The League of Bearded Catholics

Shades of Chivalry

Over at one of my favorite man-haunts, the Christian Pipe Smokers forum, our own bearded brother and combox maven Del gives as pithy an explanation, and as pointed a defense, of chivalry as you could hope for.

He elucidates not only the real nature of chivalry, but the course of its decline in the modern West;

The real Chivalry was a culture of Christian soldiers.

Chivalry was replaced by "manners".... oh, about the time that Christendom fell, I reckon. Cervantes ("the last knight of Europe") mocked chivalry at its end, in his Don Quixote.

Anyhow.... chivalry was about having a heart of heroic self-sacrifice. Having good manners was easier, because good manners could cover a bad heart.

The Feminists of the 20th century were an insane lot. But they understood one thing rightly: They did not want to be abused by predatory pigs with good manners. At the onset of the sexual revolution, the feminists still wanted the good men back (in spite of their perverse notions of what a good man should be).

Chivalry (a singularly Christian idea) is dead in the post-Christian era. We can see its corpse rotting, in the vast number of single mothers and deadbeat dads.

BUT! -- as Chesterton said, "What Man has done before, Man can do again!" We see a rising chivalry in groups like Promise Keepers and March for Life. The battle now is for families and for life, and chivalry is rising like a pheonix in Christian fatherhood.

This "John Paul II" generation of young Catholics are embracing chastity and fruitful marriages, in defiance of their parents' lack of faith...

What thinkest thou? The original post that Del was responding to asked whether or not Chivalry is dead. Clearly it is not... but maybe it has been in a coma.

And speaking of Chivalry...

For Earth Day

"Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither." - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I meant to post this earlier in the day, in honor of Earth Day, but what with one thing and another...

Lewis' quote above illustrates the main gripe I have with Earth Day and similar things; that it represents such a very earthbound point of view, a spiritual myopia, that contains the seeds of its own failure. Aim merely for earth, and you will end up with nothing in the end, not even earth.

Anyhow, the ever-bombastic Iowahawk is holding his 2010 Earthweek Virtual Cruise-In, in which he publishes entries from his readers, featuring photos and descriptions of some formidible gas-guzzlers. He writes;

In honor of this auspicious occasion, the text for the remainder of the day will be displayed in soothing, energy efficient green -- saving nearly 7000 tons of CO2 emissions. As far as you know.

One reader promises (if he wins this dubious competition) to donate his carbon credits to an orphanage. Don't miss it if you can!

Moustache Money

Some tax law prof is cooking up a legal proposal to allow a tax deduction for moustache maintenance. Needless to say, if a moustache is worth $250, a beard ought to be worth a solid grand.

Also, a recent study indicates that bearded men are found somewhat more trustworthy than clean-shaven men. In light of the fact that nearly all of our recent politicians have been clean shaven, this is not that surprising.

I find both these stories a little troubling, though. A tax break for facial hair will only encourage clean shaven men to grow beards and moustaches for all the wrong reasons. A beard ought to be, and indeed now is, a matter of the heart and soul. Those follicles go all the way down to the inmost part of a man.

We've allowed here at TLBC that a man might be clean shaven and yet carry an "inner beard", but the prospect of the reverse - those with no inner beard walking around with hairy chins - is a little disquieting. One would always have to wonder whether this man or that had grown a beard out of base motivations.

The same problem arises when giving bearded men extra points for trustworthiness. Whether this reflects some deeper reality is open to question (I don;t doubt it, myself), but to talk about it, to analyze it and throw it out there as a... marketing tool... is just a bit nauseating. In fact, typing the word "marketing" just made me gag a little. A berded jaw must not be allowed to become the next American Flag Lapel Pin.

For instance, Al Gore notoriously grew a beard when he knew he had a real whopper to sell to the carbon-using public. His comical attempt at gravitas was an affront to real beard wearers, and only served to cheapen the brand. Incidentally, does he still have the face coat, or has he shaved, now? Or does he keep his beard in a jar by the door?

"You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion." - GKC

(A tip of the old fedora to Leaguers Jim Janknegt and Padraic McGrath).

Beard Them All!

To all follicularly festooned Catholic co-conspirators; not much action on the TLBC front in the last few weeks, due to the human frailties and limitations of your blog master, who after having fallen headlong into a very challenging new employment situation, took ill on account of exposure to a rich and varied stew of unfamiliar microbes therein, a hearty streptococcus among them, apparently.

This program to toughen the immune system comes as part of an absolutely free package of benfits given to all public school employees. As a result, I have been just well enough over the last month or so to heave my aching carcass out of bed in the morning, supervise my young charges in their art-making ventures, and then let my old beater of an SUV find its way home on auto-pilot in the evening. I've actually entered "Read list of neglected household chores" as one of the items on my list of neglected household chores.

Naturally, blogging has been light, and daily visitor stats have been correspondingly anemic.

But, I am feeling much better, now.

I would like to have given more thought to the recent rash of gleefully savage attacks on the Pope disguised as sober news articles (in which nothing new is presented). The enemies of the Church gain boldness, and finding that their victim offers little resistance, they kick and pummel with ever greater ferocity and confidence. No fatwas or bomb vests to worry them here! The secular authority will not stop until it sees the Church in abject submission to earthly power... after a suitable episode of public humiliation, of course, it wouldn't be the same without that.

Fools. The life of the Church flows from such as this. Take up your hammer and nails. Drive the spear deep.

It's ironic that the attackers have latched on to sexual abuse as a kind of raison d'etat in the war against the Church, because the reality is that their deepest and most secret gripe with Rome is over her continued resistance to the Sexual Revolution, wherein mankind is stood on its head, and the pelvis is elevated above both the heart and the brain, where fulfilled desire is the ultimate value. The same people who complain of pedophile priests actively and studiously ignore the same abuse in nearly every other context, especially as it is revealed as part and parcel of the "homosexual lifestyle", which it is. Those calling most loudly for the Pope's head are likely the same ones quietly working to "protect" sexually active minors from the meddling of their parents by providing state-approved birth control and abortions in secret, and by systematically ignoring statutory rape.

It's. Not. About. The. Children. It is about finding an exploitable breech in the fortress of the Church. There is even giddy chatter about arresting the Pope. It won't happen, of course, but that is not their goal, at present. Their goal in talking about it is only to make the idea begin to appear less unthinkable, to simply get it out there, to let it begin to float around in the realm of possibility.

There is a definition of the word "beard" that I find somewhat encouraging, at this juncture. "Beard" as a verb, as an act;

–verb (used with object)

7. to oppose boldly; defy: It took courage for the mayor to beard the pressure groups.

 

Beard them all, Holy Father! We're with you!

 

(Thanks to Dictionary.com).

Satanic Evangelism

One of Lucifer's useful idiots is establishing an outreach for the blind, a braille porn mag, offering them the same quality smut (or a facsimile) enjoyed by their seeing peers. Why should they be left out? I wish I could write their ad copy;

Having a physical disability doesn't mean you can't be as creepy and nasty as your next-door neighbor's 40-year-old basement dwelling son. You've worked hard reaching for your highest goals... now, aim low for a while. No, lower. Lower...

This is quite a concept. Personally, I'm concerned that internet porn may not adequately support closed-captioning. I think I'll go out right now and make sure that all our area crack houses have proper wheelchair ramps. It's a matter of civic spirit and equal rights for all.

But this porn mag is no charitable venture. The magazine will cost $200 a pop. Yow! Can you imagine some poor sap shelling out 200 simoleans for a copy of Penthouse and then finding out that it was a special edition with nothing but a Letters section expanded to 75 or 100 pages? 75 inane, tedious, interminable pages?

Porn is just funny, anyhow. People spending precious hours of their brief lives (and perhaps even a good deal of money) to watch other people having sex. It's like buying a ticket to watch someone else eat a steak dinner, or paying a neighbor to take your kids to a ball game. Nice life ya got going there.

Whiskey for Breakfast

Why whiskey before breakast? Because I have strep throat, and this weekend, it seemed as logical a treatment as any, and more fun than gargling saltwater. It burns, and in my imagination, I can envision the insufferable little strep germs shriveling under the onslaught of cheap Kentucky Sour Mash. Death to unfriendly microbes!

Does it work? I don't know! I have no time for such trivial speculation. I expect it works about as well as Granny Clampett's cold remedy... or any other. It does seem to help. If I weren't teaching in an elementary school, I'd have had the same sort of treatment this morning... but I have to behave myself. It's not like I'm a university professor.

The music video is by Brad Davis, Robert Bowlin and Wil Maring. A neat version, but my favorite sound recording of the tune is one I picked up back in the eighties, by a hammered dulcimer player named John Corbin. His interpretation was driven and spirited. A real treat. I had it on a cassette tape, which went the way of all flesh, and I can't find it, now.

Science!

Is bacon good for you? That depends... what time is it?

In a nation that apparently is producing more scientific research grants than paying jobs, the latest eye-opener is that eating bacon for breakfast might not be the death sentence that we have for so long been led to believe it is. Then again, all this subtly interpreted data could be upended and turned inside out next week, when bacon might again - by the same experts - be declared The Worst Thing Ever.

"Above all, there is the happy and holy custom of eating a heavy breakfast. I cannot imagine that Shakespeare began the day with rolls and coffee, like a Frenchman or a German. Surely he began with bacon or bloaters. In fact, a light bursts upon me; for the first time I see the real meaning of Mrs. Gallup and the Great Cipher. It is merely a mistake in the matter of a capital letter. I withdraw my objections; I accept everything; bacon did write Shakespeare. - G.K. Chesterton, The Riddle of the Ivy

 (a tip of the slovenly, shapeless hat to Old World Swine reader M.B.)

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In more groundbreaking research, according to NPR, A major report out Wednesday says that many former foster kids have a tough time out on their own.

Who'd have thought?

(Seriously... pray for them, and all wards of the state)

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Now, a labor strike I can really get behind; The AP reports that workers at the Carlsberg Brewery in Copenhagen have walked off the job "after the Danish brewer tightened laid-back rules on workplace drinking and removed beer coolers from work sites.".

My favorite detail;

Carlsberg's truck drivers joined the strike in sympathy — even though they are exempt from the new rules, Bekke said. The truck drivers are permitted to bring three beers from the canteen because they often don't have time to have lunch there.

A steady intake of beer throughout the work day is not as strange as might be supposed;

Those great men — Marlowe and Jonson, Shakespeare, and Spenser before him — drank beer at rising, and tamed it with a little bread.- Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome

It Could Be Worse!

One of my favorite pictures of Papa Ratzi...

It occurred to me recently, as I watched a drop of condensation sliding down the outside of my beer glass, that the recent trouble with the press and the Holy Father could be much worse.

To put it succinctly; Though there is a great deal in the recent absurdity to set one's teeth grinding, the time to really worry will be if you ever see the press fawning and gushing over the Pope as they currently do other notable personages... such as (say, just pulling names from a hat) Senior Class President Obama.

Then you will know the apocalypse is upon us.

There is something to be said for having the right enemies.

"Chocolate Eggs and Jesus Risen..."

There is a stage in a child’s life at which it cannot separate the religious from the merely festal character of Christmas or Easter. I have been told of a very small and very devout boy who was heard murmuring to himself on Easter morning a poem of his own composition which began ‘Chocolate eggs and Jesus risen.’ This seems to me, for his age, both admirable poetry and admirable piety. But of course the time will soon come when such a child can no longer effortlessly and spontaneously enjoy that unity. He will become able to distinguish the spiritual from the ritual and festal aspect of Easter; chocolate eggs will no longer seem sacramental. And once he has distinguished he must put one or the other first. If he puts the spiritual first he can still taste something of Easter in the chocolate eggs; if he puts the eggs first they will soon be no more than any other sweetmeat. They will have taken on an independent, and therefore a soon withering, life.

-C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

Consumatum Est