Kevin Basil

People sleep soundly in their beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do them harm.

I finally got tired of seeing this quoted (without irony). I decided to track it down. Here’s the skinny: It’s often attributed to George Orwell, a political observer and novelist, author of 1984 and Animal Farm, two novels about totalitarian regimes. That’s why I was suspicious. Orwell said that? I was thinking one of those two novels might be the source, meaning its context would be deeply ironic. As it turns out, Orwell didn’t say it. The other candidate, Winston Churchill, likely didn’t say it either.

• “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
  • Alternative: “We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.”
  • In his 1945 “Notes on Nationalism”, Orwell claimed that the statement, “Those who ‘abjure’ violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf” was a “grossly obvious” fact. “Notes on Nationalism”
  • Notes: allegedly said by George Orwell although there is no evidence that Orwell ever wrote or uttered either of these versions of this idea. They do bear some similarity to comments made in an essay that Orwell wrote on Rudyard Kipling, when quoting from one of his poems. Orwell did write, in his essay on Kipling, that the latter’s “grasp of function, of who protects whom, is very sound. He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.” (1942)
    • “Yes, making mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep” – Rudyard Kipling (Tommy)
    • “I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it.” – Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men)
  • Alternative: “We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” – Winston Churchill (miscellaneous quotation, no date)

Source: Wikiquote

These will go a long way to explain why Wesleyans (including Methodists, Nazarenes, Wesleyans, and others) consider it a religious duty to sing (and almost a sin not to).

1. Learn these tunes before you learn any others; afterwards learn as many as you please.
2. Sing them exactly as they are printed here, without altering or mending them at all; and if you have learned to sing them otherwise, unlearn it as soon as you can.
3. Sing all. See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up, and you will find it a blessing.
4. Sing lustily and with a good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sung the songs of Satan.
5. Sing modestly. Do not bawl, so as to be heard above or distinct from the rest of the congregation, that you may not destroy the harmony; but strive to unite your voices together, so as to make one clear melodious sound.
6. Sing in time. Whatever time is sung be sure to keep with it. Do not run before nor stay behind it; but attend close to the leading voices, and move therewith as exactly as you can; and take care not to sing too slow. This drawling way naturally steals on all who are lazy; and it is high time to drive it out from us, and sing all our tunes just as quick as we did at first.
7. Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when he cometh in the clouds of heaven.

From John Wesley’s Select Hymns, 1761

Last night, I dreamed a bizarre and frightening end. I don’t usually remember my dreams (though psychologists tell us we are always dreaming, even when we don’t remember). Of course, what I do remember is fragmentary.

I remember someone saying something about a nuclear blast. So I look up at the sky, and see what look like clouds in the shape of a mushroom cloud, much like all those films of above ground nuclear testing in the South Pacific. I said, “They’re just clouds!” Then there was a flash of light, and my heart started palpitating.

Next I recall huddling up close to the foundation of a house, while the firestorm of the explosion rushed by. Everything gets blurry at this point. Did any of my friends survive? No one who was with me at the moment of the explosion survived, but eventually there were other people, I think.

Was the explosion a single bomb over New York City, or had other cities been affected or attacked? Was only New York destroyed, was the entire world in ruins? These questions were never answered in my dream, but it seemed like everyone wanted to know, and no one did.

There were questions about what to eat, whether things were poisoned with radiation. Eventually, everyone decided that everything had been tainted, so there was no point in trying to meticulously ferret out safe foodstuffs. I guess it was a matter of eat the poison or starve to death, though no one ever said this out loud, that I recall.

Finally, I was alone, swimming naked in cold, clear water; the light refracted along the bottom was the color of the sky. I knew it was contaminated with radiation, but I dove in anyway and swam among ice formations that looked like human skulls.

That’s when I woke up and wondered why I keep dreaming of nuclear holocausts.

Ephesians 5.20–33a (epistle reading 230) is the epistle reading for the sacrament (or mystery) of marriage in the Orthodox lectionary. Here is a quote from St John Chrysostom’s commentary on the passage:

So if you think that the wife is the loser because she is told to fear her husband, remember that the principal duty of love is assigned to the husband, and you will see that it is her gain. “And what if my wife refuses to obey me?” a husband will ask. Never mind! Your obligation is to love her; do your duty! Even when we don’t receive our due from others, we must do our duty. If a spouse doesn’t obey God’s law, you are not excused. A wife should respect her husband even when he shows her no love, and a husband should love his wife even when she shows him no respect. Then they will both be found to lack nothing, since each has fulfilled the commandment given. (John Chrysostom, Homily 20 on Ephesians)

Read the full homily (in an older translation, with an antiquated and awkward style) at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

A jester with a very large bauble
once tried to settle a squabble.
He laughed at the king,
and danced with the queen,
and now owns a penthouse in Kabul.

Several years ago, British Petroleum (BP) completely changed their branding. They stopped using a recognizable, if uncreative, shield emblazoned with “BP” which was readily identified as their trademark. They shifted to an unrecognizable poly-shape — what is it? a flower? a starburst? an explosion? (Good association for an oil corporation, that last one.) It seemed less creative, and no one ever identified the new branding scheme with the product: British Petroleum (or, more precisely, BP gas stations). It has been a decade since this branding shift, designed to imply that the company is green. Apparently, the image of BP as green has worked.

The brand still fails, however: Foreign Policy’s image of the multi-foliate jabberwocky becoming covered in oil did not immediately bring to my mind associations of BP until I had laboriously read through the text of the advert.

And this is before we get to the damning text of FP’s article. Green is the new black, apparently.

O Lord and master of my life! Dispel from me the spirit of discouragement and slothfulness, of ambition and vain talk!
Prostration.

Instead, give me the spirit of prudence and humility, of patience and charity.
Prostration.

Yes, my king and Lord, let me look at my own sins and refrain from judging others: For you are bless’d unto ages of ages, amen.
Prostration.

Then, with three lesser reverences:

O God, have mercy on me, a sinner!
O God, in your mercy wipe out my sins!
I have sinned very often, Lord; forgive me!

Prayer text copyright © The Monks of New Skete.

Fr Ted Bobosh has some excellent background on fasting and what it means in the twenty-first century: Fasting: Curbing the Desires of the Heart.

I love that the rules for fasting were originally meant to curb ascetical showmanship and place fasting in a communal context of discipline and obedience.

We have been thrust out of the garden of paradise for our failure to see God through his creation. The world was meant to be transparent, a crystal clear window through which we saw God in all his splendor. Instead, we made the world an idol, and it became opaque. We can no longer see God through it.

Let us cleanse our minds through fasting.

Please forgive me, brothers and sisters, for all the evil I have committed against you.

I wish I could spend my time posting delicious recipes of our family’s fasting menu. Instead, I’ll be struggling with providing three different diets to my family (mine, [my eldest daughter]‘s and everyone else’s which includes some serious Asperger’s-related food aversion issues). I guess I’ll write about the struggle. It’s just so NOT neat and tidy, so NOT well organized and so NOT perfect. Morning Coffee: I’m not READY!!!!!.

It sounds like you are ready.

According to a fellow traveler (a choir director whose late father was a prominent priest and whose brother is an archdeacon), in Russia if you cut out meat you are fasting.^[1] During the Christmas fast the refectory was not without a steady supply of hard-boiled eggs. (For the weak, of course. And I was so weak.)

In directed reflection on the purpose of the fast, one of our classes discussed the probability that the aim of all the ascetic struggle and lenten hymnody is to break down the delusion that we have done anything. If we keep the fast, we are accused of pride and self-righteousness. If we break the fast, we are accused of slovenliness. (And we all break the fast.) At the Pasch, Saint John Chrysostom’s preaching kills us:

You are welcome at the banquet anyway. You have not done anything to deserve the feast: That is the whole point. (Still, what do we do with the soiled wedding garment which we were to keep spotless? Or those Boy Scout virgins when we run out of oil? Or those frightening tales of burning trash heaps and lakes of liquid fire?)

The great fast not about getting anything right; that is why the Triodion^[2] begins with a contrast between a sinful tax collector and a religious zealot four weeks before Lent. The fast forces us to admit that we are broken and destitute without Christ, and Christ himself will give each of us what we need to bring us home.

sung at Psalm 50(51)
In Tone VIII:
Open the gates of repentance for me, O giver of life, * for at early morning my spirit seeks your holy temple * though the temple of my body remains defiled. * In your compassion, cleanse it with your loving kindness and your mercy.

Direct me back to the path of repentance, O Theotokos, * for I have defiled my soul with sin, and wasted my life in laziness. * By your prayers, preserve me from every impurity of soul and body.

Then, Tone VI:
Have mercy on me, O God, in your kindness, * in your great tenderness wipe out my sin.

And:
When I ponder the number of my sins, * the day of judgment looms before me. * But in your compassion do I trust, O Lord, * and, like David, I implore you: * Have mercy on me, O God, in your kindness.

These hymns are sung after the reading of the resurrection gospels on Saturday evenings. They are sung from the beginning of pre-lent until the end of the great fast (Lent). Pre-lent begins on the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, yesterday. Lent ends with the Saturday of Lazarus, marking the transition to holy week. This year, Lazarus Saturday is March 27. This year we see one of the earliest dates for Easter (Pascha) in the East. Easter falls on the same date in both Eastern and Western calendars this year. (This serendipity is a coincidence of the two formulas for determining the date of Easter and not, unfortunately, a sign of sympathy for union among the Orthodox.)

It has been almost a week since the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Carrefour (car-FOO), Haiti, just southwest of Port-au-Prince, the capital.

I suspect that my church’s charitable organization is funneling funds to other charities with resources on the ground in Haiti; this is good but not exactly efficient. With that in mind, here are some charities that already have resources in Haiti.

The easiest way to get some money to Haitian relief efforts is to pick up your phone and text “Haiti” to 90999. This will charge $10 to your phone bill and give it to the American Red Cross, which has had a presence in Haiti for 5 years. Twitter: @RedCross

Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) has been in Haiti since 1991. Twitter: @msf_usa

The New York Times Haiti Earthquake Recovery group on Facebook posted a list of the top ten most efficient charities in Haiti from Charity Navigator, a non-profit group dedicated to evaluating the effectiveness of charities and protecting donors from fraud and waste. Twitter: @CharityNav.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the efforts of several missionary friends of mine. Quisqueya Christian School in Port-au-Prince is still standing, miraculously. As a result, it has become a center for relief efforts. A nearby orphanage collapsed, and it is providing housing for the newly homeless orphans. It is also providing space for doctors to treat the many people wounded in the earthquake. Many of the staff lost homes and family and are living in tents on the football (soccer) field. There is a PayPal link on their webpage. Charity Navigator has not rated their effectiveness; I can only offer you my assurance that the people I know who run the school, as well as alumni, are of the highest caliber. They do not have a Twitter account.

A letter today from my church’s charitable organization strengthened my suspicion that they do not have their own resources on the ground in Haiti. I believe they are simply funneling funds and resources to other charitable organizations. This is good, because many people give to charities they know and trust without researching their capabilities and infrastructure. I hope this article provides you with other outlets, should you desire to make more efficient use of your donations.

(Aside: My thoughts are intended only for individuals trying to decide where to give their money. If your local parish is participating by collecting funds or necessary items, such as toiletries, please participate fully. If it is not, encourage your priest or pastor to organize something locally.)

Troparion, Tone I
When you were baptized in the Jordan, O Lord, * the worship of the Trinity was revealed to the world. * For the voice of the Father witnessed to you by calling you his beloved Son, * and the Spirit, in the form of a dove, confirmed the truth of his words. * O Christ, our God, * you have appeared to us and enlightened all the world. * Glory to you.

Troparion, Tone IV
Today, the Trinity, which alone is divine, * reveals itself to us in its unique, overflowing goodness. * The Father speaks from the heavens as the Son is baptized, * and the Holy Spirit, too, makes his presence felt. * And we who perceive all this by faith, cry out together: * Glory to you for revealing yourself to us, O our God.

Kondakion, Tone IV
Today, you have appeared to the world, O Lord, * and your light shines forth on us who sing your praises with understanding: * You have come, you have revealed yourself to us, O inaccessible light.

Jerusalem Troparion, Tone V
By revealing yourself to the world, * you made your light shine forth on all creation. * The salty sea of unbelief receded * and the Jordan carried us to heaven by turning back on its course. * By your lofty commandments, O Christ, our God, * preserve us through the prayers of the Theotokos, and save us.

Exapostilarion, Tone III
Our saviour comes to us this day: * In the flowing Jordan grace and truth reveals himself, * to enlighten with his brilliant light * those who languish in the dark, * for the light beyond our reach has appeared this day.

Please forgive me, dear readers. My email form has been borken for quite some time now, and I totally never knew it.

It’s fixed now.

Senator Al Franken, the junior senator from Minnesota and Saturday Night Live alumnus, recently introduced an amendment to the defense spending bill currently being debated in Congress.

Jamie Leigh Jones was drugged and gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working as a defense contractor in Iraq. She was drugged andWhen she reported the rape to her employer, she was locked in a storage container. Once she finally escaped and returned to the States, she was prevented from suing her employer, KBR, who was at the time a subsidiary of Halliburton, by a mandatory arbitration clause in her contract.

Franken’s amendment proposed to deny funds to defense contractors who required mandatory arbitration for “any claim under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or any tort related to or arising out of sexual assault or harassment, including assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, or negligent hiring, supervision, or retention.” (Text) As Jon Stewart said, in the video to your right: “Seems like a slam dunk.”

So, that it was not a slam dunk seems to me, on the face of it, absurd. Who would vote against a such a bill? It seems clear and obvious that this is for the common good, unequivocally. There’s no hidden agenda in this amendment. It’s all right there in black and white: If you are receiving government funds as a defense contractor, you have to make sure you prevent your employees from being raped or otherwise harmed for any reason.

Did I miss something? Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know why the thirty Republican senators sold their souls to Haliburton. It’s a rhetorical question.

And these are the people telling us that the poor don’t need health care. Somehow, I think this should not be a surprise.

In all, nine Republican senators “crossed the aisle” to vote for this amendment sponsored by Franken and nine other Democrats. Really, though, why would this not be a bipartisan, unanimous vote? Don’t answer that. It’s a rhetorical question.

In the video to the left, see Franken’s proposal of the amendment on the floor of the Senate.