Lift Up Your Hearts!

I don't know who David Bahnsen is, nor at the moment do I feel the urge to find out. I judge him by his words alone, which through some combination of randomness and algorithm showed up on my Facebook feed. It was when I read the last line that I knew I had to repost them.

Many are writing me to point out the things Charlie [Kirk] said or did that are worthy of critique (sometimes that I actually did critique in real time). And while I can’t really understand why the first 4 days after someone’s assassination are the days in which people feel the need to “set the record straight,” I get that it is not the case that Charlie was perfect or above reproach.

But the more I think about the stuff that drove me bonkers about Charlie, the more I wonder how much was youthful immaturity that was in the process of being worked through. Just in the last 24 months anyone paying attention to Charlie’s public life saw extraordinary maturity and growth. It is so hard for me as a 51-year old to critique the 26-year old version of Charlie without wondering what the 36-year old or 41-year old might have been like. I certainly understand we can’t know that he would evolved into a patron saint of maturity, but I believe the 31-year old was exponentially more mature than the 26-year old, and I believe that trajectory was continuing.

I also believe if my life had ended at 31, basically every single thing I’m proud of or that is worthy of mention would have NEVER HAPPENED. All of my attempts at growth, sanctification, improvement, productivity have come out in the last 20 years, not the 15 years that preceded age 31. It’s sort of humbling.

You don’t have to deify someone or pretend you agree with everything to recognize that:

A - his murder is a reprehensible tragedy,

B - he was a special talent in his work ethic, discipline, and cultural instincts, and

C - he was a work in progress, and thank God none of us peaked at 31.

Before you post about something Charlie said or did at age 27, think about your own life at 27. When I do that, it makes me want to really keep my mouth shut.

It's been quite an emotional day. First, the Bishop of Central Florida came to our church to celebrate 20+ confirmations, which for a church our size is pretty impressive. Naturally there was special music, including the amazing Prayer of Saint Gregory, which will give some of you the hint that we had at least one trumpet (actually, we had two).

We got home just in time to watch the livestream of Charlie Kirk's memorial service at State Farm Stadium in Arizona. One of the advantages of having a pilot in the house is that I was able to confim my suspicion that there would be a no-fly zone around the venue, given the circumstances and all the people at high risk who were there. Probably the president's presence alone would have been enough reason for all the security.

Why did I watch the whole, very long, event—I, who am very jealous of my time, especially on Sunday afternoons? I'm not sure. It took me back to 1968, when I sat in front of our little black and white television, mesmerized by the events around Robert F. Kennedy's assassination. And more recently, watching Queen Elizabeth's funeral.

I think this one was even longer than the queen's. It didn't have nearly as much royalty, dignity, and pomp, but it was remarkable in its own way. It was part worship service, part memorial, part tent revival (complete with altar call), part political rally. In many places it was very powerful, as people shared their memories of Charlie and testified to his brilliance, his wisdom, his character, and his faith. In the past 11 days I have watched more of Charlie's speeches and conversations and encounters than in all my time previously, and the memorial service only confirmed the impression he left on me.

It's amazing to me how they managed to pull off such an enormous event—the stadium can hold over 70,000 people and it was packed; I have no idea how many people filled the overflow area where they watched on screens. The security alone must have been a nightmare.

Some of you will recognize the name of the man who led the worship part of the service: Chris Tomlin.

My one criticism is that it was too long, with too many speakers. By far the majority of them—from Charlie's wife to his pastor to the president of Hillsdale College to Tucker Carlson to a large number of high-level political figures—were excellent and their stories very moving. But there were a few they could have done without. Many of the Turning Point staff naturally wanted a chance to memorialize their leader, but a couple of them, well, let's just say they're very young and need some more maturity and life experience. They were understandably angry and grieving, but their somewhat hot-headed triumphalism made me cringe.

Overall, I'd call it worth watching, especially if you want to understand a little more why Charlie Kirk's death has affected so many people so deeply.  I think it could be made manageable by watching at higher speed and with a fast-forward button in your hand. But no testimonial can replace actually listening to what Charlie had to say, in context. He was a remarkable human being.

Although I read all of the original Harry Potter books when they first came out, I saw only a few of the films. Thanks to a friend's gift, however, we've recently been watching the early ones, and I was able to enjoy them thoroughly because it's been so long since I read the books that I can't whine about the differences.

A few days ago we viewed Goblet of Fire for the first time. You can imagine the powerful impact of the following scene. I knew I had to find it online and share it here.

I try to ignore the insane TikTok (and other platform) postings celebrating Charlie Kirk's death, figuring there's a good chance that many of them are either AI-generated or (more likely) people being paid to cause trouble. That kind of thing is real, and it's not new: political propaganda and agitation predate social media by millennia. But it's impossible to avoid it altogether without cutting oneself entirely off from the world; you don't need to stand near a forest fire to be overcome by smoke.

Tragically, there's abundant evidence that much vile sentiment does come from real people who appear to believe the horrific things they are saying, and claim without apology their First Amendment right to free speech. Real people. Real teachers even.

I hear the "freedom of speech" claim a lot, attempting to justify bad behavior, from the merely rude to the heinous. In such situations I'm compelled to point out that no, their actions are not protected as much as they hope by the First Amendment. Constitutionally, they are in most cases protected from governmental interference in their speech, though even then there are exceptions (e.g. yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater, slander/libel, and certain threats). But there is nothing that I know of that prohibits a private enterprise from saying, "Your publicly-expressed opinions are antithetical to the culture and mission of our organization and give us concern that your inability to control them will put the comfort and safety of our customers at risk. Therefore it is time to go our separate ways."

I saw that play out here locally, when Penzey's Spices pressured (and eventually laid off) the employees of our local store who did not share the corporate political positions. And it was the company's right to do so. Only the court of public opinion can prevail against that.

(The Second Amendment is similarly limited: I have the right to "bear arms" but if my local grocery store puts up a sign saying, "No guns allowed" I don't have the right to at the same time carry my pistol and fill my shopping cart. It's complicated; if the Constitution and our laws were perfectly clear, too many lawyers would be at risk of unemployment.)

A shockingly large number of folks have crossed a sacred line in the glorification of cold-blooded murder. I'm not completely comfortable with the people who are exposing these obscene posts and making sure the posters' employers—and in the case of teachers, their students' parents—are made aware of them, but sometimes light needs to be shined into dark places. 

What kind of human being cheers the assassination of an innocent man? If I were a business I would seriously worry about putting such a person in a position where he could do harm to a customer he happened to dislike.

What I really don't understand is the teachers who make such posts. Have they lost their minds? I know a guy who became a teacher after serving honorably in another profession. I was sorry that I could no longer follow his interesting and often wise posts on Facebook, because one of the clear rules of his school was that teachers were to have no social media presence whatsoever. At first I thought that was harsh, but now I see the wisdom in it. Even where social media posting is not forbidden by the school, how can a teacher want to advertise that parents have entrusted their children to one who lacks the common sense—not to mention the common humanity—to refrain from exulting in violent death? Much less the violent death of someone for whom many of their students are deeply grieving?

Young people are often warned to be careful what they post online, because their future may hang in the balance. That's a lesson we all need to learn. Sometimes it's a risk we must take: speaking the truth can be costly. But as the Bible says, it's one thing to suffer for doing good, and quite another to suffer from doing evil.

Sadly, I can't stick my head in the sand and deny that hatred and horrific behavior are real. We have to acknowledge it, be aware of our surroundings, and prepare to face trouble, just as we prepare to face hurricanes, earthquakes, illness, job loss, and other challenges.

Possibly the best preparation of all would be to strengthen our relationships within our families, among our friends, and in our neighborhoods.

There are no guarantees. I can't forget the Rwandan Genocide, where neighbors raped neighbors, friends slaughtered friends, and the man standing next to you in church on Sunday might do unspeakable things to your children on Wednesday. It was a time when political, cultural, and racial lines were drawn hard and fast.

We. Must. Do. Better. "It can't happen here" is a tragic epitaph.

Where do I find hope? In God, first of all. The second is like unto it: In what I know, and whom I know, from my own experience.

We could all benefit from spending less time watching the news and scrolling through social media, and more time looking around at our families, friends, and neighbors. Of the people we really know and interact with, how many actually hold that kind of hatred in their hearts? I have many friends whose political views are sharply opposed to mine—yet by living, working, and playing together we make opportunities to observe and appreciate each other's humanity, and to prove that we have each other's backs in times of need.

That's where the most important reality lies.

Charlie Kirk was on the list for my Heroes series, along with many others I haven't yet written about. Now anything I write is an obituary.

Young, brilliant, and bold, one of his favorite activities was to speak on college campuses, often with an open microphone for students to argue with him and ask questions. I've watched a number of his interactions, and he always seemed calm, polite, well-informed, and verbally on point. He also seemed genuinely to enjoy interacting with the students. I've also heard him in speak in interviews and on podcasts (never in person) and been similarly impressed.

No one knows anything yet about the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but to all appearances, "assassination" is the correct term for this event.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what heroism is, and just what constitutes being brave. It's now more obvious than ever that taking an unpopular message onto college campuses—straight into the lion's den—takes courage of the highest order.

There's no doubt in my mind that Charlie has already received his "Well done, thou good and faithful servant"; it's his wife and young children who need our prayers now.

Requiescat in pace.

(It has been a days of highs and lows.  Right now the lows have left me stunned and sad, which is doing no one any good. Time to take George MacDonald's advice: Heed not thy feelings; do thy work.)

It's time to bring back a post from eight years ago, which I called Leadership. It was inspired by the funeral of a man I wish I had known better.

I've never aspired to be a leader. I learned that in elementary school, when my parents and teacher were talking about "leadership qualities" and I thought, "Doesn't sound like fun to me." I don't mean I necessarily like to be a follower—mostly I like to do my own thing (child of the '60s) and other people can come along, or not, as they wish.

But a man at our church, who died not long ago, is making me rethink the idea of leadership. I barely knew him, but our choir sang for his funeral, and what I learned about him then made me wish I had found a way to cultivate his friendship.

He was accomplished enough for 10 people. He graduated in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from Princeton. He was a marine, serving in World War II and Korea. He followed that up by working for the CIA, earning the highest possible award for valor. For three years he endured Communist prison camp in Cuba. His civilian life achievements and community activities are too numerous to mention.

And they played bagpipes at his funeral.

Most amazing of all for someone so distinguished, everyone who knew him remarked about his humility. Churches talk a lot about "servant leadership" but apparently this man actually embodied it. He was, indeed, a "humble servant."

And yet....

The other thing said about him was that people did things the way he thought they ought to be done. He was humble, he was gentle, he was soft-spoken—but you didn't cross him. Somehow, he induced people to see things his way without pushing them around, without exerting his power—which is real power, indeed.

What might the world be like with more leaders like that?

As I near the end of Wind and Truth, Brandon Sanderson's 1344-page final book in the first half of his epic Stormlight Archive fantasy series, I am reminded of the following quotation from J. R. R. Tolkien. It is part of The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, a play based on a fragment of a poem about a historical battle between the English and Viking invaders.

This is not pessimism, but a call for strength and courage during dark times, which come to all.

Heart shall be bolder, harder be purpose,
More proud the spirit as our power lessens!
Mind shall not falter nor mood waver,
Though doom shall come and dark conquer.

I don't follow Matt Walsh's podcasts, but that's for lack of time, not lack of respect. I find him intelligent and well-spoken, and sometimes quote him here. Not that I always agree with him—he nearly lost me when I found out that he thinks raw milk is disgusting. I was almost one of the 14,000+ people who called him out on that, but decided instead that each of us has a right to be wrong, and let him alone.   

Why have I included him in my Heroes category? Because we need heroes at every level. Maybe Matt Walsh didn't run into a burning building to save a child, but he just took an important stand against the undefined but powerful mob that will use any excuse and any tactic to bring down those who dare disagree with whatever narrative they are currently imposing. I have no problem with calling someone out for saying or doing something that troubles me, but the demand for an apology and public groveling, which is almost always a part of the process, is not only wrong, but a dangerous abuse of power.

I consider it a heroic act to stand up to that kind of pressure. It's not easy. I remember, with shame, the times in my life when I've apologized for things I still believe were not only not wrong, but actively the right thing to do. And yet, shameful though I think my groveling was, I'm not apologizing for apologizing under duress, because the threats were not to me but to my children. The memory, however, makes me all the more inclined to respect people who, as Walsh put it, decline to take part.

In this video, Walsh addresses the firestorm that erupted when he refused to take down an image that someone else posted in a critical response to one of his X posts. Walsh, the mob insists, knowingly and approvingly posted a swastika, because he didn't censor his critic's image.

Now that I know where it is, I find it impossible not to see the swastika in question. But until it was pointed out, I didn't see it at all. I have no problem believing that Walsh didn't either. But once noted, why not take it down? The better question is, why should it be taken down? Even if it had been in plain sight, a normal swastika, while it would have been fine for Walsh to delete an image that someone else had imposed on his X feed, it is wrong for anyone to pressure him to do so. The swastika has been around for millennia and originally meant well-being. This mob would have had us burn our antique Oriental rug because it included these ancient symbols in its design.

Just because someone has reused a historic symbol for other purposes, that doesn't mean it's right to cave in to the misappropriation. Even if I'm the last person in the world to do so, I will still use "gay" to mean "lighthearted," use masculine pronouns as neutral when appropriate, and continue to cringe every time I hear "they" and "them" used as if they were singular. (This means I am cringing frequently while listening to the lastest New International Version of the Bible—not a salubrious situation.) I also insist on singing the old words to familiar hymns rather than the abominations featured in modern hymnals. Take that, "Good Christian Friends, Rejoice!"

This attack on Walsh makes me want to post an image of a swastika loud and clear on my blog, maybe in the company of my nasty-looking image of the COVID-19 virus. However, even if it may sometimes be necessary to fight a bear, it's stupid to poke one unnecessarily, so my more rational side beat down my gut reaction in this case.

The really interesting part of all this is the image itself—which I reserve for a subsequent post. I'll try enabling comments, just in case someone else notices the issue with the picture before I write about it. Please be respectful and refrain from using the comment section for arguments.

Who is Bill Maher, and why does he deserve a place in my Heroes category?

No one who knows the deep extent of my ignorance of pop culture (among other things) will be surprised that until I looked him up on that great foundation of American knowledge and ignorance, Wikipedia, I had no idea who Bill Maher was. Now I know he's a comedian, politically and socially liberal, and a potty-mouth. There are issues on which Maher and I agree, and I've reluctantly come to accept the need to endure crude speech because these days I know so many otherwise highly intelligent and reasonable people who for reasons unknown apparently cannot speak without being vulgar. However, I find modern comedy generally too edgy for my taste, so I'm unlikely to add Maher to my list of favorite speakers.

Thus it was only through a friend (also intelligent, reasonable, potty-mouthed, and one of the funniest people I know) that I heard the following monologue (13 minutes).

What I find amusingly frustrating is that Maher's simple description of spending time with President Trump has people on both sides of the aisle asking, "Has Bill Maher gone MAGA?" No, he hasn't; he's just being a reasonable human being, the way that was standard not all that long ago.

I suspect he will take a lot of heat for being reasonable—lives have been ruined for less—and he knew it before deciding to speak out. But he spoke the truth anyway, and that makes him a hero to me.

An excerpt from Brandon Sanderson's novel, Warbreaker (pp. 490-491 in the hardcover version). It seems fitting for my Heroes series.

Vasher shrugged in the darkness. “Priests are always easy to blame. They make convenient scapegoats—after all, anyone with a strong faith different from your own must either be a crazy zealot or a lying manipulator.”

Vivenna flushed yet again.

Vasher stopped in the street, then turned to her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to say it that way.” He cursed, turning and walking again. “I told you I’m no good at this.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m getting used to it.”

He nodded in the darkness, seeming distracted.

He is a good man, she thought. Or, at least, an earnest man trying to be good. A part of her felt foolish for making yet another judgment.

Yet she knew she couldn’t live—couldn’t interact—without making some judgments. So she judged Vasher. Not as she’d judged Denth, who had said amusing things and given her what she’d expected to see. She judged Vasher by what she had seen him do. Cry when he saw a child being held captive. Return that child to her father, his only reward an opportunity to make a rough plea for peace. Living with barely any money, dedicating himself to preventing a war.

He was rough. He was brutal. He had a terrible temper. But he was a good man. And, walking beside him, she felt safe for the first time in weeks.

I've made no secret of the fact that I don't like the movie Forrest Gump.  The era of the late 60's and early 70's was a really weird time for our country (and much of the Western world): uncomfortable, ugly, deranged, disagreeable, void of reason and sense.  Quite a bit like the last decade or so, in fact.  Watching Forrest Gump brought all that back, and I appreciated neither the reminder nor what I believe was an attempt to whitewash the times.

You'd think I'd have the same reaction to Pirates of Silicon Valley, which I watched recently, since it deals with some of the same era.  But I enjoyed it thoroughly.  Here's the description from Eric Hunley's Unstructured.

Pirates of Silicon Valley is a 1999 American biographical drama television film directed by Martyn Burke and starring Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates. Spanning the years 1971–1997 and based on Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine's 1984 book Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer, it explores the impact that the rivalry between Jobs (Apple Computer) and Gates (Microsoft) had on the development of the personal computer. The film premiered on TNT on June 20, 1999.

Two things made this a movie I would enjoy watching again.  One is that it shows the good, the bad, and the ugly of that era without either oversensationalizing it or making excuses.  The Promethean heroes who brought the power of computers to Everyman were severely flawed, but they were still heroes.

Even more than that, I loved the movie because it brought back good memories, especially at the beginning.  The early days of computing were messy, but they were also exciting.  I still remember sitting in a small room at the University of Rochester's Goler House, listening to Carl Helmers expounding on the wonders of the Apple 1 computer, which he demonstrated using a cassette tape as an input device.  Porter and I looked at each other and said, "I want to buy stock in this company!" Unfortunately, Apple was not publicly traded then, and when it did go public, we were out of the loop and missed the IPO of $22/share and the chance to turn $1000 into $2.5 million.  (My father did the same thing when he chose to buy our first house instead of investing the money in Haloid, as recommended by a friend who had just visited the company.  Haloid later became Xerox.)  We didn't get rich, but we did enjoy being on the fringes of the wild-and-woolly frontier.

King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green (1953)
The Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green (1956)

Roger Lancelyn Green's assembling and retelling of the stories of King Arthur and of Robin Hood makes me want to read his other collections of ancient tales (e.g. Egyptian, Greek, and Norse); he writes well and provides an excellent introduction to these classic stories. The only negative I would report about these particular editions is that the publisher apparently decided it would be a good idea to append a stomach-turning school-ish section. ("Can you see any similarities between Arthur and modern heroes such as Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker?") Somehow I don't think Green would have approved at all.

One thing I found delightful in both books was recognizing in Green's work echoes of the writing of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Not in the sense of copying or imitation, but that they all spring from the same roots.

Another is that these stories of chivalry and idealized behavior make it clear both that heroes are flawed people, and that they are nonetheless heroes.

In the 1950's and early 1960's, when I was young, our hero stories were highly sanitized—and not just those for children. What mattered was the good that was done; negative events and characteristics were largely ignored. Fables are expected to be larger-than-life (think Paul Bunyan), but real people, no matter how amazing, should be, well, real people. It's important to know that God can do extraordinary things with ordinary people—being weak, fallen, broken, and/or stupid is no excuse for not doing the right thing.

Later decades turned the idealized hero narrative 180 degrees. It became de rigueur to take the people we admire and portray them not so much as flawed, but evil; to take delight in showing people at their worst, and pointing out that the good they did might have actually been harmful. This may have been a necessary corrective for a brief time, but it is the worse of the two errors.

Green does not hesitate to admit the flaws, errors, and sins of his characters, but lets their heroic actions shine. It's a good balance.

"I'll take a million court appearances and people calling me names and people hating me just to keep one of those people from getting hurt or killed." — Daniel Penny

Daniel Penny should not have had to endure any of that. I'm pretty sure he would not have if he had saved those lives in Miami rather than in New York City. In Florida, we tend to appreciate those who risk their own health and safety to protect others—as Penny did by restraining a man who threatened the lives of the other subway passengers. It is unfortunate that the man later died, but Penny did the right thing. Many people are saying that his Not Guilty verdict proves that "the system" worked, but he never should have been tried in the first place, much less still be facing a civil lawsuit.

How many people will in the future be hurt or killed because a potential hero will be less inclined to intervene in a dangerous situation? It may be that those who could become heroes fear death less than trials and lawsuits!

You may feel differently about this situation, and that's certainly your right and privilege. But please refrain from saying so here. This post is meant to honor Daniel Penny, and I'm just not in the mood to argue.