Free Men Free Minds"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." – Thomas Jefferson
…If evil forces see a possible victory, they will take the risk and release chaos upon the world. Whenever this happens they must be restrained not merely by potential but by actual physical force.
…In the presence of recalcitrant evil the society of Christian good will must turn to steel.
Lynn Harold Hough, Patterns of the Mind, Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York and London, 1942, First Edition, pg. 130
Permalink & CommentEvery year, or so, the Ivory Billed Woodpecker is claimed to be sighted, though just last year, 2021, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officially declared it extinct. Well, maybe not. The National Aviary in Pittsburgh, PA claims to have new evidence that the Ivory Billed Woodpecker lives. They have published a paper claiming multiple lines of evidence which suggest that in fact the Ivory Billed Woodpecker is not extinct.
I’ll withhold judgment on the Ivory Billed Woodpecker being alive, for the same reason my brothers chide me when I relate a black bear encounter I had. Unless you have photos, it didn’t happen.
Permalink & CommentTake 3 minutes and 52 seconds to hallow this Good Friday with gracious humor.
Permalink & CommentOnly a man obsessed by a false spiritual aspiration wants to be lost in God. A man of true spiritual ambition wants rather to be found in God. Or to put the matter more adequately, the true desire is not oneness with the essence of God (which would involve a disguised desire to become divine and so to indulge in self-worship) but rather for moral harmony with the character of God so that happy and glorious fellowship with God would be possible. The distinction between moral oneness and metaphysical oneness must never for a single moment be forgotten.
Lynn Harold Hough, Patterns of the Mind, Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York and London, 1942, First Edition, pg. 105
Permalink & CommentAltruism is one of our besetting virtues. And a charming and gracious virtue it is. But we have not learned that altruism which is not subjected to the stern tests of critical intelligence is sure to betray both the gracious lover of his kind and the object of his beneficence…We have not served the cause of those who are oppressed when we have taught them to think only of the wrongs which they have suffered and never of the responsibilities which they must accept.
Lynn Harold Hough, Patterns of the Mind, Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York and London, 1942, First Edition, pg.2
Permalink & CommentA couple of weeks ago, while sitting on my back porch with my evening cigar and bourbon, I noticed a female Cardinal with a disheveled wing on its right side. Initially, I thought the wing was disheveled because new flight feathers were coming in, or that it possibly had been attacked by one of the many cats which free range the neighborhood. As I monitored this Cardinal over the past couple weeks, I additionally noticed that when the bird lighted on the ground, it tended to lean a bit to one side, and fluttered its wing to keep its balance and move from place to place. I also noted that when it flew to a perch, it tended to sit rather like a Common Nighthawk, which sit more sideways when perched, due to their tiny feet, rather than facing outward. Over the past few evenings, I’ve been able to determine that the Cardinal is indeed missing one of its legs, so I’m fairly certain that it had been attacked, though I cannot say whether by a cat, or one the many hawks moving north this time of year, some of which, like the Cooper’s Hawk, are well versed in hunting bird feeders in backyards.
I was prepared to put the Cardinal down with my trusty 1958 Daisy BB gun, but as I monitored it, its wing returned to its normal appearance, and its appearance suggests it is in fine health, except for that missing leg. The bird still flies with aplomb, and its balance on the ground has improved, and when flying to a perch, it grabs hold with its one good leg as if it was landing on two. Even more positively, over the past few days I note that its mate (Cardinals mate for life) is now with it almost at every visit to my feeder, and if she is perched in the tree while he is at the feeder, he will fly to her and tenderly feed her a sunflower seed. I hope to see them at my feeder with their young ones as the year progresses. Here are a couple of photos taken with my phone. First is the female Cardinal alone, the second is with her mate. I apologize for the lack of quality.
The men of every communion who can be said truly to understand Christianity have this corpus of thought in loyal possession. They see man controlling nature and worshipping and obeying the God whom they meet in Jesus Christ as love on the cross and judgment on the throne. Here is the central stream of Christian thought and of Christian experience…
The men who see Christianity steadily and see it whole find themselves constantly coming nearer and nearer together. They achieve a community of thought which becomes a community of experience and in the end expresses itself in a community of action.
Lynn Harold Hough, Living Democracy, New York, Fleming H. Revell Company, London and Edinburgh, MCMXLIII, pgs. 54 & 55
Permalink & CommentI just read that Mark Walhberg has a new movie coming out titled Father Stu. The description of the film reads as follows:
Follows the life of Father Stuart Long, a boxer-turned-priest who inspired countless people during his journey from self-destruction to redemption.
Who would’ve thought a movie such as this would be made and released today? Not me.
Link takes to you the IMDB page, where there’s a 3:20 trailer you can view. I haven’t been in a movie theater since I don’t know when. I think I’ll be in one to see this moive.
Permalink & CommentEvidently, since COVID-19 The Gain of Function Flu has lost its psychological muscle to keep the masses diverted and under complete control, and the Ukraine/Russia war drums are somewhat muffled, though a resounding bass drum beat of “atrocities” occasionally still catches the ears of the masses, quite evidently the United States government must come up with some fresh bugaboo to stir things up and keep the masses clamoring for the government to do something. To wit:
Squirrel!
Permalink & Comment“Human wisdom at the best is but a blind guide; human policy is a meteor that dazzles and leads astray; and they who follow it walk in darkness, and know not whither they are going; but he “that walketh uprightly,” that walks by the rule of God’s infallible Word, will ever find that “he walketh surely,” and that whatever duty he has to perform, whatever danger he has to face, “great peace have all they that love God’s law, and nothing shall offend them.””
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