Happy Easter, Friends! Happy International Trans Day, Too.
To all those who celebrate and a few who don't, may you have a lovely Easter
I don’t talk often about my faith but it is present in all I do. A private faith lived joyfully and quietly is what I aspire to though I often miss the mark.
The results from Turkiye should show us that Christ isn’t finished with the land where His blessed mother once lived.
May Christ’s sacrifice teach us that “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
May Christ’s resurrection continue to inspire us around the world and renew us with the faith that He is among us now when we most need Him.
Happy Easter!
This Easter has its shares of controversy — who knew that it’s also International Transgender Day of Visibility. Good luck to them too.
Frankly I wish the trannies a Happy Easter too. It seems like a tough existence to believe you should be other than how He made you.
Many of you don’t know that I wrote a book about Calvin Coolidge once upon a time. Eleven years ago!
For those of you who have your doubts about faith, might I recommend what Coolidge had to say about his professor Charles Garman who taught at Amherst Coolidge. It’s probably one of the best approximations of my own views on these matters so I thought I’d share it with you.
“We looked upon Garman as a man who walked with God. His course was a demonstration of the existence of a personal God, of our power to know Him, of the Divine immanence, and of the complete dependence of all the universe on Him as the Creator and Father ‘in whom we live and move and have our being’…The conclusions which followed from this position were logical and inescapable. It sets man off in a separate kingdom from all the other creatures in the universe, and makes him a true son of God and a partaker of the Divine nature. This is the warrant for his freedom and the demonstration of his equality. It does not assume all are equal in degree but all are equal in kind. On that precept rests a foundation for democracy that cannot be shaken. It justifies faith in the people…I know that in experience it has worked…In time of crisis my belief that people can know the truth, that when it is presented to them they must accept it, has saved me from many of the counsels of expediency.”
“…In ethics he taught us that there is a standard of righteousness, that might does not make right, that the end does not justify the means that expediency as a working principle is bound to fail. The only hope of perfecting human relationship is in accordance with the law of service under which men are not so solicitious about what they shall get as they are about what they shall give. Yet people are entitled to the rewards of their industry. What they earn is theirs, no matter how small or how great. But the possession of property carries the obligation to use it in a larger service. For a man not to recognize the truth, not to be obedient to law, not to render allegiance to the State, is for him to be at war with his own nature, to commit suicide. That is why ‘the wages of sin is death.’ Unless we live rationally we perish, physically, mentally, spiritually.
“…A great deal of emphasis was placed on the necessity and dignity of work. Our talents are given us in order that we may serve ourselves and our fellow men. Work is the expression of intelligent action for a specified end. It is not industry, but idleness, that is degrading. All kinds of work from the most menial service to the most exalted station are alike honorable. One of the earliest mandates laid on the human race was to subdue the earth. That meant work.
“If he was not in accord with some of the current teachings about religion, he gave to his class a foundation for the firmest religious convictions. He presented no mysteries or dogmas and never asked us to take a theory on faith, but supported every position by facts and logic. He believed in the Bible and constantly quoted it to illustrate his position.” In fact, to the surprise of all, he opened his remarks to the senior class of 1904 in chapel service with the unapologetic admission, “Believing as I do in the divinity of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ…” Coolidge continues, “He divested religion and science of any conflict with each other, and showed that each rested on the common basis of our ability to know the truth.”
“To Garman,” Coolidge wrote, “was given a power which took his class up into a high mountain of spiritual life and left them alone with God. In him was no pride of opinion, no atom of selfishness.”