Category / Cultural observations

by omniagallia

A Choice to Rejoice:

Every year, I post a version of ‘Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel,’ perhaps the most venerable song of Christmas. With Medieval roots, allusions to the Old Testament, its lyrics originally in Latin as ‘Veni, Veni Emmanuel,’ it is often performed with grand solemnity. Or when sung in English, in a tone of quasi-theatrical religious effusion.

But I feel its innermost nature, rather than solemn or theatrical, is awed reverence, hushed as the light of twinkling stars and evoking a limitless force that sustains them. So this year I have chosen an unadorned piano solo, displaying a common English translation. Those words will be my focus here, for when not inscrutably cloaked in Latin, they are as meaningful and compelling as the austere, ageless melody.

Especially consider ‘ransom captive Israel.’ It could be a reference to the Babylonian Captivity, or Roman oppression of the Jewish people. But there may be a broader interpretation: ‘captive Israel,’ refers not just to the Chosen people but to all children of God, everywhere and always, in lonely exile outside the Gates of Paradise since the fall of Adam.

Without speaking stridently, this song echoes ancient inspiration that can brighten our entire condition, conveying melancholy at human woe, yet encouraging us in hope for ‘power o’er the grave.’ And it poignantly addresses our desire, unspoken or unrecognized, for relief from the disappointing, browbeating world most of us experience, relief that may materialize ‘in cloud and majesty and awe.’

Jesus, these words cumulatively intimate, offers rescue from the sense of exile from the Edenic world that was, and is, supposed to be. And they subtly, but insistently affirm faith that, in the hands of Providence, all will be well. If only in an ultimate dimension, which we can never fully perceive.

Most people, at some time in their lives, will feel the sting of events beyond their control, no matter how autonomous or gifted they are. Our culture nudges us to focus (ever so profitably) on our individual selves, but ‘We’ are more marvelous together, than any of us alone can ever be.

So to perceive our value only in terms of the Self is to reject a sense in which we might, effectively, attain eternal life. That is, by living so as to contribute to the welfare of humanity after us, so that they will benefit from any benevolence we contributed or sustained. As opposed to living for ourselves alone, and thus simply vanishing when our bodies die.

‘Death’s dark shadows put to flight.’ The premise, on reflection, is not necessarily that our physical lives can be eternal; it is that our presence in this life need never disappear entirely. Jesus incarnated faith that we are worth far more than just our imperfect Selves, and pledges that faith to us, forever. This carol’s tone bespeaks grievous discouragement, but also hope that its longed-for remedy appears at Christmas.

The coming of Christ, who overcame the Self to redeem all Others, may offer solace to anyone who hopes there must be more to us, and our existence, than the intellect alone may ever compass.

As events, fate or passage of time diminish our individual deeds, unique qualities, advantages or burdens, all that remains to each of us, for better or worse, is the substance of our own humanity. And it is for refuge in that substance to which these words allude, by overwhelming grace that may ‘close the path to misery.’

One cannot, in any sense, truly grasp infinity, but one may yield to and merge with it, as this music pleads by proxy. Christ’s coming, mission and vertiginous love assert our fundamental value, merely by the exercise of the trait that distinguishes us from other life forms; the ability to reason – empathically.

It is less important that the existence of love like that can be factually proven, than that we act as though we are moved by its example. For that is the promise Jesus represents for all who grasp it, and reciprocate it, with lives that perpetuate the cycle of giving, joyously, that propelled Creation itself.

This timeless melody inspires awe, but its words of both jubilation and serenity also reward contemplation. Always, but especially in this season of Emmanuel, ‘God with us.’

by omniagallia

A Different Enlightenment:

On a recent visit to Europe, a friend and I went from Paris to Sarlat (a lovely Medieval vestige in France’s Dordogne, itself a marvel of nature and history) then Munich, and finally Vienna. It was all rather wondrous.

I hope to post reflections on some pictures I took, as after my 2016 travels. But I am currently focused on a large writing project, so may compose only a few essays, about photos I deem especially significant.

This image initiates that effort. It shows a spectacle not seen in centuries at gloriously rebuilt Notre Dame de Paris. The entire restoration from the fire of 2019 was magnificent, but encountering this long-gone ‘rainbow’ was enrapturing. Without the fire, this vista might have stayed lost forever.

After that inferno, the church’s walls were scrubbed of ages of candle smoke, incense, etc., and its stained glass consummately cleaned. Consequently, this cloud of limpid color, long obscured in the gloom, is now cast onto the stone-work overhead. The restorers likely anticipated its return, but I certainly had not, so discovering it astonished me.

Where I stood filming had been saturated with lead dust, ash from burned roof beams, rubble, all still in peril of structural collapse after the fire. That Notre Dame was not just restored, but is better than before, is evidence of determined, diligent, ingeniously potent human agency.

However: In Medieval Christian theology, God was light, which this revived iridescent glow assuredly suggests.  Thus, this may be pondered as divine approval, or affectionate reward, for how we deployed our collective gifts to rescue this venerable shrine, sacred to abstract aspiration.

I especially hope to write posts for three other photos from my journey. One is consonant with the majesty of human endeavor suggested here; the other two contrast with it.

I photographed Munich’s courthouse, where another intimation of our best Nature appeared. There, in 1943, members of the White Rose, a legendary anti-Nazi network, were tried and condemned to death for their ‘noble treason.’ Supposedly, they even dared scold their judge for moral dissolution and complicity with Hitler – a deed of defiant courage I find as awesome, in its context, as this compelling phenomenon in Notre Dame.

In contrast to that summit, two pictures I took at Dachau, suburban Munich site of Nazism’s prototype Concentration Camp, witness a chasm. One shows a statue of an anonymous inmate, inscribed ‘Honor to the Dead. Warning to the Living.’ The other is a photo of inmates taken by a guard, carefully conceived and crafted to sate Nazi mania to degrade and dominate the ‘other.’

Both these images feel ominously relevant to the political climate in America today, 2025.

The fact that so many people seem not to have learned the grim lessons places like Dachau symbolize makes me fear our species may have reached a pivot point. A point beyond which our Reason, spawning technology to serve the primally self-interested, may be as liable to degrade or destroy us, as to advance us.

Thus, until if and when I write about those three, the image here must serve to assert a proposition I ardently feel worth advocating: belief in the ultimate positivity, underlying and overarching, of our mortal existence. What these apparently unrelated things – this recovered spectacle at Notre Dame and the White Rose’s nobility – have in common, is that the instinctive admiration most of us feel for such marvels may suggest that simple goodness is the default of our nature, and wickedness a baser aberration. And they may help us keep faith in that default, despite all counter-evidence.

Scripture says that after the Great Flood, God set a rainbow in the Heavens in token of a promise never again to chastise humanity for its failings. The rainbow shown here may be mere optical happenstance, but such apparently random coincidences may act as mechanisms to move us to hope, may offset dispiriting, life-negating evidence, inspiring us to reckon that an elementally better world is possible. A world more worthy of this sensational vision, and of the soaring honor of the White Rose martyrs, than of demonic Dachau.

In terms of attaining the highest level of being we can, reaching beyond the Self alone – love – may prevail, where logic fails. So I invite readers to consider this image as evocative of tender, reassuring encouragement to such ‘reaching.’

Most humans’ spirits are not data driven, so physical experimentation, mathematical proofs, etc. are not tools for such undertakings, which are outside the realm of reason, alone. We must generate and embrace such Hope within our Selves. And it must subdue animal urges such as Nazism invoked, or we are lost.

Hope need never die, unless we let it expire. At grievously wounded Notre Dame, we did not, and as a result, got back this breath-taking apparition.

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

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

‘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

Tolstoy and Navalny: ‘The more things change …‘

This is film of the funeral of the author Leo Tolstoy in 1910, posted as relevant to a grotesque tussle over the remains of Aleksei Navalny, implacable, leonine foe of Vladimir Putin. Russian authorities, not wanting a high-visibility ceremony for their greatest enemy (nor to expose evidence of what they did to him) demanded his mother agree to a private funeral before releasing his body. But Navalnaya stood her ground, refused this blackmail, and the Kremlin relented, discharging Aleksei to her.

Tolstoy’s funeral is partly parallel to this, for he too was a passionate, peerless voice against the evils that the regime of his day, Czarism, visited on the ordinary Russians it trod down. As this shows, his passing led to an outpouring of grief and love by common people for one who, implicitly, steadfastly spoke truth to power for their sake.

Note how mourners kneel as one, in gratitude and honor, when Tolstoy’s coffin appears. Masses of peasants – many of whom had not read his works (or were illiterate, still then common in Russia) realized that Count Leo, despite being an aristocrat, wrote on their behalf, often depicting their suffering under the injustices of the Imperial system.

Tolstoy was a Pacifist social critic, whereas Navalny was a fearlessly assertive agent of change, but the mass affection for a champion against oppression shown here is just the sort of spectacle (potential spark?) Putin most fears. And rightly, for while Tolstoy’s passing did not galvanize an uprising, a grand funeral for Navalny conceivably might. Or at least inspire Russians not to just let his dreams be buried with him.

Nicholas II didn’t send troops to quell this shadow rebuke to his rule but Putin, lacking an Emperor’s legitimacy, might not forbear from violent response to a populist funeral for Navalny. What latter-day ‘Cossacks’ might he call out to put down scenes like this, reproving his regime?

The whole world will be watching; or should be.  And in 2024, the record won’t be just a single piece of black and white silent film.

by omniagallia

Putin and the Death of Navalny: The Vicious and the Valiant.

Various personal distractions have kept me from focusing on the followup post I mentioned at the end of my last one, ‘Promoting Freedom by Protecting Memory,’ about the 1905 Winter Palace Massacre in Czarist Russia. But to paraphrase Samuel Johnson, death ‘concentrates the mind wonderfully.’

And the death of Aleksei Navalny, all but certainly due, directly or indirectly, to Vladimir Putin, has concentrated my mind furiously, catalyzing that promised sequel, here. It will not take the form I originally envisioned, will serve largely as a partial vent for my current writhing wrath at Putin. Although that feels inexhaustible.

Dedicated to Navalny, this post proposes suggestions of how to perceive, and what to do in response to, his death. I will not advocate for revenge; vengeance is the province of spiteful men like Putin (and Hitler, who literally spoke of a ‘goddess of revenge’). Instead, justice is what we should rightly seek, and that can best take the form of punishing Putin by helping to thwart his mania to conquer and subjugate Ukraine, an enterprise whose criminality, cruelty and reckless stupidity Navalny condemned relentlessly.

Even if Navalny’s eventual Fate was not a real surprise to those following his opposition to Kremlin tyranny and corruption, it was still a shock. He may be credibly said to have represented what is good, noble, hopeful – and truly evolved – in us, as surely as Vladimir Putin personifies all that is not. No doubt he was flawed like everyone, but also exemplified attributes we properly admire, but rarely attain, such as granite-hard determination. One needn’t be angelic to offer a stark contrast to Putin, but Lion-hearted Navalny was a more extreme opposite than most of us could ever be.  

The likes of Putin, who incarnate dark forces of human nature and history, are desperate to quell such noble impulses which they regard with cynicism and bewilderment, as obstacles to ‘realism’ in politics. But they are desperate fools if they imagine they can dissipate the loftiest acts and aspirations of Mankind with the odd well-placed assassination. Granted, the relative passivity and credulity up to now of the bulk of the Russian public to Putin’s criminal aggression against Ukraine has likely encouraged him to persevere with it. But his incomprehension of ‘principle’ makes it impossible for him to recognize that he cannot eliminate massive, rightful and reparable discontent by ‘well-placed assassination.’ Eventually, the underlying grievances will burst like a volcano’s lava dome, not manifest only in epic characters like Navalny.

Predictably, men as heartless and crude as Putin regard valor as folly, and likely felt Navalny was a fool for returning to Russia from Berlin, where he received medical treatment for a near-fatal poisoning (that was surely Putin’s doing). But authentic heroism is very different from folly.

Someone like Navalny – as he showed in deeds, as did the journalist Anna Politkovskaya – grasps a truth invisible to anyone like Putin: To a soaring soul, there can be values more precious than his own interests, or even his very life. And for Aleksei, the happiness of his country and her people was one such value. The Putins of this world – wherever they are – are blind to such concepts, cannot comprehend flights of the human spirit or seemingly anything but the coarse, transient rewards of ‘What’s in it for me?’ (As an American admirer of Putin once mocked American soldiers – who had died for their country in World War I France – buried ‘over there.’) Any ethical vision they may have ever possessed is occluded by the moral muck of unabashed self-dealing and indifference to collateral harm which they inhabit.

If you also are outraged by Navalny’s suspicious death, there can be no better response to it than to justify his courage by calling for immediate, greatly enhanced Western support for arming and aiding Ukraine against Putin’s militarist fantasies there. And by furthering – in any way you can imagine – Putin’s worst nightmare (and partial reason for his terror at the westernization of Ukraine): Creation of true, irreversible civil society, and the valuing of individuals, in Russia herself.

Because the inertia and indifference of Western public opinion are as vital as oxygen to Putin. His invasion assumed the Democracies, in their affluence and security, would do nothing meaningful in response to it, and let him go on heedlessly spending Russian and Ukrainian lives in pursuit of his delusional 19th Century style Chauvinism.

But using Navalny’s demise as a spur to frustrate the dark powers he struggled against is surely as effective a memorial, to his life and his death, as there could be. If I could somehow speak to the Russian nation, I would assure them that there are foreigners who hail their forefathers’ bravery in their country’s defense. I might then point out that Navalny faced huge, avoidable, risks for their sake, and in gratitude and inspiration, they might be willing to face lesser ones to validate his sacrifice.

The Russian people have never been more formidable than when their patriotism was inflamed, as Napoleon and Hitler learned; for their Motherland, they can, and will, fight like dragons. Given the extraordinary deeds that the great-grandparents of today’s Russians performed – rolling back Hitler’s barbarous rampage in their land all the way to his lair beneath Berlin – perhaps an appeal to their love for their country (rather than loyalty to its despicable leadership) and to their own dormant lion-hearted courage, is the best way to lead to the final destruction of autocracy in their midst:

For Autocracy continues to hold back their already splendid nation from attaining its full greatness which is to be found in its vast contributions to the arts and sciences; not in Mongol-style territorial expansion.

The World’s Democracies’ stalwart devotion to (and enlightened self-interest in) helping to sustain Ukraine may stoke the slumbering patriotism of the Russians by confronting them with just how utterly indifferent their current Czar is to the lives of their sons, husbands and brothers he will continue to waste in Ukraine; how totally focused he is on realizing his own fantasies of glory, and his horrifying concept of national honor.

I realize all of that is easy for me to say, far from Putin’s fierce police, tear gas, stun guns, and rubber batons. But Russians will face such forever if they don’t liberate themselves; as they did in 1917.

Speaking of 1917, there may be a grim but intriguing irony developing here. The rule of the last Czar, Nicholas II, was corrupt, incompetent and unsuited to modernity, but Nicholas was ultimately brought down by continuing to fight a conflict he had rashly helped provoke, but could not win – World War I – whose grave sufferings for his people he was too stubborn, prideful and oblivious to take seriously. In 1917, those people had finally had enough of him, his war, the feckless social order he represented, and they ousted him and his whole rotten misrule.

Perhaps Navalny’s murder will ultimately put a similar flame in today’s Russians, suffering due to a war Putin is too proud and indifferent to his people’s wishes and welfare, to recognize as utterly not worth the cost. Perhaps they will echo 1917, accept that they must take their destiny into their own hands, and repeat history by overthrowing him and his kleptocracy. Putin, as I have noted in other posts, suppressed official observance of the 2017 centennial of the fall of the Romanov dynasty, so it would be tragicomic if he comes to share their Fate due to his own myopic megalomania.  In stifling public memories of 1917’s regime change, he himself may have lost sight of its crucial lesson: Rulers dare not take their subjects’ patience, obedience and timidity for granted.

Thus, he might provoke the very sort of popular uprising he wanted his subjugated public to forget, because he himself neglected its warning, and overestimated the feasibility of eternal repression. And his own eventual Fate might prove messier than the Romanovs’, who got gunned down in a Siberian cellar.

If so, let him face the dreadful destiny of Nicholas II to which his own cruelty consigns him, of obstinately clinging to a path that is as obviously unwise as it is repugnant (and in this, I don’t just mean the invasion of Ukraine, but his whole corruption-protecting police state apparatus), until his own people tear him from power. Or worse.

It will serve Putin right (and be a valuable warning for other tyrants) if he is devoured by the very forces that he has been arrogant, brutish and obtuse enough to disregard, or hubristically suppose he can control forever.

An intriguing premise, that: a self-isolating despot’s inability to recognize that he has slipped into a ‘reality’ at odds with the actual one, leading to the downfall of which he is no doubt petrified. Such self-destruction would prove there can be justice in this world.

And to my fellow Americans, I would warn that we must recognize the peril of letting someone like Putin, insensate of his people’s blood and sorrow, outlast our resolve to stop his current, terrible enterprise. Thus, we should demand more vigorous U.S. aid to frustrate his faith in brute force, and contempt for any moderate exercise of power.

But even more important, Americans must think Very carefully about abandoning our image – to ourselves, and to the world – as friends and defenders of human liberty and progress (the accompanying image was chosen as a reminder of exactly that) by supporting any U.S. movement or politician that considers Vladimir Putin’s savagery ‘irrelevant’ to American interests. Or worse, admirable in itself.

Or supporting any person or party that doesn’t issue a full-throated, unreserved condemnation of the murder of Navalny, as well as all other Kremlin efforts to cradle-strangle individual freedom. Remember: Silence Gives Consent.

(Admittedly, America has its own ‘lava domes’ of justice denied, but they do not include overtly larcenous looting of the national economy, nor domestic political assassination as statecraft. And they are subjects for another time.)

May Navalny’s example flourish in death, even as Putin’s putrefies while he is still alive. To close with a sentiment that could well have inspired Navalny himself, ‘Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.’

It is a rare privilege to witness souls as great as his, who hunger and thirst thus; especially when their goals seem futile. Surely, it behooves us, thus privileged, to help if we can, to ensure his quest was not ‘futile.’