Saturday, January 06, 2007

On chickens***s and breaking eggs

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.
But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

"The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be.

"No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat (or drink), or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?

Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?

Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin.

But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them.

If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?

So do not worry and say, 'What are we to eat?' or 'What are we to drink?' or 'What are we to wear?'

All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

But seek first the kingdom (of God) and his righteousness,
and all these things will be given you besides.

Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.

-- Matthew 6:19-34


ROD DREHER HAS AN IMPORTANT POST on his Crunchy Con blog over on Beliefnet, and I agree with it wholeheartedly. But I think I can simplify a bit and link it to college football in one swell foop, er, fell swoop.

And that's a good thing fer a recovering redneck like moi. (See, no self-respectin' Bubba would EVER use the French for "me." I must be making progress.)

AIIGHT, see the posts I have on Alabama's new coach, Nick Saban, late of Toledo, Cleveland, Michigan State, LSU and the Miami Dolphins (the last two teams he [expletive deleted] around and mind-gamed to death before haulin' butt for more lucrative gridirons)?

Good.

So, now you're familiar with the concept of being chickens***. The trouble with the Church -- and the reason it has lost a couple of generations for Christ and His faith -- is because it, like the rest of society, has made chickens***tery normative. At least for The People Who Matter.

Once upon a time -- in my middle-aged lifetime, actually -- there was little percentage in being a chickens***. Chickens***s were looked down upon and mistrusted profoundly. Chickens***tery was such a vice that it earned the unflattering term "chickens***."

BUT NOW . . . behavior like Nick Saban's may earn scorn and provoke epithets from the Great Unwashed (at least when the Great Unwashed are the ones being -- ahem -- upon), but it is highly effective where it counts.

Alabama Athletic Director Mal Moore got a highly skilled football coach by being a chickens*** and pursuing a coach who still had three years left on his contract with the 'Fins and who had promised Miami fans and his employer that he could -- and would -- turn the team around. After all, owner Wayne Huizenga had given Saban scads of money and unprecedented authority to do just that.

And the job remained quite unfinished. And, initially, Saban told the world he wasn't interested in the 'Bama job. (Hey, this part kinda sounds familiar to LSU fans!) But Mal Moore was undeterred . . . and Nick Saban obviously was interested in seeing how undeterred the Alabama AD was.

It's sort of like an episode of Desperate Housewives, truth be told.

So, as the credits are about to roll on this episode of How the Chickens***s Spin, we have a happy coach (that Miami gig was getting kinda tough, don'tcha know?) and a happy AD and happy Alabama fans. The coach has scads more money, and the AD and fans have visions of victories dancing in their heads.

And the last two parts of this happy equation haven't been -- ahem -- upon. Yet.

NOW LET'S APPLY THAT MODEL to the Catholic Church . . . though it also works well for other denominations.

First, realize that it's ALL ABOUT YOU, the Hoity Toity power structure, and not the hoi polloi in the pews. Then "realize" that God is on YOUR side, as opposed to the proletarian concept of you being on God's side.

Then, stick with people like yourself. That is, not "common" like those pedestrian schmucks in the pews. That is, exceptional. Aren't we neato?

BUT . . . only stick with those people so far as they are useful to your own divine self. We must be pragmatic, right? And screw the proles . . . except in the unlikely event that they become useful to oneself, and thus beneficial within the complicated politics of Making the World a Better Place (TM).

Now, certainly it is easier for one to see how "overreacting" to the problems of the Unimportant could harm the Important, and thus wreck the Work of Christ on earth, right? If we started "giving scandal" by making a scene over, say, perv priests . . . well, THAT would give our Enemies (TM) ammunition with which to obliterate Our Important Work.

And you know what Stalin apologist Walter Duranty said about "breaking a few eggs to make an omelet."

Then again, neither Duranty nor Stalin were eggs. They were the chickens***s.

The eggs were not amused. And soon enough, eggs are going to start staying the hell away from the kitchen (Church), because Bad Things (or at least not many good things) happen to you in the kitchen.

Right now, both our capitalist society at large and our Catholic Church seem to be all about the omelet, and not at all about the eggs. And the eggs -- who are humble yolk but not stupid -- are fast losing faith in the Omelet Makers.

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