Author / omniagallia

by omniagallia

For Bastille Day: Libertines – Egomaniacs – Fratricides?

The recent Bezos Matri-Money in Venice reminds me of an episode from the French Revolution. We tend to think of the Fall of the Bastille, July 14, 1789 as the start of that grand historical process. It was pivotal, the most violent defiance of King Louis XVI’s authority to date, but was soon followed by an incident more pertinent today. We are not at a tipping point like that event turned out to be, yet it feels increasingly relevant.

On October 1, 1789 the Flanders Regiment reached Versailles to take over duties of a unit that defected at the Bastille uprising. At the same time, a bad harvest was making bread, staple of most French diets, costlier in Paris.

The King’s bodyguard threw a sumptuous banquet to welcome the Flandriens. As if luxuriant food as commoners faced starvation weren’t insensitive enough, the newcomers also displayed inordinate gestures of loyalty to Louis. The callousness of extravagant dining and obliviousness to broad frustration with a feckless King were dangerously at odds with the mood beyond the royal Court.

News of those antics got soon back to Paris, and as a result, a mass of irate women marched out to Versailles to remonstrate with Louis about the cost of bread. They breached the palace, and coerced the royal family to return to Paris, where they could be more easily controlled, guarded and menaced.

In 2025, there are no Divine-Right Kings on whom national publics can focus frustration. But we have our own focus: behavior like that extravaganza in Venice by those who, like Louis’ courtiers, evidently see themselves as above the concerns of (other) mortals.

It is a fair, if inexact, parallel to reaction to that Flandrien feast that today, beleaguered folk observing modesty’s ‘Dearth in Venice’ resent the ultra-rich absorbing ever more of Global wealth. Often by redirecting it from previously comfortable middle classes.

Even more reckless, today’s plutocrats try various ploys to pull up the socio-economic ladder, to make their privilege and power inassailable. (‘Ploys’ like rendering healthcare less accessible, reducing life expectancies; hence my citation of ‘Fratricide.’)

Was the unseemly profligacy of the wedding of merchant martinet Bezos due to delusion? Arrogance? Both?

Did its guests not realize the resentment their hyper-indulgence causes fellow citizens? Citizens watching as historically unique widespread financial and personal security –- which they consider the bedrock of any ‘just’ society – gets deliberately eroded?

Especially when many of those guests avoid taxes (as the accompanying image suggests) with the same vigor they siphon profit to themselves. Often, using techniques they – the groom first among them – devised or control.

(Sidebar: Is facilitating techno-charged rapacity ‘Evolutionary progress?’ Surely, this is not the highest state of development to which we can aspire!)

Can they actually believe their efforts to revive a Gilded Age – a glittering membrane over a dark reality of struggle for survival for most – will pass unnoticed, and unresisted, by ‘most?’

All this is an insufferable offense against simple fairness, so any popular wrath it ignites should come as no surprise. How can allegedly smart (rich) people be so blinkered they can’t see this is both intolerable, and untenable?

There is a huge difference between most people today, and French commoners in 1789. They were accustomed to hardship, hoping mainly that survival be as little difficult as possible, whereas most of us experienced ‘widespread financial and personal security’ not long ago.

We know life Can be better, and should not accept its being degraded so kleptocrats can outdo each other with grander yachts.

Why should so many give up so much, to pamper so few?

Or is it arrogance? Do members of the ‘élite’ simply not care what the common herd thinks? Or presume it can be reliably manipulated? But today’s ‘herd’ is educated enough to sustain a modern economy, so its members are aware life was not, and need/should not be, constant struggle for survival.

In honor of Bastille (Bez-steal?) Day, the subtitle of this post is a satire on three pillars Republican France has espoused since her tumultuous birth: ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité’ ‘Liberty, equality, fraternity.’

Ideals that any libertines, egomaniacs or enablers of fratricide who made it onto the Venice guest list likely not just ignore, but consciously mock. Most especially égalité/equality. Their personal ‘ideals’ are obviously irreconcilable with France’s Secular Trinity and its promise of a better human condition.

To return to that women’s march: legendarily as they neared Versailles, palace staff tried to close its gates. But they hadn’t been shut in decades, and were rusted immovably in place. Heedless gentry had just presumed civilization would prevail to sustain (and be exploited by) them. Their presumption that their privilege was indestructible proved false, so when a reckoning came, it left them unable to shield themselves.

It wasn’t barbarians at those gates. It was wives and mothers fed up with being ‘subjects’ of those whose selfishness proved they did not merit their prerogatives.

Those rusted gates may prove a metaphor for glitterati who attended Bezos’ rites, then ignore justified anger from beyond their velvet cords and gated residences. Who assume civilization is there to protect them, even as they (‘Carnivores in Venice?’) prey on most of its members.

If Venice’s spectacle is 2025’s equivalent to the cluelessness of the banquet for the Flandriens, the equivalent to their tin-eared praise for Louis XVI may be our plutocrats’ shameless tax avoidance, a childish mindset that one may limitlessly ‘take,’ but need never ‘give.’

History may see capers like the flaunted opulence in Venice as what led a critical mass of people to conclude the economic structure benefits only a veneer of the powerful.

In another essay, I will speculate on cynical ways plutocracy may be trying to distract us commoners from noticing how we are being despoiled. Like Versailles’ gates, such gambits are liable to eventual failure, when snarled with the accumulated rust of popular rage.

That essay will be titled ‘Bread and Circuits.’ 

by omniagallia

Reflections for Saturday, June 14: ‘Tough’ versus ‘Vicious’:

This post is occasioned by the surreally unself-aware fantasy planned for Washington D.C. for Saturday, June 14. As a taxpayer being charged to indulge that fantasy, I’d like to provide a (countering) reality check:

The accompanying image is from June 6, 2024, the 80th Anniversary of D-Day. The man in a wheelchair is Melvin Hurwitz, one of few living American veterans of that bath of fire in Normandy, attending a memorial service there. In awed gratitude, Hurwitz is kissing the hand of another distinguished guest and foe of tyranny, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine.

‘You are the savior of the people!’ exclaimed Mr. Hurwitz, suggesting, rightly, how Zelenskyy’s ongoing fight to expel marauders from his homeland is, ultimately, on behalf of all who want a world not ruled by just-below-the-surface residue of our lower animal nature: brute force.  Zelenskyy reciprocated with respectful modesty, as one brave person to another. These men, having put their lives in jeopardy for righteousness decades apart, seem ‘tough’ in every positive sense.

Whereas those who present themselves as strong, but with a history of ‘dodging’ actual danger – and imposing harm or sacrifice on the vulnerable to prove their strength – are not: They are merely, contemptibly, ‘vicious.’

(Not that being authentically tough is invariably virtuous. Many loyal Nazis died fighting to enlarge or preserve Hitler’s Reich. But my focus here is unmasking pretense of stalwart character.)

Vladimir Putin is certainly such. One may recall photos of him during COVID, sitting at the end of a comically long table with conferees at the far end, so Putin could stay safe from contamination. Hardly a display of great personal courage; over-cautious, at the very best.

If he were as brave and patriotic as he wants the world to believe, he might have volunteered to leave East Germany, where he was a KGB agent, to serve as a political officer among Soviet troops invading Afghanistan in the 1980’s. That’s what he could have done, were he willing to put his life at hazard for his country on a savage battlefield.

But men like Putin are as adept at cynicism as rationalization, and thus prone to perceive (or at least describe) real selflessness as naiveté by ‘suckers and losers.’

Which brings us back to the point of this post. Readers can surely think of other public figures determined to be thought resolute (and ‘manly’), although they are known to shrink from personal hardship, let alone peril.

‘Tough vs. vicious’ is a crude distinction, but we’re dealing with a crude reality: Those like Zelenskyy are genuinely tough: Willing to face and overcome adversity for goals that are undeniably just and rightful. Whereas Putin, and men like him, are just vicious; perfectly willing to cause others pain, but shirking risk themselves.

(Few females claim to be ‘acting like women’ when ravening like animals. I regret that we males seem far more apt to act on our baser inclinations – then insist such ‘ape-titudes’ are virtues. However, I have seen and known women who can be tough in the very best sense: gallant.)

My term for such men is Counter-Evolutionaries. They benefit from cultures, societies etc., in which the Law of the Jungle prevails, rather than the World that is possible if humanity got better: Kinder, less prideful, more empathic and communal. None feeding their Egos at the expense of others’: More ‘Evolved.’

Such Evolution (defined as outgrowing tendencies of creatures that lack Reason) of our nature is the last thing Counter-Evolutionaries want. They resist it reflexively and deliberately, preferring an immutable cockpit in which the merciless prey on the weak, and they can exploit human reason to serve feral instinct.

They may even try to reverse the tide of history to restore situations in which they throve and exalted, no matter how objectively bad they were for others (like Putin’s USSR fetish). And they try to hoodwink or coerce the rest of us to share or submit to their primitive worldview.

My tough-vicious dichotomy may seem coarse and simplistic, but still offers a useful, not wholly inaccurate, perspective: Bear in mind that being thought tough is often craved by the craven. Also, that a man focused on a retrograde goal like physical dominance is likely not up to the complexities of 21st Century rulership.

Thus, I see the ingenuity of Ukrainians defending themselves from the ferocity of hospital/school/mall-targeting Russian intruders by using brains instead of brutality as a hopeful, if tragically slow, sign of our species’ progress. Their innovative, carefully planned and skillfully executed resistance has made victory costly, maybe impossible, for Putin, whose habitual recourse is blunt force.

A regime like his is not apt to be fertile ground for ‘innovative, carefully planned and skillfully executed’ tactics or policies. Despots usually prize loyalty over competence, a priority that has eventually undone many of them. As may well be happening in the Kremlin.

Nobody is perfect. Zelenskyy must have failings; we all do, even oft-lionized Churchill. But most of us still appreciate ideals of courage and honor – such as this image celebrates – in which to place hope, faith and trust, rather than simply drowning in the vortex of life’s squalor.

And squalid is how Brutes-in-suits like Putin view most of us; they presume everyone is as malevolent as themselves, or fools and weaklings if they aren’t. In their mindset, the only admirable course is to grasp wealth, power, fame, by any means.

Consider this picture again: This is not just what toughness looks like, it shows how it behaves when it is truly ‘honorable’: two true fighters against forces of darkness, recognizing and rightly hailing each other.

It could be a tableau of nobility for the Ages.

Americans may want to bear this image, as well as my tough vs. vicious generalization, in mind Saturday, June 14, to offset the grotesque spectacle of self-delusion anticipated that day in Washington.  

Given the current state of our nation’s affairs, we should probably just be content if no horses in the Parade get appointed Senators.

by omniagallia

For Easter Monday: Echoes of Resurrection

(This post was conceived, and largely composed, before the death of Pope Francis. Now I dedicate it to his memory, and to hopes his joyous proclamation of Christ’s meaning for Humanity may continue to ‘go forth and multiply.’)

This image shows Pope Francis kissing a man with a ghastly skin disease. I don’t know if this encounter was prearranged, or if Francis just spotted this poor soul in a crowd. Either way, he responded as Christ did with lepers, who were then shunned for fear of contagion, and prejudice that they were spiritually ‘unclean.’

Francis’ parallel act of surpassing kindness reverberates as an unaffected demonstration of what love beyond one’s Self may enable us to do. As here, when it likely required overcoming reflexive revulsion, and fear of possible contagion, to comfort a child of God who has likely often been ‘shunned.’

Our best deeds are often not our most rational ones, but a response like this to suffering is fitting for anyone who thinks it worthy to emulate Jesus. Especially for a successor to Saint Peter.

If this meeting was spontaneous, the Pope had to trust the man’s (presumable) assurance that his condition was not highly communicable. But in his role as ‘Vicar of Christ,’ he may have felt obliged – in fact, inspired – to follow Jesus’ example with outcasts. This is a breathtaking illustration of how care for the misery of a brother being – here, one who has surely endured much isolation – may enable us to set aside our sensibilities, and even our own safety.

Caring for another as oneself may be a joyful gift to give, simultaneously a denial of Self, and yet the Self’s finest affirmation. Here, we witness someone heavy laden, being reminded that he need not carry the cross he has been given to bear, alone.

In basic Christian belief, love enabled Jesus, the Christ, to physically transcend death itself. We ourselves cannot do that, but here we behold the transcending power of love in action. I cannot know if Jesus’ bodily Resurrection literally happened, but can have faith that its implications can change the World. That is a reality we may create, and by which we may be re-created; that is, made anew.

Francis could not miraculously cure this man, as Scripture asserts Jesus did on numerous occasions. But short of that, what might Jesus do in such a situation?

Surely, something like the gesture in this picture.

by omniagallia

Music for Good Friday: ‘Sweet Cross’

Here is music from Bach’s ‘Saint Matthew Passion,’ his incandescent depiction of Christ’s somber death: ‘Komm Susses Kreuz’ – ‘Come, Sweet Cross.’

Its title may puzzle; how could a cross, an object of abysmal cruelty, be ‘sweet?’ But in Bach’s milieu, it also symbolized comfort, consolation and deliverance: For as Jesus endured His cross, He will help us withstand ours. Thus assisted, we may tremble less, to face our own tribulations.

Such seeming passivity may affront our inclination to problem-solve, rather than to withstand. But while human efforts have hugely improved life, none of us gets through it avoiding all fear, pain, sorrow etc. But that does not make life inherently futile, for as Bach intimates here, when we face adversity our own efforts cannot redress or soothe – yet facing such feels unbearable – we may avail ourselves of hope that resigned anguish need not be our only response to it.

Hope that Christ enrobes us with unfathomable love of which we are rarely conscious. It should be no disgrace to need help beyond what we (or the full genius of our species) are capable of, for the premise that all we really are is bustling sparks of carbon is more than most of us might want to accept with equanimity. Faith is willingness to grasp comfort, strength and hope in things than are not rational. Things like ‘unfathomable love.’

The aria’s lyrics ask of Jesus, ‘give your cross to me,’ offering to carry it for Him. This also suggests how ministering to others enriches us by transcending the limits of the Self. We often see evil in the world, but rarely unimaginable goodness, like Jesus’ sacrifice of Self, in every sense. How to respond to such? Bewilderment? Dismissive incredulity? Awed that it is even conceivable, and inspired to follow its example?

I chose this performance by Thomas Quasthof, who was deformed at birth by Thalidomide. As if in rare compensation, he was bestowed a fabulous voice which, as here, can do justice to Bach’s art. Still, if Quasthof curses God every day for his afflictions, I couldn’t blame him.

But in such resentment, as in his gift, he would personify an extreme example of the sorrows and joys, challenges and rewards, defects and wonders of being human. Quasthoff’s very existence implies how, because we are all imperfect, we would be wiser to help bear each other’s burdens, as well as share in each other’s gifts.

Enabling us to enter Paradise was Jesus’ mission on this day. And unless our own malign actions prevent it, we may also rejoin the essence of Creation: That unfathomable love, which is ‘sweet’ indeed.

And the mournful, yet ecstatic tones which Bach deploys here, may ease us into embracing that transforming grace. 

by omniagallia

American Police: Which Vision will You Defend?

The accompanying image shows Roland Freisler, Chief Judge of Nazi Germany, in his court. Sometimes called ‘Hitler’s Executioner,’ here he is being watched by a group of regular German police in their distinctive helmets.

I don’t know who the man facing Freisler is, but if he was in the hands of this robed thug, he was almost certainly considered an enemy by the Nazis. He had likely been tortured, and this trial is a sham pretense of judicial process, performed for purposes of propaganda and public intimidation. He is probably doomed, as Freisler routinely imposed the death penalty. His melancholy facial expression shows he already knows his likely Fate, as not so much the ‘accused,’ as the ‘condemned.’

This image implies something American policemen and women may find themselves facing: The critical, pivotal role of ordinary ‘cops-on-the-beat’ in facilitating tyranny.

The Gestapo, Hitler’s savage Secret State Police, never numbered more than a few thousand agents, when Germany’s population was nearly 70 million. So to make up for their small number, that baleful Bund encouraged the general public to help suppress disloyalty by spying on, and denouncing each other.

But for actual day-to-day enforcement of Nazi law and oppression, the Gestapo largely depended on local police in Germany, and in lands they conquered in their wars of aggression. They were the practical force that implemented most Nazi tyranny; without their active cooperation, Hitler’s security apparatus could never have had the fearsome control that it did.

American policemen and women today should bear this precedent in mind: Generally, ‘tyranny’ cannot function without the help and complicity of people like themselves. So if they realize they are being suborned for policies that repress, rather than protect, freedom, they may be wise to consult their consciences (and their own long-term best interests) before taking a first step onto a slippery slope of being the henchmen of ruthless Hierarchs whose only real principle is the defense of their own interests.

(Officers should also remember that Authoritarians rarely reciprocate loyalty. They may privilege their enforcers in the short term, but will remorselessly sell them out to benefit or save themselves. If they were honorable, they most likely would not need to be ‘authoritarian.’

Before aiding such a person, officers should consider his record for showing loyalty – with deeds, not just words – to those who show it to him.)

And to beware of any pretense of serving society (or just some ‘worthy classes’ of it) by carrying out directives that are clearly intended to do the opposite. For example, Freisler’s department was officially called ‘The People’s Court,’ (Volksgericht), when it was obviously mainly a tool of public control, and state terror.

Surely, Americans did not give their lives at Anzio, Normandy, Bastogne etc., in the belief they were helping to destroy Nazism, only to have something alarmingly similar eventually develop here. Do we no longer appreciate their sacrifice?

Officers, would you really want to do something Adolf Hitler would approve, like enshrining the merciless rule of the Ruthless over the sacred Constitutional rights of American citizens?

I hope our police begin to anticipate this scenario. What vision of ‘law and order’ are they willing to defend? One like that pictured here? Or the vision to which Americans profess to aspire, of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? And not just for themselves, or those just like themselves.

Our lawmen and women may have to face whether they are (or ever have been) serious about such ideals, or are just paying them lip service. They may have to decide at what point they will no longer be willing to ‘just follow orders,’ if the orders they are being given are unmistakably intended to distort the letter and spirit of American law – more than has ever happened before in our history – for the benefit of a cynical, insidious, self-interested minority.

Distant lands may not be the only places where Americans’ liberties must be struggled for. Who, exactly, do our regular polices’ consciences bid them to ‘serve and protect’? Better to ask themselves such questions now, than to suddenly confront those decisions, unprepared.

And to reflect on the meaning of this picture: Police as servants of evil, rather than its adversaries.

by omniagallia

Grains of Sand for Infernal Machines:

CONTEXT: I first posted the accompanying New York Times article (along with my own commentary) in 2020, shortly before COVID appeared and wracked the world. Then we had more immediate dangers to worry about.

Rather than this long-term one. Somehow, it feels like a good time to post this perspective again. On the premise of ‘an ounce of prevention.’

—————————————————–

This New York Times piece is one of few things I’ve reposted here, but it seems especially worthy. It advises how ordinary people can help thwart extraordinary evil by just not abetting it through passive resignation. And such ‘ordinary people’ surely includes me.

Friends who remember my postings about sites associated with Nazism from my 2016 trip to Europe may recall that I admitted not being brave enough to have overtly resisted Hitler’s rule by terror. In my post about a cell in the ruins of Gestapo headquarters in Berlin, I marveled at the ‘Olympian’ courage many prisoners held there must have shown, withholding vital information that savage interrogators tried to wrench from them with fearsome tortures.

The bravery of those who fight tyrants despite great odds is the inverse of their foes’ evil. They shine some of the brightest radiance in human nature into some of its darkest recesses; like that cell.

But other than praising such heroes and asserting that we who now enjoy peace and freedom partly due to their refusal to yield intelligence (that might have enabled Hitler to win) should honor them forever, I had no further recommendation. Not being heroic myself, I can hardly exhort others to be so, can only urge us all to be mindful and grateful to those with the character (or whatever alchemy gives some men and women the hearts of lions) to actively defy, and thus often help thwart, the full measure of Inhumanity of which Man is capable. One should feel awed by their strength, even if also humbled – and ineffectual.

Now, to the rescue from such disempowerment comes this NYT piece. It asserts that thinking our only possible responses to atrocity are overt resistance, or feeling helpless and inert, is a false, even harmful, dilemma. Righteousness may not be as hard or perilous as these stark alternatives suggest. Crime on a vast scale often depends on many factors – including bystanders not getting in the way – operating unimpeded if it is to avail. This essay prescribes non-dramatic actions one may take to diminish or frustrate the harm the wicked can accomplish.

Moreover, it says that assuming that we can do nothing absolves us, mistakenly, from considering how we might hamper criminal enterprises with minimal effort and risk, thus preserving our moral integrity while often aiding innocent victims. The author, a descendant of German Jews who left their homeland soon after Hitler took power, points out how the Holocaust could never have functioned so efficiently had non-Jews, in Germany or its conquered lands, encumbered it by withholding their cooperation, or abject passivity. Silence may not always give consent, but neither does it impede.

Indirectly hindering some demonic activity is not the stuff of legends like actively confronting it, but may still help slow or even grind it to a halt. Heroes of resistance should inspire us, but superhuman deeds may not be the only strategy available against horrendous undertakings.

If we cannot all radiate light as heroes do, we may try to reflect their brilliance, or at least not be acquiescent voids in which darkness may easily prevail. In my eulogy for my mother in 2015, I wrote that my late parents were very fine people, but not ‘demigods’, and that great scientists, explorers, titans of business, etc. – those whose feats benefit many lives (in addition to noble souls who dared the worst to fight the likes of Nazism) – form a thin stratum of our species who figuratively ‘help keep the world turning.’

But I also wrote that most people, although our lives and deeds are far more modest in scope, can still contribute something hugely important. We can make our world ‘Worth continuing to turn,’ rather than just be a grim cockpit where the strongest creatures rule and survive somewhat longer, but the Universe would be essentially unchanged if our planet fell into the Sun.

For most of us, helping to preserve the positive energy of conscious existence simply by not obstructing it may be the greatest impact of our time on Earth. That is individually modest, but collectively stupendous, the least of which we should all be capable, differentiating us among worlds and arguably the highest use of the human gift of reason: To try to tell right from wrong. And not everyone succeeds at this basic (if often difficult) task; we have all known people whose acts and attitudes make the world a worse place, even if not at the level of a Hitler.

This author helps us to seek the best in ourselves, to see how, even if we cannot be Odyssean, we may still help curb the deepest malice of the wicked. Even ordinary folk like me can do our small, but vital part, helping to disrupt the Devil’s vision, if we ever find ourselves in its periphery.

May none of us ever have to do so, but may we remember this lesson if Fate presents us with the choice.

by omniagallia

‘Oh Come Let Us Reflect Him’ (Redux)

Below is my Christmas post from 2022. It seems appropriate again this year, as it was partially meant to rebuke a current pretense calling itself ‘Christian Identity,’ which is in reality an indignation-driven Reactionary political movement.

The raucousness of this imposture’s proponents continues to twist and corrode the word ‘Christian,’ causing it to seem, in much of the public mind, synonymous with ‘cruel, ignorant hypocrite.’ Worse, political developments have emboldened those proponents to seek, and perhaps obtain, greater influence in American society.

Personally, striving (if often failing) to act as Jesus’ examples and words seem to bid, I find this phenomenon heartbreaking. Many such ‘Christian Identity’ people would likely entirely miss the point of my ‘Oh Come Let Us Reflect Him’ – how actions speak louder than words (or bellows) – or consider it irrelevant.

I try to understand the plight of such folk, pummeled by our popular culture, which reveres fame, wealth, dominance – things beyond their reach, though which Christ generally condemned – even as they try to validate themselves, mostly, it seems, by striving to ‘devalidate’ the worth (and welfare) of others. Their outlook is not a lie if they truly believe it. But they are deeply mistaken and self-serving if they do, fouling a sacred ideal.

And I can no longer let their questionable self-image pass uncontested, so may write a post that will try to refute this movement, as much as possible, as being, in any sense, Christian. Again, I can forgive its adherents’ rage for self-value – ‘forgiveness,’ like humility, being duties of which so many of them seem unaware, of trying to follow Jesus – and in a free country, they can believe what they like.

But people spurred to malice by outrage at reduced cultural/economic status-privilege should not be allowed to present, or see, themselves, unchallenged, as disciples of a Prince of Peace. They degrade a holy name, saving truths, and a real path (abnegation of Self) to personal actualization. Perhaps I can persuade others, looking on aghast at ‘cruel, ignorant hypocrites’ against taking them at their word about an identity they claim, yet deeply dishonor, and a faith whose moral standing they are mutilating. Whether they realize it – or even care – or not.

My continued silence would imply indifference or assent to this pretense. But I am Not indifferent, and I Do Not Assent.

I have adjusted the refrain of the carol, ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’ by a single word, to re-affirm a core aspect of Christmas which seems increasingly to get obscured: Jesus personified willingness to sacrifice the Self for the Other. Thus any act of loving generosity may be said to ‘reflect’ Him. And I hope anyone who is not Christian will try to accept that striving to act in this way really is supposed to be a defining element of sincerely following Christ.

This, despite the fact that many people who claim to revere Christ often do not act so as to ‘reflect’ a grasp of His intentions, nor apparently recognize any need to do so. Or who may believe lip service is sufficient. This includes any ‘identity/culture warriors’ who assume the Prince of Peace wants them to behave heartlessly in His name.

Further, I would assert that, as the accompanying image suggests, it is more important to follow His example, than merely proclaim one’s adherence to it. Thus, while the man giving his sandals to the poor boy may embrace some other religion, or none at all, I sense that Jesus – presumably preferring hallowing acts to hollow words – would rejoice in his compassion anyway.

Here is another expression of my point in changing that single word:

‘Wherever selfless love is shared,
Know that He is present there.’

(All people of goodwill practice decency and kindness; I do not presume to claim those as uniquely Christian values. Only that they are obligations – of which they should never lose sight, and always strive – for those who do call themselves ‘Christian.’ As one who does call myself such, I acknowledge often failing at those, but accept my lifelong duty to keep trying.)

We humans can use our gift of reason to choose to obey our finest impulses, and thereby deliberately summon the best of our humanity. Particularly when doing so goes against our own immediate interests; like giving away one’s footwear to a brother being who needs it more. The mere existence, and exercise, of such empathy nudges our whole world slightly closer to Paradise for everyone; hence, the dirt that will get on this giver’s feet transfigures as the soil of the Garden of Eden.

So whether you regard Christ as a factor in your life or not, may the loving care this image shows inspire you to ‘summon the best of your humanity’ also. It is the simplest thing that many of us can do – regardless of why – to better this Life. 

Which I would venture to believe must gladden Him, also.

by omniagallia

Come, Rejoice.

I often post a version of ‘Veni, Veni, Emmanuel’ for Christmas. This year I have chosen one that pleads, with awed splendor, for a consolation beyond any other to enter and lighten our world. For some of us – fearful of the future – such beauty counters the sense that life holds little other than dread.

If this music lets you feel comfort, hope and peace, revel freely, not trying to justify or rationalize them. Comfort, hope and peace are often less of the mind than the heart, which must at times prevail, lest it shrivel; and us with it.

For example, the initial refrain of ‘Gaude,’ ‘Rejoice,’ here is a chord of piercing beauty, but trying to dissect that would defeat the purpose of artistry. A desire to understand how things work can be hugely beneficial, but the arranger, Kodaly, wanted to summon uplift and inspiration, not provide a cognitive exercise.

For most of us experiencing wonder, joy, etc. – sensations that make life feel worth living – their underlying mechanics are irrelevant. Instead of trying to capture wonder, we should let it, peacefully, capture us. It is unnecessary to understand exactly why this happens, and can even be another case of ‘defeating the purpose’ – here, of personal peace.

As to the message of the lyrics, ‘Emmanuel’ translates as ‘God with us,’ but may also imply ‘God in us.’ If we are watchful, we may recognize echoes of divinity in our midst; Angels, not in the guise of winged men. That is, any of us may transcend our Self to act, without consideration, for the benefit, comfort or rescue of an Other, and thus be revealed – even to our Selves – as agents of benevolence surpassing our apprehension.

So perhaps, we are not a lost cause after all. Indeed, Christmas commemorates a supreme instance – in need of no validation beyond the sustaining hope it affords – of love, incarnate, offering grace greater than the fallen state of Humankind.

We must not be blind to the harshness of the world, but neither should we blind ourselves to marvels it may present. That can become a self-fulfilling prophecy in which darkness is all we ever perceive, depriving us of the full spectrum of our personhood.  

We do not all share the same advantages and burdens, but may all share in the same wonders; as well as the same dreads. In a world of dispiriting facts, it is a mark of being human – imperfect, vulnerable and constrained – to need, feel, and embrace respite such as this majestic, melodic invitation to Hope holds out, luminous, before us.

‘Veni, gaude’; Come, rejoice.

by omniagallia

‘Resurgamus’: The Renewal of Notre Dame.

When the replacement for Medieval Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London, destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 got started, its architect Christopher Wren told a workman to bring him a flat stone to use as a marker. The man happened to choose a tomb fragment bearing the Latin word ‘Resurgam,’ ‘I Shall Rise Again.’ He likely had no idea what it meant, but had inadvertently made an auspicious gesture. Wren’s Saint Paul’s became emblematic of London’s rebirth from the catastrophe, and a beloved site of British self-image.

Now, Notre Dame de Paris has also risen from ashes, reopened today, December 8, 2024, but unlike Gothic Saint Paul’s, has been exquisitely rebuilt, not replaced. Medieval cathedrals were concerted projects involving entire regions, and the virtual rebirth of Notre Dame has indeed been communal. But in this case, the community was global; donations, resources and expertise coming from around the world.

It – ‘she’, Our Lady of Paris – originated when people did not assume they could understand, let alone control, the world around them. The heartbreaking day of the blaze in 2019 echoed that sense, as alert and suppression equipment meant to protect from fire failed to do so, a reminder of the limits of technocracy and human efficacy in general.

But as we have renewed Notre Dame, she may now help renew us.

For she stands as testament to past, present, and future wonders we may perform, when inspired to a common objective not dictated by our constricted spheres of self-interest. What happened after the inferno showed how determined hearts can animate the deeds of the head and hand.

This church – sacred not only in her Christian context, but also as an artifact of human identity and innate potential – quickly came to be seen as more than a superb work of artistry and engineering.  Amid her fallen masonry, blackened timber, melted lead, restoration may initially have seemed objectively impossible. But as realization of the importance of doing so grew, rebuilding came to seem daunting; then difficult; and finally unstoppable.

For we may do the ‘objectively impossible,’ if and when our Spirit is willing. Without such collective focus, Notre Dame would have remained a pile of ruins. Instead, in a cultural groundswell, she was embraced as a compass point in the firmament of our general consciousness that needed to be lovingly, faithfully rebuilt. Passively accepting her loss would devalue the whole concept of civilization, for if such an icon of shared human heritage was not worth exertion to save, what part of it is? Or would be? 

Arguably, it made little sense to lavish such attention on a burned out old-building. But that is a mistaken reading; doing so showed itself to be an absolute imperative. For she was never just a pile of stones, but represents the very best of who and what we are, or aspire to be, raised toward the heavens as an offering of our fondest hopes and finest deeds.

So it seems appropriate to use the plural ‘Resurgamus,’ ‘We shall rise again’ here, for the reopening of Notre Dame shows how – together – we may ‘rise again,’ to keep entropy from prevailing. Our devotion for a monument to some of our greatest non-material motivations displays the power of our impulse to create, rather than yielding to chaos.

Or to redeem; as this great shrine to hope returns to welcome the world during this Christmas season, we may choose to rejoice in the premise she has represented across the Ages, echoed again in her revival: There can be fulfilling, benevolent purpose to our existence.

Indeed, Notre Dame may serve her original mission better now than when she was new, amid general illiteracy, incomprehension of natural mechanisms, etc. We understand the natural world far better now, but her mission was and is to proclaim faith that humanity – everyone able to consciously, deliberately choose to act out of Love (whether they do so or not) – is not born merely to die, and return to dust.

Originally meant to assert that we are more than ‘clay vessels,’ she has now shown again how we are fit, and obliged, to participate in and contribute to the wondrous existence from which we sprang, and of which we will always remain as parts.

Our capacity for aspiration soaring beyond what is known or evident has not changed, although perhaps our priorities in reflecting such have matured and deepened. Today that means, quite properly, caring more about our brethren’s well-being than stone, timber and glass surrogates of abstract ideals.

But Notre Dame is a sublime exception to that kinder momentum, a link to our legacy of genius and potent agency; irreplaceable, and thus unacceptable to be irreparable. Her rebuilding stands in contrast to the violence and destruction around us, evidence that we have it in within us to create a more civilized world; in, and for, flesh and blood. Her sacrifice by fire, and our determination to reverse it, has reminded us of this imperative, and of our ability to ‘right wrongs.’ Which also implies that she may now encourage us to strive in a more worldly manner: To bring Heaven to Earth, especially to those most in need of it.

Evoking this dimension of our nature may be a comfort, as contemporary culture gradually prompts us to regard ourselves as organic mechanisms with little evident purpose but prolongation and material enjoyment of our physical lives. But one consequence of that perspective is that our ‘value’ as individuals – absent any non-material one – as measured by algorithms capturing our online activity, purchasing history, etc., is now largely a measure of how exploitable we are as marketing targets.

Those who control the algorithms, collect the data, can sell to or manipulate us accordingly, and thus their own ‘organic mechanisms’ flourish. In such a worldview, exploitation seems to be an only logical choice; that is, one based Only on logic, devoid of any other considerations.

But we are built for exaltation, not just for exploitation, as endeavors like Notre Dame – her origin, and now her renewal – evince. We have shown ourselves, yet again, what we can do if we try to act in ways worthy of sentient beings capable of efforts reflecting continuity, not mere sustainers of organic flourishing. We can be about more than coarse self-aggrandizement; much more.

Many may find this proposition comforting. Faith – not just religious faith – can manifest as the belief in the possibility, often despite implausibility, of facilitating some desired, better reality.

And the resurgence of Notre Dame is a glorious instance of what we can achieve when we act in concert toward some enterprise as great as we, together, can be. Thus, it is not just her fabric that has been renewed, but her defining symbolism of an impetus that remains – resplendently – beyond measure, quantification, or formulation.

An energy arising from heart and spirit, ‘vital’ in every sense.

by omniagallia

Reflections from London: Pathos and Progress

Today, November 2, was the birthday of my late mother, so I dedicate this post to her memory. Also to honor and advocate for the power of kindness and wise compassion, such as she often showed. That is relevant to my overall topic here, about our potential to advance beyond archaic lower impulses.

November 2 is also ‘All Souls Day’ in the Catholic tradition, when we may reflect on all those – not just our loved ones or co-religionists – who have gone before us in the great, turbulent narrative of Mankind.

Both those references, to advancement and reflection, apply to this post, which comes from my recent October, ’24, visit to Europe (London, Paris, Bordeaux). It deals specifically with a dark chapter of that narrative, one that our civilization has largely left behind, and with the hopeful implications of our having done so.

The word ‘Tyburn’ still resonates among many historically aware people. It is the name of a site originally beyond the western fringe of London (which has now grown up around it) where, for more than 500 years, men and women (and sometimes, children) convicted of capital crimes in the city were executed.

It lingers in the cultural semi-consciousness as a place of injustice, cruelty, indifference (as well as deep grief and sorrow) and other base attributes supposedly indelibly in Human Nature. Yet Tyburn may also now be considered a point from which ‘Human Nature’ has arguably taken a substantial step forward.

Perhaps the most somber incident during my 2016 visit to Europe was in Amsterdam, when I stood outside Anne Frank’s House, where she and her Jewish family hid from the occupying Nazis, only to be betrayed, resulting in most of them dying in the Death Camps. I had gone there immediately after viewing works by Rembrandt in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, a short distance away.

In my eventual online post about that episode, I referred to the end points of my walk to the House – starting at a venue of breathtaking creativity, but ending at one of abominable cruelty – as ‘A summit and an abyss of human endeavor, separated by a brief walk, yet from different worlds.’

Tyburn is no direct analogue to the Anne Frank House. If anything, its eventual fate reflects the sort of peaceful evolution which the Nazis, rabid advocates of the law of the Jungle, disdained and tried to thwart. But like the Frank House, it too, is only a short stroll from a locality of preoccupied vitality.

London’s largest retail district, Oxford Street, bustles immediately east of Tyburn, oblivious in its materialist spirit to the nearby place of morbid memory. Oxford’s commerce is hardly as exalted as the artistry on display in that Amsterdam museum, but like it, is an acute contrast to the mournful spot that Tyburn was for many generations.

The accompanying photo shows the extremely modest memorial – possibly thus due to shame by British society today at what was done here – to ‘Tyburn Tree.’ That was a gibbet which stood here from 1571 till the mid-Eighteenth Century, consisting of three vertical poles with horizontal beams between them, upon which multiple condemned persons could be hanged simultaneously. Before and after the ‘Tree,’ Tyburn was used to publicly carry out executions, till those were moved to Newgate Gaol (Jail) in the 1780s.

I had explicitly planned to go see this plaque when in London. An ancient city, it has many fascinating attractions, but I wanted to seek parts of its story beyond ‘attractions.’ Tyburn is one such, which should be remembered and pondered, as it so long epitomized how fearsome and punitive our world once was. So I arranged for my sister (who accompanied me in London and Paris) to browse an Oxford Street store nearby, while I made my semi-pilgrimage to this focus of melancholy.

If one feels any need to reflect on dark, sad aspects of history, Tyburn is certainly a ‘focus’ to do so. Over the centuries of its use as a place of judicial killing, masses of ordinary folk were put to death here at the behest of a callous, hierarchical society, making it one of the grimmest places in the world before mechanized killing. (The Tower of London, more famous as a place of executions, was used to do away with the high-born who had offended the Crown. Commoners were consigned to the disgrace of Tyburn, with its jeering spectators and general chaos)

One of the most shocking things about Tyburn to 21st Century sensibilities is how many people were hanged there for petty larceny, a relatively trivial offense no right-minded person today would dream warranted dying for.

Statistics of how many executions there were, how many were hangings, how many of each sort of crime, etc. may be available in scholarly sources, but I did not seek those out for this post. For context however, it is believed that, during its 500 years as the main site where the law put Londoners to death, several thousand were slain here.

My interest is more in what such a phenomenon can tell us about who we were, and by implication, who we have become, and still are becoming. Bluntly, Tyburn was a place where English society proved that it valued property more than life; or at least the lives of the ‘lower orders.’ My unverified impression is that most of the people dispatched here were hanged for often paltry crimes such as the theft of the equivalent of 3 days’ wages. Again, these were offenses for which no modern person should ever accept that capital punishment was appropriate.

Thus, however many ‘souls’ were hanged here for such deeds, it was too many.

Those found guilty of more serious crimes, like murder and treason were also disposed of here, but again, class status played a crucial role – especially in cases of rebellion/treason. Noble folk found guilty of such were usually beheaded in, or near, the Tower, while commoners endured the gruesome ignominy of Tyburn.

Far worse, traitors from of a lower social ‘station’ were ineligible for the relatively merciful death of beheading, reserved to those ‘gently born.’ Lower status men were subjected to the full, horrific, meant-to-terrify traitor’s death, including being torn apart (quartered) by horses, along with other torments.

Thus, what happened at this site for so long should offend us today from various perspectives: First, it reflected a generally savage environment. Also, no doubt, many of the condemned were innocent of the crimes with which they were charged, but got swept up by a court system whose real concern was the protection of the elite’s privilege, property and prestige, more than individual guilt or innocence.

Worse, many, if not most of the victims did things that absolutely wouldn’t rate a death sentence today (even if such still existed). Capital punishment was applied to such a broad range of crimes that it was seemingly the preferred response to almost any sort of getting out of line against the social order, or even against mere convention.

Especially such as hanging for theft, when the guilty party may have acted out of desperation, starving in a culture whose priority was not the general welfare, but ferociously upholding a self-serving Status Quo. Like gibbeting a man for stealing a week’s bread to feed his hungry family when he could find no honest means of doing so. He got snared in a web in which his ‘betters’ got, and kept, the best of everything.

Worst of all in my view, even those who committed deeds we still abhor, like murder and rape, were often made to suffer in ways so perversely cruel that arguably they negated any moral high ground of the authority that would impose them. They were naked, cathartic revenge and intimidation, masquerading as justice.

How can any law that mandates human beings be disemboweled (part of the martial penalty for treason) consider itself to be defending civilization, rather than legitimizing barbarism? Any society that imposes such atrocities is acting out of organic self-interest, arguably little, if at all, better than those upon whom it inflicts them.

All of us today can, and should, be relieved that we are now living in a world where such things cannot, or should not, happen to us (or to anyone else). Slipshod convictions are far rarer, and ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ is expressly prohibited. Even non-lethal penalties during this timeframe were often ghastly, including whipping, branding and pillories.

Returning to the photo, this plaque is not at all prominent, set in a traffic island (ironically, triangular like the setup of the ‘Tree’ itself). Most of the drivers passing it probably don’t even know it is there, or don’t register that it marks a miasma of injustice (‘legality’ notwithstanding), the scene of uncounted deaths over centuries of enforcement of societal norms set by those who benefited most from them. To say nothing of the ongoing bestialization of a citizenry already roughened by the struggles of daily life.

As cars roared around me, I said a prayer for all the Souls whose mortal lives were ended there: Those wrongly accused, those guilty of crimes we would now consider misdemeanors, and those made to suffer in ways we couldn’t even find people today willing to inflict, regardless of the offense. Even for the genuinely guilty, and truly evil ones, of whom there must have been many, themselves often victims of squalid realities.

The former site of Tyburn is now mostly overlooked, but I had felt some compulsion to visit it. I cannot believe that most of those ‘souls’ deserved what was done to them here; not in severity, and possibly, not at all. I mused – hoped? – that my lamentations might at least partly offset the sheer dreadfulness this place both witnessed and reflected, and might minutely help compensate for the inequity of their wrongful sufferings and death being forgotten. Or just ignored.

As the Colosseum, where bloodshed was staged as entertainment, is now a ruin, so Tyburn – where a public reduced to semi-savagery by the brutishness of their grinding existences came to enjoy watching brother beings perish – is now long gone. An abandoned, shameful echo of life as pitiless conflict, and a mass failure of empathy for ‘brother beings.’

There are likely still some people today, in 2024, who might regard the agony of others as a diversion, as the mob often did at Tyburn. But such persons are now repugnant outliers; our culture has, as a whole, grown beyond such bloodlust. Most people today (I fervently want to assume) would be aghast at the idea of public hangings, or worse, as amusement.

All of which may explain why this site is now so modestly marked. Some acknowledgment of the enormity it represents may have seemed needed for propriety – but not to be proudly emphasized. Like a gross transgression committed in one’s raw immaturity of which one grows to be remorseful, ashamed, and even penitent. (As far as I know, British law today does not allow Capital punishment for anything, even Regicide; killing the King.)

I choose to interpret the transition of English culture beyond the need for a place like Tyburn and the values it was used to oppressively sustain, as mirroring the gradual improvement of our species. As proof that our ability to reason may manifest as an inclination to empathize. And as demonstrating that any assertion that Human Nature is immutably corrupt and selfish is not indisputably true.

Those who believe that facts, such as evidence of recurrent human baseness, must be accepted at face value, are free to do so. Those like me, who have faith that events may have subtler implications beyond their face value alone, are equally free (and in my opinion equally justified) to follow that path instead.

Such a hope also is a tribute to my mother; indeed, to most mothers. Perhaps the kindness, sympathy and tolerance that their role in bearing, protecting, and nurturing vulnerable life requires of them will, slowly but inexorably, continue to shape our world more than primitive impulses we should strive to subdue in order to deserve, and to attain, our fullest humanity.

Impulses like valuing our property (and our prosperity) more than others’ lives. That we should leave more and more ‘Tyburns’ behind, and recall them with only shame and a shudder, as we come to regard each other less mainly as competitors for survival. Such is an outmoded habit, an artifact starkly unsuitable for our brighter Age.

Just as the Tyburn Tree would be.