie style treatments at best.  The movie The Big Red One was about as gritty and explicit as you got for mainstream releases.  Then came the 80s and 90s and an upswing in graphic effects and depictions of violence.  Just in time for movies like Platoon and Full Metal Jacket.  But not for WW2.

Not until Saving Private Ryan.  For about two generations, WW2 was old John Wayne movies or adventure romps like The Guns of Navarone or even Kelly's Heroes.  It  therefore wasn't seen as being really bad, like Vietnam (as a college classmate once said). 

Well, SPR put the kibosh on that attitude.  Suddenly those old, stoic vets who were grandpa or great grandpa were cast in a new light.  It didn't hurt that, just as Band of Brothers was released, so came the  9/11 attacks.  Suddenly, patriotism was cool again, and the entire WW2 generation was examined in a new, and respectful light.

But that was then.  By the time of Covid, BLM, and 2020, it was time to rethink that generation oce again.  From the A-bombs to the strategic bombings in general to the segregation and internment camps to our Nazi friendly Jim Crow society (thank you Ken Burns), it shouldn't have come as a shock when the tweet featuring the famous beach landing on D-Day was labeled with the caption "Celebrating the anniversary of an army of white supremacists fighting an army of white supremacists'. I know due to backlash it was taken down, but the point remains. 

Now Trump, with his usual ham-fisted way, is bringing back patriotism in almost cartoonish ways.  Now it seems forced.  Though it has allowed some to push back against the Left's Taliban inspired iconoclasm juggernaut.  But in it all, like many such things can happen, the core of what we're supposed to remember seems to be forgotten.  Hence, even among some conservative sites, I've seen little about this. Many that are waving the flags do so as a sort of 'take that liberals', as opposed to focusing on the topic at hand, which doesn't really help.  But some are still remembering because of what should be remembered, which isn't a bad thing in itself. Because goodness knows, for all its flaws that every generation will have, there was a lot there on those beaches worth remember, if not emulating. 

It's that time of year again

 When Christians who have thrown their lot in with the Left rush out to explain:

Last year it was Dawn Eden's turn IIRC

It's become like those years when the news media would come out every Christmas and Easter to explain the real story behind those holidays. You can bet on it happening.  In this case it's the Christian Left forever suggesting that everything we thought we understood about the Christian faith and its teachings might not be the case.  A major theme in the modern Church it's worth noting.  And a boon for non-Christians and opponents of the Gospel if there ever was one. 

Of course it's bunk, as is so often the case.  Not that if I say I am proud of my sons it means I should burn in Hell.  We get that I can be proud of my sons.  Or my wife.  Or my parents.  Or my country.  I can take pride in that project I finished.  That is understood.  

But that's not what this is about, and we all know it.  It's justifying fealty to the Left, plain and simple. Just as those whole life and seamless garment Catholics have been so silent about the killing of that young man in Britain, or the latest case of a girl whose breasts were cut off when she was a minor owing to the Transgender movement.  Or any host of cases where rape or murder or genocide or oppression or injustice occurs, but might in some way make the narratives of the Left look flawed.  If it can't ignore inconvenient topics, it tries to muddle them in some way to avoid confronting the obvious*.  FWIW, this approach is aided by a sympathetic media and education system willing to do the same.  

I'm getting to the point where I'm honestly hard-pressed to imagine anything the Left could do that would cause the Christian Left to rise up and say enough.  Which might be why the Left, secular though it is, never really butts heads with those holding otherwise contemptable religious views who are also on the Left.  Why bother?  It is also probably why I have yet to see any Christian - including Catholic - I know who is even slightly to the left of center address the names Jesse Ridgeway, Henry Nowak, Austin Metcalf or Chloe Cole.  And I don't suspect I will. 

That's why it's imperative to never do that for Christians who don't swing left of center.  It's OK to keep things in perspective, to not fall for press narratives or false accusations against this Republican or that Trump moment.  But if something is done or said that is heinous, wrong, sinful or similar, then for heaven's sake call it out.  The last thing we want to do is assume people are too stupid to see what we would be doing, much less assume the Almighty is no less stupid.  

Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.  Galatians 6.7-8

*It is worth noting that one of the pillars of various Liberation Theologies is the Oppressed v. Oppressor template.  That is, all things are filtered through one's status as part of the oppressed or oppressor demographic.  And that usually means oppressed of the West and its heritage or not.  So for instance, in Feminist Theology pride is certainly a sin ... where men are concerned.  Because it's obvious men (the oppressors) are awash in it and have been for eons.  But for women (the oppressed), pride can indeed be a virtue.  For them, humility itself could be sinful, for it might keep them from being their true selves and rising up against the shackles of ages old injustices.  Whether the above apologetic is assuming that template or not I don't know.  It just brought to mind how radically different many leftwing interpretations of the Faith are from their historical approaches.  

The Battle of Midway

Famous photo of the USS Yorktown ablaze during the battle

It was eighty four years ago that one of the most decisive days in military history occred.  Technically the battle lasted for several days.  But today is the day people remember.  Not that the US had no significant advantages, but the Japanese definitely had many on their side.  Not the least of which - so it appeared - being their superior grasp of the fledgling carrier combat doctrine. 

But we all know how it turned out.  My mom's older brother was on Midway island proper.  It appeared to be, as the Duke of Wellington remarked about Waterloo, the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life, until it wasn't.  

If you're interested, watch the below video.  I'm usually skeptical about Internet video versions of history, though there are some good productions out there.  I wouldn't say I'd take everything the fellow in the video says as gospel truth.  But he does an excellent - and I mean, excellent - job of unpacking the battle from the Japanese point of view.  He uses 'the fog of war' to keep the viewer from knowing any more than what the Japanese knew.  And he unpacks how America's own bumbling approach to carrier warfare ended up saving the day.  If you have time, I heartily recommend it.   

It's official!

Per my granddaughter, my name is officially 'Pops.'  Not Pop.  It's plural, for I am many.  Now, the naming of grandparents is a difficult matter.  It isn't just one of your holiday games.  Obviously, since it took her this long to settle on a preferred name.  All the other grandparents had claimed their title, but I was patient.  I floated 'O Mighty One', but it didn't stick.  So Pops it is.  I like it. It has pep.  And I'll never grow tired of hearing them say 'Pops'.  Though other grandchildren down the way will be able to choose their own names for me, I do request the names be the same per family.  

Gratuitous grandkiddo collage:  

Because nothing lifts the day more than smiling and happy grandchildren.