Can the Giant be Roused? Slumber versus Rigor Mortis

There are wonderful visual images in literature, in Gulliver's Travels, for example, the image of Gulliver, as the Lilliputians called him, a "man-mountain," being restrained by the smallest of strands and pegs. Popular culture also offers stunning visuals, the "Final Destination" series of movies has the recurring theme of a morgue, and in the first outing, the director takes us inside the morgue where a body is on the slab being prepared for embalming.  Oddly, literature and popular culture depend on the image of the human body in repose to set stories into action, to create tensions, and the like.  Fortunately, these are stories.  They entertain, they can amaze, inspire, and even startle or frighten.  Who avoids a vague unease when presented, by Edgar Allen Poe or a modern director, with the reality of having been buried alive?

When we write, when we create, we reflect the image of God, or at least, we can reflect it.

God is a writer. He has written in stone, as the story of the Ten Commandments tells us, and He writes in hearts, as the testimony of His grace tell us.

When we write, we can reflect His image in us. I think that is certainly the case with the writing of JRR Tolkien, whose The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are suffused with a distinctly Christian and Catholic theology. The long struggle between good and evil plays out in the story. Death and Resurrection do too. Redemption and forgiveness are there. Agape defines the fellowship of the Ring.

Today, though, I've been in a conversation with friends about our Nation. That conversation puts me, again, in mind of how I see the Nation in which we now find ourselves. I'm including this short video link from youtube.

You'll understand me better if you watch it, and understand that I see America, particularly, and Western Civilization generally, as Theoden, and the culture of the last six or seven decades as Grimma Wormtongue, bathing us in despair, self-loathing, and a willing acceptance of our own end.

Obama and his sycophants are not, necessarily Grimma, at least not alone. The gospel of doubt, of fear, of self-loathing, is preached in academia, has fed generations of college students who, in turn, became America's teacher corps. That same gospel is then replicated as efficiently as the production of RNA and DNA in a cell in schools the Nation over.

You can hear the whisper of it. "You aren't an exceptional nation. In fact, you're a tired, old thing, worn from years of taking more burdens on than anyone should have done. You've had your day on the stage, and what do you have to show for your ham-fisted attempts after all, except the loathing of France, the mocking of Russia, and the shadow of China on your heels?"

For my Republican friends, you should mark this point. 

We do not need a technical Republican. We do not need an efficient manager. We need a wind of inspiration. A voice, a clarion, waking us sensibly both to the present danger of our despair and to the bright possibilities of returning to the track where we so vigorously trod before, a path into a future filled with new mornings and bright days. This means, unfortunately for some of you, that we do not need Romney, and we do not need Bush. Neither has the voice. Neither embodies the message. Even among the proven, successful governors, it will not be enough that we select the best governor of the most productive State, unless that governor has that prophetic voice that echoes Reagan's in message and impact.

We need our own Gandalf.

Tobacco and Abortion ... A Tale of Broken Possibilities.

For years, folks like me, who oppose abortion not because we hate women and want to control them, but because we love life and want to see it fostered, have offered as an point in opposition to recreational abortion, even therapeutic abortion, that destroying a child in the womb destroys a future of unknowable possibilities.

If Beethoven's mother had lived today as she lived then, with diseased and broken children preceding him, with testing for genetic abnormality available, there would be no Beethoven in all likelihood. No Jonas Salk.  No Maya Angelou.  Because, in the modern ethic, the response to difficulty in pregnancy is optimal relief of responsibility, avoidance of hard circumstance, disposition of that which discomfits.  The point is typically lost on those with whom it is shared.

After all, it's hard to imagine that Beethoven's mom would abort him. Or Oprah's. Or Elvis's. 

Yet we know that 1.5 million moms abort their babies here in America every year, and some 65 million moms do around the world.  So, it isn't that hard to imagine, among those 65 million children lost each year, a child that designs a better mousetrap, composes a sweeter symphony, or lightens the load of another as they walk life's often broken way.

At this point, you have to be wondering what this has to do with tobacco.

Yes, there is a connection and it is in that interesting story of the treatment given to American aid workers exposed to the Ebola virus.  You see, it turns out that the treatment is derived from mouse antibodies and grown in tobacco plants.  Yes, tobacco plants.

Had we the good sense to rid the planet of the noxious weed, we could have won the accolades of those who believe healthy health choices should be made for you by the government.  Had we done so, however, we would have eliminated a highly valuable plant substrate for growing the proteins that make up the ZMapp treatment.  

Of course, had we had that good sense, then those mouse anti-clonal antibodies would have had to be grown in some other manner than the highly efficient and high speed tobacco plant.  While many of us enjoy tobacco, just as C.H. Spurgeon did, we don't argue for its beauty, its intrinsic worth and value.  And, had push come to shove, how many would take up arms to prevent the eradication entire of the plant?  Well, probably about as many as take up arms to protect children from abortion, and likely with equal success.

And that, my friends is the connection.  From a despised plant springs new hopes for tomorrow.  Just as, if afforded the opportunity in life, from unborn children such unbounded hopes and possibilities could yet spring.