Feast Of St. Laurance The Martyr

Image from the The Catholic Forum.

From Chambers Book of Days:

This being a very early saint, his history is obscure. The Spaniards, however, with whom he is a great favourite, claim him as a native of the kingdom of Aragon, and even go so far as remark, that his heroism under unheard-of sufferings was partly owing to the dignity and fortitude inherent in him as a Spanish gentleman. Being taken to Rome, and appointed one of the deacons under Bishop Xystus, he accompanied that pious prelate to his martyrdom, anno 257, and only expressed regret that he was not consigned to the same glorious death. The bishop enjoined him, after he should be no more, to take possession of the church-treasures, and distribute them among the poor. He did so, and thus drew upon himself the wrath of the Roman prefect. He was called upon to account for the money and valuables which had been in his possession; The emperor needs them,' said he, 'and you Christians always profess that the things which are Caesar's should be rendered to Caesar.' Lawrence promised, on a particular day, to show him the treasures of the church; and when the day came, he exhibited the whole body of the poor of Rome, as being the true treasures of a Christian community. 'What mockery is this?' cried the officer. 'You desire, in your vanity and folly, to be put to death—you shall be so, but it will be by inches.' So Lawrence was laid upon a gridiron over a slow fire. He tranquilly bore his sufferings; he even jested with his tormentor, telling him he was now done enough on one side—it was time to turn him. While retaining his presence of mind, he breathed out his soul in prayers, which the Christians heard with admiration. They professed to have seen an extraordinary light emanating from his countenance, and alleged that the smell of his burning was grateful to the sense. It was thought that the martyrdom of Lawrence had a great effect in turning the Romans to Christianity.

The following is not the Gospel reading for the day, but I thought the words suitable for inclusion on the feast day of a saint who was mindful that the poor are the treasures of the church.

Matthew 25:37-40

Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

PRAYER

Almighty God, who called your deacon Laurence to serve you with deeds of love, and gave him the crown of martyrdom: Grant that we, following his example, may fulfill your commandments by defending and supporting the poor, and by loving you with all our hearts, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

READINGS:

Psalm 112:1-9 or 126
2 Corinthians 9:6-10
John 12:24-26

Lawrence was a common name in my family. My grandfather and three of my uncles were named Lawrence. Two of the uncles were by marriage.

UPDATE: Padre Mickey and Jane have very nice posts on the Feast Day of St. Laurence.

I'm A Rainbow Trout

You're a Rainbow Trout!

Believing strongly in the equality of all races and in gay rights,
you are a true egalitarian. These stances have made you a target amongst some
groups of people, but it's all in a day's work for you. You try not to fall for
their schemes hook, line, and sinker, but sometimes it's unavoidable. Somewhere
over you, bluebirds fly.


Take the Animal Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Lapin, my goal today is to make you crazy.

Actually, I truly like what this quiz says about me. In fact, I love it. Which of you is among the bluebirds flying over me? I need to stop wasting time and get to work.

The link for this quiz is from Pseudopiskie's place Mom Said Nobody Cares. She came out of this one as a gorilla, and she is not pleased.

Quote Of The Day - Louisiana Legislature

From NoLevity:

"I'm so happy to hear that you are funding the primate center.
For those that are term-limited, it'll probably be our future home
after we leave here this session."

-- Rep. Warren Triche, D-Thibodaux, referring to money earmarked
in a spending bill for a primate center at Tulane University.

Those of us in still the Anglican Communion could add, "Depends upon what you mean by primate."

I love this from NoLevity's side bar:

About me

* I'm Ian
* From NOLA, United States Minor Outlying Islands

I Am Spain

You're Spain!

You like rain on the plain, as well as interesting architecture and
a diverse number of races and religions.  You like to explore a lot, but sailing,
especially in large groups, never really seems to work out for you.  Beware of pirates
and dictators bearing bombs.  And for heavens' sake, stop running around bulls!
 It's just not safe!


Take the Country Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid

I am Spain with Jane and Paul, in the rain, staying mainly in the plain. Paul, your name doesn't work with the rhyme scheme.

Mitt Romney's Sons Serve - Dad

From Yahoo News:

Romney speaks up for sons' decisions

By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

BETTENDORF, Iowa - Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Wednesday defended his five sons' decision not to enlist in the military, saying they're showing their support for the country by "helping me get elected."

I have no words.

Thanks to Josh Marshall at TPM for the tip.

Is Newsweek Gay?

Newsweek arrives in our mailbox each week, but, since it's become flimsy and, more and more, seems to resemble a version of People Magazine, rather than a real news magazine, I usually skim through it, rather than read it.

As I was skimming the August 13, 2007 issue, I came upon this article in the Periscope section:

In 1954, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, citing the bare, parted legs of Batman's ward, Robin, said comic books promoted homosexuality. Since then there have been questions about other characters in tights. But no guesses are needed for Thom Creed, the gay superhero in the young-adult fantasy novel "Hero," to be published by Disney's Hyperion next month. Creed even falls for another gay superhero.

I remembered Robin in tights, like the rest of the heroes - though he was more of a mini-hero, a hero-in-training. However, when I Googled an illustration of a Batman comic, I saw Robin was, indeed, barelegged. Quelle horreure!

I had not realized that back in 1954, folks - "experts", even - were speaking of the ease with which popular culture could affect and even change sexual orientation.

As to Batman's sexual orientation, I had heard "wink wink" references to millionaire Batman and his "ward" Robin, but I wanted more information. I found this from The Panel at Silver Bullet Comics:

Is Batman Gay?

By Alan Donald

The Panel gathers movers and shakers from across the industry together to answer your questions!

My choice for the funniest answer is from Terry Moore:

Terry Moore: “Is Batman gay? Actually, I know the answer to that, but I'm not allowed to say. The government commissioned a report on the matter and everybody who worked on it is now dead. So, you'll have to draw your own conclusions. Let me just say this, Batman is no more gay than Wonder Woman is into bondage or the Flash is into red latex. Batman did not have inappropriate dealings with any of the seemingly endless stream of little fellas he kept around like a Bangkok colonialist and that should settle the matter. Now we need to put this mass right-wing conspiracy behind us because he has to get back to work for the American people. Now the Joker on the other hand...”

You can read the other responses of the panel at the site.

And now gay men will have their very own out-of-the-closet superhero. A good thing, no? Now on to the lesbian superhero! I know, I know. Many already claim Wonder Woman, but she's not really "out".

Moving on in Newsweek, I find this article titled:

Show 'Em Whatcha Got

Conscious of their community's financial clout, gay activists want action on equality issues, not just talk.

Aug. 13, 2007 issue - Gay men and lesbians have always had a soft spot for Hillary Clinton. In the mid-'90s, when "homosexual" was still a dirty word in much of the country, Bill Clinton and his wife socialized in the White House with a broad circle of gay friends. In the dark days of Whitewater and Monica, gays leaped to Hillary's defense, needing no convincing that a "right-wing conspiracy" was vast and real. At the annual gay-pride parade in Manhattan, drag queens and go-go boys compete for prominence with New York's political elite, but Clinton is always the star of the show.
....

But for all her gay support, what has Clinton really done for gay rights? Not much, some gay activists say, but neither has Obama or Edwards.
....

...the Democratic front runners' positions on major gay issues—for repealing "Don't ask, don't tell," for afederal ban on employment discrimination, for domestic partnerships but against gay marriage—are identical to those taken by Al Gore and Bill Bradley eight years ago.
....

Recently, Clinton has more eagerly sought a spotlight on gay issues, condemning her husband's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. In a primary field where the most prominent candidate supporting same-sex marriage is Dennis Kucinich, she may well retain rock-star status with gay voters. Pragmatic activists say they don't expect a conversion from Clinton, Obama or Edwards on marriage soon; they'd simply like to see candidates talk about gays outside of fund-raisers and gay-themed debates. "It's the emotional disconnect that's frustrating," says Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "Hillary Clinton is totally comfortable around gay people ... All of the candidates are. Yet when they talk about us, they freeze."

I'd say being comfortable around gays and lesbians is not enough for a candidate. George Bush is apparently comfortable around gays and lesbians. I have it on good authority that the staff in the White House includes a good many gays and lesbians, but what does that do for the larger community? With the exception of Kucinich, the obvious public discomfort of the candidates when gay issues come up, the deer-in-the-headlights look, is disconcerting.

The candidate with the views closest to my own is, sadly, the one who probably doesn't have a chance at the nomination, Dennis Kucinich. Go, Dennis, go!

Then, near the back of the issue in the Newsmaker section is a Q&A with Ann Hathaway, the actress, who plays Jane Austen in the movie, "Becoming Jane", with this exchange:

Your boyfriend sounds too good to be true: handsome and Italian.
We sort of worship each other. We were desperately in love the first year, then we became each other's best friends.

He works with the Catholic Church. Have you met the pope?
I met John Paul II.

Your brother is gay, yet the church isn't exactly gay-friendly.
I'd rather not discuss criticism of the Catholic Church. They've done a lot of great work throughout the world.

Do you consider yourself a hag? (Comment: Wow!)
You can never consider yourself anything. You have to be labeled that.

Have you been labeled that?
By some, yes. About 95 percent of my friends are gay men.

How do folks lived with this sort of compartmentalizing?

That's a good bit of coverage of gay issues in a "mainstream" news magazine. Perhaps, there is a growing realization that gays and lesbians are a force in our society, especially, an acknowledgment that they have money to spend - for isn't that what it's all about in the US today.

So. Back to the question in my title: Is Newsweek gay? You can weigh in about Batman and the presidential candidates' attitudes and actions, too.

Justice In Jena, Louisiana

Forgive me. I've been derelict in not posting on this story of justice in Jena, Louisiana, before now.

From the Advocate in Baton Rouge:

By MARY FOSTER
Associated Press writer

JENA — Shortly after meeting with a black teen jailed for beating a white schoolmate, the Rev. Al Sharpton on Sunday told the congregation of a small Baptist church that they must not rest until justice is handed down evenly in this little town.

“You can’t have black justice and white justice,” he said.

Sharpton said Mychal Bell, 17, convicted of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated second-degree battery, is a “a fine young man. His situation is tragic and despicable.”
....

“You cannot have two levels of justice,” he said. “Some boys assault people and are charged with nothing. Some boys hang nooses and finish the school year. And some boys are charged with attempted murder.”

In comments directed at District Attorney Reed Walters, who is prosecuting the Jena Six, Sharpton said, “Did you think you were going to lock up our sons and stain their names, and we would do nothing? You can’t sit in the courthouse and have one rule for white kids and one for black kids.”

Let me add, on a personal note, that although Sharpton is not my favorite celebrity advocate, he is correct in this instance. It appears that more help is on the way to Bell.

From the Alexandria Town Talk:

A group of Monroe defense lawyers have taken on the appeal of Mychal Bell, one of six black high school students known as the Jena Six, convicted last month of beating a white fellow student.

Louis Scott, Bob Noel, Peggy Sullivan and Lee Perkins have agreed to work on Bell's post-conviction matters in a case and trial Scott described as fraught with errors.

"Almost always when you have an unfair result, somewhere down the line you had an unfair process," Scott said.

A six-person jury, repeatedly pointed out in media reports as all white, found Bell, 17, guilty of second-degree aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit second-degree aggravated battery on June 28 for the Dec. 4 assault on Justin Barker. Barker, who testified at trial he did not see who first struck him, sought treatment at an emergency room following the incident.

This article from Guardian from May of this year, gives more background on the story:

Jena, about 220 miles north of New Orleans, is a small town of 3,000 people, 85 per cent of whom are white. Tomorrow it will be the focus for a race trial which could put it on the map alongside the bad old names of the Mississippi Burning Sixties such as Selma or Montgomery, Alabama.
....

It began in Jena's high school last August when Kenneth Purvis asked the headteacher if black students could break with a long-held tradition and join the whites who sit under the tree in the school courtyard during breaks. The boy was told that he and his friends could sit where they liked.

The following morning white students had hung three nooses there. 'Bad taste, silly, but just a prank,' was the response of most of Jena's whites.

So nooses hanging in a tree are "bad taste, silly, and a prank". God help us!

'To us those nooses meant the KKK [Ku Klux Klan], they meant, "Niggers, we're going to kill you, we're going to hang you till you die,"' says Caseptla Bailey, a black community leader and mother of one of the accused. The three white perpetrators of what was seen as a race hate crime were given 'in-school' suspensions (sent to another school for a few days before returning).
....

On 30 November, someone tried to burn Jena High to the ground. The crime remains unsolved. That same weekend race fights between teenagers broke out downtown, and on 4 December racial tension boiled over once more in the school. A white student, Justin Barker, was attacked, allegedly by six black students.

The expected charges of assault and battery were not laid, and the six were charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder. They now face a lifetime in jail.

Barker spent the evening of the assault at the local Baptist church, where he was seen by friends to be 'his usual smiling self'.

As you saw in the more recent article above from the Advocate, the charges had been reduced to aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated second-degree battery. Mychal Bell was convicted and faces the possibility of many years in jail.

But now the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union - 'damned outsiders' - have become involved....

If the insiders had handled the situation better, the 'damned outsiders' might not have been needed.

According to the blogger Too Sense, Mychal's sentencing has been delayed until September and the Justice Department is now involved because of possible civil rights violations. This is the Bush-Gonzales Justice Department, which does not inspire great hope.

Mychal is in jail now and will remain there until September.

I had trouble putting the story together, because coverage has not been what it should have been. The two Louisiana newspapers that I read, the Baton Rouge Advocate and the New Orleans Times-Picayune have not, so far as I know, sent a reporter to cover the story, rather, they have used wire services sources.

Thanks to Dennis at Psychology, Dogs and Wine for providing a link to a site to show support for the Jena 6.

Ormonde Plater at Through the Dust, a fellow Louisianian, has done a better job of following the story than I have. See here and here.

Ormonde's second link shows before and after pictures of "the white students' tree".

This has been a difficult story to write because of having to pull many threads together, but also because I had to take breaks, because I was having flashbacks to incidents and attitudes that I hoped were relegated to the past.

Beer Rushed To German Soccer Fans

From the Associated Press:

BERLIN: Germany's national railway wasn't about to risk sending a trainload of soccer fans to a German Cup match without beer.
....

"In order not to endanger the good mood" of the passengers, railway officials halted the train in Wuppertal for 25 minutes and had a replacement part delivered by taxi, a police statement said. It added that there was no trouble among the fans.

Feast Of The Transfiguration

Transfiguration - Lorenzo Lotto, 1510-12

Luke 9:28-36

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings,* one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah’—not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen;* listen to him!’ When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

From Fr. John Dear's sermon on the Feast of the Transfiguration, August 5, 2005.

Tomorrow, we commemorate two events, one a great holy event, the other an evil, demonic event. On the one hand, we celebrate the feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus, when he was revealed as the face of the God of peace, as he exploded with the spiritual power of inner nonviolence and unconditional love into the light of the world, the fullness of love and peace for the whole human race. So beautiful!

On the other hand, we remember that 60 years ago, our country dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and vaporized 140,000 people in a flash and did it again three days later in Nagasaki. Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker, called our bombing of Hiroshima, "the anti-transfiguration," and said in effect that we have rejected Jesus' loving nonviolence, and created our own demonic light, the blast of the bomb, the dark cloud, and instead of bringing light and peace to the human race, we are bringing death and destruction to all.
....

First, we have to recognize and name, that we live in the culture of the anti-transfiguration.
....

And this anti-transfiguration culture is trying to instruct us, the church, on sin and morality, telling us what is right and wrong, distracting us from the criminal, immoral, and sinful murder of 130,000 Iraqis in the last two years or the development of these weapons at Los Alamos. Unfortunately, many people in the church are being misled by the culture of the Bomb. So like Dorothy Day, we have to be clear about our predicament.

Second, I would say, because of this, because of our story, we are called to go forth into this culture to fulfill Jesus' mission of Transfiguration nonviolence.
....

I think that as his followers, our job is to carry on that mission of transfiguration nonviolence, to follow Jesus down the mountain, confront systemic injustice, and go with him to the cross with perfect nonviolent, forgiving, suffering love.

How do we do this? The voice from the cloud says first we have to listen to Jesus which means we have to take time every day...to hear what Jesus is saying to us, and then go and do it.

And when we listen to Jesus, we hear a few simple commandments: Love one another; love your neighbor; forgive one another; be as compassionate as God; seek first God's reign and God's justice; do unto others as you would have them do unto you; put down the sword and Love your enemies." That is the mission for the rest of our lives.

PRAYER

O God, who on the holy mount revealed to chosen witnesses your well-beloved Son, wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistening: Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may by faith behold the King in his beauty; who with you, O Father, and you, O Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever.

READINGS

Psalm 99 or 99:5-9;
Exodus 34:29-35
2 Peter 1:13-21

I am not a pacifist. I am not courageous enough to be a true pacifist. I wish I were. Pacifism is not talking about hating war and linking to Fr. John's web site on my blog. Pacifism is active. It's "getting in the way" as the Christian Peacemaker teams do when they put themselves between the warring parties and risk being kidnapped, like the four team members in Iraq, with one of their number, Tom Fox, being killed.

It's Fr. John hammering on an F15 nuclear fighter bomber in an effort to "beat swords in plowshares," according to the biblical vision of the prophet Isaiah, and going to jail for civil disobedience and destroying property.

No, I am not in their company. God bless and keep them and all who strive for peace and justice.

On Iraq

Please go read this from The Cunning Realist. He's a conservative. He says so right on the sidebar of his blog.

And this from IOS at Who Is IOS? Watch the video for a glimpse of our oh-so-confusing life in Bushland.

Thanks to my man Oyster at Your Right Hand Thief for the links.

The motto of Wounded Bird is: when you have nothing of your own, borrow, borrow, borrow.