"This distinction between fact and belief is at the heart of Western thought." THIS IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE.

I believe PRAYER -daily prayer- and praise of God is a very key response because God requires a response of loyalty, affection, communication and obediance. In this I understand Islam -I think- in part because their submission is the submission of humility. But unlike many true believers who only believe -for I believe also- I believe there are great mysteries.

Prayers are like songs; they are very personal, they appeal to the heart. "He who sings prays twice" is an old saying. Now a song is a short poem which tells a simple story or expesses a simple idea and of course I believe the best songs are poems and the best poems are song because it is upon the wings of song that the poetry -and faith- best reach the innermost heart. We may listen to the greatest oratory or finest exhortations. We may study the deepest philosophy but none I would suggest have the same appeal as song, poetry or prayer. This may be because we all have human hearts and unlike philosophy or history or science songs can move the heart and remind us of mortal things and lost things what the Gael calls CIANALAS the distant thing, the mortal thing, the beloved thing, the thing that will be lost one day no matter what. In the end it is not dogmas or philosophies that console us or strengthen us for man's fate when the time comes BUT IT IS SONGS, POEMS, PSALMS AND HYMNS. This is because these prayers and songs link us to love ones and fond memories and even in our extremity unite us with joyful communion. I, for example, love the old prayers and the old songs the best of all because they remind me of the accents and sonsie faces of loved ones who GAVE ME EVERYTHING AND PROTECTED ME AND TOOK CARE OF ME and now are but shadows in this world. Perhaps others don’t need memory. Perhaps others don’t need gratitude. Perhaps others are so puffed up they think they are what they are because what they have done. But I was taught to believe to remember the people I came from and to remember mentors and to remember kindnesses. This strong memory must be combated, however, because with strong memory and strong feeling comes not only love but hatred and a desire for revenge. This is where faith comes in. I don’t understand the teaching of loving one’s enemies. My gut feeling is that enemies should be destroyed that no wrong should go unavenged but I have great, great respect for the teachings of the gospel so I accept this teaching ON FAITH. I sense that the dark part of me is just passion and emotion and prejudice and that though I do not understand these feelings I feel I must not confuse them with rational thought or even good decision making. I understand what authority and revelation is. I understand, at least in part, the precepts of my faith. But I understand too that we have to compare and contrast things to understand them. I also understand that there are many interpretations of life. I like statues, I like traditions or the memory of traditions at least. I respect tradition. I think it is important in order to maintain an esprit d’ corps or a sense of community. Leviticus 19:18 reminds us that we have a covenant or contract of humility with God. This love, this respect, this humility establishes a bond of loyalty and responsibility between man and God. If we are to be a community, if we are to continue to exist as a community, we must maintain a profound sense of remembrance, gratitude and respect for the worth of others, particularly our parents, teachers and elders. TODAY. MANY PEOPLE IN THE WEST would like to forget the harshness of human sinfulness and evil and divorce God from it. Many would like to demand of God –without doing anything themselves but consume and live for ephemeral pleasure –an end of suffering, wrong and injustice. Until the world is perfect they will deny Him and refuse him praise. The Auld Book teaches, us instead about our continual need to struggle for WHAT IS RIGHT AND GOOD while proclaiming with humility that we cannot do this alone.
ONLY GOD can accomplish this. Psalm 127: “Except for the Lord…the watchman waketh in vain.” People are vain, people are lazy and people forget. But Time does not forget nor forgive. Forgetting negates history and humanity and the heart and establishes EVIL PRACTICES because they seem HELPFUL NOW OR USEFUL NOW for OUR PRESENT DESIRES. This is political atheism –the END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS. This is still the most widespread of philosophies in the world and is held by Capitalists, Communists and Islamofascits. Doctrines of Racial determinism or total submission to authority are just the same old schemes for stealing power, oppressing others and denying free will, RESPONSIBILITY AND GUILT. Moral force is supplanted by physical force. But this forgets that LIBERTY and LIFE are the supreme values not PROPERTY. Poverty has it rights too not just property. Force without heart cannot endure. LIBERTY is the only thing that gives a man HOPE AND PRIDE and the desire to exercise power and choice over himself. LOVE CANNOT BE FORCED it must be invited. Soldiers will not fight for money as as my Auld Pop used to say: “ A Sojer will die for the Colors but not for an extra two bob a day.”

André Glucksmann is right that prayers “are not a matter of discussion”. They are not facts, they are not telephone messages or commands to God; they are more like the yelp of a dog or the howling of a wolf to the moon than a cold thought or calculation. The arts have their meanings and these meanings are not always to be grasped by rational thought. A good poem or a great baseball game or a great dance cannot be entirely explained. There is a truth beyond facts and knowledge beyond statistics and I think this ineffable glimpse of truth can be discovered only by PHYSICAL ACTIVITY –such as playing a piano, kissing a woman and being kissed back- climbing a mountain or hitting a triple and from the beauty of nature. “SING OH, LET MAN LEARN LIBERTY FROM CRASHING WAVE AND LASHING SEA! ..SURE THE GREAT GOD NEVER PLANNED FOR SLUMBERING SLAVES A LAND SO GRAND AND LONG A BRAVE AND HAUGHTY RACE, HONORED AND sentineled the place….SING OH, LET MAN LEARN LIBERTY FROM CRASHING WAVE AND LASHING SEA! “ It is not for nothing the great poets have loved storms and rain and snow, the rivers, the magnificent sea –the eternal sea- and the majestic mountains I have spent many a happy hour hiking places of beauty in America and in Scotland –such as the hills round Loch Maree and in the woods along the Kern River in silence and seeking silence but constantly aware there was something great, something unknowable out there. Perhaps this is God. But I love to see living things, the birds flying and singing, the graceful feral goats or hares the eagles riding the wind. It is a happy thing to be free and to see life even though I know one day my as my hair grows gray and limbs grow old I will not be there in the way I am now because my life’s blood will grow cold because this is man’s fate. “Dear son of Ageus to the immortal gods alone belong immunity to eld and death…all else does call consuming time devour.” (This was my father’s own translation from the Greek; I have but some Latin and less Greek but I have a common place book of his favorite translations) But a man owes it to his children and to his friends and neighbors and to his students and to his comrades to have a part if the HUMAN ENDEAVOR and secure some things FOR THE FUTURE. Therefore, in my opinion, men and women today have no right to live just for themselves and to allow society to collapse from within or without to poverty and tyranny. It is so dishonorable and so ungrateful. We should all do SOMETHING for others and for the COMMON GOOD for the REPUBLIC for the FREEDOM OF HUMANITY.

Yes, prayers “do not relate information, they perform an act.”

Prayers are more like the lonely call in the dark of the sea-mew. Prayers are about feeling not about intellect though the best prayers connect the heart to the intellect in some way.
I also believe that Christians must have hope and optimism about the future. I believe Good will triumph over evil. I believe God is good.

I also believe that God is an actor in our lives and history but I belive history and life is ever new and ever changing. We can grow worse from it and we can grow better. But we can always learn from history. I think there is a great tension between our self-indulgent, selfish ID or dark side. But I believe human beings have a moral choice, we have a moral responsibility and we have free will. I believe God made man rational and free but with God-given powers to search, to think and to choose and behave in accordance to RIGHT PRINCIPLES.

By Right Principles I mean what Lincoln and C.S. Lewis meant by RIGHT AND WRONG. As we search for knowledge we must have awe for the MYSTERY OF OUR EXISTENCE, awe for the MYSTERY OF THE COSMOS above and about us, awe for the day, the night and time and awe for the gret mystery of creation, awe for the mystery of life and the mystery of death -and what comes after as well! Aristotle taught us that ethics implied the freedom of the individual as a moral agent in thinking, choosing and looking for goals. Aristotle also taught us that virtue could be chosen and vice could be chosen by men. To Aristotle VIRTUE was the attainment of restraint and balance. Temperance, as C. S. Lewis recalled as well meant MODERATION and as he reminded us all we should practice MODERATION in our moderation. Temperance does not mean or should not mean total abstinence. There is excess of self-indulgence and their is moderation of enjoyments of healthful spirits. Any man or woman who says spirts cannot be healthful has never lived in a cold trench nor have a wound that needed to be washed nor a throat that needed clearing nor a stimulant to the circulation of the blood nor a drop to wipe away the wrinkle of care.

Courage is not rashness or foolhardiness or uncontrolled anger; courage is patience, fortitude, spirit, alacrity in action and in decision making; it is also cheerfulness; it is the essence of manliness what the Gael of old called DUINEALAS: the essence of at Highland Gentleman that is to say warmth of heart, boldness, strength of character and fearlessness and manly acceptance of final consequences. "High ,high are their hopes for their chieftain has said that whatever men dare they can do.!"

Historians must understand emotion, faith and propaganda but must learn never to go BEYOND EVIDENCE. One may speculate but one must hold back at a certain point.

At the tomb of Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois in 2004 I had a very interesting experience as I met some visiting Irish nuns who were speaking in Irish Gaelic, which I can understand tolerably well as my people were Islanders themselves. (My mother did not speak English when she passed through Ellis Island in 1923 at the age of seven. )

I asked them-in their native language- if I could be of any service and they asked at once where in Western Isles I from was! After having explained that I was an American by choice once or twice removed from the Gaeltacht we had a charming discussion on Lincoln and whether or not he was an orthodox Christian.

That was what they wanted to know. Many scholars and believers have wanted that answer; many would like to claim Lincoln as it were.

I told the Sisters I was not certain and said also certainly we must resist the temptation to make Lincoln what we wish he were.

John Hay, with some hyperbole no doubt, called Lincoln “the greatest character since Christ” but he was his friend and loved him and was inconsolable with his death.

Of course the Great Teacher told us “we shall know them by their fruits.”

Now Lincoln was a man of great personal integrity courage and kindliness. Lincoln had an incredible capacity to win over his rivals with his humility and respect. Lincoln refused to bear grudges and had a charitable and noble heart. Above all, Lincoln had an unswerving devotion to the ideals of the Declaration and Democracy.

Lincoln was not, as he said, a member of any specific Christian Church but he never spoke with intentional disrespect for Jews, Catholics, the Bible or any Christian denomination. I remember he insisted Jewish merchants be treated with respect and he allowed -for the first time in American history- religious equality for Jews, Catholics as well as Protestants in the US military. Jewish chaplains were allowed to serve as U.S. officers and religious fore the first time in American history.

“So what is the answer to your question? We cannot, know, good Sisters”, I told them, “but we dare not judge, that man who suffered so many sorrows and bore so many burdens. Yet I think this thoughtful man must have found consolation for his soul as well as deep poetry in the Scriptures. The Second Inaugural evinces his authentic philosophical and religious preoccupations. He was still making his spiritual journey when he was murdered on Good Friday.”

Then I read the Second Inaugural to them on the steps as the sun set. They listened intently.

“Fondly do we hope –fervently we pray- that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away….the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”

The eldest of the Sisters then asked if I would join them in a real old country Ar Athair agus Conair Moire for old Honest Abe. Since I had not done so since the death of my mother it was especially moving. So there we were in Springfield, Illinois, as the sun was setting, speaking a language the men of Lincoln’s Irish Brigade would have understood. I like to think Old Abe would have been touched by the tribute of one rural schoolmaster from Kern County and the prayers of a handful of Irish Sisters of Mercy. Later I thought of this in last December 2004 during an evening snow storm that cleared every single person from the Lincoln memorial but me. Then once again I communed with old Abe and thought that on these very steps stood Abe’s son, Booker T. Washington, Marion Anderson, and the Reverend Martin Luther King. But I also remembered my immigrant grandmother and mother who took me there to that very place one hot summer more than forty years ago. I thought the greatest distance between two points is time. It was just one of many instructive and special moments I had during my sabbatical.

Glucksmann also wrote truly “Civilized discourse analyzes and defines scientific truths, historic truths, and matters of fact relating to knowledge, not to faith. And it does this irrespective of race or confession.” Yes, there is a great circle of mystery, a great cosmos of the unknown and a tiny acorn or tiny circle of understanding or knowledge, truly. What we know of history is very small just really a partial understanding. We I know of women is very small just a partial understanding but I forgive them an love them just the same and I hope they forgive me for being a careless slob and a brute (sometimes). FACTS, historical facts or SCIENTIFIC FACTS or MATHEMATICAL FACTS are distinct from religious truths which are truths about the half-known, the unknown and the mysterious, truths that we sense perhaps but truths we can NEVER PROVE. You can’t prove Babe Ruth was a greater player than Barry Bonds you just know it. You can’t prove Sandy Koufax was, when he was on his game, the greatest pitcher you ever saw but to see him mow down Eddie Mathews, Hank Aaron and Joe Adcock in secession with fast balls that seemed for like fire darts or explosions than pitches that made a bang in the catcher’s mitt that you will never forget and you know even when you say Nolan Ryan or Bob Gibson there was nothing like it. There is the mind and then there is the nose and the gut. There is the mind and then there is the ear and sometimes the ear and the nose are the gut trump what you see and simple facts because what you see and what you know are only PART OF THE PICTURE. All facts are incomplete because there is always the unexpected and the unknown. Just ask Harvey Haddix or Hank Aaron!
Today I was trying to teach my students that the American Civil War was not just about power or slavery but also about interpretations of life. The South believed in the Bible and its authority and used it –as incredible as it may seem today- to justify slavery and White Supremacy. The South believed in the supremacy of the value of PROPERTY and their right to REBELL and they thought they were defenders of Jefferson’s Declaration and the Constitution. I think the South and their sympathizers in New York and London and Manchester were motivated by emotion, greed, prejudice, ambition and pride. They could not believe that men like Lincoln and Mr. Lincoln’s army would oppose them and be ready to sacrifice their private interests AND THEIR LIVES to a higher cause which was the survival and success of the AMERICAN PROMISE of FREEDOM AND LIBERTY.
Yes, the South had got things backwards. Property is only alluded to in the Declaration –though it is mentioned in the Constitution.- but in any case it should be clear that LIFE and LIFBERTY came first and were thus HIGHER VALUES. Also Lincoln was right that the UNION could not be a thing that could just be discarded like a free love marriage. If the right to secession were granted –even after a free election- then the only logical result would be constant rebellion and civil war. Democracy means accepting defeat and trying to do better next time. Lincoln was also right that HUMAN RIGHTS and FREEDOM were the essence of America not authority. Lincoln was also right, that we must be one nation UNDER GOD because no man and no law and no Supreme Court decision was flawless and immutably right. We must respect the law but we can and we should oppose it if we think it morally wrong. This is why ferment against Roe v. Wade will never cease until we come to a new understanding. Lincoln was not Irish –though I suspect he as a descendant of Islanders had some Celtic blood as well as Anglo-Saxon, French-Norman and Roman. One wonders if he had some Native American or African blood as well. After all he was descended, he believed from slave masters of Virginia (he believed his mother was the illegitimate daughter of a Planter). Anyway Lincoln was not Irish but he would have approved of an old Irish saying “twisted is the justice of the unjust”.
Lincoln knew law and government were often more about POWER and AUTHORITY than RIGHT.
Glucksmann is right when he says there is a struggle today between –as there was in 1860 and 1940- between two distinct worldviews. But I am not sure he has his camps right.

We have the moral relativists or nihilists (mostly slackers and wimps- I am not going to pull any punches) who believe there is not right and wrong just as Glucksman says “so many acts of faith.” The elites of American and Europe tend that way. This is why they tend to be Europacifists and appeasers. They wish the world would go away so they can party on. They are afraid to die because they love life and refuse to fact the facts that the individual –though he does count for something- will die in the end anyway. They want to be liberal democrats but they don’t have the character, moral certitude or courage of a Lincoln, Churchill or Washington. Blair comes close when he says we are not experiencing a clash of civilizations but a FIGHT FOR CIVILIZATION. Democrats cannot recapture their COJONES nor their manliness nor their principles because they have been emasculated and demoralized. European capitals and Washington DC are full of polite metrosexual hypocrites

The Islamofascists tend towards totalitarian fanaticism and KNOWING ONE BIG THING. GOD IS GREAT and the individual dies anyway. What they don’t understand in their pride and prejudice that the West is not down and out completely though we are living off the spiritual capital of the past. Our clash with a great spiritual enemy may in fact be just the ticket. Life has become so easy and so pleasant and so soft that the character of whole peoples is degraded.
Our very freedom and pluralism, however, is our secret weapon. Strange as it may seem Lincoln still has enormous appeal to common people. I know many ministers of evangelical faiths and they seem to have a greater confidence in the USA, Lincoln and God –through Jesus- than anyone. Here we have many centers of power and strength. People who respect others –and who DO NOT WANT A THEOCRACY- but only want RELGIOUS FREEDOM in a DECENT WORLD in which children and families are protected. They do not support tyranny what they oppose is moral anarchy. These are the same people who understand the true danger of Bin Laden and his ilk is not military. They understand and they talk about he fall of Christian Egypt and North Africa to Islamic counterrevolution and Baraka. The Greeks and Romans did not merely fail militarily but they failed because once their mercenaries were wiped out they had no reserves. The masses were helots who didn’t care for the state and for whom Islam provided dignity and even liberation from the humiliation of servitude. Islam, I think, like White Supremacy in the South circa 1850 makes little people feel strong and superior. Of course it is just the illusion of superiority and the superiority of the bully but IS DANA CU AIR DHUNAN FHEIN as the Gael said “Proud and Bold is the dog on his own dunghill” ; the Spanish say “cada gallo canta en su muladar” (Every cock crows on his ain midden). Big fish in a small pond.
Civic virtue is still strong in the USA among many millions. Patriotism –which means love of country and the heart to sacrifice interests to ideals and a higher cause is not dead in the USA though it is almost dead in Europe and dying in Canada.
Glucksmann is right that this challenge to civilization is not just about censorship or nude beaches or freedom of the press BUT THE COURAGE TO CALL EVIL EVIL and to admit there are such things as ABOMINATIONS. When was the last time you heard that word uttered by a teacher at a university? Yes, evangelical ministers use it but teachers and our political leaders are too PC to use such strong words.
We need justice, we need respect but we also need COURAGE. This means, sometimes, not hesitating give the bayonet to the throat of the” badjins”. There is only one thing to do with a dragon with a killer and that is slay it. I though we learned that lesson with Hitler and the Nazis. How many 9/11’s will it take before we realize that if we are going to survive we must be INTOLERANT OF EVIL and SUCIDIAL FANATICISM.
Quite simply this means AL QUAIDA DELENDA EST. Bin Laden and his murder cult Islamofascism–an offense to God and Islam and a great threat to peace and freedom- must be expunged from the face of the earth. Glucksmann is a nice fellow, obviously a bookish fellow, probably a soft-handed first class hotel fellow. Yes, he is nice and went about as far as anyone could go in Germany and France two countries which probably are near the END OF THEIR LONG HISTORIES like Lydia of Croesus.
PRAISE THE LORD, BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY AND PASS THE AMMUNITION ….OR ELSE.

“Fondly do we hope –fervently we pray- that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away…{but}.the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”

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